Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Voice of the People 08/18/20 | Letters To Editor | leadertelegram.com – Leader-Telegram

The TSA and CDC both are saving lives

I find human behavior endlessly fascinating but confusing. A current example of this is the furor over wearing masks in public to combat COVID-19. Those opposing this measure, forwarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are the most vociferous claiming it is an infringement of their personal freedoms.

These folks, of course, stand in endless Transportation Security Administration lines waiting for an agent to demand specific personal information and X-ray their personal belongings and their bodies. They suffer these indignities with bovine acceptance to prevent a minuscule risk of being killed by a terrorist.

Over the past 20 years fewer than 4,000 Americans were killed by terrorists and that includes the 9/11 carnage. One is statistically more likely to be killed by an animal attack. However these same people are outraged about having to wear a mask in public to protect themselves and others from a virus that has killed over 160,000 Americans with no end in sight.

We must alter this irrational behavior long enough to shorten this accursed pandemic to get our lives back and restart our economy. If China and Europe can do it, so can we. (By the way, I support both the TSA and the CDC because they save lives.)

Incidents abound that need explanation

Is stabbing someone four times not attempted murder? This is the third time recently judges have given probation for either a stabbing or a shooting.

After one stabbing, the individual admitted he was trying to finish the other guy off. Result: probation.

Another time the individual puts a mask on attempting a robbery and shoots a guy in the leg. Result: probation.

Now another stabbing. Only four times. Result: probation.

When does attempted murder come into play? The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram should have a section titled, Judge, please explain yourself.

And explain when you sentence all these people doing drugs around their children why they are sentenced to not have contact with known drug dealers. If you know who the drug dealers are, why dont you do something about it?

President Trump move instills confidence

I want to thank the president of the United States for putting my mind at ease concerning voting by mail.

I have seen in several news sources that the president, and the first lady, have requested absentee ballots in Florida.

By demonstrating his faith in the USPS to deliver his ballot safely and securely, he is truly leading by example. If it is good enough for the president, its good enough for me.

Including everyone would improve mural

I would like to see a mural that reads: red lives matter, brown lives matter, black lives matter, white lives matter, yellow lives matter.

Or it could be: brown lives matter, black lives matter, yellow lives matter, white lives matter, red lives matter.

Or any one of 118 other combinations.

See original here:
Voice of the People 08/18/20 | Letters To Editor | leadertelegram.com - Leader-Telegram

Human Behavior

Nature and nurture both contribute to gender inequality in leadership but that doesn’t mean patriarchy is forever – Thehour.com

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Christopher von Rueden, University of Richmond

(THE CONVERSATION)

Kamala Harris candidacy as vice president of the United States provoked familiar criticism, based in part on her identity as a woman. Critics find her too angry, too confident, too competitive. But when women do act less competitively, they are seen as less capable of leadership. This is the double-bind women face when aspiring to leadership positions.

To overcome it, we need to understand where it comes from. Why do gender norms privilege men as leaders?

Some psychologists tie the origins of gender norms to aspects of our nature the greater physical strength of men and pregnancy and breastfeeding in women. The idea is that in our hunter-gatherer ancestors, physical strength made men more efficient at, and thus more likely to specialize in, tasks like hunting or warfare. Ancestral women specialized in tasks like infant care, which could be compromised by excessive risk-taking or competitiveness. This got the ball rolling, so the argument goes, toward gender norms that women be less competitive than men, including in the pursuit of leadership.

As an evolutionary anthropologist who studies leadership, I think this evolutionary explanation is not especially persuasive on its own. My view is that gender norms are not just influenced by the evolution of our bodies, but also by the evolution of our minds.

Men didnt specialize in tasks like hunting just because of greater muscle mass, but also because men evolved to take risks to show-off and to overtly compete more than women. These are only average differences many women are more overtly competitive than the average man.

Nevertheless, evolved sex differences in behavior contribute to but neither determine nor ethically justify the gender norms that societies create. I suggest that taking an evolutionary perspective can actually help reduce gender inequality in leadership.

Evolutionary origins of sex differences in competition

Across animal species, males tend to compete more violently and more frequently than females. Many evolutionary biologists theorize this is due to sex differences in parental investment. As females spend time bearing and nursing young, males have access to a smaller remaining pool of potential mates. Facing greater competition over mates, males tend to evolve greater body mass, weaponry such as horns, and physical aggression to prevail against rivals. Females tend to evolve greater selectivity in their use of aggression, in part because injury can impede parenting.

Do human beings fit these trends? A man of average physical strength is stronger than 99% of women. Even in the most egalitarian small-scale societies, studies find that men are likely to be more physically aggressive and more likely to directly compete against others.

Across studies, women are more often observed to engage in indirect competition, such as gossip or social exclusion. Womens willingness to compete may also be more selective. For example, when competition directly benefits their children or when results are not made public, women, on average, can be as competitive as men.

Men may also have evolved greater motivation to compete by forming large, hierarchical coalitions of same-sex peers. Men can be quicker to resolve low-level conflicts which goes along with valuing relationships based on how much they help with coalition-building. Womens same-sex coalitions tend to be smaller and more egalitarian, enforced through threat of social exclusion.

Historically, these average sex differences influenced the creation of gender norms to which women and men were expected to conform. These norms restricted womens activities beyond the household and increased mens control over politics.

Importantly, different environments can strengthen or weaken sex differences. Evolution is not deterministic when it comes to human behavior. For example, in societies where warfare was frequent or food production was more reliant on mens labor, youre more likely to find cultural emphasis on male competitiveness and coalition-building and restriction of womens opportunities.

Implications for dismantling patriarchy

Recognizing the influence of evolution on behavior and gender norms isnt just of academic interest. I think it can suggest ways to reduce gender inequality in leadership in the real world.

First, trying to get women and men to on average behave the same like simply encouraging women to lean in is unlikely to have tremendous effect.

Second, people should call attention to those traits that help elevate many unqualified men to positions of power. These traits include larger body size, and mens greater tendency to self-promote and to exaggerate their competence.

Third, people should scrutinize the extent to which organizations reward mens more than womens preferred forms of competition and cooperation. Organizational goals can suffer when competitive masculinity dominates an organizations culture.

Fourth, organizations that have a more equitable mix of male and female leaders have access to more diverse leadership styles. This is a good thing when it comes to tackling all kinds of challenges. In certain scenarios, leader effectiveness may hinge more on risk-seeking, direct competitiveness and creation of rigid hierarchies on average favoring male leaders.

In other contexts, perhaps the majority, leader effectiveness may depend more on risk aversion, less direct forms of competition, and more empathy-driven forms of relationship-building on average favoring women leaders. This case has been made for responses of women-led governments to the current coronavirus pandemic, particularly relative to the bravado of presidents like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversations newsletter.]

Finally, people can rely on other human tendencies including the impulse to emulate the prestigious to chip away at gender norms that favor men as leaders. The more that existing leaders, male or female, promote women as leaders, the more it normalizes women at the top. A now-famous study in India randomly assigned villages to elect women as chief councilors; girls in those villages subsequently completed more years of formal education and were more likely to aspire to careers outside the home.

Patriarchy is not an inevitable consequence of human nature. Rather, better understanding of the latter is key to ending the double-bind that keeps women out of leadership.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/nature-and-nurture-both-contribute-to-gender-inequality-in-leadership-but-that-doesnt-mean-patriarchy-is-forever-123311.

See more here:
Nature and nurture both contribute to gender inequality in leadership but that doesn't mean patriarchy is forever - Thehour.com

Human Behavior

How Deforestation Leads to the Spread of Deadly Viruses from Animals to Humans – One Green Planet

A growing body of evidence shows that deforestation can greatly increase the prevalence of zoonotic viruses in which viruses are passed from animals to humans. Six out of every 10 infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic. In an uninterrupted environment, viruses carried by animals are limited by their ecosystems. However, deforestation and other environmental disturbances displace the animals carrying these viruses as their sources of food are lost and habitats destroyed. As humans encroach on these areas, human-wildlife contact can increase, resulting in a high incidence of zoonotic viruses as pathogens jump from animals to humans.

More than a third of the Earths land is used for agricultural purposes, and humans desire for beef, soy, palm oil, and wood products destroy tropical forests at staggering rates each year. In South America specifically, beef and soy production drive more than two-thirds of the habitat loss with around 75% of soy production becoming livestock feed. Deforestation also occurs at alarming rates in Southeast Asia and the Congo Basin, the worlds second-largest rain forest.

In addition to the ecological issues of biodiversity, deforestation has major implications for human health. Studies focused on malaria and Ebola have all demonstrated how destroying and fragmenting forests can increase transmission rates.

The Amazon is the worlds largest rainforest and home to 10% of all known species on Earth. Amazon is also the target of major deforestation effortsmore than a quarter of the rainforest has been destroyed from deforestation alone. In Brazil, the resurgence of malaria in recent decades has been linked to intense deforestation and settlement in the Amazon due to political and economic pressures.

A 2019 study found that areas of the Amazon with significant deforestation saw many more cases of malaria. Using trends in deforestation and data on malaria rates, the same study estimated that a 10% increase in deforestation leads to a 3.3% increase in malaria incidence in Brazil. In some Brazilian municipalities, the incidence of malaria is even greater. For example, in Mancio Lima, Brazil, a 4.3% increase in deforestation is associated with a 48% increased in malaria incidence.

It is likely that the increased rate of malaria is due to the favorable conditions for mosquitos created by deforestation. More sunlight exposure warms pools of water making these areas better breeding grounds, and constant forest destruction causes ditches and puddles which are conducive places for larvae development.

The exact transmission cycle of the Ebola virus remains unknown; however, bats are suspected to be reservoirs for the virus and humans may contract Ebola directly from these reservoirs or indirectly through larger wildlife such as apes.

Through deforestation and forest fragmentation, humans not only come in close contact with wildlife but also directly consume the animals infected with the virus in the form of bushmeat. Studies have demonstrated the outbreaks of Ebola in humans occurred mostly in hotspots of deforestation in West and Central Africa as forest loss disrupts bat and wildlife movements and densities.

Although the origin of novel coronavirus is not proven, it likely came from a bat and was transmitted to humans through another animal, likely the pangolin. The role of deforestation in the emergence of COVID-19 is unclear, but this virus and its grave social, economic, and biological consequences highlight the need to examine human behaviors that increase human-animal contact.

The underlying causes of zoonotic spillover from bats or from other wild species have almost alwaysalwaysbeen shown to be human behavior, Andrew Cunningham, Professor of Wildlife Epidemiology at the Zoological Society of LondontoldCNN. Human activities are causing this.

Studies demonstrating the relationship human-driven actions, like deforestation, with viruses could help prevent the next global pandemic. Protecting the environment not only preserves biodiversity and animal habitats but also it is a matter of public health.

This is a good time to reconsider our intake of animal products to stay healthy. Reducing your meat intake and eating more plant-based foods is known to help withchronic inflammation,heart health,mental wellbeing,fitness goals,nutritional needs,allergies,gut health,andmore! Dairy consumption also has been linked to many health problems, includingacne,hormonal imbalance,cancer,prostate cancerand has manyside effects.

For those of you interested in eating more plant-based, we highly recommend downloading theFood Monster App with over 15,000 delicious recipes it is the largest plant-based recipe resource to help reduce your environmental footprint, save animals and get healthy! And, while you are at it, we encourage you to also learn about theenvironmentalandhealth benefitsof aplant-based diet.

Here are some great resources to get you started:

Sign this petition to Support California Bill that Would Protect Endangered Species and Humans from Zoonotic Diseases!

Read more of our recent coverage on zoonotic diseases:

For more Animal, Earth, Life, Vegan Food, Health, and Recipe content published daily, subscribe to theOne Green Planet Newsletter! Lastly, being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high-quality content. Please considersupporting usby donating!

Link:
How Deforestation Leads to the Spread of Deadly Viruses from Animals to Humans - One Green Planet

Human Behavior

Pandemic behavior: Why some people don’t play by the rules – Japan Today

Lockdowns and social distancing measures introduced around the world to try and curb the COVID-19 pandemic are reshaping lives, legislating activities that were once everyday freedoms and creating new social norms.

But there are always some people who don't play by the rules.

Rule-breaking is not a new phenomenon, but behavioral scientists say it is being exacerbated in the coronavirus pandemic by cultural, demographic and psychological factors that can make the flouters seem more selfish and dangerous.

Here are some questions and answers on the science of human behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic:

WHAT MAKES SOME PEOPLE FLOUT AND OTHERS OBEY THE RULES?

A key factor is individualism versus collectivism.

"Some countries...tend to be higher on individualism, which is about expressing your sense of identity and who you are as an individual," said Jay Van Bavel, an associate professor of psychology at New York University.

People in individualist cultures tend to reject rules and ignore attempts by public health authorities to "nudge" behaviour change with risk messages or appeals for altruism.

"If you say, for example, that wearing a mask will help protect others, people in individualistic cultures just care less," said Michael Sanders, a expert at the Policy Institute at King's College London.

In collectivist cultures, people are more likely to do what's best for the group.

ARE TRUST AND FEAR IMPORTANT?

Yes. These and other instincts are significant influences on human behaviour.

In societies with more political division, for example, people are less likely to trust advice from one side or the other, and also tend to form pro- and anti-camps.

Optimism and fear are also crucial. A little of both can be positive, but too much of either can be damaging.

"In a situation like a pandemic, (optimism) can lead you to take risks that are incredibly dangerous," said Van Bavel.

WHY IS SOCIAL DISTANCING DIFFICULT?

"We are truly social animals," said Van Bavel. "Our bodies and brains are designed for connection and the pandemic in many ways goes against our instincts to connect."

That's partly why local outbreaks can crop up in bars and nightclubs, or religious ceremonies, weddings and parties.

"People have a hard time resisting that tendency for social and group connection."

IF RULE-BREAKERS ARE A MINORITY, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

"The problem is that, in a massive collective problem like the one we're facing now, if everybody breaks the rules a little bit, then it's not dissimilar to lots of people not following the rules at all," said Sanders.

See the original post:
Pandemic behavior: Why some people don't play by the rules - Japan Today

Human Behavior

Why You Should Do What Others Say Cant Be Done – Forbes

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft launches on the mission to the ... [+] International Space Station.

How to overcome common obstacles to innovation

On August 2, SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft splashed down into the Gulf of Mexico, ending a historic two-month mission that demonstrated that a relatively small private company could successfully take people to space and back. As CNN reported, this mission has paved the way for the United States to once again become a world leader in human spaceflight.

Yet, SpaceXs success was anything but preordained. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, who wanted to make affordable spaceflight a reality. Despite these grand ambitions, most experts doubted the company would ever be successful. According to The Washington Post, one industry veteran dismissed SpaceX as a long shot by saying, you know their rockets are put together with rubber bands and sealing wax. Its not real. It wont fly.

Congress was also skeptical as some members wondered why NASA would bother awarding contracts to two companies to build capsules to fly astronauts to the International Space Station under NASAs Commercial Crew Program. Just let Boeing do it.

Even Elon Musk himself had doubts about SpaceX and initially gave the company a 10 percent chance at succeeding. Yet, this prognostication never stopped him from trying to create a better future. When he was recently asked about those that doubted the company, he said their probability assessment was correct. Fortunately, fate smiled upon us and brought us to this day.

The lesson from this: If you want to innovate, focus your energy on doing what others say cant be done because that is where the best opportunities lie.

Impossible is relative

Innovation can be described as the pursuit of the impossible, but who decides what is and isnt possible? The story of SpaceX underscores the idea that everything seems impossible until somebody proves otherwise.Impossible is a static perception of the current situation when, in reality, we live in a dynamic world - one continually being redefined by innovation.

The story also demonstrates that this limited view is often reinforced by so-called experts, who use their specialized knowledge to make judgments on what is and isnt possible. Come to find out, experts have a pretty bad track record on imagining the future. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan, said that the problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.

SpaceX is just one of many examples where the experts were wrong. For instance, it was once believed that it would be impossible for humans ever to fly. In 1902, physicist and the Director of the US Naval Observatory, Simon Newcomb, said, flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. Yet, only a year later, in December 1903, the Wright Brothers took off from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in what would become the first-ever successful heavier than air flight.

And again, in 1949, John Von Neumann, who was widely regarded as the foremost mathematician of his time and himself a computer scientist, was quoted as saying, it would appear that we have reached the limits of what is possible to achieve with computer technology. To his credit, he was aware that peoples understanding of what is possible is relative, and went on to say,although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in five years.

These examples reinforce the point that what seems impossible today is relative, and you cant allow it to limit your vision of the future; otherwise, you are likely to find yourself looking back at the missed opportunities for innovation along the way.

Nelson Mandela may have summed it up best when he said: It always seems impossible until its done.

When pursuing what has never been done before, you will likely encounter many perceived limitations that get in your way but you cant stop. So here are some strategies you can use to overcome these common obstacles.

Scientific or Logical Limitations

During my time at Cree, we were often told that what we were trying to do would never work. Early only, a prominent LED scientist said to me that the material system Cree was developing could never make a reliable LED. He noted that the physics simply wouldnt work. Fortunately, the scientists at Cree didnt listen to the experts. And they eventually proved them wrong by developing a blue LED that would not only disrupt the LED business but transform the lighting industry as well.

It is crucial to keep in mind that science is always evolving. And if you go into any problem with the belief that it cant be solved, then it will likely become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This idea is captured in the French proverb that says, to believe a thing impossible is to make it so.

So, next time someone tells you that you cant do something because its scientifically impossible, just remember thats only true if you choose to believe it is.

Human Behavioral Limitations

When working on a new product or disruptive idea, it is common to be told by more experienced industry veterans that nobody will want your new thing they will claim that people are happy with what they have today.

Human behavior is indeed hard to change because most people find comfort in the way things are todaypsychologists how shown that most of us are wired to resist change.However, great innovators dont stop there; they go beyond peoples initial resistance and find a way to reset what they are comfortable with.

Consider that if you went back ten years and tried to convince someone that people would take out their phone, push a button, and a stranger in a car would pick them up at their current location and drop them off without ever exchanging cash, you would likely be laughed out of the room. Most people would be adamant that this situation would be not only impossible, but also undesirable.

Yet, this is now what is happening all across the world where more than 14 million Uber trips happen each day. It has become our new normal.

So when someone tells you that nobody would ever want to do that recognize that it is your opportunity to show them and the customer that there is actually a better way.

Self-Imposed Limitations

How many times have you said to yourself, I could never do that!

In my experience, it is quite common for people to react to new challenges with thoughts about whats not possible.Whether this self-doubt comes purely from our personal concerns or is fueled by others, you have to overcome this limitation if you are going to innovate.

The key to doing this is to reframe how you think about yourself. Simply put, you have to believe in you. Glenn Reid, the founder of Marathon Machines and creator of iMovie and iPhoto, described his journey this way: Early on, I kind of realized, whatever my life is, Im going to decide it. And its up to me to do something.

If you want to innovate, dont allow self-doubt to get in your way.Instead, take responsibility for what you choose to believe and recognize that anything is possible if you set your mind to it and are willing to work hard enough to make it happen.

So the next time someone says something is impossible, recognize that the best ideas often come from what others say cant be done, and take it as a signal that its probably the next thing you should pursue.

Read more:
Why You Should Do What Others Say Cant Be Done - Forbes

Human Behavior

A New Way to Calculate the Price of Carbon Pollution – State of the Planet

by Noah Kaufman|August 17, 2020

October 8, 2018 was the day it became clear that carbon pricing had a problem.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new study on the risks of climate change that would spur a surge of action from policymakers and activists rallying around the goal of rapidly reducing emissions to net zero. Hours later, economist William Nordhaus was awarded a Nobel Prize for his path-breaking work on climate change, and in particular, developing an analytical approach that highlights carbon pricing as a powerful tool to reduce emissions while constraining the costs of decarbonization.

The irony, however, was that the approach that Nordhaus pioneered is not well suited for the pursuit of net zero goals. He recommends setting carbon prices using the social cost of carbon, which is an estimate of the damages caused by an additional ton of carbon dioxide emissions. And the scenario Nordhaus highlighted in his Nobel Lecture showed an optimal emissions pathway to over 4 degrees warming in the 2100s, causing many to wonder: is carbon pricing the wrong tool for the job?

In a new study in Nature Climate Change, we reconcile this tension with an approach for setting carbon prices that is consistent with goals of both climate experts (i.e. an equitable pathway to net zero) and economists (i.e. an efficient policy response). The Near Term to Net Zero (NT2NZ) approach entails selecting an emissions pathway to a net zero target that balances the risks of even-higher temperature changes with the additional costs of decarbonizing faster. The next step is to estimate the carbon prices needed, alongside a broad climate policy strategy, for consistency with the desired emissions pathway.

Estimating a social cost of carbon requires global projections of changes in climate impacts, technologies, and human behavior over centuries, as well as value-laden judgments to weigh impacts across different groups and times. In contrast, NT2NZ estimates focus on how carbon prices will reduce emissions in the near term (e.g. the next decade), when the projections of energy-economic models are most useful, and calls for periodically revising the analysis to capture the most up-to-date information.

U.S. CO2 emissions pathways to net zero and its associated NT2NZ CO2 prices. In figure at left, historical emissions (black) and pathways consistent with a straight-line path to net zero in the target year. Right, ranges of CO2 prices in 2025 and 2030 needed to reduce net emissions on each of the three pathways. Black dots reflect benchmark scenario NT2NZ prices. Black lines represent the ranges of CO2 prices in 2019 proposals to the U.S. Congress.

NT2NZ is a new way to think about answering one of climate economists oldest questionswhat is the right carbon price?but it only formalizes what policymakers figured out years ago. The United Kingdom, for instance, has already adopted a net zero target with near-term carbon budgets to act as stepping-stones. In fact, the Paris Agreement encourages such an approach, calling on nations to produce both long-term low greenhouse gas emissions strategies and near-term commitments that are updated every five years.

Our studys empirical results show that putting the United States on a pathway to net zero emissions in 2050 requires carbon prices around $50 per ton in 2025 and $100 in 2030. You may notice these carbon prices are modest compared to other prominent estimates, despite the transformational shift to a net zero emissions pathway. Thats because NT2NZ leaves open the possibility that innovation makes clean technologies much more competitive over time, and it assumes the carbon price is just one part of a multi-pronged policy strategy to overcome the many barriers to emissions reductions.

Our results are for one country, and from one model, and undertaken prior to the COVID-19 crisis, so they should be interpreted with considerable caution. However, the important role of a carbon price in a net zero pathway is robust as long as the carbon prices are designed for the job at hand.

Noah Kaufman is a research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy.

See the article here:
A New Way to Calculate the Price of Carbon Pollution - State of the Planet

Human Behavior

What literature tells about people’s struggle with faith in a pandemic – The Oakland Press

A recent Pew Research poll found that religious faith had deepened for a quarter of Americans because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some might indeed take solace in religion at a time of uncertainty, such as a pandemic, but the literary texts that I teach in my university course, "Pandemics in Literature," suggest that this is not always the case: Faith may deepen for some, while others may reject or abandon it altogether.

John Payne's translation of The Decameron was originally published in a private printing for The Villon Society, London in 1886. Comprising 100 novellas told by 10 men and women over a ten-day journey fleeing plague-infested Florence, the Decameron is an allegorical work famous for its bawdy portrayals of everyday life. (Musaicum Books)

In one of the most well known works of pandemic literature, Giovanni Boccaccio's "The Decameron" sales of which have reportedly risen during the coronavirus faith and religion are mocked and satirized.

"The Decameron" is a set of one hundred stories told by seven young women and three young men quarantined from the Black Death on the outskirts of medieval Florence. Interestingly, "The Decameron" is the earliest and most significant text that shows a rejection of Christianity at a time when most of Europe was still under the powerful influence of the Catholic Church and its teachings.

In Boccaccio's massive collection of novellas, monks and other dignitaries of the Church are ridiculed, disparaged and shown in their human fallibility. For example, in the fourth story on the first day, an abbot and a monk conspire to bring a willing young girl into a monastery an act that is celebrated by the narrators as brave and laudable, even though this went against every religious and moral doctrine of the time.

This and other stories show that personal faith or the church and priests are never able to help humans in their vulnerability. Instead, it is earthly love or passion that become the driving forces of human behavior.

Both the structure and the representatives of the Catholic Church as well as the possibility for individual, personal faith are rejected in Boccaccio's collection.

In German writer Thomas Mann's well-known novella of 1912, "Death in Venice," an outbreak of cholera affects the protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach, a learned man.

On the face of it, Mann's novella does not seem to engage with religion or faith. Yet, Aschenbach's character is deeply rooted in the religious principles and values of a Protestant work ethic. For Mann, Aschenbach's service to art and literature is like religion because of his dedication he writes stoically every day, even when it's difficult.

When Aschenbach decides to travel to cholera-stricken Venice, he is seduced by the Polish boy Tadzio, who not only unleashes Aschenbach's sudden homoerotic desire but also leads him to feast on cholera-infested strawberries that eventually kill him.

Since Tadzio, the object of Aschenbach's forbidden love, is always an object of adoration and never a subject, it is easy to regard him as a personification of art. Aschenbach's admiration of Tadzio is almost religious: Tadzio is depicted as an "angel" when he is seen to follow "the Summoner," the angel of death, embodied by Tadzio: "It seemed to him the pale and lovely Summoner out there smiled at him and beckoned; () And, as so often before, he rose to follow."

In the face of cholera, religion, in "Death in Venice," gets replaced with art as a spiritual experience; earthly love becomes a substitute for personal faith.

The title of Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer Katherine Anne Porter's short story "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" of 1936 is clearly a reference to the Bible.

The story borrows its title from Revelation 6:1-8, with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse as the Conqueror on a white horse, War on a red horse, Famine on a black horse and Death on a pale horse.

There are almost no literary works dealing with the 1918 influenza pandemic, except for Porter's short story. A narrator tells the story of Miranda, a newspaper woman, and Adam, a soldier, and the suffering that both endure because of their influenza illnesses. Adam eventually succumbs, but Miranda only learns of his death later.

Before Adam's death, Miranda and Adam recall prayers and songs from their childhood faith. They both say that now "[i]t doesn't sound right, somehow," meaning their childhood songs and prayers are no longer valuable, and their attempt to take comfort in the bluegrass song "Pale Horse Pale Rider" in the face of Adam's impending death fails, too.

There is little scholarship on Porter's interesting story, but English professor Jane Fisheraptly notes how Porter invokes new literary techniques and lessons learned from the Black Death in "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." While personal faith is in this story under consideration as a source of solace and relief, it is ultimately rejected.

Stephen Kings The Stand begins with a super-flu that wipes out most of the human population and ends with a battle between good and evil. (Doubleday)

Other literary works that engage with pandemics show a similar course, both in highbrow and more popular genres. Albert Camus' "The Plague" of 1947 was celebrated as an existentialist classic, where faith and religion have no place and individual effort is impossible.

In Stephen King's 1978 tome "The Stand," all characters surviving the apocalyptic and fictitious "super-influenza" appear apathetic, beyond religion. And Fermina Daza, the lover of the main protagonist in Gabriel Garca Mrquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera" grows to despise her religion.

We do not yet fully know how the coronavirus will affect societies in either deepening ties to faith or disillusionment from religious institutions. But it will be interesting to see what today's authors will write about how humanity survived the pandemic of 2020.

Agnes Mueller is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at University of South Carolina.The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. The Conversation is wholly responsible for the content.

Originally posted here:
What literature tells about people's struggle with faith in a pandemic - The Oakland Press

Human Behavior

Only the nose knows: New international network explores how odors lead to actions – CU Boulder Today

CU Boulder will lead a groundbreaking new international research network dubbed Odor2Action starting this fall. The work is aimed at understanding how animals use information from odors in their environment to guide behavior, with far-ranging implications for our understanding of the human brain.

The network was announced Monday as part of the Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience (NeuroNex) Program. Over the next five years, CU Boulder will be leading 16 scientists from 16 prestigious institutions around the world to better understand the brain and its evolution by reverse-engineering how it interprets odors. The project is funded by a $20.2 million award from the National Science Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the UK Research and Innovation Medical Research Council.

The network will examine all the steps involved in how an odor stimulus gets encoded by the brain and then activates the motor circuits to produce a behavioral response in an animal. The model species they will work with to do this, like fruit flies and mice, will make headway in understanding these same steps in humans.

Theres a lot of engineering involved in understanding what odors look like.In John Crimaldi's lab, he and his colleagues use lasers to track them. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa, CU Boulder)

The chemical sensing process (i.e. smell) evolved in the very earliest life forms on Earth, said John Crimaldi, lead principal investigator on the network and professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at CU. The idea here is that all brain evolution has taken place in the presence of chemical sensing. And so it's thought to be a primal portal from which to view brain function.

While Crimaldi and CU Boulder have previously received significant awards to research how animals find the source of an odor, this project is much broader and aims to understand the whole brain and the mechanism that goes into a behavioral response to smelling something.

Crimaldi said smell is the least understood sense and that humans have struggled to replicate odor-based searches with machines. Doing so, however, would allow robots to take over treacherous duties instead of humans or dogs, unlocking a new area of advancement for autonomous systems. These robots could one day rescue a person buried in an avalanche, locate valuable natural resources, or find chemical weapons and explosives on their own, for example.

Keith Molenaar, interim dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, said the network was truly a special project and among the largest the college had ever been involved in. He said the work would result in transformational research around our understanding of the brain that could also lead to cures for diseases that connect to our sense of smellor even understanding why loss of smell is a symptom of some diseases like COVID-19 among many other areas and across many different fields.

The fact that an engineer, Professor John Crimaldi, is leading a group of neuroscientists, mathematicians and biologists, speaks to the truly interdisciplinary nature of the research, Molenaar said.

The network is composed of three interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs) that form a loop in animal sensing and behavior. The first is focused on theoretical mathematics and mapping to better understand how the characteristics of smells are encoded in the brain. The second builds on this and will determine how the encoded odors produce a behavioral response. The third group will investigate how this behavioral response alters the animals perception of the odor it is sensing.

As an engineer, Crimaldi said he never expected to end up working in neuroscience but it turns out theres a lot of engineering involved in understanding what odors look like. He currently studies fluid mechanics from a theoretical perspective; using lasers in a non-intrusive way to measure flowslike odorsthrough air and liquids. Hes looked at everything from why coral reproduction underwater is successful to how animals can tell where a smell is coming from.

Life forms have evolved to take advantage of specific opportunities and constraints that are imposed by their physical environment, Crimaldi said. I like to say we don't just use physics to understand biology or ecology, or the brain. We also use evolutionary processes that have evolved in animals to help us understand details of what's going on in the physical world.

Partners include Caltech, Penn State University, Duke University, Salk Institute, University of Utah, University of Pittsburgh, NYU School of Medicine, McGill University, Scripps Research, Arizona State University, Francis Crick Institute, University of Hertfordshire, Yale University and Weill Cornell.

See the original post here:
Only the nose knows: New international network explores how odors lead to actions - CU Boulder Today

Human Behavior

SIUE’s Sasso Named Vice Chair For Convention Programs Of ACPA’s Coalition On College Men And Masculinities – RiverBender.com

EDWARDSVILLE Developing future campus leaders who will inspire next generation students through inclusivity and care, is a critically important task that educators like Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles Pietro Sasso, PhD, do not take lightly.

Sasso excels in that mission as assistant professor and immediate past director of the Universitys College Student Personnel Administration (CSPA) program. His influential work and its reach are being further amplified as he serves as the Vice Chair for Convention Programs of the American College Personnel Associations (ACPA) Coalition on College Men and Masculinities (CMM).

Sasso assumed this national position in August, joining a leadership team comprising distinguished scholars and administrators from across the nation. In his new role, he will coordinate the CMMs sponsored programming review process while serving as a reviewer for sponsored program proposals. Additionally, he will assist in coordinating activities for the annual ACPA Convention and future ACPA events.

I am really looking forward to expanding my leadership with CMM to continue to facilitate research discussions that pushes the constructs of intersecting masculinities and the theoretical complexities of multiple masculinities, said Sasso. This will also inform my own teaching of our CSPA students as it challenges our conceptualization of college male identifying populations within the margins, and those who are edged to the boundaries of campus support systems.

The broad aim of the CMM is to promote mens development throughout college campuses. The coalitions vision is to focus on marginalized understandings of college masculinity, centering the experiences of men who experience systemic oppression. Our hope is that by centering these voices to be heard, new conceptions of what it means to be a man can emerge and influence educational research and practice. This aligns with Sassos current research focused on topics of masculinity in higher education.

In 2017, Sasso was named an Emerging Scholar in Residence by the CMM for his prior research related to men and masculinity within student affairs and higher education. During his two-year residency, Sasso worked with fellow emerging researchers and supported the work of the coalition as a resident expert by authoring critical thought pieces and delivering conference presentations.

Sasso has two forthcoming publications exploring masculinity on college campuses: an article for the Journal of Critical Scholarship in Higher Education & Student Affairs exploring white supremacy in college male student protests, and a text on multiracial masculinity, tentatively titled, Intersecting the Borders of Manhood: Multiracial Masculinities among American College Students. During his board service, he will continue to investigate such topics while developing programming to raise awareness of the ideas and issues surrounding men and masculinity in higher education.

To learn more about the CMM, visit myacpa.org/scmm.

The SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior prepares students in a wide range of fields including public health, exercise science, nutrition, instructional technology, psychology, speech-language pathology and audiology, educational administration, and teaching. Faculty members engage in leading-edge research, which enhances teaching and enriches the educational experience. The School supports the community through on-campus clinics, outreach to children and families, and a focused commitment to enhancing individual lives across the region.

SIUEs Pietro Sasso, PhD, assistant professor and immediate past director of the CSPA program.

Subscribe to our Podcast and listen to today's headlines.

Print Version Submit a News Tip

See the rest here:
SIUE's Sasso Named Vice Chair For Convention Programs Of ACPA's Coalition On College Men And Masculinities - RiverBender.com

Human Behavior

Kurokawa Ihoko: Exploring Men’s and Women’s Thinking to Foster Diversity – Nippon.com

Claiming differences based on gender is a perilous business, but artificial intelligence researcher Kurokawa Ihoko boldly asserts that mens and womens brains function in distinct ways. She argues that understanding these differences is key to better communication between the sexes and the first step in promoting gender diversity.

Do men and women really have different brains? While neuroanatomy research strongly suggests this is not the case, there is no shortage of books penned by scientists and armchair experts alike pushing theories that many experts decry as nothing less than neurosexism.

Artificial intelligence expert Kurokawa Ihoko, herself the author of numerous works on the topic of behavior and the brain, refutes the idea that neural structure varies by sex, stating firmly that inside our skulls, everyones wired the same. Why is it, then, that men and women so often fail to see eye to eye? According to Kurokawa, the reason is that the sexes rely on different neural pathways, causing them to perceive their surroundings in fundamentally different wayssomething she calls the sensibility dilemma.

The term sensibility, or kansei in Japanese, describes the ways in which humans perceive and react to environmental stimuli, and Kurokawa argues that the triggering of certain neural circuits determines how a person will respond. Theres no question that the brains of men and women are structurally the same, she explains. Where the difference lies is in the areas that become active under certain conditions. These, she says, typically follow gender-based patterns. In this sense, you can say that men and women have different brains.

As calls for creating a more diverse society grow, such claims might be considered to be out of step with the times. However, Kurokawa insists that to foster better communication, it is vital to recognize that men and women convey their thoughts in different manners. One area Kurokawa has focused on is domestic relationships. As the pandemic forces people to stay at home more, Japan has seen an uptick in so-called corona divorces. Kurokawa maintains that couples can help reduce household tensions by being conscious of each others sensibility patterns, thereby keeping tempers from boiling over and making it easier to find common ground.

Kurokawas theory has it that there are two models of brain sensitivity. When people feel agitated or stressed, specific neural pathways activate, she explains. One major group allows us to concentrate on objects that are at a distance and another heightens our awareness of our immediate surroundings. In Kurokawas view, male brains developed to identify and deal with problems on the fly, a remnant of when our ancestors had to track game and defend against exterior threats, while female brains became fine-tuned for social awareness and knowledge-sharing, necessary skills for child rearing.

She categorizes these patterns of neural activity as the male goal-oriented, problem-solving model and the female process-oriented, empathetic model. While humanity is now largely sedentary, she argues that the relics of our past way of life live on in our communication styles. Kurokawa explains that when agitated or stressed, people subconsciously process and relate information according to one of the two models. Men tend to be linear in their approach and focus on finding solutions, whereas women are generally more intuitive and attuned to what others are thinking.

Kurokawa admits her models are not foolproof. Peoples environments influence their behavior, she says. Not everyone has the same stress triggers, either. Just because a person is born a male doesnt mean they always think like one. She notes that almost all people are able to consciously utilize both male and female sensibility models when calm and collected. However, this ability declines dramatically when a person is pressed to respond or deciding something on the spur of the moment.

She underscores that all too often couples find themselves at opposing ends of the sensibility spectrum, where they end up inadvertently pushing each others buttons. When tensions rise, people instinctively revert to their dominate sensibility model, she says, opening a divide between parties and causing communication to break down. The tendency for people to feel justified in their views and downplay others perspectives only worsens the situation.

The genesis of Kurokawas sensibility models was her research into artificial intelligence. I set out to develop an AI system that could effectively communicate with humans. she explains. To do this, I had to teach it to receive and relate information in the same fashion as people do. Approaching the topic from a different angle than neurobiology and psychology, she says as her research progressed, she began to recognize two styles of communication, one focused on problem solving and the other on shared emotions.

According to Kurokawa, emotional triggers drive the female dominated empathetic model. For example, when a woman complains to a female friend of an ailment, the goal is not just to relate her condition but to entice her conversation partner to acknowledge and share in her feelings. This back-and-forth is repeated over and over in the course of the conversation, unconsciously increasing each participants awareness of possible causes of the malady as well as potential remedies.

The process hits a wall, however, when faced with a partner whose empathetic neural circuits are not fully engaged, as is common with the problem-solving model dominant in males. For instance, a wife wanting to share her misadventures from earlier in the day might be met with a husband who listens halfheartedly or seems mainly interested in pointing out causes for the troubles. Communication quickly breaks down, sending stress levels through the roof. Such a scenario can be averted, though, if the husband, instead of focusing on the whys, shares in his wifes ordeal.

As with many theories of human behavior, Kurokawas sensibility models are general enough to strike a chord with large swaths of the population but are frustratingly vague on the finer details. Take, for instance, the claim that men and women evolved different patterns of neural activity as a reproductive strategy. While this seems plausible on the surface, it suggests that motherhood stands at the pinnacle of female brain development. Kurokawa adamantly says this is not the case. A womans hormonal balance necessarily shifts during pregnancy and childrearing, heightening her attentiveness to her offspring, she explains. But this in no way means that the brain of a woman without children is somehow less mature. She points to her own experience with raising a family. I know how easy it is for a mother to succumb to tunnel vision when raising kids, and I often sought out the advice of my childless friends to get a different perspective.

Although her theory seems to echo long-standing gender stereotypes, Kurokawa hopes fostering understanding of the different sensibility models will encourage greater diversity in society. A persons sex isnt an absolute determinant of which model is dominant, she asserts. There are men who come under the empathetic model just as there are women who are inclined toward problem solving. Its important to have a mixture of views and approaches, so rather than fixating solely on bridging the womens leadership gap in Japan, organizations in the public and private sectors need decision makers and regular employees who have neural diversity. People of all ages, genders, and mindsets need to be working together.

This is often easier said than done, however. Sensibility bias can hamper our abilities to see other peoples perspectives as equally valid. Returning to relationships, Kurokawa says that superficial traits like looks, talents, or bravado are typically thought to endear us to our partners, but that the subtle ways couples interact and build trust are what make or break relationships. Our brains crave connections. Reaching out to a partner for help or sharing hidden chinks in ones armor are necessary parts of building strong bonds.

As many countries struggle in their responses to the coronavirus pandemic, female leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern have won accolades for their empathetic leadership styles. Kurokawa notes that fighting the newly emerged disease calls for a unified approach and that these female heads of state have done a commendable job of rallying their nations to the cause by acknowledging peoples unease.

She laments that Japanese leaders have not been as conscious of the concerns of the population during the health crisis and doubts that the government could duplicate the approach of Merkel and others merely by boosting the number of female legislators, given that women are expected to behave the same as their male counterparts. Female ministers have typically been guided in their approaches by the male-dominated norms of office, she says. She insists that women need to play to their strengths to truly impact how the country is run. I would love to see a woman in office making an active effort to connect with people on a human level. As an example, she points to Prime Minister Ardern, who as a mother of a small child does not hide the fact that her duties also include changing diapers.

Kurokawa jests that there is an upside to Japans linear-thinking response to the coronavirus. You could say that the government in taking a trial-and-error approach convinced people of the need to keep a close eye on what was happening around them, she chuckles. She points to Prime Minister Abe Shinzs decision to provide cloth masks, items that many people had no use for, to the entire nation rather than focusing more resources on supporting medical workers on the front lines.

As the pandemic rages on, Kurokawa notes that leaders are being called on to utilize both goal-oriented and empathetic sensibility models. There are situations when heartfelt communication is called for and others when getting things done is top priority. In times of uncertainty, she says that government leaders need to be able to tap into either model as circumstances demand, an admittedly tall order for some politicians. It is equally vital to increase awareness of the different sensibility models and bring people with different perspectives into the political realm. The coronavirus crisis touches everyone. To ensure the safety and health of the entire country, we need people with different ideas and viewpoints involved in creating new, innovative solutions.

(Originally published in Japanese. Interview and text by Itakura Kimie of Nippon.com. All photos by Hanai Tomoko.)

Read the original here:
Kurokawa Ihoko: Exploring Men's and Women's Thinking to Foster Diversity - Nippon.com