Social Science /asmagazine/ en Crime rates unaffected by 'Ferguson effect,鈥� study finds /asmagazine/2016/02/04/crime-rates-unaffected-ferguson-effect-study-finds <span>Crime rates unaffected by 'Ferguson effect,鈥� study finds</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2016-02-04T00:00:00-07:00" title="Thursday, February 4, 2016 - 00:00">Thu, 02/04/2016 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/police.jpg?h=f91d452a&amp;itok=fGr89nPk" width="1200" height="800" alt="Police in front of a large crowd"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/julie-poppen">Julie Poppen</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p></p><p>A new study finds no evidence of a widespread surge in total, violent or property crime in large U.S. cities in the aftermath of the highly publicized police shooting of Michael Brown. But the research does show the overall rate of robberies across the country has increased, as has the murder rate in certain cities.</p><p>The study 鈥� the most comprehensive of its kind to date 鈥� tests the hypothesis that the shooting of Brown, a young black man, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri 鈥� and a string of similar incidents across the country 鈥� have led to increases in crime across the U.S., a phenomenon known as the 鈥淔erguson effect.鈥� Researchers analyzed monthly crime data from 81 large U.S. cities the year before and year after the events in Ferguson on Aug. 9, 2014. The results were published today&nbsp;online in the&nbsp;<em>Journal of Criminal Justice</em>.</p><blockquote><p>"T<strong>he finding that crime rates are essentially unchanged means that a 鈥楩erguson effect鈥� cannot be singled out as the driving factor of any widespread increase in crime other than robbery.鈥�</strong></p></blockquote><p>鈥淲e have seen crime rates drop to historic lows over the last two decades so any potential increase in crime, especially violent crime, is of great concern,鈥� said lead study author David Pyrooz, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. 鈥淗owever, the finding that crime rates are essentially unchanged means that a 鈥楩erguson effect鈥� cannot be singled out as the driving factor of any widespread increase in crime other than robbery.鈥�</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The high-profile shooting took social media by storm and has fueled ongoing national discussions about policing in cities across the nation. Pyrooz said the national discourse surrounding the so-called 鈥淔erguson effect鈥� as the cause of an upswing in crime rates has been 鈥渓ong on anecdotes and short on data.鈥�</p><p>鈥淭he one crime that is showing signs of increasing is robbery,鈥� said study co-author Scott Decker, foundation professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University. 鈥淩obbery drives fear of crime among the general population and is among the most feared crimes, so that鈥檚 concerning.鈥�</p><p>Another concerning finding is the increase in homicide rates in select American cities. Pyrooz said cities with increases in homicide after the Ferguson shooting shared certain characteristics.</p><p>鈥淭hese are cities with historically high levels of violence, high concentrations of socioeconomic disadvantages, more police per capita and a demographic makeup that differs from cities where homicide rates remained flat,鈥� said Pyrooz.</p><p>For the study, researchers gathered monthly crime data from police departments and websites in cities with populations of at least 200,000. Offenses reviewed included homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft. These are the offenses used by the FBI in measuring serious crime in the U.S.</p><p>Some law enforcement, criminal justice experts, commentators and policymakers have raised concern that rampant social media sharing of messages critical of law enforcement amplified the effect of the Ferguson shooting.</p><p>Specifically, some have argued that social media sharing caused police not to intervene in certain criminal settings for fear of criticism or lawsuits and also led to a widespread mistrust of police. However, the finding that crime rates are not significantly higher since Ferguson means that these factors are not causing an increase in crime, the researchers said.</p><p>鈥淲hat we do know is that if de-policing or a legitimacy crisis is occurring, neither is impacting crime rates systematically across large U.S. cities,鈥� said co-author Scott Wolfe, assistant professor in the department of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. 鈥淔uture research should examine these issues since they are critical to the effective administration of justice in the U.S.鈥�</p><p>John Shjarback of the department of criminal justice at the University of Texas at El Paso also contributed to the study.</p><p><em>Julie Poppen is a senior news editor for the&nbsp;</em><a href="http://www.colorado.edu/news" rel="nofollow"><em>CU Office of News Services</em></a><em>.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>A new study finds no evidence of a widespread surge in total, violent or property crime in large U.S. cities in the aftermath of the highly publicized police shooting of Michael Brown. But the research does show the overall rate of robberies across the country has increased, as has the murder rate in certain cities.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Thu, 04 Feb 2016 07:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 80 at /asmagazine Trust in adults affects kids鈥� willingness to delay gratification /asmagazine/2016/02/03/trust-adults-affects-kids-willingness-delay-gratification <span>Trust in adults affects kids鈥� willingness to delay gratification</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2016-02-03T00:00:00-07:00" title="Wednesday, February 3, 2016 - 00:00">Wed, 02/03/2016 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/popsicles.jpg?h=cc350fcd&amp;itok=QKicMh2L" width="1200" height="800" alt="Children enjoying popsicles"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/trent-knoss">Trent Knoss</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"></p><p class="lead">A child鈥檚 ability to delay gratification is correlated with their perception of an adult鈥檚 trustworthiness.</p><p>One marshmallow now, or two later? For children, the decision may partially depend on social trust.</p><p>A child鈥檚 perception of an adult鈥檚 trustworthiness can affect his or her willingness to resist a small, immediately available reward in order to obtain a larger reward later, a new University of Colorado Boulder study has discovered.</p><p>The findings, which were recently published in the journal&nbsp;<em><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291467-7687/earlyview" rel="nofollow">Developmental Science</a></em>, indicate that preschoolers who observe an adult behaving in an untrustworthy manner give up on waiting for a delayed reward at a rate that is nearly three times that of preschoolers who observe an adult behaving in a trustworthy manner.</p><p>The experiment highlights the importance of social trust in a child鈥檚 willingness or unwillingness to delay gratification, an ability that previous studies have linked to better life outcomes such as higher SAT scores and lower rates of obesity.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-right"><p></p><p>Laura Michaelson</p></div>鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 make sense for kids to delay gratification if they don鈥檛 trust that they鈥檙e actually going to get the reward they鈥檙e expecting in the future,鈥� said&nbsp;<a href="http://www.colorado.edu/cognitivedevelopment/" rel="nofollow">Laura Michaelson</a>, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU-Boulder and the lead author of the new study. 鈥淲e wanted to explore how trust might contribute to that.鈥�<p>The researchers recruited 34 children between the ages of 3 and 6 years old with parental consent. The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups in which they observed an adult interact with another person in either a trustworthy or an untrustworthy manner.</p><p>In the 鈥渦ntrustworthy鈥� group, the adult in the room lied to the other person in an obvious fashion, allowing the children to witness the dishonest behavior.&nbsp; In the 鈥渢rustworthy鈥� group, the adult behaved honestly toward the other person.</p><p>Then, children were seated at a table and provided with a single marshmallow.&nbsp; The adult told children that they could eat the marshmallow right away if they liked, but if they waited while she went to do something in another room, they could have two marshmallows once she returned.</p><p>All children preferred to wait for two marshmallows.&nbsp; However, the children who had observed the lying adult waited less time overall, and were far less likely to hold out for the second marshmallow, choosing to eat the first marshmallow before the 15-minute period elapsed.&nbsp; By contrast, children who observed the honest behavior waited more time overall and obtained the second marshmallow far more often.</p><p>鈥淜ids are very tuned in to truth and honesty,鈥� said Michaelson. 鈥淭hey have an acute sense of fairness and lying. It鈥檚 striking that children simply observing one adult鈥檚 interaction with another can have such strong implications for their trust in that adult going forward.鈥�</p><p>The study implies that children who opt for an instant reward over future ones may not always be acting impulsively or irrationally, but rather may do so because they have observed something that makes them distrustful of the person promising the reward.</p><p>Future research in this area may examine whether or not promoting greater social trust can increase the ability to delay gratification in certain groups (such as drug addicts) who tend not to be good at doing so.</p><p>The study was co-authored by Yuko Munakata, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU-Boulder. The National Institute of Mental Health provided support for the research.</p><p><em>Trent Knoss is a science editor at the&nbsp;</em><a href="http://www.colorado.edu/news" rel="nofollow"><em>CU Office of News Services</em></a><em>.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>A child鈥檚 perception of an adult鈥檚 trustworthiness can affect his or her willingness to resist a small, immediately available reward in order to obtain a larger reward later, a new University of Colorado Boulder study has discovered.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Wed, 03 Feb 2016 07:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 74 at /asmagazine Prof dives into 鈥榤essy鈥� role of animals in history /asmagazine/2015/09/09/prof-dives-messy-role-animals-history <span>Prof dives into 鈥榤essy鈥� role of animals in history</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-09-09T00:00:00-06:00" title="Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - 00:00">Wed, 09/09/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/roosevelt_muir_on_horse_in_yosemite.jpg?h=cb9047e7&amp;itok=SnRNF7MA" width="1200" height="800" alt="Underneath and alongside human history is a history involving animals, as one might note here: President Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir ride horses along a road in Yosemite Valley in 1903, with Half Dome in the distance, accompanied by Park Rangers Archie Leonard and Charles Leidig, followed by unidentified man on foot; left to right, Leonard, Muir, Roosevelt, Leidig. Photo courtesy of U.S. National Park Service."> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/clay-bonnyman-evans">Clay Bonnyman Evans</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><div class="image-caption image-caption-none"><p></p><p>Underneath and alongside human history is a history involving animals, as one might note here: President Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir ride horses along a road in Yosemite Valley in 1903, with Half Dome in the distance, accompanied by Park Rangers Archie Leonard and Charles Leidig, followed by unidentified man on foot; left to right, Leonard, Muir, Roosevelt, Leidig. Photo courtesy of U.S. National Park Service.</p></div><p class="lead">Andrews wins NEH award to explore American history from 鈥榓n animals鈥�-eye view鈥�</p><p>Thomas G. Andrews, associate professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder, is writing a whole book exploring humanity鈥檚 relationships with the non-human animal world, but he can sum up his thoughts on the matter in a single word: messy.</p><p>Consider, as Andrews does in his essay, 鈥淏easts of the Southern Wild,鈥� how the child slave Charles Ball viewed the horse that bore him away from his mother to the plantation of his new owner: 鈥淐harles Ball rode into an uncertain future perched atop a trotting horse in his new master鈥檚 clutch,鈥� writes Andrews of a passage in Ball鈥檚 famous 1836 slave narrative,&nbsp;<em>The Life and Adventures of Charles Ball.</em></p><p>鈥淭he animal was hardly the agent of Ball鈥檚 suffering. Yet it populated Ball鈥檚 narrative nonetheless. The horse mattered, not just because it was present but also because it lent the Maryland slaveholder the power he needed to rip Charles Ball away from his mother.鈥�</p><p>And in his 2008 Bancroft Prize-winning book<em>Killing for Coal: Energy, Work, and Power in the Colorado Coalfield Wars of 1913-1914</em>, Andrews examines both how mules were used and abused by miners, and how the men kept mice not just as mammalian stand-ins for the proverbial canary, but also pets.</p><p>The 鈥渕essiness鈥� is readily apparent on a glance at social media today, where some users both fawn over images of cute kittens and puppies and celebrate their abiding love of bacon, a product of the confinement and slaughter of animals more intelligent than cats and dogs.</p><p>Next year, supported by a $50,400 Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, he鈥檒l delve even deeper into the 鈥渞ange, complexity and richness of human-animal relationships in the last 600 years of American history.鈥� He鈥檚 signed a contract to publish the resulting book with Harvard University Press, which also will publish his latest work,&nbsp;<em>Coyote Valley: Deep History in the High Rockies</em>, in October.</p><blockquote><p><em><strong>"The root of the word 鈥榚ducation鈥� means 鈥榯o lead outward.鈥� The goal should not simply be to figure out how one can be a cog in this sort of bigger system and punch out a role to provide a livelihood.鈥�</strong></em></p></blockquote><p>Andrews is a specialist in the social and environmental history of the American West. He first grew interested in the subject of human-animal relationships while researching&nbsp;<em>Killing for Coal</em>. He later created a senior seminar on the topic at California State University, Northridge.</p><p>鈥淚 think I鈥檓 as confused as a lot of people. I wouldn鈥檛 say I have a totally clear ethical perspective on human-animal relationships,鈥� he says. 鈥淎s a historian, I鈥檓 interested in complexity, and what I鈥檓 really interested in is how messy our relationships with animals really are.鈥�</p><p>Such complexity鈥攆or example, contrast American Indians鈥� use of dogs as hunting companions, beasts of burden and a source of food to the view of many Americans that they are members of the family鈥攊s ripe for deeper examination.</p><p>鈥淭he way I鈥檓 imagining it, I鈥檒l probably start out by really focusing on pets and livestock to get at that contradiction, that whole set of weirdnesses,鈥� says the Boulder native, whose father is an emeritus faculty member at CU-Boulder, and whose mother was a long-serving staff member at the university.</p><p>Andrews is one of 36 scholars, journalists and writers to receive the first Public Scholar awards, which are part of a new NEH initiative to 鈥渂ring humanities into the public square鈥� and promote publication of deeply researched nonfiction work that is 鈥渁ccessible to general readers.鈥�</p><p>At a time when many politicians, parents and even some educators view higher education as primarily an avenue to getting a high-paying job, the humanities are experiencing a steep decline in the number of students majoring in those fields of studies. Andrews is alarmed at this trend.</p><p>鈥淭he root of the word 鈥榚ducation鈥� means 鈥榯o lead outward.鈥� The goal should not simply be to figure out how one can be a cog in this sort of bigger system and punch out a role to provide a livelihood,鈥� he says.</p><p>鈥淚nstrumental education is necessary, but it鈥檚 woefully insufficient. 鈥� I just haven鈥檛 met that many business or thought leaders who earned their undergraduate degrees in business. The real guiding lights in the contemporary world learned to think in ways that extend far beyond the narrow instrumentalist conception of education so ascendant today.鈥�</p><p><em>Clay Evans is a free-lance writer in Boulder.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>Thomas G. Andrews, associate professor of history, is writing a book exploring humanity鈥檚 relationships with the non-human animal world, but he can sum up his thoughts on the matter in a single word: messy.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Wed, 09 Sep 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 296 at /asmagazine Firearm suicide linked with opiates, hangings with antidepressants /asmagazine/2015/09/08/firearm-suicide-linked-opiates-hangings-antidepressants <span>Firearm suicide linked with opiates, hangings with antidepressants</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-09-08T00:00:00-06:00" title="Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - 00:00">Tue, 09/08/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/cartoon.jpg?h=827069f2&amp;itok=xUMtOJUp" width="1200" height="800" alt="Cartoon of man in water"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <span>Meagan M. Taylor</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"></p><p class="lead">Newly discovered connection between specific drugs and violent suicide raises public health questions</p><p>As of 2013 in Colorado, suicide was the seventh leading cause of death and the number one cause of violent death. It is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.</p><p>In studying social elements and risk factors related to suicide, sociologists at the University of Colorado Boulder recently found a surprising association between specific drugs found in victims at the time of death and the method by which they committed violent suicide. Opiates were considerably more likely to be found in victims who died by self-inflicted gunshot wounds, while those who hanged themselves were more likely to have taken antidepressants.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-right"><p></p><p>Jason Boardman</p></div>鈥淭he postmortem presence of opiates was associated with a 92 percent increase in the odds of suicide by firearm relative to the odds of suicide by hanging,鈥� says study co-author Jason Boardman, director of the Health and Society Program at the Institute of Behavioral Science, and a professor in the Department of Sociology.<p>Meanwhile, the presence of antidepressants is associated with a 45-percent increase in the odds of hanging compared to firearm-related suicides. But the authors are particularly interested in the sociological implications of death by firearm related to opiates.</p><p>Lead author Connor Sheehan, who obtained his master鈥檚 degree in geography at CU-Boulder and is now a Population Research Center trainee at the University of Texas at Austin, explains the combination may shed some light on the timeline of a suicide.</p><p>鈥淲hat I really think is going on is that some people may suffer from longer-term depression and thus seek out, and are prescribed, antidepressants,鈥� Sheehan says. The use of hanging may indicate a planned event over a long period of depression or mental health problems.</p><p>鈥淥n the other hand, someone might go through a very stressful or abrupt event and choose to self-medicate with opiates and then use a firearm,鈥� Sheehan says.</p><p>On the broader social level, 鈥渢he opiate and firearm combination potentially gives us clues about the relevance of anomic suicide,鈥� Boardman explains.</p><blockquote><p>"Our results can assist policymakers in breaking the vicious cycle between drug use and violent deaths, including some suicides.鈥�</p></blockquote><p>Anomic suicide, a term coined by famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim, occurs when a person doesn鈥檛 feel as though they have a place in society or a group that helps define their aspirations, purpose and direction.</p><p>Basically, people who have a healthy level of inclusion, through relationships, cooperation and reciprocal exchange, are less likely to commit suicide than people who aren鈥檛 fully engaged in these underlying social structures.</p><p>鈥淎ntidepressants and hanging, in combination, give us psychiatrically oriented information, whereas the gunshot, in combination with opiates, may be an indicator that preventative social mechanisms aren鈥檛 in place,鈥� Boardman says.</p><p>Co-author Richard Rogers, sociology professor and director of the Population Program at IBS focuses on the public health implications of the new findings. Rogers researches demographic factors that contribute to health, longevity and mortality.</p><p>鈥淚t is useful to look at suicide because it contributes to premature death,鈥� Rogers says. 鈥淚f you can prevent suicides, you can potentially contribute to many more years of life someone can gain.鈥�</p><p>Hanging and firearm suicides are particularly relevant because they make up 71 percent of suicides in Colorado and 78 percent nationally.</p><p>鈥淥ur results can assist policymakers in breaking the vicious cycle between drug use and violent deaths, including some suicides,鈥� Rogers says.</p><p>The researchers used the Colorado Violent Death Reporting System (COVDRS) to analyze 3,389 hanging and firearm suicides from 2004-2009. A state-based initiative of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the data are collected from law enforcement officials, medical examiners and coroners, and crime laboratories.</p><p>The COVDRS represents a special opportunity for researchers because it provides detailed demographic and mortality information on every violent death in the state, as compared to data sets that only sample certain populations.</p><p>鈥淚t鈥檚 rare you get information on toxicology reports and method of suicide,鈥� Rogers says. 鈥淲e can drill down much further than one could with larger but less detailed data sets.鈥�</p><p>Although the data clearly show a connection between method of suicide and specific drugs, the authors stress that the information cannot be used to draw causalities, nor should it be used to speculate on the probability of committing suicide.</p><p>鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to know whether the drug itself is a cause or if just an indicator of a lifestyle,鈥� Rogers observes. 鈥淎lso, at no point do we make comparisons to people who kill themselves and those who don鈥檛.鈥�</p><p>To properly study the nature of the relationship between drug presence, drug use and suicide, the researchers would need to have longitudinal data collected between a range of contexts.</p><p>鈥淚t鈥檚 a baseline,鈥� Rogers says of the study, published in&nbsp;<em>Journal of Drug Issues</em>. 鈥淲e have established a foundation that others can develop over time and use as a springboard for the next research project.鈥�</p><p>鈥淭his may be one small but critical piece that could contribute to alleviating some suicides.鈥�</p><p><em>Meagan M. Taylor is a CU alumna and an Advanced EMT student at St. Anthony Institute of Emergency Medical Training. For information about suicide prevention,&nbsp;click&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-a-major-preventable-mental-health-problem-fact-sheet/index.shtml" rel="nofollow">here</a>.&nbsp;</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>'Our results can assist policymakers in breaking the vicious cycle between drug use and violent deaths, including some suicides,鈥� researcher says.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Tue, 08 Sep 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 46 at /asmagazine Racial bias colors recognition of angry faces /asmagazine/2015/09/08/racial-bias-colors-recognition-angry-faces <span>Racial bias colors recognition of angry faces</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-09-08T00:00:00-06:00" title="Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - 00:00">Tue, 09/08/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/angry_faces.jpg?h=2ef4b515&amp;itok=a9fynDv4" width="1200" height="800" alt="Angry yelling man"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/clay-bonnyman-evans">Clay Bonnyman Evans</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"></p><p class="lead"><em>鈥�</em>If you are an eyewitness and have implicated a suspect not of the same race as you, are you accurate in recognizing and telling that person apart from others?鈥� Probably not, CU researcher finds.</p><p>In 2006, J.M. Ackerman and several co-authors published a paper in the journal&nbsp;<em>Psychological Science</em>&nbsp;with this provocative title: 鈥淭hey all look the same to me (unless they鈥檙e angry): From out-group homogeneity to out-group heterogeneity.鈥� Not surprisingly, the study caused a stir among social psychologists.</p><p>The research started with the well-demonstrated 鈥渃ross-race effect鈥� (CRE)鈥攑erceivers typically recognize faces of people in their own racial group more accurately than those of other races. Surprisingly, however, the study concluded that when those faces were black and angry, white perceivers showed enhanced recognition.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-right"><p></p><p>Jason Gwinn</p></div>Jason Gwinn and his colleagues suspected that a controversial study on recognition of angry faces of different races was flawed, so they embarked on their own study.<p>Those results drew skepticism from many researchers. One was Jason D. Gwinn, a recent doctoral graduate of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder.</p><p>鈥淭he argument was that the 鈥榓ngry black guy鈥� stands out, so (white perceivers) pay more attention,鈥� says Gwinn, now living in Seattle. 鈥淏ut are they remembering that guy better, or just remembering an angry black guy? We were suspicious.鈥�</p><p>Gwinn and his colleagues suspected that the earlier study was flawed, in part because the 鈥渁ngry black faces鈥� used were distinctive beyond simply being angry, 鈥渁ppearing weird and more memorable, but not because they were black and angry.鈥�</p><p>Others had found the same results as Ackerman, but they generally had used the same facial photos as Ackerman, with the same potential flaws鈥攗sing faces that were memorable apart from their angry appearance.</p><p>So Gwinn and colleagues set up two studies with new facial photos, and with the publication of 鈥淔ace recognition in the presence of angry expressions: A target-race effect rather than a cross-race effect鈥� in the<em>Journal of Experimental Social Psychology</em>, they contradicted the earlier finding of the Ackerman study.</p><p>鈥淲e ran the same sort of studies and found that this actually goes in the other direction, toward more error. (White perceivers) remember the black faces even less when they are all angry,鈥� he says.</p><blockquote><p>"The argument was that the 鈥榓ngry black guy鈥� stands out, so (white perceivers) pay more attention. But are they remembering that guy better, or just remembering an angry black guy? We were suspicious.鈥�</p></blockquote><p>In the first study, the researchers exposed a pool of white participants to photos of 32 鈥渢arget individuals,鈥� featuring white and black faces with a mix of neutral and angry expressions. They were later shown 64 photos, the previous 32 along with 32 new individuals, and asked whether they recognized each face as one they had seen before.</p><p>The study found that, 鈥渃ontrary to the earlier findings of Ackerman et al. (2006) and others, participants were particularly poor at recognizing black, angry faces.鈥�</p><p>Like most research on the topic, the findings have implications for the criminal justice system, Gwinn says.</p><p>He frames the issue this way: 鈥淚f you are an eyewitness, and have implicated a suspect not of the same race as you, are you accurate in recognizing and telling that person apart from others?鈥�</p><p>The second study used the same methodology with a group of black perceivers and, perhaps surprisingly, found the same, though weaker, effect.</p><p>鈥淭he racial bias cuts across both groups,鈥� Gwinn says. 鈥淓ven African Americans showed bias, though it was much weaker.鈥�</p><p>In other words, like their white counterparts, African-American perceivers also appeared to have a little trouble remembering angry black faces. So what鈥檚 going on?</p><p>鈥淕iven that blacks in America are commonly stereotyped as angry and threatening鈥濃€攖he paper cites research to that effect鈥斺€渨e suspect that our participants were more likely to process black, angry targets in a categorical manner, because of their consistency with the socially shared stereotype,鈥� the authors conclude.</p><p>In other words, anger led both white and black perceivers to focus more on the race or the 鈥渂lackness鈥� of the face, rather than paying attention to the unique features of the face that would distinguish one face from another.</p><p>Among African-Americans, this sort of self-directed bias is not uncommon. As an example, Gwinn cites a well-known story told by former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, an African-American, who said, 鈥淭here is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps 鈥� then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.鈥�</p><p>Jackson鈥檚 implication was that he feels guilty about his relief in being followed by someone who is white rather than black. Since both whites and blacks can stereotype blacks as threatening, both are affected by racial bias, including biased, inaccurate memory for angry black faces, Gwinn observes.</p><p><em>Clay Evans is a free-lance writer in Boulder.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>If you are an eyewitness, and have implicated a suspect not of the same race as you, are you accurate in recognizing and telling that person apart from others?鈥� Probably not, CU researcher finds</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Tue, 08 Sep 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 44 at /asmagazine RAP lab's work ranges from Polish hip-hop to prison /asmagazine/2015/09/08/rap-labs-work-ranges-polish-hip-hop-prison <span>RAP lab's work ranges from Polish hip-hop to prison</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-09-08T00:00:00-06:00" title="Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - 00:00">Tue, 09/08/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/bradley.jpg?h=827069f2&amp;itok=XWE80J_Q" width="1200" height="800" alt="Adam Bradley"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/56" hreflang="en">Kudos</a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/clint-talbott">Clint Talbott</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"></p><p class="lead">Adam Bradley is a study in contrasts: a hip-hop expert who grew up in Salt Lake City, dissecting the literary devices of Shakespeare in one breath and Slick Rick in the next. He teaches in English, but his RAP Lab is in the chemistry building</p><p>Relatively few sentences juxtapose the words 鈥減rofessor鈥� and 鈥渉ip-hop.鈥� Ditto for 鈥淢ozart鈥� and 鈥淢os Def鈥� or 鈥淓mily Dickinson鈥� and 鈥淟auryn Hill,鈥� or even 鈥渓iterature鈥� and 鈥渓aboratory.鈥� Adam Bradley, an associate professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder, is assiduously changing that.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-right"><p></p><p>Adam Bradley in the RAP Lab, which is in the Cristol Chemistry Building. Photo by Glenn Asakawa.</p></div>Now beginning its third year, Bradley鈥檚 Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture鈥攐r RAP Lab鈥攁t CU-Boulder is spreading the scholarship of hip-hop around the world and into K-12 classrooms.<p>It鈥檚 also striving to help Colorado prison inmates break the cycle of destructive behavior without severing their social ties.</p><p>Like his scholarship, Bradley is a study in contrasts. He鈥檚 a hip-hop expert who grew up in Salt Lake City. He can dissect the literary devices of Shakespeare in one breath and Slick Rick in the next. He teaches in the English Department, but his RAP Lab is in the Cristol Chemistry Building, bustling with chemists wearing lab coats and eye protection.</p><blockquote><p>"We want to understand what鈥檚 going on with the language and the flow of lyrics, but also what鈥檚 going on culturally when something like hip-hop, which is born in an African-American context, gets taken over to a country like Poland, which is 98 percent white.鈥�</p></blockquote><p>The RAP Lab is a 鈥渉umanities hothouse鈥� for cutting-edge research, teaching and outreach. Here, Bradley and a cadre of student and post-doctoral researchers are striving to understand the differences and similarities between American hip-hop and Polish hip-hop.</p><p>鈥淲e want to understand what鈥檚 going on with the language and the flow of lyrics, but also what鈥檚 going on culturally when something like hip-hop, which is born in an African-American context, gets taken over to a country like Poland, which is 98 percent white,鈥� Bradley says.</p><p>For now, the Colorado-Poland work is in the 鈥減roof of concept鈥� stage鈥攖o show there鈥檚 valuable information to be gleaned by comparing American and Polish rap.</p><p>Bradley and a colleague in Poland are compiling a global catalog of artists and scholars. So far, they鈥檝e found potential collaborators in 26 countries; they could help answer questions about how hip-hop is expressed in other cultures and countries.</p><p>Why start with Poland? A Polish scholar of hip-hop contacted Bradley and told the CU-Boulder professor how much his scholarship had influenced him.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-left"><p></p><p>Adam Bradley works with students in the RAP lab. Photo by Glenn Asakawa.</p></div>The Polish scholar had even published two books that mirrored two of Bradley鈥檚 own,&nbsp;<em>Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-hop</em>, which Bradley wrote, and&nbsp;<em>The Anthology of Rap</em>, which he co-edited.<p>Like the global hip-hop initiative, the RAP Lab got involved with Colorado prison inmates after an unsolicited contact.</p><p>Lisi Owen, executive director of the Colorado Prison Law Project, heard Bradley on Colorado Public Radio discussing his Hip-hop in the Classroom initiative, which helps students understand how hip-hop and literature employ many of the same devices鈥攖hereby helping students relate to and possibly even study literature.</p><p>Owen told Bradley that two inmates had been developing something called the Gang Awareness Program (GAP) and suggested that Bradley make a hip-hop-related presentation to them.</p><p>After extensive discussions with the inmates, Bradley decided what they needed was not 鈥渇or me to go in and run my own little show, but rather to support what they鈥檇 already done.鈥�</p><p>The inmates themselves have developed GAP, 鈥渢he idea being, quite radically, to conceive of something driven by the inmates themselves rather than imposed from the outside.鈥� The core principle is to 鈥渙ccupy but not abandon鈥� the gangs in the prisons.</p><p>This differs from most gang-related programs, which insist that inmates renounce their gang affiliations, resulting in very low rates of success.</p><p>The inmates have created a program that allows for self-transformation, 鈥渟ometimes revolutionary change, without renunciation.鈥�</p><p>The RAP Lab鈥檚 role is primarily supporting the inmates鈥� work: sending books, making connections to outside experts, providing an ear. Bradley鈥檚 students are also researching other prison programs鈥� efficacy so as better to support GAP鈥檚 development.</p><p>Bradley emphasizes that the work with inmates reflects a common theme in literature, 鈥渢hat people are complex, far more capacious than we allow鈥攖hat they can contain contradictions and can transform themselves.鈥�</p><p>鈥淲e see it in literature. We allow it in literature, but sometimes we don鈥檛 allow it in life.鈥�</p><p><em>To learn more about the RAP Lab, see&nbsp;</em><a href="http://raplab.colorado.edu./" rel="nofollow"><em>http://raplab.colorado.edu.</em></a></p><p><em>Clint Talbott&nbsp;is director of communications and external relations for the College of Arts and Sciences and editor of the&nbsp;College of Arts and Sciences Magazine.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>Adam Bradley is a study in contrasts: a hip-hop expert who grew up in Salt Lake City, dissecting the literary devices of Shakespeare in one breath and Slick Rick in the next. He teaches in English, but his RAP Lab is in the chemistry building.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Tue, 08 Sep 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 42 at /asmagazine When does U.N. give peace a chance? Follow the money /asmagazine/2015/09/08/when-does-un-give-peace-chance-follow-money <span>When does U.N. give peace a chance? Follow the money</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-09-08T00:00:00-06:00" title="Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - 00:00">Tue, 09/08/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/peacekeepers_in_lebanon.jpg?h=50844e28&amp;itok=bpliEbeT" width="1200" height="800" alt="U.N. tank"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/clay-bonnyman-evans">Clay Bonnyman Evans</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"></p><p class="lead">Economic ties to U.N. powers a factor in where peacekeepers go</p><p>Civil wars have killed some 17 million people since the end of World War II. And while they rage mostly within national borders, their costs all too commonly metastasize to their neighbors, even sometimes causing havoc regionally.</p><p>The World Bank has gone so far as to label civil wars 鈥渄evelopment in reverse鈥� because they increase poverty, spread disease and provide a safe haven for illegal activity. And once a nation falls into the 鈥渃ivil war trap,鈥� it can be hard to get out: Almost half of all civil wars in which hostilities cease are reignited within five years.</p><p>One proven tool in breaking that cycle is the presence of U.N. peacekeeping troops. Sending in the blue helmets can reduce the chances that a low-level conflict will erupt into full-blown civil war by more than 50 percent, according to studies.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-right"><p></p><p>Jaroslav Tir</p></div>Yet U.N. troops are deployed to just 38 percent of civil conflicts, says Jaroslav Tir, professor of political science at the University of Colorado Boulder.<p>鈥淯.N. peacekeeping stands out as a fairly effective to prevent civil wars from restarting,鈥� says Tir, a native of Croatia, which struggled with civil conflict in the 1990s. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not cheap, but compared to other things, it also cost-effective.鈥�</p><p>Tir and Symon M. Stojek, a graduate student at the University of Georgia, wondered why, given that the tool is known to be effective, it鈥檚 used in only about a third of civil wars around the world. In their paper, 鈥淭he supply side of United Nations peacekeeping operations: Trade ties and United Nations-led deployments to civil war states,鈥� published recently in the&nbsp;<a href="http://ejt.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/17/1354066114532665.refs" rel="nofollow"><em>European Journal of International Relations</em></a>, they conclude that the answer can be found鈥攁s with so many things鈥攂y following the money.</p><p>Specifically, nations torn by civil strife that have strong extant trade relations with the United Nations鈥� key decision-making states鈥攏otably the five permanent members, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China, and Germany and Japan, which between them fund nearly three-quarters of all peacekeeping missions鈥攈ave a 20-percent higher likelihood of receiving peacekeepers and hence, breaking the cycle of war.</p><blockquote><p>"If the U.S. goes it alone into some country, it looks like it鈥檚 out for self interest. In some parts of the world, that smells like imperialism or neo-colonialism."</p></blockquote><p>鈥淥ur model suggests that conflicts in economically isolated countries are less likely to receive attention from the U.N. than are conflicts in more economically engaged states,鈥� the authors write.</p><p>That makes economic sense, Tir says. War destroys markets and trade, so nations have more incentive to invest their peacekeeping resources in places where the cessation of violence will have tangible economic benefits.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-left"><p></p><p>United Nations鈥� peacekeepers in Sudan in 2012. UNAMID photo/Albert Gonz谩lez Farran.</p></div>The permanent U.N. Security Council members, known as the P5, 鈥渁re, so to speak, looking for a good return of investment of their peacekeeping dollars,鈥� the authors write. 鈥淭he intensity of the economic relationship between the P5 and the civil war state at the time when the civil war nears its end represents a credible signal of future economic value.鈥�<p>Of course, not all P5 members are equal. The United States far outpaces all other members, funding 27.17 percent of peacekeeping costs in 2010, followed by non-P5 member Japan (12.53 percent), the UK (8.16), non-P5 Germany (8.02), France (7.56), non-P5 Italy (5 percent), and China (3.94). Russia, the fifth permanent member, comes in at number 11, funding just 1.98 percent of peacekeeping costs.</p><p>Despite the imbalance, Tir notes that by funding the lion鈥檚 share of peacekeeping costs, the United States gains numerous advantages. First, it can usually keep its own troops out of the field. In addition, U.N. peacekeeping serves as a kind of 鈥淟aundromat鈥� through which the United States can protect its interests while participating as a member of the international community.</p><p>A United Nations鈥� peacekeeper in Lebanon in 2011. U.N. photo/Christopher Herwig.</p><p>鈥淚f the U.S. goes it alone into some country, it looks like it鈥檚 out for self interest,鈥� Tir says. 鈥淚n some parts of the world, that smells like imperialism or neo-colonialism.鈥�</p><p>Meanwhile, given that the United States foots more than a quarter of the bill, other member states are typically willing to defer when it gets behind a peacekeeping effort.</p><div class="image-caption image-caption-right"><p></p><p>A United Nations鈥� peacekeeper in Lebanon in 2011. U.N. photo/Christopher Herwig.</p></div>鈥淚f the U.S. wants peacekeeping troops somewhere and is willing to pay, China and Russia usually don鈥檛 care,鈥� Tir says. 鈥淭hey may not put up money, but they won鈥檛 stand in the way.鈥�<p>The implication of the study, in part, is that more trade and interconnectedness between major U.N. member nations and other countries can prevent civil conflicts from spiraling out of control. Tir cites the current war in Syria as an example of how isolation can translate into the world turning away.</p><p>鈥淭he regime there is very internationally isolated. So when rebels started making demands, the government had no pressure or incentive to making concessions,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here were so few levers the international community to get the government to agree to any sort of negotiated solution with the rebels.鈥�</p><p>The result, in part, has been the spilling of that civil conflict across borders in the Middle East and the establishment of the Islamic State, which continues to embroil the region in conflict across thousands of miles of territory.</p><p>鈥�(W)hile economic arguments may seem overly simplistic and ethically murky, increasing economic interdependence has a positive externality of placing the stability of important trade partners on the agenda of major powers,鈥� the authors conclude. 鈥淢arkets may not be humanitarian, but when humanitarian efforts are in line with the market interest, we can expect more trade, more peacekeeping, and, if peacekeeping research is correct, more peace.鈥�</p><p><em>Clay Evans is a free-lance writer in Boulder.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>U.N. peacekeeping forces have been proved effective in breaking the cycle of civil wars, but the blue helmets are deployed in only 38 percent of conflicts. Why? CU professor finds correlation between peacekeeping deployment and the economic interests of the United Nations鈥� Security Council members.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Tue, 08 Sep 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 40 at /asmagazine Students explore Turkey鈥檚 Jewish/Muslim history /asmagazine/2015/09/01/students-explore-turkeys-jewishmuslim-history <span>Students explore Turkey鈥檚 Jewish/Muslim history</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-09-01T00:00:00-06:00" title="Tuesday, September 1, 2015 - 00:00">Tue, 09/01/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/nan.goodman.turkey.muslim.jewish.530.jpg?h=dab05f5d&amp;itok=NUqY0Lco" width="1200" height="800" alt="Nan Goodman, third from left, and her students in front of the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, Turkey. The man with the button-down shirt at the center is Cem Durak, the group鈥檚 guide in Turkey and now a graduate student in religious studies at CU-Boulder. Photo courtesy of Nan Goodman."> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/clint-talbott">Clint Talbott</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><div class="image-caption image-caption-none"><p></p><p>Nan Goodman, third from left, and her students in front of the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, Turkey. The man with the button-down shirt at the center is Cem Durak, the group鈥檚 guide in Turkey and now a graduate student in religious studies at CU-Boulder. Photo courtesy of Nan Goodman.</p></div><p>When you think of Istanbul, you might think about its historical status as the center of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, or about its present-day status as a city straddling two continents, Europe and Asia, in the Muslim country of Turkey.</p><p>But, 鈥淲hen people think about Istanbul, they don鈥檛 necessarily think about Jewish life,鈥� says&nbsp;<a href="http://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/faculty-and-staff/faculty/nan-goodman" rel="nofollow">Nan Goodman</a>.</p><p>Goodman, professor of English and director of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/" rel="nofollow">Program in Jewish Studies</a>&nbsp;at the University of Colorado Boulder, is starting to change that. This summer, she organized a university-sponsored global seminar in Turkey. It was called, 鈥�<a href="http://studyabroad.colorado.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Abroad.ViewDocument&amp;File_ID=02027674734F0206067170730F761C730A0F0614740E04046E72010705007C700E047A77727A747A70" rel="nofollow">Jews &amp; Muslims: The Multi-Ethnic History of Istanbul</a>.鈥�</p><p>Eight CU-Boulder students鈥攕ix undergraduates and two graduate students鈥攋oined the seminar.</p><p>Turkey is the only Muslim country that has a thriving Jewish community, Goodman says. She first visited Turkey in 2011 as a visiting professor at Istanbul鈥檚 Bo臒azi莽i University. She returned to Bo臒azi莽i University in 2012 to give two lectures on human rights for the Humanities program and again last year as a Fulbright Fellow.</p><p>There, she got encouragement to launch this year鈥檚 global seminar. Her Turkish colleagues agreed that it would be 鈥渋ncredible to take students to Istanbul to study Jewish and Islamic connections, of which there are many.鈥�</p><p>鈥淢y goal for the future is to institute some version of this class on a more permanent basis, in which students from CU have the opportunity to really mingle with Bo臒azi莽i students.鈥�</p><p>The greatest payoff for the students was a first-hand experience of diversity and of the messiness and complexity of boundaries鈥斺€渞eligious, disciplinary, cultural, you name it.鈥�</p><p>鈥淪eeing the connections rather than the separations between these forms of religious practice and belief and the lives of people in Turkey was invaluable,鈥� Goodman says.</p><blockquote><p><em><strong>"Seeing the connections rather than the separations between these forms of religious practice and belief and the lives of people in Turkey was invaluable.鈥�</strong></em></p></blockquote><p>In recent years, Goodman鈥檚 scholarship has found surprising connections between the Puritans and the Ottoman Empire. That scholarly inquiry will be part of her forthcoming book,&nbsp;<em>The Puritan Cosmopolis</em>.</p><p>Noting that Puritans believed themselves to be the second incarnation of the Jews, Goodman describes her current research on the link between Islam, Judaism, and the Ottoman Empire.</p><p>The Ottoman Empire was a center of the universe for nearly six centuries and was home, over the course of centuries, to hundreds of thousands of Jews 鈥渨ho were allowed to be Jewish there in a way they weren鈥檛 at various points in time anywhere else.鈥� Many Jews arrived before or during the Spanish Inquisition.</p><p>This does not mean the Ottoman Empire was overly welcoming. Jews, like other minorities, were subject to a special tax and were officially prohibited from pursuing certain professions or living in certain places.</p><p>The Jewish population in Turkey is dwindling now, but 鈥渢hey鈥檙e wonderful, lively and dedicated.鈥�</p><p>Goodman describes Turkey as a place that has traditionally tolerated Jewish people. The concept of 鈥渢olerance鈥� comes from the Enlightenment, specifically John Locke鈥檚 1689&nbsp;<em>Letter Concerning Toleration.</em></p><p>Tolerance is touted as 鈥渙ne of the great virtues of an enlightened, liberal democracy, an enlightened culture,鈥� Goodman says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 an ugly word, because it suggests that if you are merely tolerated, you鈥檙e not fully participatory. That continues to be a problem for the Jewish community.鈥�</p><p>For instance, Goodman notes, Jewish men will don a yarmulka upon entering a synagogue, but they are careful to remove it immediately when leaving. 鈥淏eing visibly Jewish in that way is just not common.鈥�</p><p>Questions of 鈥渉ospitality,鈥� 鈥渢olerance,鈥� and the overlapping traditions among faiths are 鈥渨hat I tried to pick apart with my students.鈥� While in Turkey, the students learned about Muslim and Christian Turks as well.</p><p>鈥淭urkey has a heterogeneous past,鈥� Goodman says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not clear what its future will be.鈥�</p><p>The class was in Turkey from June 9 to June 25. Students lived in the Bo臒azi莽i University dormitories. The university鈥檚 rector provided in-kind contributions to the program by giving the students free room and board.</p><p>The rector is very open to all kinds of new research and scholarship and wants to promote the study of the Jewish population in Istanbul in particular. Goodman plans to do another global seminar in summer 2016. The students who went this year are majoring in international affairs, Jewish Studies, religious studies and political science.</p><p>鈥淔or me, this was a wonderful inaugural event in my directorship (in Jewish Studies). What I really want to do in the Jewish Studies Program is 鈥� to educate people and inspire them to learn about the incredibly wide parameters of Jewish life all over the world.鈥�</p><p>鈥淭o learn about Judaism through the past and present of Jewish life and its symbols in a Muslim land is to learn things I never knew before, and I believe that鈥檚 true for my students as well.鈥�</p><p><em>To learn more about the Program in Jewish Studies, click&nbsp;</em><a href="http://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/" rel="nofollow"><em>here</em></a><em>. To read a Turkish newspaper鈥檚 coverage of the CU global seminar, click&nbsp;</em><a href="http://salom.com.tr/SalomTurkey/haber-95695-experincing_religious_diversity_in_turkey___prof_nan_goodman_judaism_here_is_almost_entirely_turkish.html" rel="nofollow"><em>here</em></a><em>.</em></p><p><a href="mailto:asmag@colorado.edu" rel="nofollow"><em>Clint Talbott</em></a><em>&nbsp;is director of communications and external relations for the College of Arts and Sciences and editor of the&nbsp;College of Arts and Sciences Magazine.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>鈥淲hen people think about Istanbul, they don鈥檛 necessarily think about Jewish life,鈥� says Nan Goodman. The professor of English and director of the Program in Jewish Studies is starting to change that.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Tue, 01 Sep 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 300 at /asmagazine Unhappy marriages linked with risk of suicide /asmagazine/2015/04/30/unhappy-marriages-linked-risk-suicide <span>Unhappy marriages linked with risk of suicide</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-04-30T00:00:00-06:00" title="Thursday, April 30, 2015 - 00:00">Thu, 04/30/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/loneliness-suicide_image.jpg?h=b3aa4d48&amp;itok=XeVVEoDw" width="1200" height="800" alt="CU study suggests that it may be better to end a marriage than to continue in an unhappy one."> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/clay-bonnyman-evans">Clay Bonnyman Evans</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><div class="image-caption image-caption-none"><p></p><p>CU study suggests that it may be better to end a marriage than to continue in an unhappy one.</p></div><p>Love and marriage, as someone once crooned, may go together like a horse and carriage. But if the horse goes one way and the carriage another, the danger of suicide increases.</p><p>That鈥檚 the key finding in 鈥�<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sltb.12157/abstract" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Marital Discord and Suicidal Outcomes in a National Sample of Married Individuals</a>,鈥� an article by four University of Colorado Boulder researchers published in the most recent issue of&nbsp;<em>Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior</em>, the journal of the American Association of Suicidology.</p><p>鈥淎cross the U.S. there is a very strong association between marital discord, being unhappy in a marriage, and suicidal ideation and attempts,鈥� says lead author Briana Robustelli, a PhD student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, who co-authored the paper with Professor Mark A. Whisman and fellow students Anne Trytko and Angela Li.</p><p>The analysis was based on the responses of nearly 1,400 married Americans to a national survey given to nearly 10,000 adults in 2004. The researchers controlled for such factors as mood, anxiety and substance abuse disorders and concluded that marital discord 鈥渕ay be important to target in preventing and treating suicide.鈥�</p><p>This doesn鈥檛 mean that unhappy marriages result in large numbers of suicides, just that discordant couples have a higher rate of suicidal ideation and attempts than happy couples.</p><p>鈥淭hese events are still rare, happening in a low percentage of the population,鈥� Robustelli says.</p><p>The researchers used as one starting point an 鈥渋nterpersonal theory of suicide鈥� developed by researchers in 2010, which considers, among other things, such factors as 鈥渢hwarted belongingness鈥� and 鈥減erceived burdensomeness鈥� in suicide.</p><p>鈥淭hose are two very poetic constructs,鈥� says Robustelli, who has also been researching how gratitude can affect life satisfaction, 鈥渢hat seem to be especially important in predicting and explaining suicidal behavior.鈥�</p><p>The first term has to do with feeling disconnected from others, while the second is the idea that one is a burden on others, both of which can contribute to suicidal thoughts and actions. Both can increase with marital discord.</p><p>Numerous studies have shown that unmarried people are more likely to consider or attempt suicide. Others have found that people who had been divorced, widowed or married in the preceding five years were at higher risk of committing suicide relative to those who had no change in marital status over the same time period.</p><p>And of course, satisfying marriages鈥攔esearchers have actually defined that using a variety of markers including a 5-to-1 ratio of positive to negative interactions between spouses, Robustelli says鈥攁re generally beneficial, though studies have found that to be more the case for men than women.</p><p>This research indicates that an unhappy marriage may be more than just miserable, in some cases; it may be deadly.</p><p>鈥淪ome studies have found it鈥檚 better to be divorced or separated than stay in an unhappy marriage, that you may live longer if you get out,鈥� Robustelli says.</p><p><em>Clay Evans is a free-lance writer in Boulder.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>Love and marriage, as someone once crooned, may go together like a horse and carriage. But if the horse goes one way and the carriage another, the danger of suicide increases. That鈥檚 the key finding in an article by four University of Colorado Boulder researchers published in the most recent issue of the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Thu, 30 Apr 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 258 at /asmagazine What 鈥業 just wasn鈥檛 thinking鈥� really says about taking contraceptive risks /asmagazine/2015/04/30/what-i-just-wasnt-thinking-really-says-about-taking-contraceptive-risks <span>What 鈥業 just wasn鈥檛 thinking鈥� really says about taking contraceptive risks</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2015-04-30T00:00:00-06:00" title="Thursday, April 30, 2015 - 00:00">Thu, 04/30/2015 - 00:00</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/risky_contraception_illustrationjpg.jpg?h=3d347cc4&amp;itok=wcw65oYb" width="1200" height="800" alt="&quot;Safe Sex&quot; chalk sign"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/52"> Social Science </a> </div> <span>Laura Herrington Watson</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><div class="image-caption image-caption-none"><p></p><p>CU researchers try to understand why women engage in risky behavior with regards to contraception.</p></div><h3><em>One CU researcher decodes a frequent explanation for unprotected sex</em></h3><p>When asked why they didn鈥檛 use contraception or took other contraceptive risks, women in a University of Colorado Boulder study overwhelmingly replied that they just weren鈥檛 thinking. What they meant by that varied widely.</p><p>CU-Boulder Ph.D. candidate Laurie James-Hawkins conducted an original study on the CU-Boulder campus focusing on the underlying reasons for risky contraceptive behavior among college women.</p><p>Published in March in the&nbsp;<em>Journal of Midwifery and Women鈥檚 Health,</em>&nbsp;her research was based on interviews with women who initially self-reported having taken contraceptive risks. This research has implications for how clinicians can help reduce risky behavior and consequent unintended pregnancies.</p><p>Fifty-one percent of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and James-Hawkins says college-aged women (18 to 25) account for a large percentage of these accidental pregnancies. Not all the women she interviewed had become pregnant, but all had taken contraceptive risks at one time or another.</p><p>Before coming to 探花视频, James-Hawkins had looked at third-party surveys that asked women why they took contraceptive risks. She was frustrated by the frequent reply, 鈥淚 just wasn鈥檛 thinking.鈥� She wanted more meaningful answers.</p><p>In one-on-one interviews, James-Hawkins asked her subjects why they had taken contraceptive risks. Of the 45 women interviewed, 91 percent spontaneously said, 鈥淚 just wasn鈥檛 thinking.鈥�</p><p>She asked each woman what she meant by this.</p><p>鈥淪ome women were vividly uncomfortable when I pushed them on the question,鈥� James-Hawkins says. 鈥淚 think they saw their [initial] answer as not being politically correct. In our culture, in the middle class, it鈥檚 the social norm to use contraceptives.鈥�</p><p>Because sexual risk-taking is considered inappropriate and irresponsible, women were compelled to come up with answers to make their behavior seem less deliberate.</p><blockquote><p><em><strong>"Some women were vividly uncomfortable when I pushed them on the question.&nbsp;I think they saw their [initial] answer as not being politically correct. In our culture, in the middle class, it鈥檚 the social norm to use contraceptives.鈥�</strong></em></p></blockquote><p>鈥淭o some extent, the 鈥業 just wasn鈥檛 thinking鈥� answer was impression-management, both for me and themselves,鈥� James-Hawkins says.</p><p>She found that women have multiple meanings when they say they 鈥渨eren鈥檛 thinking,鈥� and they generally fall under four major themes.</p><p>鈥淎lmost all of the explanations were based on erroneous risk calculations that led the women to believe they were not likely to experience a pregnancy,鈥� James-Hawkins says. 鈥淥nly a small minority of women interviewed meant they had literally not thought about the possibility of pregnancy.鈥�</p><p>One group of women assessed their risk and then consciously chose to ignore it.</p><p>A second group of women incorrectly assessed their cumulative risk of pregnancy.</p><p>鈥淚t is true that one single act of unprotected sex is unlikely to lead to pregnancy,鈥� James-Hawkins says. 鈥淭he problem is that after 鈥榞etting away with it鈥� once, you feel invincible and safer doing it more.鈥�</p><p>Some women decide they must be infertile or have no need for contraception, she says.</p><p>But with multiple risks, or continuing incidence of unprotected sex, cumulative risk of pregnancy increases.</p><p>Other women may have been on the birth control pill for two years, but missed a few days, James-Hawkins says. 鈥淭hey assume they are safe, but when you stop taking birth control, your protection stops鈥onsistency is really important.鈥�</p><p>For a third group of women, alcohol played a major role in their decisions to have unprotected sex.</p><p>鈥淪ome women said, 鈥極h, I just wasn鈥檛 thinking because I was really drunk.鈥� Or they were realizing in the middle of sex that is was unprotected. Or they were having sex and not remembering it.鈥�</p><p>James-Hawkins asked the women who attributed their risky behavior to alcohol whether they knew beforehand that they were going to have sex. She found that many 鈥渦nderestimate how much they drink and overestimate the agency they have while drunk.鈥�</p><blockquote><p><em><strong>"Even if earlier in the interview they had decoded the answer for themselves, they would give themselves the benefit of the doubt, but then they attributed that same behavior to a character defect in others.鈥�</strong></em></p></blockquote><p>A fourth group of women accepted the risk of pregnancy and chose to deal with it later. In some cases, women didn鈥檛 want to risk their relationship with their partner by delaying sex. This group also had knowledge of Plan B birth control.</p><p>At the end of each interview, James-Hawkins asked each woman what she thought other women meant when they attributed unprotected sex to 鈥渏ust not thinking.鈥�</p><p>While most subjects explained their individual decisions as a one-time choice, their explanations of other women鈥檚 behavior included those women being stupid or dumb, being in love or not thinking about the future, and social norms discouraging women from carrying condoms.</p><p>鈥淓ven if earlier in the interview they had decoded the answer for themselves, they would give themselves the benefit of the doubt, but then they attributed that same behavior to a character defect in others,鈥� James-Hawkins says.</p><p>She is interested in researching this double-standard in the future, but for now she wants to focus on what her research means.</p><p>鈥溾€楯ust not thinking鈥� is a blanket term that represents [women鈥檚] attempts to explain behavior with which they themselves are not comfortable and for which they often do not feel they have an adequate explanation,鈥� James-Hawkins says.</p><p>She hopes her research will impact the way clinicians approach birth control and address reasons for contraceptive risk-taking with women.</p><p>鈥淵ou can give someone the pill but you鈥檙e not there to make sure they take it every day,鈥� James-Hawkins says. 鈥淚f [a physician] delves into a woman鈥檚 needs for birth control and gets answers like the women gave in my survey, then the pill is probably not a good idea.鈥�</p><p>Instead, she suggests that long-acting and reversible birth control like an IUD might fit some women鈥檚 needs better.</p><p><em>Lara Herrington Watson is a CU alumna (鈥�07) and freelance writer who splits her time between Denver and Phoenix.</em></p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>When asked why they didn鈥檛 use contraception or took other contraceptive risks, women in a University of Colorado Boulder study overwhelmingly replied that they just weren鈥檛 thinking. What they meant by that varied widely, and the results have implications for how clinicians can help reduce risky behavior and consequent unintended pregnancies.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Thu, 30 Apr 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Anonymous 256 at /asmagazine