Discriminated Groups Strategize to Avoid Prejudice

When they think they'll be discriminated against, people do their best to put on a good face for their group, new research finds.

An obese person, for example, might focus on dressing nicely to combat stereotypes of slovenliness. A black man, used to assumptions that he's violent, might smile more.

The new study reveals both that people are well aware of stereotypes and that they try to combat them. "People often think of prejudice as a simple, single phenomenon.

When they think they'll be discriminated against, people do their best to put on a good face for their group, new research finds.

An obese person, for example, might focus on dressing nicely to combat stereotypes of slovenliness. A black man, used to assumptions that he's violent, might smile more.

The new study reveals both that people are well aware of stereotypes and that they try to combat them. "People often think of prejudice as a simple, single phenomenon — general dislike for members of other groups — but recent research suggests that there are actually multiple, distinct types of prejudice," study researcher Rebecca Neel, a graduate student at Arizona State University, said in a statement. In other words, people don't just dislike overweight people, they stereotype them as sloppy and lacking in self-control.

Making an impression

Neel and her colleagues first recruited 75 college students, all self-identified as either overweight or not overweight. They were told they would answer questions about three random demographic groups; in fact, all the students were asked about Muslims, Mexican-Americans and obese people.

The students also were asked to envision meeting someone new and then to choose how they'd make a good impression from options such as arriving on time, wearing clean clothes, smiling and looking relaxed. Some students answered the group questions first so they'd have group-related stereotypes in mind when they got to the first-impressions' questions. Others completed the study the other way around.

The results showed that thinking about stereotyping changed people's behavior. Overweight students who'd first answered questions about obese people were more likely than other participants to rank "wearing clean clothes" as a very important way to make a good first impression. Normal-weight students and overweight students who hadn't been primted to think of stereotypes were more likely to prioritize arriving on time.

Strategic behavior

In a second study, researchers repeated the test with overweight men and black men. When prompted to think of stereotypes, overweight men ranked wearing clean clothes as the most important step toward making a good first impression. Black men, who are often stereotyped as violent and anti-social, prioritized smiling.

"Members of stigmatized groups may strategically change how they present themselves to others in anticipation of these different emotions," Neel said. She and her colleagues reported their findings April 2 in the journal Psychological Science.

Whereas many stereotypes are harmful, a few can be helpful — at least to some groups. A study released in September 2010 found that men told (untruthfully) that their gender is better at certain navigation tasks actually performed better at course-plotting tasks than men who weren't given that confidence boost. On the other hand, if someone is told their group is worse at a particular task (say, women in math), they'll perform worse, a phenomenon called stereotype threat.
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References:

Pappas, Stephanie. 2013. “Discriminated Groups Strategize to Avoid Prejudice”. Live Science. Posted: April 19, 2013. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/28800-discriminated-groups-strategize-avoid-prejudice.html

Cross-cultural similarities in early adolescence

Concordia researcher compares development of self-esteem in Canadian and Colombian children

Acquiring self-esteem is an important part of a teenager's development. The way in which adolescents regard themselves can be instrumental in determining their achievement and social functioning. New research from Concordia University shows that the way in which adolescents think about themselves varies across cultural context.

To compare how teenagers assess their self-worth, William M. Bukowski, a psychology professor and director of the Centre for Research in Human Development, examined responses from children in Montreal and in Barranquilla — a city on the Caribbean coast of northern Colombia. The study revealed significant commonalities, and some differences in the factors that these children considered to be most important when they evaluated themselves. Bukowski is the second author on the study, which was recently published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence.

The researchers examined how particular facets of the children's context — their location, their socio-economic status, and significant cultural characteristics — might impact the parts of their lives they consider to be most important when determining self-worth. They studied the responses of 864 early adolescents (aged 9 to 11), 317 from Montreal and 547 from Barranquilla. The numbers of boys and girls, and the socio-economic classes they represented — upper-middle and lower-middle — were roughly equal.

One of the most significant observations was that the girls' scores on measures of self-worth tended to be higher. "Previous studies had found the opposite result, and this change may have to do with improvements in the status of women in recent years," says Bukowski.

Overall, the researchers found no differences between the participants from the two cities, which was somewhat of a surprise. There were, however, differences in each location between the children from upper- and lower-middle-class families.

"Children from upper-middle-class families were likely to consider social skills as the most important factor when evaluating themselves," says Bukowski. "If they felt they were popular or likeable, they were more likely to have high self-esteem. While they did consider their athletic and intellectual abilities, they seem to have understood that social skills are crucial for success among individuals of their class."

On the other hand, children from lower-middle-class families focused on evidence of their cognitive competence when assessing themselves to determine their self-worth. If they believed they were smart and successful at school, they were more likely to have healthy self-esteem. The study associates this trend with the emphasis on education as the key to self-improvement among members of this class.

This research provides valuable information for parents and teachers because it sheds light on the process by which children develop self-esteem. They look at aspects of their lives, determine how well they're doing, and allow this to determine their self-worth. They also pick up on signals from their environments about which aspects of their lives should be most important in this evaluation.

Therefore, adults can help children to conduct more accurate self-assessments by reminding them of things they do well, and by helping them to focus on evidence of their achievements.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2013. “Cross-cultural similarities in early adolescence”. EurekAlert. Posted: April 18, 2013. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/cu-csi041813.php

Oldest European Medieval Cookbook Found

A 12th-century manuscript contains the oldest known European Medieval food recipes, according to new research.

The recipes, which include both food and medical ointment concoctions, were compiled and written in Latin. Someone jotted them down at Durham Cathedral’s monastery in the year 1140.

It was essentially a health book, so the meals were meant to improve a person’s health or to cure certain afflictions. The other earliest known such recipes dated to 1290.

Many of the dishes sound like they would work on a modern restaurant menu. Faith Wallis, an expert in medical history and science based at McGill University, translated a few for Discovery News:

“For “hen in winter’: heat garlic, pepper and sage with water.”

“For ‘tiny little fish’: juice of coriander and garlic, mixed with pepper and garlic.”

For preserved ginger, it should kept in “pure water” and then “sliced lengthwise into very thin slices, and mixed thoroughly with prepared honey that has been cooked down to a sticky thickness and skimmed. It should be rubbed well in the honey with the hands, and left a whole day and night.”

Re – the “hen in winter” dish, Giles Gasper from Durham University’s Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies said, “We believe this recipe is simply a seasonal variation, using ingredients available in the colder months and specifying ‘hen’ rather than ‘chicken,’ meaning it was an older bird as it would be by that time of year.”

Gasper added, “The sauces typically feature parsley, sage, pepper, garlic, mustard and coriander, which I suspect may give them a Mediterranean feel when we recreate them. According to the text, one of the recipes comes from the Poitou region of what is now modern central western France. This shows the extent to which international travel and exchange of ideas took place within the medieval period. And what more evocative example of cultural exchange could there be than food?”

Gaspar and colleagues are recreating some of the dishes for a workshop to be held on April 25 at Blackfriars Restaurant in Newcastle, U.K. A lunch the following Saturday will feature the same dishes. The researchers are also putting together a translation of the cookbook under the title “Zinziber” (Latin for ginger).

While much of the food is still tasty to modern palates, not all of the medical cures would work today.

Gaspar explained, “Some of the medical recipes in this book seem to have stood the test of time, some emphatically haven’t! But we’re looking forward to finding out whether these newly-discovered food recipes have done so and whether they also possess what you might call a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi — or Quidditas, to use the Latin.”
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References:

Viegas, Jennifer. 2013. “Oldest European Medieval Cookbook Found”. Discovery News. Posted: April 17, 2013. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/history/oldest-european-medieval-cookbook-found-130417.htm

Hoa Hakananai’a – Rapa Nui statue tells a new story

A team of archaeologists from the University of Southampton have used the latest in digital imaging technology to record and analyse carvings on the Rapa Nui (Easter Island) statue Hoa Hakananai’a.

James Miles, Hembo Pagi and Dr Graeme Earl from the Archaeological Computing Research Group at the University of Southampton teamed up with archaeologist Mike Pitts to examine the statue at the Wellcome Trust Gallery in the British Museum.

Dr Earl explains: “The Hoa Hakananai’a statue has rarely been studied at first hand by archaeologists, but developments in digital imaging technology have now allowed us to examine it in unprecedented detail.”

Hoa Hakananai’a was brought to England in 1869 by the crew of HMS Topaze and is traditionally said to have been carved around AD1200. Rapa Nui is home to around 1,000 similar statues, but Hoa Hakananai’a is of particular interest because of the intricate carvings on its back.

It is popularly believed that around AD1600 the Rapa Nui islanders faced an ecological crisis and stopped worshipping their iconic statues. They turned instead to a new birdman religion, or cult. This included a ritual based around collecting the first egg of migrating terns from a nearby islet, Motu Nui. The ‘winner’, whose representative swam to the islet and then back with the egg, was afforded sacred status for a year.

Hoa Hakananai’a survived this shift in religious beliefs by being placed in a stone hut and covered in carved ‘petroglyphs’, or rock engravings, depicting motifs from the birdman cult. As such, it may be representative of the transition from the cult of statues to the cult of the birdman.

The team from the University of Southampton examined Hoa Hakananai’a using two different techniques: Photogrammetric Modelling; which involved taking hundreds of photos from different angles to produce a fully textured computer model of the statue, capable of being rotated in 360 degrees; and Reflectance Transformation Imaging; a process which allows a virtual light source to be moved across the surface of a digital image of the statue, using the difference between light and shadow to highlight never-seen-before details.

James Miles, a PhD student at Southampton, comments: “Despite the wonders of modern technology, creating accurate, detailed geometric models of these kinds of complex surfaces remains a painstaking task. We have more work to do but the virtual versions already provide a more interactive way of studying Hoa Hakananai’a.”

Using these techniques, the team made some fascinating discoveries, perhaps the most significant being the apparently simple recognition that a carved bird beak is short and round, not long and pointed as previously described: this allowed the two birdmen on the back to be marked as male and female, unlocking a narrative story to the whole composition relating to Rapa Nui’s unique birdman cult. They also realised that the statue is one of the few on Easter Island that did not stand on a platform beside the shore. It is now believed to have always stood in the ground, where it was found, on top of a 300 metre cliff.

Pitts comments: “Study of the tapering base suggests that rather than being the result of thinning to make it fit into a pit, as often suggested, it is more likely part of the original boulder or outcrop from which it was carved. This may also explain why, as we now see it in the British Museum, it appears to lean slightly to the left – its uneven end resulted in its being incorrectly set into its 19th century plinth.”

Other observations from the digital imaging include:

When it was half-buried by soil and food debris, small designs known as komari, representing female genitalia, were carved on the back of the head.

At a later date, the whole of the back was covered with a scene showing a male chick leaving the nest, watched by its half-bird, half-human parents – the story at the heart of the birdman ceremony, recorded in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

A round beak on the right birdman in the scene described above. This can be read as a sign of female gender, and confirmation of the male / female bird ‘parents’. The female birdman is matched by the female komari on the right ear of the statue, and the male on the left by a paddle on the left ear – a symbol of male authority.

A rounded shape near the lower part of the right birdman, possibly the egg the male chick hatched from. Another possibility is the ring clutched in the two birdmen’s arms has been re-imagined as an egg.

Faint indications of fingers around the navel, which may have once been more prominent, but later removed. It’s hoped the imaging carried out by the University of Southampton’s Archaeological Computing Research Group will open new debate on the significance of the engravings of Hoa Hakananai’a.

The photogrammetry model was created with Agisoft PhotoScan software and analysed in MeshLab; the RTIs were made and viewed with open source software produced by Universidade do Minho and Cultural Heritage Imaging, using equipment funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council.
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References:

Past Horizons. 2013. “Hoa Hakananai’a – Rapa Nui statue tells a new story”. Past Horizons. Posted: April 12, 2013. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/04/2013/hoa-hakananaia-rapa-nui-statue-tells-a-new-story

Traditional owners protect their own cultural treasures

A partnership involving Wajarri Traditional Owners and two archaeologists from the University of Western Australia is seeing sites of extraordinary cultural and archaeological significance investigated and documented in Western Australia’s remote Weld Range.

Cultural importance of ochre mines

The 60km-long range in the Murchison – about 600km north-east of Perth – is home to the National Heritage-listed Wilgie Mia and Little Wilgie ochre mines and known to contain at least 18 more sites of critical cultural importance.

They include ecologically diverse hunting and camping grounds, waterholes, rock shelters, law grounds, specialist seed-gathering places, burial grounds, quarry sites, rock-art sites (often dominated by hand stencils of women and children) and stone arrangements, including one used to teach young boys undergoing initiation how to navigate by the stars.

“These places present a rare insight into past lifeways, communication, trade and marriage networks as well as the underlying cosmology of a living culture,” archaeologist, Project Co-ordinator and UWA Masters student Viviene Brown said.

Wajarri Traditional Owners have worked closely for several years with archaeologists from UWA’s Eureka Archaeological Research and Consulting Centre to gather site data but there is little official record so far of the cultural and archaeological treasures they have uncovered.

Research Project Director Dr Vicky Winton said a key goal of the federally-funded Weld Range Web of Knowledge project was to produce a cultural heritage management plan for prospective land users to ensure a collective approach to heritage management rather than the current piecemeal approach. The project would also foster the archaeological recording and reporting skills of Wajarri Traditional Owners to enable them to secure better heritage outcomes.

Engaged in active recording of cultural heritage

“This is their heritage and they are deeply committed to its protection,” Ms Brown said.

Wajarri Traditional Owner Colin Hamlett said the project was important for all Australians, particularly future generations.

“When I was at school they were teaching us about other country’s culture and language, but people in Australia should be learning about Australia and the history of traditional Aboriginal people,” Mr Hamlett said. “We thank UWA’s Eureka group for making this possible.”

UWA Eureka centre Director Professor Joe Dortch said he was excited to see the continuing partnership between the University and Wajarri Traditional Owners strengthened by the Federal Government’s Indigenous Heritage Program.

“The Weld Range Web of Knowledge Project shows how archaeologists and traditional owners, by working closely together, can produce excellent results in both cultural heritage management and research.”

The Indigenous Heritage Program – administered by the Federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities – has granted Ms Brown, Dr Winton and a core group of Wajarri Traditional Owners $229,800 over three years, including funding for three 11-day field trips.
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References:

Past Horizons. 2013. “Traditional owners protect their own cultural treasures”. Past Horizons. Posted: April 11, 2013. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/04/2013/traditional-owners-protect-their-own-cultural-treasures

Maya Long Count calendar and European calendar linked using carbon-14 dating

The Maya are famous for their complex, intertwined calendric systems, and now one calendar, the Maya Long Count, is empirically calibrated to the modern European calendar, according to an international team of researchers.

"The Long Count calendar fell into disuse before European contact in the Maya area," said Douglas J. Kennett, professor of environmental archaeology, Penn State.

"Methods of tying the Long Count to the modern European calendar used known historical and astronomical events, but when looking at how climate affects the rise and fall of the Maya, I began to question how accurately the two calendars correlated using those methods."

The researchers found that the new measurements mirrored the most popular method in use, the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation, initially put forth by Joseph Goodman in 1905 and subsequently modified by others. In the 1950s scientists tested this correlation using early radiocarbon dating, but the large error range left open the validity of GMT.

"With only a few dissenting voices, the GMT correlation is widely accepted and used, but it must remain provisional without some form of independent corroboration," the researchers report in today's (April 11) issue of Scientific Reports.

A combination of high-resolution accelerator mass spectrometry carbon-14 dates and a calibration using tree growth rates showed the GMT correlation is correct.

The Long Count counts days from a mythological starting point. The date is comprised of five components that combine a multiplier times 144,000 days – Bak'tun, 7,200 days – K'atun, 360 days – Tun, 20 days – Winal, and 1 day – K'in separated, in standard notation, by dots.

Archaeologists want to place the Long Count dates into the European calendar so there is an understanding of when things happened in the Maya world relative to historic events elsewhere. Correlation also allows the rich historical record of the Maya to be compared with other sources of environmental, climate and archaeological data calibrated using the European calendar.

The samples came from an elaborately carved wooden lintel or ceiling from a temple in the ancient Maya city of Tikal, Guatemala, that carries a carving and dedication date in the Maya calendar. This same lintel was one of three analyzed in the previous carbon-14 study.

Researchers measured tree growth by tracking annual changes in calcium uptake by the trees, which is greater during the rainy season.

The amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is incorporated into a tree's incremental growth. Atmospheric carbon-14 changes through time, and during the Classic Maya period oscillated up and down.

The researchers took four samples from the lintel and used annually fluctuating calcium concentrations evident in the incremental growth of the tree to determine the true time distance between each by counting the number of elapsed rainy seasons. The researchers used this information to fit the four radiocarbon dates to the wiggles in the calibration curve. Wiggle-matching the carbon-14 dates provided a more accurate age for linking the Maya and Long Count dates to the European calendars.

These calculations were further complicated by known differences in the atmospheric radiocarbon content between northern and southern hemisphere.

"The complication is that radiocarbon concentrations differ between the southern and northern hemisphere," said Kennett. "The Maya area lies on the boundary, and the atmosphere is a mixture of the southern and northern hemispheres that changes seasonally. We had to factor that into the analysis."

The researchers results mirror the GMT European date correlations indicating that the GMT was on the right track for linking the Long Count and European calendars.

Events recorded in various Maya locations "can now be harmonized with greater assurance to other environmental, climatic and archaeological datasets from this and adjacent regions and suggest that climate change played an important role in the development and demise of this complex civilization," the researchers wrote.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2013. “Maya Long Count calendar and European calendar linked using carbon-14 dating”. EurekAlert. Posted: April 11, 2013. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/ps-mlc041113.php

Last desert nomads defy a raging sandstorm

Image: Michele Palazzi, Gone with the Dust #02, 2012)

The future of these children is as unclear as the stormy landscape they're playing in. Captured in the Gobi desert in Ömnögovi province in the south of Mongolia, the children are from one of the last families still to follow an ancient nomadic lifestyle.

Titled Gone with the Dust #02, this photograph has won Michele Palazzi this year's Environmental Photographer of the Year Award. He received his £5000 prize yesterday at a ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Palazzi took the winning photograph during a sandstorm on his second day with the family last year: they agreed to let him live with them for awhile if he helped them look after their herd of camels. When the storm blew up, Palazzi says, the adults ran out of the tent to gather the camels, but the children took the chance to play in the wind.

The photographer travelled to Mongolia to document the nomadic culture that is disappearing in the face of the country's rapid modernisation. In particular, the activities of foreign mining companies are threatening the nomads' way of life, for example by using up water they need to survive. The biggest business is coal mining, and dust from these mines covers pasture, making it hard to graze camels and horses. Making matters worse, a huge copper and gold mine is soon to open too. Many nomads have little choice but to move elsewhere or go to work in the mines themselves.

An exhibition with a collection of the environmental, natural and social-themed photographs from the competition will be on display at the Royal Geographical Society until 3 May. It then moves to Grizedale Forest Visitor Centre in Cumbria, UK, from 25 May to 1 September, before going on show at the premises of the award's sponsors, the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management in London.
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References:

Sekar, Sandhya. 2013. “Last desert nomads defy a raging sandstorm”. New Scientist. Posted: April 10, 2013. Available online: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2013/04/gobi-desert-nomads-sandstorm.html