Recognize the value of social science

If the science community is serious about integrating social science into its thinking and operations — and statements by everyone from Nature and the UK government to Paul Nurse, former president of the Royal Society, indicate that it is — then we social scientists must do more to make this happen.

Our input is necessary because, too often, the reach and influence of research is discovered only with hindsight. Lessons are 'learned' only after the social implications of new domains of science and technology have provoked controversy or challenged existing norms. Social science can help to predict these implications and plan for them. It can also help to frame science questions to make them more sensitive to economic, cultural and social factors.

Scientists have their own hands-on understanding of how the science and innovation system operates, and what demands it faces. Why should they pay attention to social-science contributions, particularly when these are not yet well known and understood across the scientific community?

Social scientists understand that many colleagues in the hard sciences are sceptical of what we can offer. We know that we need to make our contribution more widely understood and appreciated. This week, social scientists in Britain take what we hope will be a significant step.

We (including myself and colleagues Robin Williams of the University of Edinburgh and Fred Steward of the Policy Studies Institute in London) are launching a professional association, with an explicit goal of engaging with science and science policy. Researchers in the social sciences have built links with specific scientific constituencies, but have failed to engage at a more general level.

We argue that it is especially important to do this now, because all researchers are being urged to explore and make explicit how their work has reach and influence in the wider world. And we want to make clear that social science — especially science, technology and innovation studies (STIS) — should be integral to science and does not merely handle external issues, for example by addressing 'public acceptance'.

Our new body is called the Association for Studies in Innovation Science and Technology-UK(AsSIST-UK). It has been built over 18 months and has a strongly interdisciplinary membership of more than 200 people. Unlike similar bodies in mainland Europe and the United States, which tend to look inwards to the academic discipline, it is intended to take our methods and thinking into the broader world.

One priority is to lobby for social-scientist involvement in the earliest stages of research projects, when emerging ideas are most open to discussion. We want to work at national and regional levels, from the UK government and research-funding councils to professional science bodies and the devolved governments in the four UK nations, which are experimenting with science and technology policies.

Science and society are not discrete, as some researchers seem to assume. Knowledge — about the impacts of climate change, for example — gets its value and usefulness only when rooted in particular contexts. This makes it diverse and contested. From the perspective of a social scientist, the challenge for researchers in genomics, for instance, is not to 'communicate' their ideas and discoveries to a homogenous 'public': it is to realize that they are members of that public and act accordingly. Change in the direction of science cannot be viewed from a single position. It is relative and depends on the position of the observer, and on the interplay of diverse knowledge communities.

Social science can help in interrogating the evidence and assumptions behind theoretical models (say, for biomarkers of ageing). It can assess how technical standards are defined and applied to a new field, and how innovation shapes the way in which clinical trials are designed and conducted (as my own research has done in regenerative medicine). Models, standards and trials all rely on agreement about appropriate evidence and how it is used. This allows for fruitful discussion across the sciences and the early recognition that knowledge is provisional and may change — important if a project is to have scope for future debate.

One of the first tasks for our new group is to review the research and activities of our members, to identify their existing impacts on science (through specific projects and membership of national bodies) and how they have engaged more broadly with the wider scientific community. To increase that engagement, we aim to identify and share examples of good practice. We want to bring together STIS expertise in diverse fields such as biomedicine, energy and data analytics to inform research-council programmes — including the current move towards interdisciplinary doctoral training across the social and natural sciences. And we want to act as a national body that can contribute to specific fields of science from their earliest days onwards. Social scientists should help to plan for the possibilities of gene editing, for example, and anticipate the challenges posed by the diversification and growth of biobanks.

To make the most of science, we must know how science operates, and understand the factors that influence it. Social scientists in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have been studying that for more than 50 years. We are ready and able to help.
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Reference:

Webster, Andrew. 2016. “Recognize the value of social science”. Nature. Posted: April 7, 2016. Available online: http://www.nature.com/news/recognize-the-value-of-social-science-1.19693

Civilizations Rise and Fall On the Quality of Their Soil

Great civilisations have fallen because they failed to prevent the degradation of the soils on which they were founded. The modern world could suffer the same fate.

This is according to Professor Mary Scholes and Dr Bob Scholes who have published a paper in the journal, Science, which describes how the productivity of many lands has been dramatically reduced as a result of soil erosion, accumulation of salinity, and nutrient depletion.

"Cultivating soil continuously for too long destroys the bacteria which convert the organic matter into nutrients," says Mary Scholes, who is a Professor in the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at Wits University.

Although improved technology -- including the unsustainably high use of fertilisers, irrigation, and ploughing -- provides a false sense of security, about 1% of global land area is degraded every year. In Africa, where much of the future growth in agriculture must take place, erosion has reduced yields by 8% and nutrient depletion is widespread.

"Soil fertility is both a biophysical property and a social property -- it is a social property because humankind depends heavily on it for food production," says Bob Scholes, who is a systems ecologist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

Soil fertility was a mystery to the ancients. Traditional farmers speak of soils becoming tired, sick, or cold; the solution was typically to move on until they recovered. By the mid-20th century, soils and plants could be routinely tested to diagnose deficiencies, and a global agrochemical industry set out to fix them. Soil came to be viewed as little more than an inert supportive matrix, to be flooded with a soup of nutrients.

This narrow approach led to an unprecedented increase in food production, but also contributed to global warming and the pollution of aquifers, rivers, lakes, and coastal ecosystems. Activities associated with agriculture are currently responsible for just under one third of greenhouse gas emissions; more than half of these originate from the soil.

Replacing the fertility-sustaining processes in the soil with a dependence on external inputs has also made the soil ecosystem, and humans, vulnerable to interruptions in the supply of those inputs, for instance due to price shocks.

However, it is not possible to feed the current and future world population with a dogmatically "organic" approach to global agriculture. Given the large additional area it would require, such an approach would also not avert climate change, spare biodiversity, or purify the rivers.

To achieve lasting food and environmental security, we need an agricultural soil ecosystem that more closely approximates the close and efficient cycling in natural ecosystems, and that also benefits from the yield increases made possible by biotechnology and inorganic fertilisers.
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References:

Science Daily. 2013. “Civilizations Rise and Fall On the Quality of Their Soil”. Science Daily. Posted: November 4, 2013. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131104035245.htm

Extreme rituals enhance social cohesion

Physically and mentally exhausting rituals promote the spirit of community in society, according to a new study. This is the first time that this hypothesis has been confirmed experimentally.

We humans are weird creatures. In the Philippines, people crucify themselves in extremely painful ways in an annual ritual. In Spain and in Greece, people walk on burning charcoal and risk getting burned while the audience is spurring them on.

A popular explanation of this phenomenon is that we humans form bonds and find a shared identity through collective rituals. This explanation has now been confirmed experimentally for the first time by a group of researchers headed by Dmitri Xygalatas of the Interacting Minds Centre (IMC) at Aarhus University, Denmark.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, was conducted on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It concludes that the locals who watch or participate in the annual Kavadi ritual subsequently experience a stronger sense of attachment to society.

Kavadi is a painful ritual in which the participants are pierced with spears and large needles, after which they have to carry heavy bamboo structures called Kavadi for several hours before climbing a mountain to offer these structures to the temple of Murugan as a sign of their devotion.

The Mauritian population is highly varied, but the ritual is Hindu.

The study found that the ritual participants and the audience are more willing to donate money to the temple than those who only participate in low-ordeal communal prayer.

“It appears that the more people sacrifice themselves physically and mentally, the greater the effect it has on the willingness of the participants and the audience to donate money to the community,” says co-author Professor Andreas Roepstorff, who also works at the IMC in Aarhus.

Pain and empathy make people donate money

After the ritual, the research team gave a group of ritual participants and a group of audience a bag of money equivalent to two days’ wages for a Mauritian worker. They also gave money to a third group, which had not taken part in the painful ritual; instead, they took part in a Hindu communal prayer.

The three groups, totalling 86 persons, were then given the option of donating a self-chosen amount anonymously to the Murugan temple.

“We observed that the participants from the painful Kavadi ritual were more willing to donate money than those who took part in the communal prayer. But it was actually the Kavadi audience that donated the most out of the three groups,” says Roepstorff.

“This indicates that the audience was affected by the ritual and felt empathy with the participants, which made them want to support the temple.”

Rituals act as social glue

The three groups were also handed a questionnaire designed to reveal how the people regarded themselves in relation to being part of the Mauritian community.

“We noted an interesting shift in identity and self-image. The painful rituals drew the participants and the audience towards a stronger sense of common identity and belonging, and away from their original stance,” says Roepstorff.

Religion is not the driving force

He believes it is in our nature to perform this kind of physical and social rituals, and that the religious aspect is not the driving force.

”Religion also consists, to a great extent, of participating in some coordinated social activities. We look at it as a social practice, not as something where ‘God said we should do things this way and that way’,” he says.

”It’s important for us humans to share experiences with one another, and preferably with people we can relate to. This is a characteristic of the human mind and part of our evolution, but it does not appear to be something we have in common with monkeys.”
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References:

Christensen, Bo. 2013. “Extreme rituals enhance social cohesion”. Science Nordic. Posted: October 2, 2013. Available online: http://sciencenordic.com/extreme-rituals-enhance-social-cohesion

The actual standing of speakers within a society's power structure determines how their statements are perceived. This is the conclusion reached in a joint study undertaken by neurolinguist Professor Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky of the University of Marburg and linguist Professor Matthias Schlesewsky of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) with the support of Sylvia Krauspsenhaar, who participated in the study as a member of the Neurotypology research group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig.

The results were recently published in an article entitled "Yes, you can? A speaker's potency to act upon his words orchestrates early neural responses to message-level meaning" in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

For the purposes of the study, the team of researchers exposed their trial group to video recordings of a politically influential decision-maker, an eminent news anchor, and a person completely unknown to the test subjects expressing both plausible and implausible statements. The first speaker was Peer Steinbrück, the then Federal Minister of Finance, and the second was Ulrich Wickert, a former TV newscaster. They spoke from a script produced especially for the study; all the statements made were classifiable either in the categories "general knowledge" or "politics."

While obviously false statements relating to the real world (such as "Fidel Castro is a pop singer.") triggered similar reactions in the test subjects' brains in the case of all three speakers, the reactions to implausible political statements (such as "The federal government has announced that it will be leaving NATO.") differed depending on the speaker. The EEG recordings made while subjects were listening to politician Steinbrück diverged from those made when the other, non-political speakers made the same statements.

"We believe that the observed variations in listeners' reactions to political statements represent the immediate influence of the speaker's perceived ability to transform their words into actions on the way the listener interprets the message," explained Professor Matthias Schlesewsky of the Department of English and Linguistics at JGU. "The decisive factor is whether the listener assumes that the speaker has the power to transform what he or she says into reality." Professor Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky added: "Clearly political decision-makers are considered to have significantly more influence than simple citizens or other prominent persons." It had been previously assumed that it was only factors such as listeners' general knowledge and their current mood, among numerous other aspects, that determined the reactions in the brain to spoken statements.
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References:

Science Daily. 2013. “Social Status and Power of Action of Speakers Determine the Way Their Statements Are Perceived”. Science Daily. Posted: August 4, 2013. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130804144422.htm

Social Status and Power of Action of Speakers Determine the Way Their Statements Are Perceived

The actual standing of speakers within a society's power structure determines how their statements are perceived. This is the conclusion reached in a joint study undertaken by neurolinguist Professor Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky of the University of Marburg and linguist Professor Matthias Schlesewsky of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) with the support of Sylvia Krauspsenhaar, who participated in the study as a member of the Neurotypology research group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig.

The results were recently published in an article entitled "Yes, you can? A speaker's potency to act upon his words orchestrates early neural responses to message-level meaning" in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

For the purposes of the study, the team of researchers exposed their trial group to video recordings of a politically influential decision-maker, an eminent news anchor, and a person completely unknown to the test subjects expressing both plausible and implausible statements. The first speaker was Peer Steinbrück, the then Federal Minister of Finance, and the second was Ulrich Wickert, a former TV newscaster. They spoke from a script produced especially for the study; all the statements made were classifiable either in the categories "general knowledge" or "politics."

While obviously false statements relating to the real world (such as "Fidel Castro is a pop singer.") triggered similar reactions in the test subjects' brains in the case of all three speakers, the reactions to implausible political statements (such as "The federal government has announced that it will be leaving NATO.") differed depending on the speaker. The EEG recordings made while subjects were listening to politician Steinbrück diverged from those made when the other, non-political speakers made the same statements.

"We believe that the observed variations in listeners' reactions to political statements represent the immediate influence of the speaker's perceived ability to transform their words into actions on the way the listener interprets the message," explained Professor Matthias Schlesewsky of the Department of English and Linguistics at JGU. "The decisive factor is whether the listener assumes that the speaker has the power to transform what he or she says into reality." Professor Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky added: "Clearly political decision-makers are considered to have significantly more influence than simple citizens or other prominent persons." It had been previously assumed that it was only factors such as listeners' general knowledge and their current mood, among numerous other aspects, that determined the reactions in the brain to spoken statements.
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References:

Science Daily. 2013. “Social Status and Power of Action of Speakers Determine the Way Their Statements Are Perceived”. Science Daily. Posted: August 4, 2013. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130804144422.htm

Entering a Dangerous Epoch — The Anthropocene

The global environmental change community has gathered in London and online this week to forge a more effective voice on sustainability.

According to scientists studying global environmental change, the Earth is moving out of the Holocene — the period of remarkably stable climate that began roughly 12,000 years ago — into the Anthropocene, an era in which a single species, humans, are driving the Earth’s systems.

“Can we return to the nice, steady Holocene stage where we know humanity can survive or will we be able to transition to a new, much hotter state?” asked Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, on the first day of the Planet Under Pressure Conference in London. “We are at the cusp of some big changes. Can we turn the ship around or are we going to an uncertain future on a much hotter planet?”

The Holocene has been an era with a “nice, steady” climate, but from 1950 to 2000 scientists have graphed steep increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is driving average global temperatures higher. When the Planet Under Pressure moderator asked for a show of hands from an audience that included 2,000 scientists, decision-makers, and others knowledgeable about global change, most were pessimistic about the future. (She didn’t poll the additional 2,000 people attending the conference online.)

But pessimism was mixed with hope, if only because of the gathering itself. Eleanor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel laureate in Economics, opened the Planet Under Pressure proceedings arguing that the conference can move the world forward to address global environmental problems, “because we have scientists from all across the sciences — biophysical and social — as well as humanities and from over 100 countries.” Three years of planning preceded the conference, intended to gather and generate science and knowledge “to navigate the Anthropocene.” The conference steering committee selected parallel sessions (about a dozen in each time slot over four days) that offer a mix of social and biophysical research, a focus on solutions to complex problems, and a broad geographic range.

As Steffen outlined in a series of slides, it’s an uphill push. Not only is CO2 in the atmosphere cutting a sharp upward curve, but average global temperatures have continued to rise, though not as steeply in the last decade. Although greenhouse gas emissions dropped during the recent recession, global emissions have fully returned to previous and rising levels.

Oceans absorb 80-90 percent of the additional heat, so the oceans too are heating. Not only are scientists worrying about carbon, they have found that the nitrogen cycle has changed even more dramatically than the carbon cycle, pouring nitrogen from fertilizer into rivers and oceans causing algae blooms and even dead zones in the ocean, and contributing to air pollution as well as global warming.

But to know whether we can return to a more stable climate, we need to know where the tipping points are and whether we have reached them. Tipping points are thresholds — if we overstep them, we move into a different condition. The Anthropocene is likely to be an era with uncomfortably warmer temperatures and extremes: draughts, coastal flooding, increased storms, loss of biodiversity.

In short, humans are creating conditions that make it difficult if not impossible for many species to adapt. “Arctic sea ice is the tipping point we’ve already lost,” Steffen explained. “The Arctic Ocean will be ice-free sometime this century.” We don’t know yet where the tipping point is for loss of the ice sheets on Greenland or the Antarctic. Steffen called them “great refrigerators slowing down the warming of the planet.” He explained that the overall ice balance on the Greenland ice sheet has been dropping from the 1990s and could reach the tipping point within the next few decades. The Antarctic ice sheet appears stable, but the west Antarctic appears to be losing mass over the last decade.

Scientists also worry about where the tipping points might be for retention of the Amazon forest and permafrost in the high latitudes. Loss of either of these will magnify the effects of global warming. Most models of the Amazon rainforest predict loss of rainfall in the coming century and with drying out of the rainforest, fires increase adding to CO2 in the atmosphere.

As for permafrost, the colder high latitudes are warming much more quickly than the temperate mid-latitudes, and as permafrost there melts, methane that has been locked in the frozen soil could be released. A 2010 paper by Catherine M. Luke and Peter M. Cox explains how further heating from microbial respiration in the soils could lead to a tipping point where the heat produced would build up faster than it can be dissipated, producing a “compost bomb.”

From the vantage point of Diana Liverman, professor of geography and development at the University of Arizona, there are some reasons for optimism. In her plenary talk, she highlighted areas of progress in slowing global climate change: “Population growth, often thought of as a key threat, is now slowing as fertility rates drop.” Energy use, while still growing, has become less carbon intensive per capita. Forests are expanding in China, south Vietnam and elsewhere in places where gross domestic product is growing (although some forest destruction has been displaced to neighboring Laos and Cambodia).

While the results of more geographically focused case studies suggest that climate impacts may be reversible, these locally positive results become lost in the global averages.

Can we reverse the loss of sea ice or avoid the tipping points on ice sheets or the Amazonian rainforest? Action to reverse the trend should have started a decade or two ago, according to Steffen, but the clock hasn’t expired. “This is the critical decade.”

For its part, the global-change research community is attempting to forge a more effective scientific voice to speak on these matters.

The organizers of Planet Under Pressure have already forwarded nine policy briefs (on topics including water, energy, food security, global health, human well-being, and governance and institutions) to government ministers who will attend the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in mid-June. They will also launch Future Earth, an umbrella organization for research on global sustainability to better connect the social and biophysical sciences into global change research, to unify the major existing global change research bodies, to work with major science funders and to link this research community with business, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society.
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References:

Osherenko, Gail. 2012. "Entering a Dangerous Epoch — The Anthropocene". Miller-McCune. Posted: March 27, 2012. Available online: http://www.miller-mccune.com/environment/entering-a-dangerous-epoch-the-anthropocene-40645/

Race and Life Expectancy: Winners and Losers

In the United States, whites outlive blacks, but this varies by state, according to new research.

The researchers looked at death certificate data from 1997 through 2004, covering more than 17 million people from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The researchers noted race/ethnicity, sex, the age at death and the state where each subject was born, lived and died.

or both men and women, the racial disparity in life expectancy was the smallest in New Mexico (a gap of 3.76 years between white and black men, and 2.45 years for women) and largest for D.C. (13.77 years for men 8.55 years for women).

See where your state fits in below.

States with the Smallest Racial Disparity

The nine states with the smallest gap in the racial disparity in life expectancy for men (<6 years) are New Mexico (disparity 3.76 years), Kentucky (4.37 years), West Virginia (4.42 years), Nevada (4.72 years), Oklahoma (5.10 years), Washington (5.10 years), Colorado (5.23 years), New York (5.32 years), and Arizona (5.60 years). In KY, WV, NV and OK, the racial disparity is small because white men have lower-than-average life expectancy, while black men have life expectancy close to their national average. In contrast, five states with a small disparity (NM, WA, CO, NY, AZ) have both black and white populations with higher-than-average life expectancy, and black men live substantially longer than the national average for blacks. States with the Largest Racial Disparity

The largest gaps in racial life expectancy for men (those larger than eight years) are New Jersey, N.E., Wisc., Mich., Penn., Ill., and D.C. The gap is large because black men live fewer years than expected, whereas white men live longer than expected relative to the national average. The states with the largest racial disparity in life expectancy for women are Ill., R.I., Kan., MI, N.J., Wis., Minn., Ind., Fla., N.E., and D.C.(more than six years).

States with the Largest Black Populations

Because of its large African American population, Florida has the largest impact on national disparity. The national disparity would fall from 7.13 to 6.63 years for men and from 5.20 to 4.74 years for women if Florida had no disparity in life expectancy. Florida has a racial disparity in life expectancy similar to the national average for men (7.42 years) and greater than the national average for women (6.92 years).

Improving conditions in six other states (Calif.,Texas, Ga., N.C., Md., and La.) with large black populations would also have large impacts on the national disparity.

Other states that contribute substantially to the national disparity for both men and women are Ill., Calif., N.Y., Texas, and Ga. Among these states, Illinois has a large gap in racial disparity, where as Calif., Texas, and Ga., had average gaps for men and women.

In contrast, New York has a smaller gap than other states, but elimination of these relatively small disparities would make a comparatively big impact: For men, disparity would change from 7.13 to 6.70 years and women would decrease from 5.20 to 4.91 years.

The study was published in the February 2012 issue of the journal Health Services Research.

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References:

Welsh, Jennifer. 2012. "Race and Life Expectancy: Winners and Losers". Live Science. Posted: March 5, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/18823-race-life-expectancy-states.html

Culture Poisons Brain With Racism, Study Finds

For years, social scientists have uncovered the unsettling truth that no matter how egalitarian a person purports to be, their unconscious mind holds some racist, sexist or ageist thoughts.

But a new study finds that this may say less about the person and more about the culture that surrounds him or her.

The new study finds that while people are quick to associate word pairs that bring to mind stereotypes (think "black - poor" versus "black - goofy"), this tendency is rooted not in the social meaning of the words, but in the likelihood of the words appearing together in literature and media. In other words, this implicit prejudice is driven more by culture than by any innate horribleness in the person, said study researcher Paul Verhaeghen, a Georgia Tech psychologist.

"There’s one idea that people tend to associate black people with violence, women with weakness, or older people with forgetfulness because they are prejudiced. But there’s another possibility that what’s in your head is not you, it’s the culture around you," Verhaeghen said in a statement. "And so what you have is stuff you picked up from reading, television, radio and the Internet. And that’s the question we wanted to answer: are you indeed a racist, or are you just an American?"

Responding to prejudice

In study after study, people more quickly associate word pairs that bring to mind stereotypes. "Female" and "weak" would be more quickly associated than "female" and "mundane," for example. This implicit prejudice is different than explicit prejudices, which psychologists measure by asking people questions about how they feel about various social groups.

But the root of implicit prejudice wasn't clear. People might associate the word pairs because they saw shared meaning in them — they really do think of "black" and "poor" as overlapping terms. But people also might link the two words because they simply see the words "black" and "poor" together in literature and media more often than the words "black" and "goofy."

Verhaeghen and his colleagues tested the second theory by giving 104 undergraduates one of three tests. In the first, the student saw two words flashed on a computer screen one after another, and then had to say whether the second word was a real word. In the second, the words would flash onscreen, and the participant would rate whether the second word was positive or negative. The third experiment was identical, except students were asked whether the two words were related.

The word pairs were a mixture of stereotyped terms about men, women, blacks, whites and young and old people. There were also non-social word pairs such as "cat - jumpy" and "dog - dumb." Some of the pairs included nonsense words as well.

Word association

In all three experiments, a faster reaction time in answering the question indicates a closer link between the two words in the brain. Like in other studies, participants were faster at reacting to word pairs that elicited stereotypes. [Read: 5 Myths About Gay People, Debunked]

But this experiment had another layer: The researchers analyzed the results using a computer program called BEAGLE, or the Bound Encoding of the Aggregate Language Environment. This program contains a sample of books, magazine and newspaper articles, about 10 million words total. It's meant to mimic the amount of reading an average college student has done in his or her life.

The program analyses all the words in the reading sample, including how often two words appear near one another. If culture plays into implicit stereotyping, closely related words should always result in fast reaction times, regardless of the social meaning of those words.

The racist inside

Comparing their participants' results to BEAGLE confirmed that, indeed, words that appear more often together in the real world trigger faster reaction times in the lab. This applies for positive and negative stereotypes, such as "male - strong" and "female - weak" and for completely neutral pairs such as "summer - sunny."

There was also no relationship between people's implicit prejudices as measured by reaction time, and their explicit racism, sexism or ageism as measured by questionnaires.

"This suggests that at least part of the alleged racist/sexist/ageist hiding inside us all is a monster not of our own making; it is built out of memes borrowed from close contact with our environment," Verhaeghen and his colleagues reported online Sept. 17 in the British Journal of Social Psychology.

Although limited by the college-age population, the researchers argue that the results paint a picture of prejudice as a painful cycle: Prejudiced thought begetting prejudiced speech, which is then internalized to begat even more prejudiced thought.

But "culture made me do it" is no excuse for racism, they add, writing, "society's influence on its individual constituents does not absolve these individuals from their own personal responsibilities." In fact, Verhaeghen said, the study suggests the need for extra caution.

"There's a reason for political correctness," he said. "At least, as studies suggest, it might be a good idea to not put stereotypes out there too clearly, because if you do, people will internalize them."
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References:

Pappas, Stephanie. 2011. "Culture Poisons Brain With Racism, Study Finds". Live Science.. Posted: October 2, 2011. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/16339-culture-racism.html

Urban Population Explosion (Infographic)

Source:LiveScience

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References:

Toro, Ross. 2011. "Urban Population Explosion (Infographic)". Live Science. Posted: September 13, 2011. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/15943-gofigure-urban-population-explosion.html

Mathematical Model Explains How Complex Societies Emerge, Collapse

The instability of large, complex societies is a predictable phenomenon, according to a new mathematical model that explores the emergence of early human societies via warfare. Capturing hundreds of years of human history, the model reveals the dynamical nature of societies, which can be difficult to uncover in archaeological data.

The research, led Sergey Gavrilets, associate director for scientific activities at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis and a professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, is published in the first issue of the new journal Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History, the first academic journal dedicated to research from the emerging science of theoretical history and mathematics.

This image shows a hexagonal array of initially autonomous local communities or villages, which is part of a polity. Polities grow, decrease in size, or disappear as a result of conquest with the winner absorbing all of part of the loser. (Credit: Gavrilets S, Anderson D, Turchin P.)

The numerical model focuses on both size and complexity of emerging "polities" or states as well as their longevity and settlement patterns as a result of warfare. A number of factors were measured, but unexpectedly, the largest effect on the results was due to just two factors -- the scaling of a state's power to the probability of winning a conflict and a leader's average time in power. According to the model, the stability of large, complex polities is strongly promoted if the outcomes of conflicts are mostly determined by the polities' wealth or power, if there exist well-defined and accepted means of succession, and if control mechanisms within polities are internally specialized. The results also showed that polities experience what the authors call "chiefly cycles" or rapid cycles of growth and collapse due to warfare.

The wealthiest of polities does not necessarily win a conflict, however. There are many other factors besides wealth that can affect the outcome of a conflict, the authors write. The model also suggests that the rapid collapse of a polity can occur even without environmental disturbances, such as drought or overpopulation.

By using a mathematical model, the researchers were able to capture the dynamical processes that cause chiefdoms, states and empires to emerge, persist and collapse at the scale of decades to centuries.

"In the last several decades, mathematical models have been traditionally important in the physical, life and economic sciences, but now they are also becoming important for explaining historical data," said Gavrilets. "Our model provides theoretical support for the view that cultural, demographic and ecological conditions can predict the emergence and dynamics of complex societies."

Co-authors are David G. Anderson, professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and Peter Turchin, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and mathematics at the University of Connecticut.

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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References:

Science Daily. 2011. "Mathematical Model Explains How Complex Societies Emerge, Collapse". Science Daily. Posted: January 19, 2011. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119151816.htm

Journal Reference:

Gavrilets, Sergey, Anderson, David G and Turchin, Peter. Cycling in the Complexity of Early Societies. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History, Vol 1, Issue 1

Ignoring racism makes distress worse, study finds

Subtle forms of racism are part of the fabric of life, according to Professor of Counseling Alvin Alvarez, but the way people choose to cope with racist incidents can influence how much distress they feel.

Alvarez' latest study, published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, found that denying or ignoring racial discrimination leads to greater psychological distress, including anxiety and depression, and lowers self-esteem.

"We found that some coping methods are healthier than others for dealing with everyday racism," Alvarez said. "When people deny or trivialize racist encounters, they can actually make themselves feel worse, amplifying the distress caused by the incident."

The study focused on what is referred to as 'everyday racism' -- subtle, commonplace forms of discrimination, such as being ignored, ridiculed or treated differently.

"These are incidents that may seem innocent and small, but cumulatively they can have a powerful impact on an individual's mental health," Alvarez said. "Trying to ignore these insidious incidents could become taxing and debilitating over time, chipping away at a person's spirit."

Alvarez surveyed 199 Filipino-American adults, both men and women, in the Bay Area and found that 99 percent of participants had experienced at least one incident of everyday racism in the last year.

The findings challenge the stereotype of Filipino-Americans as 'model minorities' -- ethnic groups that are typically successful in society and believed to no longer experience discrimination. "What's striking is we found that racism is still happening to Filipinos," Alvarez said. "Therapists need to look beyond the frequent portrayal of Asian Americans as model minorities and help clients assess what their best coping strategy could be, depending on their resources, what's feasible and who they could turn to for support."

While further research is needed to determine what makes a healthy coping method, the study did find that for men, dealing with racism in an active way, such as reporting incidents to authorities or challenging the perpetrator, was associated with decreased distress and increased self-esteem. For women, ignoring racism was linked to increased distress, but no significant correlation was found between other coping methods and psychological distress.

The study was published in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology and was co-authored by Linda Juang, associate professor of psychology at SF State.

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References:

Bible, Elaine. 2010. "Ignoring racism makes distress worse, study finds". PhysOrg. Posted: April 6, 2010. Available online: http://www.physorg.com/news189786634.html

The Culture of the Marshall Islands

Culture Name

Marshallese; Marshall Islander

Alternative Names

Rālik-Ratak, Marshalls; formally known as the Republic of the Marshall Islands

Orientation

Identification. The Marshall Islands derive their identity from British Captain William Marshall, who explored the area with Captain Thomas Gilbert in 1788. The atolls were not a cohesive entity until Europeans named and mapped them, and Rālik-Ratak, the Marshallese designation for the leeward and windward chains of atolls, was considered an appellation at the time of independence.

Location and Geography. The Marshall Islands occupy a vast expanse of ocean in the west-central Pacific, from 2,000 to 3,000 miles (3,220 to 4,830 kilometers) south and west of Hawaii. With a mere 66 square miles (171 square kilometers) of land, the twenty-nine low-lying atolls and five coral pinnacles that make up the Marshalls are like fine necklaces of reef and sand spits strewn across the 780,000 square miles (1.26 million square kilometers) of ocean that unifies and separates the atolls. The major atolls are located between 160° and 173° E and 4° and 20° N. The surrounding ocean helps maintain an average temperature of 81° F (27° C) with very little diurnal or yearly variation. Rainfall increases as one nears the equator, with around 60 inches (152 centimeters) per year in the north and 180 inches (460 centimeters) per year in the south. The dry part of the year, November through April, is typified by brisk breezes, and the central month of the wet season, August, often has periods with very little wind. For much of the year northeasterly trade winds provide natural air conditioning. Typhoons are not uncommon in the winter months.

Demography. Since World War II the capital of the Marshall Islands has been located on Majuro, in the southern part of the Ratak chain. With a very high rate of population increase, the Marshall Islands has changed rapidly from 43,380 people in 1988 to a projected population of well over 60,000 in 1999. Residents are very mobile, and nearly 80 percent are now urban. Approximately one-half of the population resides on Majuro Atoll where government employment created a post-independence population explosion. The other urban enclave is Ebeye (Epjā islet), Kwajalein Atoll, one of the world's most densely-populated locations, where many residents work on the United States military base on nearby Kwajalein islet. Other Marshall Islanders choose to reside on one of two dozen inhabited outer atolls or coral pinnacles where a more traditional style of life can be maintained.

Linguistic Affiliation. All residents speak Marshallese, an Austronesian language that shares numerous affinities with other Pacific languages, particularly those of eastern Micronesia. Marshallese dialects began to disappear after missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) arrived on Ebon, in the southern Ralik Chain, in 1857 and developed a transcription system. At least three mutually intelligible dialects remain: Ratak, Rālik, and an Enewetak/Ujelang variant. Former eras of Spanish, German, Japanese, and American administration and intermarriage between Marshall Islanders and other Pacific Islanders mean that Marshall Islanders often learn multiple languages. Many residents understand and/or speak a pidgin English, which has become a lingua franca in the west-central Pacific.

Symbolism. The independent Marshall Islands is perhaps too new to have developed core symbols, metaphors, or traditions, but the image of the rising and setting sun, emblematic of the Ratak "facing toward the windward" (sunrise) and Rālik "facing toward the leeward" (sunset) symbolism forms a central element of the flag. Stick charts which were once used to instruct novice sailors, outrigger canoes, and finely woven pandanus and coconut fiber art produced by Marshallese women, have assumed extraordinary value as images of national integration. Atoll specific celebrations that recognize the end of World War II and the elaborate celebrations of Kūrijmōj (Christmas) are popular communal events.

History and Ethnic Relations

Emergence of the Nation. Beginning with the establishment of the Congress of Micronesia in 1965, local elites representing the various island groups that made up the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands established the Micronesian Political Status Commission in 1967 to explore political options for the future of the region. The range of options that were discussed with representatives of the United States included total independence, a status of free association with the United States, continuing status as a Trust Territory, and integration with the United States. Even though the original negotiations had posited a common future for the Trust Territory, the United States, based on its own differential interests in the region, soon began to negotiate separately with the Northern Mariana Islands. The United States Department of Defense also wished to maintain special rights of access and use in the Marshall Islands and Belau and, on the basis of these strategic advantages, these two districts were also granted separate opportunities to negotiate their political futures. The remaining districts of the Trust Territory, lacking in special resources or strategic value to the United States, were not granted separate negotiational status. The United States favored commonwealth status for the region in 1970, and in 1975 the Northern Mariana Islands voted to become a commonwealth of the United States. Prior to the formal establishment of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, however, the United States reconsidered its initial rejection of free association as a viable option, and the Marshall Islands, Belau, and the remaining districts of the Trust Territory, now known as the Federated States of Micronesia, began to negotiate constitutional governments that would be linked to the United States by compacts of free association. Most elements of self-government were assumed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 1970, with formal statehood in free association with the United States decreed by the United States president in 1986. The Republic of the Marshall Islands was welcomed as a member state of the United Nations in 1991.

central element of the flag. Stick charts which were once used to instruct novice sailors, outrigger canoes, and finely woven pandanus and coconut fiber art produced by Marshallese women, have assumed extraordinary value as images of national integration. Atoll specific celebrations that recognize the end of World War II and the elaborate celebrations of Kūrijmōj (Christmas) are popular communal events.

National Identity. National identity remains formative due to recent independent status. People often rely on their atolls of birth and residence to ground their identities, but a cohesive identity is forming. Residence in the United States and elsewhere has fostered people's sense of being, first and foremost, Marshall Islanders. Urbanization also contributes to a homogenous identity, but policies that create an unequal distribution of wealth and a glut of new missions act as counter-cohesive forces.

Ethic Relations. While ethnic diversity on most atolls is limited, Majuro is becoming multi-ethnic in character with representatives from many Pacific and Pacific Rim locales. While no distinct ethnic groups exist in the Marshall Islands, people from atolls with substantial colonial contact—notably Ebon, Jaluij, Kwajalein, Majuro and, to some extent, Wotje and Maloelap—have been historically advantaged by these contacts.

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life. Throughout the Marshall Islands food is not only valued for sustenance, it is used to create and maintain cohesiveness. Meals always balance a drink with a food and use fish or meat to complement the staples. Local staples include breadfruit, arrowroot, pandanus, and taro, and are now supplemented with imported rice, flour, and sugar. Indigenous complements are seafoods, birds, and eggs, supplemented with pig, chicken, and an increasing variety of tinned meats. Coffee and cola have replaced coconut milk as the primary drink. While outer islanders still rely on many indigenous foods from fishing and gathering, overpopulation on Majuro and Ebeye makes residents almost entirely reliant on imports. The limited array of affordable imported foods has resulted in epidemic levels of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and other diet-related diseases.

Basic Economy. The Marshall Islands have successfully marketed their strategic location for military purposes, northern Marshall Islanders' incomes have been supplemented through compensation for post World War II nuclear tests, and attempts have been made to revitalize copra production and energize the fishing industry.

Land Tenure and Property. Land in the Marshall Islands is held in perpetuity by members of clans and extended families, and certain lands and fishing waters are held by the entire community. Practices vary from atoll to atoll, but anthropologists have depicted land as passing through matrilines, though the offspring of male members of the matriline also have residence rights as workers of the land. Other anthropologists have noted bilateral features of land tenure that allow for flexibility in land transfer. On outlying Enewetak and Ujelang, land is a mark of identity claimed bilaterally. Copra production in the nineteenth century greatly increased the power of Marshallese iroij chiefs and alab land heads, since Europeans relied on them to oversee the growing, collection, and processing of coconut. Japanese land registration in the 1930s increased the amount of communal land to which the Japanese-controlled government had access. During the American and post-independence eras, pressures have multiplied to create alienable land that can be bought and sold. Long-term land leases have become popular in Majuro, and a lease that allows the United States Army to use large segments of Kwajalein Atoll provides income for chiefs and land-holders of Kwajalein.

Commercial Activities. Whalers from Europe and the United States were originally attracted to Marshall Islands' waters in the 1830s to 1850s but by the 1860s copra (the production of dried coconut) dominated Europeans' interest in the islands. Copra production under German rule (1885–1915) substantially altered Marshallese social relations. Under Japanese control (between World War I and World War II) copra production continued, supplemented by a fishing industry (dominated by Okinawans), and by exports of phosphorus, coconut husk mats, and handicrafts. Following World War II, the United States had a strategic interest in the Marshall Islands with few attempts at development. As copra prices declined on the world market, Marshall Islanders relied more on the meager income from handicrafts to supplement the subsistence economy. By the 1960s and 1970s, financial assistance programs were instituted to make up for United States neglect of the region and became the major source of income. Since independence, United States aid has been supplemented by programs from other Pacific Rim countries.

Major Industries. A small garment manufacturing industry has been started, and many government officials hold out hopes for future tourism.

Trade. Other than the islands' strategic location, which has been marketed to the United States as part of the Compact of Free Association agreement, the main exports include fish and fishing rights in Marshallese waters and products derived from dried coconut. In addition, the re-export of dyes figures prominently in the list of 1990s exports. Foods, fuel, automobiles, machinery and transportation equipment, manufactured goods, materials, and beverages and tobacco make up the bulk of imported goods.

Division of Labor. Division of labor is largely based on gender and age, with special positions held by chiefs, land heads, extended family heads, and by local pastors. In urban areas, an elite made up of chiefs, the descendants of half-caste families, and, increasingly, educated young adults, hold most government positions and public or private sector jobs.

Social Stratification

Classes and Castes. In the past highly ranked persons were at the center or windward end of discussion circles and elevated above compatriots or were seated on the ocean side of persons of lesser rank.

Since independence, an emergent class structure has become apparent in urban sectors with radical differences in wealth between the rich and poor. In part, the class structure reflects the distribution of jobs but, at its highest levels, reflects a monopoly of political power among a group of chiefs and a small set of English-speaking half-caste residents and other elite families. The distinction between chief and commoner is long standing. Until the mid-1800s chiefdoms were small, seldom including more than one or two atolls. With colonial support, the power and influence of the chief increased.

Symbols of Social Stratification. In the past intricate tatoos distinguished men and women of higher class from commoners. Renowned warriors and those respected as navigators and medical specialists also displayed their identities through distinctive tatoos. Restricted speech genres were also used to interact with those of highest rank. Speaking styles are divided into honorific and ordinary styles today. Marshall Islanders commonly wear American-style dress modified it to local norms but elite styles of costly dress and personal adornment are increasing as signs of emergent class distinctions.

Marriage, Family and Kinship

Marriage. Marriage is permitted between members of different clans who are related as immediate or extended cross-cousins, but due to internal and trans-national mobility, marriage with non-related foreigners is also frequent. Youths select spouses from the large group of cross-cousin and unrelated potential marriage partners, but many marriages do not last. Once a couple has a stable relationship divorce is infrequent, though not prohibited. Stable couples have typically resided for a period of time on lands of one of the couple's parents, have established ancestral status with the birth of one or two children, and have become recognized members of the community. Polygamy, at one time permitted, was prohibited by missionaries and now is not condoned. Urbanization has created stress in many marriages, and domestic violence is not uncommon. Nevertheless, on the outer atolls, marriage provides an entry into the community exchange system balancing the husband's provisioning tasks with a wife's responsibility to transform raw foods into edibles, combining a woman's ability to transfer core clan identity to offspring with the man's ability to shape the child's physical features, and providing pathways that embed the couple and their offspring in extended families and community of which they are an integral, contributing part.

Domestic Unit. Elevated sleeping platforms have always separated highly ranked family members from others. Members of one to four or five households that are part of the same extended family comprise typical cookhouse groups. The extended family may be from one matri-clan but often cookhouse groups are comprised of residents related through male or male and female ties. One or more respected elder, female or male, heads the cookhouse group, though robust young males and females often do the provisioning and food preparation. Girls and boys from about age five perform household duties, and elders too old to cook or fish weave mats and handicraft or repair tools, dwellings, and watercraft. The irrelevance of this once-integrated extended family task orientation, from more nucleated residence patterns, and from a reliance on cash provisioning rather than sharing, has placed strains on urban families.

Inheritance. The core of one's identity, derived from one's mother, provides the central item of inheritance, though bio-cultural links with one's father determine external features of self. With warfare prohibition and the focus on copra, land holding transmittals were largely restricted to matri-clan pathways, but males in good standing retain worker's rights on the land for one or more generations. On Ujelang and Enewetak atolls, land may be transferred along male or female pathways though, as throughout the Marshall Islands, actively working the land to transform it from bush into living space is a critical way to establish rights to use clan or extended family lands. In ancient times, a person's possessions were burned at his or her death and, until the recent appearance of class distinctions, meager amounts of personal property remained to be distributed. While immediate family members might keep small mementos, all other property is distributed to distant community members.

Kin Groups. Beyond the bounds of cookhouse groups, Marshall Islanders are members of large extended kin groups and remain linked to those relatives through shared companionship, shared land, shared clanship (transmitted through females), or shared blood (transmitted through males). These identity groups often extend beyond the bounds of an atoll. One's position as a member of a village segment, a village, a district, and an atoll are important elements of identity, and one's position in a religious organization, a Christmas–time song-fest group, a handicraft and mat manufacturing circle, or a sailing group may be of equal importance. In the outer island setting, most of these groups interact regularly, creating overlapping networks of close-knit relatives. While identity groups are fairly effective in urban settings, high mobility and the market economy do not provide time or support for shared daily activities that are the substance of such identity groups.

Please visit the site to read more on these topics: Urbanization, Architecture, and the Use of Space, Political Life, Social Welfare and Change Programs, Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations, Gender Roles and Statuses, Socialization, Etiquette, Religion, Medicine and Health Care, Secular Celebrations, The Arts and Humanities, The State of the Physical and Social Sciences.
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References:

Anonymous. 2009. "Culture of Marshall Islands". Every Culture.com.
Available online: http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Marshall-Islands.html

Culture of Faroe Islands

Culture Name:
Faroese
Alternative Names:
Føroyar; Fóðrøerne

Orientation:

Identification."Faroe" (sometimes "Faeroe") may mean "Sheep Islands." The population is monoethnic, but is culturally distinct within Denmark as a whole. Within Norse Scandinavia, Faroese consider themselves most like Icelanders and least like Swedes.

Location and Geography. The Faroes include seventeen inhabited islands and numerous islets. The area is 540 square miles (1,397 square kilometers). The weather is cool and damp, with frequent winter storms. The landscape is treeless and mountainous, deeply cut with fjords and sounds along whose shores nucleated villages lie surrounded by fields and pastures. The capital has been Tórshavn since Viking times.

Demography. The total population in 1997 was 44,262, up about threefold since 1901(15,230) and about eightfold since 1801 (5,265). Tórshavn, with 14,286 inhabitants, is the only city. Klaksvík has 4,502 inhabitants, and seven other towns have over a thousand. The rest of the population (33.2 percent) lives in smaller places.

Linguistic Affiliation. Faroese is a syntactically conservative west Scandinavian language most closely related to Icelandic and the western dialects of Norwegian, from which it apparently began to diverge significantly after the Reformation while resisting assimilation to Danish. Reduced to writing in 1846 and redeployed for modern use since the late nineteenth century, it is a primary symbol of national identity, spoken and written by all Faroese. Faroese are fluent in Danish and increasingly in English.

Symbolism. Faroese consider themselves "ordinary people" living in "a small country." The primary symbols of national identity are the language, the local past, and the natural environment as these are articulated in oral and written literature, folk and scholarly historiography, and appreciations of the natural setting of social life. Other symbols include the flag (a red cross with a blue border on a white field, internationally recognized in 1940), the ancient tradition of ballad-dancing, the grindadráp (pilot whale slaughter), the old-fashioned garb sometimes worn on holidays, and the national bird, the oystercatcher.

History and Ethnic Relations:

Emergence of the Nation. Settled by the Norse in the early ninth century, the Faroes became Christian and tributary to Norway in the early eleventh century. They remained subject to the Danish-Norwegian Crown after the Lutheran Reformation (circa 1538). Their point of contact with the Continent passed from Bergen to Copenhagen in the early seventeenth century. In 1709, the Faroe trade (chiefly in exported woolens and imported foodstuffs and timber) became a royal monopoly. The Faroes remained subject to the Danish Crown when Norway passed to Sweden in 1814. In 1816, they were made a Danish county ( amt ) and their ancient parliament, the Løgting, was abolished; it was reconstituted as an advisory assembly in 1852. The monopoly was abolished in 1856, allowing the formation of a native middle class. Traditional open-boat, inshore fishing had already become the mainstay of the export economy, supporting a population that was growing rapidly after centuries of stagnation. The economy grew and diversified as fishing became an increasingly industrialized deep-water pursuit after about 1880. In 1888, a culturally nationalist movement began to gain a wide following. The movement became politicized around the turn of the century. The nation became internally self-governing in 1948.

National Identity. The principal factors shaping national identity have been the long survival of a distinctive way of life and the vernacular; the continuing integrity of village society as fishing supplanted agriculture; the adoption by an ascendant middle class of Danish National-Romantic ideals, including the notion that formal demonstrations of cultural (chiefly linguistic) distinctiveness should have political consequences; and the relative ease of accommodating socioeconomic change within this ideological framework. Other factors include the example of Iceland; an increasing estrangement between the native and Danish elites in the nineteenth century; and, among both Danes and Faroese, a continuing tradition of parliamentary government, the insignificance of religion, race, or noble blood as markers of cultural distinctiveness, and a mutual interest in maintaining close cultural, economic, and constitutional ties.

Ethnic Relations. The nineteenth-century nationalist movement's ideals were largely realized in 1948, when the Faroes won recognition as a culturally distinct, internally self-governing part of the Danish kingdom. Since then, Faroese citizens have been legally defined as Danish citizens with permanent residence in the Faroe Islands, and the Danish state has recognized the country's cultural and political integrity. Faroese nonetheless experience casual prejudice while in Denmark proper. The Faroes' population is essentially monoethnic, and since immigration from abroad has always been slight, considerable internal migration weakens regional identities, and political parties and cultural (including religious) institutions have been nationally rather than regionally based. Informally, one's Faroese identity is marked primarily by speaking Faroese and by having been born or raised in the country. People recognize differences among themselves on the basis of dialect differences and village origins, but these have no political import.

Political Life:

Government. In 1948, the Faroes became an internally self-governing part of the Danish state. As a Danish electoral district, the Faroes elect two representatives to the Danish parliament. The Danish government controls constitutional matters, foreign affairs, defense, and the currency (the Faroese króna is equal to the Danish krone ). The Danish state is officially represented by an appointed high commissioner called the Rigsombudsmand (Faroese, Ríkisumboðsmaður). The central institution of the Faroe's own government is the Løgting, a popularly elected legislature with twenty-five members from the islands' seven electoral districts and up to seven additional members selected so that its composition closely reflects the overall popular vote. As well as its own chairperson, the Løgting chooses a prime minister called the Løgmaour and a cabinet or executive committee (the Landsstýri) chaired by the prime minister. The high commissioner may participate ex officio in a nonvoting capacity in the Løgting. Partisan coalitions form a working majority in the Løgting. At the local level, there are fifty communes, each consisting of one or more towns or villages. Communes are governed by small, popularly elected councils. It is widely anticipated that the Faroes will become fully independent from Denmark if oil is found in Faroese waters. A new constitution is being prepared.

Leadership and Political Officials.Six political parties distinguished chiefly by their stands on national and social issues are currently (1998) represented in the Løgting. In the governing coalition are the People's Party (nationalist and conservative), the Republican Party (nationalist and leftist), and the Self-Rule Party (moderately nationalist and centrist). In opposition are the Social Democratic Party (moderately unionist and leftist), the Union Party (unionist and conservative), and the Center Party (centrist). Party affiliation plays only a small role in village-level politics; local leaders are chosen on the basis of individual reputations and expertise and personal and kinship ties. Political figures are not treated with any particular deference or circumspection.

Social Problems and Control. The Faroes' judicial system is thoroughly integrated with Denmark's. The Faroes constitute a Danish judicial district; the chief justice, the head prosecutor, and the police chief are Crown appointees responsible to the Ministry of Justice in Copenhagen; Danish higher courts have appellate jurisdiction; and Faroese are subject, with minor exceptions, to Danish law. Faroese are generally law-abiding, and crimes against persons are rare. Apart from traffic violations, the most frequent crimes are vandalism, burglary, and unlawful entry. Formal punishments include jail sentences, fines, and/or paying restitution. Informal methods of social control are directed against presumption, foolishness, and individualism that goes beyond eccentricity. They include a close, often bemused knowledge of one's fellow villagers, and linguistic expedients such as giving slighting nicknames, telling humorous anecdotes, and composing satirical ballads. Informal controls are shaped and mitigated by the fact that cooperation is highly valued while divisiveness and wanton gossiping are considered scandalous. Thus, slighting nicknames, anecdotes, and topics that might offend someone are avoided in their subjects' hearing.

Military Activity. NATO maintains a small unarmed presence at a radar base. Danish and Faroese vessels provide coast guard services.

Marriage, Family and Kinship:

Marriage. Faroese choose their spouses freely. Marriage is always monogamous and usually neolocal. Among the population over 20 years of age, 72 percent are married, widowed, or divorced. Spouses may hold property jointly or individually and how they treat their earnings is a matter of personal preference. Divorce remains uncommon. Divorced and widowed individuals may remarry freely. It has become common for young couples to live together without marrying until the birth of a child.

Domestic Unit. The basic domestic unit is the nuclear family household, sometimes also including an aged parent or a foster child.

Inheritance. As a rule, all property except leaseholds is inherited by a person's children.

Kin Groups. Descent is reckoned bilaterally, with a patrilineal bias. "Family" (colloquially familja ) means both the members of a household ( hús , húski ) and, more loosely, an individual's closest relatives. An ætt is a patrilineage associated with an eponymous homestead, but neolocal marriage attenuates lineage affiliation after a couple of generations except among individuals who still live in the old homestead. There are no corporate kin groups except insofar as the family coincides with the household.

Socialization:

Infant Care. Infants generally sleep in cribs in the parents' bedroom. Older children sleep in their own beds, usually in a room with siblings of the same sex and of roughly the same age. Infants and small children play freely in the house where someone can keep an eye on them (often in the kitchen) or occasionally in a playpen. Tucked warmly into a baby carriage, they often are taken for strolls by the mother or an older sister. They are quickly calmed when upset, often dandled or entertained, and distracted from dangerous or unsuitable activities. Men and boys are affectionate with infants and children, but most care is provided by women and girls.

Child Rearing and Education. Children play freely in and around the village, mostly in same-sex, same-age groups, but day care facilities are becoming more common, especially in larger towns. Physical punishment is very rare. Getting along well with others is emphasized at home, among peers, and at school. Formal education usually begins at age 7, in public (communal) primary schools. Children may leave school after the seventh grade, but nearly all continue through the tenth. After leaving their home villages, many go on to pursue general studies or specialized training; some seek further training in navigation, nursing, commerce, teaching, etc. There are no important formal or folk initiation ceremonies. Minor ones include confirmation at about age 13 and school graduation.

Higher Education. The Faroese Academy (Fróðskaparsetur Føroya) in Tórshavn grants higher degrees in a few subjects, but university-level studies in most academic subjects, medicine, and theology are pursued in Denmark or abroad. Learning is respected, and education past secondary schooling is highly valued, in part as a route to high-paying occupations. Especially for men, however,occupations requiring practical expertise, public cooperation, and egalitarian relationships provide a more secure reputation.

This is only a sample of the information available on the website. Check out the site to learn more details. Visit: http://www.everyculture.com/Cr-Ga/Faroe-Islands.html

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References:

Advameg. 2009. "Culture of Faroe Islands". Everyculture.com. Available online: http://www.everyculture.com/Cr-Ga/Faroe-Islands.html