Monday, February 20, 2012
The 99%
Do you ever wonder if the top 1% is doing all they can to keep the 99% from ever reaching the top 1% economically? Do we in the U.S. have anybody in Washington DC looking out for the 99% or are they just looking out for themselves and the 1% because they know who really has the power?
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Gay marriage OK'd in Washington state
Article by: KIM MURPHY , Los Angeles Times
In a boisterous ceremony at the state Capitol in Olympia, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire -- a Catholic who weathered strong opposition, including a last-minute "action alert" from the state's Catholic Church leadership -- signed legislation to give same-sex couples the same right to a marriage license as anyone else.
"Look into your hearts and ask yourselves: 'Isn't it time?'" said Gregoire, a Democrat, as cheering supporters chanted, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
Also Monday, the New Jersey Senate passed a bill approving same-sex marriage, but the ultimate outcome in that state was expected to be different. Although the state Assembly is also expected to approve the measure on Thursday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, has vowed to veto the bill should it reach his desk.
In Washington state, the new law exempts churches, religious institutions and members of the clergy from participating in same-sex marriages if it goes against their beliefs -- a compromise aimed at hundreds of churches whose members phoned and e-mailed lawmakers in an attempt to defeat the bill. Several faith organizations signed on in support of the measure, however, Gregoire noted.
"Years from now, our kids will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about, but those of us who lived through the last 20 years appreciate how challenging this has been," said state Sen. Jamie Pedersen, a Democrat, who sponsored the bill through its contentious charge through the Legislature. On Monday, he introduced onlookers to his "future husband," a former high school administrator who stood on the sidelines cradling one of the couple's four children.
The issue is far from over, however. Conservative and religious leaders have vowed to begin collecting signatures for a referendum to overturn the new law.
The statute, set to take effect on June 7, would be held in abeyance if referendum proponents succeed in placing it on the November ballot.
"Much hangs in the balance over the next few months. This is a time for people of faith to work together," Gary Randall, president of the Faith & Freedom Network, said in an appeal to supporters.
He added in another statement: "This is a dark day for people of faith and those who honor natural, traditional marriage."
A separate initiative proposal to define marriage as occurring between one man and one woman is pending before a judge in Thurston County and also could make its way to the ballot.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Why do girls engage in those terrible friendship wars?
By Dr. Terri Apter
Created Apr 1 2009 - 3:36am
Why is it girls' friendships that are so often troubled that teachers and school counsellors note that much of their non academic work with adolescent girls is about friendship struggles dilemmas that they also feel perplexed about how to handle. "Girls are in my office all day complaining about each other," said one middle school principal. "One day one's feelings are hurt. The next day it's another. I wish I knew how to make this easier for them." A school counsellor remarked, "The girls aren't violent as often as boys, but they take their fights more personally, and argue more, and come to us constantly about their problems with other girls. It's really hard to help them."
Well, what I say about girls' and women's friendships may also be true of many male friendships: certainly, in the early years, for both boys and girls, play with other kids is a major social enterprise. But friendship is clearly experienced - and performed - differently for girls and for boys. By the age of four, girls and boys segregate themselves when they play with peers and when they form friendships. Girls choose girls; boys choose boys. If boys try to join a group of girls, they usually mean to cause trouble. If a girl tries to join a group of boys, she is very likely to be rejected. This segregation seems to be universal - across culture and class, and occurs - especially in a school context, even when the adults try to mix the children. Boys and girls like playing with different things, and they also have very different play styles, and distinctive cultures emerge in all-girls groups and in all-boy groups. Boys are more "physical" in their play that girls, and engage in a good deal of roughhousing. They form more obvious, and more stable, hierarchies, and engage more directly in competition with one another (fifty per cent of the play time, versus one per cent of girls' play time). Girls sustain long, turn-taking conversations more often than boys. More often than boys, girls express agreement with a friend's suggestions. When they make suggestions of their own, they often add a tag question (shall we? should we?) Boys are more likely to use direct imperatives: ` give me, put it there', or prohibitions: `don't do that', `get away from that'.
Conflict in girls' groups can also go unnoticed because it is usually indirect: the competition is for the more nebulous good of popularity (not, as in boys' games who can throw furthest, who's the strongest); but who is best liked, who's most likeable, or popular, or who is closer to the girl whom everyone likes. The chief commodity in the girls' community is intimacy. Girls monitor their friendships for subtle shifts in alliances, and they seek to be friends with popular girls. Popularity is a kind of status, but it also brings problems. Popular girls were often disliked because they can be envied, they can be the target of gossip, and they can be considered stuck up. Because the most important thing in girls' friendship is intimacy, they cannot have masses of friends, and so a popular girl, who attracts lots of other girls, must reject some of those girls in order to preserve the intimacy in the relationships she has. This makes her seem to others stuck up.
Popularity is dangerous, too, because it is transient. Girls' hierarchies are much less stable than those of boys', and so girls' are acutely aware of subtle nuances of inclusion and exclusion. Girls' emphasis on closeness and intimacy and understanding - does not always lead to nice and thoughtful behaviour. Such concern about intimacy arouses envy and anxiety. Alienating tactics - excluding someone from play, and spreading negative gossip about a girl, increase sharply with age, and such tactics are almost never mentioned by boys. This buried conflict causes girls' enormous pain - yet friendships are too important to give up, just because they often hurt. Learning to negotiate the pitfalls of friendship begins to seem the core of existence to the growing girl: the potential for rejection, alongside the dependence, makes friendships both powerful and dangerous - but few girls, or women, would give them up: many say, "I don't know who I'd be without my friends."
Terri Apter and Ruthellen Josselson are the authors of Best Friends: the pleasures and perils of girls' and women's friendships.
Parenting and Popular Culture: Is This the Future of American Values?
By Jim Taylor, Ph.D.
In researching my next parenting book, I came across several recent studies that I found truly disturbing. As you will see shortly, the results don't paint a pretty picture for the future of our children or our society as a whole. Even more damning is what it tells us about how parents are raising their children these days. Let's take a look a the findings.
One study analyzed the values expressed on the most popular television shows among so-called tweens (children ages 9-11) every decade from 1967 to 2007. Just so you can get a sense of how TV viewing has changed, here are the shows that were selected:1967: Andy Griffith, The Lucy Show; 1977: Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days; 1986: Growing Pains, Alf; 1997: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World; 2007: American Idol, Hannah Montana.
The results revealed little change in values presented on the shows between 1967 and 1997, during which time, the five most expressed values were Community Feeling, Benevolence, Image, Tradition, and Popularity (three out of the five would generally be considered healthy). The five least expressed values were Fame, Physical Fitness, Hedonism, Spiritualism, and Financial Success (three out of five would generally be considered unhealthy).
Only during the most recent decade did a dramatic shift in values occur. The new top-five values were Fame, Achievement, Popularity, Image, and Financial Success (with Self-Centered and Power close behind). Related values that also became more prominent included Ambition, Comparison to Others, Attention Seeking, Conceitedness, Glamour, and Materialism. The latest bottom-five values were Spiritualism, Tradition, Security, Conformity, and Benevolence (with Community Feeling to follow). I don't think the so-called values voters of today (or anyone else, for that matter) would have a hard time judging which would be considered healthy values and which wouldn't be.
An additional analysis of the data revealed a significant increase from 1997 to 2007 in the importance of fame to the main characters in the television shows. If you look at the popular tween shows today, for example, iCarly, they largely revolve around a young person pursuing fame and fortune, specifically through television, music, or fashion. I don't know about you, but just reading these findings makes me want to pack my wife and two young daughters in our car and live off the grid in northern Idaho.
Given that the values did not gradually shift during the decades studied, but rather changed abruptly in the last decade, the results can't be readily attributed to demographic patterns related to increased wealth or education. Instead, the most dramatic change, and the likely cause of these results in my view, is the rapid and all-encompassing emergence of new technology, which has given popular culture new and startling reach and influence on children.
Programming that expresses these value messages to your children are growing by the year. Since the data from this study were collected, more televisions shows aimed at the tween audience are being produced, including Glee, Big Time Rush, Victorious, and True Jackson. In fact, seven out of the top ten shows aimed at tweens are about teenagers who have achieved fame with careers in entertainment. Additionally, video games, such as Guitar Hero (in which everyone can be a rock star), and web sites, including Stardoll.com (the motto of which is "fame, fashion and friends"), help create media "supersystems" that envelop children in unhealthy values.
Of course, you could argue, as the creator of several of these tween TV shows does, that all children want to be stars and that the producers of these media are just giving tweens what they want. But that would be like saying that America was clamoring for American Idol or iPods before they were introduced (not true, of course). Admittedly, America is screaming for them now, but the causal direction of this relationship is clear.
You might also contend that your children aren't paying attention to popular culture's value messages, much less internalizing them. Unfortunately, preliminary research indicates that children are getting the messages from popular culture. According to a new focus-group study by the same researchers, fame is now the number-one aspirational value among children nine to eleven years old. Another surveyof children under ten years of age found that, among their ten favorite things, being famous, attractive, and rich topped the list and being fat topped the list of worst things.
So, what does this say about the values our children are learning? Well, nothing good, that's for sure. These distorted values are definitely not going to prepare them for life in adulthood where, for most of us, narcissism and aspirations of wealth and fame don't usually play well with reality.
And who's to blame? We can't blame children because they're the victims here. It would be easy to point the finger at the "entertainment-industrial complex," but that would be like blaming sharks for killing their prey; it's simply what their DNA tells them to do. How about our government? Though some reasonable regulations of, for example, marketing to children on television, wouldn't seem unreasonable, even as someone with a decidedly left-leaning bent, I just don't believe it's the government's job to raise children. So, who's left? The parents, of course, who should be offering their children healthy values and perspectives that counterbalance the twisted values of popular culture.
Am I optimistic about future generations of our children (and for American society)? It all depends on whether parents are ready to step up and do what's best for their children. In other words, no, I'm not very optimistic.
In researching my next parenting book, I came across several recent studies that I found truly disturbing. As you will see shortly, the results don't paint a pretty picture for the future of our children or our society as a whole. Even more damning is what it tells us about how parents are raising their children these days. Let's take a look a the findings.
One study analyzed the values expressed on the most popular television shows among so-called tweens (children ages 9-11) every decade from 1967 to 2007. Just so you can get a sense of how TV viewing has changed, here are the shows that were selected:1967: Andy Griffith, The Lucy Show; 1977: Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days; 1986: Growing Pains, Alf; 1997: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World; 2007: American Idol, Hannah Montana.
The results revealed little change in values presented on the shows between 1967 and 1997, during which time, the five most expressed values were Community Feeling, Benevolence, Image, Tradition, and Popularity (three out of the five would generally be considered healthy). The five least expressed values were Fame, Physical Fitness, Hedonism, Spiritualism, and Financial Success (three out of five would generally be considered unhealthy).
Only during the most recent decade did a dramatic shift in values occur. The new top-five values were Fame, Achievement, Popularity, Image, and Financial Success (with Self-Centered and Power close behind). Related values that also became more prominent included Ambition, Comparison to Others, Attention Seeking, Conceitedness, Glamour, and Materialism. The latest bottom-five values were Spiritualism, Tradition, Security, Conformity, and Benevolence (with Community Feeling to follow). I don't think the so-called values voters of today (or anyone else, for that matter) would have a hard time judging which would be considered healthy values and which wouldn't be.
An additional analysis of the data revealed a significant increase from 1997 to 2007 in the importance of fame to the main characters in the television shows. If you look at the popular tween shows today, for example, iCarly, they largely revolve around a young person pursuing fame and fortune, specifically through television, music, or fashion. I don't know about you, but just reading these findings makes me want to pack my wife and two young daughters in our car and live off the grid in northern Idaho.
Given that the values did not gradually shift during the decades studied, but rather changed abruptly in the last decade, the results can't be readily attributed to demographic patterns related to increased wealth or education. Instead, the most dramatic change, and the likely cause of these results in my view, is the rapid and all-encompassing emergence of new technology, which has given popular culture new and startling reach and influence on children.
Programming that expresses these value messages to your children are growing by the year. Since the data from this study were collected, more televisions shows aimed at the tween audience are being produced, including Glee, Big Time Rush, Victorious, and True Jackson. In fact, seven out of the top ten shows aimed at tweens are about teenagers who have achieved fame with careers in entertainment. Additionally, video games, such as Guitar Hero (in which everyone can be a rock star), and web sites, including Stardoll.com (the motto of which is "fame, fashion and friends"), help create media "supersystems" that envelop children in unhealthy values.
Of course, you could argue, as the creator of several of these tween TV shows does, that all children want to be stars and that the producers of these media are just giving tweens what they want. But that would be like saying that America was clamoring for American Idol or iPods before they were introduced (not true, of course). Admittedly, America is screaming for them now, but the causal direction of this relationship is clear.
You might also contend that your children aren't paying attention to popular culture's value messages, much less internalizing them. Unfortunately, preliminary research indicates that children are getting the messages from popular culture. According to a new focus-group study by the same researchers, fame is now the number-one aspirational value among children nine to eleven years old. Another surveyof children under ten years of age found that, among their ten favorite things, being famous, attractive, and rich topped the list and being fat topped the list of worst things.
So, what does this say about the values our children are learning? Well, nothing good, that's for sure. These distorted values are definitely not going to prepare them for life in adulthood where, for most of us, narcissism and aspirations of wealth and fame don't usually play well with reality.
And who's to blame? We can't blame children because they're the victims here. It would be easy to point the finger at the "entertainment-industrial complex," but that would be like blaming sharks for killing their prey; it's simply what their DNA tells them to do. How about our government? Though some reasonable regulations of, for example, marketing to children on television, wouldn't seem unreasonable, even as someone with a decidedly left-leaning bent, I just don't believe it's the government's job to raise children. So, who's left? The parents, of course, who should be offering their children healthy values and perspectives that counterbalance the twisted values of popular culture.
Am I optimistic about future generations of our children (and for American society)? It all depends on whether parents are ready to step up and do what's best for their children. In other words, no, I'm not very optimistic.
Should Teachers and Students Be “Friends” Online?
Published on February 7, 2012 by Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, MS, LPC in Teen Angst
Sam was on his Facebook account and searched for his favorite teacher, Ms. Sawyer. He clicked to find out more information about her when a message popped up "Janice only shares some information publicly. If you know Janice, add her as a friend or send her a message." Sam clicked the friend request. A few hours later Janice, I mean Ms. Sawyer, accepted Sam's request. Sam went straight to her page. He scrolled through her friends and then went to her photos. He saw pictures of her with friends and family, at the beach (in a bikini), and "jackpot" at a party drinking, dancing and wearing almost next to nothing. "This is good stuff" Sam thought. Sam chose the pictures he liked and then right mouse clicked and saved them to his desktop. He then posted them on his Facebook page. When this got out Ms. Sawyer found herself sitting in front of her principal trying to explain the situation. "Well, Sam sent me an invite to be his friend on Facebook and I forgot all about those pictures..." This is where the Balladeer in the Dukes of Hazzard would come in... "Well folks, I think we all would agree, this wouldn't be a predicament that any of us would want to be in."
There are some educators who don't believe teachers should interact with students on social platforms. First, there are some real ethical concerns. There have been documented stories of teachers who have ended up in sexual relations with students and these relationships began online. Teachers also need to be careful of what they post because some teachers have been terminated because of their online behavior. Professionally, there needs to be clear boundaries established between private and professional lives. As in the example of Ms. Sawyer, imagine being Sam and how those pictures changed or tarnished his image of his English teacher. Sam's once favorite and respected teacher had lost her credibility and rather than seeing her as his instructor he kept thinking about all of those pictures he stumbled across. Bottom line - teachers are educators and role models and shouldn't be "friends" with their students.
Sam was on his Facebook account and searched for his favorite teacher, Ms. Sawyer. He clicked to find out more information about her when a message popped up "Janice only shares some information publicly. If you know Janice, add her as a friend or send her a message." Sam clicked the friend request. A few hours later Janice, I mean Ms. Sawyer, accepted Sam's request. Sam went straight to her page. He scrolled through her friends and then went to her photos. He saw pictures of her with friends and family, at the beach (in a bikini), and "jackpot" at a party drinking, dancing and wearing almost next to nothing. "This is good stuff" Sam thought. Sam chose the pictures he liked and then right mouse clicked and saved them to his desktop. He then posted them on his Facebook page. When this got out Ms. Sawyer found herself sitting in front of her principal trying to explain the situation. "Well, Sam sent me an invite to be his friend on Facebook and I forgot all about those pictures..." This is where the Balladeer in the Dukes of Hazzard would come in... "Well folks, I think we all would agree, this wouldn't be a predicament that any of us would want to be in."
While most educators behave appropriately online, there are a few who don't. And as the saying goes, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. It only takes one teacher appearing on national television not using common sense online to taint the perception of educators across the nation. It is because of this that school districts across the US are scrambling to create policies that limit or ban conversations between educators and students via texting and social media platforms. Today school districts are trying to balance not only cyberbullying, but also freedom of speech and rights of privacy. The latter two don't just apply to students but to educators as well. Research is revealing that educators are being fired because of what they're posting and doing online.
In order to protect themselves, many school districts require teachers to sign some form of acceptable use policy regarding electronic communication use. Most school systems warn teachers to use caution when communicating with students online and to be wary of what they post. Teachers who behave inappropriately or have online pictures of themselves drinking, partying, etc. could face termination.
So, how does all of this affect you? Where do you draw the line? Should your child's teacher be his/her "virtual friend"? The answer may not be straight forward because it all depends on who you ask.
Proponents of educators using social media platforms to communicate with students argue that technology is a great teaching tool. They feel that social media is a positive way to connect to students in the world they live in. Students are online so much that closing a door to reach out to them is an opportunity missed. Plus, they feel that restricting their access to communicate online infringes on their constitutional rights.
Teachers not only teach content but they also instill values to help their students become outstanding and productive citizens. Educators teach youth by their own examples. Home and personal life don't need to spill over into the classroom. So teachers need to establish boundaries and keep their private lives, private. Aside from family, teachers spend the second largest amount of time with teens. They need to realize that they are role models both inside and outside of the classroom. Educators play a pivotal role in shaping the youth of today. Their job is invaluable to our society and should be one of the most respected positions in our nation.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Personality and Brand Choice: Can Your Favorite Brands Reveal Your EQ?
After reading take the survey and discus your results
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Ph.D.
Although marketeers regularly speak about "brand personality," they rarely profile brands or products with the rigor of psychological tools (especially those used to profile people). Yet it is quite obvious that different brands have different reputations, and that we can only assess a brand's reputation by exploring consumers' perceptions.
A couple of decades ago psychologists identified the major dimensions underlying brand personality. This work, led by US psychologist Jennifer Aaker, suggested that perceptions of brands - and products - can be classified according to 5 major dimenions: (a) sincerity, (b) excitement, (c) competence, (d) sophistication, and (e) ruggedness. Related studies showed that people's choices are a reflection of the extent to which their own personality, specifically their self-image or identity, is congruent with the reputation of a brand. For instance, if you think of yourself as sophisticated you will prefer more sophisticated brands or products over their less sophisticated alternatives--and hopefully you will also be able to afford them, too! Likewise, if you see yourself as an exciting person you will prefer more exciting brands, and so forth. So far, most studies, and there aren't many, have focused on consumers' "Big Five" personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness), which raises the question of whether other aspects of consumers' identity may predict what their favorite brands are. In our latest study, we explore the relationship between consumers' emotional intelligence (EQ) and their preferences for brands.
Ever since the publication of Daniel Goleman's 1995 best-seller on EQ, there has been a great deal of excitement within the business community for assessing employees' EQ. This is not surprising given that EQ appears to assess elements of human competence that are largely unrelated to IQ and crucial to facilitate team-performance, citizenship behaviour, and the capacity to remain calm under pressure. For the same reasons, one could imagine that consumers' EQ would influence their choices for different brands and products. For instance, people high in EQ tend to be altruistic, sincere, and optimistic; hence one would expect that they should prefer brands that are generally perceived as being altruistic, honest, and positive, etc. Moreover, given that brand personality consists of attributing human-like characteristics to brands (or making an attribution about a brand's reputation using traits such as those employed for describing people), one would also expect consumers' EQ to influence their attitudes towards people. Thus our latest study also explores how people's personality affects their preferences for different celebrities and public figures; specifically, whether these preferences are partly driven by the level of congruence between the raters' own identity and the celebrities' reputation.
The results should help us understand the connection between individual differences and consumer preferences, as well as revealing important information about the reputation of product and human brands. If you would like to take part in our study you can complete our very brief survey and get instant feedback on your results here.
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Ph.D.
Although marketeers regularly speak about "brand personality," they rarely profile brands or products with the rigor of psychological tools (especially those used to profile people). Yet it is quite obvious that different brands have different reputations, and that we can only assess a brand's reputation by exploring consumers' perceptions.
A couple of decades ago psychologists identified the major dimensions underlying brand personality. This work, led by US psychologist Jennifer Aaker, suggested that perceptions of brands - and products - can be classified according to 5 major dimenions: (a) sincerity, (b) excitement, (c) competence, (d) sophistication, and (e) ruggedness. Related studies showed that people's choices are a reflection of the extent to which their own personality, specifically their self-image or identity, is congruent with the reputation of a brand. For instance, if you think of yourself as sophisticated you will prefer more sophisticated brands or products over their less sophisticated alternatives--and hopefully you will also be able to afford them, too! Likewise, if you see yourself as an exciting person you will prefer more exciting brands, and so forth. So far, most studies, and there aren't many, have focused on consumers' "Big Five" personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness), which raises the question of whether other aspects of consumers' identity may predict what their favorite brands are. In our latest study, we explore the relationship between consumers' emotional intelligence (EQ) and their preferences for brands.
Ever since the publication of Daniel Goleman's 1995 best-seller on EQ, there has been a great deal of excitement within the business community for assessing employees' EQ. This is not surprising given that EQ appears to assess elements of human competence that are largely unrelated to IQ and crucial to facilitate team-performance, citizenship behaviour, and the capacity to remain calm under pressure. For the same reasons, one could imagine that consumers' EQ would influence their choices for different brands and products. For instance, people high in EQ tend to be altruistic, sincere, and optimistic; hence one would expect that they should prefer brands that are generally perceived as being altruistic, honest, and positive, etc. Moreover, given that brand personality consists of attributing human-like characteristics to brands (or making an attribution about a brand's reputation using traits such as those employed for describing people), one would also expect consumers' EQ to influence their attitudes towards people. Thus our latest study also explores how people's personality affects their preferences for different celebrities and public figures; specifically, whether these preferences are partly driven by the level of congruence between the raters' own identity and the celebrities' reputation.
The results should help us understand the connection between individual differences and consumer preferences, as well as revealing important information about the reputation of product and human brands. If you would like to take part in our study you can complete our very brief survey and get instant feedback on your results here.
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