Conformity can be risky business

by Charley Button

Conformity By Simon aka Flyblog

You leave the bar with your friends to head home for the night. They cross the street despite the red hand signaling “Don’t Walk.” You weigh the potential risk of oncoming traffic against ostracization from your group. In this scenario, you can either break the law by jaywalking or break with your friends momentarily. A self-preservation instinct to maintain group identity conflicts with your concern for safety and your law-abiding conscience.

When social and internal pressures compete, societal expectations habitually win out to the detriment of the individual. According to research by McGhie, Lewis, and Hyde (2011), the more you identify with a group, the more likely you are to conform to group behaviors such as “drink walking.” Their study examined the influence of psychosocial factors on individuals’ intentions to drink walk, on a scale of 1 to 7, across four scenarios. These scenarios manipulated the independent variables of high/low conformity and high/low group identity. Each incorporated a risky crossing situation, such as an intoxicated pedestrian walking against a red hand signal. Of the 151 Australian undergraduate students given this questionnaire, a large majority of individuals admitted elevated intentions to drink walk in the presence of their “closest friends” (high group identity), or when their friends were crossing in spite of the red hand signal (high conformity). When alone or with strangers (lacking group identity), subjects reported significantly lower intentions to disobey signals.

In heightened stakes, prioritizing “fitting in” over safety can lead to more serious misjudgments than ignoring pedestrian signals. Research suggests that juvenile crime is strongly influenced by peer behavior, as argued by Patacchini and Zenou (2009). Gang activity accounts for a large portion of underage lawbreaking and demonstrates the impact of neighborhood on social activities and on attitude toward the law. Patacchini and Zenou’s study revealed that petty crimes seem to be inspired by observed behavior of peers and replicated within groups, according to a desire to conform to the group’s norm. Criminal behavior of adolescents can rarely be explained on an individual basis.

In many circumstances, the need for group identity somehow overrides concern for safety, legality, or truth. Young people especially will risk their health and go against their better (individual) judgment, assimilating to a crowd’s bad decision. As Asch (1951) discovered, individuals will doubt their own judgment of the length of a line when contradicted by a group of at least three people. In order to blend in we disregard what our own eyes perceive, even when the norm is incorrect or inadvisable.

Whether it is jumping into the road or jacking a car, you are more likely to do it if your friends are. Take note though: the evolutionary importance of group identity is only beneficial if large numbers contribute to survival. When the group makes bad decisions, the individual’s wellbeing should take priority. To quote everybody’s mother, “If your friends walked off a cliff, would you follow them?”

Does video gaming make you hostile?

by Curtis Smith

Art of Video Games Exhibit 15096 by tedeytan

Videogames are an immensely popular form of entertainment in the United States. In fact, in a national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (2008) of a representative proportion of youth ages 12 to 17, approximately 99% of boys and 94% of girls say that they’ve played some form of videogames. You would certainly be hard-pressed to find a person within this age range that has not played a videogame. Typically, studies have been centralized in the detrimental effects of videogames, of which can be called anti-social behavior. However, recent studies have demonstrated that conversely, exposure to pro-social content can increase pro-social behavior.

The primary argument of the opponents of videogames is against the violent ones. Considerable evidence has indeed been mounted in favor of these claims. In sum, violent videogames promote hostility, anxiety, and violence (Bushman & Anderson, 2002).  In an experiment to test this theory, a pool of randomly assigned undergraduate students played one out of four nonviolent or violent games (Bushman & Anderson, 2002). The subjects would proceed to play three morally unclear story stems. After each story stem participants were asked to state their expectations about the main character’s aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. The results clearly demonstrated skewedness towards aggressive responses, for those who had played aggressive games. After playing a violent game, players attributed over 50% more hostile actions and thoughts to the story character.  The authors raised the possibility  that repeated exposure to these short-term effects can contribute to an aggressive long-term personality.

Despite these findings, it is notable to consider that the game industry has expanded. Violence in gaming is still prevalent and perhaps preferable to many gamers. But the types of games that people are playing now are complex, thought provoking, and intelligent. The dangers of a young person consistently playing a game such as Gears of War 3 in which explicit language and violence is pervasive throughout can be readily understood. But why deny someone access to a game such as Portal 2, which is mentally stimulating, challenging, and filled with witty humor? Rather, perhaps parents should manipulate what types of games they let their children play.

Recent studies have emerged illustrating potential positive effects of videogames. In one study by Greitemeyer and Osswald, participants were asked to partake in two experiments (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2011). First they played either Lemmings as a pro-social videogame or they played a neutral game, Tetris, for ten minutes. The first game was employed as a game in which the participants would save the beings by leading them to the exit. The second game served as a basis for comparison. After they completed the videogames, the subjects, as a “manipulation check,” filled out a questionnaire indicating how pro-social the game was and measures of their liking of the game (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2011) Afterwards, the participants performed what is known as a lexical decision task. A string of words (Pro-social words, neutral words, and non-words) would appear on screen and the subjects were asked to identify whether it was a word or not as quickly as possible.  Subjects recognized the pro-social words faster after playing the pro-social game, compared to after they played the neutral game.

So what do these results mean? It represents evidence that playing a pro-social videogame primes pro-social thoughts in the cognitive network. Played consistently over time, the thoughts could manifest themselves in a person’s actions, thoughts, etc., just as an anti-social game would induce the opposite. Perhaps videogames are potentially more beneficial than any gamer could have thought.

References

Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: A test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(12), 1679-1686.

Greitemeyer, T., & Osswald, S. (2011). Playing prosocial video games increases the accessibility of prosocial thoughts. The Journal of Social Psychology, 151(2), 121-128.

Pew Internet & American Life Project (2008, September 16).  Teens, Video Games and Civics.  Retrieved May 4, 2012 from Pew Research Center Publications, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/953/

TV for Babies?

by Nicole Bronson

Wathing TV by roxeteer

Did you ever watch Barney or Sesame Street growing up?   Nowadays, in addition to Barney and Sesame Street, there are even more TV shows aimed at kids, ranging from a sponge that lives under the sea to a little Spanish-speaking girl who explores with her monkey friend!  There is even an entire TV channel, BabyFirst , which is devoted to TV programs for babies.  Technology, TV especially, seems to be more frequently targeting young kids as well as babies (Christakis & Zimmerman, 2009).  And despite warnings  that early TV exposure should not occur in children under 2 years of age, many parents still allow their children to watch TV younger than this age.  My best friend claims her 2 and 3-year old niece and nephew first started watching TV as soon as they were born! What parents may not know is that by allowing their children to watch TV at very young ages, they may be negatively impacting their children’s future cognitive performance and brains.

A  study conducted at Wake Forest University (2007)  investigated whether or not watching teletubbies teaches 15-24 month-old children new words.  The lead researcher, Marina Krcmar, compared 15-24 month-old children’s abilities to learn new words from teletubbies to their abilities to learn new words from a present adult speaker.  Interestingly, children were much better learning words from responsive adults than from the television program.  Thus, it seems learning new words at very young ages entails interaction with present, human teachers.  Children under the age of 2 may not be reaching their full cognitive and language potential learning from a TV, instead of an adult.

Also acknowledging the importance of determining the relationship between television children’s learning abilities,  the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released a new policy statement  about technology use by children younger than two.  The new statement was created in lieu of technological advancements and new research that has been conducted since the original policy statement was released in 1999.  The original policy statement discouraged media exposure for children under the age of 2.  Meanwhile, the new policy statement also discourages media exposure for this age group, while additionally providing more scientifically backed reasons for why media exposure should be avoided.  Similar to the Wake Forest University study, this new policy claims children under 2 cannot comprehend what they are watching, and therefore do not get much educational benefit from it.  Additionally, media exposure may exert negative health effects on children under age 2, just as it has been shown to do in preschool and elementary school children.  These negative health effects may include increased aggression, attentional problems, sleep troubles and obesity.  Even simply having the TV on in the background may have negative effects on children under age 2.  Focusing on the TV rather than their child, parents may inadvertently take away from the quality of parent-child interactions.  This long list of potential adverse effects due to early media exposure was sufficient enough for the AAP to reaffirm the claim they made in 1999 and continue to discourage media use by children less than 2 years of age.

With an increasing number of children under the age of 2 watching television, it’s important to understand if television does actually induce detrimental effects and if so, how exactly it exerts these effects.  Adverse effects may be influenced by television’s impact on brain development that is occurring very rapidly in children at an early age (Siegler, DeLoache & Eisenberg, 2011).  Although babies’ are born with the majority of neurons they will have for the rest of their lives, many changes occur within and between their neurons, especially early in life.  One such change that takes place is called arborization, where neurons’ dendrites grow and differentiate.  It literally looks like a tree! The development does not end there, however, as neurons then begin to form connections with thousands of other neurons in what is called synaptogenesis.  So many connections are made, however, that some must be pruned.  This synaptic pruning—loss of neuronal connections—occurs in about 40% of the synapses and is mediated by a “use it or lose it” phenomenon.  Basically experience is key in determining which synapses are used and therefore kept and which synapses are not used and therefore pruned.  Sensory experiences babies encounter early on in life are extremely important then for signaling, which neurons are appropriate to maintain and which are appropriate to prune.  The major concern with TV exposure for babies is that it takes away from critical sensory experiences they would have had if not watching TV.  As most TV watching is a passive experience, children are not being exposed to different types of stimuli—olfactory, tactile, gustatory—they may be exposed to if not watching TV.  A member of the AAP Council on Communication and Media, Dr. Brown, recommends that babies, instead of watching television, engage in unstructured play.  Unstructured play is important for motor development, problem solving and creative thinking and thus contributes greatly to sensory experiences.  Furthermore, with less TV distractions, parents and children may be able to interact more, potentially leading to better language development in the child.  Physical interactions are key for sensory development and cannot be sufficiently replaced by a video.

Is screen time ruining our face time?

by Chelsea Boccagno

Everett and Monroe share screen time by cafemama

Imagine yourself in your room, waiting for your friend to come by. He soon enters wearing a yellow cap with dark purple splotches that you find absolutely horrendous. You might instinctively gasp, or widen your eyes. Even worse, he may ask your opinion, and he’ll know from your unconvincing tone that you’re lying when you say you like it. Now imagine that friend sending you a picture of the hat through an online chat. Unable to see or hear you, he can’t know your initial reaction. When he asks your opinion, he won’t know from your typed sentence (“I like it!”) that you actually despise it. It’s obvious that face-to-face communication differs from online interaction: when online, you can’t hear the person’s voice or see any facial expression (and therefore must assume people’s emotions through their use of emoticons or, say, the caps lock button). Regardless, both children and adults use home computers as a frequent means of communication. Yet children are still undergoing social development. Does Internet communication then impact a child’s social growth and understanding of others?

According to a 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, American children between ages 2-17 spend more time using screen media than participating in any other chosen activity, including outside play (Rideout, 2005). Additionally, enhanced access to the home computer increases the child’s total amount of screen time (video games, television, etc.), resulting in decreased face-to-face interaction (Stanger & Gridina, 1999). Modern children just aren’t going to the playground anymore. They might consequently satisfy their urge to interact with others by playing computer games, or having an online conversation. But for children, play has social benefits such as learning how to share and cooperate. Therefore increased indoor time might negatively affect children’s social competence regardless of whether they’re talking to others online.

Besides impacting face-to-face playtime duration, computer interaction may alter the way in which children emotionally understand others. A recent New York Times article expresses concern about technological interaction destroying the intimacy and emotional feedback of face-to-face communication.

How the brain reacts to attractiveness

By 105 Student

Composite images, used to evaluate what features raters found attractive

When you see an attractive person walking down the street you may turn your head to look at him or her. When you see everyone else, they may just be blurs as you pass by on the street. What is the reason you look at the attractive person? Why do humans find some people attractive and others not? The answer lies within the brain.

New research being done by psychologist Nancy Etcoff shows that when human beings see an attractive person the reward centers in the brain fire. Not only this, but humans can differentiate between levels of attractiveness by how heavily reward circuits fire in the brain when different pictures of attractive people are shown to them.   Could the reward centers fire so much that one could become addicted to the beauty of one person…perhaps accounting for love? Yes, many other things factor into the development of a relationship, but stimulation of reward centers in the brain surely help the process. As Psychologist John R. Buri has shown, initial attraction to a person is just a powerful wave of neurotransmitters sent our way.  This essentially creates a brain flooding of many different rewards, including Epinephrine, Dopamine, Phenyl ethylamine and Endorphins. Such powerful rewards for such surface level beauty can suggest many things, including an explanation for the commonly held belief that attractive people are more successful in life. This may possibly be because of the physiological response to seeing an attractive face, and with time and repeated exposure, an addiction, or obsession with a certain person. One would be more likely for instance to hire a person they found to be more attractive because they are rewarded chemically in the brain for being around that person.

Does this mean that universally brains can recognize certain features as attractive and that human brains will reward us for seeing beautiful people? Scientist Gad Saad, seems to suggest so in his article discussing the universal beauty metrics he has argued exist in society.  He argues that although there are some different standards of beauty among different cultures, there are universal beauty metrics in our world that exist everywhere, including a universal preference for symmetric faces and clear skin.

The evolution of ADHD

by Eric Schuman

Photo by by Ptit@l

Research has shown that ADHD (Attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder)  is strongly influenced by genes. It seems as if it is related to a problem within the dopamine reward system of the brain. Difficulties with this system could be the  reason that people with ADHD and ADD (attention deficit disorder) seem to have trouble staying focused.

The bad side of  ADHD is pretty obvious: It makes people seem unfocused, hyperactive. But new research proposes that it has benefits. Why else would the genes associated with ADHD still be in the gene pool?  Researchers Dan Eisenberg of Northwestern University and Ben Campbell of the University of Wisconson, Milwakee, think they have an answer. In a study published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, they posit that the sort of activities associated with ADHD—a want of novelty, behavioral flexibility, being hyper-aware in environments—were in fact advantageous to nomadic herdsman. They  go on to link ADHD to obesity. In the modern world where a scarcity of food (for many but clearly not all) no longer exists, dis-inhibition of seeking pleasure from things like food become exaggerated, leading to obesity. Many  children with ADHD have higher BMI’s (body mass index) than their peers, before they go on  medications that often lead to weight loss, they point out.

Campbell, Eisenberg and their collegues (2008) studied a tribe in Kenya. One half had stayed nomadic, and the other had become agricultural. They  explain that within a nomadic context, the ADHD genes are beneficiary. When in a more sedentary context, those same genes result in increased weight and malnutrition. This allele that contains these genes is, of course, connected with ADHD. Therefore, it seems ADHD is both positive and negative.

Reasons to spend your summer gaming. Or not.

by Aaron Suzuka

Robb's 40th Birthday Party by Abraxas3d

Common game titles such as Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Doom, and Medal of Honor have been blamed for an increase of campus tragedies and youth violence. The two perpetrators of the Columbine tragedy, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were known players of Doom, often reenacting and videotaping violent scenarios similar to the game (Anderson and Dill, 2000).  A number of studies have looked at links between video games and violence.

[Editor's note: Earlier posts have explored the links between video games and violence, spatial skills, business acumen, and post-traumatic stress disorder.]

The General Affective Aggression Model (GAAM) has been used to show a correlation between video games and an increase of aggression in teenagers (Anderson and Dill, 2000).  Subjects were required to spend a certain amount of time playing video games while the researchers observed changes in their behavior throughout the study.  Through the GAAM tests, Anderson and Dill observed that exposure to violence via video games  (Mortal Kombat in the study) was related to an increase in irritability and aggressive behavior.

Another underlying factor in the correlation of video games and violent behavior is video game addiction.   Although true addictions are  associated with alcohol and other drugs, researchers have seen addictive behaviors such as compulsive cravings and use in children who are obsessed with video games.  In Amsterdam, some teens and adults are actually undergoing “detox” for their video cravings. Gaming addiction spawns from a “rush,” similar that in gambling which showed signs of elevated dopamine levels in the brain.  Despite no outside drugs entering the system, the children soon depend on the “rush” and excitement to get through the day or to escape problems in their lives (Rauh, 2006).  Whether it’s a YouTube video of a child screaming at his parents for interrupting his game play  or your college roommate who stays up till the wee hours of the night, the problems are evident.  Along with video game addiction comes factor that could spurn violent behavior: antisocial tendencies, lying to friends and family, and irritability (Rauh, 2006).

Music and Sexualization

by Pam Vogel

Music and Swimming Costumes by Violets and Handshakes

In the 1950s, parents around the world were weary of the dirty rock music invading the airwaves. They were concerned that the vulgar lyrics – yes, Elvis was considered vulgar – would inspire their children to grow into sex-crazed juvenile delinquents. As a nation, we have since developed a much higher tolerance for questionable artistic expression in pop music and now scoff at the modest social norms of the previous century, but new research suggests Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days may have been onto something, after all.

In a world where teenagers and adolescents are becoming sexualized beings at increasingly younger ages, it is important to understand the different sources for such a socially significant change. A February 2009 study from the University of Pittsburgh shows a strong correlation between listening to music with sexually degrading lyrics and sexual activity in teenagers. Ninth grade students that reported listening to over 14 hours of music per week containing degrading lyrics – the group with the highest exposure – were more than twice as likely to engage in sexual activity than their presumably more innocent counterparts were. While the contemporary lyrics students were exposed to were obviously more explicit than the lyrics of Jerry Lee Lewis, the results of this simple observational study indicate a much bigger correlation than one might think.

A more extensive study (Martino et al., 2006) indicates that routine exposure to contemporary popular music – of which 15% was determined to contain degrading lyrics – led to increased likelihood of initiating or progressing in levels of sexual activity among adolescents. The 2006 research also shows that these results are persistent despite the consideration of eighteen other factors that may contribute to sexualization. The study also distinguished between degradingly sexual lyrics and otherwise sexual lyrics, stating that the degrading nature was the cause of increased sexual behavior, whereas sexual lyrics that were not inadvertently offensive had little or no effect on young listeners.

Should school be rewarding?

by Alex Middeleer

We’ve learned in class that animals like rats can be conditioned to perform behaviors if those behaviors are accompanied by a suitable reward schedule.  Can that lesson be applied to high school teenagers?   How do prizes affect school performance?  Some big public schools have recently introduced money as an incentive for students to work harder and produce better statistics.  But academic work is no simple behavior, and humans are complex creatures to reward.  It turns out that blindly throwing rewards at students for doing well can have some serious negative effects.

In New York City and Dallas, Texas, the money plan has been implemented and seems to be working.  Kids are receiving big payments for doing well in school or acing their AP tests. As a result, more students are taking the APs, and more are passing. It’s even rumored that the most successful might be getting thousands of dollars (Guernsey 2009).

But how will those receiving money for their studies perform down the road?  Is this simple reward system doing any good besides increasing the number of AP tests that are passed? Will these kids stop studying as hard once the rewards go away?  It’s not clear whether the programs are completely beneficial.
Psychologists have been analyzing the issue for a while now, and report that there are indeed different types of motivation which affect our desire to work hard.  Extrinsic motivators, like candy or cash, are those simple rewards that encourage us to do something we may or may not want to do.  On the other hand, intrinsic motivation, like the ambition to become a great baseball star, is self-produced (Meyers 2007).

Piercing and tatoos: Out of control?

Photo by Fernando Takai

Take a look at the student bodies at just about any high school or college campus, and you may notice a lot of body art.  Tatoos, once a proud marker of fringe sub-cultures, have become mainstream.  Body piercings (nose, bellybutton, tongue – anywhere but the ear lobes) no longer hold any shock value.  To older observers, it may seem like a fashion statement out of control.  But is there really anything to worry about?

One line of research seems to suggest that there is.  A number of studies (including  Braithwaite et al., 2001, Brooks, et al. 2003 and Suris, et al., 2007) have found  positive correlations between body piercings and risky behaviors, such as having multiple sexual partners, unprotected sex, smoking and illegal drug use.  These studies leave little doubt that young people with body art  engage in more risky behaviors than those who have left their bodies unadorned.

But it would be just as accurate to say that people who engage in risky behaviors are more likely to get a tatoo, or a piercing.  These  correlations tell us very little about which comes first, or cause and effect.   While it is possible that getting a tatoo or a piercing is somehow causing kids to get hooked on sex and drugs, it is hard to imagine a very plausible scenario. (A body piercing makes you a more attractive mate to unsafe partners?  Drug dealers offer special deals to customers with tatoos?)  Another possiblity is that some other factor, perhaps something to do with rebellousness and risk-taking is driving both body art and risky behaviors.   That seems a lot more plausible to me.  Maybe parents, teachers, and other adults should keep their focus on those risky behaviors, and leave the body art out of it.  I would certainly rather see my children and my students rebel by getting a tatoo than by doing something that could really harm them.

There is certainly a lot of interest in body art, judging by the traffic here.  An earlier post on tatoos is far and away the most frequently visited page on this site.  Evidently people find that post by searching through the internet for information on tatoos.

Despite the interest, the prevalence of body art appears to have leveled off, at least according to a study at Pace University.  Lester  Mayers and Sheila  Chiffriller (2008) surveyed  undergraduates at Pace in 2001 and again in 2006.  They found that piercings were more popular than tatoos, and there was little change in the prevalence of either from 2001 to 2006.  Body art is not out of control, but it has become a steady facet of adolescent and young adult life.

There are more interesting tidbits to be gathered from Mayers and Chifriller’s surveys.  They also gathered data on the location of piercings.  Ears were the clear winner, despite excluding women’s ear lobes from the data. Thirty percent of women had a current piercing somewhere in their ear other than the lobe, while 26% of men had a piercing somewhere in their ear, including the lobe.  Next most popular was the navel, which was  pierced in 35% of women, but just 4% of men.  A more alarming statistic was that medical complications from piercings were quite common, about 19% of the sample, and about half of those complications were bacterial infections.  No complications from tatoos were reported, although the authors note that they may be harder to identify.

And perhaps that is what adults and adolescents should actually worry about, with regards to body art.  Make sure that every glove and piece of equipment involved in the process is safe and sterile.  Because no matter how attractive that piercing might seem, there is nothing more unattractive than a festering bacterial infection.

References:

Braithwaite, R., Robillard, A. & Woodring, T. (2001). Tattooing and body piercing among adolescent detainees: Relationship to alcohol and other drug use. Journal of Substance Abuse, 13, 5-16.

Brooks, T. L., Woods, E. R., Knight, J. R. & Shrier, L. A. (2003). Body modification and substance use in adolescents: is there a link. Journal of Adolescent Health, 32, 44–49.

Mayers, L. B.  and  Chiffriller, S. H.  (2008), Body Art (Body Piercing and Tattooing) among Undergraduate University Students: “Then and Now.”  Journal of Adolescent Health (42)  2,  201-203

Suris, J., Jeannin, A.,  Chossis, I. and  Michaud, P. (2007)  “Piercing among adolescents: body art as risk marker: a population-based survey.” Journal of Family Practice (56) 2, 126(5).