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“Most public policy is based on offering people incentives and disincentives,” Berns says. “Our findings indicate that it’s unreasonable to think that a policy based on costs-and-benefits analysis will influence people’s behavior when it comes to their sacred personal values, because they are processed in an entirely different brain system than incentives.”
Research participants who reported more active affiliations with organizations, such as churches, sports teams, musical groups and environmental clubs, had stronger brain activity in the same brain regions that correlated to sacred values. “Organized groups may instill values more strongly through the use of rules and social norms,” Berns says…
“As culture changes, it affects our brains, and as our brains change, that affects our culture. You can’t separate the two,” Berns says…
Future conflicts over politics and religion will likely play out biologically, Berns says. Some cultures will choose to change their biology, and in the process, change their culture, he notes. He cites the battles over women’s reproductive rights and gay marriage as ongoing examples. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem based on a cultural shift that challenges people’s sacred values.
Journaling Prompt: Write about your personal values and how you feel if they are challenged.
Art Prompt: Brain and Societal Change
Photo Credit: mariopiperni on Flickr
Distrust is the central motivating factor behind why religious people dislike atheists, according to a new study led by University of British Columbia psychologists.
“Where there are religious majorities — that is, in most of the world — atheists are among the least trusted people,” says lead author Will Gervais, a doctoral student in UBC’s Dept. of Psychology. “With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people.”…
“This antipathy is striking, as atheists are not a coherent, visible or powerful social group,” says Gervais, who co-authored the study with UBC Associate Prof. Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff of the University of Oregon. The study is titled, Do You Believe in Atheists? Distrust is Central to Anti-Atheist Prejudice…
The religious behaviors of others may provide believers with important social cues, the researchers say. “Outward displays of belief in God may be viewed as a proxy for trustworthiness, particularly by religious believers who think that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them,” says Norenzayan. “While atheists may see their disbelief as a private matter on a metaphysical issue, believers may consider atheists’ absence of belief as a public threat to cooperation and honesty.” -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a character sketch about your character’s religious beliefs. Include how he or she feels about people who hold different beliefs.
Journaling Prompt: Write about the biases that you have towards people who hold religious beliefs that are different from your own.
Art Prompt: Religion
Photo Credit: Life in Flintville on Flickr
When I used the toilet, I sat on the front edge of the seat, watching the water beneath me, and scooted off as soon as I was done. I had seen a cartoon in a book at Grandpa Abner’s that showed a fish leaping out of a toilet bowl and a woman staring at it with big eyes. I thought that was funny and I knew it was impossible, but I didn’t think there was any reason to take chances. -Will Shetterly, Dogland (free download)
Writing Prompt: Write a scene or story about something living in the plumbing or sewer system.
Journaling Prompt: What irrational fears do you have based on an urban legend?
Art Prompt: What’s in the plumbing?
Photo Credit: Vagabond Shutterbug on Flickr
Why are some places more prone to bribery and corruption than others? Part of the answer seems to be the level of collective feeling in a society, according to research by Pankaj Aggarwal, University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) professor of marketing in the Department of Management, and Nina Mazar, University of Toronto professor of marketing.
Aggarwal and Mazar discovered that people in more collectivist cultures — in which individuals see themselves as interdependent and as part of a larger society — are more likely to offer bribes than people from more individualistic cultures. Their work suggests that people in collectivist societies may feel less individually responsible for their actions, and therefore less guilty about offering a bribe…
Adjusted for wealth, the degree of collectivism in a country predicted just how likely a business person was to offer a bribe to a business partner.
It’s not that those business people saw bribes as acceptable — other surveys have shown that bribery is widely seen as morally repugnant across cultures… -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Create a situation in which your character must use bribery to achieve his or her goal.
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever resorted to bribery? If not money, perhaps you’ve used chocolate? Hmmm?
Art Prompt: Bribery
Photo Credit: imtfi on Flickr
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Children are becoming more sophisticated about image at younger and younger ages.
…even very young children have a great deal of knowledge about the clothing retail sector and they know exactly which shops will sell the kind of clothing they want.
[Researchers] also found a strong association between family culture and the value children placed on brands and logos, citing two cases, ‘Robert’ and ‘Hayley’ (not their real names).
Robert came from a family where brands and designer fashions were valued, and he ‘name-dropped’ constantly about the brands of his clothes. Hayley, on the other hand, came from a family with little disposable income, where brands and logos were of so little importance that she had difficulty in understanding what the terms meant.
Parents, however, do not have it all their own way. Dr Pilcher commented: “There are a variety of fashion influences on children and you can’t ignore the pressures from their peer groups, especially friends of the same sex, and their ideas of what is cool.”
A further influence on young children is the celebrity culture, which they may wish to copy or they may reject. The skimpy clothing of singers Beyoncé and Kylie were not always admired by girls, who thought it was rude to show so much bare skin…
Children who do not participate in that culture, however, can be isolated from their peers in a form of social exclusion. This, Dr Pilcher says, is something to be borne in mind by teachers when considering school uniform policies and by parents doing battle with their children on the shop floor. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about a young child shopping for clothes.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a shopping trip for clothing from your own childhood. If you have children, compare it to a shopping trip with them.
Art Prompt: Children’s fashion
Photo Credit: Jason Hargrove on Flickr
If you’re writing about teens, consider including music in your story.
The amount of music that 8- to 18-year-olds listen to has increased by 45 percent in recent years, rising dramatically with the popularity of MP3 players, such as iPods. Previous research has indicated that there is a strong link between exposure to sexual media (on screen and in music) and sexual activity. Teens tend to overestimate the sexual activity of their peers and one source of this misperception is the entertainment media. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about a teenager listening to music. What do the lyrics mean to him or her? What thoughts arise? What actions do the lyrics prompt?
Journaling Prompt: How does music and the lyrics affect you?
Art Prompt: Music
Photo Credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ on Flickr
What would happen if something rare, and therefore valuable, all of the sudden became common?
A lovely world indeed is Galgala the golden, where myriads of auriferous microorganisms excrete atoms of gold as metabolic waste. It is everywhere on this planet, the lustrous pretty metal. It turns the rivers and streams to streaks of yellow flame and the seas to shimmering golden mirrors. Huge filters are deployed at the intake valve of Galgala’s reservoirs to strain the silt of dissolved gold from the water supply. The plants of Galgala are turgid in every tissue, leaf and stem and root, with aureous particles. Gold dust, held in suspension in the air, transforms the clouds to golden fleece.
Therefore the once-precious stuff has grievously lost value throughout the galaxy since Galgala was discovered, and on Galgala itself a pound of gold is worth less than a pound of soap. But I understand very little about these economic matters and care even less. Only a miser could fail to rejoice in Galgala’s luminous beauty. We have been here six weeks; we have awakened each morning to the tinkle of golden chimes, we have bathed in the golden rivers and come forth shining, we have wrapped our bodies round with delicate golden chains. -Robert Silverberg, The Travelers
Writing Prompt: Create a story about a valuable commodity that suddenly becomes common. What happens to your world?
Journaling Prompt: What beautiful and/or rare item do you wish were common and why?
Art Prompt: Gold
Photo Credit: miong on Flickr
I grew up in a small town in Michigan where there were no fences between houses. Now, I live in the Phoenix area, where everyone has a 5 foot high block privacy fence separating them from their neighbors. It was interesting to read this new study.
A new study from the University of Missouri shows that increasing trust in neighbors is associated with better self-reported health.
“I examined the idea of ‘relative position,’ or where one fits into the income distribution in their local community, as it applies to both trust of neighbors and self-rated health,” said Eileen Bjornstrom, an assistant professor of sociology in the MU College of Arts and Science. “Because human beings engage in interpersonal comparisons in order to gauge individual characteristics, it has been suggested that a low relative position, or feeling that you are below another person financially, leads to stress and negative emotions such as shame, hostility and distrust, and that health suffers as a consequence. While most people aren’t aware of how trust impacts them, results indicated that trust was a factor in a person’s overall health.”
“I was surprised about the direction in which relative position was linked to distrust. If affluent individuals are less likely to trust their poorer neighbors, it could be beneficial to attempt to overcome some of the distrust that leads to poor health,” Bjornstrom said. “It is possible that shared community resources that promote interaction, such as sidewalks and parks, could help bridge the neighborhood trust gap, and also promote health and well-being. Residents of all economic statuses might then benefit if community cohesion was increased. Additional research can address those questions.” -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Create a community in your world and write about how the trust/distrust of the inhabitants relates to their health.
Journaling Prompt: How is your community laid out? Does the design of your community affect your relationship with your neighbors?
Art Prompt: Community
Photo Credit: Mike Babiarz on Flickr
Before the written word, traditions and teachings were passed on through complicated dance, rituals and reenactments:
…hunt reenactments served a purpose greater than showing off. They were instructive. With expressive pantomime, and a few props, they demonstrated hunting techniques and tactics to youngsters and other clans. It was a way of developing and sharing skills. -Jean Auel, The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth’s Children, Book One)
Writing Prompt: Write a scene where a tradition or skill was passed on via reenactment.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when someone taught you something through demonstration.
Art Prompt: Hunt
Photo Credit: M Hillier on Flickr
Spoiler alerts abound on the Internet, but do spoilers really spoil the enjoyment?
“Spoilers don’t spoil stories. Contrary to popular wisdom, they actually seem to enhance enjoyment.
“Even ironic-twist and mystery stories — which you’d be forgiven for assuming absolutely depend on suspense or surprise for success — aren’t spoiled by spoilers, according to a study by Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt of UC San Diego’s psychology department, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science…
“Why? The answers go beyond the scope of the study, but one possibility is perhaps the simplest one: that plot is overrated.
“‘Plots are just excuses for great writing. What the plot is is (almost) irrelevant. The pleasure is in the writing,’ said Christenfeld, a UC San Diego professor of social psychology…
“It’s also possible that it’s “easier” to read a spoiled story. Other psychological studies have shown that people have an aesthetic preference for objects that are perceptually easy to process.
“‘So it could be,’ said Leavitt, a psychology doctoral student at UC San Diego, ‘that once you know how it turns out, it’s cognitively easier — you’re more comfortable processing the information — and can focus on a deeper understanding of the story.’
“Stories are a universal element of human culture, the backbone of the billion-dollar entertainment industry, and the medium through which religion and societal values are transmitted,” the researchers write. In other words, narratives are incredibly important. But their success doesn’t seem to hinge on simple suspense. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: How important is surprise to your story? Do you let your readers in on the surprise? Do you use foreshadowing as a spoiler? Do you agree or disagree with this study? Will it change how you structure your stories?
Journaling Prompt: How do you feel about spoilers?
Art Prompt: Spoiler alert
Photo Credit: G. Turner on Flickr
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