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Forked Fungus Beetles Maybe they are your younger brother’s gang. Maybe they are the guys you hung out with in high school before you had your growth spurt and went off to college. Regardless of how you know them, chances are you can name a group of guys who live their lives like perpetual middle-schoolers, hanging out with each other but rarely dating and never really establishing long-term romantic relationships. A new study by evolutionary biologists from the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences takes a closer look at these males who live on the fringes of the social world in order to determine how social interactions shape and are shaped by natural selection. Like many other insects, forked fungus beetles live in complex societies. While most of them live highly engaged social lives, a surprising minority have a lot in common with the former members of your old garage band. You know; the ones who are always trying to get you to ditch the wife and kids and come hang out like you used to back in the good old days. These beetles spend most of their time in small groups composed solely of males. The biologists, led by Vince Formica and Butch Broody, could not help noticing what your wife remarked on from day one: The males in these groups were less likely to have encounters with females that lead to mating and reproduction. Formica and Brodie are interested in what happens in beetle societies because social interactions are inextricably intertwined with natural selection, which is Darwin’s term for the natural process that occurs when members of a species possess characteristics that help them survive and pass those beneficial characteristics on to their offspring. The flip side of the evolutionary coin is that characteristics that tend to get members of a species killed at an early age or that make them less likely to mate often die along with the childless individuals who possess them. Formica and Brodie, both from the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences, conducted their research on the evolution of social behavior by studying the society-in-miniature that is the milieu of the forked fungus beetle. Specifically, their team wondered whether a beetle’s social role had any connection to its chances of producing offspring. The results of their investigation were published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology . Forked fungus beetles were chosen as subjects because in addition to their rich social life, they were readily available for the researchers to study in the wild and they can easily be captured, tagged and observed. Once the beetles were tagged for easy tracking, the researchers were able to observe and map their social activities. The research team noticed that the beetles with the most active social lives had large social circles and had a lot of sexual encounters, leading to a lot of reproduction on their part. The males with small social circles made up of just a few males rarely had social encounters with females and had little opportunity to pass their genes on to a new generation. According to Formica, learning how social networks operate is crucial to understanding the evolution of societies. “We’ve shown that the trait of sociability is under natural selection, but we don’t know yet if it’s heritable,” he said. “This is one of only a few studies that have shown that position in a social network is a trait that can experience natural selection and therefore has the potential to evolve. It is clear in this study that being central in a large social network is key to high reproductive success. If a trait – such as an individual’s position in a network – is related to reproductive success, you can say it is experiencing natural selection and has the potential to evolve.” Related posts: Social Network Analysis and the Dynamics of Web-Based Networking [Study]

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Want More Sex? Widen Your Social Network, Beetle Research Says

It may be that evolution has molded men to respond with aggression towards anyone they perceive to be an outsider, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Lead researcher Mark van Vugt conducted a review of prior studies in an attempt to support or discredit what has been called the “male warrior hypothesis.” Van Vugt concluded that there was evidence for the existence of an instinct for violence against outsiders. This instinct was very useful during humanity’s hunter-gatherer period, in part because it helped males gain status and improved their access to potential mates. However, it is not as adaptive in today’s world, leading to conflicts that arise over what appear to observers to be trifling issues. These conflicts range from disputes between supporters of rival sports teams to full-scale wars over territorial boundaries. According to Van Vugt, the available evidence suggests that hunter-gatherers frequently fought over resources and took women as the spoils of victory. Men who were more aggressive killed less aggressive men and produced children with their widows, effectively removing from the gene pool men who lacked the genetic predisposition towards belligerence. This trend continued into more recent history, with famous examples including Ghengis Khan, who is believed to have 16 million direct male descendants due to his combined military and sexual conquests, and the Vikings, whose genes made their way to areas as diverse as the Scottish Western Isles and North America. Indeed, a 2008 study conducted by researchers in California showed that genes heavily influence traits like aggression. Women, on the other hand, may have been more likely to survive the upheaval of conquest and enemy occupation if they possessed what researchers call a tendency to “tend and befriend” outsiders. Women who were more likely to resolve conflicts peacefully even at great personal cost may have been more likely to survive and to pass their pacifistic tendencies on to their daughters. Van Vugt asserts that men in every culture throughout history are more apt than women to become violent upon encountering outsiders. He cites evidence that men identify more strongly with their groups and that pulling together to defeat a common enemy helps men to develop stronger relationships with each other. The tendency to respond with aggression towards rival groups probably served to protect the group and make it less vulnerable to attack. Taking the fight away from the women and infants and into the surrounding area before a potential enemy has an opportunity to behave aggressively is an age-old defense tactic, after all. However, in today’s world of professional armies, when most men are no longer the only thing standing between their pregnant wives and infants and invading marauders, this trait often results in unnecessary violence. “A solution to conflict, which is an all too common problem in societies today, remains elusive. One reason for this might be the difficulty we have in changing our mindset, which has evolved over thousands of years,” wrote Van Vugt. “Our review of the academic literature suggests that the human mind is shaped in a way that tends to perpetuate conflict with outsiders.” Related posts: Male and Female Rappers Have Two Different Perspectives About the Definition of the “Independent Woman”

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Male Sex Drive: The Root of World Conflicts [Study]

A British couple who kept their child’s gender a secret for five years have revealed that the child is male. Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper say that they kept their son’s sex under wraps because they wanted him to grow up free from society’s preconceived ideas about what constitutes gender-appropriate behavior. The couple, who asked their midwives to withhold information even from them about the child’s gender for a half-hour after his birth, named their child Sasha and referred to him as “the infant,” rather than using gender-specific pronouns. Until recently, even most of the child’s relatives were uncertain whether Sasha was a girl or a boy. Sasha’s parents allowed no television in their home and restricted him to gender-neutral toys. Rather than restricting him to gender-neutral clothing, however, they dressed him in boys’ clothing and girls’ clothing on alternate days. Sasha’s enrollment in school prompted the decision to finally reveal his gender. His parents say that it became too difficult to keep Sasha’s gender a secret once he was attending school regularly. Laxton and Cooper are still unwilling to bow to convention, however. Even though his fellow students now know that Sasha is a boy, his school uniform still contains the same shirt girls at his school wear, complete with feminine gathers across the front. Further, his parents encourage him to wear flowered blouses on weekends. In an interview, Laxton stated that she wanted to avoid exposing Sasha to gender stereotyping because she considers it “fundamentally stupid,” and reported that she considers her own early gender conditioning harmful. “Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become…I just want him to fulfill his potential, and I wouldn’t push him in any direction.” Decades ago, psychologist Sandra Bem pioneered the idea that masculine and feminine gender roles are restrictive and advanced the theory that androgyny is healthier. Although she later revised her theories somewhat, Bem attempted to raise her children without confining them to gender roles. However, she never tried to hide their sex or to force them to be gender neutral. Psychologist Daragh McDermott, of Anglia Ruskin University, said that no one knows how raising a child to be gender neutral will affect the child because there has been little research conducted on the subject. However, he points out that it is impossible to raise a child without exposure to gender conditioning or stereotypes, since school, the media and society in general consciously and unconsciously enforce society’s gender roles. Studies have shown that even parents unconsciously reinforce gender norms during their interactions with their newborn infants. No matter what parents do, he says, children will develop their own gender identification, whether masculine, feminine or gender-neutral. Related posts: Being An Only Child Does Not Hurt Social Skills Gender Gap In Spatial Ability Can Be Reduced Through Training Gender Wage Gap [Infographic]

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Child Raised ‘Gender Neutral’ to Avoid Stereotyping

Jasmine closes her eyes, takes a breath, and begins belting out Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” in front of three judges. Jasmine had spent 12 hours out in the cold waiting for her chance at becoming an overnight success, but the judges tell her this will be the end of the road. Her dreams shattered, she sulks away in disbelief. This story is not unique to Jasmine, she is among the 100,000 who try out for American Idol every year. These kids all believe that they are destined to have their name in shining lights, but it is not until an awakening like Jasmine’s that dreams of fame become nothing but a dim memory. Jasmine is a member of Generation Y — a generation who earned not only a birth from their mothers, but a second birth on the internet. Each of their identities has been designed so that the world can be constantly apprised to every minute detail of their lives, as if anyone cared. They believe everyone wants to hear what they think, do, and see at any given moment, so their stream of consciousness is on display in Facebook and Twitter and you can find their video responses to Kanye West’s new video on YouTube. They have become masters of self-promotion, even before they developed a sense-of-self. Generation Y members — also known as Generation Me, millennials, and echoboomers — were born between 1982 and 2002, and are seen by many as over self-entitled whiners who believe they deserve at least a B for showing up to class, and a trophy for simply participating in events. Hara Estroff Marano, editor of Psychology Today , calls them “a nation of wimps.” In the previous generation, celebrities were famous for actually doing things. The names that made the paper were Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, Bruce Springsteen, songwriter, and many others who built something valuable from the ground up. Today, with shows like, Survivor , no-talent celebrities like Paris Hilton, and opportunists like the Balloon Boy parents, viewers learn to associate fame with people who do absolutely nothing of value. Mike is a 20 year old “man” who spends his time playing poker on the internet. He is subscribed to 13 different get-rich-quick blogs and he believes he will make his first million by 25. Mike is no different than most other guys his age. Just like Jasmine, they represent the entitlement generation. A generation that was told they could have it all. They were told to expect big things, because they deserved it. Their parents told them so. As did their teachers. As did the media. Meals are microwavable, blogs are books, music is free, and software is customized to their needs. Even relationships are only a click away. Big breasts, Asian, teen, it’s up to them and their mouse. With all this at their fingertips, they believe they have the control, whatever they want is theirs. So what will happen when they inevitably find out they have so very little? Jasmine and Mike will soon be graduating college and they believe — no, they know — they will “find a job that’s not just a job, but an expression of their identity, a form of self-fulfillment,” as Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a Professor of Psychology at Clark University puts it in his book, Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties . But Jasmine and Mike will soon enter into a world where they will quickly learn that they are not the center of the universe, that they are not entitled to all they thought they were promised, and that they are not as important as they were told. They will walk into job interviews expecting big salaries and an office overlooking the city. But what is more likely, is that they will move back in with their parents while they spend a year trying to find a job that isn’t much more than an internship. These same kids, who were too good to work at Starbucks a year ago, will be fighting for pennies in a down economy, struggling to understand how they can be so under-appreciated. Even the financial crisis we find ourselves in is partially a result of the overvaluing of self-worth among people today. Research psychologists, Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, detail in their book, The Narcissism Epidemic , a growing rise in clinical narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) among Americans in their 20s. In fact, one in 16 Americans have experienced the symptoms at some time in their life. In an interview with US News and World Report , Twenge noted, “Narcissism contributed to the economic crisis. Many people had narcissistic overconfidence [when they said], ‘Yeah, I can afford that million-dollar house,’ and lenders said, ‘Sure, I know you’ll pay off that loan.’” Overconfidence is making it increasingly difficult to distinguish dreams from reality, and the results are catastrophic. In 2009, a study found that the top three career aspirations of children were to be a sportsman, a popstar, or an actor. So what, you say? Kids have always wanted fame and fortune. This is actually not true. The study compared the results to the ambitions of pre-teens from 25 years ago as well. During that generation, the top three career aspirations were teaching, banking/finance, and medicine. There is a survey that has been asking kids since the 1950s, “Am I important?” Back in 1950, 12% of teenagers answered “yes.” Today, that number is 80%. And of course they feel that way. After all, the recent development of the commercial tween market has shown that the children are the actually the consumers, not the parents. Tweens dictate, and over-indulgent, baby boomer parents, follow orders. And as our kids get louder, fatter, and more demanding, so do their egos, sense of entitlement, and sense of importance. So, where are the parents, their supposed role models? If you thought “me, me, me” social networking was just an infatuation with youth, think again. It turns out that the over-25 crowd is the fastest-growing demographic of Facebook users, and people over 35 make up more than half of MySpace’s 110 million users. Parents have fallen for this “reality” of the world as well. While magazines like Newsweek and Time have seen their circulation decline, magazines like People and Us Weekly have been on the rise. It is all about the frivolous details of peoples lives — not what they do of worth — but what they wear, what they buy, who they know. Celebrity voyeurism. If parents are too preoccupied with Perez Hilton’s latest post, then who is going to teach our children the counter-lessons of celebrity culture: that fame should not be born of self-humiliation, and that self-respect is NOT earned by 15 minutes of empty self-esteem. Once the culture bomb does its final damage on these youth and the personal post-traumatic-stress-disorder passes, they will have to learn to pick up the pieces of their sorry selves, and build something of value. Michael Kimmel is a sociologist and author who has written a book, Guyland , devoted to discussing the male sense of entitlement. Kimmel describes how rage takes control once a person feels their entitlement is threatened. Kimmel gives an example of a group who are consistently stripped of their entitlement: bullies. He points to research by William Coleman, who is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Coleman says that bullies are a prime example of a privileged group in school, but once they leave this arena, they become shocked at how much they overestimated their prestige. And this overestimation typically leads to substance abuse and violent crime. Generation Y’s focus on self has brought collateral damage on others as well. Another recent survey found that empathy among students is nowhere the figure it used to be. In fact, researchers found that the ability to empathize has dropped almost 40% since 1980, with the biggest drop occuring after 2000. Our society is overly selfish, and like Bengel’s wide receiver, Terrell Owens, once said at a press conference, he is fine with that. We are inconsiderate. A bunch of assholes and douchebags, as we so like to call each other. We have inflated our expectations. The media and society in general offered us false dreams. They said we could be stars. Among the 500 TV stations, we thought there was surely a place for us. But we are not as important as we thought we were. Tyler Durden said it best, “You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake, you are the same organic decaying matter as everything else.” The only question is, what now? It starts with not updating our Facebook status at dinner. It starts with reading a news story rather than Lohan’s latest tweet. It starts with asking someone how their day is going. And it ends when…well a recovering Generation Y’er can dream, right? Written by Chase Fleming . Follow Chase on Twitter @chasefleming . No related posts.

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The Age of Self-Importance

Society for Vocational Psychology (SVP) Conference Part 5 of 8 James P. Sampson, Jr. Florida Stuate University. Career practitioners seek to help those individuals who come to them for assistance in making career choices. From a social justice perspective, is it enough to provide quality assistance to those who seek help or is more required of us as professionals? In other words, “Who are we responsible for as career practitioners? Are we responsible only for the clients who come through our door, or are we responsible for the citizens in our society who need help with career choices?” (Sampson, 2009). These are important social justice questions; however, they are philosophical in nature. We need to take a more evidence-based approach that examines data on the supply of career practitioners in relation to the demand for career assistance, while taking into account evidence of the cost-effectiveness of career interventions. This talk examines the supply and demand of career interventions using a hypothetical career service in a university of 15,000 students and a hypothetical career one-stop center in a city of 100,000 people. The goal is to clarify how the time associated with delivering various career interventions impacts the capacity for meeting demand. Hosted by School of Education on November 4-6, 2011.

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The Supply and Demand for Career Interventions as a Social Justice Issue

Society for Vocational Psychology (SVP) Conference Part 4 of 8 Hosted by School of Education on November 4-6, 2011

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Q&A with keynote and plenary speakers, Twitter Chat