"Mom, can you do something, please..."

Jael's voice trailed off as she spoke to her mother on phone. She started sobbing even before she hung up.

Life had not been kind to Jael. She felt older than her 42 years of age. Where did she go wrong?

She closed her eyes and allowed her mind to wander. She grew up in an average family. Her mother was a teacher while her father was a businessman. Her father was now deceased and her mother - who had already retired from her teaching job - was in charge of the family businesses.

A Happy Marriage

Jael's marriage was full of ups and downs. She met Mike when still at the university and they started dating almost immediately. He was really charming and treated her like a queen. They moved in together a few months after her graduation and legalized their union less than a year later.

Mike treated her really well, taking her out for surprise dinners and occasionally even taking her away for weekends to exotic locations in different parts of the country. This did not stop even after the children came. The family lived quite well and life was good.Mike and Jael were blessed with three children; two girls and one boy.

All No Longer Well?

The first indication that all was not well in their lives happened after 15 years of marriage. There were many times that Mike's phone would ring and he would not pick the calls. Then, Mike changed his telephone line without any explanation. When he told Jael that he had a new cell phone number, she was surprised. She asked him why he would change his number yet most of his contacts did not have the new number. He could not explain but told her that it was no big deal.

Things just did not look the same. Mike's circles had changed. He no longer seemed to keep the same company like before. He had also become secretive. Suddenly, Jael realized that her husband was slowly becoming a stranger. She started wondering whether he was in an extra-marital relationship that he was trying to hide from her.

It did not take long for her to fit the jigsaw puzzle. She started receiving telephone calls from people who were known to both of them, requesting her to tell Mike to switch on his phone for they were trying to get in touch with him. She would tell him but he would not comment.

With time, the message in the calls changed to telling her to let Mike know that they were expecting the payments as agreed. When she would give Mike the messages he would not comment.

Trouble With The Law

It was not until the day that a colleague from Mike's office called Jael to inform her that Mike had been arrested. That was the beginning of a long journey of turmoil for Jael and her family. The family got auctioned twice within a space of one year and Mike got arrested a number of times. Their lives turned into a nightmare.

It was a rude awakening to Jael to discover that a lot of what she believed about Mike was fake, including his academic credentials. He even had a fake identity and some people knew him by names she did not know. In short, Mike's life was largely a lie and he had misrepresented himself to many different people mainly to extort money from the unsuspecting people.

The first few times her family got into trouble, her mother and her siblings put some cash together and bailed her family out. They helped out a number of times till it dawned on them that Mike's problems were beyond what they could handle.

Jael would call her family members and beg them to help but they totally refused to get involved. She eventually surrendered to fate. Mike was found guilty of a number of crimes and sentenced to prison.

Rebuilding

Jael started to rebuild her life from humble beginnings. She moved to a cheaper house that she could afford to pay for. She struggled to keep the children in school and often paid school fees in installments. The high life they had lived for years gradually became a distant dream.

The children struggled to adjust to their new status and it was initially difficult for Jael to cope with the backlash. They got angry, became rebellious, got into trouble in school and in the neighborhood and disobeyed her. It was a very difficult road for her family but she took it one day at a time.

A man is the head of his household. He provides direction and leadership for his family. To learn more about how to effectively lead a family, here are useful tipssecure-your-family's-future-through-strong-leadership.

We often like to quote about the two becoming one in marriage. So, now that you are married, do you take responsibility for the behavior of your spouse, whom you consider to be your better half?

Two people meet when they are already adults, fall in love and decide to get married. In a few exceptional cases, couples have known each other from a young age, sometimes from childhood.

Should You Take Responsibility For Your Spouse's Behavior?

You are married probably to the love of your life. Is it your fault that your spouse is cheating on you, disrespects or abuses you or probably engages in criminal activities? Is it your behavior that taught him or her to be that way, to treat you that way or to have a certain attitude towards family responsibilities?

Human behavior refers to the sum total of actions and emotions associated with a human being. It is complicated. For those who think that everything human behavior is simply a matter of good or bad choices, that is oversimplifying a complex topic.

So, What Shapes Human Behavior?

1.Genetics

Genetics refers to the traits we inherit from our parents. Genetic influence on behavior has been studied using identical twins who were adopted by different families at birth such that besides inheritance, everything in their upbringing environment was different. Siblings who were adopted sometimes discover each other as adults only to find out that they have a lot of similarities and not just in terms of physical appearance.

2.Social Norms

An individual's behavior is shaped by the group one is a part of. That is why people from the same cultural or religious group have similar attitudes and practices such as what they consider an acceptable dressing code. There is warmth in a sense of belonging and human beings make effort to fit in or to find acceptance, even when the practices of the group might be destructive to them. Norms also govern families.

3.Attitudes

Attitudes have roots in past experiences and conditioning. An individual associates certain things with certain experiences. For example, a child associates going out to the park with pleasure and going to the dentist with pain. Changing one's attitude takes a conscious effort to question the norms. Negative attitudes can be changed by evaluating reasons behind the attitudes.

4.Mind and Body

Behavior is affected by what is going on in our bodies. Hormonal changes at certain periods of time such as teenage, pregnancy, during certain times in women's monthly cycle and during menopause; affect behavior.

Nutrition also affects behavior and that is the genesis of the saying 'a hungry man is an angry man. Hunger or having a brain that is starved of nutrients affects mood negatively and can make one quick to anger. Conditions such as having a brain tumor in certain areas of the brain or having low levels of feel-good neurotransmitters in the brain can affect mood negatively.

The mind and body are connected and influence each other. That is why we talk of 'a healthy mind in a healthy body'.

5.Coping Mechanisms

All human beings face difficulties and challenges from time to time but some cope better than others. Coping mechanisms are dependent on one's overall personality and lessons learned in life. There are people who train themselves in coping mechanisms such breathing in and out before reacting when provoked or engaging in vigorous physical activity when angry. Coping mechanisms can be trained as part of upbringing, through therapy or one can learn them independently.

When two people get married, the behavior of each of them is already fully established; it is not taught by the spouse. Much as one can do their best to influence the spouse positively, there is a lot that is already deeply entrenched in the individual that might not be possible to change, unless through therapy.

Achieving behavior change takes work; it is not handed to anyone on a silver platter. It, therefore, depends on whether the individual is ready to pay the price of change or not. People do not change themselves because someone else told them to change.

Read the rest here:
Are you responsible for your spouse's behavior? - The Standard

Imagine a thriving community built around manufacturing jobswhere the production methods and processes not only minimize wasteand mitigate negative environmental impacts, but also addresshealth risks posed to residents and workers.

How do we get there? Who needs to have a seat at the table?

A new partnership, facilitated by The JPB Foundation, aims toaddress these questions and more through the formation of theCollaboratory for a Regenerative Economy (CoRE). Led by UBsDepartment of Materials Design and Innovation (MDI), CoRE is acollaboration with Clean Production Action and Niagara Share.

CoRE will bring together scientists, manufacturers, communitypartners and other key stakeholders to understand the challenges inbuilding a self-sustaining economy in rapidly expanding andevolving industries.

This is an unusual project with its emphasis onthe interplay between science, technology, and their interactionwith human behavior to impact social change, says KrishnaRajan, Erich Bloch Endowed Chair of MDI.

While the initial focus of the project is on solar panelmanufacturing, the findings will serve as a testbed that can laterbe scaled and used for other industries.

Our project seeks to lower the barriers to the adoptionof production processes that are environmentally friendly and offerthe potential to improve community health, Rajan says.

We will use cutting-edge discoveries in materials scienceand engineering to develop innovative and transformative approachesto design data-driven, green-manufacturing processes that willreduce the use of toxic chemicals and/or those derived from fossilfuels in the solar panel manufacturing industry, hesays.

This data-driven approach to designing alternate materials forindustrial use will include human and environmental healthfactors.

Our aim is to not only reduce the use of harmfulchemicals in industrial production, but also reduce the healthhazards arising from the exposure to toxic chemicals, both duringproduction and when products are decommissioned, says MarkRossi, executive director of Clean Production Action, which isbased in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Since low-income families make up a significant portion of thefrontline communities that are impacted by industrial and energyproduction, the project aligns closely with The JPBFoundations focus on health and poverty.

This unique partnership among the academic researchcommunity, non-governmental and community outreach organizationsbrings together complementary expertise in research, marketanalysis, policy formulation and social innovation tosupport the transition toward a safer materials economy,says Liesl Folks, dean of the School of Engineering and AppliedSciences.

Key features of the CoRE initiative include industry andcommunity-targeted workshops, an MDI Summer Institute and atraineeship program that links MDI students with communityorganizations and other constituencies.

A change agent program will provide industry andcommunity leaders with the tools needed to understand and analyzethese technologies, the inherent risks and cost-benefits involved,and the best methods for adopting new approaches.

The project embraces both scientific advancements andsocial innovation, underlining the importance of bringing togetherpeople and resources in new, more effective ways to createresilient networks that can drive new innovation and value for ourcommunities, businesses and local economies, says AlexandraMcPherson, principal of Niagara Share, a Buffalo-basednonprofit.

Adds Robin Schulze, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences:This project aligns with MDIs core mission ofaddressing societal needs through significant acceleration ofdesign and discovery of new materials in a socially responsiblemanner.

UBs Department of Materials Design and Innovation is acollaboration between the College of Arts and Sciences and theSchool of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Read more from the original source:
Safer manufacturing through materials science - University at Buffalo Reporter

Gentrification brings with it new restaurants, businesses and housing but often pushes out longtime residents. Jay Lazarin/Getty Images hide caption

Gentrification brings with it new restaurants, businesses and housing but often pushes out longtime residents.

Gentrification of neighborhoods can wreak havoc for those most vulnerable to change.

Sure, access to services and amenities rise in a gentrifying neighborhood. That is a good thing. But those amenities won't do you much good if you're forced to move because of skyrocketing housing costs.

That is why neighborhood and housing advocacy groups have spent decades searching for ways to protect longtime residents from the negative effects of gentrification.

But how can you tell if a neighborhood is gentrifying? Is it the art gallery that appears next to the bodegas? Is it the hipster coffee shop opening up where the old deli used to be? Maybe it's the expensive new condos rising up across from the older row houses? The problem with any of these obvious indicators is that by the time they appear, it may already be too late. The tide of living expenses in a given neighborhood may already be rising so fast that there is little that local groups, city planners or outside agencies can do. If you're poor or working class, it's just time to leave.

But what if there were a way to see gentrification long before the coffee shops, condos and Whole Foods appear? What if city planners and neighborhoods had an early warning system that could sniff out the changes just as they begin? In that way, cities might prepare for the coming changes securing a diverse range of housing options before land and rent prices shoot through the roof.

A neighborhood early warning system like this has been a dream for city planners for decades. The first versions of it stretch back as far as the 1980s. Now, though, with the rise of big data, this dream has taken a giant step forward toward becoming a reality. As with all things big data, however, taking that step comes with both considerable promise and peril.

Big data is a shorthand term for the insane amounts of information being generated by human beings in our digital world. From cellphones to credit card transactions to social media, we are all leaving digital contrails of almost all of our activity in the world. Learning how to harvest and analyze these digital traces en masse holds the promise of allowing data scientists to see how societies operate at a resolution that was simply impossible before. And seeing hidden patterns in gentrification may be exactly the kind of task big data and data science are best at.

So what does it take to see gentrification before it happens? The most obvious indicator is housing prices. Cities have always done a pretty good job of keeping track of property sales. That is why those records have, for many decades, been the primary data set for studies of neighborhood change. But big data has already swept through the housing price field, as apps like Zillow and Trulia allow anyone access to real estate information going back years. Using a data science technique called machine learning, computers can analyze patterns in these real estate records and extract future trends allowing companies to try to predict what your house will be worth next year.

But even if it works, this kind of "predictive analytics" for housing prices is too blunt an instrument to predict which neighborhoods might gentrify. To really develop an early warning system, data scientists need to go deeper into human behavior. Going deeper, however, means getting new kinds of data.

Evictions of both people and businesses might be one of the best representations of how gentrification negatively affects a neighborhood. But unlike real estate transactions, most cities do a terrible job of keeping track of who, where and why evictions are initiated. Getting that data used to mean a trip to city hall to dig through the musty records department. Because of this, evictions remain invisible to data scientists in their search for gentrification indicators.

A different kind of problem is faced by urban scientists who want to see who exactly is moving into, and out of, the neighborhoods. How does the economic and racial profile of a neighborhood change when gentrification occurs? Data from the U.S. census contains a wealth of information relevant to this question but it comes just once a decade. That is too slow to catch the details of a changing neighborhood. Social scientists also have what is called the American Community Survey, which is done every year. But it's a fraction of the size of the census and, like a bad cellphone camera, it doesn't have the resolution scientists need to see the spatial details of how neighborhoods change.

The difficulties in these tools limited earlier heroic attempts at building a neighborhood early warning system. But with big data, the situation has radically changed. Rather than asking a handful of people a few direct questions about their lives, these days we're all leaving volumes of answers about ourselves in the data we generate just, for example, by using our phones.

Consider a study from October 2015 that used Twitter to look at how residents of different neighborhoods moved around the city of Louisville, Ky. For generations, Louisville residents have seen Ninth Street as the boundary of the poorer African-American neighborhood to the west and wealthier white neighborhood to the east. But by carefully tracking tweets that were geotagged, meaning they contained location information, researchers could study mobility patterns of residents in the different neighborhoods. In particular, they found that Twitter users from the western neighborhoods were far more likely to be found in different regions of the city than residents of the eastern neighborhoods. In this way, the researchers found that the traditional boundaries of the neighborhoods could be redrawn based on the way people actually behaved rather than just "common wisdom."

The Louisville research highlights how studies of what is called "human mobility" can provide ground-truth insights into how neighborhoods function for the people who use them. In the future, perhaps, it will be possible to identify gentrifying neighborhoods by looking for unexpected patterns in how people travel into and out them on a daily basis. Studies of the mixing of ethic groups in Estonia tracked changes in neighborhood composition between the daytime and nighttime hours as well as weekday vs. weekend. By analyzing these patterns over months or years, it may be possible to see the "signal" of gentrification appear as people who normally would not be visiting a neighborhood begin making more frequent appearances.

With an early warning system in place, neighborhood advocates would have the opportunity to implement policies ranging from reserving affordable housing units to educating residents of their renting rights to helping small businesses negotiate long-term lease extensions.

And given that gentrification represents a small problem compared with existing urban poverty, early warning systems could also be applied to the other direction of neighborhood change. Using big data alongside traditional social science methods, it may be possible to identify neighborhoods at risk of decline. In this way, predictive analytics would let residents and city officials take steps to keep these at-risk neighborhoods healthy through early intervention in the availability of services or policing.

The methods of big data might even allow neighborhood equality to be crowdsourced. A recent study using data from cellphones and credit card transactions tracked shopping trips across a range of rich and poor neighborhoods in Spain. By rewiring just 5 percent of those shopping trips to more economically challenged neighborhoods, the researchers found income disparity could be significantly flattened. That means that by changing the destination of just 5 out of 100 of our shopping trips, we might all be a source for positive change.

But, as is becoming clear with everything to do with big data, while advances hold great promise for dealing with neighborhood change, they also hold significant peril. The great hope of urban advocates is to democratize data and its analysis tools, allowing residents and other stakeholders to see more clearly how a neighborhood is changing. But knowledge of those changes might act in a way that accelerates them. Seeing gentrification early may spur more development more quickly. Seeing neighborhoods decline early may provide more disincentive for investment.

As the first wave of optimism for big data passes, both researchers and users have become more realistic about its possibilities. But with eyes wide open, we may be at the beginning of seeing human communities in an entirely new way. From this new vantage point we will, hopefully, have new tools to ensure their health and well-being, even in the midst of change.

(Special thanks to Solomon Greene of the Urban Research Institute for his help with this post.)

Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described "evangelist of science." You can keep up with more of what Adam is thinking on Facebook and Twitter: @adamfrank4

Read more from the original source:
What Does It Take To See Gentrification Before It Happens? - NPR

Advisers to retirement plans are familiar with the biggest challenge facing their retirement plan sponsor clients: How to motivate employees to participate?

Various enrollment methods have been developed to encourage participation and consider basic human behavior, but each carries tradeoffs. Standard enrollment and auto-enrollment have been widely adopted, but active-choice enrollment has been an area somewhat unexplored.

A traditional enrollment process allows participants to choose to participate in, or opt-in to, a retirement plan.

This method requires employee initiation. Unfortunately, when this decision is left entirely up to employees, some basic behaviors take over. These include loss aversion, present bias and procrastination.

Loss aversion happens when employees weigh out the costs and benefits of setting aside part of their paycheck every month to save for retirement. The perceived losses receive undue importance when compared with the expected benefits. In simpler terms, giving up income today is a bigger deal than receiving income in the future.

Present bias is this same idea of unequal importance of costs and benefits, but compounded by time. The costs are borne immediately and the benefits are not realized until much further in to the future. The delay in benefit when it comes to retirement savings is decades long. Employees may not be able to extrapolate their decisions this far into the future.

Procrastination will also come into play, causing decisions about saving for retirement to be put off until employees feel they make enough money to save, know enough about how much to save, or have enough time to make these crucial savings decisions.

These psychological forces are hard for all humans to overcome and the default of not enrolling in the retirement savings plan is, to many potential participants, the path of least resistance.

One solution to the motivation conundrum is the auto-enrollment process. This process allows a plan sponsor to automatically enroll eligible employees into the plan unless an employee affirmatively elects otherwise.

When employees do not have to act to be enrolled, participation can increase by up to 50% as compared to traditional enrollment, while giving employees the flexibility to not participate if they decide the retirement plan or automatic savings rate is not right for them.

However, many default savings rates prove to be sticky; participants consider them an implicit recommendation and are reluctant to stray from it. Default savings rates are most commonly set at 2-4%, which is not the optimal long-term savings rate for most participants. Loss aversion and present bias appear when participants weigh the costs and benefits of increasing savings above the default rate. Conversely, these same default savings rates may not be affordable for certain participants.

In addition to the psychological struggles that auto-enrollment presents, certain plan sponsors feel that auto-enrolling participants is too paternalistic. The politics of a plan sponsor taking the choice out of participation can be tricky or impossible to navigate.

A different pathActive-choice enrollment requires employees to actively make the decision to participate, or not, in their retirement plan.

This differs from the other enrollment processes, which allow participants to default into a state of participation. By mandating employees to decide, plan sponsors may better serve employees who might struggle with procrastination, and can offer more tailored engagement than an auto-enroll process may provide.

Start Slideshow

The retirement, technology, voluntary, wellness and overall winners are taking charge of the future of benefits.

Usually, the active choice is presented to employees along with other new-hire materials that must be completed or returned within a specified period. Employees decide between two options: Enroll or Waive; Yes, I want to participate or No, I do not want to participate, etc. If participants choose to participate, they are prompted to make contribution rate decisions immediately or in the near future.

By making the decision time-bound, employees are more likely to make an instant decision regarding their savings. This can result in a positive or negative effect. On the one hand, it starts employee saving as early as possible, maximizing compounding. Additionally, employees enrolled through active choice have been found to immediately choose a savings rate that took traditional enrolled participants more than two years to reach through contribution increases.

But the immediate decision can place unprepared employees in a situation where they are not informed enough to make the proper savings rate decision for their specific circumstance. Financially illiterate employees may be better served through a carefully chosen default savings rate and auto-enrollment.

Enhanced active voiceActive choice can be elaborated upon to include language that invokes an emotional response from potential participants. Known as enhanced active choice, this process adds descriptive language to the decision. Instead of choice between Enroll, or Waive, the participant must choose between such statements as Yes, I want to plan for a successful retirement by saving and investing money today. and No, I do not want to save today and understand that this choice may negatively affect my retirement.

This style of active choice taps into human instinct, highlighting the possible positive and negative effects of this choice in a visceral way. Plan sponsors who adopt enhanced active choice should be sure to not use language that implies any guarantee of success or failure.

The principles behind active-choice enrollment relieve many pain points that exist in other enrollment methods. Active-choice enrollment increases plan participation. By allowing employees to choose, plans will have more engaged, empowered participants. By requiring employees to choose for themselves, and making it easy to enroll, plans can help participants sidestep behavioral roadblocks and end up on track for a more successful retirement.

Go here to see the original:
Views Active-choice: An enrollment alternative worth considering - Employee Benefit Adviser (registration)

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Rising temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions will fundamentally change electricity consumption patterns in Europe. A team of scientists from Germany and the United States now analyzed what unchecked future warming means for Europe's electricity demand: daily peak loads in Southern Europe will likely increase and overall consumption will shift from Northern Europe to the South. Further, the majority of countries will see a shift of temperature-driven annual peak demand from winter to summer by the end of this century. This would put additional strain on European power grids, the study now published in the renowned US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests.

"It is fascinating to see how the response of electricity consumption to temperature changes is similar across European countries' peak and total electricity use seem to be smallest on days with a maximum temperature of about 22C (72F), and increases when this daily maximum temperature either rises or falls," lead author Leonie Wenz from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) explains. "We use this common characteristic as a basis for estimating future electricity consumption under climate change - that is beyond the current temperature range. That way, those European countries that are already experiencing very hot temperatures today serve as examples for the future of cooler countries. It turns out that electricity demand in Europe will shift from countries like Sweden or Norway to countries like Portugal or Spain. Concurrently, the annual peak load will shift from winter to summer in most countries."

Using hourly electricity data across 35 countries

"Quantifying the connection between heat and human behavior is at the frontier of climate change research. There now is ample evidence that when it's hot outside, air quality suffers, people are more stressed, aggressive, violent and less productive, mortality and crime rates rise. All sectors of the economy are affected by thermal stress, from the residential to the commercial, agricultural to the industrial sector. The main adaptation mechanism available to humans to combat high outdoor temperatures is a cooled indoor built environment, which in most settings requires the consumption of significant amounts of electricity. This increased demand for air conditioning will put pressure on electricity grids when it is hot outside and generation and transmission infrastructure are already strained," co-author Max Auffhammer from the University of California, Berkeley, adds.

The study is the first to use observed hourly electricity data across 35 European countries - which are connected by the world's largest synchronous electrical grid - to estimate how climate change impacts the intensity of peak-load events and overall electricity consumption. While previous work on the relationship between temperature and electricity consumption primarily focused on the US or single European countries and the overall consumption impacts, recent research suggests that the effects of changes in peak load may be much larger and costlier, putting the focus on times when the power grid is already stressed.

A fundamental challenge for transmission infrastructure and peak-generating capacity

"A few decades ago, no ordinary car in Europe had air conditioning, today almost every automobile has it - the same development will probably happen with buildings in Europe, yet not for reasons of comfort but due to necessity. People will need to cool down their environments to keep up their life and economic productivity," co-author Anders Levermann from PIK and Columbia University in New York concludes.

While the study indicates that the projected effect of climate change on European electricity consumption as a whole is nearly zero, the shift in spatial as well as seasonal electricity consumption will be a fundamental challenge for Europe, he argues: "This will have important ramifications for the transmission infrastructure, peak-generating capacity and storage requirements - to adapt to the warming that is already unavoidable due to past greenhouse gas emissions. The easiest way to limit the impacts of climate change remains to keep the Paris climate guardrail, that is to limit the temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius."

Explore further: Climate change may overload US electrical grid: study

More information: Leonie Wenz el al., "Northsouth polarization of European electricity consumption under future warming," PNAS (2017). http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1704339114

Read more:
Electricity consumption in Europe will shift under climate change - Phys.Org

SALT LAKE CITY In this edition of LIFEadvice coaches Kim Giles and Nicole Cunningham explain why some of us are opinionated and how to handle someone like this in your life.

I work with a woman, who is very opinionated with severe black and white thinking. I find myself getting upset by the way that she voices her opinions all the time and wont even consider anothers point of view. We all eat lunch together and honestly, its getting hard to tolerate. What do you do with people who are that opinionated and not open to life having any shades of gray?

We are going to answer three questions inside your question.

First, why do some people see the world in this black-and-white way and feel they have to constantly share or even push their opinions on the rest of us?

Second, how do you know if you are one of these opinionated people?

Third, what can you do so people, who are like this, dont drive you batty?

It makes life a great deal easier if you understand what is really driving human behavior. Understanding what motivates people helps us to not take other peoples behavior as personally either.

We believe human behavior is driven (consciously or subconsciously) by what we fear and what we value. So, we are going to explain the fears and values behind very opinionated, black-and-white thinking.

These people often have fear failure (that they might not be good enough) and they have fear loss (that life wont be the way they want it to be). We know this because these two fears are behind almost all bad behavior.

These people feel safer if they have a clearly defined moral code, a black-and-white clear and solid code of behavior (the way people should behave) and other rules of correct living. If they have these rules clearly defined, they know exactly what they must do to be good enough. These guidelines make them feel safe. They also get a sense of safety from finding fault in the rule breaking and incorrect thinking in the people around them. If they can find people who are worse or wrong, it makes their ego feel a little better or right, which quiets their fear of failure a bit.

People who are quick to judge others as wrong are usually getting a strong sense of safety and self-worth from believing they are right. The more fear of failure they have about themselves, the more they might focus on black and white rules that prove they are right.

They may also be a tad controlling too because having things done right also makes them feel safer in the world. They are often defensive, territorial and protective of themselves, which can come across as selfish, arrogant and inflexible. They are often more focused on things being right and fair than they are on caring how other people feel.

These people also highly value ideas. They like learning and teaching. They believe correct ideas and doing things right are critical to success and happiness, and they tend to assume that everyone has or should have the same ideas, beliefs and values they have.

They also fear what would happen if their ideas (and rules) are not upheld. For example, people who are passionate about the environment and global warming value environmental issues, as well as fear the outcome if the planet is not looked after. They can at times be a tad judgmental or critical when they feel others dont value ideas, beliefs and opinions or have the wrong ones.

Ask Coach Kim

Now, the question is, are you this kind of person? Do you have a strong sense of right and wrong and often find yourself in judgment of others? Do you ever leave a situation and realize you may have talked too much or dominated the conversation? Do you get irritated when people disagree with you and do you see them as less than you, because of their choices?

If these are resonating as truth for you, dont worry we arent saying you are bad, wrong or less than others for being wired this way. The truth is the world needs people who care deeply about right and wrong, but we must all watch for unbalanced behavior that comes when we function from fear.

If you arent like this but have people in your life who are, here are some tips for dealing with these people:

1. Show compassion toward the fear that is driving their opinionated behavior and black-and-white thinking.

When we consciously choose to stay calm and not react to the behavior of others, we are able to look at what is motivating it. Think about this woman at work, what do you know about her story and what she has been through in her life? Do you think there is some fear of failure in her? Can you sense that her stand on issues is about feeling right somewhere? When you look underneath the behavior and try to identify where it comes from, we step into greater acceptance, tolerance and compassion. See if you can show greater kindness and compassion to her and recognize her insecurities, after all, you have those too, they just manifest themselves differently for each of us.

2. Dont react to the bad behavior, instead listen intently and then ask for permission to share your ideas

In the moment, when people are on a soap box and speaking down to us or sharing their strong opinions that we disagree with, we can become triggered and feel frustrated or angry. Often our ego wants to retaliate by interrupting or arguing, which can escalate the situation to conflict and confrontation.

Now, you understand their opinionated behavior is about their fear and their need for validation and safety. So, in reality, what they need is validation (which we know is the last thing you want to give them). If you can have a mutually validating conversation and make them feel safe, you might be able to get them in a place where they can listen to you too. You might even teach them something. The formula to having these conversations is on our website.

But, you basically must ask them more questions about their opinions and listen and validate their right to think the way they do. If you are willing to go here, you then earn the right to have a turn to share your opinion with them.

After you have given them some time to share and you make sure they feel heard, you can ask permission to share your thoughts. Would you be open to letting me share another opinion? This permission question opens the door for you to now be heard and share your opinion. If the person interrupts or tries to speak over you again, you have earned the right to say, Excuse me, please dont interrupt, I listened to your ideas on this, and I would appreciate you respecting my turn to speak and hearing my thoughts.

This can be done respectfully and without confrontation. But remember, its not about changing other peoples minds, its about coming to a place where both differing opinions are respected and validating everyone involved.

3. Dont take it so personally.

Other peoples need to be right or feel superior is their fear of failure at work. It is about their fears about themselves it isnt really about you. Ask yourself, Which part of you needs validation and recognition for your opinions and feels mistreated when you dont get that? Is your fear of failure being triggered?

All of us have this fear, on some level, but healthy self-esteem comes from knowing you dont need validation or recognition from others to have the same intrinsic worth as every other person on the planet. Remind yourself that you are a unique, one of a kind human soul and your value doesnt depend on your opinions, whether you are validated or liked by others, or whether other people think you are wrong.

As you remind yourself of this truth you will find yourself needing less attention and acknowledgment from others, and you will be able to better tolerate listening to the black and white views of others without feeling bothered.

If you are this kind of person and can recognize a need to be heard and validated for what you think, this is a great fear challenge to work on. Practice asking more questions and listening more than you talk next time you are with people. You will find validating others opinions feels even better than sharing yours.

Knowing you are lifting others up always feels better than being right. Practice setting aside your need to be right about how things should be. Try allowing people to have the same intrinsic value as you, even though their beliefs and values are different.

You can do this.

Load More Comments

Showing of 22 comments

Follow this link:
Coach Kim: Are you too opinionated? - KSL.com

I've been teaching American politics at the collegiate level for nearly two decades. Entering the classroom this fall will be unlike previous semesters. The Trump presidency is unprecedented in many ways, and forces educators to rethink the way we approach teaching government and politics (as well as many other subjects, I'm sure, with which I am less familiar).

I've written before about one of the primary ways teaching about Trump can be challenging for political scientists. Most people assume (fairly) that professors tend to be politically liberal, but it is not ideologically liberal tendencies that make it difficult to teach about Trump. I recall no consternation about teaching politics during the George W. Bush administration, for example. Rather, President Trump presents challenges for two primary reasons.

First, a scientist's job is to be detached from her subject, and that is difficult in the current era of hyperpartisanship and outrageous events. Like most of my colleagues, when I'm in the classroom I encourage objectivity, curiosity, neutrality, and a nonjudgmental point of view. Such dispassion is necessary in the scientific process. As teachers of politics, this can be a challenging perspective to impart on students who select to study the topic because of their political passions, but this is a normal part of being a political science professor that many of us enjoy.

However, the challenge of getting students to take a detached, nonjudgmental viewpoint on current events is maximized in the Trump administration. How can one be dispassionate in the face of a leader who aligns himself with white supremacists? While commitment to scientific principles remains priority, it would be unethical and morally irresponsible not to express judgment against repugnant behavior that is baldly bigoted. As a social scientist, I can talk about the president breaking with democratic norms and precedent, but as a human being, I also want to expose the dehumanizing effects of vitriolic language and the violence it encourages.

My strategy in class this semester is to be both scientific and human. We can retain a commitment to social science by analyzing behaviors in the context of strategic behavior, institutional incentives, social influences, individual psychology, or any other typical and academic way of examining politics. We can respond as humans by openly noting when behavior is inhumane, immoral, unethical, or racist. American political scholars may be less accustomed to doing the latter when discussing current events and the US president, and instructors may feel like they are breaking scientific practice to do so, but we need only look to our colleagues in other subfields for guidance.

Comparativists do not wince at describing despotic regimes. They do just fine objectively identifying authoritarian, tyrannical, or violent leadership. No one accuses scholars in international relations as being ideologically motivated for observing warmongering or international exchanges that threaten American security. Americanists simply need to do what comparativists have been saying for years: treat the US as a single case, not a special one.

Calling out policy proposals that dehumanize classes of people is more of a normative discussion than I typically have in my courses on American political institutions, but not doing so would be irresponsible and naive. Allowing for some humanity does not invalidate the objective perspective I bring to 95 percent of my course material. If you include lectures on civil rights and the civil rights movement, for example, in your classes, you already have practice integrating humanizing and social scientific content.

To be fair, it's different when it's your own country. It's easier to appear to be a neutral observer when one is not enmeshed in the society of study. But it's not impossible, and we might seek advice from some anthropologists for further advice.

This is the second reason dispassionate study of Trump is challenging: Hes one of us. We participated in a voting system that selected him, and we must expect that we have colleagues and students who have, and may still, support him. We have to insist that critical observation of the president is not the same thing as supporting or opposing him as president. The nature of modern partisan polarization, and the extreme nature of negative partisanship in current American politics, means that criticizing Trump sounds an awful lot like expressing a partisan preference for Democrats, but it need not, and teachers should push back hard against this interpretation.

Even though our politics is governed right now by extreme partisan identity, and citizens are using party ID to decide their preferences over everything from candidates to vacation spots, this does not invalidate a social scientists observations about partisan behavior. If we teach about the powerful effects of negative partisanship and show a willingness to be challenged on our objectivity, we can teach our students to view politics with the same critical eyes we use, and not the partisan-dominated lens promoted in media. Further, doing so does not mean ignoring politicians morally reprehensible behavior.

To that end, here are some of the additions I'll be making to my opening-day lecture in Introduction to American Politics this term. First, Ill encourage students to develop a consciousness about whether they are viewing an event using a partisan filter. I want students to observe news, rather than react to it. Avoid the temptation to immediately agree or disagree with what you read, and resist the urge to respond emotionally to every headline. It helps to consume news from sources that aim for objective reporting rather than emotional responses. Evaluate the quality of news sources and aim to get most news from outlets with high integrity. Favor sources with the following characteristics:

My aim is to encourage social scientific thinking while maintaining a commitment to humanity. Students can develop greater self-awareness about their own news consumption habits and how they may affect their attitudes, and we can help them through modeling and instruction.

No one has to give up their social scientist card for calling out behavior or events that contradict American values or democratic norms. It may not always be straightforward, but Im committed to doing both.

See more here:
Being a good scientist and a good human: thoughts on teaching during Trump - Vox

The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Education, Health and Human Behaviors diverse programming offers students powerful learning opportunities that are not readily available elsewhere, Interim Dean Paul Rose said.

In his interim role as leader of the school, Rose is focused on working collectively with faculty and staff to orient academic programs around student needs. A key component in fostering student success, he said, is the infusion of experiential learning opportunities into the programming, which covers education, health sciences, and behavioral science.

Students in the School of Education, Health and Human Behavior get a diversity of experiences from our wide range of disciplines, Rose said. We continue to expand opportunities for students through new programming and innovative learning environments.

Were particularly excited about the imminent launch of a public health graduate program, he said. This will add to our health science offerings and allow us to contribute public health leaders to the region. Additionally, our new nutrition laboratory is providing applied learning experiences for students in our growing nutrition program.

The school also prides itself on community engagement activities and outreach clinics that not only create hands-on experiences for students, but also provide tremendous value to members of the community.

Were grateful for the partners we have throughout the region and want to continue to build on those relationships, Rose said. These partnerships allow our students to become involved in the community and apply their knowledge in the field.

Also contributing to student success is the schools emphasis on student mentoring through faculty and professional advising, as well as research supervision.

Through strong mentorships, students are able to get the advice they need to be highly effective in achieving their goals, Rose said. Were enthusiastic about educating citizens who will contribute to their communities and become highly effective employees within the diversity of disciplines that our school represents.

Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzob-3xOm5Q&feature=youtu.be

Follow AdVantage News on Facebook and Twitter

See the article here:
Diverse programming, experiential learning top of mind for interim dean - AdVantage News

Cries of Nazis, go home! and Shame! Shame! filled the air as Angela King and Tony McAleer stood with other counterprotesters at the recent free speech rally in Boston.

They didnt join the shouting. Their sign spoke for them: There is life after hate.

They know because McAleer and King were once young extremists themselves, before they co-founded the nonprofit Life After Hate to help former white supremacists restart their lives. To hear them talk about their pasts hints at what may be in the minds of those inside the far-right fringe groups whose actions have ignited raw, angry passions across the country. What are people thinking when they spew hate? Are they all true believers? Whats more, how does someone get that way?

The uncovered American faces of white supremacy and neo-Nazism were broadcast on TV and the internet for all to see at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., this month, which ended in violence and with one person dead. The forces that drew them there are not new.

Hate groups in the U.S. number 917 and have been on the rise for two years, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. It attributes the trend partly to the attention given to extremist views during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But people dont perceive extremist groups beliefs the same way. The term alt-right referring to a loosely organized group that developed in response to mainstream conservatism and has been associated with white nationalism and anti-Semitism was unknown to a majority of Americans in late 2016, according to a Pew Research Center survey. And familiarity rose in tandem with a respondents education about three-quarters of those with postgraduate degrees recognized the term, as did about 60 percent of college graduates. Among those with only a high school education, about a third had heard the term.

Those who study human behavior attribute hate speech more to deep personality issues than to a diagnosable mental illness. But theyre also intrigued by how the white supremacy movement is rebranding itself for the 21st century. The well-known racist symbols of white robes and hoods or shaved heads and torches have given way to a clean-cut subtlety for the millennial generation. With heightened tensions on all sides, theres a renewed interest in explaining how minds turn toward hate.

Tony McAleer attends the Fight Supremacy! Boston Counter-Protest & Resistance Rally on Boston Common on Aug. 19. McAleer spent 15 years as a recruiter for the White Aryan Resistance before co-founding the nonprofit Life After Hate. (Melissa Bailey/KHN)

I felt power where I felt powerless. I felt a sense of belonging where I felt invisible, McAleer, 49, said of the pull of white nationalism that led him to spend 15 years as a skinhead recruiter and an organizer for the White Aryan Resistance.

I was beaten at an all-boys Catholic school on a regular basis at 10 or 11, said McAleer, a middle-class kid from Canada, which left him with an unhealthy sense of identity.

King, 42, who grew up in rural South Florida, said she turned to white nationalism as a child, first learning racial slurs from her parents. Growing up, she questioned her sexual identity and didnt fit in. At 12, she said, a school bully ripped her shirt open, exposing her training bra and humiliating her in front of her classmates.

At that point, I decided if I became the bully, no one could do that to me, King said. She became a neo-Nazi skinhead at 15, and at 23 went to prison for three years for a hate crime. King had a tattoo of a swastika on her right hand; she has since covered it up with the likeness of a cat.

Young people with a troubled past are especially vulnerable, said psychologist Ervin Staub, of Holyoke, Mass., a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst who studies social processes that lead to violence.

Why would people join groups like that? It usually involves them finding no other socially acceptable and meaningful ways to fulfill important needs the need for identity; the need for a feeling of effectiveness; the need for a feeling of connection, Staub said. Often, these are people who dont feel like theyve succeeded or had a chance to succeed across normal channels of success in society. They may come from families that are problematic or families where theyre exposed to this kind of extreme views of white superiority and nationalism. If you dont feel you have much influence and power in the world, you get a sense of power from being part of a community and especially a rather militant community.

Angela King participates in a counter-protest during what was billed as a free speech rally in Boston on Aug. 19. King, a former neo-Nazi who went to prison at 23 for three years for a hate crime, co-founded the nonprofit Life After Hate. (Melissa Bailey/KHN)

A 2015 report from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (known as START) found that former members of violent white supremacist groups showed almost half (45 percent) reporting being the victim of childhood physical abuse and about 20 percent reporting being the victim of childhood sexual abuse.

The study by sociologist Pete Simi of Chapman University in Orange, Calif., suggests that influences on these followers may be related more to the groups social bonds than ideology.

Simi, an expert on violence and extremist groups who has interviewed hundreds of former believers, co-wrote American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movements Hidden Spaces of Hate with sociologist Robert Futrell of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Now that these groups are courting millennials, theyve taken to changing their image, Futrell said.

Its an attempt to distance from the past when the picture in all our minds of a white supremacist was the KKK [Ku Klux Klan] with a hood and cape or a neo-Nazi with a shaved head and tattoos. Thats gone by the wayside over the last decade, he said.

Groups advocating white superiority have always preyed on young, impressionable people who are loners or had a traumatic thing in their background, Futrell said. Whats different now is the range of ways the white power movement is reaching them. The internet is a boon to those who are stigmatized and relatively powerless.

The alt-right has gained power online, as its proponents use Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms to spread their message. A study last year from George Washington University found that white nationalists are heavy users of Twitter.

Yet while organizing has gone virtual, the power of a real-life crowd also fuels behaviors, said media psychologist Pamela Rutledge, director of the nonprofit Media Psychology Research Center in Newport Beach, Calif.

Theres a long history starting with [psychoanalyst Sigmund] Freud on the impact of crowd behavior and mob mentality, she said. People give up individual identity to support the norm of the group and affiliation with the group and end up behaving in ways they wouldnt otherwise individually.

In such tense conflicts, Futrell said, the natural cues that people use to understand appropriate behavior get skewed.

Its not surprising in a combustible situation, when people are on edge, once an aggressive move is made, it cues to others that its OK, he said. This is the norm at that moment, and they act.

Forensic psychologist Laurence Miller, of Boca Raton, Fla., said theres a misunderstanding about the motivations of those who join fringe groups that they have an ideology and search for a group when, really, its the other way around.

People will pick a belief system that best matches their personalities and their identities, he said.

But he emphasizes that humans are complex.In the Deep South, it was common for otherwise upstanding citizens mayors, sheriffs and judges, among others to be members of the KKK.

You can have people who put on a hood and march with a torch and take their kids to the playground, Miller said.

KHN reporter Melissa Bailey contributed to this story from Boston. It was first published Aug. 24, 2017, by Kaiser Health News.

See original here:
Childhood torment, social isolation can turn minds toward hate - The CT Mirror

To say Lisa McConnell has been busy since the first of August is an understatement.

On that day, she took the reins from Jeff Kubel in her first day as Temeculas new chief of police.

I have not slowed down since the day I was promoted, which I love, she said.

Still, she carved out time to discuss her background, experience and priorities.

Q: Youre a Riverside County native?

A: Yes, I moved from Riverside to Murrieta in 2001.

Q: What excites you most about stepping into this new role?

A: I have a passion for policing and want to make a positive difference in the lives of the residents of our community. Im excited to interact with a diverse group of people within the Temecula area and encourage the men and women of the Temecula Police Department to be more engaged with the community.

Q: Can you share your top priorities for your tenure as chief of police?

A: We were just named the 13th safest city in the country and have routinely been ranked one of the safest cities.

I want to focus on maintaining that reputation while improving the communication, trust and partnership we have with the citizens we serve.

Engaging with the community is one of my top priorities. I would like to increase our involvement with the Boys and Girls Club, our Police Activity League and other community groups.

Q: Why did you choose to pursue graduate level studies psychology?

A: I obtained my bachelors degree in psychology before I joined the Sheriffs Department. I was interested in pursuing a career in counseling but, as fate would have it, I went into law enforcement.

Q: What value do you think that education brings to your work?

A: Understanding human behavior has helped me as a deputy on patrol and as a crisis negotiator.

Q: You sit on the board of directors of the nonprofit group project T.O.U.C.H. (Together Our Unity Conquers Homelessness). Do you see issues around homelessness as a priority moving forward?

A: Ive been involved with helping the homeless population since 2008. Being homeless is not a crime.

However, when we get complaints from concerned citizens about a homeless person, we respond to determine if a crime has been committed.

If we find the person is engaging in criminal activity such as trespassing, public intoxication, theft, vandalism, public urination, etc. we enforce the law and make arrests when possible.

But, if there is no violation of the law, our only option is to offer a homeless person resources to try to help them up and out of their homeless situation.

Q: How do you do that?

A: Our police department created a team to work on the issue of homelessness by reassigning four of our Problem Oriented Policing officers to a Homeless Outreach Team.

The Homeless Outreach Team works closely with the homeless and the citys pantry vendor, Community Mission of Hope.

The team employs a two-pronged approach: 1. a zero-tolerance stance on crime, and 2. a concerted effort to get law abiding homeless people the resources they need.

My involvement with Project Touch has helped me identify the many resources available to assist with the homeless population.

Q: Is there a goal you hope to achieve as chief of police?

A: My hope is we become more involved in our community. I believe community-oriented policing is effective.

I encourage neighborhood watch groups, and enjoy providing training and education to children, teens, families and seniors on various topics.

Q: Who, or what, inspires you?

A: Im inspired by survivors who are able to get back up, pick up the pieces and use the situation as a learning experience. These people refuse to let their circumstances define them.

Email: temecula@sduniontribune.com

More here:
New chief talks about her background, experience and priorities - The San Diego Union-Tribune