SAN FRANCISCO | At Facebook, mere sharing is getting old. Finding deeper meaning in online communities is the next big thing.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is no longer satisfied with just connecting the world so that people can pass around baby pictures and live video or fake news and hate symbols. So the Facebook founder wants to bring more meaning to its nearly 2 billion users by shepherding them into online groups that bring together people with common passions, problems and ambitions.

Much like the creation of Facebook itself arguably the largest social-engineering project in history that shift could have broad and unanticipated consequences. Facebook will apply the same powerful computer algorithms that make its service so compelling to the task of boosting membership in meaningful groups to more than a billion people within five years.

If successful, that would also encourage people to spend more time on Facebook, which could boost the companys profits. While Facebook doesnt currently place ads in its groups, it said it cant speak to future plans. Advertising is virtually Facebooks only source of revenue ; it brought in almost $27 billion in 2016, 57 percent more than the previous year.

THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

The shift comes as Facebook continues to grapple with the darker side of connecting the world, from terrorist recruitment to videos of murder and suicides, to propaganda intended to disrupt elections around the world. For Zuckerberg, using his social network to build community and bring the world closer together two phrases from Facebooks newly updated mission statement is a big part of the answer.

When you think of the social structure of the world, we are probably one of the larger institutions that can help empower people to build communities, Zuckerberg said in a recent interview at the companys offices in Menlo Park, Calif. There, I think we have a real opportunity to help make a difference.

Zuckerberg outlined his latest vision at a communities summit held Thursday in Chicago. Its the companys first gathering for the people who run millions of groups on Facebook, a feature the company rolled out years ago to little fanfare. Facebook is also rolling out new administrative tools intended to simplify the task of screening members and managing communities in hopes that will encourage people to create and cultivate more groups.

COME TOGETHER

Facebook groups are ad hoc collections of people united by a single interest; they offer ways to chat and organize events. Originally conceived as a way for friends and family to communicate privately, groups have evolved to encompass hobbies, medical conditions, military service, pets, parenthood and just about anything else you could think of.

To Zuckerberg, now 33, the effort to foster meaningful communities reflects his recent interest in ways Facebook can make the world a less divisive place, one that emerged following the fractious 2016 presidential election.

He has previously talked about the need to bring people together in both a lengthy manifesto published earlier this year and during his commencement address at Harvard University last month.

MEANING, FACEBOOK STYLE

Data-driven to its core, Facebook has quantified meaning so it can be sure people are getting more of it. And what Facebook aims to maximize is the time people spend in its online groups. Whenever someone spends at least 30 minutes a week in a group, Facebook classifies it as meaningful. The company estimates 130 million of its users are in such groups; it aims to boost that to over a billion by 2022.

Facebook has already been tweaking its algorithms to recommend more groups to users. Those changes have increased the number of people in meaningful groups by 50 percent over the past six months, Zuckerberg said a testament to the power of algorithms on human behavior.

Of course, anything that keeps people coming back to Facebook also gives it more opportunities to learn about their interests and other personal details that help it sell advertising, according to analysts.

Its really simple economics: If users are spending time on Facebook, theyre seeing more ads, said eMarketer analyst Debra Williamson. Increasing user engagement is a necessity for Facebook.

COMMUNITY COLLAGE

Virtual communities can fill a fundamental need we have for a sense of belonging, much like eating or sleeping, said Anita Blanchard, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who has studied them for 20 years. Facebooks plan to connect people with like-minded fellows sounds like a fine idea, she said.

Blanchards research has also shown online communities can make people less intolerant of opposing viewpoints. They get you out of your own clothes and make connections across the U.S., making you realize you can get along with people with different beliefs, she said.

For Sarah Giberman, an artist and parent who lives in Arlington, Texas, a meaningful group is one that serves a need in your life, that fills some space that would otherwise feel vacant.

I spend a lot more time on Facebook because of the groups than I would otherwise, she said. Especially with the current sociopolitical climate, Im not comfortable being very open in my regular newsfeed.

More:
Facebook wants to nudge you into 'meaningful' online groups - Online Athens

What is the psychology of living in a densely populated place? If you think of New York or Los Angeles, you might be inclined to imagine the fast life, unrestricted sexuality, street gangs, and hordes of uncaring people rushing toward a dystopian future. But a recent series of studies conducted by Oliver Sng, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Michigan, suggests a different picturepopulation density is associated with a slow lifestyle.

Fast versus slow life histories

As an undergraduate, Sng developed an interest in studying human behavior in evolutionary perspective. Before going to graduate school to study social psychology, in fact, he spent two years observing a group of long-tailed macaques at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Biologists studying animal behavior have distinguished between a slow as opposed to a fast life history strategy. A slow life history means reaching sexual maturity at a later age, having fewer offspring, and investing heavily in each of those offspring (elephants, for example, dont begin having calves until well into their teens, and they nurse each one for several years). This compares to a fast life history, which, conversely means producing a large number of offspring as quickly as possible, and investing relatively little in each one (some small mammals in Madagascar, called tenrecs, start having offspring a few months after birth, for example).

Source: Oliver Sng, used with permission

Among animals other than humans, high population density is associated with a slow life history strategy. This makes sense because if there are a lot of ones own species around vying for resources, offspring are especially likely to need their parents to help them out.

What about humans?

When I was a young assistant professor, I taught a class in environmental psychology, which included a section on density and behavior. In those days, psychologists were convinced that nothing good could come of crowding. Environmental psychology textbooks would typically describe research on what ethologist John B. Calhoun called the behavioral sinka dystopic state of social pathology that resulted from crowding. Calhoun placed a large group of rats in a 10 by14 foot four-room enclosure, and provided them sufficient food and water to allow them to reproduce to their hearts content. The prolific little creatures reproduced quite freely, and were soon as crowded as New Yorkers on a subway at rush hour. The animals began exhibiting numerous forms of pathology, ranging from extreme social withdrawal to violence, rape, and cannibalism.

Calhouns research was widely publicized, fueled by the implication that the behavioral sink applied to human beings as well.

But not all the research supported this picture of density doom and gloom. After reviewing the findings in this area, psychologist Jonathan Freedman concluded that research with human beings has not supported earlier belief about the negative consequences of high density, and that, in fact, psychologists had misinterpreted and over-interpreted a few dramatic and non-representative studies of animals (such as Calhouns behavioral sink study).

After Freedmans review, research on the psychology of density became less popular. But Sng, working with Steve Neuberg, Michael Varnum, and I, decided to revisit the phenomenon in light of later developments in life history theory. The results were reported recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The first study in the series was an analysis of archival data from different societies around the world. In Sngs native Singapore, every square kilometer is filled up with 7,987 people. That is 30 times more people than youd bump into if you took a stroll around the United Kingdom (at 261 people per sq. km.)and 249 times the density of the United States (at 32 folks per square kilometer). Despite its extremely dense population, Singaporeans hardly live the hard-paced sexually unrestricted lifestyle, though.They are generally well-behaved and hard-working, and they invest a lot in their small families (20 percent of the national budget goes to education). And Singapore isnt alone in this regard. In general, countries with higher density were found to have lower fertility rates, lower rates of teen pregnancy, longer lifespans, more emphasis on planning for the future, less promiscuous behavior, and more children enrolled in pre-school (indicative of more investment in children). These relationships held even after taking into account a variety of alternative factors, such as economic development, urbanization, and population size. This is consistent with the prediction that density would be associated with a slower life history in human beings, as it is in other species.

A second study compared different states in the United States, and found that states with higher density had lower fertility, less teen pregnancy, later age at first marriage, more children enrolled in preschool, more young people obtaining college degrees, longer lifespans, and more participation in retirement plans. Again, all this is evidence for a slower life history in places with higher density.

The paper also reports two experimental studies in which people were presented with various cues to crowding, such as a news article (purportedly from the New York Times) titled The Crowded Life: Too Many Too Much. The article stated that:

Throughout the United States, people are becoming increasingly familiar with long lines, big crowds, and giant traffic jams. Theres a good reason for all this overcrowding. According to statistics released by the U.S. census this year, population densities are growing at an unprecedented rate. In almost every U.S. state, population densities are increasing rapidly

Participants were then given a series of choices, such as:

Would you prefer 1) to have $100 today, OR 2) $140 ninety days from now?

and:

Would you prefer to: 1) have ONE child and invest all your resources in that one child OR 2) have MULTIPLE children and split your time and resources across all of them.

The results indicated that people who had been primed to think about crowding made more choices associated with a slower strategychoosing fewer children and long-term rather than short-term payoffs, for example.

To summarize, these results suggest that human beings, like other animal species, adopt a slower life history when they are living in high density conditions. Does this mean that everyone living in New York and Los Angeles starts having children later, has small families, and focuses on long term rather than short-term payoffs? Obviously not. But on average, there are relatively more slow strategists in places with high populations as compared to low populations. It remains an interesting question why some people living in big cities still adopt a faster life history strategy.

Douglas T. Kenrick is author of:

View original post here:
Why Are Crowded City Dwellers Living the Slow Life? - Psychology Today (blog)

Before she was manicurist Jennifer on TNTs new summer series Claws, before she was Lindsey Salazar on Justified or Mackenzie on Saint George, Jenn Lyon was working hard in theatre. A graduate of North Carolinas School of the Arts, Lyon originated the role of Elsie in the world premiere of John Guares Are You There McPhee?. Shes worked with A.R. Gurney and Kenneth Lonergan, appearing in the latters Hold on to Me Darling, which was named one of the New York Times Best Plays of 2016. She made her Broadway debut in Tom Stoppards three-part extravaganza The Coast of Utopia, the most Tony-winning play in history, and returned to the Great White Way for Larry Davids sold-out hit Fish in the Dark in 2015.

Her years in theatre taught her bold choices are the best choices. A strong choice is not arbitrary, she says. Human behavior is so wild and weird and you can incorporate that: choices that kick you out of the norm, like Oh, what a weird thing to do, but also informs the text and reveals the content even more.

Now, she brings that daring to Claws. A show about good women caught in bad places with worse men, her character is struggling to stay afloat. Shes ten years sober, and we, as humans, go back again and again to these vices that sustain us or give us something, says Lyon. I just want [audiences] to know shes fighting against it. It may look like shes drowning, but shes trying really hard to swim.

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What was your first professional acting job? Jenn Lyon: My first professional gig, where I got my equity card, was a Polly Pen musical at the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia called Embarrassment. I was right out of school. Id done like outdoor drama in North Carolina as a non-Eq, and worth it. I remember that first union job and I remember walking into the apartment and being so excited that I cried.

What was the stage show that you saw, at any age, that has most influenced you as an actor? Remember that Im from a little small town in North Carolina. When I was in second grade they took us to see an opera version of Cinderella and it was the most bizarre thing Id ever seen. When I look back on it, it was kind of a restoration comedyoutfits, white faces, huge up-dos and moles and fans and I just had never seen a world like that before and I was so transported (and upset with my classmates for talking during the performance). Something clicked inside of me where I was like, Man, I want to do something weird like this. When I would go see shows and I would sit in that dark place full of people that were doing this ritual, I just felt so at home.

Is there a stage moment that stays with you? [The Coast of Utopia] thats like 25 of the best actors ever. I can remember being really floored in rehearsal watching a scene between Billy Crudup and David Harbour and I was just so stunned at both of them, and Daves commitment to the work; hes just making these bold choices all the time and his seemingly effortless take on things. They both took up so much space and it really floored me. Also, watching Jennifer Ehle and Martha Plimpton brings up the similar sense of wonderment. And, on the beginning of The Trip to Bountiful at South Coast Rep in California and watching Lynn Milgram be onstage in her walking chair and viewing just incredible poignant themes, I dont know, it touches some chord inside of you that nothing else really does. Willem Dafoe said this thing about theatre being so magical because it evaporatesand it does. The record that exists of it is between you and the audience; thats it. I think that whole nature of it makes it so special.

The Coast of Utopia ran from Nov 27, 2006 - May 12, 2007 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, NY. Here are some photos from that production.

What has been the most rewarding onstage experience for you? It might be some of the regional theatre that Ive done. Ive gotten to do Born Yesterday twice, and that Ill never forget; I felt like I was walking in the footsteps of legends. All of New Yorks just been fucking great, but some of the best things Ive seen was in regional theatre.

Is there a particular collaborator, scene partner, director, or someone from theatre that made you better? Warner Shook, he directed The Kentucky Cycle on Broadway, directed me in Crimes of the Heart and I feel like it opened a space inside of me that wasnt open before. I also felt the same way about John Guare because his take on the world, like his eccentricity, is so profound and he is so prolific that getting to work with him and be with him, and shop with him at Trader Joes, it kind of changed my view of the world; seeing his view opened up mine. Hes like a magnet; when he starts to tell me a story, I wouldnt rather be anywhere else.

What are you bringing from your theatre and stage knowledge into this series? Going to the School of the Arts and doing theatre you learn how to break down a script. Fast. You learn how to pursue objectives, how to talk and listen, how to act with your whole body. I always check my own props. Theres a certain sense of self-government and independence that you get in the theatre because its so much scrappier than television. No ones offering you bottles of water, you do your own makeup, you are dependent on you. The sense of self-government and fearlessness comes from theatre.

What is your favorite part of doing TV thats different from theatre? Craft services. [Laughs] I cannot understand how glamorous it is. They have catered lunches; you go to lunch and theres salmon and quinoa. I cannot believe it.

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Read more:
TNT's Claws Star Jenn Lyon Proves Her Theatre Cred - Playbill.com

Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian

A new state law requires hospitals to have a protocol when releasing mentally ill patients from emergency rooms.

Submitted Photo

Gov. Kate Brown held a ceremonial signing ceremony Friday for new laws to help the mentally ill.

Hospitals in Oregon will no longer be able to release patients who come into the emergency room in mental health crisis without taking steps to prevent suicide and find treatment.

The new state law is another thread in the patchwork of care for the mentally ill, who often fail to get proper treatment even when their behavior escalates into an emergency.

The state requires hospitals that admit patients for mental health treatment to have a protocol at discharge to assess suicide risk, the capacity for self-care, the need for outpatient treatment, a transition plan, and a timetable for follow-up appointments.

Erasing an exemption

But hospitals that do not provide mental health treatment, like Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria and Providence Seaside Hospital in Seaside, were exempt in a compromise to get the mandate through the state Legislature in 2015.

Hospital administrators had argued that doctors and nurses were not equipped to counsel the mentally ill on top of the stressful, around-the-clock demands of an emergency room.

Basically, we didnt buy that, said state Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland, one of the chief sponsors of the new law. Thats not an acceptable answer to say, We cant do it. You dont send somebody home who had a heart attack and say, Sorry, we dont have any help for you.

The new law, signed by Gov. Kate Brown in early June, takes effect this fall.

Hospitals will have to provide copies of emergency room release policies for patients in mental health crisis to the Oregon Health Authority. The Health Authority will compile the information in a report to the Legislature in January on the progress and potential barriers in carrying out the law.

Another new law signed by Brown requires public and private health insurers to cover behavioral health assessments and medically necessary treatment for people in mental health crisis, a mechanism to help finance care.

These bills ensure that when Oregonians reach out for help in a behavioral health crisis, they can access a broad range of mental health professionals, emergency services and critical support systems, Brown said in a statement Friday after a ceremonial signing with advocates for the mentally ill. Now, Oregonians in their most vulnerable moments will have the tools they need to recover, without undue financial burden.

Crisis response

Columbia Memorial and Providence Seaside work with Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare Clatsop Countys mental health contractor on crisis response to the mentally ill. A crisis respite center that opened last summer in Warrenton is also intended as an alternative to emergency rooms or, in more severe circumstances, the county jail. The hospitals are a partner in the crisis respite center.

CMH has been following this practice already and we are glad to have the state make this the standard policy for everyone. Trece Gurrad, the vice president of patient care services at Columbia Memorial, said of the emergency room protocol in an email.

Janiece Zauner, the chief operating officer and chief nursing officer at Providence Seaside, said in an email that we are working on developing innovative, sustainable solutions that actively engage community resources to meet the needs developed in these policies. We are beginning the work in each ministry this summer, and hope to have community-based solutions identified later this fall, before the legislation takes effect.

Caring for patients with behavioral health needs is a priority, and we will be working on how best to implement targeted strategies in support of people in need.

Tragedies

Social workers, police officers and prosecutors who regularly encounter the mentally ill recognize the challenge for emergency room doctors and nurses. But some have observed that hospitals at times seem unprepared to handle people in a behavioral health crisis and unable to link patients to treatment.

Tragedies, like the suicide of Carrie Barnhart, who jumped from the Astoria Bridge in 2015 after several interactions with police, Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare and Columbia Memorial involving her schizophrenia and depression, have drawn attention to treatment gaps. Barnharts family has filed a $950,000 lawsuit against Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare and Columbia Memorial alleging negligence.

Another suicide Susanna Gabays Vicodin overdose in 2010 inspired state action. The 21-year-old University of Oregon student from Mosier, who struggled with depression, had a psychotic breakdown and was placed in a hospital psychiatric unit on suicide watch. She killed herself just before a counseling appointment a month after her discharge.

Her parents, Jerry and Susan Gabay, said the hospital did not disclose their daughter was on suicide watch and told them she may or may not have another psychotic episode, not enough information to alert them of suicide risk.

The 2015 law that set a protocol for hospitals when discharging mentally ill patients also clarified medical privacy to help avoid leaving loved ones in the dark. Patients are encouraged to authorize hospitals to disclose information to caregivers, such as prescribed medications and behavioral warning signs that demand immediate medical help.

Follow-up appointments must be scheduled within seven days after discharge, or hospitals must document why the seven-day goal is not possible.

The law was named the Susanna Blake Gabay Act.

Jerry Gabay, who now serves on the board of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Oregon, said he and his wife learned that medical providers are reluctant to talk with families about mental health in a way that would be shocking if you came in with a broken hip.

Research

New research released in April found that suicide risk among emergency room patients in mental health crisis is reduced if they receive suicide screening from an emergency room doctor, guidance at discharge and follow-up phone calls. The study, led by Ivan Miller, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University in Rhode Island, showed a 30 percent decline in suicide attempts among patients who received interventions over a 52-week follow-up period.

Its very important, particularly with people in a fragile mental state, and super important if they may be suicidal, to want to have done an adequate assessment of their mental health condition, which is not always done. And in my personal experience, with my daughter, it was not done, when I was there anyway, Gabay said.

So you need to have an adequate assessment of what is the problem here. And then dont just release them and say, Hey, good luck. Give them a little bit of a transition. Have some plan about what youre going to do. Make an appointment for them to see somebody.

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The rest is here:
New laws help screen mentally ill for suicide - Daily Astorian

Columbia Pictures

We asked experts ranging from body-language specialists to evolutionary biologistsand the answer might surprise you.

Male-to-male greeting in America takes many forms. Theres the classic handshake. The fist bump. Dap. The head nod. The you-too-huh? shrug from across a baby shower.* But as the world of masculine salutations takes on new layers of complexityreaching its most evolved form in Clevelandthere is one fixed practice that remains something of a universal truth: When hugging, two (usually) heterosexual men will almost always pat each other on the back.

Start paying attention, and youll see it everywhere. We cant help it, as if it were a particularly pernicious tic or social crutch, like constantly checking your phone during dinner or hitting a vape. And though the most commonly accepted explanation is truethat a not insignificant part of it is born out of the admittedly primitive heterosexual norms that deem tenderness among males not masculine (more on that to come)there must be some deeper anthropological basis for slapping another guy on the back. And, according to experts, there is!

But first, we need to set the table: Why do we even hug?

*Honestly, I've only heard that this happens. Ive never been to a baby showerhavent even held a baby, while we're being open with one another. Seems like too much risk (dropping it) for a non-reward (holding a baby).

As forests receded, we were no longer forest-dwelling apes but upright hominids on a plain," says Mark Bowden, human-behavior and body-language expert. "We can now see a distance, and so we need clear signals that somebody is a friend or a predator. So open body language and open palmsimagine hands up, that big surrender gesturesomebody can see two miles away that you're not a threat."

This Look, Im not going to stab you with a spear measure is especially important to establish when the hominids happen to own penises.

Testosterone makes people more risk-tolerant," says Bowden. "So you will get more aggression the more testosterone [there is], not because the testosterone is making somebody more aggressive. What it's doing is lowering the idea of there being a risk in the first place [So] groups of males, on the whole, [have] a lot of behaviors to countermeasure the possibility of aggression.

And what's the best behavior to countermeasure the aggression when those two miles become no miles, and you're now faced with that guy you saw in the hazy distance 20-some minutes ago, across the plain? Sure, a handshake might work. But theres actual value in doing something more intimate to quash any suggestion that you're going to smack him with a cudgel and steal his collection of exotic sabertooth furs, like hugging. Take it from Richard Wrangham, who works in Harvards Department of Human Evolutionary Biology (and who e-mail-answered my strange request for comment after six zoos declined).

There is a general principle involved in animal alliances, such as male-male friendships in primates: If two individuals are to express feelings of mutual solidarity, the reliability of the signal is greater if it is genuinely somewhat stressful. For example, male baboons who like each other but want to be sure about each other's feelings touch each other's genitals: If A can do that to B, and B doesn't snarl back, A can be truly confident that B likes him.

[This theory] suggests that males would basically prefer not to pat or hug, because such close physical proximity is ultimately somewhat stressful (given that it is potentially dangerous to be so close to someone who could be a secret rival). However, the stress is worth tolerating if it leads to confidence in each other's feelings about each other.

All right, so we hug so that we know who the real ones are. And we do it in a very specific way, says Bowdenwith open palms around the shoulder blades. The open palm not only indicates the absence of a weapon, but the flat hand on skin is going to cause levels of oxytocin to go up, which will actually cause more of a connection. (And the upper back is very well-protected, versus the belly or sensitive small of the back, both of which would make you feel far more uncomfortable and intimate.)

I think what it's about is two males being able to show vulnerability, but not in so vulnerable a way that if there was attack or real aggression, they'd be in trouble, says Bowden.

The pat has that little of physical roughness to it, which is also consistent with men, says Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist who has a B.A. from Harvard, a master's and a Ph.D. from Princeton, and teaches at Columbia Business School and Kellogg School of Management. Men wrestle with each other. It has the unique masculine quality of rough play, with the distancing behavioryou're saying, I'm being intimate, but I'm not crossing the line into being too intimate. Over time it starts to feel like a "uniquely special male thing," and the hug then becomes a ritual.

But the pat! The pat can be used for a signal of release, adds Bowden. A lot of primates have this tapping out behaviorduring play-fighting, that's the I'm done. Let's not move this into the realm of actual grappling. Pat pat pat, and now we're out. Let's not prolong this too long. If you prolong it, there's risk of further intimacy or aggression.

Go get your bro and hold him close.

The pat is part physical foolishness and part signal of an embrace's terminationand it's now fully ingrained in male-greeting liturgy.

However, any form of greeting is not just about the two parties involved. Bowden argues that a gentle pat among friends, both visible and audible (the slight sound of hand-on-back), indicates to the surrounding groupwhether that be a bunch of primitive, aggressive cavemen gathered around a carcass on the African plains or a bunch of primitive, aggressive cavemen at a Patriots gamethat the newcomers hands are empty, and he is benign. Of course, sometimes the newcomer doesn't want to be benign. He will try to manipulate the optics of what should be a harmless exchange into some weird dick-swinging contest, an attempt to signal to the herd who the one true Daddy is. This type of toxic insecurity is also, unfortunately, where the homophobia creeps in.

Youre trying to figure out the tribal-social norms, says Bowden. What is the normality for a heterosexual man to be intimate with another heterosexual male? And how can you make sure that you, as the tribe, dont overstep those boundaries? Galinsky refers to these boundaries, too, saying the pat is an integrative solution that allows men to hug each other while not doing anything that would make the tribe uncomfortable. The need to establish heterosexuality ties back to the play-fighting/grappling aspect also: Look at us! Just a couple of dudes, roughhousing, being guys! And when you really overdo it...well, you just might be overcompensating.

You could see some extremes of quite big, aggressive play behavior in groups of males that want it very much to be known to themselves and others, Look, there's nothing homosexual going on here," says Bowden. "Now, we could drill into all kinds of reasons why they might want it to be very, very obvious. There's one school of psychology that says they're very unsure. They want to make it very physically clear, because psychologically they're a little bit on the boundary.

But, guys: It's 2017! Can we really not be tender with one another, without fear of feeling emasculated or castigated? Maybe it's time we update our tribal norms. I love a hearty back pat as much as the next guy, and if it's to signal the end of an embrace or a means of physical buffoonery among friends, that's cool. But if it's because you're afraid of a little physical affection? Leave that type of limited thinking to the monkeys, man. Go get your bro and hold him close.

"Once we become aware of this, it actually helps us understand where we stand with people or how we feel toward them," says Galinsky. "And it gives us a really powerful tool to increase the intimacy. If this is someone that I know that I always hug this one way, and I wanted to be more connected to them, what if I hugged them a little bit differently the next time? Would that actually help our relationship?"

You'll never know until you try. Just...probably don't grab him by the genitals, baboon-style.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS ONE

Read more:
Why Do Guys Always Have to Pat Each Other on the Back When They Hug? - GQ Magazine

We go to the beach to see its natural beauty. If we're lucky, maybe we'll see a dolphin flopping off in the distance, or a whale exploding plumes of vapor above the surface. We never go to the beach to see trash, and yet it's always there. Obviously, the garbage is full of stuff people don't want, like old toothbrushes, flossers, cigarette lighters, shopping bags, popped balloons ... I could go on and on. As you know, most of this junk is made of plastic.

Since most of the disposable plastic can't get recycled it just sits in landfills, releasing toxins. Tons of it journeys down our waterways, into the depths of the oceans or pushed onto the beaches and most sadly, stuck in the bodies of just about everything that lives on our planet.

Join me exclusively on MNN as I reflect about the impact that human behavior has on our fellow Earthlings. As you can tell, this piece is about the immense problem that's bleeding into our oceans: disposable plastic.

Let's take a quick trip to Midway Atoll, which is located between North America and Asia in other words, an island in the middle of nowhere. Just a few dozen people live there, and yet the tiny patch of land is completely littered with human-produced garbage.

The garbage that's strewn about is not new it takes quite a long time to reach Midway via the ocean currents. While the plastic is floating around in the ocean, it accumulates algae particles on it, and this algae confuses seabirds, like the Laysan albatross, into thinking the plastic is food. For instance, small lighters are often confused for squid bodies.

It's not just seabirds that feel the burn from plastics invading their environment. All kinds of animals wind up either eating plastic or getting entangled.

Since we humans are causing these problems, we need to find solutions. The animals can't. They have evolved to thrive in their environments. Disposable plastic is less than a century old, they don't have time to adapt even though I wish they would try!

Well, some animals do try, like these hermit crabs.

If you're feeling powerless from this suffocating tidal wave of garbage, there are some things you can do. Before the planet gets zip-locked in an airless vacuum filled with hormone disruptors (unpronounceably called phthalates), we can refuse much of this stuff. We need to be pickier, and let those around know it, too. We need to act like this albatross chick:

And tell our own chic--er, children about it. We humans need to change our behavior before every trip to the beach winds up like this:

Thanks to Rob Lang for doing a guest stint on the photo blog for MNN! He lives in Seattle, and you can follow him on Instagram/UnderdoneComics, where he posts a new cartoon almost every weekday morning. You can buy shirts, environmentally righteous tote bags, prints and other stuff at UnderdoneComics.com.

See original here:
Ocean pollution is no laughing matter - Mother Nature Network (blog)

Photo Paula Cocozza Credit Christian Sinibaldi

HOW TO BE HUMAN By Paula Cocozza 278 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. $26.

Paula Cocozzas hypnotic first novel, How to Be Human, features 34-year-old Mary Green and the urban fox that takes up residence in her London garden. Mary, who as a girl wrote letters to herself to stem acute loneliness, welcomes the vulpine caller. The fox is soon leaving tokens for her, the kind a knight pledges before going into battle. She begins to call him a friend. Within weeks, theyve formed a natural intimacy. In this suspenseful tale animal and human behavior begin to meld, even reverse, and whos dangerous and whos endangered is not always clear.

Mary fetishizes her fox with Jamesian granularity: She understood his show of nonchalance was the disguise for an as yet unarticulated intention. The novel is dynamic with contrasts: the fecund and the fallow. The single and the paired. The urban and the wild. His jaws slackened to liberate his tongue, and he licked his lips with her thoughts. In short order, the fox has possessed her. Time is measured by his visits, his winks, his yawns. His poise today was a stillness with caveats: Every hair bristled with his power to surprise. Mary plies his attentions to her psychic wounds, and who can begrudge her that? Who has not wanted to believe that an animal loves her? If, as I do, one likes to dwell on the handsome presence of animals, and on the rustlings of various leaves, grasses and insects, this novel satisfies and delights. But even greater pleasure is to be had from the dark side of Marys enchantments.

The opening pages present a confounding mystery: Who or what has placed a baby on Marys steps? Next door, Michelle and Eric, with their two small children, seem troubled; Mary perceives them as the classic stressed and self-absorbed young family, somewhat perplexing to all but those in the same straits. She even conjectures, persuasively, that they dont really want the baby shes a crafty one, Mary. When she ventures into their domestic midden she begins to seem like a predator, a fox in a henhouse (indeed, eggs of all kinds are a recurring motif); the narrative balance is wonderfully sly and assured throughout. The mystery surrounding the baby deepens and twists. Readers may slowly come to realize they are on thrillingly unstable ground, waiting to see how far afield Mary will go.

And go she does. Where ones uneasiness sets in will be a personal matter. Is it when Mary leaves her own scent in the garden, by way of a strategic squat? Or is it only once shes gone full-on feral? How soon might one wonder if the fox loves her back, or if hes been outfoxing her all along? And Marys ex, Mark, is a disturbing bystander, on the face of it a clingy pest. But is he as bad as all that?

Cocozza cleverly blurs our capacities to judge Marys narrowing world. I wanted to root for this spirited underdog all the way. But is that who she really is? She might be the eloquently rationalizing Humbert Humbert of the neighborhood, or maybe the spooked and high-strung governess in The Turn of the Screw, losing herself in an obsession. Or, in the end, maybe just another fragile soul trying to get by, chasing a dream of happiness: She tried to keep up, but at some perfect point where distance equaled darkness, he began to silver and fade for her, as if his fur were intercut with nights invisible stripes, and it was no longer possible to know for sure if she was seeing him or seeing the night behind him. One thing is sure: Mary bends whats at hand to her needs. What more does it take to be human?

Elizabeth McKenzies most recent novel is The Portable Veblen.

A version of this review appears in print on June 25, 2017, on Page BR13 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Fox and Friend.

See the article here:
When the Fox Becomes a Friend - New York Times

Stockholm-based Tobii Pro is a world leader in eye-tracking technology, with its products and services used by businesses and academic institutions around the world. Now, it is combining eye tracking solutions with virtual reality.

Eye-tracking technology is a widespread method employed by organizations and institutions keen to understand human behavior better. The movement of the eyes offers information about much more than what we are looking at. Eye tracking is also a doorway into what draws our attention and for how long it keeps it. Its a simple, objective way to observe the conscious and unconsciousmind at work.

There are plenty of parties interested in applying eye-tracking technology, from advertisers conducting market research to psychologists observing phobias.

In this regard, Tobii Pro has notched up a real track record. It currently provides eye-tracking research products and services to every one of the worlds top 50 universities, four of the top five global market research organizationsand 18 of the worlds top 20 advertising spenders.

Read more:Competition Charities challenged to take advantage of AR & VR technologies

Tobii Pro has now announced new research solutions that combine eye tracking with virtual reality (VR). This will allow the companys partners to conduct eye-tracking research within virtual environments, supporting potentially endless new experiments.

The new eye-tracking solution has been embedded into HTCs Vive headset andcomes with Tobii Pros software development kit. Researchers will now be able to conduct experiments in virtual environments that would otherwise be too costly, dangerous or difficult to create in real life.

Tobii Pros new VR eye-tracking solution promises to open doors for researchers of human behavior. Most notably, scientists eager to better understand anxieties, phobias and disorders such as PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] can now carefully control stimuli, regulate scenarios and study without putting participants at risk.

This is because with VR, the real world can be duplicated to allow for stricter controls on variables than behavioural studies usually support.

The technology is also useful for testing professionals in disciplines where on-the-job training might put lives at risk. Tobii Pro highlights surgeons and crane operators as examples in which the need to ensure professional skills are constantly assessed and sharpened cannot be met in the real world.

Recreating these high-risk environments virtually and applying eye-tracking technology will provide objective insights into situational awareness and form an ideal training tool.

Combining eye tracking with VR is growing as a research methodology and our customers have started to demand this technology to be part of their toolkit for behavioral studies, said Tobii Pro president Tom Englund.

The Tobii Pro VR Integration is our first step in making eye tracking in immersive VR a reliable and effective research tool for a range of fields. It marks our first major expansion of VR-based research tools.

Read more:Lloyds is banking on Virtual Reality to attract top grads

Tobii Pros new VR solution is a retrofit of the HTC Vive business edition headset. Its capable of eye tracking all types of eyes and collecting binocular eye tracking data at 120 Hz.

The headset can be used in conjunction with handheld controllers. Its been designed not to compromise the user experience or the output of eye tracking data.

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Tobii Pro combines eye tracking with VR to understand human ... - The Internet of Business (blog)

DENVER A clash of workplace safety philosophies was on display at a safety conference on Wednesday, with panelists debating the extent to which employees are part of the problem or the solution to reducing workplace safety incidents.

The two philosophies aimed at reducing workplace injuries and fatalities behavior-based safety and human and organization performance are somewhat at odds with each other, but moderator Thomas Krause, partner with Krause Bell Group based in Ojai, California, told attendees of the American Society of Safety Engineers Safety 2017 conference in Denver who came to see a fight that they would be disappointed. Although panelists at times engaged in verbal sparring over terminology and philosophies, the discourse remained lively but civil.

Asked what the difference is between behavior-based safety and human and organization performance, Todd Conklin, senior adviser, environmental safety, health and quality, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said human and organization performance represents a shift in thinking.

If I were to boil it down to one thing, it is a shift in how we perceive the worker, said Mr. Conklin. The behavioral approach sees workers as problem to be fixed. This new view sees the employee not as problem to be fixed, but as problem solver.

E. Scott Geller, alumni distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and a long-time advocate for the behavior-based safety approach, objected to the idea that the philosophy employs a blame-the-employee mentality. He said that perception is a misapplication of the philosophy and that behavior-based safety involves self-motivation and a culture of caring among workers who should feel empowered to point out safety hazards to other employees.

Im not sure caring more makes you safer, because Im not sure lack of caring causes accidents, Mr. Conklin countered.

In the human and organization performance philosophy that he champions, employers seek input from workers on what they need to do their job safely to improve the system, Mr. Conklin said.

Its always true that if the worker had made a better choice there would have been a different outcome, he said. We need to ask what do you need in order to do this job in a way that if it fails, it fails as gracefully and safely as it possibly can.

Boston-based General Electric Co. implemented behavior-based safety approaches several years ago and has now implemented human and organization performance philosophies. Kurt Krueger, global manager of health and safety programs at GE, said the company found that employees do things that make sense to them in the time and context they have to take a particular action. These philosophies helped the company understand that there was a deeper story than just why an employee chose to do what he or she did that led to an event. Understanding there is a deeper story facilitated conversations with management about sustainable safety, he said.

Our job is to help them understand theres a deeper story, said Mr. Krueger. Human and organization performance context gave our leaders coaching and the perspective that theres something more to learn and (that they) need to go to employees to learn that. That was incredibility important.

However, achieving buy-in from senior management of human and organization performance philosophies was not easy, said Mr. Krueger. Instead, the safety team implemented it at the grassroots level, created success stories and developed champions for the philosophy who could promote it to management. Mr. Krueger stressed human and organization performance is not a program but an ongoing process or an operating philosophy that dictates how operational leaders react to failures and learn from them.

Measuring its success is difficult because the benchmarks are softer than objective numbers, Mr. Krueger said. Having implemented both philosophies, GE has achieved sustained success with human and organization performance rather than quick improvements that tended to fade with behavior-based approaches, he said.

One key element of human and organization performance is that it acknowledges that failures will happen rather than believing that all accidents can be prevented, Mr. Conklin said.

There is a realization that you cant manage uncertainty, so you use certain ideas to manage uncertain outcomes, he said. We have to get off this idea that all accidents are preventable and understand that accidents are accidents. You cant predict fatalities because fatalities exist in successful work. The best you can hope for is control.

Behavior-based safety, when done right, considers the entire system, including environmental factors that could facilitate safety, and involves the worker in decisions about safety, Mr. Geller said.

Whats missing now is that conversation between peers or between a supervisor and a worker, he said. Its caring. Its demonstrating I care about your safety.

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Human behavior at center of workplace safety debate - Business Insurance

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.

"Fraidy cat" isn't the way most people think of mountain lions, but when it comes to encounters with humans, perhaps they should.

New research into the behavior of these big cats indicates that they don't like encountering humans any more than we like bumping into them on hiking trails.

"We exposed pumas in the Santa Cruz mountains to the sound of human voices to see if they would react with fear and flee, and the results were striking: They were definitely afraid of humans," said Justine Smith.

WATCH: Mountain lion flees from sound of human voice

Smith was the lead author of the paper "Fear of the human 'super predator' reduces feeding time in large carnivores," published Wednesday.

The findings are valuable as human development encroaches on lion habitat and drives up the number of human-puma encounters.

The most recent cougar who wandered into a heavily populated neighborhood in Santa Cruz hid in a tree for hours until it was tranquilized and re-located into the mountains. The cougar appeared to be afraid during the April incident as more and more curious onlookers showed up.

READ MORE: Santa Cruz mountain lion found hiding in tree

Smith and her colleagues devised a novel experiment to gauge puma behavior: Her team placed audio equipment at puma kill sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains; when a puma came to feed, its movements triggered motion-activated technology that broadcast recordings of people talking, and a hidden camera captured the puma's responses.

They broadcast recordings of Pacific tree frog vocalizations as a control.

Human voice recordings were broadcast to mimic the natural volume of human conversation.

"We found that pumas almost always ran from the sound of humans--and almost never ran from the sound of frogs," said Smith, now a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. In 29 experiments involving 17 pumas, the pumas fled in 83 percent of cases as soon as it heard human voices, and only once upon hearing frogs.

READ MORE: Adorable wild mountain lion kittens found

National Park Service

In addition to establishing the fear response, the study reveals changes in puma feeding behavior that could have implications for their well-being in human-dominated landscapesand their impact on prey populations, particularly deer.

"We found that pumas took longer to return to their kills after hearing people, and subsequently reduced their feeding on kills by about half," said Smith. "Those behavioral changes are significant, as our previous work has shown that they cause pumas to increase their kill rates by 36 percent in areas with high human activity."

This is the first study to experimentally link the fear of humans to feeding behavior in large carnivores, said Chris Wilmers, associate professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz and a senior author on the study.

"Fear is the mechanism behind an ecological cascade that goes from humans to pumas to increased puma predation on deer," said Wilmers, a wildlife ecologist who studies the cascading effects large carnivores can have on their prey. "We're seeing that human disturbancebeyond huntingmay alter the ecological role of large carnivores. As we encroach on lion habitat, our presence will likely affect the link between top predators and their prey."

The experiment was part of a long-term study of puma ecology in the Santa Cruz Mountains that began in 2008.

All 17 pumas in this study have housing developments in their home range, and exposure to humans is commonplace. Kill sites were identified with data transmitted from GPS-monitoring collars worn by pumas that have been captured, collared, and released as part of the project.

In addition to Smith and Wilmers, coauthors include Justin Suraci and Ayana Crawford at UC Santa Cruz, and Michael Clinchy, Devin Roberts, and Liana Zanette at Western University in Canada.

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Mountain lions fear humans, UC Santa Cruz study reveals - KSBW The Central Coast