Alva Noë - What Is Love?

[Cross-posted at IOC]

A little different post this week from Alva Noë in his column for NPR's 13.7: Culture and Cosmos blog.

What Is Love?

December 24, 2010

by Alva Noë

Disclaimer: The author has written a great deal about perception, as a philosopher, and as a cognitive scientist; whatever his authority, it is not that he is a better perceiver than others. And so for the topic of today's essay.

Children do not love their parents. They are connected to them. And they need them.

Love, in contrast, is an achievement. It doesn't come for free.

Scientists like to ask: How do we perceive so much, given the impoverished data actually available to the nervous system? But the better question would be: Why do we see so little, given all there is that shows itself to us?

To bring the world into focus for consciousness, we need to do a lot of work. Think of the work a child needs to do to learn to read. But once the child reads, texts have powerful, inescapable meanings.

Learning to read is, in this way, achieving an openness to the world, or at least to a world of ideas and possibilities.

Love, in a similar way, is an achieved openness. Love, I think, is a sustained openness to another person. It's hard to learn to read; in general, although we never notice this, it is very heard to learn to see. The purpose of education is to teach us how to see. It is very hard to be able to see another person. To see someone you must know him or her. Sometimes we just cannot see what is there before us!

They say the hot love of romance is fueled by hormonal events and chemical secretions in the brain. No doubt it is. It may be also fueled by music, wine, food, and tobacco, by fantasy and lust. The stars need to align just right for one to get oneself into a position to look, and so to see

someone else. The brain rush is good. Sex is good. Food is good. But in the end, these are the topography you must traverse, to be able to perceive, and so maybe to find, love.

Love is an emotional condition. (So is seeing.) And love for another person, however wonderful, however pleasurable, is challenging.

If a love is very hot, it can take a long time for the heat to pass. But eventually it does; a transformation must take place. The less burning love of partners — the next condition — is more practical; it is no less an achievement. Openness to the other, over time, requires that one makes arrangements. You’ve got to be with the one you love, and this means you’ve got to make adjustments, adapt, shift, accommodate. Mature love is an achievement of dedication.

The love of a parent for a child has something in common with both of these forms of love. It is passionate and sensual, like one’s first passion for one’s lover. But it is practical above all else; the parent erects a structure in which to understand and guide and know the child.

Love is not only always love for a person.

You can love a work of art. Indeed, a work of art is an invitation to love. For it is offers itself up to be recognitized. Art is an opportunity for openness. Exactly the same is true of philosophy.

(To find out whether something is art, or philosophy, ask yourself: is it possible to love this?)

Can you love the whole world? I suppose this is like the question, Is there a God?

Photo: jmscottIMD/via Flickr

Tags: Alva Noë, What Is Love?, NPR, 13.7, Culture and Cosmos, blog, love, emotions, Philosophy, Psychology

Rick Hanson - Receive Generosity - Do you accept the gift?

This bit of wisdom comes from Rick Hanson's Just One Thing Newsletter.

Also from Dr. Hanson: I am very happy about being able to acquaint you with one of my own teachers, James Baraz, whose annual Awakening Joy course is beginning again this January. Here is a preview video - and the Awakening Joy website has additional information.

Do you accept the gift?

The Practice

Receive generosity.

Why?

Life gives to each one of us in so many ways.

For starters, there's the bounty of the senses - including chocolate chip cookies, jasmine, sunsets, wind singing through pine trees, and just getting your back scratched.

What does life give you?

Consider the kindness of friends and family, made more tangible during a holiday season, but of course continuing throughout the year.

Or the giving of the people whose hard work is bound up in a single cup of coffee. Or all those people in days past who figured out how to make a stone ax - or a fire, edible grain, loom, vaccine, or computer. Or wrote plays and novels, made art or music. Developed mathematics and science, paths of psychological growth, and profound spiritual practices. A few people whose names you know, and tens of thousands - millions, really - whom you will never know: each day their contributions feed, clothe, transport, entertain, inspire, and heal us.

Consider the giving of the natural world, the sound of rain, sweep of sky and stars, and majesty of mountains. How does nature feed you?

How about your DNA? The moment of your conception presented you with the build-out instructions for becoming a human being, the hard-won fruits of 3.5 billion years of evolution.

You don't earn these things. You can't. They are just given.

The best you can do is to receive them. That helps fill your own cup, which is good for both you and others. It keeps the circle of giving going; when someone deflects or resists one of your own gifts, how inclined are you to give again? It draws you into deep sense of connection with life.

And if nothing else, it's simply polite!

How?

Start with something a friend has recently given to you, such as a smile, an encouraging word, or simply some attention. Then open to feeling given to. Notice any reluctance here, such as thoughts of unworthiness, or a background fear of dependence, or the idea that if you receive then you will owe the other person something. Try to open past that reluctance to accepting what's offered, to taking it in - and enjoy the pleasures of this. Let it sink in that receiving generosity is good.

Next pick something from nature. For example, open to the giving folded into an ordinary apple, including the cleverness and persistence it took, across hundreds of generations, to gradually breed something delicious from its sour and bitter wild precursors. See if you can taste their work in its rich sweetness. Open even more broadly to the nurturing benevolence in the whole web of life.

Then try something unliving, perhaps something with no apparent value, like a bit of sand. Yet in that single grain are echoes of the Big Bang - the gift that there is something at all rather than nothing. Who knows what deeper, perhaps transcendental gifts underlie the blazing bubbling emergence of our universe?

Take a breath, and enjoy receiving trillions of atoms of oxygen - most of them the gifts of an exploding star.

Consider some of the intangibles flowing toward you from others, including good will, fondness, respect, and love. See if you can drink deeply from the stream coming from one person; as you recognize something positive being offered to you, try to experience it in a felt way in your body and emotions. Then see if you can do the same with other people. If you can, include your parents and other family members, friends, and key acquaintances.

Try to stretch yourself further. Recall a recent interaction that was a mixed bag for you, some good in it but also some bad. Focus on whatever was accurate or useful in what the other person communicated, and try to receive that as a valuable offering. Open your mind to the good that is implicit or down deep in the other person, even if you don't like the way it has come out.

Keep listening, touching, tasting, smelling, and looking for other overflowing generosity coming your way.

So many gifts.

Tags: Rick Hanson, Receive Generosity, Do you accept the gift?, Just One Thing, psychology, spirituality, Buddhism, practice, generosity, gratitude

Bullying, Part 2 - Targeting LGBT Youth

In part one of this two-part post, I offered an article from the Boston Globe on the horrible and lasting effects bullying can have on the child's brain. LGBT youth are easy targets for harassment and bullying by their fellow students, and even by school authorities (LGBT youth are 40 percent more likely than other teens to be punished by school authorities, police and the courts).

On the bright side, support and acceptance by parents can help mitigate the impact of that harassment - when that support and existence exists, that is. There is also, now, the It Gets Better Project, initiated by Dan Savage.

For a variety of reasons, gay youth are the most common targets. Lesbian youth are not as ostracized and transgender youth are far less common (though they may be more troubled if they are identified by peers). This comes from the It Gets Better Project website.

Growing up isn’t easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, leading them to feel like they have nowhere to turn. This is especially true for LGBT kids and teens, who often hide their sexuality for fear of bullying. Without other openly gay adults and mentors in their lives, they can't imagine what their future may hold. In many instances, gay and lesbian adolescents are taunted — even tortured — simply for being themselves.

Justin Aaberg. Billy Lucas. Cody Barker. Asher Brown. Seth Walsh. Raymond Chase. Tyler Clementi. They were tragic examples of youth who could not believe that it does actually get better.

While many of these teens couldn’t see a positive future for themselves, we can. The It Gets Better Project was created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better.

Fortunately, mental health services can also help - and may be a necessity when parents are not accepting and supportive. This comes from the Center for American Progress.

Idea of the Day: Mental Health Services Can Help LGBT Youth Cope with Harassment

December 9, 2010

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teenagers are some of the most vulnerable of people in the United States today. They face discrimination and harassment from a variety of different sources: bullying and harassment in schools, rejection at home, and condemnation from media and religious organizations. A fear of persecution encourages many LGBT teens to keep their real identities hidden.

Living with the stress of a marginalized identity has clear and negative effects on the mental health of LGBT youth. They are consistently reported as having higher rates of depression and anxiety than their non-LGBT peers. Even more troubling, studies have demonstrated that these young adults are more likely than non-LGBT teenagers to engage in self-harm, have suicidal thoughts, and attempt suicide.

Providing LGBT adolescents with access to mental health services is essential to helping them cope with the extreme pressures that have led many of them to consider suicide. Numerous studies have already demonstrated the benefits of mental health treatment for people suffering from depression and other mood disorders. Mental health counseling and therapy have a high probability of improving the mental health and wellbeing of teens, even when unaccompanied by medication.

For more on this topic please see:

• Providing a Lifeline for LGBT Youth by Carlos Maza

I find it especially disturbing that adults - school officials, law enforcement, and the courts are more likely to punish LGBT youth that other young people. Apparently, lesbian youth are twice as likely to be stopped by police than their peers. My question on that would be: Is this about their sexual preference or is a form of sexual harassment?

Lesbian, gay and bisexual teens singled out for punishment

Posted On: December 6, 2010

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adolescents are about 40 percent more likely than other teens to be punished by school authorities, police and the courts, according to a study by Yale University researchers. Published in the January 2011 issue of the journal Pediatrics, the study is the first to document excessive punishment of LGB youth nationwide.

"We found that virtually all types of punishment—including school expulsions, arrests, juvenile convictions, adult convictions and especially police stops—were more frequently meted out to LGB youth," said lead author Kathryn Himmelstein, who initiated the study while she was a Yale undergraduate. The research was supervised by Hannah Brueckner, professor of sociology and co-director of the Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course at Yale.

The study was based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and included about 15,000 middle and high school students who were followed for seven years into early adulthood. The study collected details on participants' sexuality, including feelings of sexual attraction, sexual relationships and self-labeling as LGB. Add Health also surveyed participants about how frequently they engaged in a variety of misbehaviors, ranging in severity from lying to parents, to using a weapon.

Add Health included detailed questions about school expulsions and contacts with the criminal justice system.

Himmelstein, who now teaches math at a public high school in New York City, said that adolescents who identified themselves as LGB were about 50 percent more likely to be stopped by police than other teenagers. Teens who reported feelings of attraction to members of the same sex, regardless of their self-identification, were more likely than other teens to be expelled from school or convicted of crimes as adults.

"Girls who labeled themselves as lesbian or bisexual were especially at risk for unequal treatment," said Himmelstein. "They reported experiencing twice as many police stops, arrests and convictions as other girls who had engaged in similar behavior. Although we did not explore the experiences of transgender youth, anecdotal reports suggest that they are similarly at risk for excessive punishment."

The study showed that these disparities in punishments are not explained by differences in the rates of misbehavior. In fact, the study showed that adolescents who identified themselves as LGB actually engaged in less violence than their peers.

"The painful, even lethal bullying that LGB youth suffer at the hands of their peers has been highlighted by recent tragic events," Himmelstein notes. "Our numbers suggest that school officials, police and judges, who should be protecting LGB youth, are instead singling them out for punishment based on their sexual orientation. LGB teens can't thrive if adults single them out for punishment because of their sexual orientation."

Brueckner added, "The study provides the first and only national estimates for over-representation of LGB youth in the criminal justice system. We simply did not have any good numbers on this before. We need more research on the processes that lead to this to help us identify ways to make our institutions more equitable with respect to policing all youth, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation."

~ Source: Yale University

Finally, there is this piece that shows how important it is for parents to be supportive. Many parents want to be supportive, but they were raised with values that reject LGBT people as sinful, or a mental illness, or whatever. They struggle to overcome their internalized beliefs - to accept and love their children - but they often do not know how. The Family Acceptance Project can help parents develop the skills they need.

Study finds family acceptance of LGBT youth protects against depression, substance abuse, suicide

Posted On: December 6, 2010

For the first time, researchers have established a clear link between accepting family attitudes and behaviors towards their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children and significantly decreased risk and better overall health in adulthood. The study shows that specific parental and caregiver behaviors -- such as advocating for their children when they are mistreated because of their LGBT identity or supporting their gender expression -- protect against depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts in early adulthood.

In addition, LGBT youth with highly accepting families have significantly higher levels of self-esteem and social support in young adulthood. The study is published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, a journal of the International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses, in a peer-reviewed article titled "Family Acceptance in Adolescence and the Health of LGBT Young Adults."

Despite all the recent attention to health risks and disparities for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, prior to this study, little was known about how families express acceptance and support for their LGBT children. Moreover, no prior research had examined the relationship between family acceptance of LGBT adolescents and health and mental health concerns in emerging adulthood.

"At a time when the media and families are becoming acutely aware of the risk that many LGBT youth experience, our findings that family acceptance protects against suicidal thoughts and behaviors, depression and substance abuse offer a gateway to hope for LGBT youth and families that struggle with how to balance deeply held religious and personal values with love for their LGBT children," said Dr. Caitlin Ryan, PhD, Director of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University. "I have worked on LGBT health and mental health for 35 years and putting our research into practice by developing a new model to help diverse families support their LGBT children is the most hopeful work I've ever done."

Ann P. Haas, Ph.D., Director of Prevention Projects for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, noted, "With this new groundbreaking study, Ryan and her colleagues have provided the strongest evidence to date that acceptance and support from parents and caregivers promote well-being among LGBT youth and help protect them from depression and suicidal behavior. These findings open the door to a whole new focus on how families can be helped to more fully engage in the kind of behaviors that reduce suicide risk in LGBT adolescents and young adults."

"Times have changed," said Stephen Russell, PhD, President Elect of the Society for Research on Adolescence and a consultant to the Family Acceptance Project. "More and more families want to be accepting of their children. Yet, many families still struggle when a child comes out as LGBT. It's essential to have research like this to deeply understand the ways that families show their acceptance, so that we can identify how to support families."

The study, authored by Dr. Caitlin Ryan and her team from the Family Acceptance Project, which shows that accepting behaviors of parents and caregivers towards their LGBT children are protective against mental health risks – including suicidal behaviors -- has critical implications for changing how families relate to their LGBT children and how LGBT youth are served by a wide range of providers across disciplines and systems of care, including custodial care systems such as foster care. The study was funded by The California Endowment, a health foundation dedicated to expanding access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities.

Major Research Findings:

• Family accepting behaviors towards LGBT youth during adolescence protect against suicide, depression and substance abuse.
• LGBT young adults who reported high levels of family acceptance during adolescence had significantly higher levels of self-esteem, social support and general health, compared to peers with low levels of family acceptance.
• LGBT young adults who reported low levels of family rejection during adolescence were over three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts and to report suicide attempts, compared to those with high levels of family acceptance.
• High religious involvement in families was strongly associated with low acceptance of LGBT children.

Dr. Ryan and her team at the Family Acceptance Project are currently developing a new evidence-based family model of wellness, prevention and care for LGBT adolescents, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This model uses a behavioral approach to help ethnically and religiously diverse families decrease rejection and increase support for their LGBT children to reduce risk for suicide, depression, substance abuse, and HIV, to promote well-being and to prevent homelessness and placement in custodial care. This systems-level approach helps communities and providers to engage diverse families as allies in decreasing their LGBT children's risk and increasing their well-being while respecting the family's deeply held values. This work is being conducted in English, Spanish and Chinese with families from all ethnic backgrounds, including immigrant and very low income families, and those whose children are out-of-home in foster care and juvenile justice facilities.

The existing approach to serving LGBT adolescents by pediatricians, nurses, social workers, school counselors and others has focused almost exclusively on serving LGBT youth alone and through peer support, rather than in the context of their families, and does not consider the impact of family reactions on the adolescent's health and well-being.

In addition to providing direct services for families with LGBT children and working with communities in the U.S., the Family Acceptance Project is collaborating with organizations, providers, advocates and families to develop an international movement of family acceptance to promote wellness and healthy futures for LGBT children, youth and young adults.

"Family Acceptance in Adolescence and the Health of LGBT Young Adults" is the third in a series of research papers on outcomes related to family acceptance and rejection of LGBT adolescents, supporting positive LGBT youth development, school experiences and providing family-related care to be released by the Family Acceptance Project.

These studies will be published in peer-reviewed journals designed for providers, caregivers and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines and practice settings.

~ Source: San Francisco State University

Here are a few resources for LGBT youth and their families - if you need some support, these people can help, and connect you with someone who can.

National Sexuality Resource Center

2017 Mission Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-437-5121 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 415-437-5121 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
nsrcinfo@sfsu.edu
nsrc.sfsu.edu

The National Sexuality Resource Center is a sexuality information center affiliated with the Human Sexuality Studies Program at San Francisco State University (SFSU). The Center collects and disseminates the latest information and research on sexual health, education, and rights to advocates, academics, researchers, policy makers, and diverse communities throughout the U.S.

LGBT Family-Related Organizations

PFLAG

(National Federation of Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gays)
1726 M Street, N.W., Suite 400
Washington, DC, 20036
202-467-8180 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 202-467-8180 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
www.pflag.org

National organization for education, advocacy and support for families and friends of LGBT persons. Chapters are available in all states – check website for local chapters and educational materials for families.

HRC FamilyNet

Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Avenue
Washington, DC 20036
202-628-4160 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 202-628-4160 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
www.hrc.org

A resource and online information base for LGBT families sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign.

Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE)

2300 Market Street, Box 165
San Francisco, CA 94114
415-861-5437 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 415-861-5437 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
www.colage.org

National organization for children of LGBT parents.

Family Pride Coalition

PO Box 65327
Washington, DC 20035-5327
202-331-5015 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 202-331-5015 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
www.familypride.org

National organization to provide advocacy and support for LGBT parents and their families.

LGBT Youth Organizations

National Youth Advocacy Coalition

1638 R Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20009
202.319.7596 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 202.319.7596 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Toll-free: 800-541-6922 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 800-541-6922 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
www.nyacyouth.org

National advocacy organization for LGBT youth. Youth conferences and education.

Tags: teasing, bullying, GLBT, gay, lesbians, young people, teenagers, parents, homosexuality, homophobia, It Gets Better Project, Dan Savage, transgender, police, teachers, schools, courts, Mental Health Services, parenting, law enforcement

The Drive for Muscularity and Masculinity: Testing the Associations Among Gender-Role Traits, Behaviors, Attitudes, and Conflict

I don't remember how I stumbled upon this 2005 article, but it's freely available online as a PDF. In these two studies researchers looked at the relationship between various measures of masculinity, femininity, and the drive for muscularity.

In Study 1, a sample of college-aged men and women completed measures of both gender-typed traits and gender-typed behaviors; in Study 2, a group of young men completed a measure of male-oriented gender-role conflict, as well as a measure of traditional attitudes about men. In both instances, the degree to which those gender-typed dimensions predicted the drive for muscularity was examined; in Study 1, the extent to which those relationships varied as a function of the participants’ gender also was assessed.

I'm including the abstract and the literature review, which provides a nice overview of the field. In my gym, there is clearly a correlation between muscularity and masculinity - the bigger more muscular guys are more respected and revered. They are definitely the alpha males.

Full reference: McCreary, D.R., Saucier, D.M. & Courtenay, W.H. (2005). The Drive for Muscularity and Masculinity: Testing the Associations Among Gender-Role Traits, Behaviors, Attitudes, and Conflict. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, Vol. 6, No. 2, 83–94. DOI: 10.1037/1524-9220.6.2.83

The Drive for Muscularity and Masculinity: Testing the Associations Among Gender-Role Traits, Behaviors, Attitudes, and Conflict

Donald R. McCreary, BrockUniversity
Deborah M. Saucier, University of Saskatchewan
Will H. Courtenay, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Men’s Health Consulting

ABSTRACT

Prior qualitative research has suggested that people assume muscular men are more masculine. This assumption was tested quantitatively in 2 studies. In Study 1, men and women completed measures of gender-role traits and behaviors, whereas in Study 2, men completed measures of gender-role conflict and traditional attitudes about men. Study 1 revealed a correlation between self-rated male-typed traits and behaviors, with a need to be more muscular for both men and women. In Study 2, men with more traditional attitudes about men also wanted to be more muscular; men who wanted to be more muscular were experiencing conflict with regard to society’s expectations that they be successful, powerful, and competitive, and they reported that finding a balance between workand leisure is difficult.

Until recently, research exploring gender differences in body image concerns and their outcomes has been based solely on perceptions of adiposity (i.e., body fat). This research has led to the belief that because men are less concerned or dissatisfied than women with their degree of adiposity, are less likely than women to be dieting to lose weight, and rarely experience clinical disorders associated with body image (e.g., anorexia and bulimia nervosa), they are relatively happy with their bodies (e.g., Feingold & Mazzella, 1998; Garner, Olmstead, & Polivy, 1983; Muth & Cash, 1997). This belief, however, does not take into consideration the fact that adiposity is not equally important for men and women. That is, whereas the social standard of bodily attractiveness for women reflects being small and thin, the social standard for men reflects being big and muscular, what Mishkind, Rodin, Silberstein, and Striegel-Moore (1986) refered to as the “muscular mesomorphic” shape.

There is a growing amount of research demonstrating the importance of being muscular in both adolescent males (e.g., Jones, 2001; McCreary & Sasse, 2000, 2002; O’Dea & Rawstorne, 2001) and adult men (e.g., Fisher, Dunn, & Thompson, 2002; Jacobi & Cash, 1994; Lavine, Sweeney, & Wagner, 1999; Phillips & Diaz, 1997). For example, research has shown that many adolescent boys are engaged in resistance training activities to gain muscle mass (Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2003). Among adolescent boys, a higher drive for muscularity is associated with poorer self-esteem and more symptoms of depression (McCreary & Sasse, 2000). Pope et al. (2000) have shown that, when comparing men’s actual degree of muscularity to their perceived degree of muscularity, men significantly underestimated their percentage of muscle mass. Pope et al. (2000) also showed that men’s ideal body size represents an average increase of 28 pounds (12.7 kg) of muscle and that men feel women are most attracted to a body shape that is, on average, 30 pounds (13.6 kg) heavier in muscle than their actual size. When asked where they would like to be more muscular, men and boys typically want larger pectorals, biceps, and shoulders (Drewnowski & Yee, 1987; Huenemann, Shapiro, Hampton, & Mitchell, 1966; Moore, 1990).

Some researchers (e.g., Grogan & Richards, 2002; Klein, 1993; Weinke, 1998) have suggested that one of the main reasons muscularity is so important to men and boys is that it is linked to perceptions of their masculinity; in other words, the more muscular a man or boy is, the more masculine he is. One might also suggest that boys and men who are not muscular (e.g., those who are endomorphic or those who are ectomorphic) may see themselves as more feminine. For example, Grogan and Richards (2002) have suggested that boys and men who diet run the risk of being perceived as feminine, in part because dieting is perceived to be a feminine-typed behavior.

One way to test these hypotheses is to explore the associations among masculinity, femininity, and the drive for muscularity. On the basis of findings from the qualitative research, we predicted that masculinity would be positively associated with the drive for muscularity, whereas femininity would be negatively associated with the drive for muscularity. However, there is an important limitation inherent in this prediction: Masculinity and femininity are global, higher order constructs and cannot be measured directly (Spence, 1984). Psychology has overcome this problem by developing indices of specific dimensions of masculinity and femininity.

Personality trait measures, such as the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence & Helmreich, 1978), the Extended PAQ (EPAQ; Spence, Helmreich, & Holahan, 1979), and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974), are used to assess the degree to which men and women have internalized the gender stereotypic personality traits of agency–instrumentality (i.e., male stereotypic traits) and communion–expressivity (i.e., female stereotypic traits). Engaging in gender-typed behaviors is assessed using the Sex Role Behavior Scale (SRBS; Orlofsky, 1981) and its short form companion (Orlofsky & O’Heron, 1987). The degree to which people have adopted traditional versus contemporary or liberal views about men, women, and the relationships between men and women is assessed using measures such as the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Spence & Helmreich, 1978) and the Male Role Norms Scale (Thompson & Pleck, 1986; Thompson, Pleck, & Ferrera, 1992). Other frequently used measures of gender-role socialization include the Gender Role Conflict Scale (GRCS; O’Neil, Helms, Gable, David, & Wrightsman, 1986), the Masculine Gender Role Stress Scale (Eisler & Skidmore, 1987), and the Feminine Gender Role Stress Scale (Gillespie & Eisler, 1992; see Beere, 1990, for more examples of how genderrole socialization can be measured). Thus, researchers examining the relationships between the drive for muscularity and perceptions of masculinity and femininity need to be very specific about the gender-role dimensions they are measuring.

Read the whole article.

Filed in: Psychology of Men & Masculinity, men, traditional masculinity, muscle, psychology, gender identity, Muscularity, Masculinity, Associations, Gender-Role Traits, Behaviors, Attitudes, Conflict, Donald R. McCreary, Deborah M. Saucier, Will H. Courtenay,

The Coen Brothers Remake "True Grit"

When he made True Grit in 1969, John Wayne was older and fatter, but he was still John Wayne - the epitome of American masculinity. Uh, yeah. I never much liked him as a person (right wing jingoism does nothing for me) nor as actor (uh, hello, Mr. Wayne, Howdy Doody says your acting is wooden).

So now the Coen Brothers, maybe the most talented film-making team around, have remade the movie in their own image - darker, grittier, more surreal. And the reviews are great - Jeff Bridges is being praised for out-acting Wayne in this iconic role.

Here is the NPR review, with an interview of the Coen Brothers below that, via The Daily Beast.

'True Grit,' Then And Now

by Bob Mondello

December 22, 2010

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All Things Considered

[4 min 33 sec]

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Remakes rarely outshine the original, but the Coen Brothers' newest movie, True Grit, eclipses the 1969 version starring John Wayne. Critic Bob Mondello compares and contrasts the two movies — and the way Westerns were made then and now.

AUDIE CORNISH, host:

Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen ride their new Western, "True Grit," into theaters today. It stars Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon reprising roles made famous by John Wayne and Glen Campbell in the original 1969 film.

But the Coen brothers say they adapted their movie from the original Charles Portis novel. They did not re-watch the John Wayne version.

Well, critic Bob Mondello did, and he has some thoughts as to how the two compare.

BOB MONDELLO: The new "True Grit" opens with a bit of grit, body lying in the snow and the voice of Mattie Ross telling us how her father died at the hand of a man named Chaney. As she remembers it when she was 14, her Protestant upbringing said that that man needed to pay for his crime.

(Soundbite of movie, "True Grit")

Ms. HAILEE STEINFELD (Actress): (as Mattie Ross) No doubt Chaney fancies himself scot-free. But he was wrong. You must pay for everything in this world, one way or another. There is nothing free except the grace of God.

MONDELLO: The old "True Grit" opened more brightly. In 1969, a couple of flicks that sounded like Westerns but weren't Westerns - "Easy Rider" and "Midnight Cowboy" - were signaling a revolution in moviemaking. But the "True Grit" that John Wayne starred in was a last gasp of old Hollywood - gigantic title superimposed over a lush, green valley, Glen Campbell crooning lyric that lets you know this G-rated film would have a happy ending.

(Soundbite of movie, "True Grit")

Mr. GLEN CAMPBELL (Actor): (as La Boeuf) (Singing) One day, little girl, the sadness will leave your face.

MONDELLO: In the odd logic of Hollywood, Glen Campbell's hit songs - "Wichita Lineman," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and the soon-to-be-released "Galveston" - gave him geographical credentials to sing in a Western. Alas, the producers went further and gave him an actual part as Texas ranger La Boeuf.

(Soundbite of movie, "True Grit")

Mr. CAMPBELL: (as La Boeuf) The French is La Bourf. I call it La Beef.

MONDELLO: As an actor, Campbell was, let's just say, handsome and leave it at that. John Wayne, playing U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn, was in his 60s, a bit past his prime, and had put on a few pounds possibly because the screenwriters kept shoving food his way, whether he was in town...

(Soundbite of movie, "True Grit")

Mr. JOHN WAYNE (Actor): (as Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn) And if you're hungry, I'll take you home and give you supper.

MONDELLO: ...chowing down at a trading post...

(Soundbite of movie, "True Grit")

Mr. WAYNE: (as Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn) Stew?

MONDELLO: ...or pitching camp out on the trail.

(Soundbite of movie, "True Grit")

Unidentified Woman (Actress): (as Character) What did you bring for us to eat?

Mr. WAYNE (as Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn): Corn dodgers.

Unidentified Woman: (as Character) (Unintelligible). How many have you got in there?

Mr. WAYNE (as Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn): Oh, must be 175.

MONDELLO: This being Big Sky Country, in between meals, the camera would pull back so he could ride his horse down a hillside and they could cut away before the poor beast had to drag him up the next one. Director Henry Hathaway was such an old hand at Westerns that he didn't seem to be trying very hard with this one, mostly just setting up his cameras and letting the stars entertain -Kim Darby, perky as Mattie; Wayne, gruff and folksy, an old hand behind his eye patch; Campbell trying gamely not to trip.

Truth be told, there wasn't much actual acting going on until Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper showed up around midpoint as bad guys.

The Coen brothers' "True Grit" is grittier, as you'll expect if you saw their serial killer Western, "No Country for Old Men." It's also splendidly acted and takes full advantage of every breathtaking vista it comes across, a grand epic made quirky and intimate by the dialogue, some of which is lifted almost verbatim from the Charles Portis novel. Jeff Bridges wears the eye patch this time, gargling Rooster's lines...

(Soundbite of movie, "True Grit")

Mr. JEFF BRIDGES (Actor): (as Rooster Cogburn) How long you boys been mounted on sheep down there?

MONDELLO: ...while Matt Damon's Texas ranger is a peacock fluffing feathers at every taunt.

Mr. MATT DAMON (Actor): (as La Boeuf) My white Andalusian will still be galloping when that big American stud of yours is winded and collapsed. Now make another joke about it. You're only trying to put on a show for this girl Mattie with what you must think is a keen tongue.

Mr. BRIDGES: (as Rooster Cogburn) This is like women talking.

Mr. DAMON: (as La Boeuf) Yes, that is the way. Make me out foolish in this girl's eyes.

Mr. BRIDGES: (as Rooster Cogburn) I think she has you pretty well figured.

MONDELLO: Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie finds humor in her character's humorlessness and keeps her cool when things get weird - strange characters showing up at the end of a rope or under a bare skin. The weirdness lets you know that this "True Grit" takes its cues from that filmmaking revolution, left the old "True Grit" in the dust.

But happily, the brothers Coen don't skimp on epic sweep and sturdy narrative. In fact, I'd almost be tempted to call their approach old-fashioned if John Wayne and company hadn't just given me a refresher course in old-fashioned. Instead, let's just call it terrific filmmaking.

I'm Bob Mondello.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.

Here is an interview with the Coen's from The Daily Beast.

The Coen Brothers Talk True Grit

by Nicole LaPorte

The dry-witted Joel and Ethan Coen talk about their new film, working with Jeff Bridges (The Dude) again, and how they “just didn’t get around to” re-watching the original movie.

To hear Joel and Ethan Coen tell it, the making of their new movie, True Grit, which comes out on Wednesday, was an exercise in passivity.

They read Charles Portis’ Western novel about a plucky young heroine determined to avenge the death of her father, liked it, and adapted it into a screenplay. Or, as Ethan said at a press conference at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles recently, “We just lifted from the book.” As for the earlier film version of the novel—which came out in 1969 and is most famous for winning John Wayne his first and only Academy Award—they didn’t bother to re-watch it, having seen it years ago when they were kids.

“It’s weird,” Joel said, in an interview held in one of the hotel’s suites earlier in the day, where his tall, wiry frame was sprawled out on a sofa, one long leg propped up on a coffee table. With his thick-framed glasses, graying beard, and wild, shaggy hair, he looked like a professor on his coffee break. “I remember a couple points in production, actually saying, ‘You know, I should rent the movie and see it.’ And I just never got around to it. It’s really funny. It sounds unbelievable, but I just didn’t get around to it.”

“Yeah,” chimed in Ethan, the quieter of the two, who seems more like a grad student, with short, curly hair, and less prominent spectacles, “We just weren’t interested enough.”

But to take the Coens at face value is to participate in their eccentric brand of brainy looniness. They are, after all, America’s masters of cinematic irony and understated hilarity, whose films and characters—Marge Gunderson in Fargo; Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man—are always teetering on the border between the deadly serious and the hysterical. Somewhere, there is always a joke, however veiled it is in weighty portent and meaning. Or, as the case is right now, insignificance.

Though in person, it is admittedly hard to locate the joke. The brothers, who grew up in an academic household in Minnesota and both have prestigious degrees (Ethan studied philosophy at Princeton, Joel pursued film at New York University), really do sound serious, even earnest, when they say that they never watch their films out of “lack of interest” and that the story of how they work together is “boring.”

“Whoever’s closest to the question, answers it, that’s really the extent of it,” Joel says dryly.

Naturally, when asked if there has been any evolution in their filmography, conscious or not, they say they don’t know. Nor do they seem to care.

Joel Coen: “In the press they go, ‘They’ve been withholding this.’ I’m going, ‘The movie didn’t exist!’”

Read the whole interview/article.

Tags: Coen Brothers, Remake, True Grit, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Bob Mondello, film, westerns, culture, gender roles, men, Mattie Ross, Hailee Steinfeld, Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn, Rooster Cogburn, The Daily Beast

The makings of a sex addict

There are many more male sex addicts than females (women tend to be diagnosed more often as "love addicts," which is slightly different). Here is a brief definition from Psych Central:

Sexual addiction is best described as a progressive intimacy disorder characterized by compulsive sexual thoughts and acts. Like all addictions, its negative impact on the addict and on family members increases as the disorder progresses. Over time, the addict usually has to intensify the addictive behavior to achieve the same results.

For some sex addicts, behavior does not progress beyond compulsive masturbation or the extensive use of pornography or phone or computer sex services. For others, addiction can involve illegal activities such as exhibitionism, voyeurism, obscene phone calls, child molestation or rape.

It bears noting that not everyone agrees this is an addiction, although there is now considerable brain evidence showing the sexual behavior can trigger the same brain changes in sex addicts as cocaine in drug addicts, or alcohol in an alcoholic.

The leading researcher in this area - and himself a recovering sex addict - Patrick Carnes estimated (after a 10-year research project) that about 8% of the total population of men and 3% of women are sexually addicted (1992). I'd suspect this is high, but I could be wrong - these numbers suggest that I am:

25 million Americans visit cyber-sex sites between 1-10 hours per week. Another 4.7 million in excess of 11 hours per week. (MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Study, Washington Times, 1/26/2000)

According to Datamonitor, in 2003, over half of all spending on the Internet is related to sexual activity, with 30 million people logging on at pornographic Web sites daily. The expectation is that this figure will fall due to the rise of other forms of Internet commerce.

So this is a man's issue - although I'm guessing that the numbers for women are much higher than that now, maybe comparable to men.

Anyway, some new research out of New Zealand looked at attachment and sex addiction. Nice study. You can read a summary of the study’s findings. Sex addiction is correlated with insecure attachment (no surprise) and probably with anxious/avoidant adult attachment.

The makings of a sex addict
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Massey University

Out of control sexual behaviours include
impulsive or compulsive sexual thoughts,
feelings and actions. Image: synergy/iStockphoto

A study of so-called sex addiction and its impact on relationships has found that those with problematic sexual behaviour are more likely to feel threatened by or anxious about intimate relationships.

The study, the first of its kind in New Zealand, was conducted this year as part of an honours project by clinical psychology student Karen Faisandier, with assistance from practising clinical psychologist Robyn Salisbury and academic specialist Dr Joanne Taylor.

More than 880 adults agreed to participate in an anonymous on-line questionnaire about their sexual orientation, preferences and activities and their feelings about the impacts of these on them and their relationships with others. Questions included whether they engaged in online sex, prostitution, sex that made them feel degraded or put them at risk of harm, sex with multiple partners or public indecency. They were also asked about alcohol and drug use, relationship experiences and feelings about themselves.

Sex addiction, a condition often associated with the scandals surrounding celebrity entertainers and sportsmen, is described in academic terms as one of a range of out of control sexual behaviours (OOCSB) that include impulsive or compulsive sexual thoughts, feelings and actions.

Ms Faisandier says many factors are thought to play a role in such behaviour, including attachment – the way childhood relationships with parents and caregivers shape feelings and behaviour towards intimacy and closeness in adult relationships. She investigated the differences in attachment styles between those who did and did not report sexual behaviour that was problematic.

Previous research, of which there is very little, found those with problematic sexual behaviour were more likely to be anxious about intimate relationships and more likely to avoid intimacy than those whose sexual behaviour was not a problem for them or those around them.

Of the participants, 621 responses were considered and compared after some had to be excluded because they were not living in New Zealand or did not complete important parts of the survey. Two thirds of the respondents (407) were assessed as having problematic sexual behaviour and a third (214) were assessed as not in that group because they reported relatively few behaviours.

Ms Faisandier emphasises that those percentages in no way indicate how many people overall have problematic sexual behaviour because the participants were self-selected and a diagnostic approach was not used. "It's not what we were looking at here," she says. "The very nature of the study means it was more likely to attract people who may have had OOCSB. Existing research suggests between 3 and 6 per cent of adults may have problematic sexual behaviour, although there are limits to being able to generalise from that research."

The OOCSB group reported higher rates of insecure styles of attachment, characterised by a perspective of relationships as threatening, and feelings of either anxiety towards or avoidance of closeness or intimacy. In contrast, the non-OOCSB group reported higher rates of secure attachment styles, characterised by a perspective of relationships as safe, partners as trustworthy, and closeness and intimacy desirable and rewarding. OOCSB was associated with higher insecurity in attachment relationships, and the presence of a secure attachment style may be important in healthy sexual relating. These findings are consistent with previous research, and indicate that attachment styles should be considered in the development of theory and intervention for OOCSB."

Dr Taylor from the School of Psychology, the academic supervisor of the research, says it involved a much larger number of participants than would normally be expected in such a project and most of the responses came in within 48 hours of the survey going online, suggesting a high level of interest in the subject.

"Although the findings cannot be generalised to the population, they do suggest that problematic sexual behaviours exist for some New Zealanders and can affect their everyday lives in quite profound ways."

Ms Salisbury, the clinical supervisor of the research, is co-director of Sex Therapy New Zealand, a national referral network for specialists providing treatment for all sexual and intimacy problems. She says the study's findings confirm clinical impressions that adults with problematic sexual behaviours are likely to have missed out on important developmental experiences. "While sexual addiction is a popular term, it is not commonly used by clinicians because aspects of problematic sexual behaviour do not fit the addiction model. Clients presenting with such problems have usually got to the point in life when they are seriously concerned about their own behaviour and what it is costing them or their partner has made it clear that they will no longer tolerate it.

"Although a strong intimate relationship benefits individual, couple and family wellbeing, and problematic sexual behaviour undermines and even destroys relationship wellbeing, there is no funded treatment available at present for this problem; it has to be accessed privately through skilled sex therapists."

Ms Faisandier will next year start study towards a doctorate in clinical psychology and, providing she can get funding, plans research that will evaluate whether an attachment-based treatment approach helps people with OOCSB.

Clinical psychology helps people deal with a variety of mental, physical, behavioural, and relationship problems. Clinical psychologists work in a range of health and mental health settings, including those within district health boards (child and family, community, and inpatient mental health, as well as forensic, alcohol and drug, and rehabilitation services), prisons and psychological services as well as private practice.

A response to participants in the survey, along with the original survey questionnaire and background information, can be found here: http://psych-research.massey.ac.nz/faisandier

---

Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Book cited:
Carnes, P. (1992). Don’t Call it Love. Minnesota: Gentle Press.

See also:
Carnes, P. (1983). Out of the shadows: Understanding sexual addiction. Minneapolis, MN: CompCare Publications. [The 3rd edition, 2001, is from Hazeldon.]

Tags: sex, sex addiction, porn, relationships, psychology, Patrick Carnes, Don’t Call it Love, The makings of a sex addict, Massey University, Karen Faisandier, Robyn Salisbury, Joanne Taylor, anonymous, on-line, questionnaire, sexual orientation, sexual preferences, sexual activities, alcohol, drug use, online sex, prostitution, degrading sex, risky sex, sex with multiple partners, public indecency, out of control sexual behaviors, OOCSB, attachment style, avoidant, anxious

Permission to Forgive Ourselves - Releasing Guilt

One of the things that often happens as men come to awareness of their lives - the social structures in which men have oppressed women(1), and even the subtle ways they may have objectified or sexualized women, for both good an bad - is a sense of guilt for the ways women have sometimes been denied their full humanity. Even men who have generally treated the women in their lives quite well (and maybe especially these men) tend to feel guilt and/or shame for the legacy of dehumanization so many women have suffered (and still suffer in mnay parts of the world).

In some ways, and for a short time, guilt can be healthy. It can motivate us to change behaviors, to change perspectives. Guilt is the sense that I have done something wrong (or that we as men have done something wrong) and that I feel bad for having done it.

Shame, on the other hand, is not at all useful because shame tends to be the sense that there is something inherently wrong with me, something that makes me (or men) bad, evil, or flawed in essence.

Radical feminism has tended to shame men, to argue that history makes all men evil, irredeemable, and inherently flawed. This is not only mean-spirited and wrong, but it attempts to do unto men what some men have done unto women - it's equivalent to the kid who gets bullied and then bullies someone else, passing along the torment.

Guilt, however, can be healthy - unless we get caught up in that feeling as an identity. Many male feminists have become so attached to guilt that they cannot see the value in working toward a healthy model of masculinity - it seems better to adopt a feminist view of men as flawed.

John Stoltenberg, one of the "leaders" in men's studies (more appropriately "feminist studies of men"), wrote a book called The End of Manhood in which he equates masculinity with toxicity and sees feminism as the answer (he was married to Andrea Dworkin, although he now considers himself gay). He is also author of Refusing to Be a Man, and this article (Why I Stopped Trying to Be a Real Man - published in Feminista!) plays some of the same chords:

If everyone trying to be a "real man" thinks there's someone else out there who has more manhood, then either some guy has more manhood than anybody--and he's got so much manhood he never has to prove it and it's never ever in doubt--or else manhood doesn't exist. It's just a sham and a delusion.

As I watched guys trying to prove their fantasy of manhood--by doing dirt to women, making fun of queers, putting down people of other religions and races--I realized they were doing something really negative to me too, because their fear and hatred of everything "nonmanly" was killing off something in me that I valued.

That's why I feel a connection to feminism. I want a humanity that is not measured against the cult of masculinity. I want a selfhood that does not reject fine parts of myself just because they are not "manly." I want courage to confront the things men have done in the world that are damaging to women and that are also leaving no safe space for the self I hope to be.

This is, in my opinion, a shame-based perspective. "Refusing to be a man" is not a viable response - Why not be a mature man, why not model and teach a healthy masculinity that honors all non-harming forms of masculine identity, that honors women, that does not seek dominance but rather community?

Yet even guilt is not productive - it's a way out. We feel guilty rather than act to change things. This Daily Om offers a perspective on this that I think can be helpful for men who are experiencing the guilt that often comes with waking up to our power and responsibility as men:

Permission to Forgive Ourselves
Releasing Guilt

Guilt is temporary and unproductive, it is all too ironic that being hard on ourselves is the easy way out.
Learning to accept the things that we perceive as wrong can be a difficult task for many of us. Often we have been brought up to accept that it is normal to feel guilty about our actions and that by doing so we will make everything seem alright within ourselves. Even though we might feel that we have a reason to make up for the choices we have made, it is much more important for us to learn how to deal with them in a healthy and positive way, such as through forgiveness and understanding.

When we can look back at our past and really assess what has happened, we begin to realize that there are many dimensions to our actions. While feeling guilty might assuage our feelings at first, it is really only a short-term solution. It is all too ironic that being hard on ourselves is the easy way out. If we truly are able to gaze upon our lives through the lens of compassion, however, we will be able to see that there is much more to what we do and have done than we realize. Perhaps we were simply trying to protect ourselves or others and did the best we could at the time, or maybe we thought we had no other recourse and chose a solution in the heat of the moment. Once we can understand that dwelling in our negative feelings will only make us feel worse, we will come to recognize that it is really only through forgiving ourselves that we can transform our feelings and truly heal any resentment we have about our past.

Giving ourselves permission to feel at peace with our past actions is one of the most positive steps we can take toward living a life free from regrets, disappointments, and guilt. The more we are able to remind ourselves that the true path to a peaceful mind and heart is through acceptance of every part of our lives and actions, the more harmony and inner joy we will experience in all aspects of our lives.

[Emphasis added.]

Compassion is the nearly always the missing ingredient - compassion for others, compassion for ourselves. Through compassion we can learn to practice forgiveness - for the past, for ourselves, and for others.


(1) This is a huge generalization and I am NOT saying that men are evil and women are victims, but historically it is undeniable that male social structures have at various times regarded women as possessions and/or denied them full status as members of society.

Tags: Permission to Forgive Ourselves, Releasing Guilt, Daily Om, men, masculinities, history, feminism, guilt, shame, men's studies, compassion, forgiveness

Bullying, Part 1 - The Basics

This is the first of two posts I want to put up on bullying -this first one contains two articles that discuss some of the serious issues that bullying presents, especially neurological changes in the victims.

The second post will look specifically at bullying of GLBT youth the negative issues surround that.

As both a victim of bullying/taunting and, like many kids who are bullied, someone who passed the torment on to others, I am very concerned about what my experience did to my brain, and who my cruelty (for which I can only beg forgiveness) did to others. If I could take it all back, I'd do it in a second.

Anyway . . .

In this NPR discussion, Tony Cox speaks with several people, one of whom is a Boston Globe reporter, which is the where the second article comes from - a long piece on the neuroscience of bullying (which elaborates on what is discussed here, even though it preceded this discussion).

Bullied Kids Are Hurt Long After Harassment Ends

December 2, 2010

Listen to the Story

Talk of the Nation

[30 min 20 sec]

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Guests

Alan Eisenberg, founder, Bullying Stories
Jenna Russell, reporter, Boston Globe
Dr. Jorge Srabstein, medical director, Clinic for Health Problems Related to Bullying, Children's National Medical Center

December 2, 2010

Researchers are just beginning to understand how the effects of the abuse lingers in victims into young adulthood, middle age and even retirement. In many cases, memories of bullying hinder victims in nearly every aspect of their lives, from career choices to social interactions.

TONY COX, host:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. Im Tony Cox in Washington. Neal Conan is away.

Childhood bullying is an age-old problem, but researchers are just beginning to understand how the effects of abuse stay with victims into young adulthood, middle age, and even retirement.

In a recent Boston Globe series, more than 100 accounts of victims of bullying were shared, painful memories of playground fights, taunting and name-calling and much more. They also shared a common regret: not fighting back. And years later, many have still not overcome the emotional toll.

In a moment, we will hear from one of the victims from that newspaper series, and later in the program today, Jimi Izrael joins us to talk about Cleveland awaiting LeBron James' first trip back home since he bolted for South Beach last July.

First, though, we want to hear from you. If you or your loved ones have been bullied, how has the taunting affected you over the years? Our number here in Washington is 800-989-8255. The email address is talk@npr.org. And you can join the conversation at our website. Just go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION.

Joining us now, Alan Eisenberg. He was interviewed for the Boston Globe series on bullying. Alan, welcome to the program.

Mr. ALAN EISENBERG (Founder, Bullying Stories): Thank you, Tony.

COX: Tell us your story. Your family moved from Lexington when you were seven, and the school playground, apparently, was a pretty tough place for you.

Mr. EISENBERG: Yeah, we basically, when I was seven, we moved into Lexington from what was Bowie, Maryland. So we moved north. And, you know, in my early days, probably I was a pretty popular young kid at five and thought I could carry that out to the playground when I got to Lexington.

And I found out fairly quickly in the early days, around second and third grade, that that was not going to be the case. And not only was it not going to be the case but that I would be relentlessly bullied for the six years that I was in Lexington.

COX: How old are you now, Alan?

Mr. EISENBERG: I'm 42.

COX: And how painful are the memories of that for you today, if they are still?

Mr. EISENBERG: Well, what I found was that, as I got older, and we had moved away, things had happened that, during those six years of relentless bullying, that, you know, formed who I feel like I ended up becoming and some of my personality traits and some of the, I think, the problems I had in terms of, you know, coping mechanisms as I got older.

And I think I realized somewhere in my early 20s that there were things that I was feeling and having issues with that felt that were I could trace back to the same sort of feelings and issues I felt I was having while being relentlessly bullied and during those years.

And I do feel those years form who you are. Those are very important years of childhood. And so, you know, ultimately what I found is, as I did research and dedicated more time to it, that I believe that's true.

COX: And now you run a website?

Mr. EISENBERG: Yes, I run a website for the last three years. I've maintained a website that started as sort of a cathartic way for me to tell my stories.

You know, one of the things I feel is that adults are afraid to share what happened to them. It sort of comes across as a weakness. And, you know, one of the things I wanted to do, not only to release my stories from myself, but also let other adults and even children know that they're not alone in what happened to them and that, you know, ultimately try to discuss the fact that there are long-term effects from the bullying.

COX: Alan Eisenberg was interviewed for the Boston Globe series on effects of bullying over time. He also runs, as he just said, Bullying Stories, a site for people to tell their stories of being bullied.

There is a link to the site on our website. Just go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION. He joined us by phone from his home in Fairfax, Virginia. Alan, thank you for dropping by.

Mr. EISENBERG: Thank you very much.

COX: Jenna Russell is the reporter who put together that series on bullying and its effects for the Boston Globe. She joins us from member station WBUR in Boston. Jenna, welcome.

Ms. JENNA RUSSELL (Reporter, Boston Globe): Thank you, Tony.

COX: As we said in the introduction, you and your colleagues reviewed more than 100 adults who were childhood bully victims. Is Alan's story common among them?

Ms. RUSSELL: Yes, absolutely. In fact, the reason we did this story was really because of a revelation that we had after we published the first story in our series on bullying about the experience of a 14-year-old girl.

And after that story, we were flooded with emails, from adults, from people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, even in their 60s, who were still suffering in a variety of ways. And, quite frankly, I was stunned by this. It had never occurred to me that the consequences could be so long-lasting.

And they were suffering from depression, anxiety, anger and even effects on major life decisions. They described things like whether they went to college, what kind of career they pursued in adulthood were, they said, influenced by what had happened to them when they were very young.

COX: In your research, was there anything, a string, a connection that tied all of these people together, beyond the fact that they were all bullied, in terms of either their personalities or their circumstances? Or did you find that people who were victims of bullying came from all spectrums of the community?

Ms. RUSSELL: I think that was a very interesting part of this for me, was to see that these people were bullied for many, many different reasons. Some of them were very big for their age. Some of them were very small. Some of them were quiet and shy and introverted, and others were quite outgoing.

But for different reasons, they became targets in a way that was not passing but that lasted for a long time.

COX: We're going to take some calls, and we're going to begin with Julianna(ph). She's calling us from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Julianna, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.

JULIANNA (Caller): Hi, I love your show.

COX: Thank you.

JULIANNA: I was I'm from northeast Philadelphia, and I'm a redhead, and I was bullied every single day throughout middle school and high school. And actually recently, one of the worst bullies, a male, he contacted me on Facebook and sent me a whole thread of, I'd say, like eight emails bullying me, telling me I looked really great, thank you for all the plastic surgery, which I never had, and continued the bullying.

COX: Are you saying wait a minute, did somebody continue the bullying after all these years, via Facebook with you?

JULIANNA: I'm 26, and this happened three weeks ago.

COX: What did you do?

JULIANNA: I well, I'm a freelance journalist. So I was about to I'm just about to write an article about it to follow up. But I didn't I couldn't respond. I just shut down. You know, it ruined, like, three days of my life. I just shut down.

COX: Julianna, thank you very much for sharing that. Let me come and ask you, Jenna. You wrote a lot about people who were bullied as children and the effects and the trauma of that, revisiting them as they got older. But I don't recall reading anyone coming back and being attacked again by the same tormentor that they had as children.

Ms. RUSSELL: That is really a very unfortunate story. And no, like, I've not heard that. I've heard people tell me that even as adults in their hometowns, if they were walking down the street decades later and saw the person who bullied them that they would still feel very much afraid and almost panic-stricken as they would have as a child.

And I've also heard much happier stories of bullies who have contacted victims in adulthood to apologize. I think actually, your previous guest Alan Eisenberg had an experience like that. But this is something that is speaks to the very problematic nature of the new technology, which can allow these kinds of contacts to go on.

Read the whole discussion (30 mins, total).

And now the Boston Globe story - part of a series - that specifically looks at the neuroscience of bullying and taunting and the way it shapes the brain.

Inside the bullied brain

The alarming neuroscience of taunting

In the wake of several tragedies that have made bullying a high-profile issue, it’s becoming clear that harassment by one’s peers is something more than just a rite of passage. Bullied kids are more likely to be depressed, anxious, and suicidal. They struggle in school — when they decide to show up at all. They are more likely to carry weapons, get in fights, and use drugs.

But when it comes to the actual harm bullying does, the picture grows murkier. The psychological torment that victims feel is real. But perhaps because many of us have experienced this sort of schoolyard cruelty and lived to tell the tale, peer harassment is still commonly written off as a “soft” form of abuse — one that leaves no obvious injuries and that most victims simply get over. It’s easy to imagine that, painful as bullying can be, all it hurts is our feelings.

A new wave of research into bullying’s effects, however, is now suggesting something more than that — that in fact, bullying can leave an indelible imprint on a teen’s brain at a time when it is still growing and developing. Being ostracized by one’s peers, it seems, can throw adolescent hormones even further out of whack, lead to reduced connectivity in the brain, and even sabotage the growth of new neurons.

These neurological scars, it turns out, closely resemble those borne by children who are physically and sexually abused in early childhood. Neuroscientists now know that the human brain continues to grow and change long after the first few years of life. By revealing the internal physiological damage that bullying can do, researchers are recasting it not as merely an unfortunate rite of passage but as a serious form of childhood trauma.

This change in perspective could have all sorts of ripple effects for parents, kids, and schools; it offers a new way to think about the pain suffered by ostracized kids, and could spur new antibullying policies. It offers the prospect that peer harassment, much like abuse and other traumatic experiences, may increasingly be seen as a medical problem — one that can be measured with brain scans, and which may yield to new kinds of clinical treatment.

During the first half of the 20th century, even severe child abuse was considered a largely psychological problem in its long-term effects, denting children emotionally in a way that made it hard for them to grow into happy adults.

Gradually, however, scientists began to look at the brains of adults who had been abused as children and realize that the damage wasn’t just emotional: Their brains had undergone telltale long-term changes. Over the past two decades, neuroscientists have marshaled plenty of evidence that serious physical and sexual abuse during early childhood can short-circuit normal brain development.

But what about cruelty that is emotional rather than physical? That that comes from peers instead of parents? And happens at school instead of at home, when children’s brains are no longer so young and malleable? In other words, what about bullying?

Martin Teicher, a neuroscientist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, has been examining just these kinds of scenarios. He began by studying the effects of being verbally abused by a parent. In his study of more than 1,000 young adults, Teicher found that verbal abuse could be as damaging to psychological functioning as the physical kind — that words were as hurtful as the famous sticks and stones. The finding sparked a new idea: “We decided to look at peer victimization,” he said.

So Teicher and his colleagues went back to their young adult subjects, focusing on those they had assumed were healthy in this respect — who’d had no history of abuse from their parents. The subjects, however, varied in how much verbal harassment — such as teasing, ridicule, criticism, screaming, and swearing — they had received from their peers.

What the scientists found was that kids who had been bullied reported more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders than the kids who hadn’t. In fact, emotional abuse from peers turned out to be as damaging to mental health as emotional abuse from parents. “It’s a substantial early stressor,” Teicher said. The data were published in July in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Things got even more interesting when Teicher decided to scan the brains of 63 of his young adult subjects. Those who reported having been mistreated by their peers had observable abnormalities in a part of the brain known as the corpus callosum — a thick bundle of fibers that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and which is vital in visual processing, memory, and more. The neurons in their corpus callosums had less myelin, a coating that speeds communication between the cells — vital in an organ like the brain where milliseconds matter.

It’s not yet entirely clear what these changes in the corpus callosum may lead to, or whether they’re connected to the higher rates of depression that Teicher found in bullied kids. “There may be some subtle neurocognitive difficulties,” he said. “We’re currently doing research that will allow us to answer this question better.”

Teicher’s study is just one of a number of recent studies that have been finding troubling physical effects of even verbal bullying. For the past several years, Tracy Vaillancourt, a psychologist at the University of Ottawa, has been following a group of 12-year-olds, including some who had a history of being victimized by their peers, and assessing their functioning every six months. Among other things, she has discovered that being tormented by other kids can recalibrate children’s levels of cortisol, a hormone pumped out by the body during times of stress.

In a 2008 paper published in the journal Aggressive Behavior, Vaillancourt demonstrated that boys who are occasionally bullied have higher levels of cortisol than their peers. Bullied girls, meanwhile, seem to have abnormally low levels of the hormone. (It’s not entirely clear why that’s the case, but low cortisol levels are sometimes a sign of a body that has been so chronically stressed that it has learned to make less of the hormone.)

Vaillancourt speculates that cortisol may, in fact, underlie many of the adverse effects of bullying: It can weaken the functioning of the immune system, and at high levels can damage and even kill neurons in the hippocampus, potentially leading to memory problems that could make academics more difficult. Indeed, Vaillancourt has already found that teens who are bullied perform worse on tests of verbal memory than their peers. One of her next studies involves trying to get at this question directly: She will be putting some of her subjects — now ages 16 and 17 — into an MRI machine to look for evidence of damage to the hippocampus.

Research on animals suggests that Vaillancourt might be onto something. To model the kind of psychosocial stress that accompanies bullying, Daniel A. Peterson, a neuroscientist at the Chicago Medical School, did a series of experiments in which he put a young, subordinate rat in a cage belonging to a much larger, older, more aggressive rat. The dominant rat — the king of this particular playground — promptly began to push the smaller one around. “We let it go to the point where there’s substantial physical contact, maybe a bite or two,” Peterson said. Then, the researchers would rescue the younger rat, removing him from the cage before he could be seriously injured.

As Peterson documented in a 2007 paper in the Journal of Neuroscience, just a single session of this kind of bullying was enough to leave a mark on the smaller rat’s brain. In particular, Peterson and his colleagues examined the rate of neurogenesis, or the birth of new brain cells, in that same all-important memory-maker: the hippocampus. The bullied rats still made new neurons at a normal rate, but there was a significant hiccup in the process — an unusually high percentage of the cells would die off before becoming fully mature.

It’s not yet clear how long these changes last. Peterson suspects that neuron survival returns to normal if the bullying is a single, isolated incident, as it was with his rats. But, he says, “I think if you had a more persistent stressor of this level, it could reset the thermostat so you’d have a lower level of neurogenesis going on.”

Research into the neurological effects of bullying is still preliminary, and animal models are not perfect replicas of human social behavior. But together, these early findings suggest that bullying, even the verbal kind, is more similar to physical and sexual abuse than we might like to admit. No longer can we draw a clear line between the two kinds of mistreatment — they can both produce the same kind of trauma.

There is still much that neuroscientists need to sort out, however. It remains difficult to thoroughly disentangle cause and effect: It’s possible, for instance, that kids with certain hormonal levels or brain characteristics are more likely, for whatever reason, to be bullied in the first place. And, encouragingly, changes in the brain don’t always translate into long-term damage: Indeed, some of the subjects who had what researchers suspect are bullying-related brain changes are now happy, healthy adults.

But the findings are certainly provocative, and they raise some serious questions about how we should think about bullying. Does being victimized have subtle effects on cognitive functioning that we haven’t even noticed yet? Might some kids be more likely to develop the neurological hallmarks of bullying? Now that we know that victims are undergoing profound physiological changes, are there medical interventions that would be as helpful, or more so, than counseling and therapy? Would demonstrating that bullying scars the brain make it easier to prosecute bullies in court?

Vaillancourt, for her part, sees another kind of value to the new neurobiological research: as a tool to change how bullying is seen by the public, as well as by educators who may be in a position to intervene. In the past, Vaillancourt has been frustrated that her studies on the emotional and psychological effects of bullying have not generated much attention. “When I show that something is biological, it makes headlines,” she said. “For some reason I think humans are more compelled to believe biological evidence than someone saying, ‘Oh I’m depressed. I don’t feel good about this.’ I’m hoping that that is a policy changer.”

Emily Anthes is a freelance science writer.

Tags: children, bullying, teasing, psychology, brain, Emily Anthes, Boston Globe, Inside the bullied brain, alarming, neuroscience, taunting, NPR, Talk of the Nation, hormones, emotions, torment, Martin Teicher, verbal abuse, neurocognitive difficulties, Tracy Vaillancourt, Alan Eisenberg, Bullying Stories, Jenna Russell, Dr. Jorge Srabstein, Tony Cox