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• Why does experiencing 'flow' feel so good? A communication scientist explains
• The promise of repairing bones and tendons with human-made materials
• Zoos and aquariums shift to a new standard of 'animal welfare' that depends on deeper understanding of animals' lives
• Future engineers need to understand their work's human impact – here's how my classes prepare students to tackle problems like climate change
• What is pay-as-you-throw? A waste expert explains
• How changing parental beliefs can build stronger vocabulary and math skills for young children
• 'Dataraising' – when you're asked to chip in with data instead of money
• American support for conspiracy theories and armed rebellion isn't new – we just didn't believe it before the Capitol insurrection
• The 'sore loser effect': Rejecting election results can destabilize democracy and drive terrorism
• Not all polarization is bad, but the US could be in trouble
• Rifts between older mothers and their adult children usually endure – even through divorce, illness and death
• Why can’t we throw all our trash into a volcano and burn it up?
• Philanthropists seeking to fix big problems must tread carefully – here's how they can make their efforts more compatible with democracy
• Inflation, workforce participation and real wages: 3 key indicators for monitoring the economy in 2022

Why does experiencing 'flow' feel so good? A communication scientist explains Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:07 AM PST Research shows that people who have flow as a regular part of their lives are happier and less likely to focus on themselves. Yulkapopkova/E+ via Getty Images New years often come with new resolutions. Get back in shape. Read more. Make more time for friends and family. My list of resolutions might not look quite the same as yours, but each of our resolutions represents a plan for something new, or at least a little bit different. As you craft your 2022 resolutions, I hope that you will add one that is also on my list: feel more flow. Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's research on flow started in the 1970s. He has called it the "secret to happiness." Flow is a state of "optimal experience" that each of us can incorporate into our everyday lives. One characterized by immense joy that makes a life worth living. In the years since, researchers have gained a vast store of knowledge about what it is like to be in flow and how experiencing it is important for our overall mental health and well-being. In short, we are completely absorbed in a highly rewarding activity – and not in our inner monologues – when we feel flow. I am an assistant professor of communication and cognitive science, and I have been studying flow for the last 10 years. My research lab investigates what is happening in our brains when people experience flow. Our goal is to better understand how the experience happens and to make it easier for people to feel flow and its benefits. Flow can arise when playing games or engaged in artistic pursuits, like writing, photography, sculpting and painting. Somyot Techapuwapat/Moment via Getty Images What it is like to be in flow? People often say flow is like "being in the zone." Psychologists Jeanne Nakamura and Csíkszentmihályi describe it as something more. When people feel flow, they are in a state of intense concentration. Their thoughts are focused on an experience rather than on themselves. They lose a sense of time and feel as if there is a merging of their actions and their awareness. That they have control over the situation. That the experience is not physically or mentally taxing. Most importantly, flow is what researchers call an autotelic experience. Autotelic derives from two Greek words: autos (self) and telos (end or goal). Autotelic experiences are things that are worth doing in and of themselves. Researchers sometimes call these intrinsically rewarding experiences. Flow experiences are intrinsically rewarding. What causes flow? Flow occurs when a task's challenge is balanced with one's skill. In fact, both the task challenge and skill level have to be high. I often tell my students that they will not feel flow when they are doing the dishes. Most people are highly skilled dishwashers, and washing dishes is not a very challenging task. So when do people experience flow? Csíkszentmihályi's research in the 1970s focused on people doing tasks they enjoyed. He studied swimmers, music composers, chess players, dancers, mountain climbers and other athletes. He went on to study how people can find flow in more everyday experiences. I am an avid snowboarder, and I regularly feel flow on the mountain. Other people feel it by practicing yoga – not me, unfortunately! – by riding their bike, cooking or going for a run. So long as that task's challenge is high, and so are your skills, you should be able to achieve flow. Researchers also know that people can experience flow by using interactive media, like playing a video game. In fact, Csíkszentmihályi said that "games are obvious flow activities, and play is the flow experience par excellence." Video game developers are very familiar with the idea, and they think hard about how to design games so that players feel flow. Flow occurs when a task's challenge – and one's skills at the task – are both high. Adapted from Nakamura/Csíkszentmihályi, CC BY-NC-ND Why is it good to feel flow? Earlier I said that Csíkszentmihályi called flow "the secret to happiness." Why is that? For one thing, the experience can help people pursue their long-term goals. This is because research shows that taking a break to do something fun can help enhance one's self-control, goal pursuit and well-being. So next time you are feeling like a guilty couch potato for playing a video game, remind yourself that you are actually doing something that can help set you up for long-term success and well-being. Importantly, quality – and not necessarily quantity – matters. Research shows that spending a lot of time playing video games only has a very small influence on your overall well-being. Focus on finding games that help you feel flow, rather than on spending more time playing games. A recent study also shows that flow helps people stay resilient in the face of adversity. Part of this is because flow can help refocus thoughts away from something stressful to something enjoyable. In fact, studies have shown that experiencing flow can help guard against depression and burnout. Research also shows that people who experienced stronger feelings of flow had better well-being during the COVID-19 quarantine compared to people who had weaker experiences. This might be because feeling flow helped distract them from worrying. What is your brain doing during flow? Researchers have been studying flow for nearly 50 years, but only recently have they begun to decipher what is going on in the brain during flow. One of my colleagues, media neuroscientist René Weber, has proposed that flow is associated with a specific brain-network configuration. Supporting Weber's hypothesis, studies show that the experience is associated with activity in brain structures implicated in feeling reward and pursuing our goals. This may be one reason why flow feels so enjoyable and why people are so focused on tasks that make them feel flow. Research also shows that flow is associated with decreased activity in brain structures implicated in self-focus. This may help explain why feeling flow can help distract people from worry. [Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.] Weber, Jacob Fisher and I have developed a video game called Asteroid Impact to help us better study flow. In my own research, I have participants play Asteroid Impact while having their brain scanned. My work has shown that flow is associated with a specific brain network configuration that has low energy requirements. This may help explain why we do not experience flow as being physically or mentally demanding. I have also shown that, instead of maintaining one stable network configuration, the brain actually changes its network configuration during flow. This is important because rapid brain network reconfiguration helps people adapt to difficult tasks. A player controls a spaceship to collect crystals and avoid asteroids in a video game called Asteroid Impact. Jacob Fisher via https://github.com/asteroidimpact/asteroid_impact_py3 What more can the brain tell us? Right now, researchers do not know how brain responses associated with flow contribute to well-being. With very few exceptions, there is almost no research on how brain responses actually cause flow. Every neuroscience study I described earlier was correlational, not causal. Said differently, we can conclude that these brain responses are associated with flow. We cannot conclude that these brain responses cause flow. Researchers think the connection between flow and well-being has something to do with three things: suppressing brain activation in structures associated with thinking about ourselves, dampening activation in structures associated with negative thoughts, and increasing activation in reward-processing regions. I'd argue that testing this hypothesis is vital. Medical professionals have started to use video games in clinical applications to help treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Maybe one day a clinician will be able to help prescribe a Food and Drug Adminstration-approved video game to help bolster someone's resilience or help them fight off depression. That is probably several years into the future, if it is even possible at all. Right now, I hope that you will resolve to find more flow in your everyday life. You may find that this helps you achieve your other resolutions, too. Richard Huskey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The promise of repairing bones and tendons with human-made materials Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:07 AM PST Musculoskeletal injuries can cause severe pain and lead to greater problems. PeopleImages/E+ via Getty Images Brittany Taylor is a biomedical engineer and assistant professor who studies novel ways to improve bone and tendon healing after injuries. She is exploring drug delivery systems and temporary artificial tissue replacements to promote healing of tendons and the interface with bones and muscle. Millions of musculoskeletal injuries each year cause pain and reduce people's quality of life. Here, she answers questions about the benefits of using composite materials – biological materials like tissue from animals or synthetic materials – to improve repair outcomes. Many of the techniques are still in the experimental stages and have been tested in animal models. At least half a million bone grafts a year are performed in the United States. Why do doctors and patients need an alternative to using real bone in these surgeries? Musculoskeletal complications due to disease, traumatic injury or repetitive activity are major problems worldwide. Current treatments to repair these injuries rely on harvested or donated tissue. For example, doctors take bone from the iliac crest, the curved portion at the top of the hip, then mold it to fit the area needing the bone replacement. But donation sites for bone are limited, and there is a risk of tissue death where the bone is extracted. When another patient or a cadaver provides bone for such repairs, it can transmit disease. Harsh detergents and sterilization methods to remove any disease can also affect the bone's strength. The use of composite material overcomes the risks and problems of real bone. What kinds of materials work best to help injured bones regenerate? Composite materials that have a combination of metals, ceramics and polymers – human-made substances – appear to work best for bone regeneration. They provide mechanical support and also a matrix for tissue development. Biomaterials – engineered materials designed to interact with real body tissue – can regenerate tissues and help healing. The biomaterial should be compatible with the body. It should not set off an immune response, and it should match tissue's structural and mechanical properties. Biomaterials used for bone tissue engineering should be as tough as bone and allow for tissue to grow into the structure. Natural materials such as collagen from cows or pigs can also be integrated into the bone scaffold to promote bone repair. This short video from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health introduces nonscientists to the process of tissue engineering for healing. You study tendons and their limited ability to regenerate when torn. Why don't tendons heal themselves easily? Tendons do not regenerate well because they have low cellularity – fewer clusters of cells than other parts of the body – and fewer blood vessels. Tendons also form scar tissue as they heal and therefore have limited functionality. Surgically repaired tendons can also easily retear, which reduces a person's quality of life and lead to prolonged complications. Therefore, researchers are working on tissue engineering strategies to augment healing. What kind of engineered materials can help tendons heal? Tendons are fibrous tissues that transmit energy loads from muscles to bones. They are "highly aligned," which means they orient along the direction of the load they transmit. Any engineered biomaterial that replaces a tendon should mimic its mechanical force and allow cells to attach and grow on them, as real tendons do. Therefore, polymer-based biomaterials are the best materials to engineer tendon tissue. Engineers make the experimental polymers with techniques such as electrospinning, which uses an electric field to draw a nanosized polymer strand from a solution, making nanofibers. Nanofibers can be combined with other materials to engineer tendons, as they have a large surface area-to-volume ratio and are porous. Cells easily adhere to these materials. You have worked on developing stronger scaffolds that act like real bone in the body. What do scaffolds do, and why do they need to be made stronger? Biomaterial scaffolds for tissue engineering are similar to scaffolding used in construction: a temporary framework that supports the structure and provides a platform for the builders to climb and place materials in their appropriate location. Once the construction is complete, the scaffolding is removed and the newly built structure remains. The same process works in the human body. Cells attach to the scaffold, proliferate and migrate throughout the scaffold. As the cells "climb" they start to deposit biological factors that promote tissue formation. The scaffold degrades over time as the new tissue regenerates. Mechanical supports can be added to the scaffolds to make them stronger. My colleagues and I included ceramic posts made out of naturally occurring bone mineral, hydroxyapatite, in the three-dimensional composite bone scaffold for load-bearing applications. The posts were similar to beams added to a structure. As a Black scientist, you have advocated for good mentors to help other scientists of color. I have had to overcome several societal and academic challenges. As a Black first-generation college graduate and female biomedical engineer, I am underrepresented at every level of academia. The obstacles I conquered and the knowledge I gained along this journey contribute to the diverse perspective I bring to the field as a culturally competent educator, well-rounded scientist and strong mentor. My vision for diversifying scientific research is to continually influence members of the next generation as they work their way through their studies. I mentor scientists, transparently share my experiences and encourage trainees from all backgrounds. I strongly believe a significant part of being successful in academia is the ability to mentor and be mentored throughout the academic pipeline. I am grateful for the many mentors throughout my journey who opened doors for new opportunities and provided access to the necessary spaces to get me to where I am now. And I am committed to doing the same for others. [The Conversation's science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories. Weekly on Wednesdays.] Brittany Taylor receives funding from the University of Florida and Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Zoos and aquariums shift to a new standard of 'animal welfare' that depends on deeper understanding of animals' lives Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:06 AM PST Climbers must climb, diggers must dig and runners must run. Doris Rudd Designs, Photography/Moment via Getty Images In 1980 I visited the zoo in a major U.S. city and found row after row of bare concrete boxes with jailhouse-style bars occupied by animals from around the world. The animals appeared to be in good physical condition, but many were staring into space or pacing restlessly around the edges of their tiny quarters. It was depressing. I'm not naming the zoo, because you could have seem the same thing at most U.S. zoos in that era. More recently, visitors to many zoos and aquariums see animals in surroundings that resemble their native habitat, behaving in ways that are typical for their species. What has changed? In the intervening years, the professional zoo and aquarium community has fundamentally altered the way it views the task of caring for the animals in its collections. Instead of focusing on animal care, the industry is now requiring that zoos meet a higher standard – animal welfare. This is a new metric, and it represents a huge change in how zoos and aquariums qualify for accreditation. I am a scientist who studies animal behavior, both in captivity and in the wild. This recent development in the zoo world is the result of an evolution in the scientific understanding of animals' lives and welfare. It also reflects zoos' and aquariums' increasing focus on conservation. From trophy case to conservation message Since the first animal menageries in ancient Egypt, zoos and aquariums have taken a progression of forms. The British Royal Menagerie, which was housed in the Tower of London from the early 13th century until 1835, served as an animated trophy case. In Europe, exotic animal collections were often displayed in garden settings for the amusement of the gentry, and by the late 18th century, for the general public as well. These places often functioned as stationary circuses, sensationalizing the strangeness of animals from afar. The palace of the pachyderms at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, circa 1900. ND/Contributor/Roger Viollet via Getty Images In Victorian England, zoos were recast as edifying entertainments. This was also true in the U.S., where the first zoo opened to the public in Philadelphia in 1874. A thylacine, or 'Tasmanian wolf' or 'Tasmanian tiger,' in captivity, circa 1930. These marsupials are now presumed extinct. Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive via Getty Images Early zoos weren't very good at keeping animals alive. In the first half of the 20th century, though, zoos began to focus on animals' physical health. This ushered in the "bathroom" era in zoo design, with an emphasis on surfaces that could be steam-sterilized, such as ceramic tile. Over the past 50 years, a landscape immersion model of zoo design has risen to prominence, as institutions have evolved into conservation and education organizations. By displaying animals in settings resembling their natural habitat – and setting the scene for visitors to imagine themselves in that habitat – the hope is to instill in visitors who might never see a lion in its element a passion for its preservation. Changing standards Accreditation is a mechanism for maintaining and pioneering best practices. Being accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums is the highest level of professional recognition for North American zoos and aquariums. Fewer than 250 out of approximately 2,800 animal exhibitors licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are AZA accredited. To earn that accreditation, a zoo or aquarium must demonstrate alignment with its mission, a sound business operation and significant activity in the areas of education, conservation and research. But the centerpiece of accreditation is demonstrating quality of life for animals under human care. A marine mammal trainer brushes the teeth of a seal at the New England Aquarium in Boston in 2020. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images For decades, the focus was on practices that correlate with animal health, like absence of illness, successful reproduction and longevity. The AZA has published objective standards for what it means to provide proper care for a tapir, a tiger or a Japanese spider crab – for example, requirements specifying certain amounts of physical space, environmental temperature ranges and cleaning routines. These extensive and detailed standards were devised by working groups of experts in various species from across the zoo and aquarium community and based on the best available scientific evidence. A recent revision to accreditation standards in 2018, however, supersedes this model in favor of a new goal – that a zoo or aquarium demonstrate it has achieved animal welfare. Not only must animals be healthy, but they should also display behavior typical of their species. Climbers must climb, diggers must dig and runners must run. Understanding the lives of animals is central Over the past 60 years, scientific understanding of animals' cognitive abilities has exploded. A large body of scientific work has shown that a relatively rich or impoverished environment has effects on both brain and behavior. Such awareness has led the zoo and aquarium community to formally embrace a higher standard of care. Zoo or aquarium personnel can provide such behavioral opportunities only if they know what is normal for that species in the wild. So optimizing animal welfare requires a knowledge base that is both broad and deep. For example, a zoo must understand what is normal behavior for a pygmy marmoset before it can know what behavioral opportunities to provide. An African lion investigates a new enrichment device at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2021. Nick Moffitt, Blank Park Zoo, CC BY-ND Many zoos and aquariums house hundreds of animal species. Each species exists because it occupies a unique niche in the ecosystem, so the conditions that produce ideal welfare for one species may not be the same as those for a different species. Developing welfare standards for the wide diversity of zoo species will take time and quite a bit of research. Although AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums contribute over $200 million per year to research in over 100 countries around the world, the need for conservation research always far outstrips the available funding. How old is an eastern black rhinoceros before it begins to go on adventures away from its mother? If a flamingo chick has a medical issue that is successfully resolved, how can keepers tell if its development has been affected? How can keepers evaluate whether items introduced into the enclosure of a troop of Japanese macaque monkeys, intended to enrich their environment, are actually serving that purpose? Knowing the answers to these questions, and a multitude of other similar ones, will help the zoo community truly optimize the welfare of animals under their care. Another major factor behind the AZA's new standard is its role in species conservation. Captive animals typically outlive their wild counterparts. Zoos and aquariums are the figurative lifeboat for an increasing number of species that are extinct in the wild. Simply keeping an animal alive is now no longer enough. Zoo-based efforts to save endangered species will succeed only if understanding of the animals' lives is fully integrated with husbandry standards. [Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.] Michael J. Renner is a pro bono member of the board of directors and chairperson of the research commitee at Blank Park Zoo (www.blankparkzoo.net), an AZA accredited zoo. He is also a pro bono member of the board of directors for the Ape Initiative (www.apeinitiative.org), an AZA certified facility.

Future engineers need to understand their work's human impact – here's how my classes prepare students to tackle problems like climate change Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:06 AM PST Engineering classes at the University of San Diego have started integrating discussions of the social impact of technology like drones. Gordon Hoople Engineers spend much of their time absorbed in the technical aspects of problems, whether they're designing the next generation of smartphones or building a subway. As recent news stories attest, this technocentric approach has some critical limitations, and the result can end up harming rather than helping society. For example, artificial intelligence algorithms designed by software engineers to promote user engagement turn out to undermine democracy and promote hate speech. Pulse oximeters, key tools in diagnosing COVID-19, work better on light skin than dark. Power plants and engines, which have enabled much of the "progress" seen since the Industrial Revolution, have fueled climate change. As an engineering professor, I have spent the past six years trying to figure out how to educate the next generation of engineers to avoid these mistakes. Research shows that one of the key problems is that engineering classes often focus on decontextualized problems, failing to take into account the social context. We ask students to spend far too much time solving mathematical equations and far too little time thinking about the human dimensions of the problems they are trying to solve. Practicing engineers are called on to solve ill-posed, messy problems that do not have one correct answer that's easily found in a textbook. Students need the opportunity to confront, rather than avoid, this complexity during these crucial formative years when they learn to think like engineers. The Cold War influence that lingers today Most engineering programs focus on standard "engineering science" courses, such as statics, thermodynamics and circuits, that trace their influences back to the technological race with the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, as Jon Leydens and Juan Lucena explain in their book "Engineering for Justice." It was then – some seven decades ago – that engineering curriculums began to emphasize the scientific and mathematical basis of engineering, cutting back on hands-on engineering design and humanities courses. While most engineering programs now incorporate these types of courses, engineering classes themselves still often have a persistent divide between the social and technical. Engineering schools began focusing almost exclusively on science and math during the Cold War. Fox Photos via Getty Images Even more disheartening, my colleague Erin Cech's work on the "culture of disengagement" found that engineering students seemed to graduate from college more disengaged from social issues than when they started. In a longitudinal survey of students across four universities, she found that students' commitment to public welfare declined significantly over the course of their engineering education. The study, published in 2013, surveyed 326 students each year during college as well as 18 months post-graduation. She found that students' "beliefs in the importance of professional and ethical responsibilities, understanding the consequences of technology, understanding how people use machines, and social consciousness all decline." Far from improving students' ability to engage on these critical issues when they graduate, the traditional approach may be making things worse. Some schools have changed their approach in recent years, but many have not. How I'm encouraging a 'sociotechnical' mindset I believe that engineers need to move away from a technocentric approach and adopt a sociotechnical mindset, as I explain in my book "Drones for Good: How to Bring Sociotechnical Thinking into the Classroom." By this I mean we need to start thinking about the ways in which the social and technical are always connected. These aspects should not be separated, with technical challenges going to the engineers and social challenges going to the sociologists. Sociotechnical thinking is the capacity to identify this relationship and to solve problems with this relationship in mind. In order to validate this approach to education, my colleagues and I have extensively studied the impact of sociotechnical thinking on student performance in a wide range of classes and contexts, including courses in energy, drones and design. Most recently, with funding from the National Science Foundation, we developed a new course, Integrated Approach to Energy, that integrated sociotechnical thinking from the first day. We begin the semester not with the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, but instead with a practical conversation about how people actually use energy. As the semester progresses, we examine not only the technical intricacies of solar and wind, but also the ways in which fossil fuels have profoundly damaged our world. Many elements of engineering have social impacts, particularly discussions of energy and climate change. leventince via Getty Images Our peer-reviewed research on this class – conducted through interviews and analysis of students' work and behavior – has shown that with a sociotechnical approach students maintain a high level of technical achievement but also develop awareness of the social implications of engineering practice. Cautious optimism for the future The field of education is notoriously resistant to change, and engineering education is no exception. As I write this, however, there is room for cautious optimism. College students today are part of a generation that has turned the tide on years of declining civic engagement. Young leaders like climate activists Greta Thunberg and Leah Thomas have begun to call a powerful older generation to account. This transformative mindset has made its way into the engineering classroom. College students are increasingly ready for conversations about the ways engineers can promote a sustainable future or engage with issues of social justice. [Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] Several new engineering programs, including the department of integrated engineering at the University of San Diego, where I teach, and engineering, design and society at the Colorado School of Mines, are making sociotechnical thinking central to their curriculum. Other engineering schools, like Harvey Mudd, Smith and Olin, require their students to take a substantial number of humanities and social science courses and have made hands-on learning central to their curriculum. In my view, the broad lesson is that it's not enough to think society is one thing and technology is another. Anyone with a social media account can tell you it's not that simple. Gordon Hoople is on the faculty at the University of San Diego, some for some of this work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 1836504.

What is pay-as-you-throw? A waste expert explains Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:06 AM PST When people have to pay for every bag of trash they throw out, they produce less waste. Mint Images RF via Getty Images Pay-as-you-throw is a policy that charges people for the amount of trash they toss out. It's also sometimes called variable-rate pricing or pay-as-you-waste. Many cities and towns around the world, including over 7,000 in the U.S., have pay-as-you-throw waste policies. Examples include Seattle, Berkeley, Austin and Portland, Maine. Large cities often require residents to purchase special trash bags or stickers so that they pay separately for every bag of trash. Or people may have to sign up for a certain level of waste collection service, which limits how much garbage they can set out on the curb. A pay-as-you-throw trash bag for the city of Waterville, Maine. Local grocery and convenience stores sell the bags in two sizes: large (30 gallons, $2.60 per bag) and small (15 gallons, $1.63 per bag). All trash put out for collection must be in the purple bags. City of Waterville Pay-as-you-throw is one of local governments' most effective tools for reducing waste, controlling waste disposal costs and giving residents an incentive to participate in recycling and composting programs. Once households begin paying directly for waste services, they tend to rapidly reduce how much they throw away. In Massachusetts, for example, towns with pay-as-you-throw systems generated an average of 1,239 pounds of trash per household in 2020, compared with 1,756 pounds per household in towns that didn't use this approach – a 30% reduction. Such a shift can mean that people recycle and compost more, so the total volume of the waste stream remains relatively stable. But over time, pay-as-you-throw communities tend to see a decline in the total amount discarded, including recycling and compost. This strategy can be controversial at the start. Even though everyone already pays for trash collection and disposal, either through their rent or local property taxes, pay-as-you-throw can feel like a new tax when it is broken out and charged separately. People also worry about pay-as-you-throw programs encouraging illegal dumping, although this hasn't been observed in practice. A more serious concern is that pay-as-you-throw programs, if not managed thoughtfully, can be costly for low-income households. To prevent this, many communities offer discounts or free bags for elderly and low-income residents, and most keep their recycling rates lower than trash rates. This approach usually keeps costs affordable. Solid waste management has a big impact on the environment. Landfills and incinerators generate greenhouse gases and toxic pollutants. So does transporting heavy waste materials from urban centers to distant disposal sites. Recycling is a better option for some materials, but many items that go into collection bins are never actually recycled. Research shows that by spurring shifts in consumption, local pay-as-you-throw programs improve waste management by encouraging everyone to generate less trash in the first place. [Get The Conversation's most important coronavirus headlines, weekly in a science newsletter] Lily Baum Pollans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

How changing parental beliefs can build stronger vocabulary and math skills for young children Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:05 AM PST Parents nurture their child's development when they tell stories and have conversations with them. FG Trade/E+ Collection via Getty Images The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea The key to improving young children's vocabulary and math skills may lie in changing their parents' beliefs. We describe these findings in an article published in October 2021 in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Communications. When we measured parental beliefs about child development among 479 parents of newborns living in the Chicago area, a striking pattern emerged: Better educated parents were significantly more likely than parents with lower levels of education to believe that activities such as telling stories to their children, playing with them and spending time having conversations with them affect child development. We call such activities "parental investments". To understand how socioeconomic differences in these beliefs may drive inequality in children's skills, we designed two interventions among low-income families in the Chicago area. Both intervention programs promote language-rich interactions between caregivers and children. Our first intervention consisted of a series of short educational videos that provided tips and information about babies' capabilities. Parents watched the videos when they visited their pediatrician for their child's immunizations in the first six months after birth. The second intervention was more intensive. Families with a child 24 to 30 months old received home visits by specifically trained members of our research team every other week for six months. During the 12 visits, the home visitors showed an educational video to the parents and then did an activity that demonstrated how to put the concepts covered in the video into practice. These demonstrations included, for example, how to use descriptive language with their child or incorporate math into everyday routines. Finally, the home visitors gave feedback and set goals for the next visit. At the end of both experiments, parents were more likely to believe that parental investments affect child development than parents that did not get the interventions. But we also found that parents in the more intensive program had significantly more interactions with their children than parents that did not get the intervention. The less intensive program had a similar but smaller effect on parent-child interactions. Importantly, our results also indicate that the children whose parents received the home visits developed higher vocabulary and math skills – as well as improved socio-emotional health – immediately after the intervention and six months later, compared to those that did not get the interventions. As these are indicators of school readiness, it means that kids who got the treatment were better prepared for school. The first intervention, on the other hand, did not improve children's vocabulary, which was the main outcome of interest for that program. Why it matters Research shows that socioeconomic inequalities in child development begin well before school starts. Investing in the early years of a child's development can improve a variety of outcomes later in life, such as employment, earnings and physical health. During the first years of life, parental investments are critical for the healthy development of children. Yet socioeconomic differences in parental investments, which have been consistently observed over time and across countries, exacerbate the educational and income inequalities that are often seen in modern economies. What's next The fact that only our more intensive intervention succeeded in making kids better prepared for school suggests that simply providing families with more information on child development and parenting is insufficient. Our future work will address how to personalize support for families. We are developing a computer-adaptive version of the survey we used to elicit parental beliefs. This will tailor to each parent's specific knowledge and needs and help us identify the most appropriate programs for each family. [Too busy to read another daily email? Get one of The Conversation's curated weekly newsletters.] The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

'Dataraising' – when you're asked to chip in with data instead of money Posted: 04 Jan 2022 05:05 AM PST Volunteers across the U.S. tag and count monarchs during the insects' annual migrations. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster Fundraising appeals are part of everyday life, both online and off. Requests for financial donations arrive by snail mail, email, social media and text messages. Cashiers at chain stores and supermarkets ask if you want to chip in for charitable causes. If you're in the U.S., you might also be getting nearly constant texts asking you to contribute to political campaigns. In my book "How We Give Now," I explore how acts of giving extend beyond donating money to nonprofits, including an interesting trend on the rise that I call "dataraising." It's a term I coined while writing the book to describe nonprofits or researchers soliciting donations of data. Perhaps surprisingly, dataraising is not entirely new. Medical research, for example, has long relied on volunteers to participate in clinical trials to gather enough data to study a disease. The steps to participating in clinical trials – signing up, learning the protocols, agreeing to contribute your data – were developed to limit the harms that can follow when researchers just take people's data. These protocols, imperfect as they are, distinguish informed data donations from the usual online data experience, in which companies' terms of service afford them extensive claims to data while leaving individual users few choices and even less recourse. There are apps for this One reason for the growth in dataraising is that it is becoming easier to do for technological reasons. For example, Apple launched Research Kit in 2015. It's a set of software protocols that lets medical researchers design studies that use data directly from a person's iPhone. To participate in phone-based research, people download an app for a study. The best studies use consent processes that aren't the usual legal forms with one of those "I agree" buttons at the end. Instead, these consent processes ask people to use their phone in ways that will generate only only the specific data researchers are collecting. For example, the consent process for a study on Parkinson's disease might ask you to swipe your fingers across the screen and then put the phone in your pocket and walk across the room. These actions generate data that shows signs of tremors in the hands and movement. A 2021 industry study of mobile health apps counted more than 1,500 research projects based on digital health data with ResearchKit up to that point. Android users can also participate in similar studies using Google's Health Studies App, which launched in 2020. Some apps are for the birds But data donations facilitated by technology power more than just medical research. Apps such as eBird, run by Cornell University's Ornithology Lab, and iNaturalist, a collaboration between National Geographic and the California Academy of Sciences, rely on donations of cellphone photographs to power their biodiversity databases. Civic science initiatives, also known as citizen science initiatives, assist with everything from water quality monitors to butterfly counts. These initiatives rely on contributed data, as do many genealogical websites. Dataraising is also making it easier to document the history of specific communities. For example, the Densho Archive, an online repository of historical artifacts related to the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, contains donated photographs, letters and newspaper articles. Other forces driving this trend Legal changes, organizational innovation, social movements and increased attention to the harms of concentrated data are also playing a role in the spread of this practice. In the United Kingdom, ride-share drivers can contribute their data to the Workers' Info Exchange. Known as WIX, it uses the aggregated, analyzed information to protect workers' rights and fight back against "robo-firing" – when companies design algorithms that automatically fire workers without any human involvement. Organizations like WIX depend on people's having access to their data, a right guaranteed by the European Union and in California through the California Consumer Privacy Act. Helping solve vexing problems As digital systems become more critical to everyday life, donated data can help answer more kinds of questions. The consumer advocacy organization Consumer Reports is dataraising by collecting assorted cable TV bills. This data will help the group's sleuths evaluate corporate claims about broadband speed, access and prices. Mozilla, the nonprofit maker of the Firefox browser, has launched a browser plug-in called Rally. It makes it easy to share data over the internet with academic researchers. And Kaiser Health News and National Public Radio have teamed up to conduct "Bill of the Month" investigations. Through this collaboration, the news outlets' journalists are analyzing and reporting on the hidden fees and mysterious charges that are rife in the U.S. medical system. When dataraising falters The easier it gets to collect data from anyone, the more important it becomes to plan for troublemakers, provide people with tools to control their information, and make sure that participants treat one another with respect. The iNaturalist app, for example, is used in a lot of classrooms, and students love to pull pranks, tagging their fellow classmates as bugs or snakes. Because it's used globally, cultural and linguistic competence is key. What may seem lighthearted in one context can be deeply insulting elsewhere. Digital data shared through online networks – especially those dedicated to public goods – require careful attention to protect participant safety. For example, people may want to donate data regarding how far they walked but not where they went. Although phone default settings may make it easiest to transmit location data and leave it up to researchers to calculate the distance traveled on foot, to make user safety a high priority, apps could calculate distance on the phone without transmitting someone's location. It's also important to aspire to equitable access to people who want to donate their data for these purposes, which is hard since not everyone owns a smartphone. And I believe that those involved in these studies should meaningfully give consent that can be retracted at any time. Over the years, participants in the civic science movement have created resources and manuals to promote good data governance and limit harassment of the people taking part in these efforts. Their goal is to enable equitable participation, make data security a priority and let individuals control their data. In some cases, protecting the identity of those who donate data is critical. There are dedicated community managers and tiers of training for those who use iNaturalist, along with rules for the curators who manage its website, for example. Voluntary practices like those are valuable. But in my view, the donation of data should be regulated. There are plenty of experts with professional and lived experience in online harms, data rights, community building and philanthropy to inform such efforts. Megan Price of Human Rights Data Analyst Group contributed to the ideas discussed in this article. Lucy Bernholz receives funding from The Siegel Family Endowment, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Perptual, Ltd., and The Generosity Commission.

American support for conspiracy theories and armed rebellion isn't new – we just didn't believe it before the Capitol insurrection Posted: 03 Jan 2022 06:53 AM PST Rioters are tear-gassed as they storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images Americans had to confront a new reality when an angry mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: Some of their fellow citizens were in the grips of a false reality and had resorted to violence to support it. Conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election and the strange alternate universe of QAnon helped drive the attack, which has prompted concerns about further domestic upheaval. In the year since, a flurry of studies and analyses have tried to gauge the American appetite for conspiracy theories and the likelihood of more violence – even civil war. As someone who has studied the conspiracy theories that followed the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I keep revisiting a May 2013 poll about gun control that found widespread doubts about that shooting and shockingly high support for armed rebellion. Almost eight years before the Capitol was attacked by partisans bent on reversing the results of an election, nearly one-third of Americans surveyed – and a whopping 44% of Republicans – said in a 2013 PublicMind poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University that armed rebellion might soon be necessary in the U.S. to protect liberties. The finding was so disconcerting that the poll was dismissed by some prominent political observers as too unbelievable to be true. Philip Bump, in The Atlantic on May 1, 2013, called the poll 'a doozy of a survey.' Screenshot, The Atlantic. Motivated reasoning Smoke fills the walkway outside the Senate Chamber on January 6, 2021, as supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta I recently interviewed the political psychologist who designed the poll, as well as a journalist who blasted its conclusions and now writes about the fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Daniel Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University and director of the FDU poll, said the 2013 survey sought to gauge the impact of motivated reasoning around gun policy. Motivated reasoning is the emotional bias that can influence judgment or cause someone to dismiss facts that don't align with their beliefs. "If reality doesn't fit what you want it to be, you have to change what you believe – or you have to change reality," Cassino explained. That's where conspiracy theories come in. If you oppose firearm restrictions, then the slaughter of 20 first graders and six adults at an elementary school with an AR-15 is a real problem for you. Cassino explained: "It's easier for people who believe strongly in gun rights to say it didn't happen rather than change their minds" about guns. One in four people surveyed in the 2013 poll said they believed the truth about the school shooting was being hidden to support a political agenda. Many others were unsure. People who opposed new gun control measures were more likely to have doubts about the shooting. Cassino said the question about armed rebellion explored a belief that is normally attributed only to members of militias and extremist groups. The finding didn't necessarily indicate that regular people would pick up arms, but it did show this notion was becoming part of the Republican partisan identity, Cassino said. "That is scary because once something becomes part of that belief structure, it becomes self-fulfilling," he said. The notion of a possible armed rebellion has since spread through the Republican Party and has been espoused by party leaders and elected officials. "The actual armed insurrection that happened in January [2021] showed us this is a real strain in American politics that has gotten stronger and is not going away," Cassino said. Motivated coverage When the poll came out, some commentators used it to ridicule Republicans. Comedian Bill Maher, for example, tweeted about the study: "So … 44% of Rep.s think an ARMED REBELLION might be necessary in the next few years. So if u say most Rep.s r f–king nuts u'd be off by 7%." Others dismissed the findings entirely. The Atlantic slammed the "doozy" of a poll as "highly questionable." "The poll is at-best semi-scientific and should probably not be taken seriously," Philip Bump wrote. "It certainly should not be written about by other media outlets." Today, Bump is a national correspondent at the Washington Post who specializes in the numbers behind politics and has written about the Jan. 6 insurrection. In a recent phone call, he told me he thinks his reaction to the 2013 poll was "over the top." He still thinks Cassino's numbers seem high compared to some recent findings, but Bump said he would not dismiss the poll today like he did back then. "It obviously takes on a much different light given the last eight years," he told me. A second Civil War After the 2013 poll, Cassino said he was inundated with phone calls from people accusing him of being part of a conspiracy to take away guns. Many of the calls were made to his home number and were threatening. The calls, along with the negative media coverage, dissuaded him from asking about armed rebellion in future polls, he told me. Now, he wishes he had collected that data. Just after the 2021 insurrection, a Zogby Poll found nearly half of Americans – 46% – thought another civil war was likely. The American Enterprise Institute found that 4 in 10 Republicans thought political violence may be necessary. A more recent survey published in November 2021 by the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly one-third of Republicans – 30% – agreed with the statement "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country." Even the pragmatic folks at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution recently cautioned that the possibility of a second civil war should not be dismissed: "We should not assume it could not happen and ignore the ominous signs that conflict is spiraling out of control," Brookings fellows William G. Gale and Darrell M. West warned. Opposition to vaccines in the face of a global pandemic and obstinate belief in Trump's debunked claims about the 2020 presidential election have shown journalists and the public just how much strongly held beliefs can shape the perception of reality, Cassino said. "People's beliefs about reality are infinitely malleable," he said. "I wish it wasn't the case, because it is really bad for society. I wish I had been wrong." [Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.] Amanda J. Crawford was a 2020-21 fellow with the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute and is a national board member of the Journalism & Women Symposium.

The 'sore loser effect': Rejecting election results can destabilize democracy and drive terrorism Posted: 03 Jan 2022 06:50 AM PST The Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol offers an example of how refusing to accept election results can lead to violence. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images An attendee at an October 2021 political rally hosted by right-wing activist Charlie Kirk asked: "How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?" The attendee was referring to the baseless allegation that Joe Biden stole the 2020 U.S. presidential election and that he unfairly denied Donald Trump reelection. Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, condemned the question. But one year after the Capitol insurrection that was fueled by Trump's claims of a rigged election, Kirk, other commentators and politicians – and, of course, Trump himself – continue to fuel false beliefs of widespread election fraud. Embrace of the "Big Lie" that Trump really won the election has become an article of faith for many Republican politicians. It is also widely believed by conservative Americans; in an October, 2021 poll, 60% of Republicans said the 2020 presidential election results should definitely or probably be overturned. This creates a potentially dangerous situation for the United States. Acceptance of electoral defeat, something political scientists call "loser's consent," is essential for stability and order in democracies. New research shows that when losing politicians refuse to accept election results, domestic terrorism increases. Roberto Sshmidt/AFP via Getty Images 'Sore losers' can drive terrorism Democracy is based on a compact: Election losers agree to accept the results and encourage their supporters to do the same. In exchange, losing politicians get a chance to run, and win, in a future election. However, loser's consent is fragile. And when it is broken the risk of political violence increases. In a recent study I published, I conclude that when election losers in democracies reject election results, becoming "sore losers," trust in political institutions is eroded, political polarization and tribalism grows and mistrust thrives. This produces a situation where political violence is no longer seen as taboo, particularly among supporters of the losing political party. My research shows that when losing politicians in democracies refuse to accept election results, citizens begin to see terrorism as more acceptable and domestic terrorism increases. Here in the U.S., outrage over the Big Lie helped fuel the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It has also driven domestic terrorism plots. For example, federal authorities announced charges in July against two men who planned to bomb the California Democratic Party headquarters. The two men were radicalized by the Big Lie and expressed hope on social media that the attack would "start a movement that could keep former President Donald J. Trump in office." The day after the U.S. Capitol was stormed, workers begin to clean up the debris and damage estimated at $2.5 million. Samuel Corum/Getty Images Understanding the data In my study I examined domestic terrorist attack data in over 100 democracies from 1970 to 2018. I also looked at public opinion on whether people view the use of terrorism as justifiable in 30 democratic countries from 2017 to 2020. I based my definition of domestic terrorism on the one used by the Global Terrorism Database. Finally, I used data to measure whether politicians who lost recent national elections in democracies refused to accept the results. I limited my analysis to democracies that were free from electoral irregularities. I also accounted for other factors that might make domestic terrorism more common or acceptable in my analyses. These include the country's economic state, ethnic diversity and political violence history, as well as the government's strength and stability. For public opinion on terrorism, I weighed the effects of factors such as the age, gender, income, education level, political ideology and religious and ethnic identity of the survey respondent and the amount of terrorism in the country over the previous three years. When contested results lead to violence Here is what I found. First, when losing political parties in democracies reject election results, domestic terrorism increases and gets more intense. By how much depends on how many, and what types of, political parties were sore losers. Countries where all political parties, including the losers, accepted the election results experienced only one domestic attack about every two years. However, countries where one of the main political parties lost the election but refused to accept the official results – the situation most like what the U.S. currently faces – subsequently experienced around five domestic terrorist attacks per year. Finally, countries where all losing political parties rejected the election results subsequently experienced more than 10 domestic terrorist attacks per year. Second, the sore-loser effect also boosts acceptance of terrorism. Only around 9% of citizens of democracies where all losing parties accepted election results regard terrorism as justifiable behavior. This percentage increased to around 27% in democracies where the main, losing opposition party or parties rejected the election – the category most approximating the United States after the 2020 election. Finally, around a third of citizens in democracies where all losing parties rejected election results also tolerated terrorism as a tactic. These results show that when politicians refuse to accept a free and fair democratic election's outcome, and instead choose to promote a popular narrative of a stolen or dirty election, they place their people in physical danger. Popular tolerance for terrorism grows, and so does terrorist activity itself. [The Conversation's Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly.] James Piazza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Not all polarization is bad, but the US could be in trouble Posted: 03 Jan 2022 06:47 AM PST Protesters and counter-protesters face off at a political rally in September 2021. AP Photo/Nathan Howard For the first time, the United States has been classified as a "backsliding democracy" in a global assessment of democratic societies by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental research group. One key reason the report cites is the continuing popularity among Republicans of false allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. But according to the organization's secretary general, perhaps the "most concerning" aspect of American democracy is "runaway polarization." One year after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Americans' perceptions about even the well-documented events of that day are divided along partisan lines. Polarization looms large in many diagnoses of America's current political struggles. Some researchers warn of an approaching "tipping point" of irreversible polarization. Suggested remedies are available from across the partisan spectrum. There are two types of polarization, as I discuss in my book "Sustaining Democracy." One isn't inherently dangerous; the other can be. And together, they can be extremely destructive of democratic societies. Two kinds Political polarization is the ideological distance between opposed parties. If the differences are large, it can produce logjams, standoffs and inflexibility in Congress and state and local governments. Though it can be frustrating, political polarization is not necessarily dysfunctional. It even can be beneficial, offering true choices for voters and policymakers alike. Deep-seated disagreement can be healthy for democracy, after all. The clash of opinions can help us find the truth. The clamor of ideological differences among political parties provides citizens with shortcuts for making political choices. Belief polarization, also called group polarization, is different. Interaction with like-minded others transforms people into more extreme versions of themselves. These more extreme selves are also overly confident and therefore more prepared to engage in risky behavior. Belief polarization also leads people to embrace more intensely negative feelings toward people with different views. As they shift toward extremism, they come to define themselves and others primarily in terms of partisanship. Eventually, politics expands beyond policy ideas and into entire lifestyles. But that's not all. As I explain in my book, as society sorts into "liberal" and "conservative" lifestyles, people grow more invested in policing the borders between "us" and "them." And as people's alliances focus on hostility toward those who disagree, they become more conformist and intolerant of differences among allies. People grow less able to navigate disagreement, eventually developing into citizens who believe that democracy is possible only when everyone agrees with them. That is a profoundly antidemocratic stance. Even when demonstrators are part of the same group, as the photographer reports these two are, they can have differing views. John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images The polarization loop Belief polarization is toxic for citizens' relations with one another. But the large-scale political dysfunction lies in how political and belief polarization work together in a mutually reinforcing loop. When the citizenry is divided into two clans that are fixated on animus against the other, politicians have incentives to amplify hostility toward their partisan opponents. And because the citizenry is divided over lifestyle choices rather than policy ideas, officeholders are released from the usual electoral pressure to advance a legislative platform. They can gain reelection simply based on their antagonism. As politicians escalate their rifts, citizens are cued to entrench partisan segregation. This produces additional belief polarization, which in turn rewards political intransigence. All the while, constructive political processes get submerged in the merely symbolic and tribal, while people's capacities for responsible democratic citizenship erode. Managing polarization Remedies for polarization tend to focus on how it poisons citizens' relations. Surely President Joe Biden was correct to stress in his inaugural address that Americans need to "lower the temperature" and to "see each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors." Still, democracy presupposes political disagreement. As James Madison observed, the U.S. needs democracy precisely because self-governing citizens inevitably will disagree about politics. The response to polarization cannot involve calls for unanimity or abandoning partisan rivalries. A democracy without political divides is no democracy at all. The task is to render people's political differences more civil, to reestablish the ability to respectfully disagree. But this cannot be accomplished simply by conducting political discussions differently. Research indicates that once people are polarized, exposure even to civil expressions of the other side's viewpoint creates more polarization. This is a case of the crucial difference between prevention and cure. It's not enough to pretend polarization hasn't happened, or to behave as if it's a minor concern. In the current situation, even sincere attempts to respectfully engage with the other side often backfire. Yet Americans remain democratic citizens, partners in the shared project of self-government who cannot simply ignore one another. [Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] Polarization is a problem that cannot be solved, but only managed. It does make relations toxic among political opponents, but it also hurts relations among allies. It escalates conformity within coalitions, shrinking people's concepts of what levels of disagreement are tolerable in like-minded groups. It may be, then, that managing polarization could involve working to counteract conformity by engaging in respectful disagreements with people we see as allies. By taking steps to remember that politics always involves disputation, even among those who vote for the same candidates and affiliate with the same party, Americans may begin to rediscover the ability to respectfully disagree with opponents. Robert B. Talisse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Rifts between older mothers and their adult children usually endure – even through divorce, illness and death Posted: 03 Jan 2022 05:42 AM PST Relationships among family members can be tough. vm/ iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images At the start of every new year, individuals often make resolutions to change aspects of their lives that they find undesirable. For some, these promises to themselves may involve trying to mend broken family relationships. Well-meaning friends and family members may encourage estranged older parents or adult children to reconnect with one another as well. I study family estrangement, and specifically estrangement between mothers and adult children. Along with my colleagues Jill Suitor of Purdue University and Karl Pillemer of Cornell University, I have learned that rifts between older parents and their adult children are relatively common. In 2015 research that we co-authored, we examined older mothers and found that 1 in 10 experienced estrangement with at least one of their adult children. This was one of the first systematic studies of intergenerational estrangement. In our most recent research, published in September 2021, we followed these families across seven years. Our goal was to better understand how major life events, such as divorces, illnesses and deaths in the family, had affected estrangement between older mothers and their adult children over time. In particular, we wondered if important and potentially life-altering experiences would contribute to both rifts and reconciliation between older mothers and their adult children. Life changes and family estrangement For our 2015 study, we used data from Purdue University's Within-Family Differences Study, a research project to learn more about relationships between parents and their adult children over time and how these connections factor into both generations' well-being. In 2015 we interviewed over 550 mothers who were in their late 60s and early 70s. They typically lived with their husbands in their own homes and were generally in good health. Sixty-four of these older mothers reported being estranged from at least one of their adult children. In our 2021 study, we followed these same families across seven years to examine patterns of estrangement across time. The mothers were by then in their late 70s and 80s. Over the preceding seven years, most had experienced major life transitions, including serious health events and the death of their spouse. Their middle-aged adult children had also experienced important life events during these years, such as job loss or marital transitions like separation, divorce and remarriage. Consistent with our earlier research, we considered the older mothers' reports on how frequently they contacted or were contacted by each of their adult children, and the level of emotional closeness they felt in those relationships. This definition of estrangement draws strongly on the concept of emotional cutoff advanced by Murray Bowen, founder of family systems therapy: that family members intentionally distance themselves from one another both physically and emotionally as a way to deal with unresolved issues. We expected that the major life transitions would factor into the processes of estrangement across time. However, our analyses revealed that these life changes did not result in abrupt movement in or out of estrangement across the seven-year interval since our earlier study. Instead, mothers often articulated that the overall dynamics in their relationships with estranged children had continued for several years and in many cases for decades. Also, our findings indicated that reconciliation might not be a desired outcome for older mothers or adult children. None of the mothers described true reconciliation with their estranged adult children across the seven-year period. Often, mothers described remaining upset by events from their children's early adulthood, such as marital, education and career choices. It appeared that those tensions wore on the relationships between the mothers and their children for years. Estrangement doesn't always mean no contact Some researchers in this field have defined estrangement as the complete termination of contact. However, many of the mothers in our study did have contact with estranged adult children during the seven-year period. They often described contact that was irregular, tense and sometimes unwanted. For example, sometimes mothers reported receiving a greeting card from an estranged child on a particular holiday, even though they had not spoken to that child in several years. Some mothers described calling estranged adult children but not being able to engage in meaningful conversation, because the children would often hang up as soon as they heard their mother's voice. Most of the mothers in our study were not able to provide contact information for estranged adult children. When mothers became widowed, estranged adult children sometimes returned home to attend their father's funeral services. However, these interactions were often fraught. For example, some mothers described being in the same room with estranged adult children but not speaking to them. Mothers' major health events also rarely resulted in reconciliation with estranged adult children. Instead, mothers often described seeking help from other adult children in the family with whom they had a history of positive support exchanges. Learning more about estrangement Overall, our findings suggested a relatively high degree of stability in intergenerational estrangement in later-life families. That said, it is important to note that our research so far considers only the perspective of the older mothers. More research is needed to better understand intergenerational estrangement from the perspective of adult children and would ideally encompass the viewpoints of those on both sides of a family rift. [Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] This project was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging (RO1 AG18869-01 and 2RO1 AG18869-04; J. Jill Suitor and Karl Pillemer, Co-Principal Investigators).

Why can’t we throw all our trash into a volcano and burn it up? Posted: 03 Jan 2022 05:42 AM PST Lava flows from a fissure in the aftermath of eruptions from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island, May 22, 2018. Andrew Richard Hara/Ena Media Hawaii via Getty Images Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you'd like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why can't we throw all our trash into a volcano and burn it up? – Georgine T. It's true that lava is hot enough to burn up some of our trash. When Kilauea erupted on the Big island of Hawaii in 2018, the lava flows were hotter than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 Celsius). That's hotter than the surface of the planet Venus, and hot enough to melt many rocks. It's also as hot as waste incinerators, which usually burn garbage at 1,800 to 2,200 F (1,000-1,200 C). [Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] But not all lavas are the same temperature. The eruptions in Hawaii produce a type of lava called basalt. Basalt is much hotter and more fluid than the lavas that erupt at other volcanoes, like the thicker dacite lava that erupts at Mount St. Helens in Washington state. For example, the 2004-2008 eruption at Mount St. Helens produced a lava dome with surface temperatures less than about 1,300 F (704 C). There are 161 volcanoes in 14 U.S. states and territories. Scientists monitor them and warn nearby communities if they see signs that a volcano may erupt. USGS Beyond temperature, there are other good reasons not to burn our trash in volcanoes. First, although lava at 2,000 degrees F can melt many materials in our trash – including food scraps, paper, plastics, glass and some metals – it's not hot enough to melt many other common materials, including steel, nickel and iron. Second, there aren't many volcanoes on Earth that have lava lakes, or bowl-like craters full of lava, that we could dump trash into. Of all of the thousands of volcanoes on Earth, scientists know of only eight with active lava lakes. They include Kilauea, Mount Erebus in Antarctica and Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Most active volcanoes have craters filled with rocks and cooled lava, like Mount St. Helens, or with water, like Crater Lake in Oregon. The third problem is that dumping trash into those eight active lava lakes would be a very dangerous job. Lava lakes are covered with a crust of cooling lava, but just below that crust they are molten and intensely hot. If rocks or other materials fall onto the surface of a lava lake, they will break the crust, disrupt the underlying lava and cause an explosion. This happened at Kilauea in 2015: Blocks of rock from the crater rim fell into the lava lake and caused a big explosion that ejected rocks and lava up and out of the crater. Anyone who threw garbage into a lava lake would have to run away and dodge flaming garbage and lava. An eruption from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma on Sept. 30, 2021, produced clouds of toxic gas. Suppose it was possible to dump trash safely into a lava lake: What would happen to the trash? When plastics, garbage and metals burn, they release a lot of toxic gases. Volcanoes already give off tons of toxic gases, including sulfur, chlorine and carbon dioxide. Sulfur gases can create acidic fog, which we call "vog," for "volcanic fog." It can kill plants and cause breathing problems for people nearby. Mixing these already-dangerous volcanic gases with other gases from burning our trash would make the resulting fumes even more harmful for people and plants near the volcano. Finally, many indigenous communities view nearby volcanoes as sacred places. For example, Halema'uma'u crater at Kilauea is considered the home of Pele, the native Hawaiian goddess of fire, and the area around the crater is sacred to native Hawaiians. Throwing trash into volcanoes would be a huge insult to those cultures. Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you'd like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live. And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you're wondering, too. We won't be able to answer every question, but we will do our best. Emily Johnson receives funding from the U.S. Geological Survey

Philanthropists seeking to fix big problems must tread carefully – here's how they can make their efforts more compatible with democracy Posted: 03 Jan 2022 05:41 AM PST Martin Luther King Jr. is among the many big thinkers to question the importance of philanthropy. AP Photo How should wealthy people respond to daunting problems like racism, economic inequality and climate change? Leading thinkers have long questioned whether philanthropy offers appropriate or meaningful solutions to vexing challenges. Eighteenth-century philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft called private giving "the most specious system of slavery." Wollstonecraft saw charitable and philanthropic efforts as softening the effects of unjust laws and political institutions – rather than dismantling them. A century later, the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde argued that private giving "creates a multitude of sins." Wilde thought that charity "degrades and demoralizes" while preventing the horrors of systemic injustice from being recognized by those who suffer from it. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. held that philanthropy is "commendable" but insufficient in the face of challenges like war, racism and poverty. "True compassion," King wrote, is "to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." As a political philosopher who studies the ethics of philanthropy, I see these claims as part of a long tradition of criticism of private giving. In my new book, "The Tyranny of Generosity: Why Philanthropy Corrupts Our Politics and How We Can Fix It," I view these critics as questioning what I call "palliative philanthropy." Like palliative care in medicine, which eases pain without curing the disease that causes it, palliative giving strategies address the symptoms of injustices while leaving their causes to fester. Critics claim that donors often fall into this trap. In palliative treatment, medical professionals and caregivers seek to relieve a patient's pain. Justin Paget/DigitalVision via Getty Images Many donations have other goals This critique invites some immediate objections. To be sure, much philanthropy responds to missions other than helping the poor and ending inequality. Thousands of nonprofits seek instead to supplement research funding, preserve cultural heritage or expand opportunities for artistic enrichment. And it's generally harder to see how philanthropy with scientific, cultural or artistic missions might serve as a Band-Aid or become counterproductive, versus, say, donations tied to ending hunger or supplying mosquito nets to reduce the incidence of malaria. Another question is whether the notion that charitable giving is merely palliative applies equally when philanthropists try to tackle the root causes of society's deepest problems. That's a common goal of U.S. philanthropy. For years, its leaders have embraced the notion that donated funds can facilitate systemic change in everything from financial exclusion to human trafficking. Attacking the political sources of social problems But critics of palliative philanthropy often call for more direct methods of institutional reform. Since laws and policies create and regulate institutions, transforming unjust institutions requires fundamental alterations to these laws and policies. As University of Chicago philosopher Brian Leiter puts it, "[H]uman misery has systemic causes, which charity never addresses, but which political change can address; ergo, all money and effort should go towards systemic and political reform." For Queen's University philosopher Will Kymlicka, an individual's primary obligation in the face of injustice is to mobilize politically to press for just institutions. For Northeastern University political scientist Emily Clough, attacking the root causes of poverty and injustice is best achieved by private funding efforts to hold governments accountable. Donors, in other words, should spend less on providing people in need with the goods and services they require. And they should spend far more on political campaigns, lobbying, legal action and policy advocacy, even when this might mean forgoing the tax breaks tied to conventional charitable gifts. Sometimes root problems get in the way. Chn Ling Do Chen Liang Dao/EyeEm via Getty Images Educational reform as a cautionary tale As I argue in my book, Leiter and others critical of palliative giving should be careful what they wish for. The difficulty is that the solution risks substituting one form of injustice for another. Under conditions of extreme economic inequality, encouraging donors to spend more on efforts to reform laws and policies risks exacerbating political inequality and undermining democracy. Members of a political community inevitably disagree about why and how their institutions should be designed or reformed. A central demand of democracy is that subjects of these political decisions ought to enjoy equal opportunities for influencing them. Allowing advantages in economic or social status to be exchanged for greater political power conflicts with a commitment to treating one another as free and equal members of society. The movement for K-12 education reform in the United States, funded by billions of dollars annually in charitable contributions, illustrates this point. In the late 1990s, several foundations coalesced on an education agenda that emphasized market principles, such as choice, competition and performance-based evaluation. This consortium went to work on creating and coordinating advocacy groups, lobbying and electing sympathetic officials, creating parallel school systems, and even offering funds directly to cash-strapped public agencies to carry out the reform agenda. The general public, however, wasn't asking for any of this. Most Americans are satisfied with the educational system, polling indicates, with many wary of charter schools and other market-oriented educational reforms. But since opponents of the reform agenda can't compete with the resources of its supporters, including the Bill & Melinda Gates, Walton Family and Eli and Edythe Broad foundations, reformers have largely dominated the policy agenda. As a Gates foundation official explained to policy scholar Megan Tompkins-Stange in a 2016 book, "We have this enormous power to sway the public conversations about things like effective teaching or standards and mobilizing lots of resources in their favor without real robust debate." A common line of criticism says that the problem with donor-led education reform efforts is the mixture of grand ambitions with limited knowledge of what really works in education. After decades of this philanthropic trend, the U.S. still ranks well below most of its peer countries in terms of global education benchmarks. I believe that big donors should also learn from this experiment that the financial ability to address a major social problem doesn't justify bypassing or overwhelming public debate. Even if such efforts achieve their intended effects, they damage democracy and mistreat fellow citizens. Being a democratically responsible donor How can big donors balance ambitions to correct injustice with the constraints on power that democracy requires? One option is for donors to embrace the aim of political change but avoid dominating the agenda. They can support nonpartisan community organizing, which helps disconnected individuals identify and collaborate on shared challenges. Progress on systemic problems, including strides toward protecting civil rights, workers' rights and the outlawing of redlining, all began with community organizing. A second option is to single out advocacy campaigns that counterbalance powerful special interests that have already skewed the debate. For instance, donations supporting advocacy that leads to restrictions on tobacco marketing might be justified to counteract the lobbying efforts of tobacco corporations. Likewise, donations that support environmental activism could reduce the influence of oil, gas and coal companies on climate change policies. Rosenwald's example Julius Rosenwald helped expand educational opportunities for Black children through his philanthropy. Chicago History Museum/Getty Images A third option is to invest in temporary policy experiments that can be authentically adopted and controlled by democratic governments. It's perhaps best exemplified by the partnership between U.S. businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and prominent Black educator and leader Booker T. Washington to seed-fund the construction of 5,000 schoolhouses in the 1910s and 1920s "Rosenwald schools" are credited with dramatic improvements in educational gains for Black children in the segregated Jim Crow South. Local communities had to contribute funds and pledge to incorporate the schools into their own public school district. This funding model helped to ease worries about excessive donor influence. The Ridgeley Rosenwald School, in Capitol Heights, Maryland, has operated as a museum since 2011. Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images It probably also helped that Rosenwald made his heirs spend down the Julius Rosenwald Fund, his foundation, after his death in 1932. Unlike the automotive entrepreneur and philanthropist Henry Ford and other major donors, Rosenwald went out of his way to make sure his power wasn't perpetual. Surely, these examples aren't the only possibilities. And each one comes with its own limitations. But in my view, further attention to the conflict between justice and democracy in philanthropic giving may uncover new and better ways of overcoming it. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding for The Conversation U.S. and provides funding for The Conversation internationally. Ted Lechterman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Inflation, workforce participation and real wages: 3 key indicators for monitoring the economy in 2022 Posted: 03 Jan 2022 05:39 AM PST Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the best economy of them all? PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images The U.S. economy ended 2021 with a lot of uncertainty. Inflation surged to levels not seen since the 1980s – seriously eroding consumer purchasing power – while the highly contagious omicron variant forced many Americans to hunker down as case counts soared to record levels, reducing economic activity. How will the economy fare in 2022? And given its size and complexity, how will we even know whether things are improving? To offer some clues, The Conversation U.S. recruited three economists to highlight one measurement tool they'll be following closely in the new year and explain why it will help them – and you – better understand how the economy is doing. Will inflation keep rising? Veronika Dolar, Professor of Economics, SUNY Old Westbury Americans, especially those on low incomes, have felt the pinch of higher prices in recent months. The price people pay for everything from fish to gasoline has soared, with the pace of change the highest it's been in decades. Inflation is a sustained, generalized increase in the prices of many goods and services in an economy. Inflation erodes consumers' purchasing power and the value of their cash, in effect reducing their real incomes. A modern economy has millions of goods and services whose prices are continually quivering in the breezes of supply and demand. How can all of these shifts be boiled down to a single inflation rate? As with many problems in economic measurement, the conceptual answer is reasonably straightforward: Prices of a variety of goods and services are combined into a single price level or index, and the inflation rate is simply a measure of its change over some period. Economists have many ways to measure inflation, from the ubiquitous consumer price index to the little-known gross domestic product deflator. Even the satirical publication The Onion has a guide. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. I prefer the tool that journalists commonly use and you've almost certainly seen in recent weeks trumpeting the highest inflation rate in about 40 years: headline CPI, which rose 6.8% in November 2021 compared with a year earlier. This is the broadest version of the consumer price index. Many economists and the Federal Reserve prefer what is known as core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices. Because prices for food and fuel fluctuate frequently even as demand for them remains stable, policymakers argue excluding them makes it easier to figure out what's really going on in the economy. But this ignores two categories that absorb a significant share of most household budgets – especially among the less affluent. After all, people need food – up 6.1% over the past year – and energy – up 33.3% in 2021 – to survive. As such, it seems problematic to exclude them. Economists like me will be watching the main consumer price index closely in 2022 to see if it stays elevated, continues to climb or finally begins to fall – which is what most economists forecast. Not only will it tell us a lot about the state of the U.S. economy and how quickly the Fed may have to raise interest rates, but it will likely also be a major factor in who gains most in the midterm elections. Research has found that high inflation rates – and especially gas prices – are strongly correlated with disapproval in the president's job performance. Will Americans return to the workforce? Marlon Williams, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Dayton The labor force participation rate is not one of the "big three" macroeconomic indicators – gross domestic product, inflation and the unemployment rate – that economists, financial markets and journalists slavishly follow. As a matter of fact, it might not even make the top 10. But it is one of the variables that I will be following especially closely in 2022. The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the civilian population aged 16 and up who are either employed or are actively seeking a job. This measure gives us a sense of the share of working-age population who are making themselves available to work. From the 1970s through the turn of the century, there was an almost uninterrupted increase in the labor force participation as more women joined the workforce. During that period, it rose from a low of roughly 60% to an all-time high of 67.3% in the first quarter of 2000. From the early 2000s until the pandemic hit, the participation rate steadily declined and was about 63% at the end of 2019. It fell sharply in April 2020 as the U.S. began a period of lockdowns to try to contain the rapid spread of COVID-19, reaching a nearly 50-year low of 60.2% that month. Although the rate has recovered somewhat, it continues to flounder below 62% because of a combination of factors brought on or exacerbated by the pandemic, such as fear about returning to a physical workplace and pandemic-related benefits that made it more financially feasible to go without a job. While economists don't identify a specific participation rate as ideal, it's generally believed that a sudden, sizable reduction in the rate presents significant challenges to the smooth functioning of an economy. That's because it represents a rapid withdrawal of productive resources – workers – that can't be easily or quickly offset. This is one cause of the recent surge in inflation, not to mention the supply chain problems the global economy is currently experiencing. If the rate doesn't rise to pre-pandemic levels in the coming year or two, that would dash hopes for a stronger economic recovery and would signal high inflation and supply chain shortages will be with us for some time to come. Will real wages climb? Melanie Long, Assistant Professor of Economics, The College of Wooster As an economist who studies consumer finances, I spend a lot of time thinking about how much Americans spend. That is why I will be watching one number particularly closely in 2022: median usual weekly earnings. In short, this data point tells us how much the typical worker – rather than the average one, which can be misleading – receives in pretax pay each week, adjusted for inflation. Anyone who manages a budget knows that how much you make is only half the story. Prices matter just as much. "Real" weekly earnings are adjusted based on the cost of consumer goods. Higher prices mean that families can afford to buy less with the same pay, so their real earnings would fall. Unfortunately, this number is a bit delayed, coming several months after the release of the nominal data – which doesn't factor in inflation. But accounting for prices is more important now than ever. The prices of everything from used cars to chicken are rising at the fastest rate in a decade. These increases will cut into families' buying power and threaten to stall an already slow economic rebound. Before the pandemic, real weekly earnings were on the rise as historically low unemployment rates forced companies to pay more to attract workers. In the second quarter of 2020, real earnings suddenly spiked – primarily because millions of low-wage workers lost their jobs because of lockdowns, and so their incomes weren't being calculated in the figure. Earnings subsequently fell back to pre-pandemic levels as low-wage workers returned to work. Now there are signs that wages could again be on the rise for some workers. For example, service workers have been quitting their jobs in droves, in part in search of better pay with other employers. Given the ongoing labor shortage, some companies seem to have had little choice but to raise wages. One concern economists have about these wage hikes is that employers might react by raising prices further to help pay for them. This in turn could prompt workers to demand higher wages. Economists call this a "wage-price spiral," which if allowed to spin out of control could lead to stagflation – slow growth, high inflation – or worse. [Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] The direction that real earnings take in 2022 will have a major impact on families' spending and the pace of economic growth. Consumer spending makes up nearly 70% of U.S. economic activity each year. I will be watching this number carefully this year to see how the competing forces of increasing prices and rising wages ultimately shape the fragile pandemic economic recovery. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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