JOST A MON

The idle ramblings of a Jack of some trades, Master of none

Dec 19, 2007

Depressed? Perhaps Your Girlfriends are Mean?

It is sad but true that socially isolated adolescent girls whose friends are not each other's friends tend to have more suicidal thoughts than those whose friends are friends with each other1. I am not entirely sure why this is the case, and why a similar result has not been found among boys. Interpersonal dynamics among girls is far too subtle and emotionally manipulative for a boy to comprehend. As Hermione Granger in one of the Harry Potter books said, Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon, Ron, doesn't mean we all have. Perhaps it is just this shortage of empathy in the male brain that makes it less susceptible to the lack of triadic closure.

What's that? Triadic Closure? A smart sociologist named Georg Simmel introduced this concept about a hundred years ago. It means exactly what it says on the tin: if your pals are friendly with each other, your circle is triadically closed. There are three entities that are joined in a dynamic: you, one group of friends, and another group of friends. Simmel's argument was that the entry of a third member into a previously dyadic group introduced new dynamics, such as divide and conquer, or mediation, or affirmation. This was the minimal social unit that could be explored as a proxy for the human sociological condition

Girls with their delicately nuanced appreciation of each other's worth epitomise this dynamic perfectly. Within a group there would be - as with most social animals - hierarchies. Invariably, those at the bottom of the heap are treated with condescension and barely suppressed irritation. However, the group itself protects any of its members against outsiders. There's also constant jostling for ascendancy, and two girls might gang up against a third, even if she were generally top dog; these alliances being fluid and impermanent. Do we have a possible explanation for suicidal thoughts among girls whose pals form disjoint sets? Perhaps they miss the interpersonal dynamic, the support and affirmation and protection that comes of a larger group, and they find themselves isolated and possibly bullied by other more successful networks.

In 2002, there was a brouhaha5 caused by the publication of Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes. A long New York Times article described how Rosalind went about analysing the dynamics of adolescent female relationships, and - having understood them - setup an foundation to get girls to, well, be nice to each other. Essentially, she determined, the dynamic was a mixture of domination, mutual support and admiration, ruthless purging of rebels and extreme xenophobia towards outsiders. The successful queen bees are the ones who can manipulate their inferiors, who can back-stab successfully and still have the subservient emotional slave come back. The victims always apologise and always want the favour of the queen.

It is quite clear that there is no space for political correctness in this turmoil of adolescent behaviour. As the feminist historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese said: those who have experienced dismissal by the junior-high-school girls' clique could hardly, with a straight face, claim generosity and nurture as a natural attribute of women. Indeed, in the words of one famous queen bee4: I don't really like my friends. It's just like they're people I work with and our job is being popular.

One of the most astonishing comments I have ever heard is that by a seventeen year old about two fourteen year old girls who crashed a party she had thrown. A freshman girl cannot show up at a junior party; disgusting 14-year-old girls with their boobs in the air cannot show up at your party going -- her voice turned breathy -- Uh, hi, where's the beer?5 This drips with so much fury and displays so much poison, I am amazed the younger girls were alive at the end of the onslaught. Guys wouldn't have been either as eloquent or as poisonous. You gate-crashed my party? Well, if I am bigger than you, I'll punch you on the nose. If not, I'll pretend I invited you.

I wonder if there is any evolutionary reason at all for girls to treat each other this way. It has often been claimed that this is yet another exercise in determining boundaries and acceptable social behaviour that children go through, as they did when younger. After all, many women outgrow this phase. But why does it have to be so vituperative? I have no clue.

Meanwhile, some researchers have found an immense treasure trove of data to ponder sociological questions in - hold your breath - Facebook3. There are so many friends and family networks, many in unprotected profiles, that the researchers can begin to analyse issues such as triadic closure.

Finally, here's a bit of a reversal in behaviour that seems to occur as girls mature into adulthood. They begin to keep their various friend circles apart2! Down with triadic closure in this instance, that's for sure. The reasons given are manifold. What if my friend A can't stand my friend B? Will I then be diminished in their eyes? Worse, what if they get along even better with each other than they do with me? Will I be discarded in the new organisation?

It's a good thing I don't have to deal with issues such as these. Or, as Ron said, I'd explode. My emotional range, you see, is no greater than that of a teaspoon.

References

1. Bearman, P.S., J. Moody, Suicide and Friendships Among American Adolescents, American Journal of Public Health, Vol 94, Number 1. 2004.
2. "I keep my friends 'separate'..." - mailing list.
3. Stephanie Rosenbloom, "On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data", New York Times, Dec 17, 2007.
4. Winona Ryder, Heathers, 1989.
5. Margaret Talbot, "Girls Just Wanna Be Mean", New York Times, Feb 24, 2002.

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Aug 2, 2007

Network Theory and - the Inquisition?

I came across the strangest paper recently. It is one scintillating example of interdisciplinary research. Why did heresies persist in mediaeval Europe despite the ruthless and brutal Inquisition? The Catholic Church went as far as genocide in its fervour to purge the land of false belief. Still, the virus of heresy proved difficult to contain.

The Inquisition quickly realised that a small number of influential people with a large circle of acquaintances were responsible for disseminating the heresies. When they targeted these few folk, the effectiveness of the purge was much more satisfactory.

A similar idea is used in the study of dynamics of epidemics these days. In general, most agents in an afflicted population are in contact only with a relatively small number of people, whereas there are a small number of people with large social networks, who turn out to be the most effective vectors. Networks such as these are called scale-free.

This property makes it much more difficult to control a plague, because the viruses persist longer in the population and are harder to eradicate than is predicted by standard epidemiological models.

As Ormerod and Roach point out in their paper, the early attempts to curb the 13the century Albigensian heresy were indiscriminate and widespread. The papal legate and monk, Arnaud Aimeric made the following remark at the storming of Béziers:
Knowing from the confessions of these Catholics that they were mixed up with heretics, [the crusaders] said to the abbot. ‘What shall we do, lord? We cannot tell the good from the bad. The abbot, ……is said to have said: “Kill them. For God knows who are his.” Thus innumerable persons were killed in that city.’
The parallels between the spread of disease and heresy were well-known at the time.
‘Just as one bunch of grapes can take on a sickly colour from the aspect of its neighbour, and in the fields the scab of one sheep or the mange of one pig destroys an entire herd,’ so, following the example of Toulouse, neighbouring towns and villages in which heresiarchs had put down their roots were caught up in the shoots put out by that city’s unbelief, and became infected with the dreadful plague.’
But by 1220, the futility of large-scale cleansing was recognised, and the recognition of the scale-free nature of the heresiarchs' network was beginning to be apparent. Indeed, the 1229 Council of Toulouse stated:
Heretics…who return to Catholic unity…not…voluntarily are to be imprisoned by the bishop of the place….to prevent their having the power of corrupting others.
Whereas in the 12th century, there was almost no targeting of powerful individuals, the arrival of specialist inquisitors from the 1230s led to extirpation of the Cathars. The Dominican Friar, Bernard Gui (parodied by Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose) was interested in the interconnection between heretical sects, and suggested that suspected Cathars be asked:
Whether he had any familiar association with heretics; when; how; And who was responsible for it.
As well as how the network was physically organised;
Whether he received any heretical person or persons in his home; Who they were; who brought them there;….who visited them there and escorted them thence.
Although Bernard also asked what went on in houses as regards preaching or ceremonies, he was not at all interested in beliefs. Instead the guides and messengers were targeted.

Bernard recognised the wealthy heretics could pass off as merchants, and in the guise of trade, have secret meetings and important chapter gatherings. He and his fellow inquisitors then went on to propose methods to track down his quarry, isolate them, and then destroy them. First, they tried forced pilgrimages but quickly realised that this only enabled the heretic network to grow across a large geographical area. Next, they attempted large fines and punitive fiscal orders that were aimed at restricting the availability of money to support other heretics. This, though, was deemed too discreet with no public recognition of wrongdoing. Finally, they began to imprison the heresiarchs, which proved more effective because it targeted the wealthy (the only people who could afford their own maintenance in jail).

The most effective method of disruption of the heretic networks turned out to be the order given to supporters of heresy to wear a two yellow crosses (front and back of all visible clothing). As a penitent, if one were seen then to be consorting with a known heretic, the ensuing punishment for lapsing would have been particularly brutal. As a result, the supporters of the influential heresiarchs gave up on their networks. Even worse, nobody wanted to be seen even talking to the bearer of the crosses, for fear of being denounced as a heretic. This proved to be the death-knell for the Cathar faith.

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Jun 24, 2007

LinkedIn, Facebook, and Privacy

The wife has signed up to Facebook, and I have linked up to LinkedIn, and I am wondering if there's really any point to this all. Privacy concerns? Check out this piece by David Sexton of the Evening Standard

Facebook Turns the World into Big Brother

2007-06-22
By DAVID SEXTON

BEING a grown-up who wastes too much time already, I've never bothered to join any "social networking" websites.

It's hardly a tenable position any more, though. Facebook is exploding.

Already it has 27 million active users, with 100,000 being added every day.

Facebook is increasingly popular not just with 18-24 year olds, but also 24-35 year olds and even beyond. Half the staff of the BBC are said to have joined.

Over the past few weeks, it has entered the general consciousness, even of those who don't spend much time on the internet.

Facebook is so easy to use and makes connections for you so fast.

Lots of users boast several hundred Facebook "friends", who may, of course, scarcely be acquaintances.

Facebook can invite everybody in your email address book to become such a pal, and it's rude to refuse.

Some Facebook activities are pretty silly. You can "poke" people or "superpoke" them, so that instead of a plain poke, you can mirthfully bitchslap, dryhump, marry, divorce, sucker punch, chest bump, cock block, caress or grope them. It's a sniggering kid's dream, maybe a nervous flirter's, too.

But its real power is that it lets you surf trails of other people's "friends" so easily surf, or maybe snoop, or maybe stalk. For although Facebook offers various privacy settings, they seem little used: an amazingly large proportion of information personal profiles, lists of friends, pictures can be viewed, undetected, by anybody.

After all, if you've gone on Facebook to find friends, why hide? This way, you can find people you have lost touch with, meet new ones with whom you have interests or acquaintances in common, and

Nightmare in the socialise when worlds apart. But you can also easily find out grotesque amounts of information about people that you would never have learned in real life, or only after months of actual friendship.

I can, unseen, discover a colleague's favourite books, music, and films, the identities of all her Facebook friends, the interest groups she's joined, when she's been logging on, her holiday pictures ... Then I can move on to her friends ... and their friends ... Facebook is addictive and makes stalkers of all its users.

Some of the dangers are obvious.

Many employers already check up on employees or potential employees this way, for example.

The policing possibilities are alarming, too, as are the opportunities for commercial exploitation..

But the real shocker is what Facebook feels like for anybody who retains an antique sense of privacy about their life or the other people in their life.

For now most people people just want to make themselves known as much as possible. Facebook the whole world as one colossal Big Brother House..

(c) 2007 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.


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