Amanda R. Carrico

TO NOD OR NOT TO NOD: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION AND STATUS IN FEMALE AND MALE COLLEGE STUDENTS

Gender studies show that women and men communicate using different styles, but may use either gender style if there are situational status differences. Considering the universal gesture of head nodding as a submissive form of expression, this study investigated head nodding by observing female and male college students in positions of subordinate and equal status. We observed head nodding (N = 452) in classroom interactions between professor−student and student−student dyads. Overall, women nodded more than men and students nodded more to professors speaking than peers speaking. In addition, female and male students nodded equally to professors speaking, but men nodded less to peers speaking than did women. Thus, both men and women attended to the status and not the gender of the speaker. Future research using varying contexts should further examine the effects of dominance, context, and gender.

Drinking water insecurity: water quality and access in coastal south-western Bangladesh.

Abstract National drinking water assessments for Bangladesh do not reflect local variability, or temporal differences. This paper reports on the findings of an interdisciplinary investigation of drinking water insecurity in a rural coastal south-western Bangladesh. Drinking water quality is assessed by comparison of locally measured concentrations to national levels and water quality criteria; resident’s access to potable water and their perceptions are based on local social surveys. Residents in the study area use groundwater far less than the national average; salinity and local rainwater scarcity necessitates the use of multiple water sources throughout the year. Groundwater concentrations of arsenic and specific conductivity (SpC) were greater than surface water (pond) concentrations; there was no statistically significant seasonal difference in mean concentrations in groundwater, but there was for ponds, with arsenic higher in the dry season. Average arsenic concentrations in local water drinking were 2–4 times times the national average. All of the local groundwater samples exceeded the Bangladesh guidance for SpC, although the majority of residents surveyed did not perceive their water as having a ‘bad’ or ‘salty’ taste.

The Effects Of Household Management Practices On The Global Warming Potential Of Urban Lawns

Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions are an important component of the greenhouse gas (GHG) budget for urban turfgrasses. A biogeochemical model DNDC successfully captured the magnitudes and patterns of N2O emissions observed at an urban turfgrass system at the Richland Creek Watershed in Nashville, TN. The model was then used to study the long-term (i.e. 75 years) impacts of lawn management practice (LMP) on soil organic carbon sequestration rate (dSOC), soil N2O emissions, and net Global Warming Potentials (net GWPs). The model simulated N2O emissions and net GWP from the three management intensity levels over 75 years ranged from 0.75 to 3.57 kg N ha(-1)yr(-1) and 697 to 2443 kg CO2-eq ha(-1)yr(-1), respectively, which suggested that turfgrasses act as a net carbon emitter. Reduction of fertilization is most effective to mitigate the global warming potentials of turfgrasses. Compared to the baseline scenario, halving fertilization rate and clipping recycle as an alternative to synthetic fertilizer can reduce net GWPs by 17% and 12%, respectively. In addition, reducing irrigation and mowing are also effective in lowering net GWPs. The minimum-maintenance LMP without irrigation and fertilization can reduce annual N2O emissions and net GWPs by approximately 53% and 70%, respectively, with the price of gradual depletion of soil organic carbon, when compared to the intensive-maintenance LMP. A lawn age-dependent best management practice is recommended: a high dose fertilizer input at the initial stage of lawn establishment to enhance SOC sequestration, followed by decreasing fertilization rate when the lawn ages to minimize N2O emissions. A minimum-maintained LMP with clipping recycling, and minimum irrigation and mowing, is recommended to mitigate global warming effects from urban turfgrass systems. Among all practices, clipping recycle may be a relatively malleable behavior and, therefore, a good target for interventions seeking to reduce the environmental impacts of lawn management through public education. Our results suggest that a long-term or a chronosequence study of turfgrasses with varying ages is warranted to capture the complete dynamics of contribution of turfgrasses to global warming.

Regulation in the Behavioral Era

Administrative agencies have long proceeded on the assumption that individuals respond to regulations in ways that are consistent with traditional rational actor theory, but that is beginning to change. Agencies are now relying on behavioral economics to develop regulations that account for responses that depart from common sense and common wisdom, reflecting predictable cognitive anomalies. Furthermore, political officials have now called for behavioral economics to play an explicit role in White House review of agency regulations. This is a significant development for the regulatory process, yet our understanding of how behavioral insights should alter regulatory analysis is incomplete. To account for behavioral anomalies, regulators will need to draw on behavioral and social science insights beyond behavioral economics, and they will need an analytic framework to ensure that regulatory decisions reflect a comprehensive examination of the numerous, seemingly haphazard behavioral insights. Although behavioral research has demonstrated the limits of rational action, it does not provide a framework for considering extra-rational action. Nor have legal scholars developed such a framework, despite excellent theoretical work in the area. In this Article, we take an initial step. We provide a framework to facilitate agency consideration of extra-rational action and extend that framework to include a lesson from behavioral research that academics have noted but not adequately explored: that individuals are concerned with social outcomes (e.g., social status or inclusion) as well as monetary outcomes (e.g., wealth) and that they seek to maximize utility in both rational and extra-rational ways. After sketching our framework, we offer concrete applications in the energy use context. Our framework does not resolve all issues that may arise in the behavioral era, but it provides a means to move forward.

Different but the Same: How Legal Status Affects International Migration from Bangladesh

This article builds on prior studies that document how legal status stratifies society, specifically in outcomes related to international migration. Here, we study such outcomes in Bangladesh, a low-lying nation that has experienced dramatic environmental changes in recent decades and high rates of out-migration. We do event history analyses of a new and unique dataset that includes information from approximately eighteen hundred households in nine villages to investigate whether and how legal status differentiates out-migration from Bangladesh. We find substantial variation in legal status among the women and men who make an initial international trip and that unauthorized migration affects other labor market and economic outcomes: it reduces the number of hours that migrants work in destination countries, lowers the odds that migrants pay taxes or open a bank account, and increases the odds that migrants use social contacts to find jobs.

Feasibility of a pilot intervention targeting self-care behaviors in adults with diabetes mellitus

Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions and is widely encountered by clinicians in medical settings. National Standards for diabetes education recommend utilization of an interdisciplinary team, setting individual lifestyle goals and managing barriers. However, typical diabetes education programs lack integration of strategies for translating recommendations into behavioral actions. The present intervention was developed to assess the feasibility and efficacy of a short-term cognitive-behavioral intervention aimed at optimizing self-care behaviors in adults with diabetes in a “real world” medical setting. Participants were 20 adults who had completed medical model outpatient diabetes education. The intervention consisted of 6 weekly sessions that addressed the role of behavior in diabetes including self-care barriers, cognitions and self-regulation. Pre-post intervention data indicated greater specificity in goal-setting. Participants who kept activity records had the greatest lifestyle activity behavior change. Findings suggest that a brief intervention addressing realistic goal-setting is feasible and can promote meaningful health behavior changes. Clinical psychology can provide a bridge between current diabetes care recommendations and available medical resources by providing training in and delivery of empirically supported behavior change strategies and evaluation of diabetes care treatment approaches.

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: An Experimental Test of Pro-Environmental Spillover From Reducing Meat Consumption to Monetary Donations:

Psychological studies testing behavioral spillover—the notion that behavior change resulting from an intervention affects subsequent similar behaviors—has resulted in conflicting findings in the environmental domain. This study sought to further demarcate the spillover process by asking participants to engage in a difficult first pro-environmental behavior, reducing red meat consumption, for either health or environmental reasons. Evidence of spillover was tested via a subsequent monetary donation to an environmental organization. While there was no evidence of spillover for those in the green behavior condition, those in the health behavior condition were less likely to donate relative to controls. There was evidence that pro-environmental behavior led to an increase in environmental concern. In turn, environmental concern was associated with an increased likelihood of donating. Environmental concern may, thus, be one route to positive spillover in some subsets of the population.

Examining adaptations to water stress among farming households in Sri Lanka’s dry zone

Climate change is increasing water scarcity in Sri Lanka. Whether these changes will undermine national-level food security depends upon the ability of the small-scale farmers that dominate rice production and the institutions that support them to overcome the challenges presented by changing water availability. Analyzing household survey data, this research identifies household, institutional, and agroecological factors that influence how water-stressed farmers are working to adapt to changing conditions and how the strategies they employ impact rice yields. Paralleling studies conducted elsewhere, we identified institutional factors as particularly relevant in farmer adaptation decisions. Notably, our research identified farmers’ use of hybrid seed varietals as the only local climate adaptation strategy to positively correlate with farmers’ rice yields. These findings provide insight into additional factors pertinent to successful agricultural adaptation and offer encouraging evidence for policies that promote plant breeding and distribution in Sri Lanka as a means to buffer the food system to climate change-exacerbated drought.

Effect of BMI on prediction of accelerometry-based energy expenditure in youth.

PURPOSE The objective of this study is to determine the effect of body mass index (BMI) on level of agreement between six previously established prediction equations for three commonly used accelerometers to predict summary measures of energy expenditure (EE) in youth. METHODS One hundred and thirty-one youth between the ages of 10-17 yr and BMI from 15 to 44 kg·m were outfitted with hip-worn ActiGraph GT1M (Pensacola, FL), Actical (MiniMiter/Respironics, Bend, OR), and RT3 (StayHealthy, Monrovia, CA) accelerometers and spent approximately 24 h in a whole-room indirect calorimeter while performing structured and self-selected activities. Five commonly used regression and one propriety equations for each device were used to predict the minute-to-minute EE (normalized to METs), daily physical activity level (PAL), and time spent in sedentary, light, moderate, and vigorous physical activity intensity categories. The calculated values were compared with criterion measurements obtained from the room calorimeter. RESULTS All predictive equations, except RT3, significantly over- or underpredicted daily PAL (P < 0.001), with large discrepancies observed in the estimate of sedentary and light activity. Discrepancies between actual and estimated PAL ranged from 0.05 to 0.68. In addition, BMI represented a modifier for two ActiGraph predictive equations (AG1 and AG2), affecting the accuracy of physical activity-related EE predictions. CONCLUSION ActiGraph (AG3) and the RT3 closely predicted overall PAL (within 4.2% and 6.8%, respectively) as a group. When adjusting for age, sex, and ethnicity, Actical (AC1 and AC2) and ActiGraph (AG3) were not influenced by BMI. However, a gap between some hip-worn accelerometer predictive and regression equations was demonstrated compared with both criterion measurement and each other, which poses a potential difficulty for interstudy (e.g., different accelerometers) and intrastudy (e.g., BMI and adiposity) comparisons.

Assessing the Impacts of Agrobiodiversity Maintenance on Food Security Among Farming Households in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone

Farmers’ maintenance of agrobiodiversity is fundamental to global food security, particularly in a world increasingly affected by climate change. Biodiversity helps to buffer agroecosystems from stresses like climatic variability, and the crop genetic diversity conserved with biodiverse agroecosystems is critical for plant breeding both locally and globally. Yet, despite these benefits, few studies have directly assessed the implications of household–level agrobiodiversity maintenance on household food security. Drawing on survey data collected in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota District, we evaluated the plant diversity maintained by small–scale farming households in both homegardens and crop fields and determined the relationships between this diversity and their households’ food security. We also considered how a suite of additional demographic, household, community, and farm characteristics relate to both the plant diversity maintained by a household and their food security. Similar to previous studies, the age of the agricultural decision-maker and the age and size of households’ homegardens positively correlated with the overall species richness of farming systems. Older homegardens were also identified to be more evenly distributed in their species abundance, and market–oriented households had significantly higher species richness but lower Shannon Indices. Most notably, household socioeconomic status and material wealth were important to both agrobiodiversity maintenance and household food security, while no significant relationships between species richness and food security measures were detected. These findings suggest that effort aiming to increase the food security of small–scale farming households in Sri Lanka, and elsewhere, should target those farming households with a paucity of socioeconomic assets, as these households lack both agroecological and economic resources to overcome shocks, such as those associated with climate change.