Wednesday 29 October 2008

Group Pride Rooted in Insecurity

From screaming baseball fans to political rally-goers, groups that engage in boastful self-aggrandizing may be trying to mask insecurity and low social status.


"Our results suggest that hubristic, pompous displays of group pride might actually be a sign of group insecurity as opposed to a sign of strength," said researcher Cynthia Pickett, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis.


The new study reveals how two types of pride are related to a person's good feelings about one social group or another to which they belong. These good feelings could come from being a Los Angeles Lakers fan (when they win), a war veteran, a member of a particular ethnic group or a sorority gal or fraternity brother. But while authentic pride is linked with real confidence in your group, hubristic pride is a false arrogance that belies insecurities about one's group.


These results build on past research showing similar pride characteristics in individuals.


"It turns out, people who have the hubristic collective pride in their group, underlying it all is an insecurity about whether the group is good enough, really," said researcher Jessica Tracy, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia.


The research was presented last week at a meeting of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology in Sacramento.


Team spirit


In three studies, Pickett, Tracy and their colleagues surveyed more than 300 undergraduate students, first asking each participant to write about an experience when they felt proud of their group. In one of these studies, students had to recall the UC Davis football win over Stanford. In another, Asian American students were asked to write about a proud experience tied with their ethnic background. Other experiences ranged from sports team wins to achievements by sororities, say raising a big chunk of money for a charity.


Each participant then rated to what extent they would use certain words to describe themselves at the time of the event or achievement. Some of the descriptors indicated hubristic pride, such as "snobbish," "pompous" and "smug," while others were linked with authentic pride, such as "accomplished," "successful" and "confident."


Students also answered questions about the status of the group, including whether the group was valued by non-members, whether they themselves thought highly of the group, whether the group was under threat or in competition with another group, and other group-related questions.


False pride


The results showed that groups in which individuals boasted and gloated - a sign of hubristic pride - tended to have low social status or they were vulnerable to threats from other groups. So the worse the person felt about their group's status as well as how badly they thought the public viewed the group, the more likely that member would experience that empty, boastful pride.


In contrast, those groups that expressed pride by humbly focusing on members' efforts and hard work tended to have high social standing in both the public and personal eyes.


Hubristic pride can rear its ugly head in both small groups like sports teams and larger groups like citizens of a country.

"A lot of this has real-world implications," Tracy told LiveScience. "There are some kinds of collective pride where people get really angry and hostile and feel like 'it's not just that my group is great but my group is better.'"


She added, "You can think of it as the distinction between nationalism and patriotism, with nationalism being the sense of it's not just that I love my country, it's that my country is best."
I don't think I really need to explain the relevence of the below phenomena to racism.

When group members show signs of hubristic pride, such as making grandiose statements about their country, that could be a sign of underlying insecurity, the researchers said.


"When you hear groups starting to get into that type of rhetoric it may be because they're starting to realize they're in a losing position and that they need to do something to try to drum up respect, to drum up the kind of status that they feel they're lacking," Pickett said.


Next, the researchers hope to figure out whether or not the boasting and false pride works to make others perceive the group as having higher power and status.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should be very careful of hate blogs like s.a.s for other reasons, such as your computer security.

They usually have some disgruntled IT guy running this. As they don't make any money from airing their vindictive views, they start using information from commenters for blackmail purposes.

Once they have your IP address, they can access your e-mail and send you malware without your even knowing about it. They can send out malicious e-mails with your name on it, to all your contacts, and spread the misery.

A common technique is to send out rootkits which hide themselves behind .exe files, for example your printer program. You then find that your printer won't work.

What is the point of setting up a hate blog anyway? You can't do business with it.

Don't communicate with people who don't give your their true identities or contact details.

I am not slamming Rooster, he set up this site mainly to draw attention to what those spastics at S.A.S. are doing.

Don't even read hateful blogs. Read a book, take the dog for a walk, but don't look at gory stuff on the internet.

The Rooster said...

Much truth in that. Already I've noticed people have been snooping around my various webspaces. I really don't want to play that game, but i'm more than equiped to recipricate anything thrown at me.

Anonymous said...

I can't find it on your blog, but your AIDS blog. Check this:

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Several prominent scientists who once voiced doubts about HIV/AIDS science have since changed their views and accepted the idea that HIV plays a role in causing AIDS, in response to an accumulation of newer studies and data.[35] Robert Root-Bernstein, author of Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus and formerly a critic of the causative role of HIV in AIDS, has since distanced himself from the AIDS denialist movement, saying, "Both the camp that says HIV is a pussycat and the people who claim AIDS is all HIV are wrong… The denialists make claims that are clearly inconsistent with existing studies. When I check the existing studies, I don’t agree with the interpretation of the data, or, worse, I can’t find the studies [at all]."[36]

In 2007, aidstruth.org, a website run by HIV researchers to counter denialist claims,[42] published a partial list of AIDS denialists who had died of apparently AIDS-related causes. For example, the magazine Continuum, run by HIV-positive denialists, shut down when its editors all died of AIDS-related causes. In every case, the AIDS denialist community attributed the deaths to unknown causes, secret drug use, or stress rather than HIV/AIDS.[43][41] Similarly, several HIV-positive former dissidents have reported being ostracized by the AIDS-denialist community after they developed AIDS and decided to pursue effective antiretroviral treatment.[44]

Denialist arguments have centered around claims that HIV does not exist or has not been adequately isolated,[45] that the virus does not fulfill Koch's postulates,[46] that HIV testing is inaccurate,[47] or that antibodies to HIV neutralize the virus and render it harmless.[48] Suggested alternative causes of AIDS include recreational drugs, malnutrition and the very antiretroviral drugs used to treat the syndrome.[49] Denialists claim that these drugs are exceptionally toxic and cause the very symptoms they are supposed to delay.[50] To support this claim, they cite two studies from the late 1980s whose authors said they found it difficult to distinguish adverse events possibly associated with administration of Retrovir (AZT) from underlying signs of HIV disease or intercurrent illnesses.[51]
Such claims have been examined extensively in the peer-reviewed medical and scientific literature; a scientific consensus has arisen that denialist claims have been convincingly disproved, and that HIV does indeed cause AIDS.[2][52][53] In the cases cited by Duesberg where HIV "cannot be isolated", PCR or other techniques demonstrate the presence of the virus,[54] and many denialist claims of HIV test inaccuracy result from an incorrect or outdated understanding of how HIV antibody testing is performed and interpreted.

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So, Rooster... your AIDS nonsense has been royally rubbished. Instead of hurtling insults and playing with words, why don't you actually present some sources and credible scientific research to support what you say.

I watched that Gary Null video, and it's so cherry-picked that it's laughable. The info in it is outdated, unsubstantiated, and even blatantly false at times.

I think you're owned. Of course you'll deny that, and make some counter insult / argument / sourceless rebuttal.

I await. Go.

Katzenjammer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Rooster said...

So, Rooster... your AIDS nonsense has been royally rubbished. Instead of hurtling insults and playing with words, why don't you actually present some sources and credible scientific research to support what you say.
------------------------

Firstly what "aids rubbish" ? I've never denied the existance of hiv or claimed it has nothing to do with aids. I've said all along (just as in the article you quoted by the way , which is full of opinion but no fact) that on both ends of the spectrum (aids doesn't exist versis hiv= aids) that people are wrong. Did you not read where I said that only way to explain the prevalence of hiv in africa is not through sexual practicies (with aids being so extremely difficult to pass on sexually I think any sane person would admit this) but rather that it has existed in the population for hundreds/thousands of years. There's a middle ground I've always suggested the truth will be found in. Yes hiv likely does exist.....no, it is not likely the sole cause of aids, and no, the sexual practices of this current generationare not the catalyst for it.

Let's admit these simple truths and go from there. While the retro-virus hiv may play a role, lifetsyle and environmental factors are highly likely the chief cause and catalyst of a break down in the immune system. It's a hypothosis that anyone who observes the phenomenon should find interesting , and not dismiss without good reason. The fact that so many people are willing to dismiss this hypothosis without testing reeks of agenda ....big money, big pharama. agenda. You can be a patsy to it and you can deman proper science.

All you need to ask yourself is where do you stand ? With the anti askign questions/anti science dogma being perpetuated in the media ? Or for open scientific enquiry and the use of the scientific method ?

The Rooster said...

Be careful of what comments you post on blogs, bloggers.

The name for my internet connection was changed to KILL by none other than that guy called Uhuru Guru from SAS.

He has hijacked my computer, totally.

And that's not because I don't have internet security. I have three programs for this.

He is a blackmailer who will stoop to the lowest of the lowest.
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We'll he'd better not fucking try it with me. I have access to all the info he's trying to repress and one thing is sure as fuck I won't hesitate for a second to come down on him like a shit of bricks if he dares threaten me the way he's threatened others. Legally of course.

Anonymous said...

hey rooster

are you saying aids isnt an std ?

Anonymous said...

"I said that only way to explain the prevalence of hiv in africa is not through sexual practicies (with aids being so extremely difficult to pass on sexually I think any sane person would admit this)"

Mark Mascolini for NATAP.org
Powers found 27 studies involving 15 distinct populations. Transmission estimates varied strikingly from one study to the next, depending on these cofactors. Estimates ranged from 0 transmissions after more than 100 penile-vaginal contacts to 1 transmission for every 3.1 episodes of heterosexual anal intercourse. The multistudy statistical analysis weighing the impact of cofactors identified five variables that boosted risk of HIV transmission:

* Transmission 33.8 times more likely with penile-anal sex than penile-vaginal sex.
* Transmission 8 times more likely for uncircumcised versus circumcised men.
* Transmission 6 times more likely with than without a genital ulcer disease.
* Transmission 2.5 times more likely with early versus mid-stage HIV infection.
* Transmission 1.85 times more likely with late versus mid-stage HIV infection.

Powers and colleagues concluded that the 1-in-1000 estimate adequately represents transmission risk only in stable couples with low rates of other transmission risk factors. In other words, 1-in-1000 “represents a lower bound” of a capacious risk spectrum. In heterosexual couples with enough other risk factors, transmission risk can climb as high as 1-in-10 for penile-vaginal sex and 1-in-3 for penile-anal sex.

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/show/256318
The reasons for the differences between industrialized countries and developing ones has to do with a variety of cofactors that operate as multipliers of transmission efficiency: the proportion of men in the population who are not circumcised, the prevalence of HSV-2, the frequency of other STDsStds and ecological niches, availability of antiretroviral therapy, the proportion of the populations with Multiple myeloma
Multiple sclerosis Multiple system atrophy or concurrent partners (higher in sub-Saharan Africa than in the US, for example), and stage of the epidemic (which translates into the average viralAcute hiv infection Common cold Croup Hepatitis a Pharyngitis - viral Viral arthritis Viral lesion culture Viral pneumonia load in infected persons). By itself, each of those factorsFactor is complex probably accounts for only a small part of the difference, but in combination, they make all the difference.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2003/statement5/en/
This position is strongly supported by epidemiological and biomedical data. For example, children between 5-14 years, who are generally not yet sexually active, have very low infection rates; age-specific infection rates among young women and men strongly follow patterns of sexual behaviour and those of other sexually transmitted infections (such as herpes simplex virus-2); in sexually active couples both partners are often infected; and, there is no consistent association between higher HIV rates and lower injection safety standards.

Modelling of the epidemic with the best available information also shows that the overwhelming majority of infections are due to unsafe sex. WHO has previously estimated that unsafe injection practices account for about 2.5% of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa. Although there is a margin of uncertainty around this estimate, the conclusion remains that unsafe sex is by far the predominant mode of transmission in sub-Saharan Africa.

With approximately 3.5 million Africans becoming infected in 2002 alone, and a total of 29.4 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS in the region, the prevention of HIV through the practice of safer sex should be the mainstay of the response to AIDS in the region.


"but rather that it has existed in the population for hundreds/thousands of years."

Simple questions. Why don't all Africans test positive then? Why do sons and daughters not test positive when mom and dad might have, I mean it is genetic no? An eight year old retarded dutchman boy could pick holes in that argument. Why does the virus show up in other places of the world? If thousand of years, why are there differences in infection between all African countries? Why do most babies born with HIV and left untreated die with in a year(20%) and the rest might make their teens? (evolution and natural selection says that if Africans have had HIV for thousands of years they would be relatively immune to this virus and by now by now mostly immune) Also, post 2-3 pier reviewed studies that even hint at this as a possibility.


"There's a middle ground I've always suggested the truth will be found in. Yes hiv likely does exist"

Likely? Do you want me to post pictures of the virus taken with Electron Microscopes? Or pictures of cells infected with it? It exists, there is no question about that.


".....no, it is not likely the sole cause of aids, and no, the sexual practices of this current generationare not the catalyst for it."

Please see the articles I posted above.

"Let's admit these simple truths and go from there."

OK lets go.

"While the retro-virus hiv may play a role, lifetsyle and environmental factors are highly likely the chief cause and catalyst of a break down in the immune system. It's a hypothosis that anyone who observes the phenomenon should find interesting , and not dismiss without good reason."

What, wait, you just quoted every fucking HIV/AIDS article ever. It is not a hypothesis these facts that are know. But continue....

"The fact that so many people are willing to dismiss this hypothosis without testing reeks of agenda ....big money, big pharama. agenda."

You moron. Your brain was just hi-jacked by something there. It is A FACT WE KNOW, poverty, leads to bad nutrition and bad nutrition leads to weaker immune system which leads to higher susceptibility to disease and infection. What the fuck are talking about big money for? Or did I misread you. Maybe you are saying poverty causes AIDS? Did you just say that? Clarify that for your readers please.

"You can be a patsy to it and you can deman proper science. All you need to ask yourself is where do you stand ? With the anti askign questions/anti science dogma being perpetuated in the media?

Oh yes, thanks for posting all the links to journal published pier reviewed studies that back all your claims.

"Or for open scientific enquiry and the use of the scientific method?"

Oh, the irony.

Anonymous said...

Hey dooster snotnose running scared wazzup
genie is out the bottle and sniffing can u hear him?

The Rooster said...

I have since changed my stance on hiv/aids and throw my lot in with the consensus these days.

There's nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong. It's actually in a way an admirable and desirable trait if you seek to be an objective person. Just as being skeptical of science that is promoted dogmatically to the point that it calls for no challenge is a good practice.