Group items tagged

comparative psychology,

animal intelligence

mostly concerns mammals, especially primates, cetaceans, and elephants, as well as dogs, cats, and rodents.

and fish,

began in the late 1950s

John Lilly

other animals do have minds and that humans should approach the study of their cognition accordingly.

bottlenosed dolphins

particularly monkeys

Spatial cognition

The ability to properly navigate and search through the environment is a critical task for many animals.

Research in 2007 shows that chimpanzees in the Fongoli savannah sharpen sticks to use as spears when hunting, considered the first evidence of systematic use of weapons in a species other than humans.

Language

The modeling of human language in animals is known as animal language research.

Consciousness

The sense in which animals can be said to have consciousness or a self-concept has been hotly debated; it is often referred to as the debate over animal minds.

It has been suggested that metacognition in some animals provides some evidence for cognitive self-awareness.[11] The great apes, dolphins, and rhesus monkeys have demonstrated the ability to monitor their own mental states and use an "I don't know" response to avoid answering difficult questions. These species might also be aware of the strength of their memories.

This page was last modified on 26 November 2011 at 11:42.

This is the

Colorism can occur within one’s own community, or across racial and ethnic groups

any other “racial” group.

Our more systematic historical research shows that the importance of skin color on life chances dates back at least to the nineteenth century.

it may emerge as an indirect effect of the person’s ability to take advantage of the higher social status that has accrued over many generations to light-skinned African-Americans

skin tone within a given race or ethnicity is associated with socioeconomic outcomes.

Being dark-skinned has psychological as well as economic, educational, and temporal costs.

“colorism” may be a direct response to the behavior of or, more likely, the appearance of a person standing before the potential employer, judge, or teacher.

people who suffer from discrimination may not protest it because they are unaware of their unfair treatment, because they perceive no alternatives, or because they see no means of effective protest. 

Light-skinned blacks tend to come from families with relatively high status on these dimensions, so skin tone affects educational attainment indirectly.

light- and medium-skinned blacks received shorter sentences for all crimes than the darkest category of blacks.  In every case except property crimes [i.e. for drug, personal, and miscellaneous crimes], the darkest group of blacks received higher sentences, on average, than whites

sentences are 2 percent shorter for light-skinned blacks compared with whites, 4 percent longer for medium-skinned blacks, and 2 percent longer for dark-skinned blacks. Those differences seem small, but 4 percent of a 2,560 day sentence (the average length for whites) is over three months of prison time.

light-skinned African Americans are relatively advantaged in the social and economic arenas,

they have a similar advantage as voters and political actors, and that dark-skinned blacks perceive more discrimination.

Light-skinned blacks may be slightly more likely to perceive discrimination against other members of their race, and they are a little more likely to participate politically.

So why isn’t colorism an issue around which blacks organize politically?

Public opinion in this instance was ill informed, insensitive to some of the most important implications of the tax cuts, and largely disconnected from

a variety of relevant values and material interests

light-skinned blacks as roughly analogous to middle-class Americans – certainly not at the top of the distribution, but enjoying enough benefits from the unfair structure that they would be hesitant to disrupt it too much.

he implication is that dark-skinned blacks ought to perceive that they are doubly maltreated, that skin color hierarchy is just as unfair as the racial hierarchy within which it nests, and that protest is warranted. 

the task is to understand their values on their own terms.

Applying this logic to the case of skin color discrimination yields several hypotheses.  Perhaps dark-skinned blacks are aware of their doubly unfair treatment, but choose to ignore it because they too care more about some other political value, such as racial solidarity or individual autonomy.

Similarly, light-skinned African Americans may recognize,

that “for generations of black people, color and class have been inexorably tied together,” but they too care more about racial solidarity than about either taking advantage of or fighting this internal division. 

in short, one form of unfairness may be worth accepting or ignoring publicly for the sake of fighting another, or simply pursuing some unrelated goal.

The deeply religious, in short, vote their values, not their interests.

At the turn of the twentieth century, both black and white media frequently used “mulatto” (and sometimes “quadroon” and “octoroon”) – sometimes favorably, sometimes unfavorably, but to a surprising degree simply as a common and unremarkable descriptor.

those descriptors were never used or were terms of opprobrium or shock.

one can explain the lack of collective attention to the unfairness of skin tone discrimination by pointing to the dissemination of and allegiance to other, apparently stronger values.

Racial nationalists have traditionally been hostile to black feminists or black Marxists who seek to draw attention to unfair practices within the black community

they are similarly hostile to any discussion of skin color differentiation because it appears to be a strategy of “divide and conquer.

highly developed market economy

devoted to economic pursuits

activity is the human body

human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease

one or more shrines devoted to this purpose

more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses

ituals

re private

box or chest which is built into the wall

harms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live

ecured from a variety of specialized practitioners

medicine men

ubstantial gifts

write them down in an ancient and secret language

charm-box

mall fon

bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablutio

holy-mouth-men.

pathological horror of and fascination with the mout

supernatural influence on all social relationships

oral and moral

For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber.

mouth-rite

small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.[7]

holy-mouth-man once or twice a year

f sadism is involved

This part of the rite includes scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument.

As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour

latipso

"that is where you go to die

Psychological shock results from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the latipso

aversion to the natural body and its functions.

fat people thin

thin people fat.

used to make women's breasts larger

inhuman hypermammary development are so idolized that they make a handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee

Natural reproductive functions are similarly distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an act. Efforts are made to avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials or by limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon.

magic-ridden people