At what age do girls prefer pink?

Crudely speaking, the psychological field of gender development is split between those who see gender differences as learned via socially constructed ideas about gender, and those who believe many gender differences are actually “sex differences”, innate and biologically driven.

In Western cultures, girls consistently prefer pink, boys prefer blue. Which academic camp lays claim to this difference? Past research has made a case, in terms of the evolutionary advantage of finding fruit, for why females might be biologically predisposed to prefer pink and other bright colours. But a new study purports to show that girls only acquire their preference for pink, and boys their aversion to it, at around the age of two to three, just as they’re beginning to talk about and become aware of gender. Vannessa LoBue and Judy DeLoache say their finding undermines the notion of innate sex differences in colour preference. “If females have a biological predisposition to favour colours such as pink, this preference should be evident regardless of experience of the acquisition of gender concepts,” they said.

LoBue and DeLoache presented 192 boys and girls aged between seven months and five years with pairs of small objects (e.g. coasters and plastic clips) and invited them to reach for one. Each item in a pair was identical to the other except for its colour: one was always pink, the other either green, blue, yellow or orange. The key test was whether boys and girls would show a preference for choosing pink objects and at what age such a bias might arise.

At the age of two, but not before, girls chose pink objects more often than boys did, and by age two and a half they demonstrated a clear preference for pink, picking the pink-coloured object more often than you’d expect based on random choice. By the age of four, this was just under 80 per cent of the time – however there was evidence of this bias falling away at age five.

Boys showed the opposite pattern to girls. At the ages of two, four and five, they chose pink less often than you’d expect based on random choices. In fact, their selection of the pink object became progressively more rare, reaching about 20 per cent at age five.

A second experiment zoomed in on the age period of two to three years, to see how colour preferences changed during this crucial year. The same procedure as before was repeated with 64 boys and girls in this age group. Among the children aged under two and a half, both boys and girls chose pink objects around 50 per cent of the time, just as you’d expect if they were choosing randomly and had no real colour preference. Among those aged between two and a half to three years, by contrast, the boys showed a bias against choosing pink and the girls showed a bias in favour of pink.

“This research lends important information to when children develop gender-stereotyped colour preferences …” the researchers said. “Knowing exactly when children begin to demonstrate these tendencies can help lead to fuller understanding of the development of gender-stereotyped behaviour more generally and can be an important marker for future research in this domain.”
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LoBue, V., and DeLoache, J. (2011). Pretty in pink: The early development of gender-stereotyped colour preferences. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 29 (3), 656-667 DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02027.x

If you're interested in gender development and the way it's studied and talked about, I recommend Cordelia Fine's book Delusions of Gender.

Post written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

German Radio Jazz Research



Haus Humboldtsheim at Rolandseck

At the German Radio Jazz Research Seminar, we were contemplating the fast-flowing Rhine, just south of Bonn. And various aspects of the jazz scene.

First up at this group brought together by Bernd Hoffmann of WDR, was a Hungarian post-doctoral researcher from Graz university presenting part of his doctoral research into John Scofield's improvisational methods. I spot an unsung British hero in the background here, without whom - the researcher confirmed to me - the work could not have been done. He could, he said,  simply not have transcribed the volume of Scofield's work, thirty-seven tracks, which formed the backbone of his research. That unsung hero is guitarist/ software guru Andy Robinson, who hs been working on and improving his seventhstring transcription software for at least two decades.

This launched a discussion about whether this kind of descriptive research can be done without making value-judgments, particularly if one uses the hazardous word "simple" to describe harmonic structure.

Another paper, by Michael Ruesenberg, had some interesting source material on the continuing quest to understand - psychologically, neurophysiologically - the practice of improvisation. Rusenberg will be presenting this work more fully at the Darmstadt Jazz Forum later this month. The conclusion is, that although research work in this area may be moving forwards fast, but that these processes remain "shrouded in mystery," ie deeply unanalysable.

Stuart Nicholson gave a paper about jazz and the BBC. Stuart does deserve some credit in this domain: there has been a discernible upward movement in the quota of British jazz in the main programmes since Stuart presented his last Jazz Services-initiated paper at an open session attended by the controllers of Radios 2 and 3.

Stuart pointed out shortcomings which result from the BBC outsourcing so much content to outside producers, and lamented the fact that there is - probably uniquely in Europe - no single person at  the BBC with strategic or oversight responsibility or accountability for formulating policy on jazz programming.  While there was praise from around the table for the quality of programming from outside producers, the discussion after Stuart's speech unearthed interesting cases where the commissioning process has led to the involvement of people not above suspicion, and cases where commentators have wanted to apply a smell test.

Moving on...Oliver Weindling presented his (ongoing) work tracking down London's lost jazz venues. He'll probably get to 100 before long. There were also presentations about the realities and the constutuencies who need to be looked after when running a venue (the Stadtgarten in Cologne) and the state of Austrian festivals, with particular praise for Saalfelden and Inntoene.

CD Review: Dominic J. Marshall Trio The Oneness

Dominic J. Marshall TrioThe Oneness
(CD Review by Chris Parker)

Dominic J. Marshall, while studying at Leeds College of Music, was the pianist in a trio named Tryatarantis, whose music so impressed fellow pianist John Law that he was moved to remark that they played 'so easily you lose sight of the technical accomplishments of all the band members and just dig the feel … they communicate great joy. I think no one's told them yet that life's supposed to be difficult.'

Having left Leeds and relocated to Amsterdam, Marshall now plays (and has recorded this album) with bassist Walter Stinson and drummer Ruben Steijn, but his music retains its freshness, vitality and power.

Six of the album's nine tracks are by Marshall himself, and they range unaffectedly between slow-burning, luminous ballads and brisker, occasionally tumultuous, flat-out pieces that showcase a considerable pianistic talent.

George Shearing ('Conception'), Nick Drake ('Parasite') and Thelonious Monk ('Pannonica') supply the three non-originals, but it is arguably the extended, carefully built self-penned pieces (epitomised by the album's opener, 'Jintonic') featuring lengthy, pleasingly self-absorbed but consistently communicative and inventive piano solos that really impress in a striking debut album featuring an intense, fiercely interactive trio.

Album avaiable from www.dominicjmarshall.com

Almost Over. :(

And the long hiatus is over.



Well, at least by tomorrow it will be.



:(





Why can't we always stay in this drunken state of bliss, of doing nothing at all.





the things you see when you travel. LOL





Spotted: Seville City, Spain.





ps// Will be resuming blogging tomorrow.

Announcing: The Burn Room

Passion for your house consumes me ...

The Burn Room is a place to worship, pray, and soak in God’s presence.

When / Where: Second Friday of each month, beginning October 14, from 7-9 pm in the Sanctuary at Oxford Church of God, 5450 College Corner Rd, Oxford.

What goes on at The Burn Room?

The OHOP band will lead worship for 2 hours, from 7-9 pm. We allow the Holy Spirit to move as He sees fit. Feel free to come and go; worship will be continuous. We encourage you to engage your heart fully and worship freely (sit, stand, kneel, dance, etc.)

What if I need/want prayer?

We would love to pray for you! Just look for someone in "The Burn Room" shirts and we’ll take it from there.

The Burn Room is a ministry of the Oxford House of Prayer: www.oxfordhouseofprayer.com

OUR MISSION:
Transforming lives through prayer.

OUR VISION:
To be a place where people can engage their hearts fully in the presence of God through praise, prayer, and power.

 Come experience The Burn Room. 

"One Pig" by Matthew Herbert. Christine Allen writes

Who's the Swine? Christine Allen disapproves of "One Pig" by Matthew Herbert:

Matthew Herbert performs "One Pig" tonight at 8pm at the Royal Opera House. Based on sporadic recordings of the life cycle of a pig destined for the dinner table he claims to have created a performance work that involves cooking the pork of a particular animal on stage with pig trotter candelabra and pig fat candles on the table, making an instrument out of the pig bones and wearing a pair of shoes made from the pig's hide.

It is hardly surprising that this has created a good degree of controversy amongst animal rights supporters in particular PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Herbert has attempted to defend his position on the grounds that you can't judge a work until it is performed or indeed a meal until it is cooked.

I think we can. Herbert's performance is based on the a few concepts -documentary, shock, and attracting media attention. Many artists use this technique and many are successful. Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin are past masters of this. Herbert seems to be intent on jumping on the same bandwagon to try and justify this latest endeavour. When challenged, his retrospective motives seem honourable - he claims that factory farming is unpleasant and damaging to the environment and that the over consumption of meat is questionable. However, I am not convinced that this is what motivated this latest work and even if it did I am not sure he adds anything new to the debate.

This work at the Royal Opera House is not aimed at the ignorant and uneducated. Any human being with half a brain knows that pigs and many other farm animals suffer the ultimate price to feed us and are often kept in unbearably cruel conditions. This has been documented many times by groups concerned about animal welfare. So nothing new here intellectually. Countless movies have shown the horrors and sounds of the slaughter house. Many of us regularly eat bacon pork chops and sausages, so we are all aware that pigs are used to create these dishes. Do we need someone to cook it on a stage to remind us of this? Most of us wear leather on our feet, carry bags and wallets made of a variety of animal skins. But few of us deliberately take the bones of a creature we know and make them into a musical instrument. No doubt some of our ancestors did but we have better and more sophisticated instruments nowadays.

I have two main worries. The first is just because we can do something should and then call it art? Should I record the barks and whines of a lost dog at Battersea Dogs' home and then record the moment it is dispensed with when no-one comes to claim it and make it into a musical toy? Should I cut up a dead relative and make them into a musical instrument even if they agree to it in a living will?

The second question is whether the Arts Council should subsidise this. The Royal Opera House is the largest recipient of Arts Council funding in England, getting over £26 million regular funding - plus other grants - every year in my view at the expense of many other artforms especially minority musics like jazz. Who paid the guy who made the bone musical instrument , how much did the shoemaker get pad and how much the onstage chef, never mind Herbert's own fee for this "show". Who paid the farmer who raised the pig? My guess is it was at least in part paid for by you and me the taxpayer. One thing is for sure the pig didn't get any money. He didn't even get a free ticket to the show. Indeed the pig is the principal sponsor. Like a suicide martyr the poor old pig paid the ultimate price for what I believe are half-baked ideas, which Herbert hopes will bring him more glory.

Herbert says: “For me, the music is the afterlife; the fact that we’re still talking about it,” says Herbert. “That pig would just have ended up as a meal but I believe that this album has imbued it with a much more physical and tangible end.” If he does future performances will he justify the cooking of more pigs on stage in the same way or are these just going to end up as a "meal". Who is Herbert to decide on this? To me this points to an overinflated sense of self-importance on his part.

Let's hope at least the Opera House take pork off their menu. At least then the sacrifice of this one pig might have been worthwhile.

The CD of "One Pig" is released by Accidental Records on October 11th.

Down the drain

The beer in that glass of Iniquitous looks pretty great.  Unfortunately that was poured from a keg, not a bottle.

We planned on releasing Iniquitous as our Provisions Series beer for the month of June.  As can happen with bottle conditioned ales, it wasn't quite carbonated enough for our liking so we pushed it to July.  Then August.  Then September.

We had hope that this beer would magically turn a corner and go from the not-so-good bottled version to the great tasting draft version (that is force carbonated).  We tried a few tricks that brewers have to help the yeast get to work and eat up the extra sugars in the bottle.  We agitated the bottles, flipped the cases to get the yeast back into suspension, wrapped the pallets in black and put them out in the hot Orange County heat.  We honestly did anything we could think of to make this beer live up to it's potential but maintain it's integrity.  

We tasted Iniquitous once a week for 3 months.  Always hopeful.  But always let down.  Uncarbonated and just not tasting right. 

Tyler did some testings on a few bottles of Iniquitous, doing yeast cell counts to figure out what the true chance of it turning a corner was; it wasn't good.  

So, the time came when we had to face the facts and admit that this beer just wasn't going to make the cut.  

It's a very hard decision to trash a beer.  A lot of money goes into every batch of beer that we make.  We use a lot of quality ingredients, not to mention, these beers have already been bottled and labeled as well.  But it isn't just hard financially; it's an emotional decision.  We put a lot of care into every beer that we brew here at The Bruery and to come to terms with making something that didn't turn out as we envisioned it is tough.  Tougher still would be to lie to our customers, tell them it tastes great and try to sell something that we don't believe in.

Therefore, we are holding these bottles indefinitely, most likely never to see the store shelf.  We might use some for a food recipe that would work well with it at a future party or slowly take it home for our personal marinade use, but it's doubtful these beers will ever be drunk as intended.

Perhaps it's only fitting that Iniquitous translates to being "characterized by a gross injustice".  There is no justice for a beer that goes down the drain.