tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/social-attitudes-43451/articlesSocial attitudes – The Conversation2023-12-11T13:13:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2194362023-12-11T13:13:42Z2023-12-11T13:13:42ZChanging the lyrics to hit songs might be increasingly noticeable – but it’s a longstanding musical practice<p>Electronic dance music band The Prodigy are the latest act to <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-prodigy-have-changed-the-lyrics-to-smack-my-bitch-up-live-3549626">attract attention</a> for changing the lyrics to a longstanding hit in recent live shows. They now repeat the opening line “change my pitch up” in place of the song’s title “Smack My Bitch Up”. The song’s been a source of controversy since its release in 1997 – BBC Radio One only played an instrumental version of and it received <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/features/top5/banned_songs.shtml">only limited airplay at all</a>.</p>
<p>Changing song lyrics is an increasingly common phenomenon, although not as recent as headlines might suggest. </p>
<p>The roots of much rock n’ roll and modern pop are in the blues where <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/discovering-music-the-blues/content-section-8">an oral rather than written tradition</a> frequently saw lyrics amended for different situations – or adapted as songs passed from artist to artist.</p>
<p>The advent of recording in the late nineteenth-century and the associated growth in publishing revenues from the music saw a shift towards a primary “text” in the form of a record or sheet music. But, adaptability has remained a feature.</p>
<p>Now there are multiple motivations and contexts for altering lyrics, which is part of a long tradition of amending songs. </p>
<h2>Motivations for altering lyrics</h2>
<p>A song may simply evolve over time, subject to artistic decisions – or even just a whim – on the part of the performer. Paul Simon, for instance, changed the lyrics to his 1973 hit Kodachrome from “<a href="https://youtu.be/8rlDTK6QI-w?si=PTXFNCK9Ya6kZBV-&t=89">everything looks worse in black and white</a>” on the recording to “<a href="https://youtu.be/8rlDTK6QI-w?si=PTXFNCK9Ya6kZBV-&t=89">everything looks better in black and white</a>” in the live performances recorded in New York’s Central Park. Subsequent live performances have seen him change it back.</p>
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<p>More formally, Simon re-arranged and re-recorded a tranche of his songs for the 2018 album <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/paul-simon-in-the-blue-light-review-8474023/">In The Blue Light</a>, with revised lyrics a part of the process. </p>
<p>In a similar vein, The Who have included <a href="https://youtu.be/n_4QrPPPcBw?si=kZGMVl8bQvv4XV3Y&t=130">new lyrics</a> in performances of My Generation, the song where they famously sing “I hope I die before I get old”. Now, accounting for their status as musical elder statesmen, the band have added “still here today” in a new section of the song.</p>
<p>Alternative versions have also long been used to maximise a song’s exposure. Radiohead recorded two versions of their early single Creep, one with the original lyric “so fucking special” and one with the swearing removed – “so very special”. Editing songs into “clean versions” for radio is now a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/11/08/454606994/the-art-of-the-clean-version">recognised aspect</a> of production technique.</p>
<h2>Changing taboos</h2>
<p>The decision about what to edit is also a factor. Shifting times and shifting social mores are key drivers for lyrical changes to avoid causing offence. Edits may derive from the desire to move in step with evolving conventions, eliminating terms that have become or, perhaps more accurately, become more widely recognised as offensive. </p>
<p>The words “faggot” and “slut” have been edited out of The Pogues’ signature hit <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/pogues-fairytale-new-york-lyrics-19307294">Fairytale of New York</a> by the BBC. Even here, though, there’s a longer history to the revision. The “new” lyrics – “You’re cheap and you’re haggard” – come from a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231201-fairytale-of-new-york-shane-macgowan-the-pogues-and-kirsty-maccolls-rousing-and-controversial-christmas-classic">1992 performance</a> on Top of the Pops. </p>
<p>Similarly, Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing now no longer features the homophobic slur, although the band themselves had already removed the offending verse from a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/18/direstraits-popandrock">1998 compilation album</a>.</p>
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<p>Opportunities and motivations for altering songs are increasing. As well as technology making the changes sound more seamless, artists re-record their music for other reasons and can take the opportunity of revisiting lyrics.</p>
<p>Taylor Swift is engaged in a <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/taylor-swift-rerecording-albums-masters-fearless-b928211.html">programme of re-recording albums</a> to regain control of her music amidst a dispute over rights in the original master recordings with her former record label. She took the opportunity to change Better than Revenge after the lyric <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/taylor-swift-changes-lyrics-better-than-revenge-speak-now-1235663483/">was accused of “slut-shaming”</a> an ex’s new girlfriend - “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress” was replaced with “He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches.”</p>
<p>The wider context is that taboo words change over time. As linguist John McWhorter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/books/review/nine-nasty-words-john-mcwhorter.html">has noted</a>, this initially involved words that referred to the divine – hence the use of “heck” instead of “hell” and so on – than the bodily. Words that referred to physical processes – “fuck” or “shit”, for instance – were deemed unsayable.</p>
<p>Today, swearing is more, though not wholly, acceptable. An unacceptable category, however, includes words that refer to matters of identity, initially from a derogatory perspective but sometimes even aside from the intent of the speaker or singer, so even if quoting someone. The ‘n’ word is a salient case in point. Identity based slurs are indeed a problem even when they’re deployed in “character”, as was the case for The Pogues and Dire Straits.</p>
<p>Audiences also now have a “right of response” via social media and can critique artists and labels in an organised way much more quickly. Artists are responding to this shift, with both technology and industry structures facilitating that. </p>
<p>But it’s never been the case that a song was set in stone from inception. Tweaking and editing to please audiences, or censors – or the artists themselves – are established parts of the creative and commercial process.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the British Academy.</span></em></p>Lyrics have changed for a myriad of reasons, including evolving social mores and sometimes simply because the artist wants a change.Adam Behr, Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2036322023-04-12T11:49:58Z2023-04-12T11:49:58ZEssex pub dispute: do people really still think golliwogs are OK? I conducted a snap survey<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520321/original/file-20230411-26-7ydbqw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=57%2C33%2C2701%2C1402&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CCTV footage shows officers seizing the dolls.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UnPWue0wrI">Youtube/SWNS</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The landlady of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/essex-pub-landlady-benice-ryley-replaces-golliwog-doll-collection-that-was-seized-by-police">a pub in Essex</a> has been expressing bemusement about the complaints of “snowflakes” after her display of <a href="https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/golliwog/">golliwog dolls</a> attracted the attention of the county’s police – only for them to be told, reportedly by the home secretary Suella Braverman, that they shouldn’t be wasting their time on such <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/suella-braverman-makes-views-very-plain-to-police-over-golliwog-doll-seizure-from-essex-pub-12854721">“nonsense”</a>.</p>
<p>Six years ago, a not dissimilar incident unfolded in <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-me-golliwogs-are-racist-but-a-tearoom-tangle-and-a-new-poll-shows-britain-disagrees-84314">a cafe at the foot of the South Downs in Sussex</a>, where the proprietors’ insistence on displaying a golliwog behind the counter prompted a complaint from a dismayed member of what Braverman terms the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11329469/Suella-Bravermans-tofu-eating-wokerati-rant-full.html">tofu-eating wokerati</a> (namely me). On that occasion, however, it was the proprietor who called the police on the snowflake – even if, much to my disappointment, they never turned up in the end.</p>
<p>That incident prompted me, with the help of the polling organisation YouGov, to do a spot of survey research on public attitudes to golliwogs in England, Scotland and Wales. Was I a hopelessly politically correct outlier? Could I possibly be entirely alone in feeling more than a little uncomfortable about them?</p>
<p>The results were, to use a cliche, shocking but not surprising, at least to me. It turned out that some 63% of the public didn’t think it was racist to sell or display a golliwog doll – although, interestingly, slightly fewer people (53%) thought it “acceptable” to do so. Those who thought it was racist made up just 20% of the sample, and those who thought it unacceptable 27%. The rest said they didn’t know.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-me-golliwogs-are-racist-but-a-tearoom-tangle-and-a-new-poll-shows-britain-disagrees-84314">To me, golliwogs are racist – but a tearoom tangle and a new poll shows Britain disagrees</a>
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<p>But that was then, this is now. The Black Lives Matter movement and the support given to it by prominent celebrities (not <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10033197/Tyrone-Mings-speaks-support-Black-Lives-Matter.html">least some English footballers</a>) has since loomed large in the national debate. Its advocates might reasonably expect attitudes to have shifted in their direction. And given there were pretty big differences between the attitudes of younger and older people in 2017, as well as between graduates and non-graduates, they might expect demographic change and the expansion in higher education to have helped too – if only at the margins.</p>
<p>YouGov was kind enough to <a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/c6f0hvav1l/YouGov_DQResults_Golliwogs_April23_W.pdf">repeat the exercise this week</a> to see whether such a shift had indeed occurred. And lo and behold, it had – although not for everyone.</p>
<p>Six years ago, a majority said selling or displaying a golliwog doll wasn’t racist. Now it’s a minority. True, that minority still makes up nearly half the population, but a 15-point drop from 63% to 48% in a little over half a decade seems pretty significant. Meanwhile, the proportion of people who think it is racist has gone up from a fifth to just over a quarter (from 20% to 27%), with another 25% (up from 17% in 2017) opting for “don’t know”.</p>
<p>There’s been a similar “progressive” shift when it comes to whether selling or displaying golliwogs is or isn’t acceptable. The proportion of people who think it is acceptable has dropped 14 points from 53% to just 39% since 2017, with the proportion who think it isn’t rising from 27% to 34%. There’s been an identical increase (from 20% to 27%) in those saying “don’t know”.</p>
<h2>The enduring divisions</h2>
<p>Age continues to play a huge part in all this: a stunning 74% of those aged 65 and over continue to insist that selling or displaying a golliwog isn’t racist – a view confined to a mere 13% of 18- to 24-year-olds.</p>
<p>Among the older group, 64% say it’s acceptable to display one. Only 10% of the younger group agree. Education also continues to matter: twice as many graduates (42% – up 11% on 2017) as non-graduates (21%) say it’s racist.</p>
<p>There are, too, significant differences on both counts between those living in an ethnically diverse city like London and other parts of the country, and between middle- and working-class people, with those living in the capital and middle-class people more likely to brand the selling or display of golliwogs as racist and unacceptable.</p>
<p>What’s most striking, though, is the difference partisanship still plays in people’s attitudes. Only 13% of Conservative supporters and people who voted leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum think selling or displaying golliwogs is racist.</p>
<p>That figure (more or less depressingly, depending on your point of view) represents an insignificant change on six years ago. It is also dwarfed by the 47% of Labour supporters and 42% of remain voters who think the same about displaying these dolls.</p>
<p>Essentially, when it comes to golliwogs at least, the times are changing. Unless, that is, you’re old, less-educated, a Tory, a “leaver”, or a certain pub owner in Essex – in which case you’re more likely to be heard singing the same old song, and will probably continue to do so until, eventually and inevitably, your voice falls silent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Is the bemused owner of a collection of these dolls an outlier or representative of the British public?Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015092023-03-10T16:08:28Z2023-03-10T16:08:28ZThe UK now ranks as one of the most socially liberal countries in Europe – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514505/original/file-20230309-24-nvd0pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rochester-uk-may-16-2015-high-329211002">IR Stone/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s easy to lose sight of just how accepting the UK now is as a nation. What were once pressing moral concerns have become simple facts of life for much of the public. The UK, in fact, now ranks as one of the most accepting countries internationally, as shown by new data from the <a href="https://www.uk-values.org/news-comment/uk-now-among-most-socially-liberal-of-countries-1018742/pub01-116">World Values Survey</a>.</p>
<p>This is one of the largest and most widely used social surveys in the world. It has run since 1981, capturing the views of almost 400,000 respondents in over 110 countries.</p>
<p>Major surveys on social trends help us to look back and remind us how far we’ve come in our attitudes across so many spheres of life – from homosexuality to casual sex and divorce. </p>
<p><strong>The British public have become much more socially liberal over the last 41 years</strong></p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514717/original/file-20230310-22-jz2vc5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Base: minimum of 1,000 people aged 18+ surveyed in the UK per year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Policy Institute, King's College London, World Values Survey.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>Attitudes towards sex</h2>
<p>It’s incredible to think that in 1981 just 12% of the British public thought that homosexuality was “justifiable”. It is perhaps even more shocking that it had only risen to 33% in 2009. But by 2022 that level of acceptance had doubled again, to 66%. </p>
<p>Of around 20 nations included in <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/social-attitudes-in-the-uk-and-beyond-pub01-116.pdf">a report</a> by the Policy Institute at King’s College London that analyses the data, only three –- Sweden, Norway and Germany –- are more accepting of homosexuality than the UK. </p>
<p>In terms of sex more broadly, in 1999, just one in 10 Britons thought having <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-women-at-a-us-university-approached-hook-up-culture-new-research-111288">casual sex</a> was justifiable – but more than four times as many held this view in 2022, with a considerable rise from as recently as 2018. This shift means the UK is now the fourth most accepting of casual sex, ahead of countries including France and Norway, and not far off Australia, which is the most accepting. </p>
<p>And between 1981 and 2022, the proportion of Britons who said divorce is justifiable rose from just 18% to 64%. Only Sweden and Norway are more accepting of people dissolving their marriages, while the UK is far above some other Western nations such as the US (just 38%) and Italy (40%). </p>
<p><strong>The UK is also among the most accepting of divorce, abortion, euthanasia and casual sex</strong></p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514718/original/file-20230310-104-48vocx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">UK base: 3,056 people in the UK aged 18+, surveyed 1 Mar–9 Sept 2022. Other countries all surveyed in wave 7 of WVS at various points between 2017 and 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Policy Institute, King's College London, World Values Survey.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>This social transformation isn’t just a result of younger generations replacing older cohorts. <a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-older-doesnt-make-you-more-conservative-21729">All generations</a> have changed their views significantly, although the oldest pre-1945 cohort now often stand out as quite different –- and on some issues, like casual sex, there is a clearer generational hierarchy. Two-thirds of those born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s think casual sex is acceptable, but only one third of baby boomers (born between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s) agree. </p>
<h2>Attitudes towards death</h2>
<p>The one key issue for which we rank as comparatively less liberal than other countries is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/death-penalty-is-capital-punishment-morally-justified-42970">death penalty</a>. One in five in the UK think capital punishment is justifiable and a further 35% think it is potentially justifiable. Taken together, this means a majority think it may be acceptable in certain circumstances, which is much higher than Italy, Germany, Sweden and Norway, for example, but lower than Australia, France and the US. </p>
<p><strong>The UK is much more mid-table in our attitudes to the death penalty</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514719/original/file-20230310-17-t7m84x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK base: 3,056 people in the UK aged 18+, surveyed 1 Mar–9 Sept 2022. Other countries all surveyed in wave 7 of WVS at various points between 2017 and 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Policy Institute, King's College London, World Values Survey.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Support for the death penalty also relates much more to political identities than other issues, with Conservative voters much more likely to be in favour of capital punishment than Labour voters. This helps explain why it continues to be brought up in political discussions. </p>
<p>Other trends in attitudes also highlight likely future directions on some key topics that remain sensitive. For example, support for euthanasia has increased significantly, from 20% in 1981 to 47% now, no doubt partly due to greater awareness of the issue. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/assisted-dying-laws-are-progressing-in-some-places-the-uk-isnt-one-of-them-73181">Assisted dying</a> is, of course, still illegal in the UK. It is, however, now seen as much more acceptable by the UK public than other illegal behaviours asked about in the study, such as dodging taxes. </p>
<p>One other trend raises some thorny questions. Suicide is still seen as justifiable by a relatively small minority of the population. But that minority has grown substantially, from 6% to 19% between 1981 and 2022. The UK now ranks among the most likely to say suicide is justifiable, along with France, Germany and Spain. </p>
<p>This increase is to a large degree driven by much higher proportions of gen Z saying suicide is justifiable, at 30%. The prevalence of suicide among young people can be overblown – for example, gen Z is often <a href="https://unherd.com/2019/02/do-we-really-have-a-suicidal-generation/">wrongly characterised</a> as a “suicidal generation”. Suicide is one of the top killers among the young, but the this is mostly because young people don’t die very often.</p>
<p><strong>Gen Z also stand out as being particularly likely to think suicide is justifiable</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two graphics." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514720/original/file-20230310-26-qnwvv4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bases: minimum of 130 people surveyed per generation per year (left); 3,056 people in the UK aged 18+, surveyed 1 Mar–9 Sept 2022 (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Policy Institute, King's College London, World Values Survey.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There has, however, been a slight increase in <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmhealth/17/report.html#heading-7">suicide rates</a> among <a href="https://theconversation.com/suicides-at-record-level-among-uk-students-95341">young people</a>, particularly young girls, in recent years, as well as increases in suicide attempts and self-harming behaviours. The greater acceptability of suicide among young people today could simply be a sign of a cohort of young that better understands and engages on mental health issues. </p>
<p>Thankfully, we’re in a much better place in terms of people feeling more able to talk about suicidal thoughts. Any sense we may be “<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36330742/">normalising</a>” suicide is clearly something to understand and consider carefully. But it’s also important not to overplay this as yet and to remember that the overall long-term trend is towards <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2021registrations#:%7E:text=From%201981%2C%20there%20has%20been,6.7%20deaths%20per%20100%2C000%20females">signficantly lower rates of suicide</a>.</p>
<p>Surveys of this kind, on social attitudinal shifts, aren’t just about reflecting on the past. They are vital in looking forward. For every social issue that is largely settled, there will always be new, emergent challenges, and these trends provide signals of what could come next.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bobby Duffy receives funding from the ESRC, Cabinet Office, Barrow Cadbury Trust, Unbound Philanthropy, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.</span></em></p>This major survey on social trends shows how far the UK has come in terms of attitudes towards homosexuality, casual sex and divorce. Views on the death penalty remain conservative, however.Bobby Duffy, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1860052022-07-19T12:25:31Z2022-07-19T12:25:31ZWhat really drives anti-abortion beliefs? Research suggests it’s a matter of sexual strategies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474127/original/file-20220714-32255-1j48rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C101%2C3640%2C2562&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's an interesting evolutionary benefit for some women if the consequences of casual sex are high.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-life-marchers-participate-in-the-march-for-life-tens-of-news-photo/506527136">Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many people have strong opinions about abortion – especially in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, revoking a constitutional right previously held by more than 165 million Americans.</p>
<p>But what really drives people’s abortion attitudes? </p>
<p>It’s common to hear religious, political and other ideologically driven explanations – for example, about the sanctity of life. If such beliefs were really driving anti-abortion attitudes, though, then people who oppose abortion might not support the death penalty (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07418829800093771">many do</a>), and they would support social safety net measures that could save newborns’ lives (<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1111244809/many-states-have-anti-abortion-laws-will-they-provide-a-social-safety-net-for-mo">many don’t</a>).</p>
<p>Here, we suggest a different explanation for anti-abortion attitudes – one you probably haven’t considered before – from <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UEJqvFoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">our field of evolutionary</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CpXzPwgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">social science</a>.</p>
<h2>Why do people care what strangers do?</h2>
<p>The evolutionary coin of the realm is fitness – getting more copies of your genes into the next generation. What faraway strangers do presumably has limited impact on your own fitness. So from this perspective, it is a mystery why people in Pensacola care so strongly about what goes on in the bedrooms of Philadelphia or the Planned Parenthoods of Los Angeles.</p>
<p>The solution to this puzzle – and one answer to what is driving anti-abortion attitudes – lies in a conflict of sexual strategies: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412453588">People vary in how opposed they are to casual sex</a>. More “sexually restricted” people tend to shun casual sex and instead invest heavily in long-term relationships and parenting children. In contrast, more “sexually unrestricted” people tend to pursue a series of different sexual partners and are often slower to settle down.</p>
<p>These sexual strategies conflict in ways that affect evolutionary fitness. </p>
<p>The crux of this argument is that, for sexually restricted people, other people’s sexual freedoms represent threats. Consider that sexually restricted women often get married young and have children early in life. These choices are just as valid as a decision to wait, but they can also be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0049-089X(03)00012-7">detrimental to women’s occupational attainment</a> and tend to leave women more <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/354020">economically dependent on husbands</a>.</p>
<p>Other women’s sexual openness can destroy these women’s lives and livelihoods by breaking up the relationships they depend on. So sexually restricted women benefit from impeding other people’s sexual freedoms. Likewise, sexually restricted men tend to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-evolutionary-psychology-and-parenting-9780190674687">invest a lot in their children</a>, so they benefit from prohibiting people’s sexual freedoms to preclude the high fitness costs of being cuckolded.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="two parents snuggle with four young kids" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474128/original/file-20220714-33068-utuwgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sexually restricted adults may feel that when casual sex has more potential consequences, it protects their own family relationships.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/happy-young-family-with-four-children-sitting-royalty-free-image/1354860953">Halfpoint Images/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Benefiting from making sex more costly</h2>
<p><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691154398/why-everyone-else-is-a-hypocrite">According to evolutionary social science</a>, restricted sexual strategists benefit by imposing their strategic preferences on society – by curtailing other people’s sexual freedoms. </p>
<p>How can restricted sexual strategists achieve this? By making casual sex more costly. </p>
<p>For example, banning women’s access to safe and legal abortion essentially forces them to endure the costs of bearing a child. Such hikes in the price of casual sex can deter people from having it. </p>
<p>This attitude is perhaps best illustrated by a statement from Mariano Azuela, a justice who opposed abortion when it came before Mexico’s Supreme Court in 2008: “I feel that a woman in some way <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/world/americas/28mexico.html">has to live with the phenomenon of becoming pregnant</a>. When she does not want to keep the product of the pregnancy, she still has to suffer the effects during the whole period.” </p>
<p>Force people to “suffer the effects” of casual sex, and fewer people will pursue it.</p>
<p>Also note that abortion restrictions do not increase the costs of sex equally. Women bear the costs of gestation, face the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2020.8863">life-threatening dangers of childbirth</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.07.020">disproportionately bear responsibility for child care</a>. When women are denied abortions, they are also more likely to <a href="https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study">end up in poverty and experience intimate partner violence</a>.</p>
<p>No one would argue this is a conscious phenomenon. Rather, people’s strategic interests shape their attitudes in nonconscious but self-benefiting ways – a common finding in <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/challenge-of-democracy-government-in-america/oclc/449201193&referer=brief_results">political science</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2021.29">evolutionary social science</a> alike.</p>
<h2>Resolving awkward contradictions in attitudes</h2>
<p>An evolutionary perspective suggests that common explanations are not the genuine drivers of people’s attitudes – on either side of the abortion debate. </p>
<p>In fact, people’s stated religious, political and ideological explanations are often rife with awkward contradictions. For example, many who oppose abortion also oppose <a href="https://doi.org/10.1179/2050854914Y.0000000035">preventing unwanted pregnancy through access to contraception</a>. </p>
<p>From an evolutionary perspective, such contradictions are easily resolved. Sexually restricted people benefit from increasing the costs of sex. That cost increases when people cannot access legal abortions or prevent unwanted pregnancy.</p>
<p>An evolutionary perspective also makes unique – often counterintuitive – predictions about which attitudes travel together. This view predicts that if sexually restricted people associate something with sexual freedoms, they should oppose it. </p>
<p>Indeed, researchers have found that sexually restricted people oppose not only abortion and birth control, but also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615621719">marriage equality</a>, because they perceive homosexuality as associated with sexual promiscuity, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.0608">recreational drugs</a>, presumably because they associate drugs like marijuana and MDMA with casual sex. We suspect this list likely also includes transgender rights, <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/67vh9">public breastfeeding</a>, premarital sex, what books children read (and <a href="https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/drag-queen-storytime-continue-to-stir-up-controversy-as-well-as-excitement-among-library-patrons/">if drag queens can read to them</a>), equal pay for women, and many other concerns that have yet to be tested.</p>
<p>No other theories we are aware of predict these strange attitudinal bedfellows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="hazy-focus view of back of bride and groom in church with people in pews" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474133/original/file-20220714-32258-kvrjag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More sexually restricted people may in turn become more religious.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/focus-shot-of-flower-wedding-decoration-royalty-free-image/163346894">maximkabb/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Behind the link to religion and conservatism</h2>
<p>This evolutionary perspective can also explain why anti-abortion attitudes are so often associated with religion and social conservatism. </p>
<p>Rather than thinking that religiosity causes people to be sexually restricted, this perspective suggests that a restricted sexual strategy can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.1.78">motivate people to become religious</a>. Why? <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.07.030">Several</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.08.006">scholars</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419838242">have suggested</a> that people adhere to religion in part <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.03.004">because its teachings promote sexually restricted norms</a>. Supporting this idea, participants in one study reported being <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.10.017">more religious after researchers showed them photos of attractive people</a> of their own sex – that is, potential mating rivals.</p>
<p>Sexually restricted people also tend to invest highly in parenting, so they stand to benefit when other people adhere to norms that benefit parents. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221076919">Like religion</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/d3fg2">social conservatism prescribes parent-benefiting norms</a> like constricting sexual freedoms and ostensibly promoting family stability. In line with this, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190674687.013.27">some research</a> suggests that people don’t simply <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/">become more conservative with age</a>. Rather, people become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.05.045">more socially conservative during parenthood</a>.</p>
<h2>Restricting everyone to benefit yourself</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2013.10.008">multiple answers to any “why” question</a> in scientific research. Ideological beliefs, personal histories and other factors certainly play a role in people’s abortion attitudes. </p>
<p>But so, too, do people’s sexual strategies.</p>
<p>This evolutionary social science research suggests that restricted sexual strategists benefit by making everyone else play by their rules. And just as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/thomas-constitutional-rights-00042256">Justice Thomas suggested when overturning Roe v. Wade</a>, this group may be taking aim at birth control and marriage equality next.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186005/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some reasons people oppose abortion seem to be at odds with other positions they hold. Evolutionary social science points to a surprising motivation for anti-abortion attitudes.Jaimie Arona Krems, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Oklahoma State UniversityMartie Haselton, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073632018-11-29T19:11:16Z2018-11-29T19:11:16ZFour in ten Australians think women lie about being victims of sexual assault<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247887/original/file-20181129-170244-t6cfce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two in five Australian women have experienced physical or sexual violence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/oeghhMy5jz0">Jorge Flores</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four in ten Australians (42%) think sexual assault accusations are a way of getting back at men, according to the fourth <a href="http://ncas.anrows.org.au">National Community Attitudes Survey</a> (NCAS) on violence against women, released today. </p>
<p>Almost the same proportion (43%) believe women “make up” claims of abuse when going through child custody battles in court. </p>
<p>Yet research shows false allegations are rare. In fact, sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4530.0%7E2016-17%7EMain%20Features%7EReporting%20of%20crime%20to%20police%7E7">_under-reported to police</a>. </p>
<p>Violence against women is common, with <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4906.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7EKey%20Findings%7E1">two out of every five Australian women</a> experiencing some form of physical or sexual violence since the age of 15, and much of it from a male partner or ex-partner. </p>
<p>NCAS is a federally funded survey conducted by the independent research organisation <a href="https://www.anrows.org.au/">ANROWS</a> in 2017. It involved 17,500 phone interviews with a representative sample of Australians aged 16 years and older. It’s the third such national survey, allowing us to compare responses with those in 2009 and 2013.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-culture-why-our-community-attitudes-to-sexual-violence-matter-31750">Rape culture: why our community attitudes to sexual violence matter</a>
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<p>It’s not all bad news. The results show a majority of Australians understand that physical assault, emotional abuse and controlling behaviour are forms of violence against women, and are common in our community. </p>
<p>Consistent investment in programs and campaigns has had a positive impact on reducing attitudes that support violence such as minimising and excusing. Out of a score of 100, the average score has reduced from 36 in 2013 to 33 in 2017.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANROWS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Blaming the victim</h2>
<p>The survey found one in three Australians believe women are partly responsible for relationship violence if they do not leave a violent partner (32%). </p>
<p>Another third (30%) believe if a woman sends a nude image to her partner, she is partly responsible if he shares it without her permission. </p>
<p>When questions are asked about the role of alcohol in relation to violence, 8% attribute responsibility and blame to women who were raped while alcohol- or drug-affected. Some 12% of Australians absolve men of blame if they are alcohol- or drug-affected at the time they perpetrate rape. </p>
<p>Two out of ten Australians (21%) believe because women express themselves sexually in public it’s not surprising men think they can touch them without permission.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/be-careful-posting-images-online-is-just-another-form-of-modern-day-victim-blaming-64116">'Be careful posting images online' is just another form of modern-day victim-blaming</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When victim-blaming attitudes are held by a substantial proportion of people, or influential people such as police, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/magistrate-condemned-for-comment-over-alleged-rape/news-story/373ccb8945be062a1dbe2e4759c8251e?from=rss-basic">judges</a> and health professionals, they can present barriers to victims seeking support or reporting the abuse. </p>
<p>Such attitudes also shift responsibility away from the perpetrators of violence, contributing to a culture in which perpetrator behaviour is at best not clearly condemned, or at worst, is actively condoned.</p>
<h2>Disregard for consent</h2>
<p>One in ten Australians believe if a woman is drunk and starts having sex with a man, but then falls asleep, it is understandable if he continues to have sex with her. </p>
<p>The survey also asked Australians to respond to a scenario where a woman takes her husband into the bedroom, starts kissing him, then pushes him away, not wanting to continue with sex. More than one in ten (15%) believed her husband would have been justified in having sex with her anyway. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many Australians seem unclear of what constitutes consent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/PLDkBHbM3Hc">Nicolas Thomas</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disregarding consent for touching women, sending nude photos or persisting with sex when a woman does not, or cannot give consent, are criminal offences in Australia.</p>
<p>These findings are significant because they indicate a concerning proportion of Australians are unclear about what constitutes consent, and the line between consensual sex and coercion. </p>
<h2>Mistrusting women’s reports</h2>
<p>As well as thinking women make up claims of abuse, one quarter (23%) of Australians believe women exaggerate the problem of male violence. </p>
<p>Almost a third (31%) believe that a lot of times women who say they were raped had “led the man on” and then had regrets. </p>
<p>Attitudes that suggest women lie to “get back at men” are particularly concerning in light of the high levels of violence against women, as well as under-reporting of these crimes. The fear of not being believed or taken seriously presents a barrier for women seeking help and support. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-still-trivialise-and-excuse-violence-against-women-31420">Australians still trivialise and excuse violence against women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Attitudes are a barometer of socially acceptable behaviour – and changing attitudes is often the first step toward changing behaviour. Attitudes can mean a perpetrator being held to account, instead of his behaviour being ignored. Or a bystander taking action, rather than turning a blind eye. </p>
<h2>And now for the good news</h2>
<p>One of the pillars of <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/women/programs-services/reducing-violence/the-national-plan-to-reduce-violence-against-women-and-their-children-2010-2022">The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022</a> has been to support attitude change as a first step to reducing prevalence of violence against women. </p>
<p>The NCAS survey shows there has been an increase in the understanding of violence against women, moving from an average score of 64 to 70, and improvement in support for gender equality moving from an average score of 64 to 66.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Knowledge of violence against women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANROWS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Support for gender equality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANROWS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Exploring the detail of the survey questions shows an improvement on 27 of the 36 individual questions asked in both 2013 and 2017.</p>
<p>While there are specific areas of concern, Australians’ knowledge of, and attitudes towards, violence against women and gender equality are gradually improving. Most Australians do not endorse this violence. </p>
<p>Australian governments have invested heavily in campaigns and programs to reduce men’s violence against women over the past ten years and the current NCAS results show that there have been some rewards.</p>
<p>Changing attitudes and improving knowledge takes time, as well as continued policy and program efforts. It’s vital that governments, organisations and communities across Australia keep up the momentum if we are to ultimately see the end of attitudes that allow violence against women to occur. http://ncas.anrows.org.au</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Violeta Politoff, Senior Researcher for ANROWS on the National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence against Women.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristin Diemer is a Chief Investigator for the National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence Against Women and receives funding from ANROWS (Australian National Research Organisation for Women's Safety).0</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anastasia Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and Criminology Research Council. She is a Chief Investigator for the National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence Against Women and receives funding from ANROWS (Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety). Anastasia is also a member of the board of directors of Our Watch, Australia's national foundation for the prevention of violence against women. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Webster is a PhD student at the University of Melbourne writing her thesis on the NCAS. She has also been involved in project management of the NCAS since 2009.</span></em></p>Australians are more aware of domestic violence and sexual assault than before. But a worrying proportion blame victims for abuse, think women are lying, and don’t believe consent is always necessary.Kristin Diemer, Senior Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneAnastasia Powell, Associate Professor and ARC DECRA Fellow, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT UniversityKim Webster, PhD candidate, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/888002017-12-13T14:48:08Z2017-12-13T14:48:08ZSwearing helps us battle pain – no matter what language we curse in<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198816/original/file-20171212-9432-1rmec49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/south-african-american-woman-teacher-student-270090248?src=Mh571SF-P0Ri1nEXX_EPTA-1-13">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Swear words have many functions. They can be used for emphasis, for comedic effect, as a shared linguistic tool that strengthens social bonds and maintains relationships, or simply to cause offence and shock. </p>
<p>They are words that can be emotionally electrifying. We can express utter horror, disdain, or just frustration through the utterance of a simple four-letter word (or several). But swearing isn’t always associated with negative emotions or unpleasant events. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Corney/publication/261213423_Sweet_FA_Sentiment_swearing_and_soccer/links/0c960535802494bc31000000/Sweet-FA-Sentiment-swearing-and-soccer.pdf">A study</a> by Emma Byrne investigated how swearing on Twitter was used by fans at football games. It was, at least for those supporters, a way of succinctly and eloquently describing their experiences and personal stories. </p>
<p>When swearing in tweets, football fans rarely swore about an opposing team or match officials. Swearing was reserved for celebrating the dizzying triumphs or lamenting the failures of their own team. It allowed the users to intensify their positive (“fucking beauty”) or negative (“fucking painful”) thoughts and feelings. </p>
<p>Byrne and her colleagues found that when swearing, the authors of the tweets implicitly assumed that their readers shared and understood their context and associated feelings.</p>
<p>Her <a href="https://emmabyrne.net/welcome/sigfy/">subsequent book</a> concluded that swearing is actually good for you. It expresses our emotions, and makes us feel better. And as one well known experiment showed, in certain situations, <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4d7b/3d99c522e924439bcdd4fe9db93e8fd4c3c7.pdf">swearing can even reduce pain</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/swearing-can-help-you-boost-your-physical-performance-77124">Swearing can help you boost your physical performance</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For the experiment, (English speaking) participants were asked to submerge a hand in ice-cold water for as long as they could bear, with some repeating a swearword as they did so, while others uttered a neutral word instead. The swearers were able to keep their hand in the icy water for longer – 44 seconds more for males, 37 seconds more for females – and reported feeling less pain than those who did not swear. </p>
<p>As a student at a Japanese university in 2012, when I read about the experiment I wanted to investigate whether this would translate with native Japanese speakers. I knew that my Japanese friends didn’t have the same relationship with swearwords as I did in my mother tongue. </p>
<h2>Language (and pain) barriers</h2>
<p>Japanese culture values honour and respect highly – an idea which is mirrored in their language. But it is a language which is rife with colourful and creative ways to impart emphasis or insult. </p>
<p>Context, such as whether the person you are speaking to has higher or lower social standing than yourself, dictates the nouns and verbs used. Choosing a word that is inappropriate for the social context can have a greater impact than the actual words used when being profane. While this isn’t an equivalence of swear words in English, swearing in Japanese is just as offensive as swearing anywhere else in the world. </p>
<p>In British culture, swearing in response to pain – like when you stub your toe – is common behaviour. In Japanese culture, however, it would be completely out of place. Instead, Japanese people use onomatopoeia to describe and express their pain. For example, “Zuki-zuki” describes a moderate-to-severe throbbing pain and is often used to describe pain associated with migraines. By comparing the effects of swearing in response to pain in native English and Japanese speakers, I was able to investigate how the associated pain relief occurs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198824/original/file-20171212-9396-14xxc61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198824/original/file-20171212-9396-14xxc61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198824/original/file-20171212-9396-14xxc61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198824/original/file-20171212-9396-14xxc61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198824/original/file-20171212-9396-14xxc61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198824/original/file-20171212-9396-14xxc61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198824/original/file-20171212-9396-14xxc61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Swearing. Good for pain and gain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/299138285?src=rJyu4TW8ojUxH5csELOqLA-1-0&size=medium_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As in the original, for my experiment native Japanese and British English speakers were asked to submerge a hand in ice-cold water for as long as possible. Half of the participants were asked to repeat the word “cup” in their respective language. The other half were asked to swear repeatedly. </p>
<p>English speakers were asked to say “fuck”, while the Japanese speakers repeated the word “kuso” – a word for faecal matter. “Kuso” is not a swear word in itself – it is not censored on TV and it would not be unusual for a child to use it. But it is a word that would be entirely inappropriate for an adult to say in front of a scientist they don’t know in a laboratory. It would be as socially taboo as saying the f-word. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877886017301544">Once again</a>, the volunteers who “swore” were able to tolerate the icy-cold water for longer than participants who didn’t. The same result was true in both languages. English swearers could withstand the pain for 49% longer than English non-swearing participants. Japanese swearing participants kept their hand submerged in the icy water for 75% longer than those who didn’t swear. </p>
<p>This suggests that swearing is more than a social tool we can use to offend, be profane or express our emotions. It’s a powerful and timeless tool that can actually change our experiences of pain. A tool which transcends culture, a tool rooted in our biology. </p>
<p>Swearing in Japanese may follow slightly different rules to swearing in English. But regardless of cultural background, swearing may be beneficial to us all when we are in pain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olly Robertson is a student member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>It’s a multi-lingual effect.Olly Robertson, PhD Candidate in Psychology, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886652017-12-06T06:31:20Z2017-12-06T06:31:20ZSurvey shows gloomy public wrong about crime, immigrants and teen pregnancies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197815/original/file-20171205-23002-j4axjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A new <a href="https://perils.ipsos.com/">survey</a> from Ipsos Mori reveals that the public in 38 countries have deeply inaccurate views about crime, terrorism and many other important social issues. And this is not just the result of random guessing – there is a systematic pattern to our errors. We tend to think things are worse than they are, and they’re going downhill fast.</p>
<p>The Perils of Perception study found that only 7% of people think the murder rate is lower in their country than it was in 2000 – but it is actually significantly down in most countries, and, across the countries overall, it’s down 29%.</p>
<p>Only 19% think deaths from terrorist attacks are lower in the past 15 years than they were in the 15 years before that – when they are also significantly down across most of these countries, and overall they are around half the level they were.</p>
<p>People hugely overestimate the proportion of prisoners in their countries who are immigrants: the average guess is 28% when it’s actually only 15%.</p>
<p>Teenage pregnancy is overestimated across the world, often by a staggering amount. Overall, the average guess is that 20% of teenage girls give birth each year when the reality is 2%. Some countries guess that around half of teenage girls give birth each year, when the highest actual figure in any country is 6.7%.</p>
<h2>Why do we get it so wrong?</h2>
<p>There are multiple reasons for these errors – from our struggle with basic maths, to our <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0141033576">“fast thinking”</a> mental shortcuts and biases.</p>
<p>But there is one key explanation. We overestimate what we worry about: the more we see coverage of an issue, the more prevalent we think it is, especially if that coverage is vivid and threatening.</p>
<p>We treat negative information differently from positive information, and there is an evolutionary element to this. Negative information is usually more urgent, even life-threatening, so we need to act on it: we had to take note when we were warned by our fellow cavemen about a lurking sabre-toothed tiger (and those who didn’t were edited out of the gene pool).</p>
<p>So, our brains handle negative information differently and store it more accessibly. There are a number of experimental psychology examples to prove this, and scientists have even found signs of it in rats. Losing money, being abandoned by friends and receiving criticism all have a greater impact on us than winning money, making friends or receiving praise.</p>
<p>And this stems from the very basics of our brain functioning. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200305/why-we-love-bad-news">John Cacioppo,</a> a social neuroscientist professor, showed pictures known to arouse positive feelings, like pizza or Ferraris, and those that stir up negative feelings, like a mutilated face or dead cat – and recorded electrical activity in the brain. And the brain reacted more strongly to negative images. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197814/original/file-20171205-23009-14rw7bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197814/original/file-20171205-23009-14rw7bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197814/original/file-20171205-23009-14rw7bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197814/original/file-20171205-23009-14rw7bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197814/original/file-20171205-23009-14rw7bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197814/original/file-20171205-23009-14rw7bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197814/original/file-20171205-23009-14rw7bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">But will you read it?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">jon tyson/unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Negative information is attention-grabbing, while positive progress is gradual and incremental. We’re not nearly as adept at spotting these trends as sudden and eye-catching disasters. As <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty/">Max Roser</a> from Oxford University points out, newspapers could have legitimately run the headline “Number of people in extreme poverty fell by 137,000 since yesterday” every day for past 25 years. But the predictable isn’t newsworthy, because it’s not what we want as media consumers.</p>
<p>It’s very quick work to find a recent example of a screaming headline or a poignant talk-show interview in which the plight of “gym slip mums” is dissected. Unfortunately, for our mental image of teen girls everywhere, you don’t see pictures of a young girl in her school uniform not holding a baby with the headline: “Yet another teenager just gets on with stuff after not giving birth.”</p>
<h2>Looking on the bright side</h2>
<p>There has been a flurry of interest recently in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/28/is-the-world-really-better-than-ever-the-new-optimists">“new optimist”</a> trend, where a disparate group are pointing to progress made and a brighter future. And it’s caused some suspicion: given the very real issues the world faces, this focus on the positive can seem like gloss.</p>
<p>But, from our long-term study of how people actually see social realities, this is much less of a risk than the opposite – our tendency to focus on the negative, and feel overwhelmed by the sense that nothing can be done. <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/22384/slovic_736.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">Paul Slovic</a>, another psychologist, has studied “psychic numbing” for decades, where the scale of tragedies or need for help drive us to inaction. One of the key lessons from this work was that we’re much more likely to help the individual than the masses, and this has been proven time and again in fundraising campaigns: the single real-life story, with a named individual, constructed to evoke maximum sadness, helps us connect and donate.</p>
<p>But the same mechanism that turns us off the need to deal with not just one case of poverty but millions, also affects our belief that big challenges can be tackled at all. So, a lot of the criticism of the “new optimist” perspective misses the point, by questioning whether we should really be so content about what has been achieved. As this survey shows, the real issue is the opposite: the greater need is to encourage action by countering the sense that all is already lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bobby Duffy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We’re wildly off base when it comes to guessing crime rates and other important social matters, because we focus on the negative.Bobby Duffy, Managing Director, Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/842762017-09-25T20:11:56Z2017-09-25T20:11:56ZCognitive ability plays a role in attitudes to equal rights for same-sex couples<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186709/original/file-20170920-19979-lusrif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The same-sex marriage postal ballot forms have been posted to Australians on the electoral roll.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Morgan Sette</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-who-supports-marriage-equality-in-australia-and-who-doesnt-82988">Recently</a>, Alice Campbell and I revealed the demographic traits associated with people expressing support for equal rights for same-sex couples using the <a href="http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/hilda">Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey</a> – a large, longitudinal survey that is representative of the Australian population.</p>
<p>My subsequent analyses of the HILDA Survey point to another important factor: cognitive ability. Specifically, there is a strong and statistically significant association between higher cognitive ability and a greater likelihood to support equal rights between same- and different-sex couples.</p>
<p>This may shed some light on why those who stand against equal rights may not be persuaded by evidence-based arguments in the ongoing marriage equality debate.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-who-supports-marriage-equality-in-australia-and-who-doesnt-82988">Revealed: who supports marriage equality in Australia – and who doesn’t</a></strong></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Measuring cognitive ability and support for equal rights</h2>
<p>From time to time the HILDA Survey collects one-off information from participants. During the 2012 face-to-face interviews respondents participated in <a href="http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2013n44.pdf">three hands-on tests</a> aimed at determining their cognitive ability. Such tests evaluated the degree to which participants were able to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>recall and recite backwards progressively longer strings of numbers;</p></li>
<li><p>correctly pronounce 50 irregularly spelled words; and</p></li>
<li><p>match symbols and numbers based on a printed key against time.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These tests are not perfect. They may contain some measurement error, may be culturally biased, and may not constitute a complete measure of cognitive ability. Yet they are widely recognised instruments routinely employed in psychological and educational research, and have been shown to be highly correlated with overall intelligence.</p>
<p>My analysis involved estimating the degree of support for the rights of same-sex couples at different levels of this measure of cognitive ability.</p>
<p>To do so, respondents’ scores in the three tests were rescaled and averaged into a composite measure of cognitive ability. Scores ranged from zero (lowest ability) to one (highest ability).</p>
<p>Support for equal rights came from a 2015 HILDA Survey question asking respondents to rate their degree of agreement with the statement “Homosexual couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples do” on a scale from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree).</p>
<h2>A striking association</h2>
<p>Analyses based on a sample of more than 11,600 people revealed that those with lower levels of cognitive ability in 2012 were much less likely than those with high levels of cognitive ability to express support for equal rights in 2015.</p>
<p>The association was substantially and statistically significant.</p>
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<p>Some population groups – older people and those from non-English-speaking backgrounds, for example – may be more opposed to equal rights and also perform worse in cognitive ability tests. For the former group, this may be due to cognitive decline, and for the latter it may be due to English not being their first language.</p>
<p>To prevent this and other factors tampering with the results, I adjusted the models for age, gender, sexual identity, highest educational qualification, religiosity, ethno-migrant background, area remoteness, and state/territory of residence.</p>
<p>After these adjustments, as expected, the association between cognitive ability and support for the rights of same-sex couples faded moderately. Yet it remained large and statistically significant. </p>
<p>It is worth emphasising that education is controlled for in the models. Therefore, the results cannot be explained by people with high cognitive ability having higher educational qualifications.</p>
<p>The results were also quite robust: the patterns remained when excluding respondents from a non-English-speaking background, measuring support in 2011, and considering the measures of cognitive ability separately. However, the magnitude of the association differed across tests.</p>
<h2>Is it only attitudes toward same-sex couples?</h2>
<p>This finding poses the question of whether the pattern extends to people’s views about social equity in other life domains.</p>
<p>To test this, I extended the HILDA Survey analysis to examine the associations between cognitive ability and supportive attitudes toward women’s emancipation, women’s capability as political leaders, and single mothers.</p>
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<p>The same pattern emerged across all of the outcomes. Higher levels of cognitive ability were unambiguously associated with greater levels of support for egalitarian worldviews.</p>
<h2>What does it all mean?</h2>
<p>The findings do not mean that all who intend to vote “no” in the marriage ballot have a low level of cognitive ability. Nor do they mean that all those who intend to vote “yes” have a high level.</p>
<p>Yet the results suggest that, on average, people who stand against equal rights for same-sex couples are less likely to have cognitive resources that are important to participating in meaningful debate.</p>
<p>These may include the ability to: engage in abstract thinking and process complex chains of ideas; separate arguments based on facts from unfounded ones; not feel threatened by changes in the status quo; and critically engage with new or diverse viewpoints.</p>
<p>These results may thus shed some light over why some on the “no” side may be failing to offer or accept <a href="https://theconversation.com/evidence-is-clear-on-the-benefits-of-legalising-same-sex-marriage-82428">evidence-based arguments</a>, or why they keep relying on philosophically, historically or empirically <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-christians-arguing-no-on-marriage-equality-the-bible-is-not-decisive-82498">flawed ones</a>.</p>
<p>This applies, for instance, to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-are-children-better-off-with-a-mother-and-father-than-with-same-sex-parents-82313">scientifically unsupported</a> claim that children are worse off in same-sex households. In fact, these arguments are being exploited by a “no” advertising campaign that relies almost exclusively on <a href="https://theconversation.com/marriage-vote-how-advocacy-ads-exploit-our-emotions-in-divisive-debates-83501">emotional instead of rational arguments</a>.</p>
<p>It is possible many supporters of the “no” case could not be convinced by reason and evidence. If so, the “yes” side’s best way to minimise the possibility of a surprise “no” victory – one that’s driven by a mobilised minority – may be to target the overwhelming <a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-who-supports-marriage-equality-in-australia-and-who-doesnt-82988">majority of Australians</a> who support equal rights to have their say.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francisco Perales receives funding from the Australian Research Council as part of its Discovery Early Career Researcher Award scheme for a project titled 'Sexual Orientation and Life Chances in Contemporary Australia'.</span></em></p>There is a strong and statistically significant association between respondents’ cognitive ability and their support for equal rights between same- and different-sex couples.Francisco Perales, Senior Research Fellow (Institute for Social Science Research & Life Course Centre) and ARC DECRA Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/843142017-09-20T09:28:47Z2017-09-20T09:28:47ZTo me, golliwogs are racist – but a tearoom tangle and a new poll shows Britain disagrees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186601/original/file-20170919-22604-6pxb8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a café at the foot of the South Downs. On the wall hangs a golliwog. And that bothers me. So much so that, on discovering it a few weeks ago, I got into a heated argument with the owners which resulted in them calling the police, me contacting the council, and, in the end, nothing whatsoever happening.</p>
<p>That’s because the owners are adamant that they won’t be told what to do. Said golliwog has never caused offence before. Moreover, and in spite of the fact that, apparently, the stuffed toy originally came into their possession because someone left it outside the café to cast a racist slur against them (one of the owners is a Greek immigrant), it definitely isn’t racist.</p>
<p>I beg to differ. Although, as a child in the sixties and seventies, I grew up with golliwogs – on the sides of Robertson’s jam jars, in Enid Blyton’s books, in toyshops – I don’t think I actually owned one. And as I grew up, I fairly quickly came to realise – as eventually did <a href="http://www.kentlive.news/time-when-golliwog-badges-were-all-the-rage/story-30067737-detail/story.html">Robertson’s</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6359248/Noddy-returns-without-the-golliwogs.html">Blyton’s publishers</a>, and maybe even <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1136005/Chiles-reveals-truth-Carol-Thatchers-golliwog-gaffe.html">former prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s daughter, Carol</a> – that they were inescapably demeaning to black people.</p>
<p>Obviously, readers can make up their own minds – perhaps after consulting <a href="https://ferris.edu/jimcrow/golliwog/">this excellent primer</a> on the golliwog produced by Ferris State University’s <a href="https://youtu.be/yf7jAF2Tk40">Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia</a>, which uses objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice.</p>
<p>What no one should do, however, is go away with the idea that, if they end up on my side of the argument rather than on the side of the café owners and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/21/right-to-sell-golliwogs-not-something-should-be-fighting-for-in-2016-suzanne-moore">sundry other seaside shopkeepers</a>, then they’re in the majority – not if they live in the UK in 2017 anyway.</p>
<p>I know this because I commissioned a poll by YouGov to find out. We asked two questions: “Generally speaking, do you think it is or is not acceptable to sell or display a golliwog doll?” and “Do you think it is or is not racist to sell or display a golliwog doll?”</p>
<h2>Surprising attitudes</h2>
<p>The answers we got reveal that the majority of British people don’t really have a problem with golliwogs: some 53% think selling or displaying them is acceptable, compared to 27% who don’t and 20% who don’t know. Interestingly, the majority who don’t consider doing so as racist is even bigger: 63% don’t, compared to 20% who do and 17% who don’t know.</p>
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<p>But the answers also reveal big differences driven by demography, education, ethnicity, and political preferences. Indeed, the “golliwog test” might have been a pretty good predictor, for instance, as to whether someone was going to vote for or against <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/eu-referendum-2016">Brexit</a>.</p>
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<p>The older you are, the less likely you are to have a problem with golliwogs. Some 70% of over 65s think it’s acceptable to sell or display one and 80% of them are convinced that doing so isn’t racist. The figures for 18- to 24-year-olds are just 24% and 34% respectively.</p>
<p>Education seems to make a difference, too – although not as big as you might think. A plurality, but only a small one, of graduates (40% vs 37%) think it’s unacceptable to sell or display golliwogs. And when it comes to whether doing so is racist, that plurality is reversed: only 31% of graduates think it is, as against 47% who think it isn’t.</p>
<p>Less surprising, perhaps, are the stark differences with regard to ethnicity. Some 55% of white respondents think selling or displaying a golliwog is acceptable, as opposed to 29% of their ethnic minority counterparts, 43% of whom consider it unacceptable. That said, only a minority (albeit a substantial one) of the minority respondents (32%) think doing so is racist, compared to just 19% of white respondents, 65% of whom think it isn’t.</p>
<p>Maybe, though, it’s politics that provides the most striking finding. Lib Dem supporters, followed by Labour supporters, are the most likely to have a problem with golliwogs, while Conservative supporters are much less bothered. Only one in three Lib Dems think selling or displaying one is acceptable, compared to four out of ten Labour supporters and seven out of ten Tories. And when it comes to whether doing so is racist, 78% of Tories dismiss the idea, dropping to 56% of Labour supporters and 46% of Lib Dems.</p>
<h2>Leave or Remain?</h2>
<p>Most eye-catching of all the survey’s findings, however, is quite how differently the issue is seen by those who voted to leave and those who voted to stay in the EU in June 2016. Displaying or selling a golliwog is seen as acceptable by almost twice as many leavers (72%) as remainers (37%). And some 81% of leavers are convinced that doing so isn’t racist, compared to 48% of remainers.</p>
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<p>Now, no one – least of all me – is arguing that we judge whether a symbol or stereotype is or isn’t unacceptable or racist according to whether a majority or plurality of people think it is. It’s perfectly legitimate to argue that something is (or is not) racist, irrespective of public opinion. Conversely, it is equally possible to argue that, if a minority group feels demeaned by a symbol or stereotype obviously aimed at them, then that symbol or stereotype is demeaning whether or not others regard it as such. An awareness – implicit or explicit – that this may be the case is presumably why a few respondents to the survey don’t see displaying or selling a golliwog as racist but nevertheless think it’s unacceptable to do so.</p>
<p>Of course, what is and isn’t considered offensive or racist is socially constructed and reconstructed over time and space. Why is a golliwog, for instance, deemed acceptable when a stuffed toy based on a caricature of other enslaved racial minorities probably wouldn’t be? And could we – should we – try to change people’s views on golliwogs by telling them more about their origins?</p>
<p>Then there’s the whole debate around whether racist slurs can somehow be appropriated and turned around by those they were originally used to offend, with the paradigmatic example being the use of the N-word by (some) African Americans. Yet, even if you’re convinced that such reappropriation somehow works, how far can it be taken? Put bluntly, can a Greek really reappropriate a golliwog?</p>
<p>Finally, there is the question of property rights and free speech. In this case, the café owners, were they ever to see the results of this poll, would see that around a quarter of their potential customers would find something they’re doing unacceptable and that a fifth would find it downright racist. But if they chose to carry on regardless, taking any potential opportunity cost on the chin on the basis of their right to do as they please with their own business, should public policy support or constrain that right?</p>
<p>Answers on a (seaside) postcard, please.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some 53% of British people think it’s acceptable to display these dolls – and the difference between remainers and leavers is particularly surprising.Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.