Effects of prenatal exposure of phthalates in boys

November 18, 2009 Beth Kelley2 Comments

First came across this in Discover Magazine:

A new study in the International Journal of Andrology has raised a storm of concern that prenatal exposure to these chemicals could make boys less masculine in their play preferences.

Phthalates, which block the activity of male hormones such as androgens, could be altering masculine brain development, according to Shanna H. Swan, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester Medical Center and lead author of the new report [Los Angeles Times]. To test whether that link extended into behavior, Swan’s team tested women for phthalate levels midway through their pregnancy and then checked back in on the children four to seven years later.

The researchers asked parents to report their children’s patterns of play, but they knew they also had to separate any potential phthalate effect from the “nuture ” side of question. To determine how parental views might sway behavior, parents completed a survey that included questions such as, “What would you do if you had a boy who preferred toys that girls usually play with?” They were asked to respond with whether they would support or discourage such behavior, and how strongly [TIME].

The study of about 150 kids found that while girls were mostly unaffected, boys who had been exposed to the highest phthalate levels showed a lower likelihood than other boys to participate in what we consider typical rough-and-tumble male recreation—play fighting, pretending to play with guns, and so on. But the research might not imply the national masculinity crisis that some headlines suggest. Play in the most highly phthalate-exposed boys wasn’t “feminized,” Swan explains, since these kids didn’t preferentially play with dolls or don dresses. Rather, she says, “we’d describe their play as less masculine” [Science News]. Rather than play-fighting, she says, those boys tended toward “gender neutral” play like putting puzzles together or competing in sports.

Read full article here.

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Laughter among primates

June 4, 2009 Beth Kelley

Lots of cool research has been published lately about primates and how complicated and awesome we are.

The latest is research showing that at least four primates other than humans use the same muscles, vocal intonations, and so on, to laugh at stuff that is funny, namely tickling.

I have more that I can share later, but for now: more adorable photos of primates from Woodland Park Zoo.

Rafe also had an awesome encounter with a snow leopard; definitely a complex interplay between mammals there. I’ll ask him to blog about it here.

design · play

Playful spaces

May 12, 2009 Beth Kelley

Bruno Taylor set up a swing set at a bus stop to encourage grown-ups to play. Awesome!

He is actually studying how to create playful spaces.

happiness · play

C’mon, get happy!

April 22, 2009 Beth Kelley1 Comment

Why? For one thing, your smile predicts how happy you’ll be in marriage. However, love at first sight might be genetic, so don’t take it too hard if you don’t feel immediate sparks.

If you need help getting happy and connecting with others, try playing. Why? Because play is the glue that keeps societies together, according to Peter Gray.

“Hunter-gatherers used humor, deliberately, to maintain equality and stop quarrels, Gray contends, and their means of sharing had game-like qualities. Their religious beliefs and ceremonies were playful, founded on assumptions of equality, humor, and capriciousness among the deities. They maintained playful attitudes in their hunting, gathering, and other sustenance activities, partly by allowing each person to choose when, how, and how much they would engage in such activities.”

Just remember, play is important to your social well-being.

You know what also works? Tickling and scritching.

play

We got to play with Siamangs

January 8, 2009 Beth Kelley

Rafe and I visited the Woodland Park Zoo on January 2nd. We LOVE going to the zoo but rarely get to, so this was a big treat for us. What made it more exciting was that the animals hadn’t had many visitors in the past couple of weeks due to bad weather and holidays, so they were excited to see us too. Even on this freezing cold day any of the animals that had thick fur were out and about, lounging around on rocks or scrounging their habitats for food. We got to see animals that normally wouldn’t give zoo visitors so much as a glance: snow leopards, a wolf, wild dogs, even the gorillas seemed in a good mood. They viewed us from their side of the fence, totally comfortable with us staring back like the obsessed fans and paparazzi we truly are.

But the most exciting interaction that day was between Rafe and a siamang (a type of gibbon). They are tropical animals, and so were keeping warm inside their enclosure. They are typically friendly and interested in the humans that come by, and today was no exception.

As we walked up to peer inside their enclosure, the female siamang came over to look at us. Rafe, a large and fairly intimidating figure, got down to a crouching position in hopes the siamang would come over to see us. Instead, she hopped and shook at us. We weren’t sure if this was a threat behavior or not. The siamang shook and jumped again. This time Rafe tried it too. This frankly shocked the siamang, and so she did it a third time. When Rafe jumped a second time, she came straight over to the glass, as if to give Rafe a piece of her mind. She stared at him intently. Then, she turned her back towards him, almost as if a child does when pouting. She glanced over her shoulder at him. She reached out her right hand, one of her long fingers extended. Rafe pretended to grab it through the glass. She sort of wiggled her finger in response, and kept staring at Rafe. So Rafe tried something else. He started play-grooming her through the glass.

It looked very silly, this big man squatting down picking at the glass next to a siamang’s back. I expected the siamang to jump back from this weirdo (gently) tapping and scraping on her window. But instead, she seemed to relax into it. She put her arm down and turned away from Rafe so that she was no longer looking at him, but seemed interested in him continuing. He kept miming picking at her fur, even pretend ate a couple of mites he found.

This behavior went on for awhile. The siamang would look back occasionally to make sure Rafe was still going, especially if he paused for a minute, and so Rafe continued. The sight of a grown man grooming a siamang got the attention of a couple of other zoo goers, and they came over to watch. The siamang just stayed right there, being play-groomed.

Eventually Rafe stopped, and the siamang sort of looked up at him expectantly. Then she quickly jumped down from her side of the glass and swung off to explore other things.

Rafe and I giggled at this event and continued through the exhibit to see the other siamang. But the female wasn’t done yet, and found us at another window. Once again Rafe crouched on all fours to say hello again. She came over to the glass, and reached out a hand for Rafe. She then turned her back to the glass, again as if she weren’t interested in him. Rafe began grooming her. She looked over her shoulder at Rafe, and seemed content to continue this activity. Just to see what would happen, Rafe stopped and moved over to another part of the glass. The siamang followed, and repositioned herself against the glass. Rafe continued grooming.

This was an incredibly odd sight to see a human primate being allowed, nay, encouraged, to groom a siamang, even if it was through the safety of thick glass. It seems unlikely that she could have felt him as he gently tapped his two fingers against the glass as he grabbed at imaginary mites.

Again a crowd formed, and eventually one of them said he should turn around and present his back to the siamang to be groomed. He did. For a second, they just sat there, back to back. Then, she turned around and actually started to groom Rafe. A pick here, a pick there, through the glass she grabbed at invisible mites. After about 20 seconds though, she turned around and pressed herself back up against the glass, and it was once again Rafe’s turn. We all laughed, someone said she was being selfish, and Rafe went right back to grooming her.

Eventually the crowd dispersed, and it was time to move away from the siamang enclosure. Rafe stopped grooming her and sat back on his haunches. She was not looking at him but realized he had stopped grooming her, and turned to look at him. Rafe put his hand up against the glass to say good bye, and if I remember correctly she tapped at it, but almost as if to request more grooming. Rafe instead stood up and walked to the other side of the glass. The siamang followed him there, and when she realized their grooming session was over, hopped over to a branch in her enclosure and then ran off to find other exciting things.

As we walked away we couldn’t help but laugh in awe and amazement at this interaction. First, who thinks to play-groom with a wild animal, especially through practically bullet-proof glass? Apparently Rafe does. And the fact that the siamang took to it was just amazing, and almost unreal to see. Let alone that the siamang actually groomed Rafe back, albeit for only a short, half-hearted time. The inter-species interaction was completely surreal.

Did anyone else happen to be at the zoo that day and see this? What was your reaction? Have you ever seen this type of behavior before, not even from siamangs specifically, just other primates in general? After this event I almost wonder if this is something the siamang has tricked other visitors into doing, but again, who thinks to play-groom?

play

In the good ol’ days…

August 28, 2008 Beth Kelley

When I was your age, grandkids, we lived in caves, and we walked everywhere in the snow, uphill, both ways. Why, back in my day, Neolithic women had fashion sense (study from 2007), not like today. Neanderthals created tools just as good as the cro magnon’s. Okay, maybe they weren’t as creative in their tools, but good work, they did.

Ah, *spit* you kids these days are all weak, you don’t get enough “dangerous” exercise, like chasing saber tooth cats around. Boy, those were the days.

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Dancing Matt videos: a positive critique

July 10, 2008 Beth Kelley

I honestly had never heard of this guy until a few months ago (apparently he’s been a viral internet celebrity for almost two years now), but watching this interview of Matt made some really good points. Having been trained as an anthropologist, I find the connection of people from completely different cultures through the Internet and through (silly) dance fascinating and wonderful. There are many reasons, such as:

1. There are definitely downsides to globalization, but when I see things like this it reminds me that there are some good parts to it too. People are connected in very different ways than they used to be, and community is no longer determined exclusively by geography.

2. The fact that dance is being used so successfully to bring everyone out is great, and it shows just how universal dancing really is.

3. There is also the point that the dance is silly, and lots of people (granted mostly young adults and kids) are willing to go on film, and all over the world, dancing and being silly and playing. Play is something that has been totally disregarded as important in the last 60 years my humble opinion (or IMHO for those of you who knew about this guy before now), when in fact play and creativity have been shown to be so important for brain development and just coming up with new solutions to problems. It is time that “play” returned to everyone’s positive vernacular, and just as everyone knows they need to brush their teeth and exercise, they also need to play. And watching Dancing Matt doesn’t count; dancing like Dancing Matt does.

children · play · psychology

NY mom lets kid ride subway, gets socially whipped

April 27, 2008 Beth Kelley

I did not know about this until the article in Newsweek came out, but apparently a woman let her 4th grader ride the subway alone to go home early from a shopping trip. I say good for her. Kids today are too protected, coddled, and not trusted to be responsible human beings. She even created her own blog, Free Range Kids. I hope this trend continues, with books like A Nation of Wimps and most modern psychologists promoting independence in children rather than protecting, it’s time that America regained its independent, rugged streak and grew up a little bit!

anthropology · children · play

Review: The Association for the Study of Play Conference

March 8, 2008 Beth Kelley

I am currently sitting in the airport on my way home from the 34th annual conference for The Association for the Study of Play (TASP), held in sunny Tempe, AZ.
I gave a presentation about how parkour is a form of grown-up freeform play, as opposed to soccer or working out at the gym. Freeform or “unstructured” play is something you see kids do all the time, but grown-ups generally stop doing it all together. Parkour does not, and instead encourages grown-ups to keep that kid spirit of finding play in every aspect of your environment, and seeing play as important as work or leisure.
But enough about me, onto the conference. Most of the conference was dominated by early childhood development researchers (0-5 years old), and how play is beneficial to them. Which is great, I’m all for it. However, that sort of meant that left the rest of us anthropologists, sociologists, pirmatologists, psychologists, older kid play specialists, and other researchers out on our own. We were heard, for sure, but the conference was truly dominated by them; there were only seven sessions out of 21 that didn’t feature early childhood studies (this count includes workshops and panels).
But all moaning aside, it was a great conference, for one thing because you didn’t have to explain why you were studying play, or why it was important/beneficial/worth studying/etc. I reluctantly stayed through Saturday for the session on the use of digital photography in play studies, and it was the best session of the whole event. Two of the women were doing exactly what I’d like to do as a study and research focus (namely giving people (kids) cameras as learning and research tools and see what they come up with). Unfortunately, neither of them good answer exactly what they were going to do with their research once it was done. Dr. Laurelle Phillips had expanded the use of cameras at her school to other classrooms, but the school was located on her university so they could afford to buy three cameras per classroom. Doctoral candidate Carol Borran wasn’t sure what she was going to do with her work other than get her thesis. I spent the majority of Saturday talking with her and Dr. Pat Broadhead, and they were wonderful, both encouraging me to take time off from my research studies but also pursue a doctoral degree in my area of study. Dr. Broadhead said I could be Professor of Playful Spaces, which I must admit does sound cool. Usually the whole reason to go to conferences is to network, and while I regret I really didn’t get into it until the very last day, I got to see some amazing research and speaking with those two women was wonderful; just to hear their attitude about things, to get an outsider’s view of American attitudes to policy and pushing back against “the man.”
There was a paper I wished I’d seen but was canceled, which was a study of portrayal of masculinity through MMA fighting.
I got some good sun, good experience presenting (I think this was the first time ever I wasn’t really nervous going up and presenting in front of a group. I almost wondered what was wrong with me), and some good brain stimulation. So all in all good stuff.
For now I will leave you with a meditative question from the chair of the conference, Dr. David Kuschner: “If there is a toy in the woods and there is no one to play with it, is it really a toy?”