Mapping The Western World

This topic submitted by Michael, Allison, Lene (forresmd@muohio.edu) at 11:14 am on 5/4/01. Additions were last made on Friday, May 4, 2001. Section: Myers.

Mike Forrester
Lene Martin
Allison Vasquez
Final Project
NSII 200-315

MAPPING THE WESTERN WORLD
ABSTRACT
Humans are social animals. As social animals, we have developed a complex social structure, or hierarchy, under which every member is recognized. There are certain qualities a person can possess that others in the society may regard as desirable or undesirable. Our project takes into consideration two very important aspects of human nature- mate choice and social groupings- and attempt to discover if there are any common trends or obvious exemptions in what humans look for as the most important characteristics in mates and what people desire of their own social collective. Do people generally yearn for the same variety of traits in someone with whom they subsist as they do in a potential mate? Is what a person needs in a mate radically different from what a person demands from a common community member? How can these similarities or difference be explained when looking at them through the ideals of evolutionary psychology?

INTRODUCTION
We felt that this topic of Mate vs. Community would be especially interesting if applied to our own Western Population. We wanted to know what personality traits Western students felt were imperative not only when considering a mate but when figuring what makes up the ideal community. Therefore, we proposed to create a map or scale of the social structure that exists in the Western College Program in order to find what Western members desire in their mates and of their community, and if there really are similarities between what human traits the Western Community as a whole embraces in its members (or does not embrace) and what qualities the individuals of Western Campus personally value for their mate selection. It is also felt that a college atmosphere is the ideal environment to explore our topic because it reflects a smaller society’s response to the necessity of readjusting values when balancing a larger society’s hierarchy within its own values. The influence an “outside” society is present in the smaller, college-based society in many respects- experiences in home towns, family associations, and ethnic ties- and this ‘outside’ society exists through many different persons in an atmosphere that is a smaller, more intimate societal construct which is assembled through its common classes, personal dorm life, and close-knit social groupings.
We believe that the two constructed scales will have blatant similarities because we feel that the attributes people look for in a mate will also translate into what they would like their community as a whole to represent. We also expect a few striking differences, which may be explainable by the theories encompassed in evolutionary psychology.

RELEVANCE
By investigating and determining the social hierarchy of a society, a heightened understanding of its people and their nature will be evident, and the ensured success of a society depends upon the understanding of its own inner structures. It is doubtful that any true egalitarian human society has ever existed. Some societies may not possess a verbalized concept of status but probably have an inherent idea of status that permeates the society and the values of its people, and the members treat each other and act accordingly. There are people within any society who have “low” status- rather, those who are not seen as possessing many desirable traits- and there are members who have “high” status- or those who are viewed as owning an abundance of desirable traits- and it is likely that most are unconsciously aware of how this hierarchal order came to be. But why is it that those who are defined by their society as “low” status members play these games of social hierarchy? (Wright 238). “One can imagine reasons. Maybe hierarchy makes the whole group so cohesive that most or all members benefit, even if they benefit unequally…In other words, maybe hierarchies serve ‘the good of the group’ and are thus favored by ‘group selection’” (Wright 238).
Yet what is it that dictates who or what is important to the group and why? Surely, people of a society do not hold meetings to consciously elect characteristics that the general public will hold most noteworthy or avoid most avidly. In consideration, one may bring in the idea that the people are not consciously in control of what they admire. In fact, many biologists look to animals- which are commonly held as being on a more primitive, instinct-based level- to hypothesize how people come to admire or shun the attributes that they do, since they do not seem to choose which attribute deserves which response consciously. Here, one biologist cites his observations of a particular animal- the hen- to illustrate the subconscious inclinations towards forming a hierarchy that permeates not only human societies but other animal groupings as well. The Norwegian biologist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe noticed a pattern in the 1920s while studying hens that he called the “pecking order”- When a large number of hens exist together they initially encounter chaos and battle for power, but as time passes a chain of command is established. Every hen knows to which hen(s) it must succumb, when and where it may eat, and other rules of behavior (Wright 239). The pattern is created because a linear hierarchy has been formed. “Pecking orders are yet another case where the ‘thinking’ has been done by natural selection, and so needn’t be done by the organism” (Wright 240).
So if the actual organism is not in charge of deciding which attributes garner the respect of the community members, and it is theorized that something altogether different is deciding the rules of life, what evidence is there that this is true? Is there a universal rule dictating what all animals respect?
Similar status hierarchies do not only materialize in humans and hens. In fact, they emerge with clarity in our closest relatives, the chimps and bonobos. Furthermore, they are also found in gorillas and in many other primates. “Nonhuman primates send some of the same status signals as people” (Wright 242). Generally, dominant primate males have a large strut and carry themselves proudly. In addition, after two chimpanzees fight because of status, the loser bows and crouches submissively. To parallel the status signals of the primates, “a proud man exhibits his sense of superiority over others by holding his head and body erect” (Wright 242). Studies performed revealed that posture became straighter right after social triumph, for example, when a student received a high test-score. The ethologist Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt would find that children in diverse cultures, after losing a fight, would lower their heads (Wright 242), much like the aforementioned chimpanzees.
There may be evidence that we parallel animals in some rare instances, but what about humans imitating other humans? If a universal rule truly does exist, it should be able to transgress the differing rules of dissimilar societies, and more than a few common status signals should be obvious. Wright elucidates on this when he states, “Some of the ways people signify their status, and the status of others, seem to hold steady across cultures” (Wright 242). Humans possess universal features, gestures, and expressions. For instance, there is a common tendency for Homo sapiens to smile and laugh to impart pleasure, to grimace or cry when communicating pain, and to frown or stare when conveying anger (Sociobiology and Biological Reductionism 130-131). “Darwin himself, after widely questioning missionaries and other world travelers, concluded that ‘scorn, disdain, contempt, and disgust are expressed in many different ways, by movements of the features, and by various gestures; and that these are the same throughout the world” (Wright 242). These universal expressions reveal that “people in all cultures feel pride upon social success, embarrassment, even shame, upon failure, and, at times, anxiety pending these outcomes” (Wright 242).
And if the common law of status signaling not enough, then one may turn to those who imitate society’s most prominent members- children imitating the all powerful adults… or even just those older than they. Truly, the fact that children imitate older children and adults is one proof that a subtle aspect of dominance and hierarchy exists- one of the older automatically ruling the younger. Besides respecting age through imitation, though, it has been shown that elementary school children have developed a very complex social hierarchy where the qualities that are being placed as a priority in their minds are the same ones that occur in the social hierarchy for older school children. This has come as a shock to many scientists who previously thought that younger children’s social status was significantly different from that of older school children. Qualities that these elementary school children, ranging from kindergarten through fifth grades, admired were athletic ability, socio-economic status of the parents, ‘coolness’ (which can be recognized by attitude and clothes that the children wear), toughness, savoir-faire, successful relationships with the opposite sex, and physical appearance. Children were split, though, in relationship to academic performance. For boys, the optimal status was seen to be establishing oneself in the middle ground- not excelling or falling behind. It was essential to be in the norm, the average, or one would risk being called a nerd. For girls, on the other hand, it was found that academic performance was not really important in determining the girls’ social status (Adler, Kless and Adler 169-187).
For decades, psychologists and sociologists have studied the dynamics of social hierarchy. “Put a group of children together, and before long they fall into distinct grades. The ones at the top are best liked, most frequently imitated, and, when they try to wield influence, best obeyed” (Wright 241). As stated before, what is most frequently imitated is one of the best ways to discover what is held as important to a society.
The formation of hierarchies cannot only be evaluated with school children, but also with children only one year old. From early on in a human’s life, status means toughness. Children who are high in status are the ones who do not back down or give in, and, according to Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal, toughness matters all through adolescence.
In addition to the pattern of social order and traits, there is also a “hawk-dove” analysis that explains dominance and submission in a society. According to John Maynard Smith’s analysis, a population should in theory become equal, with a fixed ratio of dominants to submissives. This is because displaying dominant attitudes (for instance, walking around forcing those less aggressive to give up food due to intimidation) is permitted as long as there are plenty of those who will submit in supply. However, as the concept spreads, there are fewer and fewer compliant organisms to use and therefore the assertive animals are forced to battle other very aggressive members. As a result, the submissive animals can thrive because even though they may be forced to give up food, they are able to avoid the fighting. And it is in this way that the population should, in theory, equilibrate (Wright 240-241). In a hierarchal society, people take on the respective roles of submissive and dominant, evident in professional work settings, school environments, and any other social settings.
So if it is obvious that there are hierarchies for every social grouping- from small collections of hens up to immense societies of humans- and that there are certain characteristics that are ‘respected’ in all societies, then why attempt to ‘map’ our Western world?
For when one closely studies a certain society, small differences in the hierarchal patterns emerge. The intricate inner workings of a specific society impart much information about the members of that particular community, and, as stated above, heightened understanding of the nature of a community lends to its success in the future. The more one understands the members of a community, the more the members’ needs are recognized, and the easier it is to see exactly what the community will accept, reject, or desire.
The Western Community, with its ideals of providing an alternative to the normal methods of living and learning, should have the opportunity to exhibit what traits it really does encompass. It should have the chance to open doors to a deeper understanding of what really is being cultivated in a community that prides itself in being different from the rest. And then it should be able to look to some sort of concrete information resulting form that opportunity and discover what attributes its own members actually feel are welcomed, nurtured, and embraced.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We first created our three-page survey. On the first two pages, through the middle of the pages, we put a list of 34 different traits (the same list on each page, the list had mixed traits, both positive and negative, in no specific category or order). On either side of each trait was a blank line. On the left side of the traits, the blank line was to be used for marking the “desirable” traits. On the right side the line was to be used if marking the trait as “undesirable”.
The first page of traits was to determine what traits were most valued by the surveyee personally when regarding potential mates. The surveyee was instructed to pull out ten, and only ten, traits that s/he thought were the most important, and then rank those ten in order from one being most desirable, down through ten, with decreasing desirability. In the right hand column of the first page, the surveyee was to rank ten undesirable traits in the same way, with one being most undesirable down through ten, with decreasing undesirability.
The second page worked the same way as the first, except this time the surveyee was to think of what traits the Western Community as a whole embraced in its members, and rank them accordingly.
The third page included a place to mark whether the surveyee was a male or female, and then a space to fill in their age.
The third also included instructions for the surveyee to list his/her top five most positive qualities (chosen from the prefabricated list on the previous pages) in order from most prominent on the blank line labeled “1” to the least prominent on the blank labeled “5”. Five numbered blanks were given.
The last section included on the third page was much like the previous section, except the surveyee was asked to rank his/her top five most negative qualities, much in the same way that s/he did for his/her positive qualities. Five numbered blanks were given for this section also.
The survey was handed out to random males and females living in the three Western dorms- Mary Lyon, McKee and Peabody- and when the surveyees were finished, we collected them back and we then spent countless hours over the surveys tabulating the results. These results were not put into a statistical program because we felt that there were significant disadvantages to using a program such as Stat-View because it could not take into account all of the results at once. All the program could do was out put information that did not look at how many times a certain trait came up over time. The program could only show that trait in a specific placement and ranking and not overall.
Therefore, we tallied by hand how many times a certain trait was mentioned in the different “Top Tens” for each survey, and then calculated a summary Top Ten for each of the major categories- Desirable Mate, Undesirable Mate, Desirable Western, Undesirable Western- by placing whichever trait occurred in each Top Ten the most as number one, the second most as spot number two, and so on.
For the Individual Positive and Individual Negative Top Five lists (calculated form the third page), we did the same, except each list included only rankings one through five.
In order to estimate results, we compared not only the different Top Ten lists (for example, was the top ranking trait for a Desirable Mate the same as the number one trait for a Desirable Western member?) but also looked over what individuals ranked as personal Top Fives and compared them to the Top Tens.
In order to provide an even more stark comparison, tables that blatantly compare the tallies for each individual trait are included.
Our sample for this survey had to be very specific in relationship to the questions that we asked. Since we were trying to map the Western College world it was essential that every member of our survey must live on Western. We did not make being an actual Western major a requirement because we felt that everyone who lives in the three Western dorms (Peabody, McKee, Mary Lyon) were equal contributors to the Western College Community. These individuals come from a wide variety of backgrounds as well as different majors. All of the students surveyed did have one thing in common though, which was that they all live on Western. Also, we tried to survey as many males as we did females, and ended up with 21 males and 21 females.

RESULTS
As predicted, the Top Tens (for desirable and for undesirable) for Mate vs. Western were uncannily similar (see TABLE 1). For the desirable traits, both Mate and Western results ranked Intelligence as the number one most important attribute in a mate or Western community member. Each list also included, in different rankings: caring, trustworthy, individual, humorous, responsible, and articulate. Yet not all of the attributes match up. Physically attractive and Moral are ranked in the Mate category and are not ranked in Community selections. And only in Western members are being involved in the community and politically active are important.
When considering the traits that are most undesirable, all of these traits are shared between the two categories: shallow, disloyal, selfish, dishonest, self-absorbed, vain, unsympathetic, cocky and apathetic. The trait ‘bitchy’ was unique to being undesirable in a mate, and being unsociable was seen as being more undesirable in a Western member than in a mate.

TABLE 1

“TOP TENS”

DESIRABLE MATE DESIRABLE WESTERN
1 Intelligent 42 1 Intelligent 42
2 Caring 39 2 Community Involved 40
3 Individual 37 3 Individual 40
4 Honest 36 4 Caring 38
5 Humorous 36 5 Responsible 35
6 Trustworthy 35 6 Honest 34
7 Responsible 31 7 Humorous 33
8 Physically Attractive 26 8 Articulate 28
9 Articulate 21 9 Trustworthy 28
10 Moral 17 10 Politically Active 22

UNDESIRABLE MATE UNDESIRABLE WESTERN
1 Shallow 37 1 Unsympathetic 32
2 Disloyal 35 2 Shallow 30
3 Selfish 33 3 Selfish 29
4 Dishonest 33 4 Self-Absorbed 28
5 Self-Absorbed 30 5 Disloyal 28
6 Vain 29 6 Vain 27
7 Unsympathetic 28 7 Unsociable 26
8 Bitchy 24 8 Dishonest 24
9 Cocky 23 9 Cocky 24
10 Apathetic 23 10 Apathetic 22

“TOP FIVES”

POSITIVE INDIVIDUAL NEGATIVE INDIVIDUAL
1 Caring 25 1 Unsociable 21
2 Intelligent 24 2 Selfish 20
3 Honest 23 3 Bitchy 18
4 Humorous 22 4 Cynical 17
5 Trustworthy/ 17 5 Self-Absorbed 15
Individual 17

TABLE 2

DESIRABLE TRAIT COMPARISONS

MATE WESTERN
1 HONEST 36 34
2 DEMOCRATIC 7 16
3 CHRISTIAN 8 2
4 SELF-ABSORBED 1 1
5 CARING 39 38
6 RESPONSIBLE 31 35
7 COMMUNITY INVOLVED 12 40
8 UNSYMPATHETIC 0 1
9 MORAL 17 15
10 REPUBLICAN 1 1
11 PHYSICALLY ATTRACTIVE 26 7
12 INTELLIGENT 42 42
13 SHALLOW 0 1
14 DISLOYAL 0 0
15 INDIVIDUAL 37 40
16 EXTROVERTED 12 21
17 VAIN 0 0
18 STUDIOUS 10 17
19 ATHLETIC 8 3
20 BITCHY 0 0
21 SECULAR 2 2
22 UNSOCIABLE 0 2
23 PHYSICALLY UNATTRACTIVE 0 1
24 SELFISH 0 0
25 HUMOROUS 36 33
26 ARTICULATE 21 28
27 DITZY 0 0
28 DISHONEST 0 2
29 COCKY 3 2
30 TRUSTWORTHY 35 28
31 POLITICALLY ACTIVE 10 22
32 APATHETIC 0 1
33 GREEK (FRAT/SORORITY) 1 0
34 CYNICAL 4 8

TABLE 3

UNDESIRABLE TRAIT COMPARISONS

MATE WESTERN
1 HONEST 1 0
2 DEMOCRATIC 1 6
3 CHRISTIAN 7 11
4 SELF-ABSORBED 30 28
5 CARING 0 0
6 RESPONSIBLE 0 2
7 COMMUNITY INVOLVED 4 0
8 UNSYMPATHETIC 28 32
9 MORAL 0 2
10 REPUBLICAN 12 16
11 PHYSICALLY ATTRACTIVE 0 0
12 INTELLIGENT 0 0
13 SHALLOW 37 30
14 DISLOYAL 35 28
15 INDIVIDUAL 1 0
16 EXTROVERTED 0 0
17 VAIN 29 27
18 STUDIOUS 1 3
19 ATHLETIC 0 4
20 BITCHY 24 19
21 SECULAR 4 3
22 UNSOCIABLE 22 26
23 PHYSICALLY UNATTRACTIVE 21 3
24 SELFISH 33 29
25 HUMOROUS 0 1
26 ARTICULATE 1 0
27 DITZY 15 18
28 DISHONEST 33 24
29 COCKY 23 24
30 TRUSTWORTHY 0 0
31 POLITICALLY ACTIVE 0 1
32 APATHETIC 23 22
33 GREEK (FRAT/SORORITY) 3 17
34 CYNICAL 15 13

DISCUSSION/ CONCLUSION
As stated above, many of the traits ranked in the Top Ten lists were similar. This finding provides backbone to the hypothesis that the traits one desires in a mate are also what one desires the ideal society to reflect. But the differences are what are most interesting- the most desirable traits of physically attractive and moral appeared solely on the Mate choice lists. This could be explained by the idea that one desires one’s mate to have a high moral grounding (and therefore be less inclined to cheat) and also for the mate to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible, for it is theorized that humans find people who are genetically sound more physically appealing, and will therefore increase the chances of their progeny being healthier and more attractive with more reproductive success.
The desirable qualities that are unique to community members can also be studied in terms of their category- members who are involved in the community and who have political awareness can be seen on the whole as an asset to any community, ensuring that its members are heard and that their desires known.
Undesirably speaking, for mate choice it is not so much what is unique to the category, but how the similar traits are rated within the list. Disloyalty and dishonesty are among the very top undesirable qualities when looking for a mate, which once again brings up the idea that people do not want their mate to lie to them or cheat on them, and among community members it is not ranked as nearly undesirable. In the Western category, though, being unsociable is a trait that made it only on the Community list, which speaks to the idea that interaction is once again very highly regarded- a very social member could be seen as popular or as one who knows many people and their desires.
Also very interesting are the comparisons of each individual trait in the different categories and the number of ‘votes’ it accumulated (see TABLE 2, 3). For example, being Christian was only ranked seven times as undesirable in the Mate choice lists, but it appeared almost twice as many times as undesirable for a Western Community member. Physically attractive was ranked in the desirable Mate lists over three times as many instances as it was rated in what is desirable for a Community member.
Also to be taken into consideration are the Individual rankings or Top Five lists (see TABLE 1) and how they compare to the Top Ten lists. It seems that individuals ranked themselves as having mostly what is desired in both categories, hinting that people may want to find other people who are at least as desirable as they are, and that most people realize that possess attributes that they would not want others to possess, for the undesirable categories were very similar as well.

CONCLUSIONS/DISCUSSIONS
In conclusion, it would seem as though most people desire in a mate what they feel would make a good member of society, and then tweak the attributes to increase the percentage of reproductive success (physical attractiveness and loyalty). In order to hand-make a respectable member of the Western society, one must include what it generally takes to be seen as a good person, and then add in some strong community ties- ones that prove the member will not only be active but outspoken and social, and who will pay attention to different issues and needs of the community and its members.
We felt that one of the most interesting sections of our project were TABLES 2 and 3, because these provided very blunt, interesting, and easily read comparisons. They provide much information as to what stereotypes Western students really do embrace, and reinforce the obvious ideals of what one looks for when searching for a mate.
Although we feel that this project represents as accurately as possibly the general outlooks of the Western community, if we were to do anything different next time, it would be to either a) include a main campus portion of the project and see what differences the main campus kids have from Westerners, or b) attempt to survey all Western members and come up with a comprehensive and literal list of what we as a community love and loathe.
We feel as though this truly was a good device for delving into the Community’s psyche, and that the results accurately reflect the intelligence and individuality of our Western World.

WORKS CITED

Adler, Patricia A., Steven J. Kless, and Peter Adler. Socialization to Gender
Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls. Sociology of Education, Vol. 65, No. 3. (Jul., 1992), pp. 169-187.

Chase, Ivan D. Social Process and Hierarchy Formation in Small Groups: A
Comparative Perspective. American Sociological Review, Vol. 45, No. 6. (Dec., 1980), pp. 905-924.

Conway, Michael. “A Status Account of Gender Stereotypes: Beyond Communality
and Agency”. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. August 2000.

Galliher, Renee V. “Power and Psychological Well-Being in Late Adolescent
Romantic Relationships”. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. May 2000.

Howard, Judith A. A Social Cognitive Conception of Social Structure. Social
Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 3, Special Issue: Conceptualizing Structure in Social Psychology. (Sep., 1994), pp. 210-227.

Lubinski, David. “Scientific and Social Significance of Assessing Individual
Differences: Sinking Shafts at a few Critical Points”. Annual Review of Psychology. Annual 2000.

Macrae, C. Neil. “Social Cognition: Thinking Categorically About Others”.
Annual Review of Psychology. Annual 2000.

Wood, Wendy. “Attitude Change”. Annual Review of Psychology. Annual, 2000.

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