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Nelson Mandela’s leadership: born or made?

By Julian Barling

Retrospectively understanding the leadership of anyone who has achieved iconic status is made difficult because we ascribe to them our own needs, dreams, and fears. When we try and understand the leadership of Nelson Mandela, it’s natural to think that leadership must be something you are born to do. As but one example, organizational scholar Rosabeth Moss Kanter observed that “There are very few people in the world who could have done what he did. … He’s off the charts when it comes to leadership,” adding “I think Nelson Mandela … had to be a natural leader….I think you probably have to be born Mandela.”

But to believe that genetic factors alone explain Mandela’s leadership ignores the critical role of his early socialization —a common mistake among many biographers whose focus was on Mandela after he assumed leadership positions in the ANC in the 1950s. From scholars who gave serious attention to Mandela’s early life, one thing is clear: while most rural black children in South Africa lived lives of privation, this was not Mandela’s plight. Mandela led a life of relative privilege. He was a member of the royal family of the ruling Thembu clan, and after his father’s death when he was 10, Mandela was accepted by the family of the Regent of the Thembu.

Mandela attended elite schools, becoming a prefect in his elementary school—a position of considerable status, responsibility and authority, and then attended a prestigious secondary school. These extraordinary opportunities continued when Mandela enrolled at Fort Hare University in 1940, one of about 50 black Southern Africans who did so when few young black men would have even completed secondary school.

The influence of Fort Hare University in Mandela’s politicization and leadership development cannot be ignored. Presidents Kaunda of Zambia, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Nyerere of Tanzania, interim President of Uganda Lule, and Botswana Prime Minister Sir Seretse Khama all attended this university, as did many others who became leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa (e.g. Chris Hani, Govan Mbeki, Robert Sobukwe, Oliver Tambo), making clear how important attending Fort Hare University was for Mandela at such an impressionable time of his life.

When Mandela arrived in Johannesburg after leaving university, he met Walter Sisulu, an ANC stalwart, who became a lifelong mentor. Mandela served as an articled law clerk in Johannesburg in 1946 when the national census could identify only 18 African lawyers and 13 articled clerks. Through his encounters with the white community, he saw black and white role models interacting, watched Blacks challenge authority and did so himself.

Understanding Mandela’s extraordinary leadership thus requires that we go beyond any genetic influences and consider the roles of early adversity with his father’s death, a supportive family environment, leadership opportunities from elementary school onwards, and a rich political environment when he was most open to influence.

Julian Barling is the Borden Chair of Leadership and Queens Research Chair at the Queen’s School of Business. Barling is extensively involved in research, graduate teaching, and executive development focused on organizational leadership, and has received numerous awards for research and teaching. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2002, and is a Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Canadian Psychological Society. He is the author of The Science of Leadership published by Oxford University Press.

Image credit: Johannesburg, South Africa – February 13, 1990 : Former South African President Nelson Mandela, shows the freedom salute after his release from prison. © ruvanboshoff via iStockphoto.

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Who is Pope Francis?

Pope Francis at Varginha, 27 July 2013. Photo by Agencia Brasil. CC 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

By Alyssa Bender

Pope Francis hasn’t been the Pope for even a year, and he has been selected as TIME magazine’s Person of the Year. How well do you know this news-making Pope? Take our quiz to test your knowledge.

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Alyssa Bender is a marketing associate at Oxford University Press. She works on the religion Academic/Trade and Reference titles as well as bibles.

In The Catholic Church: What Everyone Needs to Know, John L. Allen, Jr., one of the world’s leading authorities on the Vatican, offers an authoritative and accessible guide to the past, present, and future of the Church. An updated edition is forthcoming in March 2014, covering the new Pope Francis.

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Holiday party conversation starters from OUP

The time for holiday dinner parties is approaching. Bring more than a smile and a sweater to your next soiree. Offer your family and friends the most powerful libation: knowledge. Here are some gems that you can drop to keep the conversation sparkling.

The Chronicle of Jazz by Mervyn Cooke

During the World War I, Lieutenant James Reese was the director of the all-black military band of the 369th US Infantry, “The Hellfighters”. In France, they played in several cities during a six week period from February to March 1918, and were met with much success.

A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities by J.C. McKeown

The original meaning of the word tragedy is “goat song.” This is because actors in ancient Greece often dressed up as goats, or goats were offered as the prize in dramatic competitions.

The Lion’s World by Rowan Williams

Lewis thought that the slow sales of The Lion upon first publication were due to the fact that some mothers and schoolteachers, “have decided that it is likely to frighten children,” later adding, “I think it frightens adults, but very few children.”

Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, Fifth Edition, edited by Gyles Brandreth

Don Marquis on the art of poetry: “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.”

In Spies We Trust by Rhodi Jeffreys-Jones

There was funding for an American intelligence agency as early as 1793 under President George Washington, amounting to almost a million dollars.

Higgs: The Invention and Discovery of the ‘God Particle’ by Jim Baggott

The Superconducting Supercollider, a massive particle accelerator complex which would have been larger than the current Large Hadron collider, was cancelled by Congress in 1993 because of budget issues, after the expenditure of over 2 billion dollars and the excavation of 23 kilometers of tunnel. The hole is still there beneath the Texas prairie town of Waxahachie.

Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr

A seventeenth-century French preacher by the name of Louis Bourdaloue was so popular that people assembled hours before his scheduled sermons. In order to not lose their seats women often brought bourdalous, chamber pots, which they could use underneath their skirts. The euphemism for bathroom, loo, is thought to come stem from this practice.

The Oxford Companion to Beer, edited by Garrett Oliver

Queen Elizabeth I was known to drink ale for breakfast.

Anything Goes by Ethan Mordden

Florenz Ziegfield Jr., creator of the pioneering Follies variety shows, first integrated Broadway. He hired Bert Williams, an African-American performer, for his Follies of 1910 show, during a time when ethnic integration was illegal.

The Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by Jancis Robinson

On the bigger Bordeaux wine estates, laborers receive a wine salary, a large allocation of wine in addition to monetary wages.

Wrong: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them by Richard S. Grossman

In the early 1600s, the King of Sweden declared that copper, along with silver, would serve as money. He did this because he owned many copper mines and thought that this policy would increase the public’s demand for copper—and also its price, making him wealthier. Because silver was about 100 times as valuable as copper, massive copper coins had to be minted, including one that weighed 43 pounds. This rendered large-scale transactions in Sweden virtually impossible without a cart and horse. It also explains why Sweden was the first European country to use paper money.

Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages by Guy Halsall

Any Arthur proto-type didn’t win his wars because of his use of heavy cavalry. There’s no evidence for fifth-/sixth-century ‘Arthurian’ heavy cavalry. Most, if not all, war-leaders at the time led warriors who had horses, who sometimes fought mounted and sometimes on foot.

Masters of the Battlefield: Great Commanders From the Classical Age to the Napoleonic Era by Paul K. Davis

Alexander the Great during the siege of Multan in India thought his men were too slow in scaling the fortress walls. He grabbed a ladder himself and climbed to the ramparts. The ladder soon broke leaving him stranded with just a few men amidst hordes of the enemy. He fought fiercely, setting an example for his men, rallying them to come to his aid and win the battle.

When a Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish:…and Other Amazing Tales about the Genes in Your Body by Lisa Seachrist Chiu

Abraham Lincoln may have had Marfan Syndrome, a genetic disorder which causes a defect in the protein that manufactures connective tissues in the body causing them to be too “stretchy.” People who suffer from Marfan Syndrome have abnormally long limbs, congenital heart problems and cardiovascular problems, as well as poor vision.

The History of the World by J.M. Roberts and O.A. Westad

The first surviving inscription in Greek characters is on a jug from about 750 BC. The inscription is written in an adaptation of Phoenician script; Greeks were illiterate until their traders brought home this alphabet. The inscription reads, “Whoever of all these dancers now plays most delicately, to him this…” The vessel was most likely the prize in a dancing competition.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

The critically acclaimed television show Breaking Bad incorporates as central narrative devices a few poems from this quintessential book of American poetry including, “Gliding Over All” and “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.”

Looking for more conversation starters? Be sure to check out Oxford University Press’s Holiday Gift Guides for titles that are guaranteed to offer a fortune of interesting facts to family and friends.

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An Oxford World’s Classics American literature reading list

There’s something about the frenzied vigor of snowflakes, shopping outings, and journeys back home, that make us want to take a break and curl up with a good book. The classics are always a perfect pick for a good read during the holiday season. We compiled some of the best books from American literature to read when you’re looking to escape into a story. Which is your favorite?

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

“Call me Ishmael.” And so begins one of the greatest books of American literature ever written. Melville masterfully weaves the threads of high-seas adventure, romanticism, and megalomania in one epic story. Is the white whale just a whale? Spend your holiday getting your sea legs and decide for yourself.

Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Gimlets, flappers, and a “Diamond as Big as the Ritz” make Fitzgerald’s eponymous collection of short stories an opulent time capsule of the roaring 20s. Included also is “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, the inspiration for the Academy Award winning film. Get dressed to the nines as the band strikes up and discover why these stories are still the bee’s knees.

The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories by Jack London

How thin is the veneer of civilization? Does the brutality of nature force us to find our better, stronger selves? Meditate on these themes through the lens of London’s famous dog stories located on the near mythic landscape of the Alaskan Klondike. You’ll never warm your hands by a fire, or look at man’s best friend and feel the same way again.

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Considered a masterpiece of Victorian realist literature, James takes you on a grand tour of metropolitan Europe through the eyes of a sensitive, modern woman on the edge of a crisis. Lose yourself in James’s breathtaking language, as you track the efforts of the book’s ambitious protagonist to navigate her socially claustrophobic environment.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ancestral guilt, retribution, and atonement all brew together in a supernatural New England mansion. Hawthorne engrosses the reader in the history of the Pyncheon family; they are a clan haunted by murder, imprisonment, and witchcraft. Explore the skeletons of this aristocratic Salem family. An interesting fact: Hawthorne based his novel on an existing house that is now a historic landmark in Massachusetts.

The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A collection of stories from America’s leading feminist intellectual of the early 20th century. Explore the desperate psychological struggles of protagonists fighting against the maddening gender constructs of the time.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Considered by many to be one of the first examples of The Great American Novel, Twain’s seminal work remains celebrated and controversial to this day. With the Mississippi as a vehicle into the depths of the Antebellum South, and a cast of absurd regional  caricatures as propellant, the reader confronts the brutality of racism through a boyhood adventure story.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

A brilliant assault on the conformist values of middle America in the 1920s, Sinclair Lewis assembles a cast of characters that seem to live and breathe apart from the page. We follow the life of George F. Babbitt as he attempts to escape a world of booster clubs, sales figures, and dinner invitations in the novel that won Lewis the Nobel Prize.

Looking to catch-up on the best literary classics? We’re giving away one of our Great American Classics Oxford World’s Classics sets. Contest is only open to US residents, and you must be at least 18 years old to enter.

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. You can follow Oxford World’s Classics on Twitter, Facebook, or here on the OUPblog. Subscribe to only Oxford World’s Classics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

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Image credits: (1) Illustration of the final chase of Moby-Dick. By I. W. Taber 1902. Moby Dick – edition: Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. (2) Illustration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables from an edition published in 1875 by James R. Osgood and Company. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Gray matter, or many more shades of grey/gray, part 1

By Anatoly Liberman

One day the great god Thor was traveling and found himself in a remote kingdom whose ruler humiliated him and his companions in every possible way. Much to his surprise and irritation, Thor discovered that he was a poor drinker, a poor wrestler, and too weak to pick up a cat from the floor. To be sure, his host, a cunning illusionist, tricked him: instead of beer Thor was asked to drink up the ocean (and did not notice the taste of the beverage), the feeble woman whom he could not overpower turned out to be Old Age, and the cat was not a cat but the World Serpent. Our “person of interest” in this story is the cat. We read that the cat was “rather big” (which, considering those people’s penchant for understatement, must have meant “quite big”) and grár. The Icelandic word grár meant “gray.” But there is a hitch: it also meant “evil” and “spiteful, hostile.” We don’t know whether Snorri Sturluson, the author of the Prose Edda, the book in which Thor’s adventure is told, relished the pun or even meant the adjective to be understood in both senses. The wolf, including the Big Bad Wolf, was also called gray in Icelandic, which causes no surprise, because wolves are indeed gray, but they also inspired fear. The terrible wolf Fenrir would have swallowed the whole world if it could.

The same pun occurs in Modern German. Grau means “gray,” but grausam, in which -sam is a suffix, means “cruel; terrible” (add to it the verb grauen “to cause dread; shudder”). This confusion owes its origin to an early merger of the roots græ- ~ gra- and gru-. In a northern Middle English poem, the verb grue “feel horror” turned up, a borrowing from Scandinavian, and its Scandinavian cognates sounded similar (grua and grue). In the sixteenth century, Engl. growsome was recorded. Both grue and growsome would have remained obscure regionalisms but for Walter Scott, who introduced the adjective grewsome, now spelt gruesome, into English literature. Gruesome things are not “graysome” or “greysome” to English speakers, but even they should beware of a small gray area here.

In the opening scene of Macbeth, one of the witches says to another: “I come, Gray-Malkin.” Today the last word is known (assuming that some people still remember it) as Grimalkin. Malkin or Mawkin (ending in the diminutive suffix -kin), short for Matilda, Maud, and Mary, was a female name common among the lower classes. Later, along with Molly, it acquired the sense “slut”; hence, it appears, the title of Daniel Defoe’s novel Moll Flanders. That a word for “cat” should be coupled with a human name is nothing out of the ordinary (compare tomcat), but what is Gri-? Nearly all dictionaries state bluntly that gri = gray, and they may be right, for at least in the dark all cats are gray. But I think James Murray acted wisely when he added probably to the historical part of the OED’s entry. Skeat followed Murray’s example. Gray-Malkin surfaced first in Macbeth (1605). It might well be a folk etymological alteration (corruption, perversion, as they used to say not too long ago) of the opaque Grimalkin. In many European languages, words beginning with gr- denote things that make us groan and grieve; in Germanic, they are especially common. Perhaps Grimalkin began its career as grue-Malkin or grim-Malkin, or something similar (“terrible witch”). When dealing with the Devil and even with the names of the lesser fiends, one cannot be too careful (see my blog on Old Nick).

Greyhound lines # 7170, a MCI G4500, waits for passengers in back of the Oakland, CA Greyhound terminal. Photo by Paul Sullivan. Creative Commons License via Paul Sullivan Flickr.

Such is one of the less trivial shades of grey/gray. The next one comes with greyhound. Most people who have an interest in word origins cannot afford the luxury of opening one dictionary after another and comparing the entries: life is too short. Even searching for etymologies on the Internet takes time. It is therefore curious and instructive to discover opposite answers in equally solid works. The first edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language made a stir because among other things it had a supplement, later published as a separate book, in which words were traced to their Indo-European roots (to the extent that such roots could be ascertained). The information there did not pretend to be original, but the convenient format was very much admired indeed. According to that supplement, grey- in greyhound goes back to the same root as the adjective gray. Now we will turn to Skeat. His dictionary explains that greyhound, like Old Icelandic greyhundr (the same meaning), is a tautological compound, from grey “dog” and hound “dog.” Let us add that the word in question, although known since the Old English period, was at that time found only once, in a gloss (grighund, in which hund “hound; dog” is appended to grig-, also “dog”). Tautological compounds are common, and I once devoted a blog to them. They have been attested in languages all the way from Norway to Japan. Skeat made a special point of warning his readers against a dangerous mistake: “Not allied to gray, which is represented in Icelandic by grár.”

The Century Dictionary cites Icelandic greybaka “bitch” (baka “back”) and greykarl “’a dogged churl.”  It endorses the opinion that Scots grew, grewan, along with Middle Engl. grewhound and gresehownd, “appear to be accommodated to the Middle Engl. Grew ‘Greek’, Grese ‘Greece’ (cf. Spanish galgo ‘greyhound’, literally ‘Gallic’).” (If we deal with “accommodation,” what does galgo have to do with greyhound? A coincidence or Romance influence?) In addition, it cites grifhound, resembling Old Danish grijphund, as though gripe-hound, another folk etymological variant. Clearly, people had no notion of what the first element in greyhound meant.

Weekley is also worth consulting. Not only do we learn from him that the first element of greyhound means “bitch.” We are reminded that German Windhund “greyhound” consists of Old High German wint- and hund, both of which meant “dog.” The etymology of wind- (from wint) in Windhund has been given wildly divergent interpretations, but, whatever its origin, it did mean “dog,” so that Weekley was right. He explained that Middle Engl. grew-hound, still in northern dialects, resulted from an etymologizing attempt to connect with Old French Grieu, Middle Engl. Grew “Greek,” as borne out by Spanish galgo “greyhound,” from Latin Gallicus (canis) “Gallic (dog).” For good measure, he cited graylag “goose,” supposedly so named from late migration, grey mare “better horse,” grey friars, and greybeard, used in Scotland for a large stone (whisky) jug. Murray chose not to discuss this word in detail. But he said quite firmly that grey-, of unknown origin, is not related to Greek, the adjective Grew “Greek,” the color name grey, or grey “badger.”

Photograph of the sidewheeler Greyhound. The original photograph is at the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia. The Greyhound was destroyed in November 1864. Public domain via Wikipedia.

Old Engl. grighund occurred so rarely (once in a gloss!) and its Icelandic background looks so rich, that one may be justified in suspecting that greyhound was imported from Scandinavian. Is still nothing known about its derivation? The most usable etymological dictionary of Old Icelandic (by Jan de Vries; the entry grey) says: “Perhaps related to grár ‘gray’.” That it should come to this! Have we traveled so far to arrive at the conclusion that greyhound is not connected with grey ~ gray, because grey means “dog,” but that grey “dog” got its name from the color? So, after all, greyhound may be a grey dog-dog! Positively, opening one dictionary after another is the most rewarding occupation in the world.

Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins And How We Know Them as well as An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears on the OUPblog each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to him care of blog@oup.com; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.” Subscribe to Anatoly Liberman’s weekly etymology posts via email or RSS.

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University libraries and the e-books revolution

Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) launched in 2003 with 700 titles. Now, on its tenth birthday, it’s the online home of over 9,000 titles from Oxford University Press’s distinguished academic list. To celebrate OSO turning ten, we’ve invited a host of people to reflect on the past ten years of online academic publishing, and what the next ten might bring.

By Luke Swindler

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Libraries, it took well over a century, from the university’s founding in 1789, to reach a collection of one million volumes. In the last five years alone, the campus has added nearly one million “volume-equivalents”, mainly due to massive e-book acquisitions. As a consequence, last year UNC’s e-books acquisitions were three times greater than print books. This transformation includes acquiring older titles, with most large US research libraries now offering digital versions of all English-language books that date from the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Because of this technology, UNC has a digital copy of the first book published by what would become OUP in 1478—Runinus’s Expositio in symbolum apostolorum—while not surprisingly it lacks the print version.

Runinus’s Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, courtesy of Luke Swindler

As one of the first major e-book platforms, Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) has been part of the explosive growth in e-books that has greatly expanded library collections and, in tandem, enhanced their ability to support instruction and research across the disciplinary spectrum. From a world of (relative) book scarcity to a universe of plenty for both new and older titles, nowhere has this transformation been so evident as in the scale and scope of library monographic collections.

Libraries are also transforming their purchase of resources moving from title-by-title selection that characterized print book acquisition to en bloc acquisition of e-books. Within this context, OUP has fostered this trend by crafting consortial agreements with Manhattan Research Libraries (MaRLI) and Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) to take advantage of the economics of wholesale e-books acquisitions, meaning these two library groups own all titles on OSO and OUP’s expanded University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO). In the case of UNC, which is a member of TRLN, this project has led to nearly nine thousand OUP e-books becoming available to faculty and students over the past 18 months.

E-books done right can be a great value proposition beyond the intellectual and informational content they provide. OUP’s platform, for example, is still one of very few to offer e-books in both PDF and XML formats, which aids in reader acceptance. Readers can search and render automatic reflowable files developed for digital publishing. The e-books can adapt their presentation to the device, allowing easy download and accurate display on a wide range of mobile devices with variable screen sizes. Finally, at a time when discovery is such a paramount concern OSO and UPSO’s enhanced metadata, such as book and chapter abstracts, coupled with a long history of working with indexing services, are important not only for allowing readers to find e-books but also to evaluate their relevance. All in all, not bad for a resource created a decade ago—which in terms of e-books publishing history is tantamount to having been created in antediluvian times.

Luke Swindler is Collections Management Officer at the University of North Carolina Libraries.

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Why evolution wouldn’t favour Homo economicus

By Peter E. Earl

Economists traditionally have assumed that all decisions are taken by weighing up costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. In reality, people seem to make their choices in at least three ways, and which way they use depends on the kind of context in which they are choosing. They can choose in a programmed manner; they can exercise free will after thinking carefully about the potential consequences of choosing one action rather than another; and they can simply delegate their choices to others and go with the social flow without really considering alternatives or where what they are doing might lead.

There seem to be good evolutionary reasons why humans have ended up with more than one way of choosing.

By being able to deliberate rather than merely follow existing decision rules, humans have been able to come up with innovations that enable them to thrive and reproduce, adapting to new environments as they do so.

But the capacity to deliberate is also potentially disastrous if a person can become immersed in a problem that cannot be solved rapidly. While attention is concentrated on one problem, the person may be overwhelmed by unnoticed external or internal threats. It is therefore vital that people have programmes that will kick in — as unmet basic needs do — to over-ride deep thought and ensure they make choices swiftly enough to avoid disaster.

Such choices may not involve consideration of alternatives — either in detail, or even, at all — but merely the application of a very simple rule. Prejudices and check-lists may enable people to make choices swiftly rather than become ending up paralysed as they try to consider the pros and cons of alternative possibilities. In a social setting, acceptance of suggestions from others enables the group to make something happen in the limited time available, so it is no wonder that those whose deliberative tendencies threaten to cause their peers to ‘lose the moment’ get labelled as ‘party-poopers’.

The capacity of humans to engage in deliberation is potentially disastrous for their reproductive success. Others species reproduce by following their instincts, in other words, by operating in a programmed manner. Humans are in a position to reflect on the costs and benefits of engaging in sexual activity, so their free will potentially can overcome any primitive programmed sexual urges. Cool reflection could lead to decisions to abstain: birth is dangerous for women, and the short-run burden of having children may vastly outweigh their long-run potential to provide support for elderly parents.

For humans to populate the planet as successfully as they have done, they needed to evolve something that would get in the way of such a view of sex and reproduction. That ‘something’ seems to have been the almost uniquely human ability to experience sexual pleasure. This had to be of an intense but fleeting kind that could not be stored in the memory and replayed in the imagination but was only available by repeating the sexual act.

Intelligence and the ability to experience intense sexual pleasure are, in evolutionary terms, a winning combination for the human race. The former makes it possible to cope with the Malthusian pressures that follow from the latter frequently overwhelming cool logic. Evolutionary fitness is also helped by inherited dispositions to find children cutely alluring while, in terms of social evolution, we should not be surprised that the societies that thrived in primitive times were patriarchal ones. The risks of childbirth would give women greater pause for thought than men about whether to allow sexual urges to be turned into action.

An evolutionary perspective on choice does not merely point towards a plurality of ways of choosing and to why humans are equated to enjoy sex rather than viewing it as at best a ridiculous activity and at worst as potentially disastrous in its consequences. An evolutionary perspective also provides reasons for doubting that humans would end up having the kinds of preference orderings that economists commonly assume. Being willing always to make tradeoffs is not conducive to survive if one’s body has a set of basic physiological needs that are hierarchically ordered. Moreover, when people are in a position to meet their basic needs, being unwilling to consider many kinds of goods (as in’I don’t like …’) gives them identities that facilitate social and economic coordination as well as reducing the choice problem to manageable proportions.

Peter E. Earl is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. His Cambridge PhD was on behavioural economics but was completed long before it became fashionable to mix economics with psychology, and he coedited the Journal of Economics from 2000-2004. His research focuses mainly on how people and organisations try to cope with problems of information and knowledge. He has just finished co-authoring a book about the work of GLS Shackle and is currently engaged in a major project on how Australian consumers choose their mobile phone connection services. He is the author of the paper ‘The robot, the party animal and the philosopher: an evolutionary perspective on deliberation and preference’ in the Cambridge Journal of Economics.

The Cambridge Journal of Economics, founded in 1977 in the traditions of Marx, Keynes, Kalecki, Joan Robinson and Kaldor, provides a forum for theoretical, applied, policy and methodological research into social and economic issues.

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Image credit: Grey arrow by Naypong, via iStockphoto.

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Economic migration may not lead to happiness

By David Bartram

People who move to wealthier countries surely expect that migration will lead them to a better life, but new research suggests that economic migrants are unlikely to achieve greater happiness in their adopted country. Migration to a wealthier country often results in a lower economic status for the migrants (even if it increases their spending power) and status is what matters in economic terms for happiness.

The research compared migrants moving to western European countries to people remaining in eastern European countries the migrants had left (“stayers”). On average, migrants were happier than stayers, but the analysis (using data on 42,000 people from the European Social Survey) indicated that the migrants were already happier even prior to their migration. The difference, then, did not represent an increase in happiness following from migration.

Migrants’ experiences differed depending on where they lived prior to migration. People who left Romania and Russia tended to gain happiness after migration, an outcome no doubt connected to the fact that average happiness in those countries is quite low. But happiness in Poland is already on par with levels common in western Europe and Polish migrants to the west experienced a significant decrease in happiness. For migrants from other countries happiness levels remained unchanged.

The study’s main findings are in line with the work of leading happiness researcher Richard Easterlin. A well-known idea (often labelled the “Easterlin paradox”) indicates that people who earn more are happier than people who earn less, but gaining an increased income does not lead to lasting increases in one’s happiness.

In economic terms, what matters for happiness is the way one compares oneself to others. If one’s income rises in line with the incomes of others, relative position does not change, and so happiness remains unchanged as well. Even when income rises significantly, leading to upward mobility, people often adjust their reference groups, comparing to others at a higher level rather than deriving satisfaction from comparing themselves to a stable reference group.

The difficulty for migrants in these terms is that the jobs they are able to get in the destination country often have a lower status than the jobs they enjoyed in their country of origin. Migrants are often educated and ambitious, but their qualifications might not be recognised in the destination; they can also encounter prejudice and discrimination by natives. Even so, the wages they earn in the wealthier country might seem attractive compared to those in the origin country. After arrival, though, they will start to compare themselves to natives in the destination rather than to stayers in the origin. A decline in status might then feed a sense of frustration, of aspirations that cannot be satisfied.

The dynamic described by Easterlin might suggest that reversing the usual logic of economic migration could lead to a happier outcome: people who move from a wealthier country to a poorer one could achieve a higher relative position (even if they lose spending power in an absolute sense). Additional research in progress, however, indicates that migrants moving from wealthier northern European countries to destinations such as Spain and Cyprus are less happy than the stayers in the northern countries.

International migration typically involves significant upheaval in one’s life. Even in the case of “north to south” migration, any economic gains in relative terms leading to increased happiness might nonetheless be outweighed by negatives in other factors such as relationships. When moving to a wealthier country in hopes of an increased income, on the other hand, the happiness benefits in economic terms are likely equivocal at best, in ways the migrants have a hard time predicting.

Some migrants embark on migration not for their own happiness but instead to meet the needs of family members via remittances. Even in such instances, however, one would want to know whether the happiness benefits of the remittances (and the expenditures they enable) outweigh the drawbacks associated with family separation. Research by others on that question gives mixed results with no clear answer.

Does happiness really matter in this context? Undoubtedly it is not the only thing that matters. But once people’s basic needs are secured then the happiness consequences of the choices they make (such as migration) are surely important, not least to them. One might make sacrifices now for benefits later (as with education, perhaps), but a “benefit” that people don’t experience as such might be of dubious value.

One implication of these findings is that worries about immigration in wealthy destination countries have even less foundation than is commonly perceived. Some people have exaggerated hopes about the economic benefits of migration to a wealthier country (though migration is often motivated by non-economic factors as well).

But those people with a more sophisticated appreciation of the risks and drawbacks? Maybe they’ll just be content to stay where they are.

David Bartram is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester. He is the author of the paper ‘Happiness and “economic migration”: A comparison of Eastern European migrants and stayers’, which is published in the journal Migration Studies. This post originally appeared on The Conversation, and is reposted with permission.

Migration Studies is an international refereed journal dedicated to advancing scholarly understanding of the determinants, processes and outcomes of human migration in all its manifestations, and gives priority to work presenting methodological, comparative or theoretical advances.

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Celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela, continuing the quest for social justice

By Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel

Once or twice in a generation a global champion for social justice emerges. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mahatma Gandhi. Nelson Mandela. A person with extraordinary vision and supreme character leads a movement that brings about major sociopolitical change. Civil rights in America. Independence for India. The end of apartheid in South Africa.

When these champions for social justice die, we mourn their passing and we celebrate who they were and what they accomplished. At these times, we also try to understand what made these leaders so successful, how they created extraordinary — seemingly impossible — visions and translated these visions into reality. And, at these times, we also reassess where we, as a global society, stand in the quest for social justice — how far we’ve come and how far there is yet to go.

Addressing social injustice requires individuals acting together in organizations or mass movements. A small group of individuals often initiates progressive change. But it takes many more people with diverse talents to bring about a sociopolitical transformation. Nelson Mandela understood this very well. He also knew that diverse kinds of activities are needed for a movement to be successful: documenting problems, raising awareness of these problems, developing and implementing strategies and tactics to address them, inspiring people to take action, engaging in advocacy, organizing demonstrations, building financial support, and sometimes engaging in civil disobedience.

In his own words, Nelson Mandela gave us insight into what makes a movement successful. For example, he valued education, which he called “the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” He understood the importance of creating and maintaining a vision: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” He knew when to seize the moment: “We must…realize that the time is always ripe to do right.” He understood effective tactics: “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” He knew how to inspire people: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

As successful as Nelson Mandela and other champions of social justice have been, the work is not complete, major problems remain, and the quest for social justice continues. Only some civil rights for minority groups in America have been achieved, and those that have been achieved are continually being threatened. India remains politically independent, but struggles with widespread poverty and significant public health challenges. And, although there have been socioeconomic and political gains for blacks in South Africa, black-white segregation is largely unchanged and socioeconomic gaps between white- and black-led households are increasing — they have almost doubled during the past decade. In addition, HIV/AIDS is rampant and “diabesity” (the combination of obesity and diabetes) is increasing at an alarming rate.

So, as we celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela and face the daunting challenges of social injustice that remain, let us be inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Let us heed the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” And let us remember the words of Nelson Mandela: “After climbing a great hill, one only finds there are many more hills to climb.”

Barry S, Levy, M.D., M.P.H., and Victor W. Sidel, M.D., are co-editors of the recently published second edition of Social Injustice and Public Health as well as two editions each of the books War and Public Health and Terrorism and Public Health, all of which have been published by Oxford University Press. They are both past presidents of the American Public Health Association. Dr. Levy is an Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Sidel is Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine Emeritus at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein Medical College and an Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College.

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Oxford University Press Southern Africa Tribute to Nelson Mandela

How does one begin to describe Nelson Mandela? As a leader that fought for civil rights, freedom, equality, socioeconomic development, health awareness, and peace in South Africa. A true revolutionary. One who fought for what he believed was right, despite the consequences. One whose purpose was far greater than his fears. One who sacrificed his freedom for a cause much bigger than himself. One whose actions were so great that the world now mourns the loss of a true global ambassador of peace and progressive change.

In the wake of his death, the staff at Oxford University Press Southern Africa created the following video: a collage of words to describe what Nelson Mandela’s legacy means to the world. We celebrate the life of Mandela and appreciate all that he has taught us in his quest for justice during his 95 years of life. Thank you Madiba.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oxford University Press Southern Africa is an educational publisher committed to the growth of South Africa and its people through the provision of excellent educational materials and support. OUP-SA strive to develop and deliver quality educational materials and support, based on the demands of learners, students, teachers and lecturers in Southern Africa. OUP-SA has more than 2,700 locally-published books in 11 languages, written by close to 1,000 South African authors. OUP-SA also sell educational books published by other Oxford branches around the world. OUP-SA share the mission of Oxford University to bring excellence in education, scholarship, and research to people around the world.

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