Monthly Archives: July 2013

Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, May 14, 2013

Cornell students have received a record 28 Fulbright U.S. Student awards to conduct research or teach abroad in 2013-14, according to the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, which administers the program at Cornell. Five students declined the awards. Winners will teach English and research such topics as land use in Zambia and mate choice in Sweden.

“This year the number of Fulbright U.S. Student Fellowships offered to Cornell students has shattered all our previous records. The 28 fellowships offered are more than twice our usual number,” said Gilbert Levine, Fulbright advisor and professor emeritus of biological and environmental engineering. “It is with great pride that we congratulate them on their achievements and wish them a great experience.”

The recipients include 12 graduate students, one medical student and 10 undergraduate students. The 2013-14 recipients, their destinations and project titles are:

  • Jennifer Alvarado-Ross ’13 (Jordan), English Teaching Assistantship.
  • Andrew Amstutz, a graduate student in the field of South Asian history, (India), “Vernacular Histories and Science in 20th-Century India: The Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu.”
  • Kevin Bassney ’12 (Serbia), "Coalition Building in Serbia."
  • Aimee Douglas, graduate student in the field of anthropology, (Sri Lanka), “Artisanal Nation: Heritage Production and the ‘Crafting’ of Identification in Sri Lanka.”
  • Ryan Edwards, graduate student in the field of history and Latin American studies, (Argentina), “An Ecology of Exile: The Ushuaia Penal Colony and the Nature of ‘The End of the World.’”
  • Erin Hern, graduate student in the field of comparative politics and gender and development, (Zambia), “The Political Effects of Non-States Service Provision.”
  • Lauren Honig, graduate student in the field of comparative politics and international relations, (Zambia), “The Interaction of Customary and State Land Institutions in Zambia.”
  • Sujin Lee ’13 (Mexico), “Amaranth: Cultural Education on Nutritious Grain Promotes Dietary Changes in Oaxaca, Mexico.”
  • Mallory Matsumoto ‘12 (Germany), “Cultural and Linguistic Diversity among the Ancient Maya.”
  • Kelton Minor, graduate student in the field of human factors and ergonomics, (Denmark), “Danish Co-Design for Inclusion: Methods for Designing with Persons with Disabilities.”
  • Zachary Montague ’13 (China), “The Right Price: Land Markets in Northwestern Urban Peripheries.”
  • Pavitra Muralidhar ’13 (Sweden), “Mate Choice and Inbreeding Avoidance in the Threatened Natterjack Toad in Sweden.”
  • Tzvetelina Nikolova ’11 (Bulgaria), English Teaching Assistantship.
  • Kasia Paprocki, graduate student in the field of global south development, (Bangladesh), “Politics of the Landless: Development and Resistance in Rural Bangladesh.”
  • Laura Pompano, graduate student in the field of nutritional science physiology, program evaluation, (China), “Integrating Eastern and Western Medicine to Address China’s Nutritional Deficiencies.”
  • Jacqueline Reynoso, graduate student in the field of history, (Canada), “(Dis)Placing the American Revolution: The British Province of Québec in the Greater Colonial Struggle.”
  • Sheveena Rowe ’13 (Maylasia), English teaching assistantship.
  • Michelle Spektor ’12 (Israel), “Security, Science and the State: Israel’s Biometric Database.”
  • Jessica Tingle ’12 (Morocco), “The Interplay of Culture and Reptiles in Morocco.”
  • Rebecca Townsend, graduate student in the field of history, (Thailand), “Floating in Stagnant Water: Thai Film and National Development, 1950s to 1970s.”
  • Jeffrey Valla, graduate student in the field of social psychology/cognitive development, (India), “Hindustani Music as Non-Invasive Perceptual Therapy for Children with Autism in Delhi.”
  • Daniel Ward ’13 (Japan), “Quality of Life in Elder Care Homes in Japan and Developing an Optimal Care Environment.”
  • Kristopher Schwebel, a Weill Cornell medical school student, received the Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowship in Public Health.

By Susan S. Lang
Reprinted from the Cornell Chronicle, May 23, 2013

On May 22, the Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholars Program honored 32 outstanding graduating seniors and the high school teachers and university faculty members who made important contributions to the students' lives.

Each spring semester since 1988, approximately 1 percent of the graduating class is named to receive the honor by the deans of each of Cornell's seven undergraduate colleges. The scholars, in turn, recognize a high school teacher who most inspired their scholastic development and a Cornell faculty member who most significantly contributed to their college experience. The high school teachers are invited to campus as guests of the university to participate in two days of events.

Merrill scholars are chosen not only for their outstanding scholastic accomplishments, but also because they have demonstrated remarkable intellectual drive, energetic leadership abilities and a propensity to contribute to the betterment of society.

This year, high school teacher Jacqueline Tano-Phua is traveling to Cornell from as far as as Singapore. The students honored include a Goldwater scholar (Julian Homburger); a three-season athlete throughout his time at Cornell (Adam Trofa, who has been running for the cross-country and track and field teams) and a student-elected trustee Alex Bores). Also of note: Derek Zerkowski, a 1999 high school graduate, attended Cornell with the support of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, a veteran’s education program; this is a first for the Merrill program. In addition, Professor Charles Williamson was cited for the 14th time, and Professor Rosemary Avery received her 11th Merrill invitation.

The university also honors the high school teachers with Special Teachers Are Recognized (STAR) scholarships, a one-time, $4,000 scholarship in each teacher's name for a financially needy Cornell student from the teacher's high school or geographical area. STAR scholarships were established in 1989 by the late Donald Berens and his wife, Margaret Berens, both Class of 1947. The late Philip Merrill '55 created the Merrill Presidential Scholars Program, funded by annual support from the Merrill Family Foundation.

The 2013 Merrill Scholars are listed below by college and hometown, followed by the names of the secondary school teachers and the Cornell faculty members the students selected for recognition:

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

  • Kristen Haynes, Clinton, N.Y.; Debby Hepburn, Clinton Senior High School; Barbara Bedford, natural resources.
  • Julian Homburger, Alamo, Calif.; Viki Acquistapace, De La Salle High School; Nathan Sutter, biometry and statistics and biological sciences.
  • Linda Liu, Manlius, N.Y.; Jamie Cucinotta, Fayetteville-Manlius High School; Edward McLaughlin, applied economics and management.
  • Jennifer Sun, Irvine, Calif.; Cathleen Zeleski, Northwood High School; Clifford Kraft, science of natural and environmental systems.
  • Yuchao (“Olly”) Wang, Zhongshan District, Dalien, China; Li Shao, The School Attached to Dalian University; Rui Hai Liu, professor, food science.
  • Kristy Yang, Chesterfield, Mo.; Kenneth Greathouse, Parkway Central High School; Vicki Bogan, applied economics and management.
  • Derek Zerkowski; Joseph Farrand, Ten Broeck Academy and Franklinville Central School; Antonio DiTommaso, agricultural sciences.
  • Dennis Zhou; Theresa Groman, Jamesville-DeWitt High School; Roger Spanswick, biological engineering.

College of Architecture, Art and Planning

  • Mikhail Grinwald, Pewaukee, Wisc.; Louise Doornek, Pewaukee High School; Andrea Simitch, architecture.

College of Arts and Sciences

  • Andrew Baim, Pine Brook, N.J.; Kim Deamer, Montville Township High School; Slava Paperno, Russian.
  • Kristen Fletcher, Farmingdale, N.Y.; Thomas Page, Half Hollow Hills High School East; Sofia Villenas, anthropology.
  • Sally Hayes, Winnetka, Ill.; Elizabeth Plank New Trier Township High School, Holly Case, history.
  • Jing Jin, Houston, Texas; Anna Loonam, Bellaire High school; Aaron Sachs, history.
  • Adam Kroloff, Bridgewater, N.J.; Nicolas Ripatrazone, Bridgewater-Raritan High School; Michael Goldstein, psychology.
  • Suzana Markolovic, Tappan, N.Y.; Nancy Brizzolara, Academy of the Holy Angels; David Collum, chemistry and chemical biology.
  • Patricio Martinez-Llompart, Valles del Lago Urb. Caguas, Puerto Rico; Diana Escobar, Academia del Perpetuo Socorro; Raymond Craib, history.
  • Andrew Santana, Burlingame, Calif.; Kevin Nelson, Burlingame High School; Richard Polenberg, government.
  • Sara Trongone, Montclair, N.J.; Daniel Gill, Montclair High School; Lori Khatchadourian, Near Eastern studies.
  • Jason Wang, Dublin, Ohio; Bob Durrett, Dublin Jerome High School; Terry Herter, physics.

College of Engineering

  • Guo Chin, Singapore; Jacqueline Tano-Phua, Hwa Chong Institution; David Delchamps, electrical and computer engineering.
  • Emma Lejune, Brookline, Mass.; Stacy Kissel, Brookline High School; Kenneth Hover, civil and environmental engineering.
  • Kimberly Lin, Woodbridge, N.J.; James McCormick, Middlesex County Academy of Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies; Ashim Datta, biological and environmental engineering.
  • Zachary Sherman, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Eric Goldstone, Pinnacle High School; Abraham Stroock, chemical and biomolecular engineering.
  • Adam Trofa, Woodbridge, Conn.; Thomas Jacobs, Amity Regional High School; Charles Williamson, mechanical and aerospace engineering.
  • Whitney Wenger, Charlottesville, Va.; Lani Hoza, Western Albemarle High School; Tobias Hanrath, chemical and biomolecular engineering.

School of Hotel Administration

  • Lana Miller, Huntington Station, N.Y.; Philomena Clement, Saint Anthony’s High School; Daphne Jameson, management communication.
  • Matthew Rubin, Chappaqua, N.Y.; Steven McKenney, Horace Greeley High School; Robert Kwortnik, hotel administration.

College of Human Ecology

  • Jonathan Bar, Fair Lawn, N.J.; Robert Pergolizzi, Bergen County Academies; John Belina, nutritional sciences.
  • John Boyle, New Hartford, N.Y.; Jeff Walters, New Hartford High School; Rosemary Avery, policy analysis and management.
  • Anne Laurita, Mendham, N.J.; Michael Scoblete, West Morris Mendham High School; Cindy Hazan, human development.

ILR School

  • Alexander Bores, New York, N.Y.; Irving Kagan, Hunter College High School; Kate Bronfenbrenner, industrial and labor relations.
  • Lucas Kowalczyk, Lee, Mass.; Alicja Szostek, The Eighth High School of Zabrze; Veronica Martinez-Matsuda, industrial and labor relations.

Those of us in the field of human development are excited by President Obama's decision in April to commit $100 million in the coming year's federal budget to a new proposal to map the activity of every neuron in the human brain, shedding new light on the brain's role in decision-making, memory, physical health, and other areas.

Read the full story by Charles Brainerd, in the Human Ecology Magazine

By Rebecca Harrison
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, July 1, 2013

“Life is not a straight line,” as a former NFL lineman-turned-engineering professor will be the first to admit regarding the direction his career took – similar to many of his students, and even his own daughter.

Matt Miller, professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and his daughter, Chaney Miller ’14, a Cornell civil engineering major, addressed prospective science and engineering students in a film for a seminar on “Thinking Like a Scientist,” one of many workshops held during this year’s annual 4-H Career Explorations Conference, June 25-27. The conference hosted 600 high school students and chaperones from 45 New York counties.

Growing up, Chaney Miller shared a similar quality to many engineering students: She always liked building things. Like many students, though, her path changed in high school. “I got really involved in Spanish,” she said. “I had a really great teacher. She really got me fired up on languages, so that kind of stemmed into Mandarin. It was something that I really liked and wanted to pursue at Cornell.”

Said Matt Miller: “After she was admitted [to Cornell], she had decided to reinvestigate the possibility of being an engineer.”

During her first semester, Chaney Miller said she “just kind of got body slammed by a few of the exams.” Reminded by her father that “This is the way it goes; this is the process,” she persevered.

Charlotte Sweeney ’04, M.A. ’08, Ph.D. ‘13, discussed with students at the workshop how Chaney Miller’s success in languages led to an aptitude for engineering and how this could apply to a many career decisions. As one student observed: “We don’t think of languages as symbols, but a sentence is a little bit like an equation. I don’t think her leap was that giant from Mandarin, especially to engineering.”

Through exploring many Cornell programs, Chase Thomas, a junior at Oneonta High School and aspiring engineer, “saw that Cornell was a beautiful campus with smart and engaging teachers, where students can learn literally anything. They even have a particle accelerator under the campus!”

According to conference coordinator Nancy Schaff, there is a tradition of 4-H members coming to Cornell in June dating to 1922. “Lots of kids say it has made a difference in their college decisions and ultimately their career,” Schaff said. “Students stay in the dorms, eat in the dining hall and learn what college is like.”

This year, 10th to 12th grade students had an opportunity to explore nearly 20 programs ranging from permaculture to computer science, while eighth and ninth graders participated in the “University U” program, a broader sample of career-oriented workshops.

At the end of the conference, Anthony Burrow, assistant professor of human development, advised students: “… understand that you’re on a pathway. It’s hard for us to think of it like this. Life feels like a photograph looking at you in one point in time. But, you’re a movie. It’s dynamic; you’re moving. You got here for a reason. You came to career explorations for a reason. Why? Think about that.”

Rebecca Harrison ’14 is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.

By Daniel Aloi
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, June 11, 2013

President David Skorton delivers the State of the University Address in Bailey Hall during Reunion June 8.

President David Skorton focused on Cornell’s accomplished faculty and the strategic priority of faculty renewal in his State of the University Address to an audience of alumni and friends June 8 in Bailey Hall during Reunion Weekend 2013.

“So many of you have warm memories of your professors at Cornell … who awakened an interest in you, ignited a spark, provided a foundation of knowledge, opened doors, guided you,” he said. “You remember the faculty members who taught you and mentored you and helped set you on your life’s path – and who, in many cases, have cheered you on and offered continuing counsel over the years.

“Since its founding … the faculty at Cornell have been the heart of the university, and they continue to make Cornell the acclaimed and heavily sought-after institution it is today,” he continued.

“Cornell faculty today are at the top of their game,” Skorton said. “But like all of us, they are getting older.”

Last fall, more than 43 percent of the faculty was over age 55 and more than 13 percent was 65 to 74. “Over the next decade, we expect to have to recruit up to a third of our faculty and our superb staff,” Skorton said. “That presents us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to maintain strength across all areas of this university while building leadership in selected areas of strategic importance – and we are seizing the moment.”

Cornell has hired about 150 new faculty members in Ithaca and around 170 at Weill Cornell Medical College in the last two years alone, Skorton said.

Three deans were among senior faculty recruits this year, including Gretchen Ritter ’83, attending her 30th reunion, who will helm the College of Arts and Sciences beginning Aug. 1.

“They are joined by talented, even younger faculty, many of them hired as part of the $50 million Faculty Renewal Sesquicentennial Challenge,” which has raised more than $40 million towards it goal, Skorton continued.

He singled out several new sesquicentennial and faculty fellows, all assistant professors, including Eilyan Bitar of electrical and computer engineering, whose research includes “the integration of renewable energy resources like wind and solar into the power grid”; Elena Belogolovsky of human resource studies in the ILR School; Julio Giordano, an animal science and dairy cattle management researcher in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Ishion Hutchinson, English, who led MFA poetry seminars this spring; and Nathan Spreng of human development in the College of Human Ecology, who directs the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition.

Other notable recruits Skorton highlighted were Deborah Estrin, the first professor at the Cornell NYC Tech campus and a professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College; cancer researcher Dr. Lewis Cantley, Ph.D. ’75, who will direct the newly established Cancer Center at Weill Cornell and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; Dr. Augustine Choi, one of Wired magazine’s “50 People Who Will Change the World” in 2012, joining Weill Cornell in August as chair of the Department of Medicine and physician-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell.

“In this final push to Cornell’s sesquicentennial, faculty renewal remains our first priority, along with accessibility of a Cornell education,” Skorton said.

He quoted the late Cornell psychology professor Harry Levin, Arts and Sciences dean from 1974 to ’78: “‘Our aim is to get the best faculty and to turn them loose. They must be totally independent, responsible only to the quality of their teaching and their scholarship. All we ask of them is that they be geniuses.’”

“You can be proud that Cornell has reached a new high point,” Skorton concluded. “Never in our history have we been stronger or better positioned to meet the needs of our students and the challenges of the world.”

Karl Pillemer and Anthony Burrow

On April 25-26, eighteen Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) educators and executive directors attended an advanced Research Navigator Workshop at Cornell. The workshop was planned and facilitated by Karl Pillemer and Jennifer Tiffany.

College of Human Ecology faculty – Jane Mendle, Valerie Reyna, Nancy Wells, Tony Burrow, Gary Evans, and Rebecca Seguin – met with the group to present their “intellectual autobiographies” as researchers, describe current and future research projects, and work with the CCE educators to plan potential partnerships. The BCTR's John Eckenrode (director) and Debbie Sellers (director of research and evaluation) introduced the group to the center’s mission and resources.

Read the full story

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, July 11, 2013

U.S. intelligence agents – like the embattled Edward Snowden – are more prone to irrational inconsistencies in decision making than college students and postcollege adults, reports a study to be published in a forthcoming issue (as yet unscheduled) of the journal Psychological Science.

“With increasing age and experience, people are less likely to engage in literal, quantitative analysis and more likely to use simple qualitative meaning or gist when making decisions,” said Valerie Reyna, professor of human development in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, and lead author of the study. “While the growth of experience-based intuition can enhance performance, it also has predictable pitfalls.”

For the study, 36 agents from a federal intelligence agency, 63 college students and 54 adults were presented with scenarios involving risk and asked to make choices – the options were systematically varied to omit information or emphasize gain or loss, while leaving the literal meaning the same.

For example: A dreaded disease is threatening a town of 600. Do you: Save 200 people for sure or choose the one-third probability that 600 will be saved and a two-thirds probability that none will be saved? Or: Do you pick the option where 400 will surely die, or instead a two-thirds probability that all 600 will die and a one-third probability that no one dies?  Both versions of the decision are equivalent—if 400 die, then 200 are saved.

While we would expect rational decision makers to treat such equivalent options the same, the results showed agents treated them differently based on superficial wording changes. Agents were more willing than college students to take risks with human lives when outcomes were framed as losses, and they were more confident in their decisions.

When lives are at stake, simple categorical distinctions like saving some or none become pivotal, Reyna said. According to her research, decision-making gravitates to the simplest bottom-line gist of options, which boils down, in the gain scenario, to saving some people versus either saving some or saving none. Decision makers choose the sure option because saving some lives is better than saving none. Conversely, in the loss scenario, the options boil down to some people die versus either some die or none die. Valuing none die over some die, decision makers choose the risky option, which offers the categorical possibility that none die.

“The irony is that being biased by context (gains vs. loss wording) is a hallmark of the most advanced thinking – the kind of intelligence that intelligence agents should have,” said Reyna “Our results shed light on the underlying mechanisms of decision making at work in intelligence agents and others who make life-and-death decisions.

“And framing questions, like some other laboratory gambling tasks, has been shown to predict real-world behavior,” she added.

The article, “Developmental Reversals in Risky Decision-Making: Intelligence Agents Show Larger Decision Biases than College Students,” which was co-authored by graduate students Christina Chick and Jonathan Corbin, and Andrew Hsia ’12, was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Karene Booker is extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, July 10, 2013

Depue

Depue

Extroverts may be more outgoing and cheerful in part because of their brain chemistry, reports a study by Cornell neuroscientists.

People’s brains respond differently to rewards, say the neuroscientists. Some people’s brains release more of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which ultimately gives them more reasons to be excited and engaged with the world, says Richard Depue, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, who co-authored the study with graduate student Yu Fu.

Their study, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Vol. 7) in June, sheds new light on how differences in the way the brain responds to reward translate into extraverted behavior, the authors say.

“Rewards like food, sex and social interactions as well as more abstract goals such as money or getting a degree trigger the release of dopamine in the brain, producing positive emotions and feelings of desire that motivate us to work toward obtaining those goals. In extroverts, this dopamine response to rewards is more robust so they experience more frequent activation of strong positive emotions,” Depue says.

“Dopamine also facilitates memory for circumstances that are associated with the reward. Our findings suggest this plays a significant role in sustaining extroverted behavior,” Depue adds. “The extroverts in our study showed greater association of context with reward than introverts, which means that over time, extroverts will acquire a more extensive network of reward-context memories that activate their brain’s reward system.”

Over a week, the researchers engaged 70 young adult males – a mix of introverts and extroverts according to a standard personality test – in a set of laboratory tasks that included viewing brief video clips of several aspects of the lab environment. On the first four days, some participants received a low dose of the stimulant methylphenidate (MP), also known as Ritalin, which triggers the release of dopamine in the brain; the others received either a placebo or MP in a different lab location. The team tested how strongly participants associated contextual cues in the lab (presented in video clips) with reward (the dopamine rush induced by MP) by assessing changes in their working memory, motor speed at a finger-tapping task and positive emotions (all known to be influenced by dopamine).

Participants who had unconsciously associated contextual cues in the lab with the reward were expected to have greater dopamine release/reward system activation on day 4 compared with day 1 when shown the same video clips. This so-called “associative conditioning” response is exactly what the team found in the extroverts. The extroverts strongly associated the lab context with reward feelings, whereas the introverts showed little to no evidence of associative conditioning.

“At a broader level, the study begins to illuminate how individual differences in brain functioning interact with environmental influences to create behavioral variation. This knowledge may someday help us to understand how such interactions create more extreme forms of emotional behavior, such as personality disorders,” says Depue.

The study, “On the Nature of Extraversion: Variation in Conditioned Contextual Activation of Dopamine-Facilitated Affective, Cognitive and Motor Processes,” was funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Karene Booker is extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

Reprinted from the Cornell Chronicle, July 3, 2013

Evans

Evans

Children from low-income families tend to do worse at school than their financially better-off peers. Poor planning skills, which can emerge as early as kindergarten and continue through high school, is one reason for the income-achievement gap, reports a new Cornell study of a large ethnically and socioeconomically diverse group of children from across the United States.

The study, "The role of planning skills in the income-achievement gap," is published in the July/August issue of the journal Child Development (84:4).

“Low-income children appear to have more difficulty accomplishing planning tasks efficiently, and this, in turn, partially explains the income-achievement gap,” says Gary Evans, the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology at Cornell, senior author of the study with Stephen Crook ’10, M.A. ’11. “Efforts to enhance the academic performance of low-income children need to consider multiple aspects of their development, including the ability to plan in a goal-oriented manner.”

The study, which was based on Crook’s master’s thesis, used data from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, which looked at almost 1,500 children from 10 geographic sites across the United States.

Planning skills were assessed when the children were in third grade, through the widely used Tower of Hanoi game. The game starts with a stack of rings placed on a rod so that the biggest ring is at the bottom, and the smallest is on the top. Using two other rods and moving only one ring at a time without ever placing a wider ring on a smaller ring, the children have to recreate the original stack on one of the two spare rods.

The study found that the children’s performance in fifth grade could be explained, in part, by how they did on the third-grade planning task, even when taking IQ into consideration. Using income as well as math and reading scores, the study also found that the lower the household income during infancy, the worse the children’s performance on reading and math in fifth grade – replicating the well-known gap between income and achievement.

The researchers suggest several reasons why poverty may interfere with the development of good planning skills. Individuals living in low-income homes experience greater chaos in their daily lives, including more moves, school changes, family turmoil, and crowded and noisy environments, and fewer structured routines and rituals. In addition, low-income parents may be less successful at planning because of their own stress levels.

Researchers believe the group of skills called executive function, which includes planning skills, can be strengthened through interventions. Such interventions are being developed and tested for children as young as the preschool years.

The study was funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health.

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, June 25, 2013

The new book "Human Bonding: The Science of Affectional Ties" (Guilford Press) provides a scientific roadmap to love, relationships and what makes them strong – from our first attachments in infancy through old age.

“It is amply documented that people with close social ties are happier, healthier and even live longer than those without such ties; indeed, our very survival as a species depends on the formation and maintenance of strong social bonds,” said Cindy Hazan, co-editor of the book, associate professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology and a founder in the field of relationship science.

“A central aim of this book is to provide an integrative, science-based overview of human bonding across the lifespan,” she said.

The book grew out Cornell’s popular course on human bonding, which Hazan designed and has taught for 25 years to capacity crowds, Hazan explained. Many students who took the course have gone on to become relationship scientists in their own right, she said, including seven of the contributors to the current volume.

"Human Bonding" addresses early bonding experiences from infancy through adolescence; mate selection, love and sexual desire, hooking up and online dating; keys to relationship success’ predictors and consequences of relationship dissolution; and the role of social connectedness in mental and physical health.

The book includes a chapter by Hazan and Gul Gunaydin, Ph.D. ’13, and Emre Selcuk, Ph.D. ’13, which integrates the social science evidence on the process of human mate selection. In it, the authors explain the many factors that influence how we narrow a large pool of potential mates down to one. For years, researchers focused on the characteristics that people say they seek in a mate, but more recent work has revealed that what we say we want in a partner differs significantly from who we actually end up partnering with. Proximity, the authors say, turns out to be a surprisingly influential factor.

The book, designed for students and relationship scholars, and those interested in understanding our closest – and often most perplexing – relationships, was co-edited by Mary Campa, Ph.D. ’07, assistant professor of psychology at Skidmore College.

Karene Booker is extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.