Result of the Week: Siblings and Hegemony

In the “West,” while people usually enjoy bossing their cute little 65 year-old siblings around, they also tend to try and maintain some of the younglings’ dignity, pretending to give “advice” rather than orders. Here it seems to be different. A friend in Yogya, for example, finds it necessary to boss a (fully grown) younger sister around, refers to her as "dik" (pronounced de’, and short for "adik," younger sibling) and explains:
“Who else would tell her what to do?”

Granted, dik, is said with a great deal of affection and is considered very familiar (and is answered by "kak," short for "kakak," older sibling) but there’s something about it that just presses a button in me…

I would like to note two things here. First, a disclaimer: I have no personal feelings whatsoever on the matter of sibling ordering or respect for one’s juniors. Second, these findings are dedicated with great love to two kakak I know quite well, but with a very strong caveat: even in this sample, there are cultural differences between Javanese and Minangkabau, so extrapolate to other cultures at your own risk.

The main point of the experiments in Yogya and Padang was to compare behavior in the games (where people divided real money in different ways) between members of different ethnicities and religions, and across different treatment groups randomly exposed to visual cues for political identity (nationalism, Islam….) A side-benefit of the experiments, however, is that one can also compare behavior across many different characteristics of the subjects, whether political or sociological. One example is subjects' gender (as posted before,) and another is the number of kakak and adik they have [there’s existing evidence for example, that single children are less “trusting” in one set-up, although there’s debate as to whether it captures “trust” (gated).]

In a "quasi-Ultimatum" game we played, people divided a pie of 11,000 Rupiah between themselves and a partner. These partners separately chose a “Minimum Acceptable Offer” from a given partner, below which they rejected the transfer and both subjects got nothing. In a sense, these “MAOs” give an indication of “demands;” of how much money the partners are willing to forsake in name of fairness, pride, justice…. (and these demands may vary depending on who the other player is, of course.)

In other games we simply measured generosity in an unconditional Dictator “game,” where people can divide 11,000 Rp. between themselves and a partner with no apparent incentive to give anything.

It turns out that there were significant differences both in generosity and in MAOs (“demands”) depending on birth order, with big differences between men and women:

While men of different birth order behaved rather similarly in Dictator, “younger” women were significantly more generous then “older” ones (youngest sisters were about 600Rp. more generous then oldest ones.) On the other hand, younger sisters were also much more demanding then their older sisters (youngest sisters had MAOs almost 900Rp. higher than oldest sisters.)

As was the case with gender differences, men seem more prone to exhibit differences when the round is anonymous. When information on the players was withheld, younger brothers demanded much less than older ones. (Perhaps in anonymity there’s less face to save – less pride to defend - and pure greed can take over?)

Finally, the lowest levels of “social capital” were exhibited by single children. They were significantly less generous then others (more than 1,000Rp. less generous than youngest sisters, for example) but, at least for women, they also demanded less. At least on these dimensions, it looks like single children are an extreme case of oldest siblings (who were once single children, after all, before the sky fell on their heads.)

To sum:
Always choose a younger sibling as your “Dictator,” but don’t mess with their pride.

--
The non-reductionist study of heteronormal hegemony, from PhD comics.
(I actually heard someone say “heteronormal” the other day.)

Random Assortment

- Viewed in the Pluit district of Jakarta: “Warung H. Tupac Shakur”
A warung is a food stall, and H. stands for Haji, one who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). I didn’t actually know Tupac Shakur was a Haji; nor that he was still alive; nor that that he had a food stall in Pluit. You learn something every day.

- What international relations are all about: Apparently, last month the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, called Peruvian president Alan Garcia "fat and not very anti-imperialist"
(Via FP passport blog)

- A surprisingly high ratio of left-handed U.S. presidents
(via Marginal Revolution)

- In honor of visa-applying grad student friends
(from PhD Comics)

- Jakarta’s traffic really is something to behold [a traffic jam is “macet” (“ma-chet,”) a really bad one is “macet total.”] The Jakarta government has been combating this problem for years. Toll roads were built (guess whose daughter is their part-owner) and more recently whole lanes in downtown highways were cleared for public transportation – in itself a great idea.
Jakarta built the busway system that runs all along the main thoroughfares. The system is good, I think, and quite well designed too. There’s a problem, however. Despite the enormous cost (in public lanes, especially) the system is lacking one central ingredient: enough buses. In order to reduce traffic (which is not the only point of the system, but a central one,) the lanes need to carry more passengers than they would otherwise. Most of the time, however, the busway lanes are empty, waiting for the occasional busway-bus, while the other lanes are more macet total than ever.
The proposed solution? Cops on roller-blades!

Lake Rivalries & Bus Accessories

Who hasn't wondered, at one point or another, where to find the best "bus accessories?" Well, look no further.

In my last stay in Padang. I had just begun the experiments and was mostly just trying to keep procedures methodologically-legit amid what felt like minor logistical chaos. Luckily, a couple of friends from Jakarta showed up on a Saturday, rented a car, and suggested I take a night off and join them in going up to the mountains to see lake Maninjau.

Rationalizing the time off was easy: West Sumatra has played a very central role in Indonesian national history. Despite having only about 3% of the population, the Minangkabau produced the first vice president (Hatta,) the first women jailed by the Dutch for nationalist activity, the first prime minister, and the leader of the main Muslim party of the early republic. The region was also the center of a large Islamic revolt against the Jakarta government, the failure of which marked the downfall of that party. So really, touring the region was purely a research experience.

But back to my day off… I learned four important things on that trip:

First, don’t be polite to a phone stalker unless you want a new best friend. Most bules (“boo-leh”, gringo) will sooner or later have a stalker in Indonesia, though this is mostly due to our very different definitions of “stalking” or “privacy” (such as having such concepts in the first place.) Indonesians really are much nicer and friendlier than “Westerners” - it’s a fact – and so to most Indonesians it does not seem like an invasion of privacy at all. So, there will usually be some random person who decides they want to get to know the new bule in town, somehow manage to get hold of said bule’s phone number and find it friendly and welcoming to text message or call dozens of times with impassioned pleas for a meeting. When you think of it, in a way, they’re right.

Second, realize as quickly as possible that item one is in no way a compliment (yes, I realize women figure this one out in the West at a much younger age.) You had no more choice of being a bule than you did of the shape of your ears, so get over yourself.

Third, when in need of bus accessories, come to Padang. The little city buses there – more like small minivans with the back emptied out for some benches all facing each other – are very colorful, very loud and very ornate. If you want the “red line,” you simply take an “angkot” colored in very bright red, with Formula-1 style fins on the roof and its own distinct horn-blow. Also, don’t be confused by the extremely foul language of the American music blaring out of the loudspeaker in the back, this is family oriented transportation. Most importantly, what looks like a giant snorkel in the front of the bus is not for fumes, it’s just a snorkel. It’s a “bus accessory” and as the driver explained in a completely straight face, Padang has the best!

Fourth, there really is nothing like waking up, opening the door to a magnificent crater-lake and taking a morning swim.












(We stayed in a small guesthouse, right on the water, with a manicured entrance via a nicely ordered path. Thing is, to get to this path you first have to wade through muddy rice paddies in a nice drizzle, just to add to the romance.)

Finally, the Minangkabau are a very proud ethnicity, and they’re not always that fond of others – such as Javanese (a central point of the experiments, which measure generosity and expectations among subjects, most of whom were Javanese and Minang.) Another group of whom some Minang do not always speak kindly are the Batak, a family of ethnicities from North Sumatra. North Sumatra is home to lake Maninjau’s big(ger) rival, Lake Toba. After a while in Padang, I learned that it’s useful to speak slightly disparagingly of Toba, when compared to Maninjau (“Toba’s too big, really….”) Problem was, I unwittingly tried this on a Batak who had recently moved to Padang. He was appalled that I could even compare Toba to that puddle. This is a photo of Toba from a wonderful trip I took with a good friend a couple of years ago.