INQUIRING MINDS

Talking Turkey about Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving holiday is always a good time to quash some misconceptions about the Pilgrims, who they were, what happened when they arrived in North America, and how they interacted with the Indigenous communities they encountered, says Mason religious studies professor John Turner.

“One good reason to take a look at this history is because we all have some superficial sense of the Pilgrims and the Thanksgiving meal,” says Turner, who wrote the book They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty.

“As Americans, we have placed a lot of weight and meaning on this story, so it is important that we try to know and understand what really happened.”

The key to understanding the Pilgrims is to acknowledge the importance of religion in their lives, says Turner. The Pilgrims were separatists, radical Puritans who had rejected the Church of England. Looking for a place to live where they would not be persecuted, the Pilgrims first went to the Netherlands, but then decided to “transplant to the other side of the ocean.”

The trip over on the Mayflower was hard, and the group landed nowhere near where they were headed. During the first year, about half of the Mayflower passengers died, probably mainly of scurvy and malnutrition.

“You don’t want to show up unprepared to a winter in Massachusetts,” says Turner. “It was disastrous.”

Meanwhile, the Wampanoag people living in the area had also recently been through an epidemic. Turner says the story of friendship between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims has been overblown and misconstrued.

“The Wampanoag saw a strategic opportunity and potential new allies,” says Turner. It is accurate that the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag agreed to a mutual defense treaty, and the Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims how to fertilize their crops.

When harvest time came, the Pilgrims were thankful and took a few days to “celebrate, eat, and have a good time.” The celebration, which probably occurred earlier in the fall than November, did not include the Wampanoag, but did include shooting off guns. Wampanoag men showed up after they heard the shots and then contributed to the feast and festivities, says Turner.

At that original celebration, they probably served venison and some sort of fowl, which could have been turkey, Turner says. There is also a good chance that eel was involved, as they were plentiful.

As more English settlers arrived to the Plymouth area, the cooperation between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag broke down. The Wampanoag got pushed off their land, and the descendants of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag warred against each other.

To this day, the Wampanoag don’t consider Thanksgiving a day of celebration. Instead, some gather at Cole’s Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock for a National Day of Mourning, a tradition that dates back to 1970.

“The long-term outcome for the Wampanoag was just dreadful,” says Turner.

—Anna Stolley Persky

The Truth About Sharing Recipes Online

When it comes to sharing recipes on social media, what users post and what they cook may be two entirely different things, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

The study, led by Mason researcher Hong Xue from the College of Health and Human Services, analyzed hundreds of Pinterest users and influencers, and found users liked and pinned posts that were healthy, featuring more poultry, fish, and vegetables, but were more heavily engaged offline with recipes that were high in fat, sugar, and total calories—indicating that users were actually more likely to cook the less healthy recipes.

“It’s an interesting discrepancy between what pinners posted or liked and how users actually consumed the information,” Xue says. “Pinners are more likely to post recipes that are socially rewarded with likes and repins. They are more likely to adhere to an elite social norm set by celebrities and influencers promoting healthier, lowcalorie, clean eating.”

Xue found that when it came to the less healthy recipes, he saw a very different picture. “Users are more interested in making food high in fat, sugar, and high calories. They’re commenting on and posting finished dish photos of the less healthy recipes.”

The disconnect between popularity and engagement is an important one, Xue notes, because users aren’t taking the additional step from interest to action. With 18 percent of the adult U.S. population using Pinterest, and recipe sharing being one of its most popular areas, Xue believes the platform represents an unprecedented opportunity to reinforce healthy eating habits—if Pinterest influencers posting recipes use different strategies.

“If users are engaging with more unhealthy recipes, then perhaps influencers should offer options for lowering the fat in them, as part of those recipes,” says Xue. “There are tremendous opportunities in social media to influence healthy behavior. We’re only beginning to understand its potential and the pitfalls.”

RESEARCH

PHOTO BY SHELBY BURGESS

Maibach was ranked 7th overall on Reuters Hot List of the world’s top climate scientists.

Maibach Named to ‘Hot List’

George Mason University’s Edward Maibach is the most influential scientist working on climate change at America’s public universities, according to a Reuters ranking of the researchers.

Maibach, a University Professor in the Department of Communication and the director of the Center for Climate Change Communication, ranked 7th overall in the Reuters Hot List identifying and ranking the world’s top 1,000 climate scientists. Only two other American scientists finished above him, including his research partner Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University, who finished second.

“This is nice for me professionally and personally,” says Maibach. “But the real importance of these rankings is the prominence of social science—two of the top 10 are social scientists. Climate science is indispensable, but if society is to put this knowledge to use, so too is social science. That our work is being taken seriously is a good thing.”

The three criteria Reuters used in determining the rankings were the number of research papers published on topics related to climate change, how often those papers were cited by other scientists in similar fields of study, and how often those papers are referenced in the press, on social media, and in policy papers.

Maibach has long been lauded for his efforts to better educate the public and policymakers on climate change. He played a critical role in the formation of the Yale/ Mason Climate Change in the American Mind survey project that has consistently been featured in major media outlets throughout the country for more than a decade.

In January, Maibach and Leiserowitz were honored by the nonpartisan Climate One project as recipients of the Stephen H. Schneider Award given to a natural or social scientist who has made extraordinary scientific contributions and communicated that knowledge to a broad public in a clear and compelling fashion.

Joining Maibach on the Reuters Hot List were fellow Mason faculty members Jagadish Shukla and Bohua Huang.

—John Hollis

INQUIRING MINDS

POINT

of PRIDE

Hakeem Oluseyi, one of the nation’s best known astrophysicists, has been named a Visiting Robinson Professor. He will begin teaching classes in the spring 2022 semester.

In his memoir, A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars, Oluseyi recounts how some of his relatives were part of the notorious Crips gang and how he was drawn into criminal activity by age 9. He also was a stargazer and a reader, and he eventually overcame the pull of that lifestyle and graduated from Stanford University with a PhD in physics. Oluseyi appears as a host and scientific authority on several Science Channel television shows.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY FAIRFAX COUNTY

Trying Out Autonomous Shuttles

George Mason University researchers are collaborating with Fairfax County on an autonomous shuttle program that is the first of its kind in Virginia.

Relay, Virginia’s first public, all-electric autonomous shuttle, began circulating between the Mosaic District in Merrifield, Virginia, and the Dunn LoringMerrifield Metro Station in fall 2020.

This pilot project is a public-private partnership between Fairfax County, Dominion Energy, Mosaic District developer EDENS, Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, Virginia Department of Transportation, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, and Mason.

Gautham Vadakkepatt, director of the Center for Retail Transformation in the School of Business, is working to understand customer perceptions of both Relay and autonomous vehicle use in general, as well as how these perceptions have changed over Relay’s test period. He has developed surveys to gather data to understand these changes.

“Autonomous vehicles will dramatically shape the future, presenting major opportunities and risks,” says Vadakkepatt. “Not only will these vehicles change how people travel and create new mobility choices, it has the potential to transform industries such as retail.”

Vadakkepatt says that while there is increasing positive sentiment in the general population about adoption of these technologies, there is wide variance in individual willingness to take part. “Understanding these differences can hasten adoption of this technology and its integration into the day-to-day operations of an economy.”

“The Mason team brings a unique expertise to the project as they help us track the evolving perceptions of this emerging technology,” says Eta Nahapetian of the Fairfax County Department of Economic Initiatives. “Their research will show if increasing familiarity with the technology leads to improved acceptance and adoption. This information is important as Fairfax County looks to the future of transportation.”

RESEARCH

Active Shooter Simulations Guide School Security Research

In 2020, George Mason University faculty and students participated in a series of virtual simulations of school shooter incidents as part of an effort to help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and MITRE determine best practices for school safety. As a result, DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency released an after-action report recommending ways to protect and increase survival rates of students and staff in such situations.

Mason researchers Stephanie Dailey and Kathryn Laskey were the faculty leads on the project. The simulation experiment (SIMEX) was set in a virtual high school environment modeled after designs in current suburban schools supporting about 1,000 students. Mason faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and outside educational professionals played the roles of teachers and students. Other organizations provided school resource officers (SROs) and administrative personnel.

During the two-week simulation, participants ran through scenarios in which there were different conditions, such as the absence or presence of an SRO or classrooms with manual versus automatic locks on doors.

“Immersive simulations allow researchers to study the problem scientifically,” says Laskey. “It’s a way of putting people in a situation as close as possible to the real thing to study what works and what doesn’t.”

Laskey adds that Mason researchers partnered with DHS and MITRE because they wanted to help “understand a problem that is of pressing importance in our society.”

Participants were in the same area in MITRE’s laboratory in McLean, Virginia, to be monitored during the simulation. They followed COVID-safe procedures, says Dailey.

“They had to be in one area because we needed to be able to observe the operators for signs of psychological distress,” says Dailey. “Despite being a very difficult topic, Mason students wanted to participate to make a difference, to be a part of finding evidence-based solutions.”

The final report recommended that schools should consider having classroom doors that automatically lock when closed and determined that SROs or equivalently trained security professionals may prevent fatalities during an active shooter event. However, the report also found that, while an SRO’s presence improved the safety of students and teachers during an active shooter event, schools need to carefully consider ways to increase situational awareness for SROs and administrative personnel.

MITRE project manager James Dear says that Mason was critical to “the success of the school security SIMEX by not only screening and training the research subjects, but also assisting in developing the data collection plan, analyzing the data, and contributing to the final report conclusions and recommendations.”

“The Mason team served as an integral part of the school security SIMEX,” says Lindsay Burton, a member of DHS’s School Safety Task Force. “The participation and key insights from the student volunteer participants, along with guidance and expertise provided by the faculty, directly contributed to the successful experiment.”

—Anna Stolley Persky