#stereotypies

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Hi! I was wondering if you knew anything in particular about the Lincoln Park Zoo- I think it’s the only zoo I’ve ever been to that’s free/no admission! Especially considering the scale. The only thing that concerned me was that their polar bears seem to have a history of stereotypical behaviors (pacing, primarily) which I saw while I was there, but again, I’m a total outsider to the actual inner workings of the facility. Sorry if this is too vague, haha.

There's a couple city zoos like that with free entrance! It's a cool option, and indicative of the city providing enough funding for the facility to operate without the need for income from tickets. (Sometimes the way things are set up, I think they can be required to stay free). The St. Louis Zoo is another!

I don't know a lot about the Lincoln Park Zoo beyond what I've seen as a guest. I've gone a couple times and haven't seen anything that stood out to me as major red flags, but that's just from a public perspective and not a comprehensive assessment. They're AZA-accredited and have been for a long time, which is an indication of their general ethos and operations. I can't speak to more than that about their quality, unfortunately.

You're right about the polar bear stereotypies - that's a thing I've seen for myself. The thing is, with stereotypies - and especially with polar bears - they're not necessarily an indicator of current welfare or quality of life.

For folk who are new to the blog or unfamiliar with the concept, in animal care, a stereotypy is a "repetitive, invariant behavior pattern with no obvious goal or function." Examples often seen are repetitive pacing, head-bobbing, licking or chewing, and rocking or swaying. (It's important to note that not all repetitive behaviors are stereotypic behaviors - e.g. animals may pace when excited and anticipating the arrival of a keeper). Stereotypies can be an indicator of chronically poor welfare, under-stimulating enrichment, or inappropriate captive environments, but the important thing to know about that is that they often persist after the problem that caused them is resolved. So you can take a polar bear or an elephant that picked up a stereotypic behavior in one zoo and move them to another, much better situation, and they may still continue the stereotypy.

(The fact that stereotypies can be indicators of previous, but not current, welfare problems is a really important nuance that is often left out of discussions. Sometimes they're called "zoochosis", which anti-captivity folk define as "the psychosis induced by captivity"... but that's a very unscientific approach, and doesn't facilitate productive discussion or attempts to identify causes and alleviate the behavior. Zoochosis is nothing but a useless manipulative buzzword, folks.)

Bears in general seem to be prone to stereotypies in captive situations. I've seen some recent research that hypothesizes it's likely due to a lack of ability to engage in normal behavioral sequences, such as foraging. Polar bears seem especially prone to it. One 2013 study found that of the 55 polar bears in North America they assessed, 85% engaged in stereotypical pacing. It might be because they natural cover such a huge range in the wild that older, smaller exhibits haven't allowed them to move as much as they need to; it could also be due to a historical lack of appropriate enrichment. We don't really know, because there's so many potential factors, and the long lifespan of polar bears means longitudinal studies of multiple generations take a very long time.

These are both things the industry is working on fixing: newer polar bear exhibits are built to be much larger and more complex, and there's been a heavy focus in the literature for at least a decade on finding ways to reduce stereotypies by providing engaging enrichment and increasing bears' activity levels. Lincoln Park Zoo's polar bear habitat was renovated in 2016, and - while it looks rather boring to me, as a guest - it was apparently designed to allow for a lot of activity range and polar bear-specific needs.

Their current bears are both about 20 years old, and were transferred to the Lincoln Park Zoo after the new habitat was completed. It's entirely plausible the bears arrived with stereotypies from their previous facilities, given that the emphasis on improving polar bear care is younger than they are. Here's a photo I took there a couple years ago, of Talini (I think), engaging in a repetitive head tossing behavior. It's definitely hard to watch, as a guest, and I don't remember if they had signage up about it.

That all being said, I wouldn't judge the whole zoo based on the polar bear stereotypies, because there's so much at play there in terms of history and the evolution of care for the species. What's important is how they're handling it, and what they're doing to help encourage more normative behavior from the bears. Given the amount of research and effort the zoo field has put into addressing the topic in polar bears for the last decade, it's highly probable that a lot of staff time goes into helping reduce the amount of time those bears spend engaging in stereotypies.

[mischiefmanifold]

Hey there, do you have some cool sources on other types on involuntary movement that are not tics?

Yes, I do! Here is a list of involuntary movements, a simple description, and links to resources on them:

Akathisia -> an inability to remain still

StatPearls article

cleveland clinic article (very good)

Akinesia -> the loss of spontaneous, voluntary muscle movement

StatPearls article (free article)

healthline article

Athetosis -> slow, continuous, involuntary writhing movements commonly affecting arms and hands

healthline article

Chorea -> rapid, chaotic movements that seem to flow from one body part to another

NINDS article

StatPearls article

Dystonia -> sustained or repetitious muscular contractions; often produces abnormal posture

mayo clinic article

NINDS article

StatPearls article

Hemiballismus -> sudden, intermittent, flinging, or ballistic high amplitude movements commonly affecting proximal limb muscles

StatPearls article

Myoclonus → sudden, brief, involuntary muscle twitches

mayo clinic article

NINDS article

StatPearls article

Parkinsonism -> a clinical syndrome characterized by slowness, rigidity, tremor, and postural instability

StatPearls article

parkinson's disease vs parkinsonism

types of parkinsonism (parkinson's UK)

types of parkinsonism (parkinson's foundation)

Stereotypies -> repetitive, rhythmic movements with typical onset in early childhood

stereotypies in adults

medlink article

Tardive Dyskinesia -> uncontrollable and repetitive movements of the tongue, lips, face, trunk, and extremities

webmd article

Tics -> sudden, rapid, recurrent, and nonrhythmic movements or vocalizations

mayo clinic article on tourette syndrome

NINDS article on tourette syndrome

child mind institute article on tics and tourette

Tremor -> rhythmic back-and-forth or oscillating involuntary movements

NINDS article

classification of tremor

(at request I can find Tumblr or blog posts talking about personal experiences with some of these movements)

Basic definitions come from this article: https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/effects/drug-induced-abnormal-involuntary-movements-prevalence-and-treatment/

[bipolar-bi]

I had only every known the word stimming so I thought this was interesting! I wonder if this word is used in a more negative context, though.

[Image description: a Google search result for the word "stereotypies." It says "Stereotypies are repetitive movements or sounds. These might include simple movements such as body-rocking, head-nodding, and finger-tapping, or more complex movements, such as arm and hand-flapping, waving or pacing." The information is from "Your child's Stereotypies - Evelina London." End description]

[temotristi]

,, Będę nadal podróżować, zmieniać się, patrzeć na świat z szeroko otwartymi oczami i głową, nie pozwolę, aby wciskano mnie w ramy stereotypów i przypinano etykiety. Najważniejszym jest, aby uwolnić swoje jestestwo: odnaleźć własną przestrzeń, nie dać się skrępować. "

Virginia Woolf

[alixisherebutringagain]

Stereotypy in the schizophrenic spectrum

First off, what is stereotypy ? It's repetitive, almost ritualistic movements or behaviours. Some examples are rocking back and forth, pacing, biting your nails, clearing your throat... There are tons of it. In autism, it is called stimming because the stereotypies are caused by self-soothing and self-regulation regarding the internalisation of stimuli.

There are multiple types of stereotypy : motor or vocal. Vocal stereotypy can be repeating sounds like "tch-tch-tc-" or "ba-ba-ba-ba".

Who can do that ? Technically, everyone, but it's more prevalent in autistic people, in people with tardive dyskinesia, in people with dementia and in people on the schizo spec.

One other thing about verbal stereotypy is that it includes sentences and words that are repeated as emotional reactions : "Blimey !" ; "Bloody hell!" Or also some littles words that we use very often, so much it pops up in our conversations in a very prominent manner "yep, yep" ; "so" ; "actually"...

People within the schizo spec tend to have a stereotyped speech. There isn't much research about it and it was hard to find info on it so here is what I understand from what I've read. Hope it helped :)

[soft-serve-soymilk]

Watched my dad do the locoroco cameo level in astrobot and apparently the “extreme flappy hands” came out 🥲

[garpond]

in all seriousness reading neurotypicals scientific 'studies' of us or whatever are so insane like the shit they come up with........you are kind of doing a lot you can just ask me why i do something and i will tell you . and suggest that u try it because its actually fun and based

[martiove]

Dopóki nie wyzbędziemy się wyobrażeń, nie spotkamy się z prawdą. Bo w naszym społeczeństwie wszystko jest umówione: Płaczesz? – Jesteś smutny. Dostałeś awans? – Sukces! Jesteś chora? – Walczysz o poprawę. Dostałeś się do akademii teatralnej? – Marzenie! Masz męża i dzieci? – Jesteś spełnioną kobietą. Umierasz? – Jesteś przybita i robisz rachunek sumienia. Wszystko uproszczone, wszystko czarno-białe, wszystko dopasowane. Wyobrażenia nie są prawdą. Nigdy nią nie będą. To rodzaj wizji, planu, odgórnych ustaleń, pojęcia na temat czegoś lub kogoś.

Marianna Gierszewska, Być tak naprawdę, s. 151-152

[imperial-nuisance-rudje]

I have had people responding to a Twitter post I made acting like I am either oblivious to what has happened in-text or that I want Zenos to be not an asshole and it makes me want to shake them

(Spoilery ranting about EW things under the cut)

I made that post bc I think the plot twist with Zero is fucking boring! It strips potential complexity and Good Drama from her and the rest of the writing either doesn't go into it enough (because let's be real she is weirdly chill with having her will stripped away from her) or doesn't acknowledge that Fandanny is very much the reason Zenos had the ability to do that in the first place (at least in English, I know fandanny gets mentioned more in other translations (which, can we discuss how fucking weird it is that the clown, a major antagonist for EW, is being glossed over this hard in favor of Zenos, who was for much of 6.0 a glorified side character despite his buildup in 5.x? I fucking hate it, on both counts))! Having the contract be mutual and having Zenos just be the shittiest client known to Voidsent is just way more interesting for everyone involved, because he's still a trash man but in a way that isn't boring stereotypied villain behavior that sends me to sleep and it means the Scions have to grapple with Zero knowingly harming people even if she had no malice behind it!

Like, I'm already not happy that Zero seems to be heading down the path of either having all her interesting traits sanded off to make her more universally appealing or getting the axe (I think the former is more likely due to the power of being in marketing material, but who knows given that this is the ff4 expac and Zeromus is a thing/historical problems 14 has had with introducing characters to kill them off the same expac), but that one thing in particular (combined with making her a normal person, fuck you guys I wanted a fucked up monster girl, I am aware of the writing justification for it and i think it is the realm of COWARDS) I think should have been a warning for how they would handle her and it displeases me that she's going down the way that signaled in the end, especially since a lot of the other Scions have had the sanding issue happen to them as well.

Idk, I just get annoyed when people see a very specific complaint and think it means "oh we want our villain woobified" instead of "I have found many aspects of how they handled these two narratively dissatisfying and it's only gotten worse with time, here is my take on probably the biggest with the most knock-on problems", or that it means I'm being misogynist about zero when my frustration with zero is that the writers keep swerving away from narrative complexity with her and have consistently chosen to not offer any novel insight to Zenos with her criticisms of him—"Zenos bad" is boring and uninteresting after the first time (where it at least gives info about Zero herself) and the English translation veering away from 6.3's "Zenos and Fandaniel are very alike in how they perceive the world" in favor of more "Zenos bad" is particularly frustrating bc it removes relatively novel info about why they could have been drawn to work with each other for no reason except a Zenos hateboner, as far as I can tell (literally, Fandaniel gets a full namedrop in every other version of that line, it's not like the translators didn't know he was included).

Turns out when you strongly bind two characters together, boring choices for one tends to negatively affect the other too! God. I'm just, so tired of people deliberately reading my fucking lukewarm at most "character writing in 6.x suffers from the scale it is trying to handle in the space it is given" takes in the most negative fashion possible.

[bathask]

自閉症スペクトラム過緊張高不安,小学生時気づきマスキング擬態化カモフラージュ専念,こだわり行動安心化や感覚処理感受性繊細化捗る特性。幼い頃毎日来る暗闇の恐怖な夜。60年近い昭和の昔のトイレ繰り返し夢に見るトラウマ。大人の発達障害アスペルガー/自閉スペクトラム症ASDの精神科通院処方薬整理

[mischiefmanifold]

re: tics.

“there are many types of involuntary movements, tics are only one of those movements”

what are the other types? /genq

I’ve had the same/similar 2-3 involuntary movements in my neck/head and legs for around 10 years. my mother and I have concluded that it likely occurred to due a side effect of a medication I was on at the time and just never went away. wondering if something else is a more probable explanation.

Types of Involuntary Movement

Some types of abnormal involuntary movements include:

Bradykinesia (hypokinetic)

slowed ability to start and continue movements

Chorea (hyperkinetic)

involuntary, rapid, jerky type arrhythmic movements

Athetosis (hyperkinetic)

slow, sinous, purposeless movements

Dystonia (hyperkinetic)

sustained movements with abnormal posture

Myoclonus (hyperkinetic)

sudden, rapid, twitchlike muscle contractions

Tremor (hyperkinetic)

8 to 12 Hz tremor of the outstretched hands, or resting tremor

Ballismus (hyperkinetic)

violent flinging movement of an entire limb

Tics (hyperkinetic)

sudden, repetitive, stereotyped motor or phonic movements

Stereotypies (hyperkinetic)

involuntary repetitive rhythmic movements

SOURCE: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-clinical-phenotype-of-movement-disorders-and-their-anatomical-correlation_tbl1_234080005

[missionreconnect]

BODYkind workshopy: Hledáme účastníky

Nástroje, výměna zkušeností a něco navíc

Hledáme účastníky workshopů: TĚLO jako klíčové slovo, o sebevědomí, hranicích, ale i o stereotypech nebo aktivismu, a jak na tato témata komunikovat s mladými lidmi O co jde? Mission: Reconnect je partnerem mezinárodního projektu BODYkind realizovaného s podporou programu Erasmus+.

V rámci projektu jsme pracovali na nové příručce, která se zabývá tématy jako body pozitivita a neutralita, body shaming, stereotypy, identita nebo aktivismus. Mezinárodní tým pracovníků s mládeží vytvořil nové aktivity, jejímž cílem je otevřít tato témata s mladými lidmi, ať už ve formálním nebo neformálním prostředí jako jsou školy, spolky či tábory.

Tyto aktivity jsme otestovali se skupinou mladých v roce 2023, a teď bychom je rádi představili těm, kteří s mladými aktivně pracují. Hledáme tedy učitele, pracovníky s mládeží, ale i aktivní mladé lidi, kteří by se s námi chtěli do aktivit o těle zapojit. 

Proč? Chceme s vámi vyzkoušet aktivity z příručky, získat zpětnou vazbu, ale také vás podpořit pokud máte zájem zorganizovat vlastní aktivitu pro mladé lidi. Kromě představení příručky, v případě obou workshopů představíme i různé nástroje, které jsou vhodné pro práci s mladými lidmi, i dospělými. Bude také čas na sdílení zkušeností, diskuze a poznání programu Erasmus +.  

Jak? Dva workshopy ve Sluňákově u Olomouce, kdy je možné se zúčastnit buď jednoho, nebo obou workshopů. Ty budou tematicky propojeny, ale aktivity v nich se nebudou opakovat, takže je možnost se zúčastnit jen jednoho, nebo i obou z nich. Hlavním cílem je praktické představení aktivit zaměřených na témata spojené s tělem a sdílení zkušeností.  Workshopy budou realizovány facilitátory, kteří se podíleli na přípravě příručky a pracují dlouhodobě s mládeží.

Následně nabízíme také naši podporu pro případnou realizaci vaší aktivity, a to jak s přípravou, tak finanční. Detaily: Workshopy se uskuteční  22. - 24. března 2024 a 5. - 7. dubna 2024. V pátek budeme začínat v 17.00 a končit v neděli ve 12:00.

Pracovním jazykem bude čeština.

Náklady na ubytování, stravování a materiály jsou plně hrazeny, stejně jako cestovní náklady. Účastníci obdrží certifikát o absolvování. Akce je realizována s podporou programu Erasmus+. Po workshopech budou mít účastníci možnost realizovat workshop nebo aktivitu s jejich cílovou skupinou dle vlastního výběru. Dostane se jim podpory jak skrze online metodické konzultace, tak i finační  (bude možnost pokrýt část nákladů na realizaci např. na materiály či pronájem prostor). 

Pokud máte zájem, zde naleznete přihlašovací formulář.

Dotazy zodpovíme, e-mail: missionreconnect@gmail.com 

[anderwater]

I would love to hear more about your thoughts on reservation dogs. :)

Brilliant. Best teen show, best coming of age show, best specific cultural show airing right now. I'm bad at wording my thoughts but I just love how the show is able to capture the "normal" and specifics of a community with so much authenticity and humor. The spiritual elements are so well included, it never feels like a gimmick or so much of a surreal elements, just part of their life. Which is the case of so many non-white culture that it's so nice to seeing it portrayed somewhere. I also feel like the inter-generational dynamics are also such a novelty in shows with teens/young adults as protagonist, and I can't get enough of elders being the immature idgaf wise and the youth learning and breaking the cycle/nonsense while protecting what's important to them. I got absolutely no notes for that finale season... the show gets the funny of simple situations like sitcoms do, and it also tells brutal back stories with care. Lights episodes have enough depths to matter as much, both directing and writing are so satisfying. I recall the fist season had to find its footing in term of what parts could be pushed as comedic elements but now everything just flows nicely. I love it so much, seriously gonna mourn it when it ends. Also, the Rez Dogs cast is incredible and I don't think it's talked enough in general.

[dopetaleobject]

Obraz Wroga, czyli jak wygląda dehumanizacja

Niewidzialni, Obcy, Wykluczeni – Jak Odmawiamy Ludziom Człowieczeństwa Nie trzeba ekstremistycznej propagandy, żebyśmy przestali widzieć w ludziach ludzi. Prawda jest taka, że często wystarczą zwykłe zachowania, proste słowa, a nawet same gesty. Każdy ma tendencję do dehumanizacji. Wisława Szymborska napisała: Tylko co ludzkie potrafi być prawdziwie obce. Może się to wydawać przesadą ale…

[wateringthemelon]

I can't tell how racist the depiction of the east in game of chairs is

[pokemonshelterstories]

Hi! So I recently got a bronzong and he's the sweetest little thing, only I'm worried about him as he rubs himself on everything (mostly couch and blankets) it's gotten to a point he's starting to look polished all the time, even when he should be due for a cleaning, should I be concerned?

that's really odd. the bronzong line notoriously does not enjoy being polished. there are actually myths from sinnoh detailing what happens to those who try to polish a bronzor's surface in the hopes of discovering hidden truths. usually it doesn't end well in those stories. real life research has confirmed that bronzor will move away from repetitive touch in 98% of instances.

sometimes pokemon will develop repetitive behaviors (called stereotypies) in captivity, especially pokemon who have more complicated needs; unfortunately, there's not a ton of research into enrichment and behavior management for the bronzong line, which complicates things. i'd recommend touching base with someone who owns one and talking with them about what behaviors their bronzong exhibits and what enrichment it seems to like. in addition, you should definitely find a vet who has experience in working with them and get a full workup done to make sure there's nothing medical causing the behavior. while i don't know if this behavior would necessarily count as harmful to your bronzong, you want to make sure that it's not the result of a need not being met.