Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:17:22 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
From: debunks@hotmail.com
Subject: Jews asked for Saliva

Jews sought for saliva study
Aim to track tension about Middle East newspaper coverage

TIA GOLDENBERG, Freelance Writer  

Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Jewish Montrealers will soon be asked to give saliva
to see how stressed they get when they read about
the Palestinian-Israeli situation in daily newspapers.

Professors from Carleton University in Ottawa are
looking for people willing to stick a cotton ball in their
mouth to measure how irate they become while
reading stories about this subject. They hope to get
about 60 participants.

"The Middle East conflict is on almost everybody's mind,
one way or another," said Bill Surkis, regional director
of B'nai Brith Canada.

Kimberly Matheson, a Carleton psychology professor,
said she came up with the idea for the study after
seeing an "incredible amount of stress" among Jewish
colleagues at her university as they read the news.

This caused Matheson to look at the effects of
perceived media biases.

The researchers are seeking volunteers in Montreal
because it has a larger Jewish population than Ottawa.

Participants will read a compilation of newspaper
articles in their own home.

Before and after reading the material, they will swab
their mouths to see how much of the stress hormone
cortizol is present. The cotton balls are then placed in
a refrigerator and later mailed to Ottawa for analysis.

Hymie Anisman, a colleague of Matheson, said the level
of cortizol in the saliva will indicate how stressed the
media coverage makes the participant. Anisman said
the results could allow people to learn to better cope
with daily, low-grade stressors, like news-media
coverage.

Matheson said that while this study focuses on
Canadian Jews, the results could apply to many visible
or non-visible minorities.

She conducted a related study in Canada in 1999
about the 1992 Bosnian war. Matheson showed an
article about the conflict to ethnic Bosnian Serbs,
Bosnian Muslims and a third impartial party. Members
of the first two groups said the account was biased,
while those in the third group thought it was balanced.

Matheson said she watched her Jewish co-workers'
faces turn red in anger last year as they read stories
about the situation in Israel.

"My Jewish colleagues were getting very upset at the
news coverage," she said. She could see their stress
levels rise.

The study is funded by the university. Its results are
to be made public at the end of the month.