We change more than we think, scientists say

Glancing around his study on a recent afternoon, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert's eyes came to rest on his collection of thousands of music CDs, acquired over many years at considerable expense.

"I don't listen to a lot of them anymore," he said. "I was certain I'd listen to Miles Davis until the day I died."

According to his own research, Gilbert is hardly alone in having imagined that he'd always like the same music, or hobbies or friends.

Writing this month in the journal Science, he reported that people at all stages of life tend to believe they won't change much in the future — even as they recognize great shifts in their personalities, values and tastes in the past.

Calling it the "end of history illusion," he and his colleagues suggested that the phenomenon may help explain why people make decisions they later regret: marrying the wrong person or buying an expensive vacation home.

"We recognize it in teenagers," Gilbert said. "We say to them, 'You're not going to like that Megadeth tattoo in 10 years.' But no matter how old you are, you're making the same mistake."

Gilbert, who is 55, said he became interested in studying the end of history illusion based on his own experiences in middle age.

"I've had this sense that I was finished baking — that I'd still be me, but older," he said.

He decided to test that intuition through a series of experiments.

An obvious approach would have been to have subjects make predictions about their future selves, wait 10 years, and see if they were right, Gilbert said. But lacking that kind of lead time, he and his colleagues devised a way to get the same information from a single moment in time.

Recruiting viewers of a popular French documentary hosted by study coauthor Jordi Quoidbach, a postdoctoral researcher in Gilbert's lab, the scientists assigned some to answer questions designed to arrive at core aspects of their identity and to predict how those responses might differ 10 years in the future. Among other things, subjects were asked to list their favorite foods or hobbies, rank values such as success and security, or answer a standard questionnaire designed to home in on personality traits like conscientiousness and emotional stability.

Other volunteers were asked to consider the same traits, but report how they had changed in the past decade.

Pairing up future-focused predictors and backward-looking reporters — such that the predictions of 25-year-olds were compared to the recollections of 35-year-olds, for instance — the researchers found that people consistently acknowledged they had changed a lot in the past but underestimated how much they would change in the future. The results held true for each decade of life between ages 18 and 68.

In all, more than 19,000 people recruited from Quoidbach's show took part in the experiment. Although the effect was stronger in younger people than in older people, it did not disappear, Gilbert said.

Was this merely an interesting quirk, or did it have consequences? To find out, the team conducted another experiment to gauge whether people's unwillingness or inability to recognize how much they'll change in the future leads them to pay too much for things today.

Recruiting an additional 170 subjects online, they asked some to name their favorite music group and say how much they'd pay to see the band in concert 10 years from now. They asked others to recall their favorite band from 10 years ago and say how much they'd pay to see them today.

On average, those in the first group were willing to pay $129 to see their current favorite play in 10 years — 61% more than members of the second group, who would pay only $80, on average, to see their former favorite.

Psychologist Michael Ross, an expert in the study of autobiographical memory at the University of Waterloo in Canada, said it was "novel and audacious" that we tend to see ourselves as fully formed. But many questions about the end of history illusion remain, said Ross, who was not on the research team.

Ross said he'd be interested in further research explaining what causes people to think this way and whether the effect is limited to perceptions of ourselves or also applies to our perceptions of others. Cultural differences may also play a role; perhaps people in East Asian societies, who generally express less satisfaction than people in the West, might perceive change differently, he said.

Though our apparent blindness toward our own mutability might seem to doom us to a lifetime of bad decisions and regrets, Gilbert insisted all was not lost.

"If you want to know how you'll react to something in the future, look at someone who's reacting to it today," he said. "We're not as different from each other as we think."

Then again, he added, previous research has shown that most of us prefer to think we're unique.

eryn.brown@latimes.com

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Man With 4th Amendment Written on Chest Wins Trial Over Airport Arrest

A Virginia man who wrote an abbreviated version of the Fourth Amendment on his body and stripped to his shorts at an airport security screening area won a trial Friday in his lawsuit seeking $250,000 in damages for being detained on a disorderly conduct charge.

Aaron Tobey claimed in a civil rights lawsuit (.pdf) that in 2010 he was handcuffed and held for about 90 minutes by the Transportation Security Administration at the Richmond International Airport after he began removing his clothing to display on his chest a magic-marker protest of airport security measures.

“Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,” his chest and gut read.

In sending the case to trial, unless there’s a settlement, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 and reversed a lower court judge and invoked Benjamin Franklin in the process. According to the opinion by Judge Roger Gregory:

Here, Mr. Tobey engaged in a silent, peaceful protest using the text of our Constitution—he was well within the ambit of First Amendment protections. And while it is tempting to hold that First Amendment rights should acquiesce to national security in this instance, our Forefather Benjamin Franklin warned against such a temptation by opining that those ‘who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ We take heed of his warning and are therefore unwilling to relinquish our First Amendment protections—even in an airport.

Tobey didn’t want to go through the advanced imaging technology X-ray machines, or so-called nude body scanners, that were cropping up at airports nationwide. Instead, when it was his turn to be screened, he was going to opt for an intrusive pat-down, and removed most of his clothing in the process.

Among other things, the federal lawsuit claimed wrongful detention and a breach of the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment. Tobey was on his way to Wisconsin for his grandmother’s funeral. Despite his detainment, he made his flight.

According to the suit, while under interrogation, the authorities wanted to know “about his affiliation with, or knowledge of, any terrorist organizations, if he had been asked to do what he did by any third party, and what his intentions and goals were.”

Two weeks later, Henrico County prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charge against him, and he sued the Transportation Security Administration and others.

In dissent, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote:

Had this protest been launched somewhere other than in the security-screening area, we would have a much different case. But Tobey’s antics diverted defendants from their passenger-screening duties for a period, a diversion that nefarious actors could have exploited to dangerous effect. Defendants responded as any passenger would hope they would, summoning local law enforcement to remove Tobey—and the distraction he was creating — from the scene.

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Arhoolie Records set highlights 50 years of roots-music

BOSTON (Reuters) – Chris Strachwitz discovered the first performer for his Arhoolie Records label by quizzing roadside field hands, a prosperous cotton farmer named Mr. Tom Moore, and a man called Peg Leg at a railroad station in Navasota, Texas.

As Strachwitz tells it, Peg Leg identified a highway worker and former tenant farmer who entertained local folks: Mance Lipscomb.

“Mance Lipscomb, Texas Sharecropper and Songster,” was recorded in 1960 in the musician’s shotgun house, and it launched Lipscomb into the surging U.S. folk-music revival.

It also launched German-born Strachwitz on a half-century career of uncovering and popularizing vernacular “roots music” of the Americas. That includes the blues of black Americans, the Zydeco of Louisiana’s Creoles, Mexican norteño and Tejano conjunto music, and other styles that spring from deep cultural wells and get crowds dancing in obscure rooms.

“I probably should have become a detective,” Strachwitz told Reuters in a telephone interview. “Meeting all these people was an intriguing adventure. I didn’t have to go on a safari, hunting for elephants or something. I hunted musicians.”

Some of the performers who Strachwitz tracked down on his back-road and honky-tonk rambles, and others influenced by him and his records, gathered two years ago in Berkeley, California for a 50th anniversary concert run.

The three-night run was released this week as “They All Played for Us,” a 4-CD set and photo book that showcases Arhoolie‘s mosaic of musicians.

“They had confidence in the music that they made,” Grammy-winning recording artist Taj Mahal said. “It wasn’t predicated on selling a million or millions … it’s what made them happy. Chris – most of his records were about that.”

Mahal and fellow roots-music pioneer Ry Cooder joined the performers at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse for the anniversary. Others included the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, bluegrass master Peter Rowan, norteño stars Los Cenzontles, the Treme Brass Band from New Orleans and The Campbell Brothers, a “sacred-steel” guitar gospel group.

GATHERING A MUSICAL FAMILY

Strachwitz, who said he fell in love with records as a child in pre-war Germany and came of age in southern California, gathered his musical family in several ways. He scoured record stores and listened to regional ethnic radio programs.

Strachwitz learned of bluesman “Black Ace” Turner when he inquired at a street-corner gambling game. Blues legend “Lightning” Hopkins took him to see a cousin, Clifton Chenier, who later rose to acclaim as the “King of Zydeco.”

Strachwitz named Arhoolie after a type of work song, a field holler, that had deep roots in African-American musical culture.

He was asked to describe the unique attributes of each musical style he recorded. But instead he cited a common thread.

“I think it’s the powerful rhythm,” he said. “They were all dance music – real dance music, not this boogaloo shit. And it’s sort of honky-tonk music, it’s just free flowing, rhythmic, stuff. With some good singing on top of it.”

He recorded in his living room, kitchens, beer joints and churches. “I didn’t give a damn about acoustics. I’d record in an outhouse if I had to,” he said.

He made sure his musicians got their due. Strachwitz recalled giving an appreciative Fred McDowell a royalty check for the Rolling Stones’ cover version of “You Gotta Move.”

“Fred McDowell enjoyed his life so much just playing for people, and after we got him the money … from the Rolling Stones, he said. ‘Well, I’m glad them boys enjoyed my music.’”

The 50th anniversary concert and recording were fundraisers for the Arhoolie Foundation, which supports folk culture and is advised by Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and others. Projects include films, instrument donations, and digital transfers of more than 50,000 records and cassettes in the collection Strachwitz donated of Mexican and Mexican-American music.

A “SONGCATCHER” STRUGGLING TO STAY IN BUSINESS

Arhoolie Records and writer Adam Machado won a Grammy award last year for “Hear Me Howling,” an anthology of the Bay Area music scene culled from Strachwitz‘s recordings.

But Arhoolie, based in El Cerrito, California, is struggling. Strachwitz said. He called himself more of “songcatcher” than businessman.

“I’ve been trying to survive basically on the publishing royalties. I haven’t got a salary from Arhoolie in years and now they can’t even afford to pay the rent anymore,” he said.

But there will always be songs to catch and backwaters to explore, Mahal said. The folk-music scene is still vibrant and house concerts are supporting a wave of new talent to be discovered, he said.

And the legacy Strachwitz created will endure.

“Deep Americana (music) is a huge force and it has traveled out of our country to people around the world. It is a big source of comfort for a lot of people,” Mahal said.

“People like Chris Strachwitz have spent their lives making sure that that is so, and that these people don’t get lost in the shuffle, and drop through the cracks.”

(Reporting by Randall Mikkelsen, editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Diner’s Journal Blog: PepsiCo Will Halt Use of Additive in Gatorade

PepsiCo announced on Friday that it would no longer use an ingredient in Gatorade after consumers complained.

The ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, which was used in citrus versions of the sports drink to prevent the flavorings from separating, was the object of a petition started on Change.org by Sarah Kavanaugh, a 15-year-old from Hattiesburg, Miss., who became concerned about the ingredient after reading about it online. Studies have suggested there are possible side effects, including neurological disorders and altered thyroid hormones.

The petition attracted more than 200,000 signatures, and earlier this week, Ms. Kavanaugh was in New York City to tape a segment for “The Dr. Oz Show.” She visited The New York Times on Wednesday and while there said, “I just don’t understand why they can’t use something else instead of B.V.O.”

“I was in algebra class and one of my friends kicked me and said, ‘Have you seen this on Twitter?’ ” Ms. Kavanaugh said in a phone interview on Friday evening. “I asked the teacher if I could slip out to the bathroom, and I called my mom and said, ‘Mom, we won.’ ”

Molly Carter, a spokeswoman for Gatorade, said the company had been testing alternatives to the chemical for roughly a year “due to customer feedback.” She said Gatorade initially was not going to make an announcement, “since we don’t find a health and safety risk with B.V.O.”

Because of the petition, though, Ms. Carter said the company had changed its mind, and an unidentified executive there gave Beverage Digest, a trade publication, the news for its Jan. 25 issue.

Previously, a spokesman for PepsiCo had said in an e-mail, “We appreciate Sarah as a fan of Gatorade, and her concern has been heard.”

Brominated vegetable oil will be replaced by sucrose acetate isobutyrate, an emulsifier that is “generally recognized as safe” as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration. The new ingredient will be added to orange, citrus cooler and lemonade Gatorade, as well Gatorade X-Factor orange, Gatorade Xtremo citrus cooler and a powdered form of the drink called “glacier freeze.”

Ms. Carter said consumers would start seeing the new ingredient over the next few months as existing supplies of Gatorade sell out and are replaced.

Health advocates applauded the company’s move. “Kudos to PepsiCo for doing the responsible thing on its own and not waiting for the F.D.A. to force it to,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Mr. Jacobson has championed the removal of brominated vegetable oil from foods and beverages for the last several decades, but the F.D.A. has left it in a sort of limbo, citing budgetary constraints that it says keep it from going through the process needed to formally ban the chemical or declare it safe once and for all.

Brominated vegetable oil is banned as a food ingredient in Japan and the European Union. About 10 percent of drinks sold in the United States contain it, including Mountain Dew, which is also made by PepsiCo; some flavors of Powerade and Fresca from Coca-Cola; and Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda, made by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

PepsiCo said it had no plans to remove the ingredient from Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew, both of which generate more than $1 billion in annual sales.

Heather White, executive director at the Environmental Working Group, said of PepsiCo’s decision, “We can only hope that other companies will follow suit.” She added, “We need to overhaul how F.D.A. keeps up with the latest science on food additives to better protect public health.”

Ms. Kavanaugh agreed. “I’ve been thinking about ways to take this to the next level, and I’m thinking about taking it to the F.D.A. and asking them why they aren’t doing something about it,” she said. “I’m not sure yet, but I think that’s where I’d like to go with this.”

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Labor Relations Board Rulings Could Be Undone

By ruling that Mr. Obama’s three recess appointments last January were illegal, the federal appeals court ruling, if upheld, would leave the board with just one member, short of the quorum needed to issue any rulings. The Obama administration is expected to appeal Friday’s court ruling, a move that might result in a legal stay that would delay the removal of the recess appointees.

If the Supreme Court were to uphold Friday’s ruling, issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it would mean that the labor board did not have a quorum since last January and that all its rulings since then should be nullified.

Many Republicans and business groups applauded Friday’s ruling. They often assert that the appointments Mr. Obama made to the board have transformed it into a tool of organized labor. But many Democrats and labor unions say Mr. Obama’s appointments restored ideological balance to the board after it was tipped in favor of business interests under President George W. Bush

Mark G. Pearce, the board’s chairman, issued a statement saying the board disagreed with the ruling and suggested that other appeals courts hearing cases about the constitutionality of Mr. Obama’s appointments could reach a different conclusion.

“In the meantime, the board has important work to do,” said Mr. Pearce, whose agency oversees enforcement of the laws governing strikes and unionization drives. “We will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.”

Unless the Senate confirms future nominees to the board — Senate Republicans have blocked several of Mr. Obama’s board nominees — Mr. Pearce will be the only member left if Friday’s ruling is upheld. The board has five seats.

Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a statement that urged the recess appointees to “do the right thing and step down.” He added, “To avoid further damage to the economy, the N.L.R.B. must take the responsible course and cease issuing any further opinions until a constitutionally sound quorum can be established.”

The three disputed recess appointees included two Democrats, Sharon Block, deputy labor secretary, and Richard Griffin, general counsel to the operating engineers’ union; and one Republican, Terence Flynn, a counsel to a board member. Mr. Flynn resigned last May after being accused of leaking materials about the group’s deliberations. Another Republican member, Brian Hayes, stepped down when his term expired last month.

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LAUSD principal failed to report alleged molestation by teacher

A now-retired principal twice failed to report accusations of sexual misconduct by a teacher who this week was charged with molesting 12 students at a Wilmington elementary school, officials said.

In 2002 and 2008, the principal was told that the teacher, Robert Pimentel, 57, inappropriately touched a student. But the principal failed to tell law enforcement authorities, as required by law, said L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy.

The Los Angeles Police Department began investigating Pimentel only last March, when they learned of more recent allegations at George de la Torre Jr. Elementary School.

LAPD Capt. Fabian Lizarraga said Thursday that detectives will launch an investigation into whether the principal, Irene Hinojosa, should face charges for failing to report alleged abuse. She could not be reached for comment Thursday.

It remains unclear why Hinojosa did not tell authorities about the accusations. The 2008 allegation also occurred at De la Torre, where she was principal. The 2002 allegation was made when Pimentel was a teacher and Hinojosa the principal at Dominguez Elementary in Carson, Deasy said.

At De la Torre, volunteer Magdalena Gonzalez said Thursday that Hinojosa had been made aware of several questionable incidents involving Pimentel.

Three years ago, she said, a girl told her parent that Pimentel had playfully spanked students. Gonzalez also said she and other volunteers saw Pimentel pull on a student's bra strap during a fifth-grade graduation ceremony.

Gonzalez alleged that Hinojosa was dismissive of their complaints and that she allowed Pimentel to have students in his classroom during recess and lunch despite their misgivings.

"We told her he was touching the girls," Gonzalez said in Spanish.

School employees are required by law to report allegations of sexual misconduct to police. They also are supposed to report such issues to their supervisors, according to school district policies.

The revelations angered parents and once again placed the Los Angeles Unified School District under scrutiny over its handling of student-abuse cases. A state audit released last November found that Los Angeles school officials failed to promptly report nearly 150 cases of suspected misconduct to state authorities, including allegations of sexual contact with students.

The audit resulted from the furor over the case of a Miramonte Elementary School teacher who last year was accused of spoon-feeding his semen to blindfolded students, giving them tainted cookies and taking bizarre photos of them. The school had received previous complaints about the teacher, Mark Berndt, that had resulted in no discipline. Berndt has pleaded not guilty to lewd conduct.

On Thursday, Deasy criticized the handling of the De la Torre case by the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing. He said the district informed the state of the allegations as soon as they came to light, but the commission has not suspended or revoked the credential of either educator.

If Pimentel had applied to work as a substitute teacher at another school system, for example, the state would have reported him in good standing as recently as Thursday.

A spokeswoman said the commission cannot automatically suspend a teacher's credential until charges are filed. But the commission does have the discretion to act sooner, said Erin Sullivan, who said state law prevents her from commenting on specific cases.

Hinojosa's case is "scheduled to be taken up by the commission" next Thursday at its regular meeting, she added.

Pimentel is charged with seven counts of lewd and lascivious acts on children under 14 and with eight felony counts of continuous sexual abuse involving eight victims. The charges cover the period from September 2011 to March 2012, when Pimentel worked at De la Torre. He was charged with molesting 12 students, but police allege there is a total of 20 child victims and one adult victim.

Pimentel was taken into custody shortly after noon Wednesday and was being held on $12 million bail. He pleaded not guilty Thursday, and his attorney Richard Knickerbocker said he is "absolutely innocent."

Knickerbocker described the touching as appropriate and said it fell within district policy.

In one instance, Pimentel hugged a girl and "gave her a kiss on the forehead," Knickerbocker said. Pimentel, he said, never touched "any private parts."

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Vine's Launch-Day Woes Include Bugs and Facebook Block

Twitter’s new social video app isn’t having a smooth launch day.

Despite being well-received, Vine has faced a mess of issues since it launched Thursday morning. First, server-side bugs led to users signing into other people’s accounts. Then the app had to disable video-sharing to social networks. And all day long, there’s been the general bugginess of trying to sign in via Twitter and find friends through Twitter or Facebook.

And as of Thursday evening, it appears that Facebook has blocked Vine’s access to its network.

When you try to find Facebook-connected friends on the app, an error message pops up: “Vine is not authorized to make this Facebook request.” This is only hours after the app had no problem connecting to, and pulling friend data from, your Facebook network.

Neither Facebook nor Vine or Twitter responded for comment at the time of publication.

Facebook cutting off Vine is another way for the social giant to exert its powers. Considering Facebook just released data about how third-party, Facebook-connected mobile apps have much more engaged users, it’s clear that Facebook doesn’t want to give Vine the same benefits.

But it’s a development that further illustrates the battles taking place between social giants — it comes on the heels of other competitive shenanigans, including Instagram dropping Twitter card integration, and Twitter subsequently cutting Instagram off from finding friends within its app.

All this strategic posturing is much more than just a headache for Vine. The app continues to enjoy a tremendous amount of launch-day buzz, and as new users are flocking in and signing up, they’re the ones being greeted with super-annoying roadblocks. It proves once again that when the social networks decide to stop playing nice, ultimately, the loser is you.

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CBS orders pilots for “Bad Teacher,” Bruno Heller drama

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – A pilot based on the 2011 Cameron Diaz film “Bad Teacher” and a drama from “The Mentalist’ creator Bruno Heller have been ordered by CBS, an individual with knowledge of the orders told TheWrap on Wednesday.

“Bad Teacher” will be written and executive-produced by “My Name Is Earl” and “Community” veteran Hilary Winston, with Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who were behind the film, executive-producing as well. Sam Hansen and Jimmy Miller will also executive-produce the pilot, which comes from Sony Pictures Television in association with the Mosaic Media Group, and follows a sexy, foul-mouthed divorcee who becomes a teacher to find her next husband.

“The Advocates,” written and executive-produced by Heller, revolves around a female lawyer and a male ex-con who team up as “victim advocates,” going to the very edge of the law to right wrongs and fight for the underdog. Warner Bros. is producing.

The new pilot orders follow on the heels of CBS ordering pilots for a small-screen adaptation of the Eddie Murphy film “Beverly Hills Cop” – which is being executive-produced by “The Shield” creator Shawn Ryan, and Murphy will appear in – as well as the sitcom “Friends With Better Lives” and the detective drama “Backstrom.”

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The New Old Age Blog: Grief Over New Depression Diagnosis

When the American Psychiatric Association unveils a proposed new version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of psychiatric diagnoses, it expects controversy. Illnesses get added or deleted, acquire new definitions or lists of symptoms. Everyone from advocacy groups to insurance companies to litigators — all have an interest in what’s defined as mental illness — pays close attention. Invariably, complaints ensue.

“We asked for commentary,” said David Kupfer, the University of Pittsburgh psychiatrist who has spent six years as chairman of the task force that is updating the handbook. He sounded unruffled. “We asked for it and we got it. This was not going to be done in a dark room somewhere.”

But the D.S.M. 5, to be published in May, has generated an unusual amount of heat. Two changes, in particular, could have considerable impact on older people and their families.

First, the new volume revises some of the criteria for major depressive disorder. The D.S.M. IV (among other changes, the new manual swaps Roman numerals for Arabic ones) set out a list of symptoms that over a two-week period would trigger a diagnosis of major depression: either feelings of sadness or emptiness, or a loss of interest or pleasure in most daily activities, plus sleep disturbances, weight loss, fatigue, distraction or other problems, to the extent that they impair someone’s functioning.

Traditionally, depression has been underdiagnosed in older adults. When people’s health suffers and they lose friends and loved ones, the sentiment went, why wouldn’t they be depressed? A few decades back, Dr. Kupfer said, “what was striking to me was the lack of anyone getting a depression diagnosis, because that was ‘normal aging.’” We don’t find depression in old age normal any longer.

But critics of the D.S.M. 5 now argue that depression may become overdiagnosed, because this version removes the so-called “bereavement exclusion.” That was a paragraph that cautioned against diagnosing depression in someone for at least two months after loss of a loved one, unless that patient had severe symptoms like suicidal thoughts.

Without that exception, you could be diagnosed with this disorder if you are feeling empty, listless or distracted, a month after your parent or spouse dies.

“D.S.M. 5 is medicalizing the expected and probably necessary process of mourning that people go through,” said Allen Frances, a professor emeritus at Duke who chaired the D.S.M. IV task force and has denounced several of the changes in the new edition. “Most people get better with time and natural healing and resilience.”

If they are diagnosed with major depression before that can happen, he fears, they will be given antidepressants they may not need. “It gives the drug companies the right to peddle pills for grief,” he said.

An advisory committee to the Association for Death Education and Counseling also argued that bereaved people “will receive antidepressant medication because it is cheaper and ‘easier’ to medicate than to be involved therapeutically,” and noted that antidepressants, like all medications, have side effects.

“I can’t help but see this as a broad overreach by the APA,” Eric Widera, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote on the GeriPal blog. “Grief is not a disorder and should be considered normal even if it is accompanied by some of the same symptoms seen in depression.”

But Dr. Kupfer said the panel worried that with the exclusion, too many cases of depression could be overlooked and go untreated. “If these things go on and get worse over time and begin to impair someone’s day to day function, we don’t want to use the excuse, ‘It’s bereavement — they’ll get over it,’” he said.

The new entry for major depressive disorder will include a note — the wording isn’t final — pointing out that while grief may be “understandable or appropriate” after a loss, professionals should also consider the possibility of a major depressive episode. Making that distinction, Dr. Kupfer said, will require “good solid clinical judgment.”

Initial field trials testing the reliability of D.S.M. 5 diagnoses, recently published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, don’t bolster confidence, however. An editorial remarked that “the end results are mixed, with both positive and disappointing findings.” Major depressive disorder, for instance, showed “questionable reliability.”

In an upcoming post, I’ll talk more about how patients might respond to the D.S.M. 5, and to a new diagnosis that might also affect a lot of older people — mild neurocognitive disorder.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 24, 2013

An earlier version of this post misspelled the surname of a professor emeritus at Duke who chaired the D.S.M. IV task force. He is Allen Frances, not Francis.

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The Education Revolution: As Graduates Rise in China, Office Jobs Fail to Keep Up

Forbes Conrad for The New York Times

Wang Zhengsong, right, viewed job postings outside in Guangzhou. Blue-collar jobs are plentiful in China, but many recent college grads are reluctant to pursue them.

GUANGZHOU, China — This city of 15 million on the Pearl River is the hub of a manufacturing region where factories make everything from T-shirts and shoes to auto parts, tablet computers and solar panels. Many factories are desperate for workers, despite offering double-digit annual pay increases and improved benefits.

Wang Zengsong is desperate for a steady job. He has been unemployed for most of the three years since he graduated from a community college here after growing up on a rice farm. Mr. Wang, 25, has worked only several months at a time in low-paying jobs, once as a shopping mall guard, another time as a restaurant waiter and most recently as an office building security guard.

But he will not consider applying for a full-time factory job because Mr. Wang, as a college graduate, thinks that is beneath him. Instead, he searches every day for an office job, which would initially pay as little as a third of factory wages.

“I have never and will never consider a factory job — what’s the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?” he asked.

Millions of recent college graduates in China like Mr. Wang are asking the same question. A result is an anomaly: Jobs go begging in factories while many educated young workers are unemployed or underemployed. A national survey of urban residents, released this winter by a Chinese university, showed that among people in their early 20s, those with a college degree were four times as likely to be unemployed as those with only an elementary school education.

It is a problem that Chinese officials are acutely aware of.

“There is a structural mismatch — on the one hand, the factories cannot find skilled labor, and, on the other hand, the universities produce students who do not want the jobs available,” said Ye Zhihong, a deputy secretary general of China’s Education Ministry.

China’s swift expansion in education over the last decade, including a quadrupling of the number of college graduates each year, has created millions of engineers and scientists. The best can have their pick of jobs at Chinese companies that are aiming to become even more competitive globally.

But China is also churning out millions of graduates with few marketable skills, coupled with a conviction that they are entitled to office jobs with respectable salaries.

Part of the problem seems to be a proliferation of fairly narrow majors — Mr. Wang has a three-year associate degree in the design of offices and trade show booths. At the same time, business and economics majors are rapidly gaining favor on Chinese campuses at the expense of majors like engineering, contributing to the glut of graduates with little interest in soiling their hands on factory floors.

“This also has to do with the banking sector — they offer high-paying jobs, so their parents want their children to go in this direction,” Ms. Ye said.

Mr. Wang and other young, educated Chinese without steady jobs pose a potential long-term challenge to social stability. They spend long hours surfing the Internet, getting together with friends and complaining about the shortage of office jobs for which they believe they were trained.

China now has 11 times as many college students as it did at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989, and an economy that has been very slow to produce white-collar jobs. The younger generation has shown less interest in political activism, although that could change if the growing numbers of graduates cannot find satisfying work.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao acknowledged last March that only 78 percent of the previous year’s college graduates had found jobs. But even that figure may overstate employment for the young and educated.

The government includes not just people in long-term jobs but also freelancers, temporary workers, graduate students and people who have signed job contracts but not started work yet, as well as many people in make-work jobs that state-controlled companies across China have been ordered to create for new graduates.

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