What's Sexier than Social Psych? ..not much

So if there’s one thing I’ve learned this semester it’s that Social Psychology is the sexiest field on the planet. Why?

The number one reason – hands down – is the self-fulfilling prophecy. Just the idea that you change how a person is based on what you think of them and how you treat them is sexy as hell! Sure we learned that if a teacher is lead to believe that if a student is gifted, they will treat that student as if they are smart, and will consequently elicit actions from the student that lead them to perform better… but just think about all of the instances that this can apply to!!! Answer: Infinity. It has the potential to influence every human interaction we ever have – friendships, raising kids, dating partners, etc, etc etc. I swear I’m not sucking up; it seriously blows my mind every time I think about it!

Second, learning about the spotlight effect pretty much changed my life. I’m so much less stressed out now that I know that people usually don’t notice or don’t remember if I do something incredibly stupid, which is fairly often. I wasted so much time in the past worrying about what other people think of my crazy slipups and faux paus, and now I can just shrug anything off.

Affective forecasting is sexy for the same reason: it has changed my life. Sure, I know what makes me happy and sad, but I always think that I’m going to be miserable forever when something bad happens. Now I know that three months is the time limit; not matter how bad something is I know that it’s only a matter of time. As a result, I worry and few less sad which actually brings me out of my sad state even faster. I might still be sad about whatever event has caused my misery in the first place, but I’m at least not depressed about thinking I’ll never be happy again.

Mere exposure comes in at a close fourth. I like to like people, and I like for people to like me. It’s nice to know that just by being around them – even if we don’t notice each other – they’re more likely to like me (assuming I’m not a negative stimulus to begin with).

The sleeper effect is just really cool. It’s not really a good thing, because it allows sources of information that aren’t credible to hold more weight than they should once the source has been forgotten, but I find myself remembering this constantly now.


To top it off, Social Psychology is full of sexy people too, not just theories – fancy that!

1) Leon Festinger. Cognitive dissonance is my favorite to explain to people, and it’s my go-to example when people ask what social psychology is and I want to make sure that they know it rocks. Peg turning just makes so much sense! (I usually use the Zimbardo’s Grasshopper study when I explain it, but he’s too much of an A-hole from the Stanford Prison study to make my sexy list.)

2) Robert Cialdini. Because what isn’t cool about going undercover to figure out the world’s compliance techniques?!

3) Bill Swann. His study of couples done at the horse ranch and mall are pretty much the story of my life. In fact, as I was reading his study of self-verification I wrote those exact words in the margin, “Story of my life.”

4) Dan Wegner. Who doesn’t like to play footsie?! Just the fact that he incorporated one of my favorite past times into his research is enough to make this list. Next time I want to make someone like me, I’ll just be sure to secretly play footsie with them under the table. AND his book “White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts” was pretty great, despite his corny jokes.

5) John Gottman. Two words say it all: Love Lab. I don’t want to leave something as important as love up to “fate;” if I can make it work and there are sure signs that it will or won’t, I want to know. Besides, what’s sexier than love?

Bonus psychologist: Of course, Dr. Traci Giuliano, for being smart enough to know that just by having us do this assignment we will forever think Social Psychology is sexy (cognitive dissonance!)… :-)

Like Mother, Like Daughter

You would never tell from this picture, but my mother and I aren’t exactly best friends. I call my dad almost every day just to say “hi” when I’m walking to class, but generally the only time my mother hears the sound of my voice on the phone is if she happens to answer my dad’s cell for him – which I’m convinced she does simply because we would never talk at all if she didn’t.

Fortunately, our lack of communication is also positively correlated with our lack of arguments. Starting from the time I could talk and continuing up to this very day my mother have been having verbal battles of epic proportions. It goes without saying, however, that our worst fights took place when I was in high school – my angsty teenager phase.

Our arguments were the perfect example of conflict spirals. Conflict spirals are disagreements or quarrels that begin with one person (or party) irritating a second person, who responds in a similar irritating way, which causes the first person to take additional action, and on and on and on (Brett et al., 1998; Rubin at al., 1994). Interestingly, there are several different things that can cause conflicts to escalate in such a way. In the case of my mother and I, however, the spirals were most certainly due to only one thing: sunk costs.

Sunk costs – also referred to as entrapment and escalation effect – is when parties in conflict attempt to justify their past investments by increasing their commitment to a cause, which is usually a failing one (Karlsson et al., 2005, Staw, 1997; Tan & Yates, 2002; Wong et al., 2006).

I’d like to be able to tell you specifically what at least one of our fights was about, but they escalated to such a high degree that I honestly could never remember what a single one of them was about. All I know is that they would start at something completely trivial and end with screaming to the point of voice loss and someone driving off for several hours. I can certainly imagine how one of them went though.

I would walk into the kitchen where she was cooking a delicious dinner – despite our differences there’s still no denying that she is a stellar chef – and she would remind me to finish a worksheet that I had mentioned I had for homework. I would be irritated from a long and get offended easily and say, “Mother how long have I been a straight A student? HOW many times have I EVER needed you to remind me to do my homework?! NEVER!” She would be upset by my disrespect and respond with even more anger saying, “How dare you talk to me in such a way! I’m just trying to look out for you and take an interest in your life! HERE I AM SLAVING OVER A MEAL AND YOU CAN’T EVEN HELP SET THE TABLE! YOU’RE SO UNGRATEFUL!”

I wouldn’t even care about her telling me to do my homework any longer but I wouldn’t want to back down and admit that I was out of line, so I would get even MORE upset, go to the cabinet, and start slamming down plates on the table, all the while yelling, “HERE! I’LL JUST DO EVERYTHING! I’LL SET THE TABLE, DO THE LAUNDRY, MAKE GOOD GRADES SO THAT YOOOOOUUUU’LL LOOK LIKE A GOOD MOTHER! Jonathan [my brother] NEVER has to do ANYTHING around the house! I HATE YOU!”

Similarly, my mother would likely want to save face as well and would throw down her spoon and launch into a triad about something completely unrelated like how she works so hard and doesn’t deserve to be treated like dirt in her own home by her own daughter. I’d storm out of the room, then storm back in, slamming doors all along the way. We would scream more and more, neither of us wanting to give up and admit that all of it was for nothing.

Thankfully, my dad – the referee, the peacemaker – would always make me apologize, but you see just how easy it is to get caught in a conflict spiral due to sunk costs. If we both had stopped pouring more and more anger into our fight in an attempt to justify all of the anger before it sooner, things never would have reached such a point.


*As a side note, I really do love my mom dearly and respect her more than any other woman on the planet. According to my dad, we fight the way we do because we’re really so much alike. He’s probably right.
________________________________
Brett, J. M., Shapiro, D. L., & Lytle, A. L. (1998). Breaking the bonds of reciprocity in negotiations. Academy of Management Journal, 41, 410-424.

Karlsson, N., Juliusson, E., & Gärling, T. (2005). A conceptualisation of task dimensions affecting escalation of commitment. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 17, 835-858.

Rubin, J.Z., Pruitt, D. G., & Kim, S. H. (1994). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Staw, B. (1997). The escalation of commitment: An update and appraisal. Organizational decision making (pp. 191-215). New York, NY US: Cambridge University Press.

Tan, H., & Yates, J. (2002). Financial budgets and escalation effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 87, 300-322.

Wong, K., Yik, M., & Kwong, J. (2006). Understanding the emotional aspects of escalation of commitment: The role of negative affect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 282-297.

More Dissonance, But For a Good Cause

The instant that high prices for Kaplan courses was mentioned in class I thought of my roommate Sarah. She won’t be taking the GRE, but she will be taking the LSAT. In the video below, you will see Sarah and a perfect example of effort justification.



As explained in one of my previous blogs, cognitive dissonance theory states that when an individual’s attitudes and behaviors are inconsistent with one another it creates psychological tension that he or she is highly motivated to reduce, which means either changing the behavior or changing the attitude (Festinger, 1957). Interestingly, there are three different situations under which cognitive dissonance arises: (1) induced compliance, or induced justification, (2) effort justification, and (3) post-decision dissonance.

As displayed by Aronson and Mills (1959), effort justification is what comes about when we find ourselves rationalizing that for which we suffer. This suffering comes in many forms; it is anything we pay for – monetarily, painfully, with time, etc.

As you could see in the video, Sarah’s attitude and behavior were discrepant.

Her Attitude = $1000+ is a lot of money
Her Behavior = Bought LSAT prep course

These two concepts are clearly in opposition with each other, so people who pay for expensive prep courses – such as Sarah – must justify it. Because they suffer (by paying absurdly large amounts of money), they must think,“This course will really help me out. It’s so expensive there’s no way I can procrastinate and waste my money. It is extremely important that I do well on this test, and this course is what will make it possible for me to achieve my goals.”

Importantly, Sarah was able to admit that she is not self-motivated enough to get by studying from a $30 LSAT prep book. With such a relatively inexpensive book there would be no dissonance if she did not study much from it, and therefore no need to change her behavior (to study more).

Additionally, you’ll notice that she decided to pay for the Kaplan course herself, rather than allowing her parents to foot the bill. This certainly makes a much larger impact; had she not paid for it herself, there would be no financial suffering and consequently it would be less likely that she would study as hard.

Furthermore, she mentions the fact that the Kaplan course offers her a lot more study aids and practice materials than a simple prep book would, but it seems plausible that it will be the justification for her financial suffering that will make the most impact.

Similarly, the same effect can be found in my friend Ashley's love for her experience in high school marching band.



As you could see, Ashley's attitude and behavior clashed as well.

Her Attitude = Band consumed a lot of time and caused a great deal of physical strain
Her Behavior = Stayed in band for all of high school

Again, these two concepts are in opposition with each other, so people who choose to be a part of organizations that are so demanding – such as Ashley – must justify their involvement with them. Because they suffer (by spending long hours at practice doing stressful exercises and getting yelled at), they must think, “This organization is amazing. It’s so demanding and so hard, I must really love the people I'm with and the music we play to put myself through such torture day after day.”

The same reactions of love for organizations that practically terrorize their members can be seen in fraternities, the military, and beyond. They all require that their members change the way they feel (i.e., decide that being treated badly was worth it) or change their behavior (i.e., leave the group).

In sum, both instances - Sarah's Kaplan studying and Ashley's love of band - stand as excellent examples of people's ability to justify and rationalize discrepancies between their attitudes and behaviors.
______________________________
Aronson, E. & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177-181.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Oh Infomercials, How You Tempt Me!

During the summers I used to be slightly nocturnal, staying up until 4 a.m. and waking up around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. What would I do during the wee morning hours? Well, if I wasn’t talking on the phone with a delinquent guy who had his hair shaved into a mohawk or reading meaningless chick-lit (the book equivalent of a chick-flick), I was watching TV. If there’s one thing that I love about late night TV, it’s infomercials.

Infomercials are notorious for two things: (1) being completely unrealistic and (2) using the that’s-not-all technique. The that’s-not-all technique consists of two parts. The first part requires that a seller offers an inflated request. Then, he or she must reduce the appearance of the request’s size by presenting the potential buyer with an added bonus or discount (Burger, 1986). That is, people are more likely to make a deal or buy a product when it appears to have improved.

My favorite infomercial – after the rotisserie oven, which comes in at a close second – is the advertisement for Miracle Blade. Don’t you dare laugh; you know they’re SO COOL! I mean, who doesn’t want a set of knives that can cut through sheetrock, concrete, and the sole of work boots?!



I can just hear the infomercial now, “Order in the next 60 seconds and we’ll throw in a free Santoku knife at no extra charge!” Nevermind that I have no idea what a Santoku knife is, I should totally buy this set for $39.99 so that I can have one!

Or “For just 8 easy payments of $9.99 you’ll get one Miracle Blade Slicer, a Rock 'n Chop, a Filet and Boning knife, one Chop 'n Scoop, a Paring Knife, All-purpose Kitchen Shears, 4 Steak knives, a Tips & Guide booklet with Chef Tony’s secret recipes, AND as an added bonus you’ll also get 1 Additional Miracle Blade Slicer!!!!!!!!!”

Oh my gosh! How could ANYONE not want to buy a set when they throw in that extra slicer?! Really! Better yet, what about when they sell it to you as “a $460 value for only $39.95.”

If I had had a job and credit card when I first started watching infomercials there’s no telling how many of those Miracle Blades I would have called in for. Surely I’m not the only one who has felt this way either, because according to their website they have sold over 12 million Miracle Blade knives since 1989.

Miracle Blade – like so many other infomercials floating through the airwaves at 2 a.m. – always intends to sell its customers all of the pieces (including the extra Miracle Blade Slicer and the Santoku knife), but when they sweeten the pot before we’ve had a chance to consider the original deal it makes the deal seem improved, and therefore makes it more likely that people will call in and throw down the requested $39.95.
__________________________
Burgerm J. M. (1986). Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that’s-not-all technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 277-283.

Pain + Ink = Dissonance = Awesome

As tempting as it is to write about boys again, I think I’ll have to write about feet tonight. Trust me; it’s still exciting.

The theory of cognitive dissonance states that when an individual’s attitudes and behaviors are inconsistent with one another it creates psychological tension that he or she is highly motivated to reduce, which means either changing the behavior or changing the attitude (Festinger, 1957). Interestingly, there are three different situations under which cognitive dissonance arises: (1) induced compliance, or induced justification, (2) effort justification, and (3) post-decision dissonance.

“Which of these concerns my feet?” you ask. The answer: effort justification. As displayed by Aronson and Mills (1959), effort justification is what happens when we find ourselves loving that for which we suffer. This suffering comes in many forms; it is anything we pay for – with money, our time, pain, stress, and so on.

Every day dozens of people walk through these doors and voluntarily suffer quite a bit.

On Monday, October 13th, 2008, I was one of those dozens. We see it in everything from fraternity initiations to expensive cars – the more we suffer for them, the more we love them. The same is true of tattoos, though most would NEVER admit to it.

I was the last walk-in of the night. I’d talked about getting a tattoo for several years, and decided to finally go through with it while I was visiting my older brother Jonny in San Marcos with my cousin Ped. They both have tattoos, and they both encouraged me. I was terrified of the pain, but now I know it’s the memory of that pain that will keep me loving what I’ve done to myself.

It took Rebecca, my tattoo artist, just $100 and 30 minutes to repeatedly stab my right foot with a needle to produce my permanent foot fixture.


I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I did, however, clutch so tightly to the table that my hands cramped up and I might have hyperventilated for a bit. It also certainly hurt like nothing I’d ever felt before. So why would anyone do this to themselves? The answer is simple effort justification; I’ll break it down for you.

Attitude = This hurts like hell and I paid a lot of money for it
Behavior = I’m letting someone permanently mark me

These two concepts are in opposition with each other, so people who get tattoos – including myself – must justify it. Because I suffered so much to get a tattoo – physically and financially – what I got must mean a lot to me, it must be really cool, I must never want to forget these symbols, I must actually like the pain a little bit.

I – just like everyone else sporting a tattoo – has had to rationalize the suffering and effort put into getting their “body art” to resolve their cognitive dissonance. I just hope that I don’t ever forget how much it hurt.

P.S. It's my family's cattle brand (for my Dad and my grandpa) and the sun from the Filipino flag (for my mom).

P.S.S. Don't tell my mom I got a tattoo.
______________________________
Aronson, E. & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177-181.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Bet They'll Never Make that Mistake Again

If I ever really stopped to count, I’m certain I would discover that the number of things I have done because someone encouraged me to do so is greatly outnumbered by the list of things that I have done simply because someone said it wasn’t possible for me to do them.

Psychological reactance is when people react in opposition to threats to their free will by standing up for themselves and seeing whatever freedom has been threatened as more attractive (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). In other words, is someone says you can’t do something (or feel or think something), your freedom is impinged upon, and as a response you might be more likely to try to do (or think or feel) whatever it is they say you can’t. The reverse is true as well.

As an example, I offer to you my 18th birthday personal rite of passage: climbing my hometown water tower.

A few months prior to my birthday I’d read a short novel by Pete Hautman called “Godless,” which is about a kid who becomes obsessed with water towers – among other things. Since reading it I couldn’t stop telling people about how awesome it was, and of course they all said the same thing, “Don’t go getting any crazy ideas about climbing water towers now Whitney.”

The more I heard about how dangerous, reckless, irresponsible, pointless, illegal, and just plain stupid it was, the more I wanted to do it. What sent me over the edge – of my decision to climb, not of the edge of the tower (that’d be tragic) – was when my brother Jonny acted as though there was no way I would ever do it. We were having a camp out at my house with a bunch of our friends and I was telling one of them about how I was finally going to climb the tower that night – because I was already outside and therefore wouldn’t have to take the added risk of sneaking out of the house – when my brother laughed. “You’re the good kid,” he said. “You don’t do bad stuff, let alone illegal stuff. You stay inside and do your homework where it’s safe. Besides you couldn’t even if you tried.”

“Couldn’t if I tried, eh?!” Those were the thoughts that ran through my head as I took the keys to his truck and drove off with the only one of his friends who seemed to think I would go through with it (or who cared enough to scrape my body off the pavement if I f-ed up).

Needless to say, I went through with it. The O and K in the middle of BROOKSHIRE look so much bigger from close up.

And, the my hometown looks so different from so high up.

I – like everyone else – want to be able to make my own decisions, to think and feel and do whatever it is that I desire. When someone – like my brother – threatens that, I am highly motivated to take matters into my own hands and maintain my freedom. The result is a negative attitude change, which is a move in the direction contrary to the one the speaker supported. Interestingly enough, had I agreed with my brother – that I was, in fact, a “good kid” who shouldn’t do illegal things – my motivation to protect my free will may have outweighed my actual opinion on the matter.
___________________________________
Brehm, S. S., & Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academic Press.

Strengthening Attitudes

The summer after my sophomore year of high school my father convinced me to apply for 4-H mock Congress. 4-H – for those of you that don’t know – is a mostly rural organization. Everyone jokes that it’s nothing but “cows, sows, and plows,” which to some extent it is. A lot of the people who participate in it come from very religious backgrounds in very small towns. Needless to say my opinions are very different from the overwhelming majority of 4-Hers.



Before hearing about unforgettable experience that summer it’s important to know a few things. First, our behaviors are affected by four different things: intentions, attitudes, social norms, and our ability to control those behaviors.

Focusing specifically on attitudes, which are reactions to people, things, or ideas that can be positive, negative, or mixed (Petty & Cacioppo, 1983) there are two things that affect how well our attitudes predict our behaviors: (1) how specific a measure of our attitude is (e.g., asking “Do you like high school football?” would be a better predictor of how likely a person is to want to watch your hometown’s football game, than asking “Do you like sports?”) and (2) how strong our attitudes are. That is, the stronger an attitude is, the more likely it will be to link to behavior.

Interestingly, there are different ways to strengthen an attitude, and therefore strengthen predictions of behaviors based on attitudes. Many of these attitude-strengthening factors could be seen in my experience at 4-H Congress.

On just the second day of our mini-legislative session the trivial bills (e.g., using “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, or allowing prayer in school) faded away and the next thing I knew I was standing before 300 suit-wearing peers being bombarded with scathing remarks and looks that could kill. I knew what I was up against; I knew Texas is a conservative state, but I didn’t exactly think that defending gay marriage would start a riot.

Summing every drop of courage my 15-year-old self could muster, I stood there, sweaty palms gripping the podium, emptying out my heart for these people and explaining my stance as best I could with both (1) information and (2) personal experience.

I was armed with everything I had learned about why gay marriage is such an important issue and how it concerns more than just violating archaic religious beliefs. That is, it affects everything from filing taxes to the ability to visit spouses in the hospital to Social Security benefits. Fortunately, the more information you have about a person, object, or idea the stronger your attitude will be, and the more likely you will be to act on it (Davidson, Yantis, Norwood, & Montano, 1985).

As for personal experience, I had one particular person in mind as I stood there being “boo”ed at by people who only hours before had been completely personably, civilized friends. I thought about Hannah, my best friend. I let them know that she deserved to pick out that perfect white dress and throw a bouquet of pale pink lilies and yellow orchids. Importantly, gaining information from personal experience makes attitudes stronger and more stable than just simply observing or receiving information secondhand (Fazio & Zanna, 1981). Maybe if they had known how awesome Hannah is or had a friend of their own who was gay, it might have changed their attitudes.

Sadly, it didn’t. No matter what I said they reacted the same way, with close-minded rage. Their angry voices swelled, filling the floor, their confidence being amplified by their cumulative outrage, until the Speaker of the House was forced by supervisors to call for a recess.

I would say that votes didn’t even need to be tallied for us to find out which side “won,” but the results were enough for me to feel as though I’d achieved my own small personal victory. More than 20% of the votes were “Undecided;” based on the percentage of people who had voted conservatively on every other issue, I like to think that my speech was what changed their minds – even if only a small amount. I fought tooth and nail for what I whole-heartedly believed in; answering every retort from a suit-wearing simpleton with an even better one. Not surprisingly, this only further fueled my support of gay marriage, because when you succeed in resisting change to your attitudes, it makes them even stronger (Tormala & Petty, 2002).
______________________
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1983). The role of bodily responses in attitude measurement and change. In J. Cacioppo & R. Petty (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 51-101). New York: Guilford.

Davidson, A., Yantis, S., Norwood, M., & Montano, D. (1985). Amount of information about the attitude object and attitude-behavior consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1184-1198.

Fazio, R. H., & Zanna, M. P. (1981). Direct experience and attitude-behavior consistency. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 14, pp. 162-202). New York: Academic Press.

Tormala, Z., & Petty, R. (2002). What doesn't kill me makes me stronger: The effects of resisting persuasion on attitude certainty. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1298-1313.

Let's Talk About Sex..ism!

A general rule of thumb for conversations with people you don’t know is to avoid –ism’s. Racism, Buddhism, Communism, Antidisestablishmentarianism – they’re all out. Despite not being well acquainted with many of you reading this, I’m going to break the rule anyhow. Tonight’s topic is SEXISM!

Sexism is discrimination based on one’s gender. Usually when people think of sexism, they think of obvious things like giving a little boy model cars to play with and giving a little girl a doll, or paying women less than men to do the same job.

I, however, would like to tell you a story involving a sneakier kind of sexism, one we don’t always pick up on when it happens. Ambivalent sexism is comprised of two parts: (1) hostile sexism, which concerns negative feelings about females abilities and worth and (2) benevolent sexism, which concerns affectionate but possibly condescending feelings (Glick & Fiske, 2001a).

What I’ve experienced most in my life is benevolent sexism – guys opening doors for you, offering to carry heavy objects, getting things off of the top shelf. Sure it seems sweet on the surface, but underneath all this chivalry often lurks the patronizing idea that we ladies need protecting.

Interestingly, my most recent experience with this form of sexism actually came from a woman. This summer at my monotonous job as an office assistant, when I wasn’t scanning medical charts, I was taking old ones to the storage room to be shredded.

I rather relished this task as it was my only opportunity to get away from the computer, but one afternoon my supervisor of sorts stopped me as I was carrying a box full of charts.

“Honey, you shouldn’t be lifting that. Let Ethan do it,” Kathy said.

I spun on my heel and said, “I’ve lived on a farm my whole life; I was bred for heavy lifting,” while doing my best not to glare at her, and silently thinking to myself, “Besides, that 95-pound twig of a kid couldn’t lift this anyhow.” (I couldn’t actually say that aloud, because Ethan is the boss’s son, and insulting the offspring of the person who signs your paychecks is never a good idea.)
It’s this kind of sexism that has irked me since elementary school – when Blake and Michael got to leave class to help Mrs. Smith carry old books off to storage and I had to sit in my seat working on my vocabulary assignment, because I was a just a little girl and girls can’t possibly be expected to sweat and lift things for fear that they might break a nail.

This same thing still goes on today, but in a more awkward way. I’ve actually had someone tell me, “You shouldn’t be lifting heavy stuff; you’ll crush your uterus.” To which I could not stop myself from responding with, “Good. I hate kids.”

Because benevolent sexism generally presents itself in the form of a caring, considerate gesture or comment, it often isn’t seen for what is really is: sexism, plain and simple.

Additionally, it is important to note that benevolent and hostile sexism go hand in hand. The two are positively correlated (Glick et al., 2000), so it’s likely that if you feel one way (i.e., that women deserve protecting) you also feel the other way as well (i.e., that women have less value than men).
____________
Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001a). Ambivalent sexism. In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 33, pp. 115-188). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Glick, P., Fiske, S., Mladinic, A., Saiz, J., Abrams, D., Masser, B., et al. (2000). Beyond prejudice as simple antipathy: Hostile and benevolent sexism across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 763-775.

Family vs. Career, Men vs. Women

Most people like to believe that they don’t stereotype people. Stereotypes are beliefs people hold about a certain group (e.g., white guys can’t jump). Additionally, stereotypes are also known as “group schemas,” which are essentially mental frameworks for organizing what we know about groups. I’d certainly like to think that I see everyone as equals and take the time to get to know people before I pass judgment on them, but I suppose on some unconscious level I might not.

The IAT (Implicit Association Test) was developed as a way of getting at individuals unconscious thoughts or feelings (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). It measures the degree to which two different ideas are associated. I decided to take a few, which can be found online here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/takeatest.html.

This online version of the IAT has you press either “E” or “I” to decide whether a word or image goes into one of two categories. For example, I started off with the Gender-Career Test. In this instance, “Male” was printed on the left of my screen while “Female” was printed on the right of my screen. When a female name (e.g., Rebecca) popped but I had to press “I” to associate it with the “Female category. When a male name (e.g., Ben) popped up I had to press “E.” Then the computer presented me with words related to the topic of Family (e.g., relatives, wedding) or Career (e.g., business, management), and I had to press “E” or “I” again depending upon which category the words belonged with. Then, the categories were combined; that is, Male was paired with Career, and Female was paired with Family. Again, names and words had to be placed in the correct categories using the “E” and “I” keys. Finally, the categories were switch; that is, Male was paired with Family, and Female was paired with Career. Based on how long it took to place the words I was given into the different category pairings, the IAT rated how closely I associated Gender with Career.

My results were interesting. According to the IAT, I have a moderate Male with Career and Female with Family, as compared to Female with Career and Male with Family.

I don’t feel that these results are consistent with my actual attitudes about gender and careers. I’m perfectly aware that both men and women can do any job, whether it’s being CEO of a company or taking care of a home. Not only that, but I’m supportive of women who seek jobs in fields dominated by men. In fact, growing up I feel like I spent more time with my dad, who does farm work at home, than I did with my mom who works long hours as a nurse. Yet according to these results I exhibit moderate implicit sexism.

I have two ideas about why my results turned out so different from what I believe I feel about gender and careers. First, it may be that I’m affected by mass media portrayals of women as homemakers and men as businesspersons, as well as my friends’ parents whose family dynamics were more stereotypical. Second, the words they chose were more corporate related than career related in general. For example, they used words like “management,” “corporation,” and “office,” rather than more broad words like “work,” “job,” or “occupation.” It’s possible that I do hold a stereotype for businesspeople – which is, in fact, a male dominated field – without holding a stereotype for “career women” or “career men” in general, making my initial evaluation of myself more accurate than this test would lead people to believe.

That being said, I feel as though the IAT is showing more of a cultural association than my true attitude. In the world we see more businessmen than we do businesswomen. It does not, however, mean that I think only men should only be businesspeople. I may associate them moderately simply because in our culture one is more common than the other.

Importantly, the IAT did make me think slightly differently about stereotypes and prejudice. Assuming these results are correct, it makes it more apparent that stereotypes and prejudice aren’t exactly the same thing. Stereotypes aren’t necessarily negative; they’re simply frameworks for the way we categorize things. Were I actually prejudice against women having careers I doubt that I would be here right now – writing a blog for a class, striving to get ahead, hoping for a promising career, not spending a moment wondering about raising a family, admiring my own mother for working so hard and making more money than my dad, encouraging my friends that are girls to work for the same things.

Interestingly, after my first Gender-Career IAT, I decided to take both the Asian and Age IATs just for fun (I have no automatic preference for ethnicity and American or Foreign, but a moderate automatic preference for young people as compared to old people). Then, I decided to go back and retake the original Gender-Career IAT with a strong determination to make the results more reflective of my true feelings. Surprisingly, in just 30 minutes my association of Male with Career and Female with Family changed.

I didn’t cheat; I simply concentrated extremely hard, and my “moderate” association change to a “slight” association. This made me somewhat skeptical of the IAT, though because the rating only changed one level and didn’t do something completely unexpected (e.g., show that I more strongly associated them now, or favored Men as Family-oriented) I’m inclined to trust their results.
______________________
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1988). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.

As if I hadn't over-shared enough already...

For as long as I’ve known myself (20 years) I’ve always thought that I was an I-want-what-can’t-have sort of person. It has recently come to my attention, however, that I’m actually an I-want-what-is-consistent-with-my-self-concepts sort of person.

I’ve dumped more than my fair share of truly great guys in my short lifetime. My friends would always say, “He worships the ground you walk on AND he’s gorgeous! Why would you do that?!” My response would always be about how I thought that I liked him, but now that I have him hooked I don’t want him.

In reality, however, it was because they (whomever I was dating at the time) didn’t verify my self-concepts (an individual’s overall beliefs about his or her own personal characteristics). This idea that we all want confirmation of our self-concepts from others is called self-verification (Swann, Hixon, & de la Ronde, 1992). Interestingly, we want this confirmation even if it is negative.

To better explain, I’ll tell you about Mickey (because – let’s face it – I just like talking about boys).



Mickey was such a sweetheart. He sang me songs, made me cupcakes, hung onto my every word. He also showered me with praise, insisting that everything I did was perfect. Normally, one would think this was a good thing, that I should want to date someone who thinks very highly of me. The problem was: I don’t think very highly of myself (at least not on certain traits).

When he would praise me for my singing abilities (of which I have absolutely NONE) or insisted that my looks were goddess-like (again, a clear exaggeration), it would contradict my own beliefs about myself.

There are two reasons such discrepancies are unsettling. The first is intrapersonal; it suggests that I don’t know myself. It’s frightening to think that a person could not know something about themselves; if we don’t then we can’t predict or control things about our own lives. The second reason is interpersonal; it suggests that Mickey had completely unrealistic expectations of my abilities, or that he didn’t actually know me.

Not only do we prefer, remember, and spend more time paying attention to others’ perceptions that are consistent with our own, we intentionally choose to interact with people who corroborate our self-concepts (Swann et al., 1992). This has been shown in everyone from roommates to spouses. In my case, it’s boyfriends.

If my own appraisal of myself were higher, Mickey (and several other all too nice guys) might have confirmed rather than contradicted my self-concepts and we might have lasted longer. Nevertheless, it makes more sense why things work so well with the current beau; he doesn’t even try to stifle his laughter when I sing. He’s smart enough to know when to massage my ego and when to tell the truth.
_____________________________________

Swann, W., Hixon, J., & de la Ronde, C. (1992). Embracing the bitter 'truth': Negative self-concepts and marital commitment. Psychological Science, 3, 118-121.

Through Mischievous Eyes

My dad and I are two peas in a pod. In fact, it wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to call him one of my best friends. Because of our similarities, whenever I would do something reckless or stupid in high school my mother would be the one to fly into a rage and he wouldn’t think of it as a big deal. School pranks, protests, spending too much time with friends – those were all things he did at my age too.

While my dad would stand by during our arguments, my mom and I would play out our respective roles in the actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1972; Watson, 1982). The actor-observer effect is the tendency for an individual to attribute his or her own actions to a situational cause (e.g., having a bad day, being sick) and to attribute other people’s actions to a personal cause (e.g., being a bad person, being unintelligent). From my point of view I was the “actor” while my mom filled the role of the “observer.”

To illustrate, we’ll use the night I pulled my senior prank – though it was closer to morning by the time our argument played out. As the “actor” I attributed my desired to climb the football stadium lights with 30-ft banners at 2 a.m. to situational factors; pranks are part of high school and it’s important to do something epic to remember it. As the “observer” my mother attributed my actions to my personal characteristics; I was irresponsible, rebellious, and reckless.

Why was I so sure I wasn’t a bad person for doing it? Why was my mother so sure that I was? There are two simple reasons for this: information and perspective.

As the actor, I had more information about myself and how I act in different situations. I knew that climbing 150 feet above the gridiron wasn’t really all that hard or dangerous. I knew that I was a cautious climber and that I hadn’t actually done anything illegal (i.e., I didn’t damage any property in the process). Moreover, I knew that even though I was being a little wild at the time, on any other day I was normally just a regular kid who followed the rules. My mother didn’t have access to this information.

Additionally, from my perspective I could see the factors outside of myself (e.g., everyone’s hope to commemorate their last year with their life-long friends). My mom could only see me, the “actor,” and was oblivious to the surrounding circumstances.

Interestingly, my father, as my mischievous inspiration (viz., the Texas A&M cafeteria armadillo release of 1978), had access to the information and could see things from the perspective that my mother – a Filipino immigrant who attended an all girls Catholic school (with real live nuns and everything!) – could not. In some ways he was an “actor” just like me. Therefore, the actor-observer effect did not interfere with our fun the way it did with my mom and I.

_______________________________

Jones, E., & Nisbett, R. (1987). The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior (pp. 79-94). Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.

Watson, D. (1982). The actor and the observer: How are their perceptions of causality divergent? Psychological Bulletin, 92, 682-700.

Lasting Impressions

[Post Script: 7/11/10, this entry is full of so many lies.. lol]

I fall for (romantically, not literally) good musicians easily and it takes a lot for me to get over them. I attribute this crazy tendency of mine to the primacy effect (Asch, 1946). The primacy effect is our tendency to place a greater weight on information that we receive earlier, rather than later. Essentially, first impressions count more than anything we find out later on about a person.

Once we have formed an impression of another person (or musician) it is easy to succumb to confirmation biases. Confirmation biases are our tendencies to (1) look for more information that agrees with our impression, (2) interpret any vague or unclear information in a way that it fits with our impressions, and (3) ignore any information that does not fit our impression.

To illustrate, I’ll let you in on my high school infatuation with Bob, the tambourine for The Nameless Band. The Nameless Band were a local ska band that I simply had to go listen to every time they played at Fitzgerald’s in Houston. The first time I saw Bob play I went weak in the knees and my heart went all fluttery just watching him.

Needless to say, my initial impression of Bob was a good one. From there I should have seen that it was all down hill, but due to my firmly solidified first impression of him such was not the case.

Because he was in a ska band – and I love ska music – I assumed that he would like the same bands as me, so I found out what his favorites were. They were, indeed, similar to my taste, which served to further reinforce my impression (or infatuation). This manner of unintentionally searching for information to confirm one’s expectations is called confirmatory hypothesis testing (Snyder & Swann, 1978). I didn’t think to ask about his favorite folk musicians; if I had, I would have found out information about him that didn’t support my he’s-so-perfect-for-me impression of him. In other words, because I expected Steve to be a certain kind of person, I asked questions about him that would verify my expectations without knowing it.

Similarly, I eventually began to talk to Bob, but occasionally he would do something rather mean (e.g., ignore me at a party or not respond to my emails). This should have served to sufficiently anger me and bring an end to his good impression. For years I was proved wrong time again; my belief that he was an insightful, charming, artist was discredited, but I still clung to the idea that my initial impression of him was correct – that he really was as awesome as he was the first time I saw him on stage. This tendency for individuals, such as myself, to hold onto their beliefs even after they have been proven wrong is called belief perseverance (Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975).

In the end, my little crush was, well, crushed. I got over Bob and many more after him, but not before suffering through the primacy effect and the confirmation biases that followed it. I’m now extremely happy with a non-musician with no social psychological concepts involved… I think.
_______________________________
Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290.

Ross, L., Lepper, M., & Hubbard, M. (1975). Perseverance in self-perception and social perception: Biased attributional processes in the debriefing paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 880-892.

Snyder, M., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1978). Behavioral confirmation in social interaction: From social perception to social reality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1202-1212.

Hello hello..

I suppose I'll just ramble a bit for my "welcome" post.

As I said in class, I worked 40-hour weeks scanning medical charts this summer, but I had the time to make a short film inspired by and set to the song "Brain Candy" by Kill Paradise. Watch it. Increase my hits. Make me famous.



It's definitely not my best work, but it's a cute song and it was fun to make. For a better example of my film-making capabilities check out the (embellished) story of my life:



Parts of it are true; others aren't. I'll let you guess which ones.