Stereotypes and such...

I think that one of the most interesting things that I found in chapter 5 was the section on sexism and gender stereotypes. First of all let's define these two things. Sexism is basically a prejudice based on gender, for example simply the dichonomous male vs. female. Stereotypes are beliefs that certain groups, not just race related, are defined and thought of through certain traits. 

I am currently taking a class called Feminist Positions, and have been exposed to many different "positions," meaning different nationalities and races, on these issues of sexism and stereotyping of gender. Perhaps the most interesting thing that I have come across in this class is the idea the gender is socially constructed. For example, boys are boys because we dress them in blue and give them trucks to play with and vice versa. I don't know if I necessarily believe in this theory but when I was reading the text this was the first thing that came to mind. In the text it states the various qualities deemed masculine or feminine and the first thing that came to mind was this idea that these qualities, as well as some of the other stereotypes that are associated with men or women, can possibly be taught during childhood. 

I think that these gender stereotyping ideas are best personified by some of my experiences growing up in a predominately hispanic society in McAllen, Texas which rides the border to Mexico near the southern most point in Texas. One of the biggest examples of gender stereotyping that I have witnessed happen during my freshman year of high school. My best friend is part of one of the most extreme Mexican families I have ever seen. With that in mind, the patriarchal layout of the family is what makes this story so important. Her dad didn't allow either of his two daughters to date until they were juniors, but my best friend started dating in her freshman year. When he found out he blew up and demanded that she break up with him. Although that in itself that was bad, the interesting thing was that her older brother had absolutely no curfew and more importantly no dating restrictions. I guess reading some of this material and material from some of my other classes really shed new light on some of those things that happened while I lived in McAllen. 

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). In Social Psychology (7th ed., pp.154-160). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

Self-Handicapping

So I want to focus on Self-handicapping with a touch of name-dropping this week.

When I was reading "Belief in the Effectiveness of Questionable Interpersonal Strategies," I was pretty stunned on how the two concepts of self-handicapping rang true in my personal life. First I think it's important to define them. "Real" self-handicapping being something that people literally do to stunt their performance, for example drinking before a big final exam. "Feigned" self-handicapping is when someone lies about what they did to prepare for something, for example a student who studied really hard for the test, but then says that they barely studied. Both of these forms of self-handicapping set the person up for expected failure due to either an excuse, or a hangover in the case of the first example. This provides the person with a cop out of sorts, so when they fail it's expected but if they succeed it's amazing and unexpected, even within themselves.
Being an athlete, I see this strategy employed all to often. In pick up games, when everyone has been training, one might hear, "I haven't been working out lately, so I might not be good today," or "Man, I must be a little rusty since I haven't been playing, otherwise I would never have missed that shot." Maybe I shouldn't be placing this strategy just on others, as I am just as much of a culprit as they are. What amazes me, is that people do it even though we see when others do it and call their bluff. The reason for that is that no one has the cajones to just say, "Hey, you're just playing bad cause you're talentless," or something along those lines.
People not hearing the truth enables these strategies to continue to thrive even though they definitely don't work. Name-dropping falls into this category, and boy to I have a whopper of a name-dropping story.
Here it goes, right after Michael Jackson died sometime last year I contacted one of my childhood friends who moved to Santa Barbara, California. Her and I had jammed out to MJ in her house when we were kids and I wanted to, I don't know, "mourn" with her. Let me just quote the wall comment conversation between the two of us :

Jordan: OK first of all, how's LA?
second, I thought I should contact you in loo of the death of a idol like Michael Jackson.
Then the United States started winning soccer games and I knew the world was gonna end so I'm trying to contact all friends past and present!

How have you been?

Lucinda (name-dropper): hahaha! i can't believe USA winning soccer games either. I was really bummed when they beat Spain! Cristiano Ronaldo is a really good friend of mine :(. And I am absolutely devastated about Michael Jackson. Crazy story but I was actually AT the hospital when it happened. I was having lunch with my friend who just BOUGH...T Neverland Ranch. When he got the call that Michael was rushed to the hospital he brought me along for the ride. We were IN his room when he passed away :( I was bawling crying...so sad. Anyway, on to happy things. I miss you so much! Come visit me for 4th of July...we are going to P Diddy's white party...gonna be insane! xoxoxo

I kid you not this is an actual conversation... let's count the names dropped, shall we. Michael Jackson, Neverland Ranch dude, Christiano Ronaldo, and umm... P Diddy. Huh? I think I smelled the bullshit on MJ's deathbed, but she went so far as to crumble in pity for her dear "friend" Christiano Ronaldo... and then "on to happy things," P Diddy's white party.... SURE..... but I said nothing in return but maybe a WTF. It's funny cause her mom is the exact same way.... friends with Steven Speilburg if you can believe it! haha. That was the first thing that came to mind when I read the article, and I laughed out loud because I love that family so much, but IT IS SOOOO OBVIOUS that it's all lies....

Gilovich. "Belief in the Effectiveness of Questionable Interpersonal Strategies." Pg. 146 - 155.

Spotlight Effect/Belief in a Just World!

 The two issues that I have used/thought about the most since class on Monday were the spotlight effect and the belief in a just world theory. The second of the two is perhaps something that I can use in most, if not all of my classes. 

The belief in a just world ideology basically is the false notion that good things happen to good people and that bad things happen to bad people. This ideology acts as a sort of false shield or protection from "bad things" since everyone believes that they are innately good inside. Today I have been forced to use this to look at both, global and personal aspects of the policies in the United States and my life. So here it goes...

Today in Paideia we started talking about "our [SU Students in general]" plans and reasons for studying abroad. Dr. Johnston, aka MelJohn as she is more commonly know, pushes us to stay away from the typical trip to Europe and go somewhere exotic. This conversation segued into a much different conversation about Haiti and other places where people typically focus on the negative aspects the media portrays. For example, one news article one MSNBC.com reads, "Haiti situation ‘potentially volatile,’ U.N. warns..." This article was written about some men committing an armed robbery, but they weren't stealing TV's or diamonds, they were stealing food. The aid being sent to Haiti has taken so long that people have begun to die of other things, however the media portrays Haitians has this "bad," country, just as much of the media did when covering Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I feel that this way of searching and finding the "bad" is a way to bolster our own protective shields towards natural, keyword, natural, disasters. Another interesting fact that I did not know about the "trouble" in Haiti,  is that on an even larger global scheme, Haiti has been in debt to the USA since the 1830's when they were forced to pay France the amount of money that they would have received for each new citizen of Haiti, each Haitian being a former slave in France. Just another little tidbit. 

The second thing I wanted to talk about was the spotlight effect. It basically says the a person tends to think that others will notice the things that they do or how they look more so than others will. The reason for this is a schema formed by those "others" about that person, their behavior, and the way that they look. Therefore, because it is not efficient to change that schema constantly, people tend to fail to notice "bad hair days," and black circles under your eyes. This probably got to me most because I've been playing sports all my life and could never understand why I felt I had all these amazing "moments," and everyone seemed to lump it all into the category of good game, and visa versa of course. My dad is maybe the only person who points out, save for save, or no saves, every game I've ever played in.  So, the spotlight effect runs deep... haha I guess it's a good and bad thing. If I look terrible one day, people probably won't notice, but if I play awesome, they probably won't notice that either... :) 

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). In Social Psychology (7th ed., pp.113-114). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (1999). The Spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency: egocentric assessments of how we are seen by others. Current Directions, 8(6), 165-168.

Associated Press, (2010, February 2). Haiti situation ‘potentially volatile,’ u.n. warns. Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35202742/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

Attribution & Heuristics

      One of the things that I found really interesting was the idea of counterfactual thinking, being the "tendency to imagine alternative outcomes that might have occurred but did not." Last semester I was hit by a drunk driver in October. I was sitting in a left-hand turn lane in Dallas/Fort Worth, when this man in a pick-up truck lost control and spun into me. My car was totaled, my boyfriend was in the hospital, and I was in a complete state of shock, and all I could think about was, "WHY DID I WANT PANCAKES SO F'N BAD AT 10:30 AT NIGHT!" I was then rushed to the hospital, my boyfriend and I were stuck in Fort Worth, on the weekend of a big game, staying in the grossest hotel of all time, with severe whiplash and minor head injuries, watching Bollywood soap operas at 6:30 in the morning.

       By the time we got back to SU, we were already trying to just move on from the whole thing, but found the whole process a lot more difficult then originally expected. I couldn't stop looking back and asking why I insisted on going to see my friend's play on THAT weekend, why not the next one, or the one before that? Why did I choose to drive when it was raining? All of these questions were obviously silly, but some how I blamed the entire accident on my stupid decisions.  

         The other thing I wanted talk about were the 6 fantastic heuristics! The first one is definitely something that I do on a day to day basis with celebrities. The representativeness heuristic, meaning that we make judgements based on our schema for the category, person, job, etc. I guess I do this most with people in general, but haven't you ever just seen someone and said, "She should be a doctor, or she looks like a 'Sharon'." I guess those decisions that we make about people and the "category" they "fit" in are, in part, the fault of this heuristic. I think that might be one of the problems in the acting world. For example, the idea of "getting typecast" means that a person plays a certain kind of character and then is always cast in parts that fit that particular cast. 

Look at the TV series "Friends", Joey Tribbiani, one of the male leads on the show for the entire 10 seasons, went on to.... make a spinoff in which he played the exact same character. "Joey" (I know what an amazingly stimulating title) flopped with i

n the year. Now the only times you see pictures of Matt LeBlanc (Joey) are in tabloid magazines in sections picturing the people gaining weight or worst beach looks. 

  

            The next and last heuristic I wanted to talk about was the availability heuristic, which I think makes the assumption that we tend judge the likelihood based on how easy it is to think of examples of these things. So, for example, if you just left you English class, where you were reading Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," you are much more likely to make comments about it, relate things to it, and even compare people and acquaintances to the many characters in the story, simply because it is on your mind and readily available. 

First Impressions!

First of all I would like to state that I am a crazy movie buff and own more movies that came out before the year 2000 then anything else. I'm not a fan of the new stuff, however when talking about first impressions I'll take a page out of the new age of television and movies and compare my opinions of Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. My opinions on these two women can be related to the primacy effect, confirmation bias, and trait negativity bias. I will explain how each of these social psychological concepts apply to my opinions of these two women.

The primacy effect is related to my early love for the television series, "Friends." I started watching "Friends" about two years after it started and have since, re-watched all ten seasons at least 5 times. Jennifer Aniston played one of the leading roles on the show (Rachel), who happened to be my favorite female character on the show. She was introduced to me at an early age and my decision to like her was based on the fact that she played an imaginary character whom I liked, on my favorite television show of all time. Today, if information regarding a dismissal of her good character was to be presented to me, I would choose to disregard it as hearsay.

In my eyes, today, Jennifer Aniston, who was thwarted by her ex-lover Brad Pitt, who now, in my opinion, is unattractive, selfish, and untrustworthy, is a saint. To me, she is the epitome of a classy woman who, even when the man she had spent the majority of her adult life with was leaving her for another woman, did allow her pain to show. I think that my interpretation of the various things that have occurred in her life have arisen through the confirmation bias. I had already believed that she was a good person, therefore, when given more information about her, I used that to support my already formed opinions.

Now to talk about the (evil) Angelina Jolie. I never really had any opinion about Angelina Jolie until "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and the debacle that followed the movie's release. I knew that she was a little bit weird, due to all of her blood-vile wearing nonsense with Billy-Bob Thorton. However, that "weird" vibe turned into deep dislike of her as a person. When Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston, I was no longer swayed by some of Angelina's better movies (i.e. Girl Interupted... that's it), and Brad Pitt's good looks. She was defined as the "evil mistress/other woman," and he was defined as the "cheater." This is a perfect example of the negative trait bias.

Okay, so here's a little window into my mind and the things that I consider evil (lol). I didn't realize that I was making all of these social psychological concepts take life in such a simple aspect of my impressions of two different female celebrities.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). Perceiving Persons. In Social Psychology (7th ed., pp. 93-127). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

Welcome!

Hi! My name is Jordan Romero. I'm a psych major at SU and am really excited to explore the whole social psych thing. I'm a sophomore here at SU and find that college here at SU never really gets easier. I play for the Women's soccer team here as well. I think that's pretty much everything about me. 

    Jordan Romero