My 5 Favorite Theories

I can't help but love the theories involving romance. The sexiest theories to me are generally the ones that are literally sexy. Maybe my mind is just in the gutter all the time, but at the end of the day, I'm totally okay with that. I'm a 22 year old girl with the mentality of a 12 year old boy and research to back perverted nature. Also, I'm going to be annoying and a bit conceited in this post. Please forgive me.
That being said, my favorite theories are as follows:

1) Excitation transfer: The idea that arousal triggered by one stimulus can be transferred to a second stimulus.  Not only is this fascinating, but as a woman, it only increases my ability to manipulate men. That sounds super skanky, and it's not meant to. If I'm in the mood for a good evening and Mike isn't feeling it so much, I can get him all excited with a scary movie or really good coffee and BAM, I get my way.

2) Matching hypothesis: This is the hypothesis that claims we pair with people of similar attractiveness. I'm sorry if I'm a cocky bitch, but I date male models. Hopefully that says something good about me.

3) What is beautiful is good: I love this theory, especially the second half. I feel like I don't need to explain this in too much detail because the explanation is in the title. People believe what is beautiful is good in all other respects. I'm going to being annoying again, but I generally get treated really nicely because I'm a cute, blonde girl. As in, especially with men, I can get away with almost everything I want when I put on a little mascara (which is never in this class). My managers love me, I have a significant amount of friends, if I have a flat tire, I can always get help, and I even have a professor pretty wrapped around my finger (that sounds more like an SU confession, but it's really true). All that aside, I really do try not to be an uber-dick.

4) False-consensus effect: States that people overestimate the degree to which other's agree with them. I love this theory because I'm manipulative (in a harmless sense, of course), but if I want to know about someone's habits, I can use the false-consensus effect to estimate the degree they favor something and act accordingly. This could be really beneficial as a salesperson or just a general gossip queen, and at Southwestern, who isn't the latter...

5) Self-monitoring: I was fascinated by this concept because it's the idea that on a continuum, people can be either high or low self-monitors. High self-monitors are people who adapt or conform to their social situations. They're generally very likable and have several groups of friends, but considered fake whereas low self-monitors are said to be more genuine with one core group of friends. This theory put me at odds for awhile because I wasn't quite sure where I stood. People always tell me they like me because I'm the same dipshit no matter where I go, but I do have a lot of friends and I play quite a few roles. So what does that make me? Where do I stand? I still don't really know.

There you go. There are my five for right now. They might change in a week, but I feel like that's just how life goes. Our interests are dependent on our life situations and right now I'm constantly flooded by my relationship, getting ahead after college, and the person I would like to be.

Exchange and Communal Relationships

It doesn't take us too long to grasp the idea that every relationship is completely different. Our relationships with our family, friends, lovers, and one-night-standers, all different based on what we expect to give and what we expect to get in return. An array of theories have been developed to try and find the underlying mechanisms governing relationships, including a relatively successful and logical theory developed by Clark and Mills (1979) that states that we experience two different kinds of relationships. Exchange relationships are those we generally have with acquaintances, business partners, and anybody else we don't feel strongly indebted to. These relationships are characterized by an equal amount of give and take. For example, although I deeply care about my coworkers, if  cover their shift, I expect them to cover a shift for me when I'm in desperate need. This isn't supposed to sound catty, like I feel like they owe me, I just know some day I'm going to be in a world of shit and need their help, like they needed my help at one point. Tit for tat, shift for shift, it's all based on equality.
The other type of relationship in Clark and Mills theory is a communal relationship, or a relationship where an individual gives something to another person out of affection or concern without any expectation for reciprocation. Hopefully, if you're in a romantic relationship, you're experiencing this kind of relationship. If you are in a romantic relationship and you feel like you're more in an exchange relationship, run the fuck away. I've been in those. They're not fun. Now I'm going to be really cheesy, but my current relationship is more than I could have ever asked for. Mike has given me so much with wanting so little from me. He's helped me pay my car payment, given me gas money, helped me move  (in with him) when I lost my house, and constantly does things to make me feel better as a human being on a day-to-day basis, and he never asks for a thing back but my love for him. I don't know how I got so lucky. By the way, I'm not a total dick, I definitely give back to him, it's a two-way street, but we're just not keeping tally of who has done what and when.   :)

Word count = 390

Reference
Clark, M. S., & Mills, J. (1979). Interpersonal attraction in exchange and communal relationships. Journal 
          Of Personality And Social Psychology, 37(1), 12-24. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.1.12

Social Loafing and Deindividuation in restaurats

Working in the restaurant business, I am constantly getting bombarded with excuses of why people shouldn't tip. They're either out of town or they come in giant groups (and sometimes just because they're cheap assholes). You can smell the non-tippers from a mile away, and I wish we could grat them all, but unfortunately, that's not the way our system works, but there are always some who are just worse than others and you can apply social psychology to all of them. First of all, there are the social loafers as described by, or the assholes who feel like they can get away with throwing in a dollar, maybe, if the rest of the group will compensate for it with their slightly better tips of two or three dollars. In other words, social loafers are the people who try to give less and hope the group will act as a buffer (Latane, 1979). For a waitress, this f***ing sucks! If you give me a dollar, I'm literally PAYING YOU to wait on you, assholes. Also, because there are a lot of you, I'm probably busting my balls to give you the best service possible and I expect a tip of at least 20%. Every now and again, I forget to grat the group, and it has bitten me in the ass hard. Like, $3 on a six-top, or a collective $15 on an 18-top (I almost cried on that one). So now, I try my best to always remember to add that gratuity because I earned your money the hard way, dealing with you and your group of asshole friends. Then, I think my favorite example of non-tipping comes from out of towners, ESPECIALLY during SXSW. People just assumed because they didn't live here, they didn't have to act like a human being because nobody would know who they were when they left and they had better things to spend their money on, like PBR and really lame shows. This is a prime example of a not-very-extreme version of deindividuation, or when people lose their individuality and feel anonymous so they feel as if they can get away with performing deviant and impulsive acts (Zimbardo, 1970). I know these people weren't looting or breaking shit in the restaurant (all the time), but they were acting like assholes because they would only tip two or three dollars, despite what the tab was when we're running around like chickens with our heads chopped off trying to give 300 people+ excellent service on top of being physically and mentally worn to hell. But it wasn't their town, they didn't know us, or feel any reason to take care of us. And for that reason, I say eff you, Southby-ers.  Take home message here, tip your servers and bartenders. They pay their bills with your tips and work harder than the average human being to just barely get by. Truth.

Word count = 486

References

Latané, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: Causes and
          consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 822-832.


Zimbardo, P. G. (1969). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation,
          impulse, and chaos. In W. D. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation,
          (pp. 237-307). Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control

By now we should all know the story pretty well. Or at least, we should have a vague idea of the premise of the book seeing as how we watched a video of David Wegner’s “White Bear” experiments during class. However, in case you've forgotten (which I highly doubt because we are all above average), Wegner wanted to understand how unwanted thoughts can plague our minds. His experiment had several stages, the first of which required the participants to ramble on about this or that for five minutes. Then, an experimenter informed the participant that they were not allowed to think of white bears for the next five minutes during their ramble and every time they did, they should ring a bell. Following this phase, during which the students were completely unable to adhere to the order of suppressing white bears, the participants were allowed to talk about white bears for their ramble, most of whom could do so with amazing depth and detail. By this time, they were all out of white bear thoughts. They had let their feelings go, said them out loud, and moved on from their white bear whimsies. This experiment is just the iceberg to the rest of the white bear research because Wegner uses the pages of his book to examine the real-world benefits of successfully suppressing thoughts. In other words, he uses this book as a giant discussion section because no journal would let him publish a 200-page study on their pages. Once he has given the reader’s a good review of his white bear experiment, Wegner takes a few steps back to outline what unwanted thoughts are and where they come from. He does this by comparing people to computers (which to me, seems backwards). We read a story about how he tried to program computers using a simple guide, and ended up making a loop that just kept repeating itself. This is considered an error, or a bug, in the system. He also mentions that there are lists of things that are typically common bugs, which can range anywhere from a mild disturbance at work to death of a loved one (or yourself) and rape. We tend to have the biggest issue getting the things we want out of our minds most out of our minds at all. It’s a problem. Then, Wegner gets real-world, therapy style. As readers, we get a comprehensive breakdown of ways in which we can suppress depressing or anxiety-provoking thoughts or negative thoughts of any sort, or things we simply don’t want to think about.

Why did I choose this book? Well, who doesn't like the idea of good, ole-fashioned mental control? Honestly,  I was seriously hoping he would get into more detail involving how to mentally control others around you, but I guess that’s going to be a completely different novel (and a good place for future research, I believe J). Now that I've read the book, I would still choose it. I think that this book was so rich with highly practical advice that anyone can take home and practice that everybody should read it. In fact, I might even read it again. It’s that good, and I have the feeling there is some highly imperative information that I missed and I need to re-read. As well as informative and helpful, David Wegner is also pretty damn entertaining. He can be super cheesy at times, but I really expect nothing less from someone who married into Dr. G’s family. In fact, I kept hearing our fair lady’s voice in my head as I was reading…I don’t really know how to feel about his. Damn you, unwanted voice thought.

I would recommend this book to absolutely everyone! But really, I found it extremely useful and I feel he even confirmed some of my beliefs about life, anyway. For example, I came into Southwestern as a psychology major, biology something else (we’re young, we don’t know yet), with the thought that I would become a psychiatrist. The more I thought about it and the more I watched others who had been prescribed medication act, I truly believe that although medicine does have its purpose, it’s HIGHLY over-prescribed. People don’t constantly need a pill to put into their body every time they’re feeling a bit “off.” That’s stupid and it’s a byproduct of western culture. Instead, those with anxiety and depression, for instance, need to find more natural way to cope with their feelings. Wegner doesn't say all of this exactly, but he does say that those who are depressed need to focus on creating a cycle of positive thoughts and put themselves in an environment that will prompt these good thoughts and feelings because those who are depressed tend to focus on the negative all the damn time. Circling back to the original point, because this has so many good messages locked within its short, 180 pages, I would tell anyone who wants to better their mental lives starting at the age 15 to read this book (those younger than 15 might not understand because even I got confused at some points). Furthermore, I would highly recommend this book to all those going to counseling for depression, anxiety, inability to control themselves, etc. Either that, or I would give the book to their therapists to give to them because nobody is going to listen to me. Fact. There was also a substantial amount of overlap with the class. But really guys, you should all read this. Like, seriously. It was a start-to-finish-review of pretty much everything we've learned in class up to this point. He even does a nice job every now and then of pointing out key terms and defining them, followed closely by examples. Again, it was like listening to one of Dr. G’s lectures. Get out of my head, woman! Despite the high applicability to the class, those who don’t have the background in psychology that we do (pssh, peons) could easily understand the issues in the text and the theories and experiments leading him to his ideas.

I’ve already rambled on a bit about how I think this book is applicable to life, but I shall continue to inform you because it’s the assignment. One of his follow-up experiments included informing participants to think of a red VW to replace any thoughts of white bears they might have. During the period of rambling when participants were told not to think about white bears, the students still thought of the thought that was intended to be suppressed, but then followed it with the thought of a red VW. Afterwards during the release of the white bear feelings, those who were told to think of the car thought about the white bear in much less detail. The useless image served as a sort of “lightening rod” for the unwanted thought because all of the individual’s attention was focused on that useless image as opposed to the white bear. Wegner suggests that this is highly applicable when thinking negatively. He claims, and very accurately so, that negative thoughts spawn more negative thoughts which send us into a downward spiral of unnecessary sadness. Instead, we should think of a relatively happy, or positive thought every time we start to get sad. In no time, we should start feeling happier. I decided I was going to try this for myself because just yesterday, one of my friends from high school got killed in a car accident. Yeah, sad as shit. He was a super nice kid. But, last night after I found out, rather than think about that, I decided to think about the fact that I got four modeling gigs in a span of 30 minutes or less for Austin Fashion Week. Super exciting stuff. It sounds insensitive, but you can’t ruminate in what has happened, or at least for too long. On that note, Wegner also says that sometimes, when an event is truly tragic and might shape the way you feel about life permanently, the opposite of the former idea is true. You need to let it all out. Tell people, cry about it, do everything you need to do to get the sad out of your system. This is the way I finally handled sex. My very first serious relationship my senior year turned out exactly as I didn't want it to. I got rushed into sex and forced into blowjobs to the point where I recoiled every time my ex-boyfriend even touched me. He would push my head down on his manhood and force me to swallow and tell me if I loved him, I would do it. Abusive as shit, right? I didn't realize how abusive until several months post-break up when I couldn't have a normal relationship to save my life, much less a healthy sexual relationship. It wasn't until the summer between my junior and senior year that I broke down and told my closest friends about this relationship. I cried, got feedback, felt ashamed, and all the other things someone feels, but now I’m much better. I know that I can communicate these abusive fears with current boyfriends so I can have a highly successful and healthy relationship (it also helps that they’re all really respectful of my past and don’t want to do anything that could hurt me).

I’d say David Wegner is a pretty credible author, and an expert in his field. First and foremost, I don’t think you become a social psychologist at Harvard by being a total dumb ass. You should probably know something about the field to make it to the pinnacle of professordom. I feel like it might be a bit moot now to go into all his credentials because he’s a Harvard professor with quite a bit of research under his belt. Also, he’s from Texas. If you’re from Texas, you’re automatically an expert in everything, period. He’s also Dr. G’s in-law. I have a feeling the Giuliano clan doesn't really accept idiots.

There are several things I really liked about the book. For starters, it is a really entertaining read due to the humor on almost every page of the book. Because of this, the book is easily translatable to a layman’s audience. However, more good humor and writing, I was so impressed by the overall usefulness of the book. Really though, everyone should read this book, especially if you've been feeling particularly down, stressed, or anxious, and learn ways to control your thoughts and emotions in a healthy, non-induced way.

This is going to sound really silly, but the only thing I didn't like about the book was when he started rambling on about how computers and complex math work. I don’t understand that shit. I’m a psych major for a reason. When he starts talking about “classes” of numbers and how computer systems operate, I died a little inside.

If I had to narrow the whole book down to one simple take-home message, it would be that our lives can benefit greatly from some healthy mental and emotional exercise with suppression.  

Word Count = 1,852.

References

Wegner, D. M. (1989). White bears and other unwanted thoughts: Suppression, obsession, and   

           the psychology of mental control. New York, New York: Penguin Group.

David Wegner, Biographical Sketch.http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/backbio.htm.  

Ladies, it's the media's fault, right?

Every woman I know, even the most resilient, independent, outspoken women, has a tendency to conform to some degree or another. Conformity refers to individuals changing their outlooks to better fit in with a group. A multitude of researchers, including Williams (2002, 2004, 2007) demonstrate that people mold themselves to fit into the group because of a gut-wrenching fear of being ostracized, excluded, or any other form of social punishment (if you will). This phenomenon of fearing the consequences of being a deviant is referred to as normative influence. Once again, as women, we might kick and scream that we don't want to fit the norm, but at the end of the day, who among us don't want to look like the supermodel or actress gracing the covers and pages of every magazine you can buy. Yes, men are subject to this, as well, but let's be real, ladies, we're much worse about it. Because of the way media has painted beauty, we all believe that we MUST look like they do, and the way they look has changed drastically, as with our view of ourselves. Once upon a time, not too long ago, women with a little extra were seen as beautiful. The curve made you "womanly." We, as women, were cool with this. We all wanted the Marilyn Monroe glamour (I'm using "we" very broadly here because I wasn't alive quite yet). Then Twiggy came along and the fashion scene lost an absurd amount of weight and the industry demanded tall, thin women who were beautiful and maintained a teenage boy's figure. Now, not only do women want to mimic this look, but men expect us to be this way. If we're not, then we're out of the group. We might not have friends, much less a male partner. And let's be real, none of us want to end up alone. That aside, who wants to be the ugly, fat girl in the group? Nobody. To an extent, each one of us wants to be that head-turning, hottest-girl-in-the-room beauty who grabs everyone's attention. It makes us feel good about ourselves. However, more than wanting to be the best sometimes, we're really just looking to fit in because no one wants to deal with the consequences of not being part of the "group" of pretty all around us. So, is it the media's fault for pouring these images into our heads for us to obey, or is it our fault for following these trends?

Word count = 415

References 

Williams, K. D. (2007a). Ostracism. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425–452.

Williams, K. D., Govan, C. L., Croker, V., Tynan, D., Cruickshank, M., & Lam, A. (2002). Investigations 

        into differences between social- and cyberostracism. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and    

        Practice, 6, 65–77.

Smith, A., & Williams, K. D. (2004). RU there? Ostracism by cell phone text messages. Group Dynamics: 

        Theory, Research, and Practice, 8, 291–301.

Effort Justification

According to the study conducted by Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills in 1959, effort justification is the "rule" that claims the more we as individuals suffer for something, the more we want to like it. This should sound like total bullshit, but it's really the most intuitive concept we learned about in this lesson. From here, I'm sure there is going to be someone else with an almost identical blog, but the first thing that came to mind for loving what I suffer for is Southwestern University. But really, we put way too much time, money, effort, stress, and ulcers into this school to not bleed yellow and black by the time we get out. I also feel like I might appreciate this place just a little more than about 75% of my peers because I'm an independent, working college student. That's not to say that those who don't work don't appreciate their education or understand the value of it, I just don't think they can ever appreciate being here quite as much as I do after some of the up and downs I've been through with financial aid, the business office, and working 40+ hour weeks while taking 19 hours. Because I've been left in debt up to my eyeballs, almost been kicked out, failed a class because I was in and out of the hospital and couldn't keep up with the coursework, developed a serious ulcer, lost most of my friends because I don't have time to party when they do because I'm busy trying to earn money, and never getting enough sleep, I should want to burn this place to the ground when I walk away, but I don't, and that's either a freaking miracle or really fucked-up psychology. Sigh, we are all total shit shows because not only will we be back here for homecoming, we will all recommend this place to our friends, children, and anyone else who will sit long enough to listen about how wonderful our experience in college was.

Word Count: 337

Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959).The effects of severity of initiation on liking for a group. The Journal of     
         Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177-181.

The Liberal Shift

As first studied by Theodore Newcomb in 1943 at the Bennington College study, a liberal shift is when college students, or any individual who is no longer heavily under their parent's influence, shifts from conservative political views to liberal views. I truly believe at least 90% of Southwestern experienced a liberal shift to some degree or another. I definitely did, but my experience wasn't nearly as notable as some of my other friends, mostly due to the fact that I already was raised in a liberal household where we were taught to listen to both sides of the debate and make a decision. I did have one friend though, who shifted so vastly it legitimately made him a better person. This guy came from the most conservative background I had ever heard of. He still believed women should raise their children and not work, and he found homosexuality to be the most horrendous of sins. We used to stay up in the fishbowl through the night talking about his views on religion, politics, and the social world. There was no getting through to this guy. Two years later, he joined the Kappa Alpha fraternity, finally had a sip of alcohol, and started loosening up. The KAs are some of the most generous and open-minded guys on campus (despite what some people might say about them). The year after our conservative friend joined the fraternity, started drinking, and allowed others to influence his opinions, when a potential homosexual male rushed KA, he fought (in private, and I shouldn't really know this) for his entry into the fraternity. So, this guy went from hating gay people, no exaggeration, to accepting them and fighting for their rights. I was so crazy proud of this guy. We haven't spoken in quite awhile, simply because we have opposing schedules, but I've heard he's loosened up on his insane ideals governing women in the workplace and leans more liberally in politics now. I heard it from the beginning of my career at Southwestern; if you aren't liberal when you walk through the doors, you will be when you walk out.

Word Count = 352


Newcomb, T. (1943). Personality and social change: Attitude
       formation in a student community. New York: Dryden.