To those who discredit me, I say you're full of shit

The age old adage tells us that first impressions are absolutely imperative to someone’s view of something or someone. Though credible, I’m assuming everybody discredited the kindergarten-style information because we all thought first impressions could be changed, or maybe that’s just me. To answer the question of how important first impressions are, in 1980, Anderson, Lepper, and Ross set out to ask what happens after those impressions are formed. They came up with the idea of belief perseverance, or the idea that after we make those first impressions and conjure up a set of beliefs about something or someone, if someone discredits our idea and proves us wrong, we refuse to believe them. Even simpler, the idea is that we’re always right despite hard evidence and nobody can tell us otherwise. For example, this “hot hand effect,” or being “on” during a basketball (or any other sports) game was completely discredited by Thomas Gilovich in 1991 when he said statistics did not support the idea of being “on” or “off,” because a player has an equally likely chance of making a shot no matter what. I want to ask this guy if he’s ever played a sport in his life because as a life-long athlete, I REFUSE to believe this evidence. Statistics cannot tell me that they know better than me how I get in a groove during a game. I played softball for about 16 years and I know my own ability better than some pencil-pushing statistician. When I’m up to the plate, and I’ve had an awesome game, you bet your ass I’m getting on base in one way or another and if I’m having a bad game, the pitcher could walk me and I would still be having some trouble finding first. I have believed this idea of momentum all my life and won’t stand for having someone who probably has no idea what a field looks like from an athlete’s perspective tell me I’m wrong, statistics or not. Why? Because stats, as great as they are at telling us to not gamble all our money away, can never describe a feeling or an energy. They just can’t. So, screw you, Gilovich, I will believe whatever I please even in the face of your evidence. Boom.

Word count = 379

Anderson, C. A., Lepper, M. R., & Ross, L. (1980). Perseverance of social theories: The role of

explanation in the persistence of discredited information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(6), 1037-1049.

Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn't so. (pp. 9-21). New York, NY: A Division of

            Simon and Schuster Inc.

Self-perception of some variety

Everybody and their mother seems to have a theory or definition for self-perception, and all of them seem to include "self" in the definition, which seems counter-productive. However, Daryl Bem (1972) seemed to have a better grasp on the idea of self-perception when he described it as way that people come to terms with their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions through observing either their own overt actions or the actions of others. In college, one way we come to know ourselves is based on our success and how successful we're going to be in the future. Grades are one thing, but if there is anything we have learned while we've been in school, it's gain some sort of experience, mainly through internships. It seems like the more internships a person has, the more successful they will be in getting accepted into graduate programs or getting a job. So, when someone is successful and gets a job based on their internships, it freaks my shit out because I haven't been able to do any internships due to my financial situation. I actually had a small mental breakdown a couple weeks ago (and by small, I  mean I FUCKING PANICKED) because I figured success was based off internships because that seemed to be the typical pattern, meaning I was going to be unsuccessful. Because of this, I am heavily relying on my charisma to carry me in job interviews...cross your fingers for me.

Extending on that idea, Hazel Markus (1977) theorizes that people tend to build ideas of themselves based off of self-schemata, or generalizing, yet important descriptive adjectives that are imperative to our own self-image. We then have a tendency to compare ourselves to others based on what we find important.
This idea is totally valid. In the modeling world, this shit happens on the daily, which is why if you're ever going to go into the entertainment industry, grow a thick skin immediately because you're constantly judging yourself and others. I hate to sound overly cocky, but one of my schematic traits is that I'm pretty. Say what you will, but I guess when you hear it enough, it becomes a hard thing to ignore (which is another idea governing self-concept, says our lecture last Tuesday). So, when you walk into a casting call, photo shoot, or casting call with a group of beautiful, think, Amazon women, the first thing you do is compare yourself to them and try to evaluate where it is you stand in the group. When you go to these things, the women are generally not only schematic for attractiveness, but for competitiveness, so we all turn into catty bitches sitting in corners quietly scanning the room trying to figure out how it is you can shank a bitch without causing a scene.

Word Count = 466

Works Cited

Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 6, 1-62.

                Retrieved from http://www.dbem.ws/SP Theory.pdf

Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and

                Social Psychology, 35(2), 63-78.

Is this thing working?

First things first: I do not care about privacy. I feel like over the course of 14 weeks, you'll figure out who this is anyway. If we keep up on our reading of everyone's blogs, I feel like it's almost impossible to not know who the others in the class are. We all have pretty distinguishable voices which will undoubtedly come through in our writing. Between our blogs and weekly interactions, I feel as if our class is going to have a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining dynamic. For that reason (among others, of course), I'm legitimately excited to be in this class.

So, without further rambling, this is Hillary. Hello! :)

I might be wrong, but I'm assuming the only term we have to define in this week's blog is who we are, being as specific or nondescript as we want, correct? Because I've already told you who I am, I've cut out all the mystery in the "Who's who" guessing game, so I'll just give you the brief overview of my life up to this point. I also feel like a small understanding of where I am in life will help everyone understand (hopefully) that I'm not a slacker, pitty-whore, irresponsible, or any other negative adjective that may come up.

One thing I think everyone should know and try to empathize with is that I'm an independent college student. I'm sure there are others of you in the class, and if there are, I feel you. That means I have absolutely zero external help from my mom (my dad passed away my freshman year) or any other family member. I work for every dollar I have and because I work night shifts at a bar, that often means I end up pulling all-nighters, not having adequate time to study, and being broke as shit 95% of the time. I cannot wait to be out of the service industry. Like, you have no idea. Be thankful that you've never had to live paycheck to paycheck. It's exhausting and ridiculously stressful. Along with being a cocktail waitress at Hardtails Bar and Grill (EVERYONE COME VISIT ME!), I model in Austin at least once a week. This is my passion and my current creative release. It's what gets me through week to week. I love it and I'm not getting paid. Also, and please don't take this the wrong way, if any one of you starts gushing over me or my pictures, I'm going to sucker punch you in the throat. Really. Compliments are one thing, but the second you start kissing my ass is the second I'l start kicking yours. I'm not a model for the narcissism...

Last bit of information before I run out of words, I've been in and out of the hospital for a solid semester now trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with my stomach. Like the rest of the class will be openly talking about sex, prepare to hear me talk about my poop quite a bit. I almost had to take a medical leave of absence this semester to get bits of my stomach taken out and I'm so incredibly thankful that I get to spend my last semester with the class I've gone through SU with. However, the problem is not fixed and there may be a time or two when I come into class looking like a sack of hammered ass, and if it's not due to lack of sleep, it's due to being really, really sick. Just get ready for that.

Shit, I've over-written. I hope everyone doesn't mind reading an extra hundred words. Sorry guys!

Word count = 607 words