“Friends, how many of us have them. . .”

“I’m talking about friends, ones we can depend on”- Will Smith

Long ago, in his “Millennium” album, Will Smith sung about friendship. He wrote about a communal relationship, a relationship described by Clark (1984) as one in which the partners respond to each other’s needs. This kind of relationship is what I would personally describe as a friendship based on agape love, described by Lee (1988) as a new secondary type of love that blends the primary love styles that include erotic love (Eros), uncommitted love (ludus) and friendship love (storge). This agape love is other oriented and more altruistic. I strive to love my friends to this degree and as a result, I feel my friendships are defined a communal relationship.

Take for example, my roommate and I. We’ve been living together for three years and at first we attempted to share equally the purchases for our apartment. As sophomores (the first year we lived together) we’d alternate weeks we’d buy bottles of water, [we’ve gone green now . . . we use a Brita filter!] cases of soda, or snacks for our apartment. As we progressed in our friendship, purchases stopped being an equal exchange as it is in an exchange relationship, based on strict reciprocity. If either of us makes a run to the grocery store or Target, we either ask, “Hey need anything” or take a look in the refrigerator, run to the grocery store and fill in each others needs. It’s nice to know that this communal relationship has lead to friendship that Will Smith talks about . . . those friends we can depend on.


oh here is a link to his song. . .its only a clip of it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0456PW85E8



Some of my friends at my 22nd birthday celebration

Clark, M.S. (1984). Record keeping in two types of relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47: 549-557

Clark, M.S., & Mills, J. (1979). Interpersonal attraction in exchange and communal relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37: 12-24.

Lee, J.A. (1988). Love-styles. In R.J. Sternberg and M.L. Barnes (ed.), The psychology of love (pp 38-67). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

D:S, what a great spring break

When you drive 18 college students over 750 miles to the middle of the wilderness, you’re destined to notice multiple social theories, especially if these students are to work together for an entire week in the middle of the wilderness with no electricity (yeah, no facebook or internet and certainly no cell phone service) and no running water (no flushing toilets and no showers). Southwestern does just that with their Destination: Service opportunity during spring break. This year, I joined 17 other students and 2 faculty leaders on the 750 mile drive to Gila National Wilderness Forest near Silver City, New Mexico. We helped the national forest service restore trails and created new trails in our four days of work.

What is interesting is that this environment facilitated bonding among complete strangers. Members were cohesive, predominately because the task they had before them was meaningful and important to the individuals and we all believed that our own efforts were needed for a successful outcome. This simple matter that the task we were performing as a group was important to us as individuals and we each believed we played an important role in the success of our efforts, greatly helped decrease social loafing (Karau & Williams, 1993). Social Loafing, as described by Latane et al (1979) is a theory in which individuals, in a group setting decrease their individual contribution on easy tasks.

One commonly sees, in situations of social loafing, that one person may have a mind set that goes along the lines of, “I don’t have to work too hard because other people are working” as seen with free riders (Nijstad et al., 2003). A person may also fall to the sucker effect (Houldswroth & Matthew, 2000, Kerr, 1983; Shepperd, 1993a) in which he or she does not want to be the “sucker” who works too much, while everyone else does very little. Thankfully, because of our cohesiveness, Gilans (as we now proudly call ourselves) did not fall prey to social loafing. In turn, I feel like many of us engaged in social compensation (Karau & Williams, 2001); we, as individuals, each increased our own efforts on our group tasks to compensate for others who were going to socially loaf. As a result of our group’s social compensation, we did in a day and a half, what the forest rangers expected us to do in an entire week of work.



Will helping me cross the river (This is after Zach and I had rescued Caroline from falling. . .and being taken away by the Gila RIver)



Gilans on Destination: Service 2010!!!


Houldswroth, C., & Matthews, B.P. (2000). Group composition, performance and educational attainment. Education and Training, 42, 40-53.

Karau, S. J., & Williams, K.D. (1993). Social loafing: a metaanalytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65: 681-706.

Karau, S.J., & Willimas, K.D. (2001). Understanding individual motivation in groups: The collective effort model. In M.E. Turner (ed.) Groups at work: Theory and research. Applied social research (pp. 113-141). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kerr, N.L. (1983). Motivation losses in small groups: A social dilemma analysis. Journal of Personality and Socialy Psychology, 45, 819-828.

Latane, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979).Many hands makelight the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 822-832.

Nijstad, B.A., Diehl,M., & Stroebe, W. (2003). Cognitive stimulation and interferente in idea-generating groups. In P.B. Paulus & B.A. Nijstad (Eds.) Group creativity: Innovation through collaboration (pp. 137-159). New York: Oxford University Press.

Shepperd, J.A. (1993a). Productivity loss in performance groups. A motivation analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 67-81.

DAC Blog: My roommate, the servant

Please watch the following video. Once you have viewed the video, feel free to continue on this page and read complimentary information.





What you’ve just seen is a wonderful roommate who complies with my request. She is also a roommate who has fallen victim to compliance techniques. Compliance is a moderately explicit influence concept that occurs when someone of equal or lower status yields to a direct request. In this case, my roommate, my equal, has fallen prey to the two-step compliance technique known as door-in-the-face. Cialdini (2007) describes this technique as a simple technique, with major effectiveness (Cialdini et al, 1975).

An individual (in this case, me) makes a first request that he or she expects to be rejected. This initial request is a big, almost unreasonable request that is followed by a second request that is much smaller and more reasonable. In this case, I asked my roommate to go to my car, she quickly (and sounding rather annoyed, because I am just sitting on the couch) responds with a short and stern, “No.” When I then ask her to get me a glass of water, she responds (in what sounds like a forced) “yeah.” As you saw in the video above, she not only agreed, she also complied with my request. Affirming further the work of Cialdini &Ascani (1976) that states that the door-in-the face techniques does not elicit only empty promises. (I enjoyed my glass of water, it was refreshing after laughing hysterically at my roommate, the servant as she put it.)

I asked my roommate (once my laughter had ceased) why she had agreed to my request. She reasoned that I have given her a glass of water before and that she also goes out of her way to get me a glass a water whenever I thirst; an example of the norm of reciprocity, a norm by which we treat others how they have treated us as stated by Goulder (1960). I then explained to her what I had done (for the sake of this blog-I would never use such techniques to trick my roomie [hehe] ;-) and why, according to Cialdini et al. (1975) she had agreed and complied.

According to Cialdini and others (1975) two possibilities for the effectiveness of the door-in-the-face exists. Their work states that the concept of reciprocal concessions, a notion similar to the norm of reciprocity mentioned above, explains the compliance to the second request. The technique creates pressure to change a response in the negotiation. I, in this case, have lowered my request and my roommate, as a result, feels pressured to concede to my smaller request. Furthermore, perceptual contrast also helps explain compliance as a result of this technique; to my roommate, my first request seemed very large initially and in comparison, my second request seemed smaller and more doable. I also believe that emotions came into play to this compliance. My roommate, like others was seeking to reduce her feelings of guilt elicited by rejecting my first request (O’Keefe & Figge, 1997; Millar, 2002).



My Roomie and I at ACL 2009

Cialdini, R.B. (2007) Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: HarperCollins

Cialdini, R.B. & Ascani, K. (1976) Test of a concession procedure for inducing verbal, behavioral, and further compliance with a request to give blood. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 295-300.
Cialdini, R.B., Vincent, J.E., Lewis, S.K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D., & Darby, B.L. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 206-215.

Goulder, A.W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25, 161-178.

Millar, M. (2002). Effects of guilt induction and guilt reduction on door in the face. Communication Research, 29, 666-680.

O’Keefe, D.J., & Figge, M. (1997). A guilt-based explanation of the door-in-the-face influence strategy. Human Communication Research, 42, 64-81.

Cigarettes and my attitude

As a cancer prevention advocate, it won’t surprise you to find out that I have a very negative attitude toward smoking. I know smoking has a strong relationship to lung cancer and that any amount of carcinogenic nicotine inhaled, causes some minor damage to my organs. (To clarify, I said smoking, not smokers. . .remember from my PO Blog, I love to love ALL equally!) It may shock you to learn that a year ago, I bought a pack of Marlboro Lights. With this purchase of 20 cigarettes, I lacked consistency between my attitude toward smoking and tobacco products and my behavior. This attitude-discrepant behavior created cognitive dissonance, a concept proposed by Leon Festinger (1957). Festinger proposed that because of our need for consistency, when our attitudes and behaviors are not consistent, we allow our behavior to change our attitudes so as to find consistency.

I purchased a pack of Marlboro Lights. . .and smoked several cigarettes throughout the year. (I still have several left in the pack. . .do cigarettes expire?!) I can’t deny my actions, so I found a way to cope with my behavior and realign my attitude with my behavior to reduce my dissonance. I used several techniques to reduce my dissonance. As Mckimmie et al. (2003) outlined, I changed my perception of the behavior and rationalized it with phrases along the lines of “I didn’t smoke that many cigarettes.” I also reduced my perceived choice, “I had no choice, I needed to know what it is like, so I can better understand those who smoke.” Granted, my attitude did change slightly, but my behavior also changed (I stopped smoking). All in all, I altered both my attitude and my behavior in order to be find consistency.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

McKimmie, B.M., Terry, D.J., Hogg, M.A., Manstead, A.S.R., Spears,R., & Doosje, B. (2003). I’m a hypocrite, but so is everyone else: Group support and the reduction of congivitive dissonance. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 7, 214-224.

Sure, I'll wash the dishes!

Positive emotions can sometimes mask and influence changes in our attitudes. As Isen (1984) stated, people may view the world through “rose-colored glasses” when they are in a good mood. According to Petty et al (1993) and Worth & Mackie (1987), those who have positive feelings take a more peripheral route to persuasion. That is, those in a happy state, tend to use short-cuts, heuristics, and may allow their attitudes to be changed by superficial cues.

I fall into this generalization. I tend (try) to be an optimistic person. When I’m happy, I don’t let much bring me down. As Wegener & Petty explained (1994), I do this because I am motivated to keep my happy feelings and savor the moment. I can be having a wonderful day, enjoying myself; if someone asks me to wash dishes with some persuasion, for two hour (as happened this past weekend) I’ll agree with no hesitation, because I’m cognitively distracted (Mackie & Worth, 1989). I won’t have time to think, “Hey, I’m not a huge fan of burnt pots and pans and my hands are going to dry out and chafe.” I was impaired by my happy thoughts to think of what I was being asked to do. As a result of this distraction, I willingly agree to wash dishes.



My positive emotions made me susceptible to easy persuasion. I washed dishes all evening last Friday. My positive emotions then lead me to continue washing dishes all weekend long because I willingly volunteered without anyone asking me to do it! I would run to the sink and when people would thank me for washing the dishes, I’d say, “no problem, I like washing dishes!” Positive emotions really diluted my ability to think critically and now I have super dry hands!

[I was primed to think of washing dishes and dry hands]

Isen, A.M. (1984). Toward understanding the role of affect incognition. In R.S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.) Handbook of social cognition (Vol. 3, pp. 179-236). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Mackie, D. M. & Worth L.T. (1989). Processing Deficits and the mediation of positive affect in persuasion Jouranal of Personality and Social Psychology; 57, 27-40.

Petty r. E., Schumann, D. W., Richman, S.A., & Strathman, A.J. (1993). Positive mood and persuasion: Different roles for affect under high and low elaboration conditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 5-20.

Wegener, D.T., & Petty, R.E. (1994). Mood management across affective states: the hedonic contingency hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; 66, 1034-1048.

Worth, L.T., & Mackie, D. M. (1987).. Cognitive mediation of positive affect in persuasion. Social Cognition, 5, 74-94.

PO: I love to love equally

I, like many others, am opinionated. I know where I stand on a multitude of issues and I am aware of my attitude toward a specific concept. My attitude can sometimes be “on the fence,” but for the most part, I have a positive or negative reaction to a stimulus whether that is a person, object or idea (Ajzen, 2001). Well, at least I think I know my attitudes.

I have a desire to be unbiased and fair to individuals around me, yet I may have implicit, unconscious and unintentional, negative or positive attitudes toward one group that in turn, may influence how I act and feel about them. This concept, known as implicit racism (and implicit attitude) can have profound effects (Eberhardt et al, 2006).

In an attempt to measure and detect how much implicit racism I may have, I decided to take the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT was designed by Anthony Greenwald and others (1998) in order to measure covertly, implicit attitudes and inner unconscious thoughts. The tests measure the association between to subjects. In the case of the Dark Skinned-Light Skinned IAT, the test is measuring an association of “good” and “bad” with “dark skin” and “light skin” (Greenwald et al., 1998). This specific skin tone IAT test takes about ten minutes and asks the participant in different blocks to first sort pictures of light skinned and dark skinned people as quickly as possible and then to sort words into good and bad categories as quickly as possible. Once these two blocks are complete, the pictures and words are paired together. After this block, the pairings are switched. It has been found that people are faster at categorizing liked pictures with liked, positive words and individuals are also faster in sorting disliked pictures with more negative descriptors (Greenwald et al. 1998).

I took the aforementioned skin tone IAT. The results of the skin tone IAT suggested that I have a slight automatic preference for light skin compared to dark skin. This score, when compared with those of others is common. It reveals my own, unconscious tendency to prefer someone of a light skin tone. Consciously, I believe myself to have no greater association between any one particular group, but these results suggest that my unconscious attitude does hold some implicit bias. I hope that my behaviors and attitudes, aren’t affected by these implicit attitudes, but I can recognize that being aware of my unintentional preference, will help me diminish my implicit attitude. I can also recognize that this slight preference for light skinned people may be do to my own status in this group. Light skinned tone is my ingroup and I may show some tendency to discriminate, unintentionally, in favor of my own social group, known as ingroup favoritism (Capozza & Brown, 2000). I do believe in the accuracy of this test and my association, but I also know that knowledge and awareness of the unknown can help me change my unconscious attitudes. Though, these results are slightly discomforting, I know that my desire and attitude to love all people equally will help override this implicit attitude in my actions.

I also decided to take the Sexuality IAT that measures a preference for straight or gay people. I, once again, expected to show no preference for either group; if anything, I expected to show some favoritism for heterosexuals, my own ingroup. Surprisingly, I have a moderate automatic preference for gay people compared to straight people. To be honest, I’m not too surprised. I am a Catholic Christian in the United States, but despite that fact that my religion and my country discriminate strongly against homosexuals, I tend to avoid and fight against this form of (and all forms of) discrimination and injustice. I, like many others, have a goal to not be prejudiced towards those different from me (Brodish & Devine, 2005; Sommers & Norton, 2006). As a result, I am sure, as this sexuality IAT suggests, that I create the opposite bias: I am low in prejudice toward gay men and lesbian women and may show a bias toward stereotype disconfirmation when gaining information about homosexuals (Wyer, 2004). My close friendships with many gay people, may also lead to this implicit preference of gay people.

In an attempt to change my results for the sexuality IAT, I took the sexuality IAT a second time. This second time around, I spent a couple of minutes familiarizing myself with the good and bad category vocabulary words. I also associated the straight and gay vocabulary with names of close friends corresponding to that orientation. In completing these changes, I was able to change my IAT results. My second results suggested little to no automatic preference between straight and gay people. I was glad to see, that with some effort, I could change my implicit attitude. It gives me reason to hope that I will treat all human beings equally, regardless their sexual orientation, skin tone, race, religion and many other aspects of our individual identity.

The IAT did make me think about my stereotypes and implicit prejudices and I’m glad to know, as I mentioned previously, that with knowledge, time, effort and motivation I can reduced my negative implicit attitudes and live out my life with respect and love for all.


I love to love equally. I have friends of different shapes and colors and I love them all the same (I even love Susie, who has eyes made of carrots and a mouth made of cranberries)



Ajzen, I. (2001). Nature and operation of attitudes. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 27-58

Brodish, A. B., & Devine, P.G. (2005). The dynamics of prejudice, stereotyping, and intergroup relations: Intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. Social Psychological Review, 7, 54-70.

Capozza, D., & Brown, R. (2000). Social identity processes: Trends in theory and research. London: Sage.

Eberhardt, J.L, Davies, P.G., Purdie-Vaughns, V.J., & Johnson, S.L. (2006). Perceived stereotypicality of black defendants predicts capital-sentencing outcomes. Psychological Science, 17, 383-386.

Greenwald, A.G., McGhee, D.E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicity cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.

Sommers, S. R., & Norton, M.I. (2006). Lay theories about white racists: What constitutes racism (and what doesn’t). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9, 117-138.

Wyer, N.A. (2004 ). Not all stereotypic biases are created equal: Evidence for a stereotype disconfirmation bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 706-720.

Am I gullible? I guess so. . .

I’ve been going back and forth about this blog. . .hmm do I disclose personal information or do I try to make it sound really generic so that I can better present myself to you, my fellow classmates and my professor? What should I say to make sure you don’t hate me or that you like me and that I come off as a competent and intelligent young woman? These are all questions I ask myself because of my desire to shape your thoughts about me, my self presentation- the different strategies that I can take that may help you form what you think of me and what I think of myself (Schlenker, 2003, Vohs et al., 2005).

Really, in creating this blog, I’ve already completed some strategic self-presentation. I picked a color scheme thinking about what kind of impression I’d make on you. I did the same thing with my profile picture and with the format by which I write in this blog.

What does that say about me? I’ll tell you what I think it says. It says that I am conscious of the fact that you are making an impression of me by what you are seeing and reading and that I am making in effort to influence your thoughts. Smart? Deceitful? You be the judge-actually, you are the judge. (To be honest, it sounds kind of deceitful to me, but I’ll take your profiles at face value as I’ll take my own)

Along the same lines of deceitfulness, I’ll tell you that I am a high self-monitor, I am conscious of my public image and tend to regulate my behavior to meet your demands (Snyder, 1971). Sounds deceitful right? Well I call it my need to fill other people’s needs and serve other people.

I believe that this earth is made up of good and honest human beings that speak truths and do righteous acts. Call me gullible, call me naïve or call me any other adjective of your choice; I’ll blame the thought that I am schematic for honesty. As a result, reading for this entire course, reading about social judgment, perception, presentation, ingratiation and self-handicapping truly makes me question by belief in a world filled with honest beings [To be honest, I question my belief all the time, but these subjects gave me another opportunity to doubt my thoughts:]

Schlenker, B.R. (2003). Self-presentation. In M.R. Leary & J.P. Tangney (Eds). Handbook of self and identity (pp 492-518). New York: Guilford.

Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances private/realities: The psychology of self-monitoring. New York: Freeman

Vohs, K.D., Baumeister, R.F., & Ciarcocco, N.J (2005) Self-regulation and self-presentation: regulatory resource depletion impairs impression management and efforful self presentation depletes regulatory resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 632-657.


ahh. I almost forgot to post a picture! What does THIS PICTURE SAY ABOUT ME?!


and this one?



what about this one?

I'll do it, but don't pay me

Ask me to describe myself and I'll tell you that I am caring and loving, that I am compassionate, friendly, as well as a good helper. These traits are important to how I view myself. You take anyone of those away from me and I lose myself. I am schematic for these traits. In other words, I value these traits and use them to build my self-schema, my short cut to understanding information about myself and at times, others (Markus et al., 1987).
As a result of these valued personal traits, I enjoy helping people and value people who I see with similar characters. It can be said that I am intrinsically motivated- I partake in activities for the sake of my own interest and for sheer enjoyment! If someone were to pay me for helping others, my behavior would be over justified. As a result of the overjustification effect my intrinsic motivation may decrease and I may perceive my actions as extrinsically motivated. In other words, I’ll see helping people as something I did for a reward or for my personal benefit and my personal, intrinsic satisfaction with my action will decrease. Take for example when I volunteer. I enjoy spending time working with cancer patients and advocating for the American Cancer Society. If someone were to start paying, I am almost positive I’d stop enjoying the task. As research (Lepper et al. 1973) indicates, when people get “paid” or rewarded for a task they were intrinsically motivated to do, they lose interest in it. Interestingly, if I was to perceive the reward (money) as a sincere gift for a “job well done” my intrinsic motivation may be enhanced by positive feedback (Cameron & Pierce, 1994); good news to me (and to all) because we can all ‘grow up’ to do what we love, work with what we love to do, and get intrinsic satisfaction with out having out work be overjustified.

Markus, H., Hamill, R., & Sentis, K.P. (1987). Thinking fat: self schemas for body weigh and the processing of weight-relevant information. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 17, 50-71.

Cameron, J., & Pierce, W.D. (1994). Reinforcement, reward and intrinsic motivation: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 64, 363-423.


(wow this blog makes me feel really conceded, but I guess that comes as a result of the self subject)

Hey there Med School :)

In case you didn’t notice these last couple of days via facebook statuses, Monday February 1st, 2010 was Match Day. What does that mean? Well from what I understand, Texas medical schools do a Match Day for Medical School Admissions. You may be thinking, “Janet, aren’t you pre-med? Aren’t you a senior? Shouldn’t you know all this Medical School jargon because you applied to medical school?”

You might not be that curious, but I’ll give you answers anyway! I am pre-med and yes, I am a senior, but I don’t know all the medical school jargon because I did not apply to medical school. Why? I mean, I assume you are asking that question, because as a person, as a psychology student, you may have a tendency to want to understand and be able to explain my behavior, you may be seeking to ask, ‘why’. Why are you asking why? Well, because the sequence of the answers I’ve given above are unusual, you may have expected that I would have applied to medical school. In other words, we use attributions and the attribution theory because we want things to be predictable (Hastie, 1984; Heider, 1958; Weiner, 1985).

Interestingly, I didn’t intend to write about the attributions theory, but I have and I want to share with you my thoughts on medical school. I didn’t apply to medical because I wanted to take sometime off (There is a multitude of other, more complicated reasons, but I’ll spare you from reading all of them :) When I made the decision in early August of 2009, I was comfortable and excited about my decision and the adventures of my future. Unfortunately, when I started reading “I’m going to med school” all over facebook, I couldn’t help but think, “what if I had applied, what if I had been accepted, what if. . .”

Don’t get me wrong, I am excited for my fellow peers and friends who have been accepted and who are on their way to becoming doctors, but I can’t help feel personal regret with my decision. I am experiencing counterfactual thinking; I am thinking of outcomes that could have happened but didn’t happen because of a decision I made in the past (Kahneman & Miller, 1986). Research has indicated, as summarized by Roese and Summerville (2005) that my regret is common. When it comes to education and career decision making, we tend to experience counterfactual thinking accompanied with feelings of regret. Unfortunately, we find feelings of satisfaction not on what the reality is, but rather on the thoughts of what might have been (Medvec et al, 1995). I’m not sure how I’ll counter act my counterfactual thinking. . .I guess I’ll just have to have hope that I’ll wear a white coat someday (soon!:)

[My summer at the New Jersey School of Medicine;]

Hastie, R. (1984). Causes and effects of causal attribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.

Kahneman, D., & Miller, D.T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136-153.

Medvec, V.H., Madey, S.F., & Gilovich, T. (1995). When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among olympic medalist. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 603-610.

Roese, N.J., & Summervilee, A. (2005). What we regret most. . .and why. Personality and Social Phsychology Bulletin, 31, 1273-1285.

Weiner, B. (1985). “Spontaneous” causal thinking. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 74-84.

Photo Session Lessons

I find small ways to entertain myself and others and typically my forms of entertainment involve a digital camera and a photo session. I am amazed that as I hold down the camera shutter and shout out an emotion, my friends and I convey the same emotion with a similar expression. I can yell out happy, sad, afraid, surprised, or disgusted and see that we have all portrayed happiness, sadness, fear, surprise and disgust in a very similar manner. I shouldn’t be so shocked by our ability to express an emotion in a similar fashion, for as Charles Darwin (1872) [the father of evolution:] proposed, facial expressions are understood and expressed by all because they are intrinsic. Emotions and feelings are thus commonly conveyed by nonverbal behavior, our silent language represented by our facial expressions and our body movements. Moreover, our expressions of emotions and feelings are commonly understood by others and we recognize these emotions in others, because they are innate (Darwin, 1872). Furthermore, facial depictions of primary emotions, like the ones I shout out during a photo session, are recognized world wide; though people do tend to recognize the expressions of someone in their own ethnic group more precisely then the expressions of someone in a group that is not as common to them (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002).



In addition, Darwin (1872) proposed that we recognize emotions that are crucial for our own survival. For example, my roommate can recognize when I am happy or sad and may ask why I am in such a chipper or down state. On one (rare) occasion, I came stomping into our apartment, she took one look at me and recognized that I was (very) angry. I know now that she recognized my emotions by my body language and my facial expression and I recognize that as I looked at her with my (displaced) anger, her expression changed; she began to mimic my expression, in agreement with studies by Dimberg & Ohman that have shown that an angry facial expression can lead a viewer to frown (1996). As a mechanism of “survival” my roommate did not ask what was wrong, rather, for her own safety, remained silent and gave me the room and some time to calm down. My facial expression must have had components of the universal portrayal of anger.

Interestingly, we value these nonverbal cues, our facial expression and body language, enough, to attempt to depict our facial expression over our online communication in order to get across the meaning of our written words (Sanderson, 1997). I can admit I fall guilty to overusing emotion icons as I write emails or write on people’s facebook walls, in an attempt to clarify and animate myself to by reader. My words are helping others form an impression of me and I want to portray myself as I am in order to make a good impression (Which in itself another blog entry, saved for some other day :)

Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: John Murray.

Dimberg, U., & Ohman, A. (1996).behold the wrath: Psychophysiological responses to facial stimuli. Motivation and Emotion, 20, 149-181.

Elfenbein, H.A., & Ambady, N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Physchological Bulletin, 128, 203-235.

Sanderson, D.W. (1997). Smileys. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.

Hola, new classmates

I have an account on blogspot through my gmail so setting this up wasn't too tricky thankfully. Technology usually kicks my butt!

I thought I'd introduce myself some more by giving y'all some of my favorite online websites that are bookmarked on my Safari browser (I'm a PC girl, but I downloaded Safari so now I'm a Mac impostor:)

Aside from Webmail, Gmail, B of A, Facebook and Twitter, I have bookmarked Postsecret (postsecret.com) The American Cancer Society (cancer.org) and FreeRice (freerice.com) If you have a spare minute (its early in the semester right? you've gotta have some time to spare) visit them!