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.