Archive for ‘Announcements’

Festinger's social comparison theory popped into my head the other day while watching college football. I was watching my favorite team the Texas Longhorns get beat by the Baylor Bears, who have been a perennial doormat in the big 12 when I started to apply Festinger's theory to the Longhorns current predicament. As a recognized football powerhouse the Longhorns expect to be one of the best teams in the nation year in and year out. Through the past decade they have finished in the top 25 every year, and more often than not also in the top 10. The Longhorns have learned to compare themselves to their peers as a measuring stick. Instead of using local peers such as Baylor who is a fellow Texas team, the Longhorns compare themselves to fellow powerhouses such as Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama, and so on. We get so used to this standard of excellence that we have forgotten the taste of defeat. If rather we compared ourselves to our in state brethren Baylor, we would be more apt to accept our fate this year. But perhaps this measuring yourself to your peers is how it truly works. Maybe adding socioeconomic classes to the social comparison theory would make this theory more realistic. Maybe adding race, religion, and education to the mix would give this theory a sharper edge. Or maybe all of these factors are inherently implied when Festinger said “people compare themselves to others because for many
domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick to evaluate
ourselves against, and other people are therefore highly informative." Whatever the case is I believe the social comparison theory rings true for all parts of life.

I always thought religion was a personal choice and I still do. But I find it interesting that odds are that we will believe similar concepts as our family does. When we talked about genetics playing a role in religion it made me wonder how close my families' beliefs are to mine. I stray off a bit from what I was raised to believe, but if you look at my family a lot of us stray off from what we are originally taught and we all question what our parents tell us to believe. I didn't think about it a whole lot until this class but now I am curious as to what made them decide to start questioning religious teachings. 

I was really intrigued by our discussion in class the other day about
the reasons for why we laugh. Dr. McAnulty’s personal example was his
experience at Harding when he slipped on ice and the group of guys
started laughing. They laughed because they had the expectation that
he would fall, but would not be seriously injured. They had all
experienced this same fall, so they knew what to expect when someone
came around the corner. If he would have stayed down on the ground and
held his head, or any given body part they probably would have stopped
laughing within a couple of seconds. I fully believe these
interactions are guided by each persons reaction to the situation. If
the person falls but gets up with only having a bruised ego, the
onlookers will probably laugh because there is no harm because they
see that there is no serious harm done. Another element of this
interaction we did not fully discuss in class is the person’s initial
reaction to the stimulus, then comparing this to their secondary
reaction which is to their audience’s reaction. Considering the
severity of the pain of the fall, the person’s pain tolerance, and
their personal pride each person can react to their audience’s
reaction in a wide variety of ways. For instance, when Dr. McAnulty
fell on the ice if he would have sprained his ankle while falling,
assuming the sprain doesn’t hobble him to the point where he can no
longer walk, he might get up and become angry with the group of guys.
In this same situation he might also try to save some face and join in
the laughing, even though he is in pain from spraining his ankle.
Since this group of guys knows what is coming, their initial reaction
is to laugh, then if the situation calls for it see if the person is
ok. In a typical social setting the expectations would be the opposite
of this because we are not expecting to see someone fall. I think the
decision to laugh in these types of situation is based on expectations
and individual as well as group reactions. A situation that mimics
this is how fans at a football game react when a player from the
opposing team goes down with an injury. If the player isn’t moving the
stadium falls into a relative silence. If the player is moving fans
will talk amongst themselves and try to figure out what happened and
if its a serious injury or if it is something minor such as cramping.
Once a player gets up to walk off the field whether on his own or with
help fans will cheer for him, and then possibly start making
derogatory comments at the opposing team for their players not being
tough or in good physical condition. If a player is carted off the
field, these same comments are not likely to be made. The fans are
reacting to what they can observe from how the player himself is
reacting to the injury, how the rest of the opposing team and fans are
reacting to the injury, and how the on the field medical staff is
responding to the injury. These initial reactions dictate how the
people observing the injury or accident in turn react. I think we
first survey the severity of what happened to the person, then we
check to see how the person responds to what happened, then we react
in what we deem the most appropriate way in accordance with how our
peers react to the situation.

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22

Glass Door:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHergy3iILs

How does one know when to laugh at something and when not to?  Is it okay to laugh with someone if they are laughing at themselves?  What if someone trips, do we laugh at that? What if that same person tripped and hurt themselves, is it still okay to laugh?  We sometimes unconsciously evaluate situations and weigh certain factors such as social responsibility and social consequences when wondering if it is “okay” to laugh.  How do we know when to laugh or when not to? Dr. Robert Provine states “Laughter is part of the universal human vocabulary. All members of the human species understand it. Unlike English or French or Swahili, we don’t have to learn to speak it. We’re born with the capacity to laugh.”  Laughter provides a distinction between danger and an okay situation.  “One of the remarkable things about laughter is that it occurs unconsciously. You don’t decide to do it. While we can consciously inhibit it, we don’t consciously produce laughter. That’s why it’s very hard to laugh on command or to fake laughter… An evolutionary perspective of laughter would state that “We believe laughter evolved from the panting behavior of our ancient primate ancestors. Today, if we tickle chimps or gorillas, they don’t laugh “ha ha ha” but exhibit a panting sound. That’s the sound of ape laughter. And it’s the root of human laughter.”

This lecture reminded me of a conversation my dad and I had prior to me leaving for college. How do we know what other people see is the same as what we see? On "FML" one time I saw a post about a dad who had taught his daughter the colors wrong because he thought it would be funny. After reading this I laughed but then thought about it. We only know what we are taught to be colors. We are taught blue is blue, green is green, and so on; but how do we know that the color we perceive to be blue or perceive to be green is actually the same as the color the teacher perceives to be blue or green. What if the people we believe are "colorblind" actually have it right and we are actually the ones who do not see colors properly? 

This seems to be a topic that many people have decided to run with, so I think I'll just go ahead and throw my 2 cents in. The only way an individual can know something is through his or her perception, if it is not percieved to be applicable or relevant it is not acted on, and the respective oposite is true as well. How do we know there is a chair in the middle of the walkway? Because we see it, and act accordingly to not trip over it. Perception is an intellectual sense. Perception is why your freind gets mad at you when your phone dies in the middle of a conversation because they think you hung up. It is percieved that you hung up, and even though it is not particularly "real", the consequence of them becoming angry is very real. Just as, for a more dramatic example, the case of "fanatics" knowing that God told them that it is allright to comit mass suicides or participate in pedophilism. They percieve that they are told to do something, and wether or not they are actually told to do it, the consequences of them being told that are very very real. There are many many more examples that could be mentioned, but people act on what they think adn percieve, that is a fact, and actions are very real to those around you, with the conept of the matrix excluded. 

History of Theories in Psychology is a capstone class requiring students to not only become familiar with the intellectual history of our field, including leading thinkers, major theories, landmark studies and recurring debates, but also to be able to think critically, to form personal opinions, to be able to compare and contrast the various schools of thought, to wrestle themselves with the timeless questions.  What is consciousness?  Is man’s comportment determined or freely chosen?  How are the body and mind related?  What is the nature of scientific inquiry?  Are humans basically rational or irrational?  Is nature or nurture the primary influence on behavior?

Welcome to our class blog where, in coming weeks, you will be posting comments, brief essays, links, media relating to the class, as well as commenting on your peers’ posts.  The purpose of the blog is to provide interaction and dialogue outside the classroom and encourage students to use the vast resources of the internet to augment and enrich our class content.  I look forward to learning from you and benefiting from each one of your unique perspectives.

Let the writing begin!…  and don’t worry, it’s only a blog, not your ultimate and final statement of your beliefs and personhood!  Don’t be too critical of your thoughts or writing.  Take a chance and share them!