To Get Out You Must Become Self-Aware

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“Get Out” a movie written by Jordan Peele has been in the movie theatres since February 24, 2017. In the article, “Get Out’ Sprang From an Effort to Master Fear, Says Director Jordan Peele” conducted by Fresh Air it is shown that Get Out is a movie connected to many social issues in the world. He says he wants people to be able to see the ‘subtle racism’ still going on in America today. He uses the main character Chris to show the racism of America through a first person’s eyes.

In this film, there is a feeling of self-awareness shown throughout the film. Self-Awareness is a self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself and makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and disposition. Peele allows everyone watching the film to gain a sense of self-awareness about each position and role played in the film. In the beginning of the film, Chris starts out as a a normal young black man who has plans to visit is white girlfriend’s parents. He is very nervous about meeting them because his girlfriend Rose tells him that they do not know he is black. As the film, continues and Chris first meets Rose’s parents he becomes very aware of the way her family acts and what they say around and towards him. Off the bat, Rose’s father automatically mentions Barack Obama two minutes after meeting Chris (F, 14). This is an example of Rose’s father trying to make a connection with Chris, but Chris’s self-conscious begins to go off because of his circumstances and the odd vibe given off my Rose’s parents. This is Peele’s idea for people who are watching the film to be able to relate to the protagonists feelings. When you first meet you they try to make a connection with you, but it ends up making you feel uncomfortable. It makes you self-aware of your actions and words around and person and the persona that you should give off because of their assumption of your preferences.

As the film continues on, Chris continues to be put in a hypnosis by Rose’s mother called “the sunken place”. Each time he visits the sunken place he becomes very self-aware of the past events from his life such as his mother dying. According to the article, “Attitude Change in Face-to-face and Computer-mediated Communication: Private Self-awareness as Mediator and Moderator”, the interpersonal influence that happens each time he returns to the “sunken place” causes his private self-awareness to increase (Sassenburg, 12). As he describes such events to his girlfriend, Rose the enormity of this situation is downplayed and this causes his self-awareness to be decreased because of Rose’s social influence. As the film hits it’s climax, the true intentions of the antagonists is revealed and it lands Chris in a difficult position where he is forced to become self-aware. According to Attitude Change in Face-to-face and Computer-mediated Communication: Private Self-awareness as Mediator and Moderator”, this increase of his own self awareness and his ability to control what his actions and what he said in cetain scenes of the movie is what saved his life (Sassenburg,8). Chris was able to be aware of not just others in his environment, but he was able to be self aware about his wellbeing and his attitude about it was able reflect that he was under a hypnosis. In the article, it also states that self-awareness can come from self conscious in this term it can be related to Get Out because Chris began to rely on the persona

that was given of him so it enable him to have even more self awareness to behave in which a manner that was expected from oneself. He was able to have a handle on his emotions and behaviors and this gave off the impression that Chris was still hypnotized in the “sunken place”.

F. (2017, March 15). ‘Get Out’ Sprang From An Effort To Master Fear, Says Director Jordan Peele. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/03/15/520130162/get-out-sprung-from-an-effort-to-master-fear-says-director-jordan-peele

Sassenberg, K., Boos, M., & Rabung, S. (2005). Attitude change in face-to-face and computer mediated communication: Private self-awareness as mediator and moderator. European Journal Of Social Psychology, 35(3), 361-374. doi:10.1002/ejsp.254

President Trump Going Against The Democratic Norms

“Norms are rules for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe “proper” behavior, in a different sense of the word norms also describe what most others do — what is normal.”

Many peopleare concerned with the decisions our president, Donald Trump, is making. But why are these concerns actually worrying everyday people – especially those of the democratic party? As we know and have heard from our radios and televisions, Trump has been speaking to foreign leaders and has dismissed concerns that are conflicting with the interests of the people. In the article , “ ‘An Erosion of Democratic Norms in America’ ”, a Dartmouth College political scientist, Brendan Nyhan, was interviewed to get his views on Trump. Brendan in the articles describes Trump’s behavior as, “a candidate willing to endorse violence against political opponents as a failure to American institutions to safeguard political norms.”

A democratic norm that Trump seemed to abide against was speaking out against the protestors. The protestors were ons that are anti-Trump, which has then lead to the many breakdowns Trump has had. We obviously have all seen these breakdowns wether it was on his social media feed (Twitter especially) and even the news. These breakdowns show how Trump will carry himself and also will cause problems involving the norms that have been abided by in the previous power of the executive branch. Another set of norms that Trump is violating are those ethnic backgrounds of the people whom are going to be in power. People now just need to wait for the right moment to speak out against the different attributes, such as the bills and everything that are being passed on, that is happening in the white house now.

This connects to the journal article I read in regards to the norms within social media. Social media is one where people normally use it to express their emotions with things going on around them. As well as pictures and comments to friends in order to express what they do in their daily lives. Trump uses social media for political and also defensive ways. He backlashes on people who tend to have problems with him rather than address them face to face. He is breaking the presidential norms of social media, no other president has taken to social media to address problems with other people.

Although Trump and the republican party can push things through, it would be in their best interest to keep the norms of democracy in mind in order to keep all Americans happy. When Americans are happy we tend to work together more rather than when we are divided. From the election till now, Trump has split families apart due to the way they wanted to vote and especially for the many changes Trump wants to make.

When talking about political norms, the reference is to informal conventions or standards that are upheld without enforcement by law. Basically, one of the most sacred norms here is to make sure that there shall be a fair electoral process. Due to the facts of the different “norms” here that are being looked past, and not taken into consideration former presidents decided to speak out.

“The Republican Party has already fallen at his feet — why would he change his approach when he has been given no political reason to do so?” says Nyhan. Well, the conclusion to this is that Trump does have a chance to be normalized but in fact he must first act like a normal politician.

Norms are indefinitely everywhere, especially in politics. When in politics, people see norms as being an everyday thing because everyone in the world is curious to see how our country is being run. With president Trump breaking many of these norms in politics its creating a lot of controversy in which needs to be fixed. Especially fixed in person and rather not over social media.

Foran, Clare. “‘An Erosion Of Democratic Norms In America'”. The Atlantic. N.p., 2017. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.

Myers, David G, and Jean M Twenge. Exploring Social Psychology. Print.

Hock, Karlo, and Nina H. Fefferman. “Violating Social Norms When Choosing Friends: How Rule-Breakers Affect Social Networks”. PLOS ONE. N.p., 2017. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.Blog Post Trump & Norms Ne-13qcqyv

Disobeying Gender Conformity

Surprisingly, in London, some corporate offices still require an outdated, sexist dress code for women. These restrictions may include, dresses and skirts only, heels at least two inches high, along with other stereotypical female clothing fashions. A women receptionist, Nicola Thorp, from the financial district of London was called out for not wearing the proper footwear to work by her company as reported by The New York Times (Bilefsky 2017). Miss Thorp was certainly going against conformity in the article she was featured in, British Woman’s Revolt Against High Heels Becomes a Cause in Parliament.

Throp was changing her beliefs or behavior to ago against others, not in line with them. In other words, she was deciding not to conform in this case to the company dress code. She also went against obedience too. Her company actually sent her home for not adhering to their dress policy for women. Throp was certainly equipped to deal with her consequences for her actions because she actually initiated a petition containing over 150,000 signatures to make Parliament aware of this corporate issue. This incident happened roughly two years ago and now Parliament has referenced Britain’s 2010 Equality Act, and has labeled that particular company’s policy as sexual discrimination in the workplace.

Once Thorp disobeyed her company’s rules and caused an uproar, other women spoke up as well detailing the unrealistic demands they faced concerning the dress code enacted by their workplaces. Thorp, a women’s advocate, is fighting for equality in the corporate world. She showed women that conformity and obedience wasn’t always the right thing to do. When one feels her rights or gender are being discriminated against, don’t just go ahead and conform, speak out!

In 2015, a psychological study was performed by Wendelien Vantieghem and Mieke Van Houtte, examining whether girls are more pressured to conform to their gender norms than boys. This article, Are Girls more Resilient to Gender-Conformity Pressure? The Association Between Gender-Conformity Pressure and Academic, compares the Belgian culture and how girls usually outperform the boys on educational tests. Seventh grade boys and girls were chosen for this study and the results showed that boys’ academic confidence fell when they were put under more than normal conformity pressure. The term self-efficacy is also used to measure and refer to confidence. There was no change for the girls’ confidence when put under the same amount of pressure since they are used to it.

Vantieghem and Houtte’s article brings up the question if gender conformity pressure is indirectly altering girls’ behaviors overtime. At an early age, certain gender norms are expected for girls. We can even see them outside an academic environment and carried out to adulthood; as in the case of the British company expecting females to wear high heels to work. Some women would go along with this rule but however, others (like Miss Thorp) may decide to bypass the gender pressures. The major ongoing debate topics are; when is it too degrading to abide by such norms, and if women are expected to conform more than men? The study shows that even when girls were put under more than normal conformity pressures, their academic self-efficacy was still higher than boys in this case. It can be said that girls are very used to these kinds of pressures and know how to handle them without letting affect their confidence.

Nicola Thorp is a prime example of when conformity or obedience isn’t always best. Although in some cases it’s accepted, for others, conformity and obedience can actually have a negative impact rather than a positive one, especially when discrimination comes into question. However, some people (women in particular) are actually more impelled to speak up or not be influenced by the gender conformity pressures that are brought up in everyday life.

 

 

References

Bilefsky, D. (2017, March 06). British Woman’s Revolt Against High Heels Becomes a Cause in Parliament. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/world/europe/uk-parliament-nicola-thorp-heels.html?ref=business

Vantieghem, W., & Houtte, M. V. (2015). Are Girls more Resilient to Gender-Conformity Pressure? The Association Between Gender-Conformity Pressure and Academic Self-Efficacy. Sex Roles, 73(1-2), 1-15. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0509-6

Gender Roles In Sports Broadcasting

Do you ever wonder why you only hear male announcers during Men’s March Madness games?

It’s because for as long as March Madness has been around, only two women have ever been hired as sports analysts. According to a New York Times article, Debbie Antonelli was hired as the first woman since 1995 to be an analyst in the 2017 N.C.A.A men’s tournament games. Debbie Antonelli has been a sideline reporter for 29 years, studying hundreds of teams and players. There are plenty of women qualified to call men’s tournament games. But it took twenty two years for another woman to have an opportunity to work on a men’s tournament broadcast. Debbie Antonelli knows that a lot of pressure rides on her performance, because if she makes a mistake people will say, “Oh it’s because she is a woman.”

If women are just as qualified as men to broadcast, then why have there only been two women calling March Madness games in history?

Gender roles are a big factor. Gender roles are expectations for male and female behavior. In society, men are expected to be better at sports, therefore better at announcing them. Previous studies show that men tend to be more outspoken, confident, athletic and dominant. All these traits make a good sports broadcaster. But other studies show that people perceive women to be shy, quiet, and less sports oriented. Since society has such strong views on males and females, it’s no wonder the sports broadcasting industry is overfilled with males. Gender roles make males the perfect candidates for this job and make people question if females would qualify for such a position. Expectations for gender roles are real, but are not applicable to every individual. Not all girls are quiet and uninterested in sports. Many girls play college basketball, study the March Madness games and have worked in the men’s basketball field for years. Just because gender roles depict girls one way does not mean every girl has those characteristics. Women can be just as confident and knowledgeable about basketball as men.

According to a study done on Sex Segregation in Television Sports Broadcasting, women work mainly on sideline reporting, but are underrepresented as studio analysts and live announcers. This study focuses on the relationship between job classification within sports broadcasting and explanatory variables such as sex. Ninety Five percent of play-by-play announcers are male and 93 percent of sports analysts are males. Gender is a big factor in job distribution. Women are concentrated in lower sideline jobs, while males occupy higher positions. In society gender roles associate women to be less qualified as sports announcers than men because of their expected behaviors. The New York Times article shows how gender roles can be challenged. Debbie Antonelli has been working with college basketball for years, but it took the broadcasting industry two decades to finally hire her as a play-by-play announcer. Gender roles play a big role in Sports Broadcasting, but powerful women like Debbie Antonelli and enlightening news articles challenge the expected behaviors of women and men.

References

Macur, J. (2017, March 10). Another Woman at the March Madness Mike? That Only Took 2 Decades. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/sports/ncaabasketball/another-woman-at-the-march-madness-mike-that-only-took-2-decades.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FESPN&action=click&contentCollection=business&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection

Coventry, B.T. (2004). On the Sidelines: Sex and Racial Segregation in Television Sports Broadcasting. Sociology of Sport Journal, 21(3), 322-341. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=511b6c1c-df33-4909-8ab2-26c6a0536da9%40sessionmgr101&hid=101

Myers, D. (2015). Exploring Social Psychology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education

Don’t dump because of Trump

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By: Andrew Lacativa

Due to the recent presidential election results, many people have struggled to decide whether or not they should take their investments out of the stock market or keep them in. Before the decision is made to remove your funds from the stock market, you should be aware of a possible flaw in your decision-making. According to New York Times journalist, Neil Irwin, the president has a minimal affect on most of the stock market’s flow (Irwin, 2017). These recent heuristics of American citizens demonstrate the illusory correlation. People often perceive the existence of a relationship between two things as stronger than they really are; sometimes they really have no relationship which is a correlation error (Myers, 2015).

Today, mass numbers of people find hundreds of ways to blame Trump for certain situations because of his current image in our government. A prime example is the Liberals who are consulting with stock market specialists about cashing out or not (Irwin, 2017). People automatically think that every move our president makes will somehow make or break our economy and affect themselves directly. The simple truth is that there isn’t solid evidence that our president has a heavy influence on the stock market. The state of stock prices can either fall or rise, no matter who is in office. Economists can also agree that the president does not have an affect on how fast the stock markets grows as well. To continue, the stock market is constantly breaking down as the years continue, due to many demanding fixes. It does not matter whether our president will be able to handle the economy, because people will continue to invest in big companies which will ultimately affect the stock market regardless. A psychological study performed in 2014 involving political ideologies and the illusory correlation enhances the existing debate whether people actually are influenced more by politics more than we think (Carraro, 2014). The results of the study seem to indicate that an implicit and explicit illusory correlation bias emerged both in the case of liberals and in the case of conservatives, although remarkably stronger in the explicit illusory correlation bias (Carraro, 2014)

 

References

Carraro, L., Negri, P., Castelli, L., & Pastore, M., Pastore. (2014). Implicit and explicit illusory

correlation as a function of political ideology. Plos One, 9(5), e96312. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096312  

 

Irwin, N. (2017, February 13). It’s Probably a Bad Idea to Sell Stocks Because You Fear Trump.

Retrieved February 10, 2017, from

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/upshot/its-probably-a-bad-idea-to-sell-stocks-because-you-fear-trump.html https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj_8rzY-5rSAhXM6yYKHQ6iCVIQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aol.com%2F2014%2F03%2F05%2Frepublican-democrat-presidents-better-stock-market-performance%2F&bvm=bv.147448319,d.amc&psig=AFQjCNHfwMZcopBMyzempFjIpufpUExxkA&ust=1487552630521758

The Spotlight Effect in Entertainment

 

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

BLOG POST #1-

MEMBERS: LynJoy Robinson, Tess Petreycik, Christina Marciante, Jacqueline Recio, Matt Benedict

Author: LynJoy Robinson

 

The Spot Light Effect in Entertainment

The Spotlight Effect is the tendency for one to have a self-conscious approach to situations, essentially overestimating how intensely one’s actions and/or appearance are scrutinized by others. A recent video clip published online featured the Kardashian-Jenner clan on vacation in Costa Rica. The video was tagged Kourtney Kardashian brings her beautifying team on vacation. The video featured Kourtney Kardashian sitting down getting her makeup done, by a member of her beauty team, while she made a snapchat video for her fans to see. (Anthony, 2017)

The Kardashian girls jump through hoops to ensure their appearance is always on point, both in person and on their social media pages. They typically do not like being photographed without their makeup and hair done. But do people really care about how these ladies look? Are the Kardashians making a big fuss out of something insignificant? I believe the answers to these questions are Yes!  Based on how these ladies think they should look, they are evidently experiencing the Spotlight Effect.

A peer reviewed article, The Spotlight Effect in Social Judgement, written by Thomas Gilovich et.al (2000) eloquently explains this concept.  The article draws the conclusion that people typically “overestimate the extent to which their actions and appearance are noted by others (Gilovich, Medvec, Savitsky., 2000, p. 1).” The researchers conducted a three-part study. The participants were asked to wear t-shirts that had either a flattering image, or an embarrassing image. The participants wearing these t-shirts overestimated the amount of observers that would be able to recall the words/ images on their shirt. In another study, participants were placed in a group discussion, where they again overestimated the extent to which their exchange of words were remembered by their fellow group members.

The research concluded that the Spotlight Effect is very present in everyday life. The assessment of one’s self sparks the perception that one’s actions are ‘under the microscope’ of others. People “typically end up overestimating their own prominence in the eyes of others” (Gilovich, et al., 2000, p. 9).

As humans, we are all guilty of over assessing our own behaviors and actions, even when we don’t realize it. The article and video cited earlier gave a pronounced example of the Spotlight Effect. The Kardashian-Jenner ladies payed presumably thousands of dollars for a beauty team to follow them all the way throughout Costa Rica, just so they could look their absolute best while on vacation to maintain the image they thought was necessary. They believe the world is scrutinizing their imperfections. But the reality is, no one seem to care as much as they think. People are largely caught up with more concerning issues happening in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

Anthony, R. (2017). Kourtney Kardashian Strips Naked For A Sexual Skinny-Dipping Picture.

Elite Daily. Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/celebrity/kourtney-kardashian-naked-skinny-dipping-snapchat/1772727/

Anthony, R. (2017). Kourtney Kardashian brings her beautifying team on vacation. Elite Daily.

Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/celebrity/kourtney-kardashian-naked-skinny-dipping-snapchat/1772727/

Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An

egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 78(2), 211-222. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.78.2.211

Myers, David G. (2012). Exploring Social Psychology. New York: McGraw- Hill.

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