Blog06: Media Missionaries?

Woah. Continuing, are we? Let's do this:

Adverts are damn interesting things, aren't they?

See this? Blatant use of PSLE students to endorse a Singaporean imitation product. haha. Interestingly, I realize that the chinese guy on the right not only isn't Singaporean, but is - evidently - wearing pink lipstick. Yes, I would have bought the product, but I decided that I didn't want to wear his makeup one day. So I bought Essence of Chicken from another famous competitor. My cognitive dissonance? You be the judge.

"If winning isn't everything, why do people keep score?" Extending the logic of soccer unto alcohol advertisement? Brilliant, deal. Look at all the awesome people on the right of the bottle. I want to be like them. Please - get me my jug now. Well, don't you enjoy winning? I wonder if people realize that the slogan seems to have no relationship with drink or drinking. How about "if drinking causes accidents, why do people keep killing each other?". Hmmm... Next!

Yes - Murdoch University seeks to add Flexibility into the curriculum. Double your major, multiply your opportunity. Good add - but the image doesn't do much, does it? Maybe, they should get their Psych students onboard to its marketing team. Double your major, multiply your opportunity. Use your students - or don't you think they are relevant to the work place?

What do you think?

Blog05: The Problem with Media

In my last 'official' post, I wanted to just take a stab at the media.

The last week has seen quite a bit of 'psychology' in the papers; probably more exceptional than usual. There was a lil' forensic drama lately.

In a love-triangled compliance murder story, Aniza Essa convinced a 16-year old school drop out to kill her husband. She told him, apparently, that if he did not, she would not love him. If he did, however, she had pledged her dedicated love for him.

The case, of course, drew comparisons to another murder trial; that of the famous Antony Ler, who gave coaxed a 15-year old boy into killing his wife.

The question now is whether the Essa who influenced somewhat by the story of Mr. Ler. Perhaps, the media portrayal of Ler hinted at the possibilities of getting away with murder - getting someone else to kill your husband? Of course, this is a little far-fetched.

But, my question isn't that of conformity or compliance. No, I know of the number of psychological theories that may come into play explaining the influence Ler's case had on Essa. But, in either case, explanation or otherwise, I think I would eventually conclude that the persuasion method on each of the boys may be more complicated than one would ordinarily think.

Instead, I want to digress into the difference between the Anthony Ler and Anita Essa case. The persuasion tool; Love.

In interpersonal attraction, theory asserts that attraction or the probability of attraction is determined by familiarity (propinquity), functional distance, similarity, and physical attractiveness. Sure. I suppose Essa and the young man probably saw each other almost every other day and partook in common activities. I do not think that Essa was particularly attractive (as defined by the media, dammit!) but I can assert that it may be because the man preferred older ladies. Who knows. I'm now (even as you read this!) considering the role of attraction on persuasion. I mean - it may hold that one's persuasion may be actually dependant on how attractive the person requesting compliance is. I'll go into theory in a bit. But wait!

Sociability increases with attractiveness, yes? In fact, this positive evaluation would comply with the Halo Effect. If one trait is positive(good looks), we would assume that all other traits of the person should be positive (decision to kill someone?). The "beauty is good" stereotype would fit this theory as well. These effects should elicit an increase in compliance, yes? But that's a not specific enough. Too simple.

Let's talk about the type of love. I was thinking of applying this 'persuasive attraction theory' with the triangular theory of love. In Essa's case, one would suppose that there was no intimacy. This would, accordingly, define the relationship as factitious love, obvious having closeness and assigning commitment in the union of the two lovers. I would ask then if the type of love can elicit different degrees of compliance. I wonder, then, if a love without intimacy would predict high levels of compliance.

Just something to consider.

Blog04: Stereotyping and Taxi drivers

Well. In almost all urbanized culture (or at least ones with good public transportation systems). we hear about the culture of the taxi driver story; this referring to the stories that you hear and the conversations that take place within the confides and privacy of a taxi ride, a kin to confessionals and private interrogation. I wonder if the greatest triumph of observational studies may actually be the insurmountable information gathered by these individuals.

Note: I sideline from referring to these accounts as fact as errors that make itself present in regular observational studies also - and usually more drastically - applies to that of taxi conversations.

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a particular cab driver.

It started out with a well mannered conversation with a large range of topics. Eventually, he began talking about the 'kinds' of passengers that he had. You see, when I got in the cab, I told him to go to "Spring Building". At this, he turns to me and asked me if its "the one in Tampines". I tell him that it is not that building (Spring Building: 29 Tampines St 92 - no). I tell him its the one at Bt Merah. He then asked me how I'd get there usually. I tell him. THEN. Oh yes - THEN! he began this conversation about how I was "good" because I "at least knew where I wanted to go, unlike those aunties!".

Me: Aunties?

Taxi Driver, TD: Yeah - the old aunties. they get in the car then they say "ah boy - go to the clementi coffee shop with yellow chairs. I tell you... I want to punch them in the face! I see them wave down - I don't pick them up!

Me: Serious?

TD: got one time. I pick up this lady got her daughter with her from NUS. the daughter so old ask her grandmother go pick up - no face, eh?... come to the house, already raining.... then i give her change but then she sit in the cab don't want to come out. You know what she want me to do?

Me: uh? don't know.

TD: she want me to go out and open the door for her! Wah liao. she think he daughter made of gold?! i not her [chauffeur], Taxi driver. siao.

Me: wow. so what did you do?

TD: I clever one. I sit in the car then I blast the radio on with some hindustani music! she damn irritated then she left the cab. Siao, ah.

...(relevant content that's about the same, hence not transcribed)...

TD: Ya! All them stupid. All those old ladies - must die. Some more; they tell me "how can you don't know? - all taxi drivers will know". I tell you - I want to beat them up, lor....

Me: eh, chill, la uncle. how can so violent one.

TD: ...how cannot? so stupid, old senile a$$h0!3s. should die wan. I tell you - god also kill them one. I don't care you Buddhist, Hindu, Islam - I don't care. sure kill this kind of people. Got people old ask me to take them to the famous chili crab place. Then - I tell him I don't know. Then he call me stupid. F**king a$$ho!3....

Well you get the idea. I remember this ad-verbatim only because i decided to write this down immediately after I got off the ride.

But, other stuff he said, included:

"I don't care even if you pray to the tree to get 4D - but if you don't believe in god you're stupid! I will punch anyone who says there is no god in the face."

"80% of taxi drivers are idiots."

"98% of all passengers are okay can tahan. but got 2% of all of them i will say "no need to pay the fare - i'll give you 10 dollars. get out and take another cab"."

Awesome stuff.

I realize that simple indiscretions are okay. But this was point worthy in the concept of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.

Prejudice accounts for the negative attitude of a person against a group, while stereotyping refers to the generalization of a set of characteristics to all members of a specific group, regardless of variations. In this case, our dear taxi driver had prejudice ideas against elderly females and atheist and also stereotyped them.

Lastly, there was a large element above all of this. He stated that he would not pick up elderly females because of the stereotype. That act encompasses the behavioural aspect of prejudice, discrimination.

In prejudice, the formation of group is primary, grouping people into categories based on similar characteristics while downplaying individual differences and overplaying similiarities. Once this scheme is formed, people are easily pigeoned holed.

Patricia Devine and her colleagues (1989) fairly recently attributed stereotypes to automatic processing instead of controlled processing. Their Two-Step Cognitive Processing model predicts that when certain statement or topic which fits a stereotyped category is perceived (picking up people - bad customers - not knowing where to go) an automatic response brings about the stereotype characteristic to memory. In the other step, controlled processing is used instead. In this, the processing is conscious and one can assess the information and react accordingly, either ignoring or disregarding the stereotype. With controlled processing, one can evaluate the statement or topic for memory accessible information that correlates with the statement by looking at prototypes one may know (like old ladies that you know that *are* nice and *know* where to go) and/or by evaluating the stereotype group in question (old ladies are supposed to be nice, aren't they?).

I guess the thing to realize is that the taxi driver was a victim as well. Notice, how people assume that taxi drivers *must* know where all the *famous* places are and *must* know who to get there?

Interesting.

Blog03: Conformity and Prankshows

Social circumstances may define you or what you do?

Perhaps. Just the other day, Moses and I were talking about how most hidden camera prank shows (like that of Gotcha, Just for Variety, etc.) tend to use basic social psychology principles.

A key example: Jasmine's blog recently talked about this Japanese game show, where this group of people (about 40-60) run towards this target person. Relying on the group's contagion, the target assumes that they are running away from something (or towards him!) and acts accordingly to the group's influence. This form of conformity is when informational social influence backfires. The factors that predict conformity because (1) the situation is ambigious and (2) it is ambiguous. As such, we would tend to quickly assume that the group has more accurate information than us.

Later on in that video, the group (now only about 30-40 people) targets a lone individual and walks around the unsuspecting person and completely surrounds him. At this point, the group is around the person but still everyone still causally walks forward. Then, all of a sudden, they all ducked. The naive target instantly ducks with the group.

Same thing. :D But before someone yells 'Plagarism!'...

I remember that I used to refer to this kind of behaviour by a specific term: collective stupidity. The etymology of the word basically attributes this kind of conformity to people being stupid - as in stupid enough to let this happen to them, as the notion for most people, attributing this to personal characteristics instead of the power of the situation.

Obviously, this definition is a little off; quite incorrect. The phrase, as I know, occurs from this famous quote by famous cyberculturist and collective intelligence researcher Pierre Levy:

"Collective intelligence has no relationship to the stupidity of crowd behavior."

Yes - Collective intelligence - the point of this longish post; intelligence that is derived from the collaboration and competition of many behaviours. The concept is not new, but from my readings, seems like a under developed one, even though it is amusingly brilliant.

Collective intelligence, as quoted by Levy, *is* different from what we may consider the conformity. It basically talks about the systems by which information is used by a series of sentient beings (strange word, yes?) to come to a consensus in decision making. Collective Intelligence accounts for this consensus decision making within systems of human, bacteria, animals, computers and quarks (quantum particles, relativism at your own risk).

The argument is that this process is largely more efficient and remain at the basic operating level of sentience and can overcome groupthink and cognitive bias.

I only bring this up because I tend to think that logic-driven organisms, such as humans, tend to do *funny* things sometimes. That got me thinking. Obviously, some of this behaviours can be explained, but the rationalization or efficiency may be somewhat comprised. Who knows. Anyway, that was just something to think about.

But, no - where did Vivian come up with this?

One day, I was getting on the train to get to school. At the train platform I saw this:

No big deal, yeah?

Here's the clincher, The train approaches from the other direction. All those people in the station - they're faced the wrong way.

Why are they faced in the wrong direction? Simple: cause the sun's in their faces. I thought that it was funny.

Thanks for reading. :D

Blog02: Attribution Theory and Me

Today, as I was feeling already depressed over my regular failings, I didn't attend one of my classes.

Why? - Let me elaborate...

I am actually very embarrassed coming to school late. More embarrassed than you would realized.

I woke up almost an hour after my class started and rushed to get ready. However, when I started to think about it, I realized that I would spend another hour travelling to school (too short of cash to hail a cab, and without another one to borrow it from). Realizing that I would be almost 2hrs (poss. 30mins more getting ready), I made this terrible decision to avoid going to class.

Of course, most of you reading this might be thinking that this may be rather extreme: avoiding classes to avoid embarrassment. Well, its more complicated than that. But, I can attest to the uniqueness of it all in my case. (however, not as unique as I may think - perhaps?).

I compare myself to everyone else I know. To be honest and entirely accurate, I compare myself to everyone else pessimistically.  Lately, I have been feeling more retarded than usual. Everyone seems to be doing generally better than me (academically, at least). They have been able to cope with the work better and I have been sorely lacking potential in my own work. I blame myself for this - unpunctual, late-work, laziness...

I believe that people think that I am like that. They would in fact blame me for coming to class late and, hence, my embarrassment.

Very sad, emo post, yes?

I struggle to think if this attribution is rightfully justified. Let's review attribution theory to see if my dilemma fits.

Given someone's behaviour in a situation, one can either attribute it to the situation or choose to attribute it to the person. Hence, attributing the cause of the behaviour externally or internally, respectively.

Kelly's Covariation Model of Attribution postulates that three factors mitigates whether one attributes behaviours to stimuli in specific situations either way; these are Consensus, Distinctiveness, and Consistency.

In my case, I think my audience would attribute my deviant behaviour (unpunctuality, lateness, and laziness) as my fault - internally attributing it - and not the situation. Let's see - 

Consensus refers to the extent to which others respond similarly to the same stimuli; contextually, whether others always come late to class. In this case, consensus is low: Vivian tends to be the last one to class usually.

The next factor to assess is the distinctiveness of the behaviour to the stimuli. In effect, the question to note is whether the behaviour occurs to only one particular stimulus and not any other. Does Vivian come late to classes only? No - he is constantly late for many different events. Distinctiveness is also low.

Last, the model appreciates the degree to which the stimulus and behaviour occurs repeatedly. Vivian comes last almost every lesson, every time. I think the consistency is high.

According to Kelly's model, for groups to attribute behaviour to the situation, or externally, all factors must be high. However, for groups to attribute the behaviour to the person, both consensus and distinctiveness must be low and consistency must be high - as in my case.

I guess my perceptions *were* indeed justified. That's 1 for Kelly, 0 for Vivian.

The theory seems intuitive, though; you already knew that I should be blame for my behaviour. However, does that mean that the theory has no usefulness?

Not really. As a predictive tool, it is utilized in criminal law, human resource management, education, and even marketing communication. However, it seems as if its use in the mentioned fields are misplaced. As mentioned, consistency plays an integral in the tool's applicability and, if it is used covertly, may be misused. However, if it is used more like a questionnaire, where overt responses are required, I believe that this may be more appropriate.

Moreover, the model supports more than a predictive function. For example, most of us have realized that we feel more comfortable walking into a lecture or tutorial late, if we have more people walking in with us. Sometimes we wait for more people to arrive (friends and such) just so that we can go in. Subtly, the idea is that we are reducing consensus of the behaviour, since it appears that more people are coming late. Consistency is similar.

Just to plague the concept with more complexity, I looked up the covariation model to discern other possible combinations.

First, from the model, it seems that consistency isn't a predicator of attribution. However, it serves as a prerequisite for determination. Without a high consistency, we cannot come to a conclusion. It is also argued that if there is low consensus and high distinctiveness, the behaviour is attributed to the interaction of the person and situation. However, if the consensus is high and distinctiveness is low, it is either the person or situation, but nothing is conclusive.

Oh well.

Society makes me more depress than usual.

Blog01: An Indian Reception and Heuristics

Yesterday, I attended a wedding reception and discovered draft on tap on the second floor of the hall. Wasting little time, my cousins and I got wasted, feigning an early St. Pat's celebration.

During this period, we all decided to play some meaningless games. One of my cousin's suggested playing 'The Movie Game'. This played by one of the player choosing one letter in alphabet first. Then, each player names a movie which title begins with that forementioned alphabet from memory in turn. A movie can only be named once. Hence, if a player is unable to think of a new movie, he is eliminated. The person with the most movie titles beginning with that letter wins and, subsequently, chooses the next letter to play.

While playing, I found very odd that we all tended to start off by basically naming titles that we all already knew. By the time we made our third round, we all were basically desperately trying to remember unusual movie titles that no one had thought of yet.

Triggering a memory from lectures, I couldn't help but wonder about availability heuristics - the tendency to base a judgement on how easily relevant examples can be generated. Typically, we were making the same calls for similar letters:

Srijith (on the letter 'S', quickly): Star Wars!
Me & Jeevan (together): Dammit! I was thinking of that!

Not exactly very 'social'. But, I couldn't help but think about how we all think about the stereotypical scenarios based on examplars that are most readily available – how thinking of the last airplane disasters come more readily to mind than the last car crash. Probably, why everyone gets more uptight getting on airplanes than cars when we know that there are more motorway accidents than airborne ones. Hmm...

More to the point, meanwhile, at the wedding, my uncles and aunts were, as expected, summing up the bride and groom. As soon as they were announced into the hall, they began to speculate about the couple's background. The couple came walking down the hall's aisle, dressed very intriguingly.

The groom wore a white jacket with matching pants, with a bright blue shirt, which was half-way unbuttoned, revealing skin and chest hair. In my opinion, he looked like an indian version of John Travolta's character from Saturday Night Fever. He even had the gold chain visible on his chest. However, my relatives thought different:

Uncle 1: Hmm.. the groom don't know how to button his shirt?
Uncle 2: Yeah, the fella must be from some neighbourhood gang.
Aunt 1: Yeah – the bride must be some anjadi also.

The term anjadi refers to a derogative term for an indian gangster. My folks had decided (almost literally) that the groom was some kind of deliquent from the a half-button'd shirt and that wearing the shirt the way that was a sure-fire way of determining if one was from a gang. They even made the extension to that logic by including the bride - that those that goes out (and marries) a gangster is some kind of gangster as well. A bit of representative heuristics at work? It is the tendency to judge the likelihood that a target belongs to a category based on how similar the target is to typical features of the category.

The groom's an accountant. The bride's a sales executive.

Brilliant.

*an afterthought - why wouldn't I consider that an accountant and sales exec couldn't be gang leaders? heuristics, my friends - representative heuristics. haha.

hmm... social psych rocks.

Woah. Awesome - blog's up and running finally and I'm being awesome as well by posting my first entry. :D

The star's weighed in my favour. Before John made the announcement in class today I thought that I would be posting this entry later than I had originally intended. However, John the Light told us to submit this before midnight TONIGHT. The time is now 1531hrs Monday, 17 March 2008.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!