It’s hard to remember a time before this semester, a time when I didn’t overanalyze every dissonant feeling, every apocalyptic horseman, and every prediction of how I, or others, would feel 3 months down the road. I can hardly even think of a time that the words “priming” and “self-fulfilling prophecy” didn’t escape my lips in everyday conversation, when I didn’t give people advice stemming from the facial feedback hypothesis, or when I didn’t hesitate to laugh during a sitcom out of my wariness of social proof.
All this to say, I’ve had a pretty sexy semester in social psych (excuse the alliteration). I’ve compiled a list of the sexiest theories, the ones that I could talk your ear off about, that I annoy ex-boyfriends and potential flings with, and that most likely bore the hell out of the poor people who happen to be sitting near me in a coffee shop or airport. I’ve also made a list of my top 5 sexiest psychologists, based on their provocative contributions to the field and my own shameless biases toward their research interests. Gotta love being a psych nerd.
Sexy Theories:
It’s hard to decide what my favorite theory is, so I’ll list them in no particular order. To start off, I think cognitive dissonance is absolutely fascinating. The idea that we are cognitively wired to convince ourselves that we made the right decision, or that something was worth every ounce of energy we poured into it, is absolutely incredible. It’s like a built-in protection mechanism that we all have, and I am so impressed with the efficiency and the effectiveness of the process. Secondly, I think the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy is very provocative, just because of how applicable it is in so many areas of life. From the way teachers interact with students to the way bosses interact with employees, it is incredible that our expectations breed results in every stage of life. One example of this that I’ve seen in my own life this year was when I lived in Lubbock this summer. When I woke up thinking, “today I am going to interact with someone new and form a friendship”, I often did! Next is the concept of positive illusions. It’s not necessarily the concept that fascinates me, but rather it is the effectiveness and necessity of it in our lives. As Taylor argues, self-enhancement is critical as we develop our self-concept. Sure, depressive realism is an accurate perception of the world and oneself, but it results in disillusionment and depression. The idea that we must manipulate ourselves into believing that we play more of a role in this world than we actually do is really interesting to me. Affective forecasting has been particularly obvious in my life recently, as I’ve been going through a break-up that wasn’t necessarily clean or easy. I continue to find it difficult to believe that 3 months down the road I won’t be upset about losing the relationship and that I will have moved on to bigger and brighter opportunities. But, according to theories about affective forecasting, my forecasts are surprisingly inaccurate and I will, in fact, go back to feeling absolutely normal 3 months after a situation occurs. Lastly, ironic processes are incredibly sexy. Whether I’m trying not to think of a white bear, a secret crush, how stressed I am about my social psych final, or how stupid I felt when I tripped over myself as I walked across campus yesterday, my operating processes and ironic processes make my unwanted thoughts become inevitable thoughts. That, my friends, is pretty sexy.
Sexy Psychologists:
I think my favorite thing about social psychologists is their innovative approaches to experimental design. Especially back in the day before pesky APA regulations, there were some pretty sexy studies. Again, there’s no particular order of preference, but here are five of my favorite psychologists from this class. Zajonc had some really great work on mere presence. Although it’s simple, I really liked that Zajonc found that we prefer photos of ourselves that look like our mirror image, while our peers prefer our actual image. Gottman, clearly, is another of my favorites purely because of his focus on romantic relationships. I think his Love Lab is an awesome idea, and I would LOVE to work on similar research in the future. His ideas about the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and his accuracy in predicting divorce are just a few of the reasons that I absolutely looove his work. Gilbert is sexy to me because of the anxious woman study. I thought it was interesting that when we are preoccupied we make the fundamental attribution error, but I found it particularly interesting that he told one condition that the woman was discussing her sexual exploits, while he told the other condition that she was discussing travel plans. Really what I’m saying is that I love how often social psych likes to bring up sexual exploits. Sherif’s work on the Robber’s Cave study was really influential in a lot of ways, and I really liked his creation of cooperative interdependence in the experiment. The design of the study was really applicable to real life, and I appreciated the fact that he used such young participants because it shows that realistic conflict occurs no matter what age we are. Lastly, Zimbardo’s unethical study of prison norms is simply enthralling. Randomly assigning participants to be either the oppressor or the oppressed was such a unique way to approach the subject. His findings that people act according to the norms of their social role were disheartening, but very influential in the field. Although I think he should have stopped the study much earlier, I cannot ignore the fact that his results were very enlightening.
Anyways, I’ve had a great semester and I have thoroughly enjoyed becoming such an expert on human nature. However, as I discussed with someone the other day, no matter how interesting these terms and explanations are, it is important that we don’t trap ourselves in the analytical mindset of social psych on a daily basis. These concepts and theories could handicap us from the social experience if we don’t allow them to function as they are intended. For instance, if we get so caught up in post-decision dissonance that we refuse to make a decision, we will never reap the benefits of its function. Make sense?
Well, it’s been real. Merry Christmas and a happy new year,
~sarah elizabeth
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