All over the world we can look around and see inequality everywhere, a world unbalanced. In the Untied States we have a runaway obesity epidemic, as I mentioned in a previous post, but there are people all over the world who are starving. The wage gap between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the world continues to grow. And Nestle continues to extract ground water from draught stricken California (CNBC), while people around the world have little to no access to clean drinking water. Education costs continue to go up, making something that was once a moderate struggle to achieve, has become nearly impossible for many today to go to college. There are children in developing countries who barely receive an elementary education, if any, and leave school with little knowledge of how to better themselves or how to take of their health.

Living in poverty makes it extremely difficult to gain access to nutritious food, clean drinking water, and good healthcare in order to achieve optimum health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 21,000 children all over the world die everyday due to lack of health care, maternal mortality is much higher in developing countries than it is in industrialized countries, as well as life expectancies vary as much as 37 years in those same countries. Also, developing people who live in poverty are more prone to catching non-communicable diseases and have much higher rates of tuberculosis.

The problem then is providing a way in which people living in poverty can gain access to better medical care. Theory of planned behavior says that we can actually change people’s behaviors by targeting their behavioral intentions (Lafreniere & Cramer). In other words one can be taught to make good behavioral decisions in advance of an activity. While this theory in no way addresses all of the issues with poverty and lack of healthcare, it can be an important piece. For example, one of the reasons for poverty is lack of education and by modeling good health choices in a classroom setting this would then start to remove one of the barriers to accessing healthcare. Perhaps a bigger piece of moving towards improving this problem would be to change policies and procedures in the healthcare world. According to Loignan et al, there are three major factors that cause healthcare to be inaccessible to the poor, and they are difficult living conditions for the poor, lack of communication between patients and providers, and finally the overwhelming complexity of the healthcare system.

The goal is to improve access to healthcare for the poor. The way to do this is to simplify the healthcare system, and to provide programs that will model good healthcare choices and how to find services to support healthy choices. Legislation at the government level to reduce the amount of paperwork and information necessary to gain access to healthcare and simplifying and streamlining the whole process. Also put training programs in place starting in elementary school by having teachers model good health choices and how, where, and when to access resources to support the good choices they are learning to make. This should be a progressive training continuing to the college level and up to medical school, that way to better communication skills between providers and patients.

Evaluating the success of these interventions will come in the form of improved access to healthcare for those living in poverty, reduced infant and maternal deaths, improved living conditions as health improves. Also, as communication improves between providers and patients, more people are going to feel more encouraged to seek out healthcare as they need it, thereby reducing their chances of getting sicker or dying from easily treatable illnesses.

Resources

http://www.cnbc.com/id/

http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/health_inequities/en/

Loignon, C., Hudon, C., Goulet, E.,  Boyer, S., De Laat, N., Fournier, N., Grabovschi, C., and Bush, P. Perceived barriers to healthcare for persons living in poverty in Quebec, Canada: the EQUIhealThY project. International Journal for Equity in Health 2015, 14:4  doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0135-5

The previous statement of “the most effective strategy to convict witches” may seem quite archaic. After all we have come a long way from the Salem witch trials of 1692. How can we even compare the justice system today with it’s advent of DNA evidence to the days of superstition and witch trials? Common American folklore for the Salem witch trials offers trial by ordeal as the method to determine a person’s innocence. Trial by ordeal is essentially a test usually a torturous one to determine a person’s innocence. Many forms of these are capable of killing the accused .One of the most popular is the dunking or drowning of suspected witches.Our current justice system has eliminated quite a few of the flaws of the past, hearsay, gossip and unsupported claims are no longer admissible but were usually accepted during the 1692 Salem witch trials (UMKC, 2009). Historical evidence however, opposes the common folklore of witch dunking or trials by ordeal. In actuality, suspects of practicing witchcraft were typically prosecuted by eyewitness accounts and confessions with the majority of the convicted being hung.

See page for author (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

These methods of prosecution are ones that are still in practice today and unfortunately can end with results similar to trials of the past, the innocent being convicted of crimes. Cases which have been overturned with DNA evidence such as the 1984 conviction of Ronald Cotton highlight some of the inaccuracies with eyewitness evidence and the possible contamination to eyewitness accounts. The victim in the Cotton case identified Cotton as the perpetrator of the crime from a photo and live police lineup. After serving 11 years in prison, DNA evidence exonerated him and identified the actual perpetrator of the crime (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012). The victim had erred in their identification of the perpetrator. One possible cause for this is misidentification is a phenomenon known as false memories. Multiple studies have shown that people are prone to have their memories corrupted when a third or outside party introduces an incorrect detail (Stanford University, 1999). This false detail may then be incorporated into the person’s memory of an event. The person or eyewitness is most likely unaware that this phenomenon has occurred and they commit to this false memory as if it was their own. Additionally, introducing false cues or suggestive language to an eyewitness can also affect their memory causing them to add details that might have not existed. Investigators can unwittingly corrupt eyewitness accounts by simply using suggestive language in their questions, essentially leading the eyewitness down the incorrect path of false recollection.
Once these memories are created another factor may influence the eyewitness, a cognitive error known as belief perseverance. This is a tendency for people to maintain their beliefs regardless of evidence opposing their belief or memory. They may do this to the extent of discrediting or misinterpreting the opposing information. This phenomenon often affects jurors when they are presented with evidence that is later deemed inadmissible. There is a tendency for the jurors to continue to give weight to this earlier presented evidence even though they are instructed to ignore it by the court.
These causes of misinformation can greatly hinder the ability to seek the truth. Often these instances of misinformation are not deceptions generated on purpose but phenomena created by the human mind. Surveillance cameras often assist in identifying perpetrators of crimes. Recently, it has been suggested that law enforcement officers should wear video recording devices. A video record is an effective tool to help avoid some of the shortcomings in how people remember events and the ways their memories can be affected. An instructional video for prospective jurors and investigators might be prudent in making them aware of theses tendencies in an effort to reduce the effects of these phenomena. Otherwise, we may continue to convict the innocent as we have done in our past.

References

Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems, (2nd Ed) Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage Publications
Stanford University. (1999). Retrieved from http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm
University of Missouri Kansas City. (2009). Retrieved from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm

A couple of weeks ago there was a fierce debate online about the color of a dress. It all began with a post “Guys, please help me – is this dress white and gold, or blue and black?” from a 21-year-old singer Caitlin McNeil. After that, the color of the dress became a worldwide debate.

This is the dress! From http://www.dogonews.com/2015/3/6/white-and-gold-or-blue-and-black-the-great-dress-debate

People generally held two ideas. Some of them saw white and gold, and the others saw blue and black. I was with three friends when we saw the picture of this dress. Three of us saw blue and black, and the other one saw white and gold. After we knew the color each others saw, confirmation bias occurred. According to Wason (1960), confirmation bias is the tendency people seek information which supports their favored positions and ignore disconfirming information (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012, p.240). The three of us who saw blue and black started talking about how the dress should be blue and black and the other one who saw white and gold seemed little ignored.

During the dress talking most of us thought the dress is “definitely blue and black” and “how could those people ever see white and gold”. This is typical representativeness heuristic. In this case individuals are perceived to represent most people that they thought the dress should be blue and black in truth.

After a period time of the debate, there was scientists online explained the process how people saw this dress in different colors. The difference was because of differed light sensitivity of eyes and differed initial rays when the photo is taken (Farrell, 2015). Also, it turned out that the dress is actually blue and black according to its manufacturer. When we found that some of us stated “I knew it!” and said they knew the dress is truly blue and black for sure, even though one of them previously doubted maybe the dress is white or even red. This confirms hindsight bias which is the tendency people would believe that an event is more predictable than it actually was (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012, p.240).

Have any of you got the same reaction in the dress color debate before? If you are interest in details about the debate, here is a video about it. Enjoy!

Reference

Frank W. Schneider; Jamie A. Gruman & Larry M. Coutts. (2012). Applied Social Psychology. p.240-241. Sage.

Jennifer Farrell.(2015).’ White And Gold Or Blue And Black? The Great Dress Debate!’ DOGO News. Website:
http://www.dogonews.com/2015/3/6/white-and-gold-or-blue-and-black-the-great-dress-debate

ABC News. (2015). Speed Feed: Is This Dress Gold and White, or Blue and Black? Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfmkYsd3QDI

In 1968, Jane Elliot made an experiment about stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. In this experiment she separated children into two groups. One was labeled blue eyes and the other was labeled brown eyes. Then she told the children that blue eyes are privileges. The result showed her words actually influenced the attitude of children that the children performed discrimination in a few minutes after she said previleges. (The Pennsylvania State University, 2015)
Elliot’s experiment is a typical example when teacher’s attitude influence children’s attitude. There was a real event happened to me which confirms the phenomenon. When I was in junior high school, there was a head teacher for each class. The head teacher not only teaches a subject for the class, but also be with students in this class all the time. The head teacher is responsible for the life and learning of students. In my home town the grades of students could be seen by everyone. Every time after a test the head teacher would read grades loud to the class. Therefore, students in a class could know the grade of every classmate. In this circumstance, sometimes the head teacher performed preference to students who had good grades.

The head teacher was being nice to good grade students, while sometimes the teacher did not show much patience with bad grade students. This preference influenced the students in the class. Students regarded good grades as the sign of great people and they gave a lot of respect to good grade students. Students who had good grade were easier to make friends in the class. Compared to that, classmates did not show much patience to bad grade students just like the head teacher did. There was a cleaning job for student in my junior high school. Students were divided into several groups to clean the classroom every day. Once a good grade student did not do the cleaning, classmates showed tolerance. However, when a bad grade student did not do the cleaning, classmates would explain and even perform negative attitude toward the bad grade student.
This is an instance which confirms Elliot’s experiment of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. In this case, the head teacher’s preference toward good grade students influenced the attitude of the students’. Bandura presented a theory called observational learning (The Pennsylvania State University, 2015). According to this theory, children would learn behaviors through observation. Based on this theory, the example of teacher and students could be explained that the students learned the teacher’s preference through observation. Since the teacher and students spent much time together, the constant observation for teacher’s attitude would influence the students’ attitude easier and quicker. This phenomenon would be a warning for current teachers in education. Because teachers spend much time with students, their behavior and attitudes are likely be followed by their students through observational learning. To educate their students in a better way the teachers may need to start with being aware of their own behavior and attitude in normal life.

Reference
The Pennsylvania State University. (2015). ‘Stereotyping, Prejudice and Discrimination’ in Lesson 10: Eductaion. PSYCH 424: Applied Social Psychology. Website:
https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych424/001/content/11_lesson/02_page.html

The Pennsylvania State University. (2015). ‘Learning’ in Lesson 10: Eductaion. PSYCH 424: Applied Social Psychology. Website:
https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych424/001/content/11_lesson/03_page.html

The image used in this post is from http://www.ai-media.tv/tag/visible-classroom/

Did any of you ever have a parent instruct you to “Do as I say, not as I do.”  I usually heard this when one of my parents was about to do something they didn’t want me to learn how to do.  If they had seen the Bobo Doll videos they likely would have hidden from my view those things!  I watched in awe at the violence the children perpetrated on the Bobo Doll, and as Dr. Bandura said in his interview, the children not only learned, but expanded on the violence they initially saw with some creativity. (Bandura, 1963)

Then I saw this video clip:

What could children (and soft-hearted adults like me) learn from the gentle modelling of affection we see in this video?  Observational learning theory states that we learn based on what we see.  We don’t imitate it exactly, but can creatively expand on the examples we see.  Is it naive of me to suggest that we can flood our children’s and student’s world with behavior modelling how we want them to respond to others and that we might even see them being more kind and gentle if that is what we expose them to?

I don’t suggest that we protect children from all adversity or violence, but we can teach them decent and appropriate ways to respond to each other in life.  And we can watch videos of monkey petting puppies when we need some good behavior modeled for ourselves.

Reference

Badura, A. (1963) Bobo Doll Experiment. Retrieved 3/27/2015 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZXOp5PopIA&feature=youtu.be

Have you ever had to deal with a scenario in your life where something occurs that you really do not like, but you don’t know quite how to go about changing that. Perhaps for example, you have a neighbor that continues to allow their child (Molly) to pick your prized roses out of your yard. You may have asked them nicely, but that clearly hasn’t worked. What do you do now? A simple solution.. Operant Conditioning. Operant conditioning was created by B. F. Skinner. If a a system of rewards and punishments to either increase or decrease a behavior (McLeod, 2007). Now back to our little Miss. Molly. Molly was observed picking roses again (tut-tut), in order to decrease this behavior you could scold her (a punishment) in order to decrease the behavior from occurring. When you observe that Molly picks flowers from her own yard you could reward her with a “Good Job” and perhaps a treat such as a lolly pop. This reward would increase the likely hood of continuing the behavior. In this case, by increasing the chances of her doing another behavior (picking flowers out of her own yard) and decreasing the chance of her picking the roses, the behavior of picking your roses can become extinct.

This system is often used for training animals, but many may not associate it with people. Give it a try you may find it works well! If you make a point to tell a child every time they do something correctly that they did a good job, you may notice a continual of good behavior.

Below is a great example of Operant Conditioning taken from “The Big Bang Theory”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt4N9GSBoMI

This clip is a wonderful example of how punishment (his scolds or negative looks) and rewards (chocolates) can be used to modify behavior.

References

McLeod, S. (2007). B.F. Skinner- Operant Conditioning. Retrieved March 29, 2015, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

As a college student like many others, I am sure I am not the only one to burn out around half way through the semester. Between work, school, family commitments, and life that just happens unexpectedly, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and discouraged especially when classes are getting to the bulk of the semester or work becomes more stressful than usual. When feeling burned out it can be difficult to take a much needed break for a day or two when everything else is going on. Something will probably have to not be completed if you take that break with so much happening. Unfortunately, usually the easiest thing to slack on is school. Work is needed to pay the bills, family will usually hold a person accountable if commitments have been with them, and the unexpected is just that. School can be stressful not only because of the content and assignments but also the time needed to spend on each course.

A typical situation as a result of this might be going out with friends if invited instead of staying home and doing that difficult assignment that is due by the end of the night. Or maybe a person’s brother or sister invites them stay with them for a weekend getaway before this person had any time to study for a big test that they were already not confident in passing. If a person is burned out and the opportunity presents itself, they are more likely to say – yes, sure why not? I deserve a break. – knowing that their work and grades will suffer, especially if they are not feeling confident about the task. A typical excuse is – yeah, my grade will suffer but I have done most of my other tests and assignments and I really need a break. This is an example of self-handicapping. This is when we create barriers to successful performance before or during a task of achievement (Alexitch, 2012).

Research has shown that both men and women usually make excuses ahead of time to make the lack of good performance more acceptable (Smith, 2012). When students expect that they may do poorly on an important task, they often participate in practices that will decrease their chance of achievement so the excuse conceals any lack of ability. Self-handicapping is very relevant in academics because academic achievement reflects intelligence which has many chances of being on display. Self-handicapping behavior provides an excuse for their poor performance instead of their lack of ability (Urdan, 2009).

Procrastination is a typical form of self-handicapping. Research has shown that students who began studying for exams later than other students earned lower grades, lower GPAs, and spent less time on academic work resulting in inefficient exam preparation (Smith, 2012). An example of procrastination and self-handicapping is a student who procrastinates until late at night before starting to write their final paper that is due in the morning who will most likely not complete a well written paper and may attribute their poor performance to procrastination. The procrastination behavior is considered self-handicapping if the purpose of the procrastination is to excuse their anticipated poor performance (Urdan, 2009). Self-handicapping is then an intentional undermining behavior that individuals participate in to create the impression that their behavior causes the poor performance and not their lack of ability (Berglas & Jones, 1978).

References:
Berglas, S., & Jones, E. E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 405–417.

L. Alexitch. (2012). Applying Social Psychology to Education. In F. Schneider, J. Gruman, & L. Coutts (Eds.), Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

R. Smith. (2012). Applying Social Psychology to the Classroom. In F. Schneider, J. Gruman, & L. Coutts (Eds.), Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Urdan, T. (2009, December 23). Self-Handicapping. http://www.education.com/reference/article/self-handicapping/

As technology grows everyday, so does our fascination with what it can do. Technology is amazing and can be very useful in so many ways. It helps people communicate, transfer information, learn, discover, and even save lives in the medical field. For me, the most important uses of the technology I use is my online classes and my cell phone. Technology in transferred in different ways. Technology can be great until the media that comes with it surfaces. For example, besides for mostly school purposes, I am usually on my cell phone instead of my laptop. I have the internet on my cell phone which allows me to have apps, e-mail, and access to websites. Also, I have to admit that I do enjoy watching television. What we see on these outlets of communication and media is often negative. The time and importance we have on these forums and devices is also detrimental to our lives outside of the virtual world.

Sure there is a lot of unhealthy and negative content on the internet, social media, and television, but it is also about how much time and energy we lack in other areas of our lives because of it. Television for example not only causes children to see inappropriate shows and commercials, but it also influences their health. They are more likely to spend less time playing outside or even just spending quality time with family (2003). They are also more likely to want what they see advertised such as unhealthy snacks. The media on any platform can also send out messages to impressionable adolescents that you need to be thin, rich, and “hot” which emphasizes that goals in life should be about good looks and materialistic gain.

Social media is another forum that impacts society. There are many recent stories of online bullying, among teens especially. It has also become a form of bragging or competition almost. Who has the most followers or virtual “friends”, who did something better than someone else, who looks good, who has the nice clothes or car, these are all influences on people engaging in social media these days. In my opinion, there are two very good things that I appreciate about social media. The fact that it keeps me in touch with my family that lives far away is one. It allows us to keep up with each others’ lives and share pictures. The other thing is being able to view informative web pages from, for example, psychology magazines, art pages, or music stations. Another big impact social media has had on society as a whole is that it has taken away from the value, willingness, and desire to communicate and interact in person instead of online or through a cell phone, if possible (2003).

Many times if a person does not live far from another, they still only communicate through social media even though they live close by. Most of the time, the communication doesn’t even exist through a phone call at least, which is still not in person but better than through a text or social media. I believe that overuse of communication through the internet or social media reduces a person’s social skills in face to face contacts. This lack of social and people skills, as some may call it, can lead to an anti-social lifestyle or personality. These types of people can develop social anxiety when they are around groups of people, especially those they do not know. One study in particular found that online social communication skills and self-esteem are correlated. This indicates a link between the strength of offline relationships and time spent online (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011). Some may argue that social media sites can help people that have preexisting social anxiety and low self-esteem, however the weak ties that are formed between many people on social media are not necessarily basis for good relationships and progressive social interaction. Websites such as Facebook favor those who have close relationships by suggesting friends, tagging photos, asking family and relationship questions, and so on, which may cause others who are already feeling low self-esteem or social anxiety who don’t have as many friends to become more introverted. Also, people with low self-esteem may express themselves in ways that are not liked by others whether it is sadness, anger, or overcompensation to be liked, which can make them less likely to make new friends (Forest & Wood, 2012).

Social anxiety is one among other negative psychological and physical health issues that social media and television can cause. Not only because of the content that is provided but also the habits that we form and the time and energy we put into such media outlets.

References
Impact of media use on children and youth. (2003). Pulsus: Paediactrics & Child Health, 8(5), 301-306. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792691/

Jacobsen, W. C., & Forste, R. (2011). The wired generation: Academic and social outcomes of electronic media use among university students. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 275–280.

Forest, A. L. & Wood, J.V. (2011). When social networking is not working: Individuals with low self-esteem recognize but do not reap the benefits of self-disclosure on Facebook. Psychological Science, 23, 295–302.

Our education system has plummeted in the last decade, and no one seems to agree as to why. Is it because our teachers are not educationally prepared enough? Or is it that our students simply do not care and have no desire for knowledge? In my opinion it is neither of these. What it comes down to (as most things in America) is money.

This diagram shows that in the last 11 years, the poverty rate has almost quadrupled. What this means is that more students and families have less income. This translates to the schools because they have more students in each class, with teachers who are paid les money due to financial constraints. This is the rooting cause of poor education in our country because students do not have the attention, or advantages of learning as do wealthy income homes. This is because a family of poverty may have not the necessities and tools to help read to their child at home and get them tutors if they are struggling. This is setting their child up for failure because when they go to school, they are not proficient in reading or math etc, and with the class sizes being larger, they do not get the attention and knowledge they deserve. The idea of “reduced lunching” is a newer concept that was not around when I was in school. This idea is that families with lower income can have their child pay less than average for a school lunch. This is one of the few positives that have come into play in our educational system, as before this was implemented poorer students simply would not eat lunch some days due to financial hardships. This is and was unacceptable as every child deserves a lunch, and the brain and body need food in order to function properly and to learn efficiently.

George Mason Professor Paul Gorski summarized it perfectly in my opinion as to why families living in poverty, have children who struggle in our educational system. “Poor students are assigned disproportionately to the most inadequately funded schools with the largest class sizes and lowest paid teachers. They are more likely than their wealthier peers to be bullied and to attend school in poorly maintained buildings. They are denied access to the sorts of school resources and opportunities other children take for granted, such as dedicated school nurses, well-stocked school libraries, and engaging pedagogies. In fact, by these and almost every other possible measure, students from poor families, the ones most desperate to find truth in the  “great equalizer” promise, appear to pay a great price for their poverty, even at school (Paul C. Gorski)”.

This is a fantastic summarization because it exemplifies how coming from a family of poverty or even on the federal borderline of poverty can effect your child’s education. I believe that the root of our failed education system is that we as a country do not tend to the needs of our students living in poverty, resulting in an educational fall off. Children are our future, and if we keep treating our students who cannot afford proper living essentials like savages, then we have a very dull and daunting future ahead of us.

Strauss, V. (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/17/public-educations-biggest-problem-keeps-getting-worse/

Gorski, P. (n.d.). Reaching and teaching students in poverty: Strategies for erasing the opportunity gap.

I was a chubby kid growing up. My parents would always tell me that it’s what is inside a person that matters. I guess I took that to heart. Just about everyone deals with the process of losing that horrible baby fat and blaming their Mom for the fattening food that she brought home. Those that are lucky enough to get out of that stage and lose weight, learning what calories and weight management are, but I wasn’t one of those. I didn’t lose weight until at the age of 18 had my first boyfriend. My Mother never encouraged me to lose weight or thought that I was fat. My Mom was a great cook and I liked eating. I lost weight my eating noting but ice and non-fat yogurt. I didn’t even think of how unhealthy that was, I just noticed that once I began to lose weight, I wanted to be skinnier; like a model. I never quite made it there, thank goodness.

Most girls lose sight of the healthy reasons for their weight loss evolving it into reasons portrayed by the media of the self-image. Though people can’t always see that watching all the skinny models and girls in Hollywood seeming so “perfect” affect their persona of themselves, it does. The media puts such an intense pressure on young girls today to look like the “ideal” image. The medias harmful affect on the self body image and self esteem of young girls has brought about some of these three damaging effects: eating disorders, mental depression, and physical depression (Domil, 2012).

The media is always soliciting a new form of a pill or company to jump on board with to lose weight; showing gorgeous, tan, cardboard abs, perfect figured girls next to the ad. Seeing this gorgeous girl no doubt would motivate anyone to want to workout to look like that. Many girls though have been choosing the easy way out to losing weight, feeling the need to starve themselves and thus developing an eating disorder.

At what point will any of us feel like we reach the medias “expectations”? In Allie Kovar’s article, Effects of the Media on Body Image, she mentions “the national eating disorder Association reports that in the past 70 years national rates of incidences of all eating disorders have dramatically increased across the board. Bulimia in women between the ages of 10 to 39 has more than tripled” (Kovar, 2012). This information leaves us to wonder how much worse it has gotten. Though we are unable to stop the effects of media images on this growing epidemic of eating disorders, we must train our minds to not be affected by such “unrealistic body shapes” (Kovar, 2012).

Another feature that follows along with the medias effect on young girls is mental depression. Exposing young women to images of thin, attractive models increases body dissatisfaction and other negative feelings like depression, which in turn has a side effect of gaining more weight. Continuously being exposed to these images brought about many negative connotations in the self-image of women. The average women do not look like the images depicted in magazines shown by the media, so why do they constantly feel pressure to look like that? Research has shown that mental depression begins at a young age, kids learning by what they have seen in the media as “ideal,” following them into their teenage and even adult years. “If children grow up seeing thin women in advertisements, on television, and in film they accept this as reality and try to imitate their appearance and their actions” (Shea, 2012). When they find this appearance to be impossible they get down on themselves and begin to feel inadequate. For many girls depressed from the exposure to the ultra thin air brushed pictures need to be informed of the measures that are taken to alter many images in advertisements in order to clarify that humans do not naturally look like those illustrations (Haas et. al, 2012), therefore they shouldn’t compare their bodies with these photo-shopped illusions of perfection.

I know that at my age, I am glad to not worry about my body image. That is not to say I don’t still work out and watch what I eat but I do so for my health, not my self-image. Those who have broken free from the medias chains just in time to control its endangering affects are no doubt glad because no matter where we are or what we do in life, media is going to be there right by our side. The media is only going to get worse and put more pressure on the self body image of how it should “ideally” look. Next time we begin to feel like we are not good enough, we need to remember that we are not alone and that everyone feels the same way we do at one point. The skinny twigs we see on TV are unrealistic and unhealthy; we are the true ideal of the human body, a real woman, inside and out.

Works Cited
Domil, Tiffanie. “The Influence of the Media Images Upon Body System.” The Influence of the Media images Upon Body System. Mukul Bhalla, 19 May 2003. Web. 20 Aug. 2012.

Haas, Cheryl J.; Pawlow, Laura A.; Pettibone, Jon; Segrist, Dan J. “An Intervention for the Negative Influence of Media on Body System.” College Student Journal. Jun 2012, Vol. 46, Issue 2 P.405-418. 14p.

Kovar, Allie. “Health Psychology Home Page.” Effects of Media on Body Image. David Schlundt PhD., 30 Apr. 2009. Web. 20 Aug. 2012.

Schlegel, A. V. (2015). How the Media Affects the Self Esteem and Body Image of Young Girls. Retrieved 3 20, 2015, from DivineCaroline: http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/wellness/how-media-affects-self-esteem-and-body-image-young-girls.

Shea, Sara. “Nature vs. Nurture: The Media’s Effect on Body Image.” The River Reporter. N.p., 8 May 2009. Web. 20 Aug. 2012.

The media has an incredibly powerful impact on those who watch it, and to make matters worse news corporations often take advantage of this. “The idea that the media can shape what issues we think about or what issues we think are important is referred to as agenda setting” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, p. 157). Unfortunately, this happens more often than not in the field of criminal justice. “In the 1990s, a media frenzy fueled by the predictions of a few social scientists led to great concern over an allegedly developing group of juvenile superpredators” (Sims & Preston, 2006, p. 173). This fear that was spreading like a metaphoric wildfire was being fueled by the media. Ultimately, this fear and frenzy led to more strict punishments towards juveniles. However, when looking into actual crime statistics, there was no evidence that juveniles caused more crime than their adult counterparts (Sims & Preston, 2006).

We often turn on the news after a long day of work to find that the latest breaking story is another crime committed in our local community. Stories such as these create a false sense of security in citizens of whatever town the crime occurred in. This false sense of security drastically reduces how safe a person feels in that specific town. Although unrealistic, the only true way of staying out of harm’s way is to stay in your house, lock the doors, and never leave. There are, however, several mitigating factors of the crime that the news does not report on. These factors include things such as the presence of alcohol, any internal or external factors that may have been present, among a laundry list of other possibilities (Barkan, 2012).

It should be noted that the media is not always as bad as what was mentioned above. According to our text, the “[c]ultivation theory maintains that TV operates as the primary socializing agent in today’s world; that is, TV is where people learn about their world and their culture” (Schneider et al., 2012. p. 147). Imagine what would happen if we did not have the media during a crisis situation. How would we know that we would need to evacuate an area or take shelter when potentially dangerous weather is heading our way? Informational television programs may also be beneficial to anyone who has to travel for work. As we are all aware, different cultures have different customs; our customs may not be acceptable there and vice versa. Television programs are able to provide us with a plethora of information without having to travel to distant locations.

As made apparent, the media and its uses can be viewed as a double edged sword; it can be seen in both a positive and negative sense. As such, it should be viewed with caution in that we can learn new behaviors by watching what others do. The “. . . social learning theory is that we learn new behaviors by observing and imitating others (e.g., role models) as well as by observing consequences of behaviors” (Schneider et al., 2012. p. 76). Therefore, if all the media portrays are people acting in obscene ways, we are more likely to learn from these individuals and adopt their behaviors. So, maybe instead of playing negative stories all the time, media outlets should run stories that show people doing acts of kindness.

Works Cited

Barkan, S. E. (2012). Criminology: A Sociological Understanding. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.

Sims, B., & Preston, P. (2006). Handbook of Juvenile Justice: Theory and Practice. Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The relationship between violent video games and children’s aggressive behavior has been tested by many researches. Anderson and Dill’s research (2000) is one of them. In their research, Anderson and Dill tested factors which may influence children’s aggressiveness including game difficulty, frustration level, time of playing, etc. The result showed that aggressiveness is connected to the period of time children play video games and other factors such as game difficulty and frustration level does not influence the effect of video games. The more time children play video games, the more likely the children would behave aggressively.

In the research, Anderson and Dill used many methods including quetsionnaire and experiments. Anderson and Dill set questionnaire to children asking about their video game habits and connect the habits to their actual behavior. It is found that the aggressiveness is related to the period of time playing video games that children who spent more time for violent video games held more aggressive attitude for assigned situations (Anderson & Dill, 2000). Generally, the longer children play video games, the more likely they would be influenced to be aggressive.

Berkowitz has proposed the idea of neoassociationistic model of priming. According to this model, simply the presence of weapon such as gun would increase the probability people behave aggressively (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012, p.144). In case of Anderson and Dill’s finding, since children see weapon in video games often, they would more likely to take aggressive behavior when they have weapon aside. This is because they are familiar with the solution of using weapon in video games and the weapon serves as a stimuli to promote aggressive behavior. Also, according to network models of memory, since children is familiar with using weapon to solve problems in video games, they are more likely to connect ‘weapon’ with ‘problem solving’ in memory hence act aggressively.

However, despite there are many researches testing the relationship between violent video games and aggressive behavior, there isn’t strong evidence to prove the period of time playing video games would increase aggressive behavior. Christopher Ferguson, chair of psychology department in Steston University, stated that there are third variables in experiments and the variables are hard to be eliminated (Park, 2014). For example, family violence and mental illness could also be factors lead to aggressive behaviors. With the existence of these factors, it is hard to say period of time of playing violent video games is the true reason promoting aggressiveness.

Reference

Craig A. Anderson & Karen E. Dill (2000), ‘Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life’, Journals of Personality and Social psychology, Vol. 78, No. 4, 772-790, retrieved from:

https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/psyifp/aeechterhoff/wintersemester2011-12/seminarthemenfelderdersozialpsychologie/12_anderson_dill_videogames-aggressivethoughts_jpsp2000.pdf

Alice Park (2014), ‘Little by Little, Violent Video Games Make Us More Aggressive’, TIME, website:

http://time.com/34075/how-violent-video-games-change-kids-attitudes-about-aggression/

Frank W. Schneider, Jamie A. Gruman & Larry M. Coutts (2012), Applied Socail Psychology, p.144

insert pictue is retrieved from http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/siowfa12/2012/10/video-games-harmful-or-beneficial-for-a-childs-future.html

Electronic media is an extremely powerful technology tool and as with most technology it can either solve or create problems for society. Over the last two decades there has been a growing concern with violence in multiple forms of media and the effect it has on US society. If the adage of, “One picture is with a thousand words” is true, then a video must speak volumes. One of the most pervasive forms of media that disperse violent content is video. Video games are a relatively newer form of media when compared to movies and TV. However, their availability has increased exponentially, to the extent that most smart phones can be used to play video games along with just about any home computer. As video game technology advances, so does the realism in rendering and modeling of violent content.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtsHifrIAK8

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1UOoVrxd8w

Some parents use the rational that their children understand that the violence they see on TV, movies and video games is not reality. This may be true however, understanding the reality of something and not be effected by it are unfortunately two separate things. Children can spend a tremendous amount of time watching TV and playing video games. To contrast that amount of time with time learning school subject matter, you would also have to include the weekends and summer hours of exposure to TV and video games. In a cognitive sense, continuous exposure to violent content where violence is used as the solution may make that particular solution the most salient. When faced with a conflict a child may use an aggressive or violent resolution because it may be the one that is the most cognitively available heuristic. Another related factor is priming, where an image facilitates related item retrieval in the brain (Reed, 2010). An object associated with violence tends to increase aggressive behavior (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012). While there is a legitimate argument that violent video games allow the participants to relieve stress and aggression, children do not appear to limit their violent video game play to when they are stressed. The number of studies for violent video games is relatively small especially when compared to studies in television and movie violence. Here there is an abundance of evidence pointing to the correlation between TV violence and aggressive behavior. This includes a meta-analysis of 230 experimental studies of media violence which found that exposure increased levels of various aggressive behaviors (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012).

Another variant of video media is in the form of social media such as Youtube.com. As you are most likely already aware, this website allows users to upload their own videos as well as watch videos posted by others. The ability to search for particular content makes it very popular with the do-it-yourself crowd or anyone looking for a video on how to do something. Simple tasks such as reloading ink on a printer to major automotive repair videos are available. However, it is not limited to how to videos. News of acts of injustice along with other world events are often posted. Even the current president of the US recently made a video appealing to Iranian citizens on this site. While much of the content can be used in a positive manner, there are instances when information can be used negatively or inadvertently to create harm. Persistent images of negative social behavior can have an effect to create a perceived social norm that is false and may induce negative behavior in others. Given the ability for social media to reach and affect such a large and widespread audience is a cause for concern. Stronger consideration for how new technology will impact society and how it should be governed may be warranted before releasing it in the future.

References

Reed S. K. (2010) Cognition; Theories and Applications, (8th Ed) Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems, (2nd Ed) Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage Publications

Most people understand that children and adults are not the same. It is also not a shock to know that when it comes to the legal system, children and adults go through different processes. In order for the legal system to separate these processes, juvenile judicial departments were created throughout the United States. Juvenile judicial department’s rules and regulations differ from state to state, but their primary goal across the board is to give minors the ability to have appropriate court proceedings for their age.

Some of the main differences between the juvenile and adult court systems are (1) “juveniles are not prosecuted for committing crimes, but rather delinquent acts” (Clarke, 2015), (2) “juveniles don’t have a right to a public trial by jury” (Clarke, 2015); they have what is called an adjudication hearing, and (3) “in the adult system, the goal is to punish” (Clarke, 2015); in the juvenile system, the goal is to rehabilitate.

This all sounds really good, actually. It’s nice to know that if a kid makes a mistake that he or she is not subjected to the harsh realities of the adult criminal system. It’s hard to even imagine a six year old boy doing 20 to life in a federal penitentiary alongside a bunch of adult men. Certainly our court systems understand that children are not adults and therefore should not be treated as such.

I see a problem in all of this, though. While I am definitely on board with not treating children as adults, I also feel that children should be treated differently than other children.

You see, the juvenile court systems work very similarly to the adult court systems in the sense that when you are considered an adult, you are an adult and when you are considered a minor, you are a minor. What this means is that if you are 18 years old, you will be tried equivalently to someone who is 59 years old. And if you are six years old, you will be tried equivalently to someone who is 15 years old. That’s a big difference.

Communication technologies such as social networking websites “allow more access to information as well as instantaneous communication of more information” (The Pennsylvania State University, 2015). These technologies “can reinforce new social behaviors and ways of thinking, including both desirable and undesirable behavior” (The Pennsylvania State University, 2015). Facebook is just one type of social networking sites. This particular site allows users to create profiles, upload pictures and videos, and send messages. However, new research suggests that Facebook use may be a consequence, and not a cause, of narcissism.

Many place the blame on Facebook as a cause for increasing levels of narcissism, an “excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one’s physical appearance” (Narcissism, n.d.).  However “new research suggests that Facebook use may not be the cause of narcissism but rather the consequence” (Seidman, 2014). Most people concur that many of the posts and pictures on Facebook may be viewed as narcissistic. “Facebook users are likely to be more narcissistic” (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008). Additionally, “narcissists also tend to post more self-promoting content” (Mehdizadeh, 2010). It certainly makes sense that many people place blame on social networking sites such as Facebook for the “increasing narcissism of young people” (Seidman, 2014). However, according to Seidman, “it is also likely that narcissists are drawn to situations that allow them to show off” (Seidman, 2014).

It is definitely a possibility that Facebook is making people narcissistic according to Seidman, but it is also a possibility that narcissistic people are being drawn to Facebook. Seidman states that “correlation is not causation” (Seidman, 2014). In one study conducted by Gonzales and Hancock, it was discovered that “spending time on one’s own Facebook page, as compared to sitting in front of a mirror or a blank computer monitor, led to higher levels of self-esteem” (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011). In another study, it was found that “self-esteem, but not narcissism levels increases after MySpace (another outdated social networking site) use, suggesting that features of MySpace use could increase narcissism” (Gentile, Twenge, Freeman & Campbell, 2012). Seidman states that “it is possible that some Facebook activities might promote narcissism and others might not” (Seidman, 2014).

The research that was conducted by Horton and his colleagues consisted of two experiments.  The experiments involved “varying what type of Facebook activities participants were instructed to engage in during a 15-minute online session” (Horton, Reid, Barber, Miracle & Green, 2014). The first set of participants was appointed to self-promotional Facebook activities. This included posting pictures and status updates for instance. The second set of participants was appointed to communal activities such as connecting with other Facebook users. Finally, the last set of participants was appointed to non-Facebook activities. According to the research, “there was a slight tendency for participants who engaged in [self-promoting] rather than communal or neutral activities to express greater narcissistic tendencies immediately following the activity” (Horton, Reid, Barber, Miracle & Green, 2014). The second study conducted by Horton and his colleagues, which used a larger group of participants, “and the experimental manipulation of Facebook activities” had no effect on narcissism (Horton, Reid, Barber, Miracle & Green, 2014). According to Seidman, “these results provide evidence that using Facebook most likely does not cause people to become more narcissistic” (Seidman, 2014).

Seidman states that “it should be noted that Horton’s experiments examined brief single sessions of engaging in Facebook activity” (Seidman, 2014). Thus, it is still likely that extended Facebook use could increase narcissism. Seidman also points out that it is significant to note that “narcissism is far from the only trait that makes Facebook use more likely” (Seidman, 2014). For example, extraverts typically gravitate toward Facebook use over introverts and logically, people who have low-self-esteem do as well. So, the decision is still unclear but Seidman states that “for now, the evidence suggests that despite the fact that narcissists gravitate toward social media, social media is not turning us into narcissists” (Seidman, 2014).

References

Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1303-1314. doi:10.1177/0146167208320061

Gentile, B., Twenge, J. M., Freeman, E. C., & Campbell, W. K. (2012). The effect of social networking websites on positive self-views:  An experimental investigation. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1929–1933.

Gonzales, A. L., & Hancock, J. T. (2011). Mirror, mirror on my Facebook wall: Effects of exposure to Facebook on self-esteem. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14, 79-83. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2009.0411.

Horton, R. S., Reid, C. A., Barber, J. M., Miracle, J., & Green, J. D. (2014). An experimental investigation of the influence of agentic and communal Facebook use on grandiose narcissism. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 93-98. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.02.038

Mehdizadeh, S. (2010). Self-presentation 2.0: Narcissism and self-esteem on Facebook.Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 357-364. doi:10.1089/cyber.2009.0257

Narcissism. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2015, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/narcissism

Seidman, G. (2014, August 11). Is Facebook Really Turning Us into Narcissists? Retrieved March 22, 2015, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/close-encounters/201408/is-facebook-really-turning-us-narcissists

The Pennsylvania State University (2015). PSYCH424: Applied Social Psychology. Lesson 9: Media/Communications Technology.

Sitting back on a golden yellow and crimson Middle-Eastern couch in my office, my eyes are closed; I am in the middle of what we call a “musing session.” Yes, that my official job title, muse. The problem we have been ruminating over the last few weeks was how to sell vehicles differently from other car dealers. How do we convince someone they “need” something they perhaps do not even “want”? How do we sell without the obnoxious, ubiquitous car salesman yelling about cheap prices and money saving deals? However, the hardest part of all is how can we possibly accomplish this task using a local car dealership budget and still have enough money left over to eat? Trying to figure out a way to sell cars to people without being insufferable is no easy feat.

  Not a good way to sell a car

We finally decide on how to accomplish this task, we will use emotion. Our new client was a car dealership and we decided we were going to create a car commercial showing cars very far in the background, thinking the dealership will never let us get away with that, but they did. So, instead of showcasing cars we featured people; men, women, families, children, babies, dogs, all interacting, intermingling, all happy at the moment. We used most of our meager budget to buy the music rights to use the feel good music of the great Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”. Then, to get around paying exorbitant talent fees we had no budget for, we used every friend and family member we could talk into making a commercial with us, I even approached strangers on the street. Then for the next three days our cameramen and crew shot a series of 30 vignettes such as a family washing their dog in the front yard, (car way in the background). Or one scene featured a couple sitting on the tailgate of a pickup, holding hands, during “magic hour”. That is a term for the quickly fading last few minutes of golden red sunset and is the most beautiful time of day to shoot.

Magic hour

Any scene we could think of that showed the emotions of happiness, joy and love mixed with togetherness and laughter we used. The result was really quite amazing. We accomplished on a small budget what most giant advertisers with mega-million dollar budgets fail to do, we sold cars. The market share for this car dealership that had been on the verge of bankruptcy shot to 14% within one market share cycle. It feels strange to have the pleasing feeling of success and at the same time feel I have manipulated the most basic of human emotions.

I am part of the mass media. My job consists of selling things to people by manipulating them to affect the outcome we desire. That sounds a bit harsh and the description makes what I do for a living sound like a rather heinous job, selling things to people using their innate desire to feel good. However, I am not a Svengali with secret control over people’s minds as you cannot sell something to someone they do not want.

Not me

“People are self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating, not just reactive organisms shaped and shepherded by environmental events or inner forces” (Bandura, 2001). Okay, the articulate social cognitive theorist Bandura said it much better than I did. He called this type of “paying attention” the attentional process. So, our first goal is to grab people’s attention and we accomplished this by using no words but instead emotional feel good music, while weaving a richly colored tapestry of visuals. If the public cannot recall the message we are trying to communicate, then we have failed. The next step in this process is called retention. Our task is to make the music and visuals unforgettable. When people finish watching our commercial we do not want them to dredge up the memory of a man yelling at them about new car deals, instead we want to evoke the warm feeling they had as they watched the vignettes. Again, it is that sentiment we want them to associate with the cars and remember. The next step in the process is called modeling. This one gets a little tricky, but a good way to think of it is it is when “symbolic conceptions are translated into appropriate courses of action” (Bandura, 2001). Finally, we arrive at the best part of the procedure, the motivational process. This is when the weekend rolls around and those people who were watching the car commercial during their busy week head to the dealership to recapture some of that joyful sensation they initially experienced, oh yes, and buy a car.

We approach our work similar to the applied social psychologist as first we have to identify the problem. For us the typical problem is how to sell something to people who might not even realize it is something they desire. We represent our client and together we embody the stakeholders in the process as we both have a vested interest in the outcome. The next step is arriving at a solution. This is when we sit. Think. Sit some more. Ruminate some more. Sometimes creativity easily springs forth fully formed, yet other times it has to be pulled out, struggled with and wrestled screaming to the ground. My husband is a creative; he is successful because he is an innovator, not a follower and thinking differently comes naturally to him. Then, we set goals by defining the message the client feels important to get across to the public. We determine what we need to include in our message and then make sure those goals are met. Next comes the implementation phase of the job, meaning, we direct and produce the commercial to the specifications determined at the goal stage. Evaluation is an easy one in our business (Schneider, 2007). Did we make the needle jump? Is the client rolling around in dollars? Did we get rehired? Are we eating?

Resources:

Bandura, A. (2001). Social Cognitive Theory Of Mass Communication. Media Psychology, 265-299.

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.

Emerging adulthood: a time to explore and try on “new selves; also a time to get an STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease). (CDC, 2014)  This developmental stage has only recently been defined and Jeffery Arnett, PhD describes it in his book “Emerging Adulthood: The winding Road From Late Teens Through the Twenties” as a period of time characterized by instability, exploration and self-focus, feeling in between in the world (between childhood and adulthood) and is described as an “optimistic” time of “possibilities”. (Munsey, 2006)  It seems that this time of exploration carries some risk with it as evidenced by a rising STD rate among this age group. (CDC, 2014)

Coinciding with the identification of this developmental stage has been the emergence of the internet and the marvelous technologies enabling us to connect with one another and have access to data and information at a never before found rate.  Can this media abundance be used to decrease the risky behaviors that emerging adults are engaging in or reduce the impact those behaviors have on their lives?

It seems possibly yes.  Research in Spain by Rocio Garcia-Retamero and Edward Cokely indicates that “well constructed visual aids[offering]…transparent, memorable and ethically desirable…” information about the prevention of STD transmission was as effective as intensive eight-hour intervention classes. (Garcia-Retamero & Cokely, 2015)  A study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine suggests that text messaging can be used to effectively change behavior. (Fjeldsoe, Marshall & Miller, 2009).  How fortuitous that the emergence of a newly defined developmental stage that carries with it some risk, coincides with the burgeoning technology advances that may be able to be used to improve our lives.

References

Center’s for Disease Control (2014) National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States: Reportable STD’s in Young People 15-24 Year’s of Age, by State. Hyattsville, Maryland.      2014. Retrieved 3/20/2015 from: http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/by-age/15-24-all-         stds/default.htm

Fjeldsoe, B. S., Marshall, A. L., & Miller, Y. D. (2009). Behavior change interventions delivered by mobile telephone short-message service. American Journal of Preventive     Medicine, 36(2), 165-173. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2008.09.040

Garcia-Retamero, R., & Cokely, E. T. (2015). Simple But Powerful Health Messages for   Increasing Condom Use in Young Adults. Journal Of Sex Research, 52(1), 30-42.         doi:10.1080/00224499.2013.806647

Munsey, C. (2006).: Emerging adults: The in-between age. American Psychological Association,   Monitor on Psychology. June 2006, Vol 37, No. 6.           Retrieved  3/20/2015 from:             http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun06/emerging.aspx

The modern internet provides unlimited access to information, conversation, and debate. However, among the freedoms it confers is the opportunity to select which information one wants to view (or not view), the sources to get it from, and which groups to converse with. While this can facilitate collaborations between people that would otherwise have difficulty finding one another, it also makes it possible for people to isolate themselves from opposing information and ideas, and find groups with whom to create a false reality which stubbornly opposes the facts and reasons of the outside world.

Several cognitive biases can influence one’s construction of reality when using the internet. The availability heuristic is the phenomenon by which people are more likely to believe as true those statements which are most memorable – e.g. vivid, strange, or emotionally-charged. A related idea is confirmation bias, in which people are more likely to search out, interpret, and remember information in ways that confirm their pre-existing beliefs. Preferentially remembering information which is compatible with what one believes makes that information more available, and therefore more likely to be believed as true according to the availability heuristic. In-group bias is a phenomenon in which we are likely to give preferential treatment to people who we see as being in our group. For example, we would be more likely to believe what they say to be true – an effect which is compounded by our seeking out like-minded groups via confirmation bias. Finally, reactance is the urge to oppose (in belief or behavior) what someone wants of us when we perceive that person to be trying to control us – for example, an opposing political party or corporation seeking to influence our decisions for profit.

These biases have given rise to several popular theories in the last few years which are both demonstrably irrational and unrelenting. For example, a 1998 paper in the medical journal The Lancet claimed that vaccination caused autism in children [1], creating a panic which resulted in the formation of online communities and ultimately conspiracy theories about pharmaceutical companies trying to control the public. The emotionally-charged nature of the claim made the belief unshakable for many, arguably due to the availability heuristic, by which frightening ideas may seem more true. Reactance may explain why these communities feel a righteous obligation to oppose what they view as a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies who manufacture vaccines to control public perception for profit. Confirmation bias has contributed to the lasting popularity of forums such as vaccinetruth.com and vaclib.org, where people who are still panicked over this false threat can have their feelings confirmed, even after The Lancet fully retracted the paper. Nonetheless, as Newsweek reported recently, “To a small group of parents, [the original paper’s author is] a hero who won’t back down from his assertion that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine can cause autism.” [2]

The potential to inform oneself on the internet cannot be overstated – that said, this opportunity must also come with a responsibility to seek the truth objectively, rather than to simply seek the comfort of false certainty. Interacting with people of opposing views and interests can be difficult, boring, or upsetting – but it also provides the opportunity to have our understanding of the world and other people challenged and expanded.

1. Wakefield, A. (1998). Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. The Lancet, 351(9103), 641-641. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
2. Ziv, S. (2015, February 10). Andrew Wakefield, Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement, Responds to the Current Measles Outbreak for the First Time. Retrieved March 21, 2015.

Everywhere we go we are connected, we are, nearly all of us, only a smartphone away from almost anybody or any type of information in the world. We can converse, browse the Internet, check our Facebook, and take pictures, and we can do all of these things no matter where we are. In our home, on our commute, cell phones and those ubiquitous little cameras they have are in our faces, and sometimes up our skirts or down our blouses. Wait! What? What’s wrong with this picture, so to speak.

The very first upskirting trial occurred in 1964 in Alabama. A news photographer took a picture of a woman whose skirt was blown up by a gust of wind, the newspaper then published the picture and the woman sued based on invasion of privacy, as she should have. The judge at the time who heard the case, in all his vast wisdom, dismissed the case because he felt the photo didn’t have merit and so deemed that the First Amendment trumps basic privacy rights (England).

I offer to you, what if this would have been a man whose privacy had been invaded? Would the outcome have been different? I posit yes. In 1964 woman were secretaries or stay at home moms, woman had nowhere near the equality we have now, and things are still far from equal. I believe there would have been a different outcome and I believe this would not still be an issue for debate if it involved uppantings men. Unbelievably enough, it is actually still legal in many states to take these kinds of pictures, even though they are an incredibly gross invasion of privacy. Social learning theory states that we basically learn through observation in a social setting. Throw in all these gadgets we have available to us now that we didn’t have before and imagine the messages we are sending to our children. We are saying things like, it’s okay to violate someone’s privacy in public, your smartphone or camera gives you the right to take away the rights of someone else.

The problem identified here is gross invasion of privacy by taking unsolicited and unwanted photos up a woman’s skirt or down her blouse. The answer or solution, obviously, is to ban upskirting and down blousing. It is not okay that some pervert is allowed to invade a woman’s privacy, or anybody’s, based on a subjective interpretation of the First Amendment. While I have the utmost respect for our constitution, I hardly think our founding fathers had it in mind to protect perverts and allow an individual’s rights to be violated. The goal then is to legislate into law a complete and total ban on upskirting and reduce these invasions of privacy to zero. These laws will be implemented and upheld by law enforcement and the court system. Finally we will be able to evaluate the success of these laws by measuring a decrease in upskirting incidences.

References

England, D. Upskirting. Retreived from http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/upskirting.htm

HSM PRESS OFFICE @TWITTER

How much does social media play in acts of terrorism? How does social media facilitate the increased awareness, propaganda, and moving of information that ultimately facilitates terroristic agendas, exposure, and acts? And what can social psychology do to remedy such instances of terrorism?

It is well established that social media has a strong influence on how, why, to what degree, and how fast information is spread throughout the world. In that, and with the ever changing, fast forward world of smart phones, internet availability, and technology, the route that news and information move is constantly changing and becoming far more streamlined (Rosengard, Tucker-McLaughlin, & Brown, 2014). As such, the use of social media has ventured into every avenue of communication currently supported by technology (Rob van den Dam, 2010).

It is in this position that it is completely understandable that anyone with any message would seek the use of such media platforms to project their agenda. It has long been established that terrorism—whereby the climate of extreme fear is directed to a larger audience and hints future events that escape typically associated norms of regulating disputes—needs a mechanism to spread (Wilkinson, 1997). As such, the creation of a socialistic symbiosis between mass media and terrorists has developed (Wilkinson, 1997). This is evident through a common need for both network ratings by sensationalistic broadcasts and terrorism’s core function—they both mutually feed from this relationship. Though social media platforms, in the form of Twitter and Facebook, rely upon a different agenda for intrinsic success, the presence and power of networked social communication continues to serve as a symbiosis with terrorism. In example, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have used social media to project their ideals, instigate societal momentum, collect support, and seek recruits (Andrews & Schwartz, 2014). As such, and with recruiting in particular, this drives home the connection between violence and aggressive behavior—which has been strongly correlated by Hearold’s massive 1986 meta-analysis—which saw an increase in violent behavior after watching media violence. Additionally, during the 2013 Nairobi mall terrorist attack, Al-Shabaab’s media collective claimed responsibility through Twitter while providing live updates, photos, and threats of future action (Ortiz, 2013). These are just two examples of how terrorists utilize social media to their advantage.

Apart from this connection, social media has been a nightmare for military and strategic information control. From my time in the military I personally witnessed the rise in popularity of social media, how it was controlled, and what damage it could do to operational security. Information, locations, units, positions, movements, ideas, orders, etc. are all extremely important in the world of military movements and war. Having an individual means of communicating such information to the entire world has never been easier. As such, the military has dramatically increased their awareness, access to, and reprimands for divulging such information via social media platforms. It’s well known that people are watching that want such information and it’s well controlled as to how much military members can communicate. In terms of military intelligence the concept of piecing together information from broad sources to build combat intelligence is very established.

More recently, or at least comparative to my experience in the military, various intelligence agencies have expressed their concern with how social media platforms provide an easy audience for terroristic ventures. Most notably, British intelligence has expressed this such problem and called for reforms directed to limit such actions of terrorists.

In sum, the platform, reach, and ability for social media to serve as a mechanism to project terrorism is upon us. The underlying mechanism for which bolsters social media symbiotically supports and acts as a mechanism for terrorism. Though there are significant pros and cons associated with social media, Facebook has pushed through to reform such issues and to limit the reach of such actions. Additionally, there have been many notions of legal action against such social media outlets—as the material support statues, 18 U.S.C. § 2339A and § 2339B, fall directly inline with the 2010 Supreme Court ruling of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project that allows prosecution to social media outlets (dispite the 1^st Amendment) for materially supporting terrorist factions (Knox, 2014). As such, extending criminal intent to supporting terrorist activities through knowingly providing a supporting communication network has inevitably motivated Facebook and Twitter to realign their stance on openness to the world and terrorists in particular.

Conversely, social psychology stands at a unique place in the fight against world-wide terrorism. Understanding how differing factions of people relate, exist, and prosper is paramount and foundational to applied social psychology. In that, three areas of intervention have been proposed that may lead to better relations and coexistence between such: reducing intergroup conflict, developing incentives for the reduction of terrorism, and socializing youth to oppose violence as an answer to problems (Plous & Zimbardo, 2004). In that, equating status and finding a mutual reliance upon opposing factions can support the reduction of intergroup conflict—by way of social contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954). Unfortunately, particular social limitations do exist with relations to terrorism—in the form of restrictions of negotiations and communication. As such, employing the last two ideas may provide stronger traction towards progress—developing incentives and changing youth opinion on violence. Both of which, in sum, can benefit from a collective initiative towards international agreements that support reductions in the education of violence in third world countries and incentivizing reductions in terrorism (Plous & Zimbardo, 2004).

From a sociological standpoint, the presence and mold for which communication has evolved has stood as a hard issue to control. Terrorists are difficult to regulate as they often depart from embedded sociological norms that tend to generalize and provide some form of predictive action. In that, controlling areas that are controllable are at the heart of social interventions that seek to mold society towards positive results.

References

Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Andrews, N. & Schwartz, F. (2014). Islamic state pushes social-media battle with west. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/isis-pushes-social-media-battle-with-west-1408725614

Hearold, S. (1986). A synthesis of 1,043 effects of television on social behavior. In G. Comstock (Ed.), Public communication and behavior (Vol. 1 pp. 66-135). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. I (2010).

Knox, E. (2014). The slippery slope of material support prosecutions: Social media support to terrorists. Hasting Law Journal, 66(1), 295-329.

Ortiz, E. (2013). Alleged twitter account taunts Kenyan officials following mall rampage. New York Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/terrorists-tweeting-new-account-claims-kenyan-mall-militants-article-1.1465961

Plous, S. L. & Zimbardo, P. G. (2004). How social science can reduce terrorism. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 51(3), B.9.

Rosengard, D., Tucker-McLaughlin, M., & Brown, T. (2014). Students and social news: How college students share news through social media. Electronic News, 8(2), 120-137.

van den Dam, R. (2010). Social media. Broadcast Engineering, 52(5), 18.

Wilkinson, P. (1997). The media and terrorism: A reassessment. Terrorism and Political Violence, 9(2), 51. doi:10.1080/09546559708427402

Written by: Morgan L. DeBusk-Lane

The media possesses the unique gift of sensationalizing anything and everything. Media coverage is focused on influencing and shaping not only what, but also the way people think about a topic or issue. Look at the above picture; by simply looking at the facial expressions on the candidates captured, what is your take-away? This is just one of countless examples of how the media indirectly or directly influences us.

In politics, who doesn’t have an agenda? Media also uses agendas. “Agenda setting,” is defined as the way the media sets an agenda and how media coverage influences what people think about. (Schneider, et al., 2012) Three aspects of agenda setting are important to consider: public agenda, “issues that the public thinks are important,” policy agenda, “issues that government officials and policy makers think are important”, and media agenda, “issues that the media covers extensively.” (Schneider, et al., 2012) Media has a profound impact on influencing the hearts and minds of people.

How will this impact the presidential race in 2016? With the recent undermining of Hilary and her notorious “private email account” – Ted Cruz “blacklisted and loving it” – the republican game changer, and Ben Carson – brain surgeon to politician, I would argue that this campaign will be tough for anyone to completely escape the media frenzy that has already begun.

Based on the availability heuristic the impact media will have on people during the upcoming election, I predict, will be profound. It will be interesting to analyze the correlation between; what the media projects, what issues are brought to the forefront and what people actually recall, when they ultimately decide to cast their vote.  Political priming will also play a huge role in this election. With an array of issues, from health care reform, to counter-terrorism, the economy, job market, immigration and military engagements all having a blaring importance in the hearts of our nation, how will the candidates respond and perform? How will the media impact our viewpoint? The negative effects the media has had on our government have been significant. Statistically, the confidence people have in political institutions and government leadership has plummeted from 75% in 1964 to a mere 25% in 2000. (Schneider, et al., 2012) In 2016, what will those statistics show? These numbers are pathetic at best. How will this lack of confidence and trust in our government impact elections?

The emergence of social and digital media has forever changed the political battlefield and the wars are already being waged. As we examine the impact and influence of media, it is predicted that social and digital media will have a significant role in the 2016 election, more so than ever before.   In a recent article discussing the current social media impacts Brian Hughes of the Washington Examiner states, “while a metric might sound trivial, it carries weight in two areas that matter a great deal in winning campaigns: data and engagement. The greater the reach of a candidate on social media, the more information they have at their disposal on potential voters.” (Hughes, 2015)

Social psychologists could ultimately play a critical role in the upcoming election by advising and consulting strategists on media coverage and campaign framing during the upcoming presidential race. Strategy framing and issue framing will be heavily relied upon during the upcoming race. Media has the ability to influence what issues the public should view as important and has the ability to alter their interpretation of those issues. Media also has the ability to create cynicism, influence judgment, and undermine candidates or promote them.

Works Cited:

Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L. (2012). Chapter 7: Applying Social Psychology to the Media. Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed., pp. 135-163). Los Angeles: Sage.

Hughes, B. (2015, February 6). Social media war begins for GOP 2016 hopefuls | WashingtonExaminer.com. Retrieved March 8, 2015, from http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/social-media-war-begins-for-gop-2016-hopefuls/article/2559880

When you see the words “social justice” what comes to mind? In recent times have you heard of any issues relating to economic inequalities? Gender inequalities? Health reform? Peace and justice? Racial inequalities? Corporate power? Democracy? I assume that very few are not familiar with the majority of these topics and in most cases I suspect most have fallen victim to one or more of these issues.

Social justice encompasses a broad spectrum of challenges in our society to include socioeconomics, opportunities, rights, privileges, obligations, roles, relationships and the associated issues that plague our society. Psychology plays a critical role in overcoming social injustices and in achieving social justice ideals.  When we take a closer look at these concerns we need to do so from a social justice perspective.  “A social justice perspective emphasizes societal concerns, including issues of equity, self-determination, interdependence, and social responsibility.” (Rasheed, et al., 2008)

Captured in an article presented in the Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, the researchers state, “Social justice is not only an ideological stance through which clinical, instructional, and research work is filtered, it is also related to behaviors which constitute social justice work.” (Rasheed, et al., 2008)  How does psychology play a role in social justice? How do we address and overcome these challenges? By examining social justice through the lens of a social psychologist I suggest that almost every topic we examine will present a role that social psychology can play, especially from a clinical/counseling perspective. The article makes an interesting, yet profound recommendation, “one key way that psychologists can integrate social justice into counseling psychology is to train the next generation of counseling psychology professionals as social justice change agents.” (Rasheed, et al., 2008)

As we examine methodologies and courses of action in achieving societal justice ideals, and overcoming the challenges that exist in doing so, we must examine solutions and ways in which we can effectively fuse these goals by implementing the social sciences, specifically social psychology research and counseling. Ways in which we can successfully become “change agents”. The article captures this goal by stating that doctoral programs need to examine ways to “integrate good clinical and research training with a social justice agenda, it can be accomplished through the integration and infusion of social justice with existing experiences in which students and faculty are engaged.” (Rasheed, et al., 2008) As we “lean in” and “lean forward” to develop more effective ways to address social justice issues we will need to examine how our curriculum, research methods, and clinical training can more adequately prepare us to be agents of change in a diverse, dynamic, and challenging world.

Work Cited:

Rasheed Ali, S., Ming Liu, W., Mahmood,, A., & Arguello, J. (2008). Social Justice and Applied Psychology: Practical Ideas for Training the Next Generation of Psychologists. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 1(2), 1-13. Retrieved March 8, 2015, from http://www.psysr.org/jsacp/Ali-V1N2-08.pdf

Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L. (2012). Chapter 4: Intervention and Evaluation. Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems(2nd ed., pp. 63-66). Los Angeles: Sage.

A lesson I remember my mom teaching my brother and I when we were younger was that for any reason if we ever were being interrogated by the police to not speak until we had a lawyer present. We had watched a special on the news of how police use harsh tactics when interrogating witnesses and lead them to false confessions. The television special noted on how witnesses may not have even had any details of the crime but after hearing details from the police officers they were “thrown” enough details to put a story together to please the officers with a false confession.

The clip below talks about how false confessions can happen.

The most important tool that any witness can use is their right to the fifth amendment. also known as the Miranda rights.

https://prezi.com/krne6n9gfcuh/copy-of-miranda-warning/

Human tendencies can influence the situation in an interrogation that could potentially lead to a false confession (PSU WC, 2015). Much of this is also the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This states that a persons expects  a situation to carry out will influence their behavior as well as other’s behavior to confirm the person’s beliefs (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).

Psychologist have found that cognitive interviews are a better alternative to interrogations. In a cognitive interview the interviewer will ask open ended questions and use strategic silence, as well as follow up questions that focus on using the interviewees’ own words. This system is better to promote good listening skills, increase trust, and opportunities to extract more accurate information. It has been shown that with the use of cognitive interviews information from a witness can be increased from 20-50% without the chance of losing accuracy (Schneider et al., 2012).

It is clear that there are techniques that are better suited to find more information as well as lessen the chance that a witness could give a false confession. It is always important to remember that as a witness you do have the right to remain silent. Even if you feel you are safe, you can not always trust that a police officer will be using more accurate techniques such as the cognitive interview technique. When in doubt, zip it!

References

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (PSU WC). (2015). PSYCH 424: Applies Social Psychology. Lesson 8: The Legal System. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych424/001/content/09_lesson/less08_02.html

Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L. (2012). Chapter 11: Applied Social Psychology to the Criminal Justice System. In Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed., p. 257). Los Angeles: Sage.

Criminal law can be understood as a set of interventions by the government to change the behavior of the public. These interventions are ideally intended to be impartial – as symbolized by Lady Justice’s blindfold – but, as themselves a product of human behavior, laws can be an institutionalization of prejudice. United States’ drug law is a salient example of this. Prior to 2010, the amount of crack cocaine an individual must posess in order to receive mandatory 5-year sentencing was 1/100th of the amount of powdered cocaine required for the same penalty. [1] US Senator Dick Durbin has observed that, “The sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine has contributed to the imprisonment of African Americans at six times the rate of whites.” [2] This striking disparity in legal policy and outcome can be explained in terms of Social Dominance Theory.

Social Dominance Theory attempts to explain human behavior as seeking to maintain group-based inequalities, where groups are stratified by factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, and so on. The injustice of these inequalities is maintained by myths that legitimize them, i.e. by explaining that the injustice does not exist, or is a necessary evil. In the worst case, these injustices can be formalized as institutional discrimination, for example in the form of discriminatory laws.
Social Dominance Theory would identify caucasians as the hegemonic group – i.e. the richer, more powerful, higher-status – and would predict that this group would behave in ways to reinforce and maintain that hegemony. Consistent with this prediction is the fact that the United States’ Congress has historically been primarily white [3]; as is the hypothesis that the legislation created by such a congress would seek to derogate minorites with the purpose of maintaining existing inequalities. The disproportionately-high incarceration rate of African-Americans for cocaine-related crimes supports this hypothesis. In addition, law enforcement shows a similarly striking pattern of bias – despite public health data showing that two-thirds of crack cocaine users are non-black, 80% of people arrested for crack-related crimes are black. [4]

Fortunately, over the last two decades, Congress has recognized the racially-discriminatory dimension to US drug law. However, despite several attempts at reform, the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 only managed to reduce the disparity between mandatory sentencing for crack vs. powdered cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1, despite the observation by Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy that “there is no scientific basis for the disparity.” [5] One interpretation of this outcome is that even an acknowledgement by the United States government of the scope of this injustice was insufficient to overcome the institutionalized discrimination that it had itself created. To the extent that this is true, we need a reform of our legislation process which takes into account these findings from social psychology – specifically, to prevent the hegemonic groups most likely to attain policial office from using that power to reinforce inequality.

1. Crack Cocaine Mandatory Minimum Sentences. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://famm.org/projects/federal/us-congress/crack-cocaine-mandatory-minimum-sentences/
2. Johnson, C. (2009, October 16). Bill Targets Sentencing Rules For Crack and Powder Cocaine. The Washington Post. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
3. Bump, P. (2015, January 5). The New Congress Is 80 Percent White, 80 Percent Male and 92 Percent Christian. The Washington Post. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-37550085.html
4. Antoine, M. (2010, July 27). House Could Consider Legislation This Week to Reduce Crack and Cocaine Sentencing Disparity. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://www.civilrights.org/archives/2010/07/1029-sentencing-disparity-vote.html
5. Congress OKs Fair Sentencing Act. (2010, July 28). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/07/28/Congress-OKs-Fair-Sentencing-Act/UPI-22641280367802/

The question I am posing today is whether or not we can ever have a truly fair and equal criminal justice system. Throughout every step of the process (arrest, courts, punishment) there is some sort of bias or discretion that can be made wherein affecting the outcome of the case. Psychology plays a huge role in every step of the criminal justice process as we will see. The criminal justice process starts first when a crime has been committed. Unfortunately, from the very beginning of the process, things can be misconstrued. When a crime has been committed in the presence of other people, bystanders are of little help. People experience the “. . .  diffusion of responsibility (i.e., the diminished sense of responsibility a person feels when he or she believes that others would or should intervene)” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, p. 247). That being said, it is very difficult of a bystander to be a good witness when he/she believes that someone else will “step up to the plate.”

The next step of the process is when the police begin their investigation of the crime. Unfortunately, discrimination plays a huge role as to who the police officer decides to monitor and/or investigate. Our text describes a process similar to this; “. . . in-group/out-group bias, which means that in-group members tend to evaluate and relate to the in-group favorably and to the out-group less favorably (or unfavorably)” (Schneider et al., 2010, p. 7). Examples of this can include White officers allowing more Whites to get away with minor crimes, while at the same time prosecuting more ethnic offenders for the same offenses. It has been shown that minorities get arrested more often, and are penalized more heavily than Whites (Gabbidon & Greene, 2013).

The next step of the process is that of the court, or the trial. At first, during jury selection, discrimination is also present. Much like a coach of a sports team, prosecutors are allowed to ‘bench’ or toss out any juror during a process called voir dire (Neubauer & Fradella, 2014). However, this process is also a crucial one when trying to avoid anyone with a preexisting prejudice. Our text “. . . defined partiality in much the same way a social psychologist would, that is, as having an attitudinal (i.e., prejudicial) and a behavioral (i.e., discriminatory) component that could potentially affect a verdict on a case” (Schneider et al., 2010, p. 262). During the court process, the fundamental attribution error is also present. This is where the court makes the assumption that the crime was committed due to external factors. It is often overlooked that there may be internal reasons affecting the defendant’s behavior.

During the court process, there are many variables that can affect the outcome of the case. When looking at witnesses, some are coerced into telling a story, or may have been in such a fluster during the events where they may have imagined certain aspects or completely omitted others. Evidence may be presented during trial, but may not be accepted by the judge. We cannot stop this from biasing the jury. They may create a “. . . self-fulfilling prophecy, that is, the way in which a person’s expectations can influence his or her own and others’ behaviors in a way that will confirm to the person’s beliefs” (Schneider et al., 2010, p. 255). Ultimately, we may never know what exactly happened during a crime; it is rare that the defendant will tell their story in its entirety, leaving the jury to make the final decision as to what happened. As frustrating as it is, the victim is sometimes not able to be in court to tell their version of the story.

Works Cited

Gabbidon, S. L., & Greene, H. T. (2013). Race and Crime. Sage Publications, Inc.

Neubauer, D. W., & Fradella, H. F. (2014). America’s Courts and the Criminal Justice System. Belmont: Cengage Learning.

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.

They say there are three sides to every story: there’s his side, her side, and then there’s the truth. Everyday, the American justice system is relied upon to search for answers and make decisions. The American people trust that our justice system is fair and responsible in their dealings. What happens when our authority figures are then disgraced, and shown to be unjust in their actions?

Every so often, we hear about cases of wrongdoing by authority figures. Would you believe it if you were told that a 14-year-old boy confessed to murdering his 12-year-old sister? Maybe. Now, would you believe that same scenario if you had found out that boy was not allowed to eat or sleep for many hours while being heavily interrogated without the presence of a lawyer or a parent, and while the investigators told him that he murdered her? You may think that it is not possible for police and investigators to be able to make a boy confess to something he did not do. However, in the case of Michael Crowe, this is very much possible.

In January 1998, 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe was found stabbed to death in her bedroom. When police were called, they found no signs of forced entry. Naturally, the investigators assumed someone in the house had killed her. They focused on Stephanie’s dad, but then noticed the reactions of her brother, Michael. When police arrived to the house, they had the rest of the family sit in the living room. Everyone was crying and grieving, but Michael was playing a video game. This sent up a red flag, and motivated the police to name Michael as the prime suspect. For the following weeks, Michael and his friends were subjected to intensive interrogations, eventually caving-in to the pressure to falsely admit they committed the crime.

Coercion and a false confession led to the arrest of Michael Crowe, as well as two of his friends, Aaron Houser and Joshua Treadway. It is especially important to have all interrogations video recorded. It is true that typical video confessions only focus on the suspect, with very little, to no environmental cues. Juries and other audience members fall victim to the fundamental attribution error when they see someone’s taped confession, and attribute the confession to the person, instead of external forces that may be instigating the person to say something they do not mean (The Pennsylvania State University).

Additionally, video recorded interrogations pose as a form of protection of the accused. The recorded interviews showed that Michael, Joshua, and Aaron were victims of the misinformation effect. The police actively tell the boys what had happened, and that they had committed the crime, even though they had no recollection of it. The boys created stories of what happened based upon facts that were presented to them. Michael, in fact, states he must lie and make the story up in order to tell them what happened. His “confession” never provided one correct piece of information about the crime itself. Their stories never matched any of the forensic evidence.

In addition, one of the main goals during an interrogation is to gain a confession (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Young age, mental illness, drug use, bias, self-fulfilling prophecies, investigators pre-determined guilt or innocence, and various other factors can elicit false and incriminating statements and confessions during interviews (Schneider et al., 2012). In Michael’s case, he was forced to believe that he killed his sister, and eventually fell to the self-fulfilling prophecy (which is how beliefs of others or yourself result in certain beliefs or actions that make it true), thus leading to a false confession.

In society today, understanding how interrogations and interviews are conducted behind closed doors is important. Not only can this decrease the number of suspected wrongdoing in the justice system, but it also helps protect against false confessions and self-incrimination, as seen in the Crowe case.

–Orlena Riner

>>PS- There is a fictional movie called The Interrogation of Michael Crowe. At one point, Michael’s lawyer states, “What these police officers wanted to get out was their version of the truth, not the truth itself. Michael’s confession, ‘so called,’ has been seen for what it is. Now this trial will have to be about the facts!” A few years after their trial, Michael, Joshua, and Aaron were exonerated, and were found “factually innocent” (Sauer, 2012).

>Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJcqjPxtIXc

>Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USxjvOt9kBI

>Additional: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k51mYJE2Mos

References

Sauer, M. (2012, May 22). Michael Crowe Found ‘Factually Innocent’ in Sister’s Murder. Retrieved March 2015, from KPBS: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/may/22/michael-crowe-found-factually-innocent-sisters-mur/

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA, USA: Sage.

The Pennsylvania State University. (n.d.). Lesson 8: The Legal System. Retrieved March 2015, from Psych490: Senior Seminar in Psychology: https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych424/001/content/09_lesson/less08_01.html

One topic which I found interesting was the concept of racism, particularly because I thought about my own personal experiences with diversity and I suppose that it really was eye opening to analyze the different levels of racism.    I found this particular topic interesting as I live in a rural area and had very little exposure to different cultures throughout my childhood.  Even though I now have learned a great deal through schooling and different experiences, diversity and different cultures are still scarce in the area which I live.

In Schneider, Gruman, and Coutts (2012), racism was presented through four different terms.  These included blatant racism (takes on a clear form such as segregation and distinctive disregard for other races), aversive racism (the person is unaware of their racism), ambivalent racism (people recognize the racial injustices but also feel that improvements can be made through hard work and determination rather than recognizing history blockades presented to the group due to racial inequalities), and symbolic racism (racism which is not necessarily targeted towards specific groups, but presents itself by disregard for associated concepts surrounding the particular group).  These types of racism present themselves in different ways and it leads me to question the changing dynamic of racism and its relationship to the area which a person grew up.

I tend to believe that a persons experiences, good or bad, can determine their thoughts and actions later in life.  I question how the experiences (or lack thereof) of a person influence their racial interpretations and beliefs but also how racist beliefs they were brought up with influence these beliefs as well.  Do rural areas have more racism?  Is there more ambivalent racism in one area while more aversive racism in another?  Although I was unable to find concrete information which studied this idea (although the relationship would be an interesting concept for a study), what I found was that rural areas do have more of an impact in what we present on social media regarding racial issues and expression of such hate.

I found this map to be an interesting way to look at where racism lives.  Although racism can be found throughout our society in different forms, this study presented (Kleinman, 2013) shows that the most hateful speech (about culture, racism, disability) tend to be in the eastern part of the country and come from small rural areas.  These areas had the highest proportion of hateful posts to social media (Twitter).

In thinking about my experience growing up, this really became less hard to believe.  I grew up in a small town (graduated with 33 people) and people hated what they did not know.  There was not a lot of cultural differences within our small town and I remember several people who did not have cultural competence, or tolerance for that matter.  Although they were isolated, their ideals were instilled in their children.  Over time, some of these children, through their experiences, changed their viewpoints and as the small town isolated life changed to incorporate more culture, tolerance increased.  There does however remain different aspects of racism – ambivalent, aversive, symbolic, and even some blatant.

When looking at the sociological concerns, unless there are changes within the experiences and cultural understanding developed throughout these areas, racism will continue to be an ongoing concern.  Although Schneider, Gruman, and Coutts (2012) acknowledge that there is a slow progression of change with racism, this is something that sociology must continue to focus on and study.  What programs can be developed for these rural areas or small schools which could change racial competence and cultural understanding to reduce or eliminate racism?  Should programs be developed which target racism and promote cultural tolerance, should these be different for different areas based upon the types of racist beliefs held there?  Potentially, could this lead to blatant racism being strictly a history lesson, or could we change the dynamic of racism altogether as a society?   Many questions arise, but one thing is for sure, racism and hate are nothing something that is going away soon.

References

Kleinman, A. (2013, May 13). Twitter Hate Speech Map Pinpoints Racist, Homophobic Hotspots Across U.S. Retrieved March 5, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/twitter-hate-speech_n_3265916.html

Schneider, F., Gruman, J. & Coutts, L. (2012). Applied social psychology: understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: Sage.

After going through our lesson 8 readings, I have found it startling that our Jury on criminal cases may be flawed. Asch (1951) had participants in his study judging the length of a line. When confederates in the experiment made an incorrect judgment about the line the experimental participant was likely to conform with the incorrect judgment even though he or she would doubt their own answer (PSU 2015). This is horribly startling to me because it suggests that Jury’s with fewer jurors are more likely to conform to their beliefs even if they think they are wrong. This would mean that innocent men are being found guilty and vice versa due to the jurors conforming their verdict to match their peers. If the jury is compromised with 6 jurors they are more likely to conform their answers to the majority of their peers. Relating this to social psychology is rather startling if you imagine this trend being transcendent throughout society. Imagine if society as a whole worked like this and used partiality on an every day basis. Partiality is defined as having a prejudice and a discriminatory component that could potential affect a juror’s verdict on a case (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).

(This picture is of protestors after the grand jury trial in Ferguson, which many believe was corrupt)

As stated before this comes into play while serving as a juror, but lets look at this ideal as a societal whole. Imagine that partiality would take place in your everyday life, such as going to restaurants or buying a car. If this were true it would imply that people would make decisions based on your race or religion. Prejudice is still a horribly fact that still lives in our society, but it has started to dwindle down its effect. No one I would suppose would want partiality to take place on their every day lives, let alone a court room to determine their future. It is unacceptable that we allow this to happen in our judicial system especially if we know about it before hand. It should be illegal to have a jury of 6 know, and a mandatory jury of 12 of more. This would eliminate the jurors conforming their verdicts to accommodate their peers.

http://http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/11/darren_wilson_grand_jury_ferguson_prosecutor_opens_proceedings_to_both_sides.html

This link is the perfect example of why our judicial system needs t be reformed. As I am sure all of you have heard in the news or on the radio, the Ferguson case has been very controversial. Many believe that the judicial system that called this case had already come to a conclusion before the trial even took place. This of course is very illegal due to the fact that every criminal case is determined in trial, and that no conclusions or assumptions are to be made until the evidence is projected. This case was found in favor of the police officer that shot and killed a young man who he felt was a danger to the officer’s well being and acted in self defense. This only furthers my point that we as a society need to take action and make sure that our judicial system is free of bias, and has not been corrupt before the trial even takes place. This is unacceptable if true, and needs to be resolved for the good of man kind.

Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgment. In H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press.

http://http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/11/darren_wilson_grand_jury_ferguson_prosecutor_opens_proceedings_to_both_sides.html

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles

Since what seems like an eternity ago, researchers have been trying to understand the reasons why prejudice is so prevalent between different groups of people. Still today, all around the world, racism exists, sexism exists; there is segregation between classes, religious intolerance, and even just plain bullying. It seems that no matter where you turn, or how much you separate yourself from it, prejudice is all around us … but why?

You would think, especially if you’re from the United States, that once segregation was outlawed and all different kinds of people began interacting on a daily basis, that eventually prejudice would completely disappear. And according to Gordon Allport, that’s exactly what should be happening.

The Contact Hypothesis is the idea that the more you spend time around someone, or something, the more comfortable you become (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). For example, say you have a fear of spiders. It would make sense that the more you are exposed to spiders, the less it would make you afraid.

So, wouldn’t that same concept work with a person who has a prejudice against a certain group of people? Just surround that person with the people he has prejudice against and he or she will eventually lose that prejudice, right?

The short answer is no.

You see, it takes a lot more than just exposure to get over something that makes you uncomfortable. When it comes to fears, for instance, you can’t just be exposed to your fear over and over again, you have to actually overcome it. Remember the guy that was afraid of spiders, so we exposed him to a bunch of spiders? Well, what I didn’t tell you was that every time we put a spider in his room, he got bit.

Do you think he all of a sudden loves spiders now? Me neither.

Prejudice works the same way. You can’t just take a ridiculously fit man who lives his life believing fat people are lazy, stick him in the middle of a McDonald’s where people are devouring Big Macs, and expect him to change his opinions. The same goes for every other kind of prejudice.

This is what makes the Contact Hypothesis so tricky. According to Allport, it takes a lot more than pure exposure to change someone’s opinion about prejudices. In reality, the only way to change someone’s opinion about someone or something is to increase the positive contact that is experienced (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). So, back to spider-man. The only way we could sway him to no longer hold fear towards spiders is if we expose him to spiders, over and over again, and nothing negative happens. In other words, he can’t get bit. After time, this man should grow less and less afraid of spiders.

The same goes for Mr. Fit. If we take him to a park where people of all different shapes and sizes are being physically active and eating healthy foods at the picnic tables, he has a better chance of changing his opinions about fat people being lazy than if we stuck him in a fast food restaurant. Again, though, this would have to be repeated time and time again and experience only positive results.

What is getting in the way of the perfectly positive experiences, though?

It’s unfortunate, but it’s partly due to stereotypes that are still very common in our society. At the same time, people aren’t always actively seeking ways to prove themselves wrong. In fact, most people’s prejudice is strengthened when someone else tries to discredit it, and stereotypes play a big role in this.

Take a look back in the media, not too long ago. There was a story about a Food Network personality; Paula Deen. Ring any bells? Well, I’ll refresh your memory. She was caught using ‘the N word’ when referring to a black man. Lawsuits were made, endorsements were dropped, and her show was even suspended. If you followed the whole story, you might remember how Deen defended herself; she explained that not all black people were ‘N words.’

I know … I’m asking the same question … “but some black people are?!?!”

It gets even worse …

Apparently, in the opinion of Paula Deen, it isn’t always inappropriate to use ‘the N word.’ When asked what context she has appropriately used ‘the N word,’ Deen responded with, “Well, it was probably when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.” Later, though, when asked if she had used ‘the N word’ in the context of a group of black men she witnessed working at a wedding, Deen responded with, “No, because that’s not what these men were. They were professional black men doing a fabulous job” (Tepper, 2013).

What she is saying sounds absolutely crazy to me, but, actually, this is a very common way of thinking.

It’s called Confirmation Bias, and basically, it does nothing to help the war on prejudice.

“In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias … is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions” (Science Daily, n.d.). In order for the Contact Hypothesis to work, conditions have to be perfect, but “it is so difficult to meet the conditions Allport outlined” (Understanding Prejudice, n.d.). Between stereotypes, confirmation bias, and the strictly positive interaction needed to change a person’s opinions, it is almost impossible for prejudice to be completely eradicated.

In a perfect world, everyone would be equal no matter your skin color, your gender, your sexual orientation, or even your spiritual beliefs. Every person would have supermodel good looks, the IQ of Albert Einstein, and as much money as Bill Gates. In a perfect world, there would be no way to tell if one person is better than another person … but is that really what we want?

It doesn’t sound crazy that the world would be a better place without prejudice of any kind, so, why does it still exist?

The answer is pretty simple, I guess … it exists because we allow it to exist.

… and maybe, in some twisted way, we’re supposed to.

References

Prejudice Photo. Retrieved from http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/food/1main%20IMG_191%20LLC%20shutterstock_86840116.jpg

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Science Daily. (n.d.) Confirmation bias. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/confirmation_bias.htm

Tepper, R. (2013) Paula Deen Racist Comments, Use of N-Word Allegedly Caught On Video [UPDATED]. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/paula-deen-racist-comments-n-word-caught-on-video_n_3467287.html

Understanding Prejudice. (n.d.) The Contact Hypothesis. The Psychology of Prejudice: An Overview. Retrieved from http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/page24.htm

Sometimes we cannot see the forest through all the trees. Often we cannot see what appears to be right in front of us. At times, this is an issue caused by perspective. An outside observer standing in an empty field looking at a large group of trees would notice the forest while the observer standing in the forest would notice the empty field. The same may hold true for our beliefs concerning prejudice and discrimination.
We tend to believe that as a country the US has made significant progress towards equality for various groups. While there have been noted improvements, we may not have come as far as some of us believe. We are still standing in the woods, not seeing the forest. This difficulty in changing one’s perspective is also a contributor to Fundamental attribution error and a factor in the creation of prejudice (Understanding Prejudice.org, 2002). Fundamental attribution error accounts for one’s tendency to overlook the power of the situation affecting someone’s behavior or disposition and instead accredits it to their internal factors or attributes (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2010). This concept when applied to an individual and subsequently directed and applied to that individual’s entire group is known as an Ultimate attribution error. This uses the individual as a model to create a stereotype for their group. In the case of prejudice, one may conclude that someone from a minority group is not as successful because they waste their money on frivolous spending ignoring the possibility that they might be faced with higher proportional costs because of their environment. Not all forms of prejudice are negative. Prejudice is defined only as a set of attitudes towards members of a group (PSU, 2015). However, when attitudes are based on assumptions or stereotypes undesirable consequences can still result. In the case of discrimination, it is a negative behavior toward a person based on their group membership.
Negative stereotypes can permeate society in surprising ways. A well known study by Clark & Clark (1947) illustrated that even Black children as young as 3 years old were biased. They overwhelmingly preferred to play with White dolls believing they were prettier or nicer than the Black dolls (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2010). This learned prejudice and the lowered self-esteem it represented helped end segregation in schools when it was brought before the Supreme Court.
Additionally, there are less obvious motivations for prejudice; one of these is concerning how groups with different ranking in society react to each other. In theory, the higher a group is ranked in society the less it is motivated to make changes. Basically, this is the concept that Social dominance theory seeks to explain. This ranking is based on positive social value which is described as a combination of high status, power and resources. Coinciding with positive social value, it considers three main ranking categories; age, gender and arbitrary set. These are listed in highest ranking order by the typical amounts of positive social value each holds. The arbitrary set would have the most diverse set of attributes for positive social values (PSU, 2015). Social dominance theory attempts to explain the phenomena of asymmetry in programs to reduce negative attitudes or prejudice. After implementation of an intervention that deals with two subordinate groups, the group with the higher positive social value may have decreased their negative attitudes towards the other group while the lower group may not have had any significant change in attitude. This difference is thought to occur because the higher ranked subordinate group would not want to jeopardize their current standing.

(Understanding Prejudice.org, 2002)
With all of this effort to reduce prejudice and discrimination haven’t we done enough? The answer to this question may depend if you are standing in the trees or in the field. Two recreations of the Clark & Clark (1947) study were done recently. The results from the Jordan & Hernandez-Reif (2009) study and Davis (2006) film still show that some Black children age’s three to five seem to favor white skin tones (Sage Pub, 2010). While the numbers from both studies do show a substantial improvement from the past, there is still a surprising number of Black children that favor white skin tones. This would seem to suggest we need to continue our efforts.

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Akert, R.M. (2010). Social psychology, (7th Ed) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

Pennsylvania State University. (2015). Lesson 6: Intergroup relations. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych424/001/content/07_lesson/02_page.html

Pennsylvania State University. (2015). Lesson 6: Intergroup relations. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych424/001/content/07_lesson/05_page.html

Sage Publications. (2010) Journal of Black Psychology: Reexamination of Young Children’s Racial Attitudes and Skin Tone Preferences. Retrieved from http://www.sagepub.com/healeyds3e/study/articles/05/jordan.pdf

UnderstandingPrejudice.org. (2002) Retrieved from http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/page9.htm

What environment do you picture when you hear the word Texas? What I am wondering exactly is what do you envision it to look like? Do you visualize the cool, high desert in the west, the lush, tropical palms in the southern valley or the heavily forested woodlands in the east? These are all biospheres indicative to Texas, but not the one where I grew up. I was raised in the hill country region, an area known for gnarled mesquite trees and unbearably hot, humid summer’s lasting 10 months of the year, and litter, lots and lots of litter.

                                                                                                            Texas Hill Country

I was what my parents called a nature child, not a tom-boy but a free-spirit who spent every waking moment outdoors. I ran free, watching birds during the sunny afternoons and catching fireflies in the dusky evenings. Texans migrate like birds. We flock south in the summer to cool lakes or beaches to swim and north in the winter to ski. One of my favorite summer outings was to a nearby dark, cold, mossy-green lake. Being a wild-child, I hated wearing shoes but found them a necessity during outings at the olive-colored lake. At the launch, unhitching our boat, loading it with provisions for the scorching afternoon ahead, I noticed the ground paved with shiny metal, sparkling in the hazy heat waves. These silver commas were the ubiquitous soft-drink pull tab.

On the long drive home, I began to notice litter. Peering through the dusty back window from the cold, dark, recess of the back seat, I was overwhelmed by endless miles of trash blowing like lost white birds along the highway. The cobalt, vermillion and buttery yellow fields of bluebonnets and Indian blankets were obscured by bottles, paper, and plastic bags. This was   the late 60’s early 70’s, and environmental concerns were in the nascent awakening of public awareness.

Roadside litter

I grew up and moved out of state in the early 80’s, and at the time had no idea Texas was considered one of the worst offenders in the U.S. regarding highway litter. The state spent over 20 million dollars each year to clean our highways. Instead of being called the “Lone Star State” our nickname was the dirtiest state. The state highway department hired Tim McClure, of GSD&M advertising, and he innovated the iconic “Don’t mess with Texas” campaign. This advertising campaign directly resulted in the reduction of litter by 72%, and the rest is history, so to speak. By the time I moved back to Texas, I had noticed a difference. Back were the pristine meadows exploding in spring with rainbows of wildflowers. How did an advertising campaign, which consisted of just four words, save the state millions of dollars annually and achieve what felt impossible only ten years earlier (McClure & Spence, 2006)?

Springtime in Texas

Tim recounts how he remembered his mother telling him as a young boy to clean up his mess (McClure & Spence, 2006). I can relate, I cannot count how many times I was admonished as a child to clean up my mess! All around the world I have had Chinese, Moroccan and Italians come up to me, find out where I am from, then delightfully exclaim, “Don’t mess with Texas!” I usually blink in disbelief at the fact this offensive, yet effective; advertising campaign is trailing me in life. I still haven’t figured out a rebuttal, but I am working on it. I wonder if Tim knew how commanding the normative social influence was he tapped into.

Normative social influence is a powerful predictor of behavior and is intricately tied to conformity. It occurs when the influence of people lead us to conform so we feel acceptance by the group. To gain this approval, we end up following the group’s beliefs (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2013). The creators of the “Don’t Mess with Texas” campaign used an adversarial slogan to appeal to their target market. Then, they reinforced the desired behavior by creating commercials with social “outlaws” such as Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughn to support the behavior. Even though this outlaw style campaign conveys the descriptive norm message that everyone is littering, it is the more powerful injunctive norm that makes this type of message salient to the public inducing the change needed (Cialdini, 2003).

There are four steps to change our behavior to one of pro-environment. First we target a problem behavior to change; the ad agency identified their target audience they nicknamed “bubbas in pickup trucks” (McClure & Spence, 2006). These were the young men under the age of 25 who were throwing paper and bottles out of their pickups and deemed the crux of the problem. Next, they examined why they behaved this way. It was determined they had a sense of power and entitlement, and to act like a man meant not showing concern for the environment. Then a solution was innovated by Tim, and he targeted his audience perfectly. “Don’t mess with Texas” is aggressive and gave these young men a sense of belonging to the outlaw group. Also, it gave them a way to retain pride in themselves and where they live (Aronson et al., 2013). There have been running evaluations of the anti-litter program every two years since it first debuted, and its success is undeniable (Matthews, 2013).

I cannot honestly say I like the slogan, but neither can I deny its overwhelming effectiveness. There are numerous methods to reach people in order to affect a change. If this ad campaign reaches the awareness of “bubbas” in a way that affects a positive, social, pro-environmental change, then, well, I won’t mess with it.

Resources:

Aronson, E., Wilson, T., & Akert, R. (2013). Social psychology (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cialdini, R. (2003). Crafting Normative Messages To Protect The Environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(4), 105-109.

Matthews, S. (n.d.). 2013 Litter Attitudes and behaviors. Retrieved February 24, 2015, from http://www.dontmesswithtexas.org/docs/DMWT_2013_Attitudes_Behaviors_Exec_

McClure, T., & Spence, R. (2006). Don’t mess with Texas: The story behind the legend. Austin, Tex.: Idea City Press.