He's definitely compensating for something...

This morning while I was trying to find a place to park on campus, there was somewhat of a crisis going on, so I was in hurry to find a spot and get to where I needed to be.  I ended up parking in the FAB parking lot, deciding that I would move my car once the crisis had been resolved.


I noticed a vacant spot right behind a man who had just parked his over-sized truck.  As I was trying to park, I noticed he was hesitant to get the hell out of the way.  Furthermore, after I parked and got out of my car, he kept lingering and eyeing our cars.

Because he obviously wasn't going to be a normal human being, I said, "Everything alright?" He replied, "Yeah, I just want to make sure I'll have enough room to get out." In my head I was thinking, "Maybe if you weren't trying to compensate for something, you could have a normal size car and wouldn't have to worry about it..."  But instead of saying that, I just looked at him, said, "I think it'll be okay." and then walked away, hoping that he didn't hear me whisper, "What an effing douche."

Anyway, none of that really matters.  I just wanted to complain.  What does matter is that I immediately attributed his irrational behavior to his personality.  To me, he was just another A-hole using an impractically sized vehicle to compensate for his inferior...intelligence.  And if he had said anything to me about my parking job or my shortness with him, I would have responded, "I'm in a hurry.  This is an emergency."

Clearly, I fell victim to the actor-observer effect which Jones and Nisbett (1971) explain as the tendency to attribute our own behavior to contextual circumstances, but attribute the behavior of others to personal traits.  I now realize that he also could have been in a hurry (as he probably was, because his car was gone when I returned 10 minutes later).  And his concern with being able to get out of his parking space is actually pretty rational when it comes to parallel parking.  But none of these possibilities were salient to me at the time.  All I knew was that I needed to park and get into the FAB in order to deal with a crisis and this turd-ferguson wouldn't get the hell out of the way or leave me the hell alone.

Worst part?  He had a professor parking tag.

Jones, E. E. & Nisbett, R. E. (1972). The actor and the observer: divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. In E. E. Jones, D. Kanouse, H. H. Kelly, R. E. Nisbett, S. Valins, & B. Weiner (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior (pp. 79-94), Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.

"I don't know, I just get the feeling that she's a bitch..."

So, before Lauren (my partner) and I were together, we were best friends.  I was also in love with her, but that's for another blog... So, of course, whenever she was dating someone, I was extra critical of that person.

She dated this one person, we'll call her Michelle...  I remember that when I first met Michelle, I immediately disapproved of her.  I thought she was weird, and somehow I knew that it wouldn't work out between Lauren and Michelle.  Some might attribute this distaste for Michelle to my feelings for Lauren, but I have another theory.  Michelle reminded me, in both appearance and mannerism, of one of my ex-girlfriends whose name is Katie.  Now, Katie was not only a crazy, annoying, neurotic vegan, but she also dumped me for a girl who lived in Kentucky that she met on Myspace.  That being said, I don't remember my time with Katie very fondly.

Because Michelle reminded me so much of Katie, the bitchy vegan, I designated Michelle's probability of being a keeper as very low.  In other words, I used the representativeness heuristic, which states that we as social beings tend to overuse similarities between past events and new events in order to make probability judgments (D. Kahneman & A. Tversky, 1972).  Because Katie and Michelle shared numerous characteristics, and because Katie was a douche, I assumed that Michelle was a bitchy freak, too.

Let's just say in the end I was right about Michelle...

D. Kahneman & A. Tversky (1972).  Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness.  Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430-454.

Sarah Bond: The Schema Violator

According to Solomon Asch (1946), the presence of some traits--central traits--lead us to make assumptions about what other traits someone might have.  For example, when you meet someone for the first time and you notice that they have a "warm" personality, you might also assume that they are caring, nurturing, etc.

In my Conformity, Deviance, and Identity class this semester, we've also been discussing our perceptions of other people.  We've been talking about how society groups people into categories.  One of the main category subsets, or central traits, we've been talking about is gender.  For example, when we see a person with long hair and a petite figure who is wearing a skirt, we might assume that this person 1) is biologically female, 2) identifies as a woman, 3) is heterosexual (among other many traits).  Our conversation about central traits and assumptions made me wonder what people assume about me. 

I am a non-cisgender person who dresses in "men's" clothing.  I violate people's schemas about what men and women look like, dress like, and act like.   Do people see that I am ambiguously-gendered and make assumptions about my other traits?  (well of course they do)  Do people think that because of my gender expression I am also annoyingly-opinionated, radical, feminist, or über-liberal?  

I am now realizing why my dad hounds me about wearing nice, professional clothes to interviews, or really any interaction that necessitates a good first impression.  I realize now that in a 5-minute conversation, or even seconds-worth of observation, we group people into categories, make assumptions about their personalities, and make positive or negative evaluations about their overall character.  

Thus, I am in conflict: I know that people will make assumptions about me because of my relatively radical gender expression, but does that mean I should change the way I look?  Do I care about what other people assume?  According to the paradigm of belief perseverance, one's initial belief about  an issue often remains unchanged even in the face of contrary evidence (Gallup Poll Editors, 2002).  Thus, I should change how I look and how I behave so as not to violate schemas and create a "negative" first impression that will persevere regardless of introduction to my warm personality.  However, the rebel in me (and psych major that is aware of our occasionally erroneous first impressions of others) says that assumption-makers can screw themselves.  My gender expression is perfect.

Asch, S.E. (1946).  Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments.  In H. Guetzkow (Ed.), Groups, leadership, and men.  Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press.

Gallup Poll Editors (2002).  Gallup poll of the Islamic world: Subscriber report.  Princeton, NJ: Gallup Press.