Thoughts From Week One

Since I haven't posted in a while, I will post a number of thoughts that I've had from the first week of classes, Peter King style.

1. It has always surprised me how everything can be spun in at least two different ways given the proper viewpoint. This is especially apparent in statistics and law, when you'll see the same data used on both sides of an argument (An astounding 50% did [thing A]! Yes, well only 50% did [Thing A]). However, when you enter the realm of psychology, it becomes a lot harder to look at such arguments. I will use a personal example of a meeting with a friend from a while ago, in which the feeling I had was largely that of neutral emotion, although there were several highlights. Does this mean that the meeting was a failure because there was only one good moment? Or was it a success because that single good moment happened when otherwise there would have been only neutrality with a different person? Do you look at it from a personal standpoint (it was bad) or a comparative one (it was good)? And that doesn't even begin to touch on how the other person felt during the meeting. Had I known how they felt during this exchange, I wouldn't have worried about this at all because I wouldn't have to determine for myself if I made a good impression.

2. My sociology course this semester has an interesting project for us this semester, called the Breaking Social Norms paper. For the paper, we have to choose a social norm to break (by staring at people while in the elevator, for instance) and write a paper detailing the reception we get. This also serves to show us firsthand how taken for granted social norms are, and how people often take offense when someone decides not to follow them. I have seen this myself long before this paper, as I am one of those people who likes to wear shorts all winter, so I've been heckled on the street a number of times. It really makes you wonder if people are trying to get you to change or feel the need to speak up because they're afraid of why you're deviating from their sacred norms.

3. On that note, It seems that sociology and psychology have similar views on the matter. Sociology views breaking social norms as a fun experiment and one of the ways they can test out social theories, and psychology refers to such behavior as “Deviance,” a sign of potential problems or disorders (one of six signs, in fact). This begs the question of whether this deviance is truly encouraged. From the standpoint of society, it seems that such deviation is not welcome (unless you're a sociologist). And in the realm of psychology, deviating from the social norm in certain ways will earn you a swift diagnosis. So in school, I could see how students would receive mixed messages. They are encouraged to develop their creativity and overcome Functional Fixedness (only using something in the way that it is normally used. One example of overcoming functional fixedness would be using a frying pan to hammer in a nail when an actual hammer is not available), but not to deviate from social norms. This can be a very fine line in some situations.

4. There is a concept that exists somewhere in between psychology, sociology, and linguistics referred to as Grice's Conversational Maxims (named after Paul Grice, who came up with them). These maxims are part of our social norms, and dictate how all people have to talk in order to make a conversation run smoothly. In fact, Grice didn't just come up with these under the premise that we follow them to help a conversation along; rather, he said that we follow these maxims in order to keep a conversation going at any cost. His four maxims are as follows:

Quality: Always tell the truth (or what you believe to be true) or what you have evidence supporting.
Quantity: Don't say too much or too little. Say as much as is needed, but only as much as is needed.
Relation: Only say what is relevant, or note that it is unrelated beforehand.
Manner: Keep what you say clear. Don't be ambiguous.

You may be wondering why some people you know blatantly disregard these maxims in order to make a point or just get some hidden meaning across. This is referred to as flouting the maxims. This allows for two ways to communicate: through following or flouting the maxims. This is why you notice when someone attempts to change the subject, and consequently wonder if they're trying to avoid something or just weren't paying attention. What I find interesting, however, is that these maxims seem to apply to emotions as well. While we can really only express our emotions verbally and physically, I still feel that people have the same expectations for emotions that we do for conversations.

5. In my classes so far, I've begun to notice a curious trend: the front three rows are almost always dominated by girls (I would estimate 75-90% are taken by girls on any given day in any given class, with the rest being filled by boys or left open). I can't really come up with a good explanation for this, but it certainly is strange.

As far as I can remember, that's everything from week one.