Those Not So Disrespectful Jerks

After taking Snyder’s (1974) Self-Monitoring Scale, I learned that I am a high self-monitor; I scored 13 out of 18. After seeing that I am a high self-monitor it stands to reason that I am very careful of how I act around other. To this point, I hate to admit that I get embarrassed very easily. Specifically, when my phone goes off in class, I get really embarrassed. Even if my phone is on silent, the vibration of the phone against other items in my backpack makes it seem like there is a siren going off in my backpack. In my head the social spotlight is definitely shinning on me (Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000).

                                          (When I figure out it's my phone)

                              (Then me trying to stop the noise)

In my mind, however, my phone shouldn’t go off in class too often due to the fact that I am a graduating senior and am not taking many classes (i.e., I am only taking 8 credit hours - Jazz Dance and Social Psychology). More importantly, the people that call me are my friends and family, and if they truly embody what they are, they know (or should know) when I am in class and should know when NOT to call me. Despite this notion, every time I am in class, without fail, my phone is ALWAYS going off. In other words, after class or during breaks whenever I look at my phone I ALWAYS have at least three to four missed calls and texts from people that, in my mind, should know not to call or text me during that time.

In talking about how frustrated I become with the ‘siren’ that is my cell phone going off in class, I end up subscribing to the actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1971). According to Jones and Nisbett (1971) the actor-observer effect basically states that the actors within situations tend to ascribe to situational attributions, while the observers within a situation tend to ascribe to personal attributions. In other words, they found that actors use situational attributions to explain behavior, while observers use personal attributions to explain behavior. Specifically, in my situation, I see my friends and family that call me as disrespectful jerks (personal attributions) while in their mind my friends and family called me because they forgot I was in class because they were busy or forgot what day it was and that I was in class (situational attributions). We as individuals tend to yield to this bias due to two reasons: (1) because we generally have more information about ourselves and how we respond in certain situations than we do about others, or (2) because individuals have different perspectives with respect to differing situations (Jones & Nisbett, 1971).

After leaving class and learning of this effect, I realized that my friends and family were doing nothing wrong and I should just turn my phone completely off during class. Although I dislike admitting it, because I like to think of myself as social psychologically inclined person, I am no different from anyone else and succumb to biases and affects within social psychology just like anyone else.

(n=512)

***I just wish I could be as cool as Natalie Portman.....

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Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211-222.

huluDotCom (2008, March, 12). Saturday Night Live - Natalie Portman Raps. Retrieved on February 26, 2013 from, http://youtu.be/v8e6-IeQ0aw.  

Jones, E. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (1971). The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. New York: General Learning Press.

Snyder, M. (1987). The self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526-537. 

Just call me Ms. Monk

I am a creature of habit to say the least. As much as I hate to admit it, I am OCD (or CDO – OCD in the correct order). I am a very neat and organized person to the point that my mother calls me Ms. Monk, after the main character Mr. Monk, the OCD detective in the television show Monk. To this point, my family will even go into my room and move stuff around on purpose to see if I notice and to get a rise out of me. This ‘order’ within my life even extends outside of my home. Even when I run errands I prefer to do them in a certain way.

            Every Sunday, my mother, sisters and I venture to Target. When we arrive at Target we have a set route of how we walk around the store. We start by going through the clearance aisles (got to get those deals) and then proceed through the rest of the store hitting the different sections of the store in a specific order. I don’t know how this predetermined route came to be, but it is something that I naturally do, it has become second nature to me. Unbeknownst to me, this was an event schema or ‘script’. A script is something that helps us understand different situations in order to be better able to foresee the various goals, behaviors, and outcomes that result from a particular situation (Abelson 1981; Read, 1987). In other words, a script is something that helps us understand or predict how a situation will occur (Abelson 1981; Read, 1987). As such, my route or normal routine that I take while walking through Target is something that helps me to better organize my shopping trip that also helps me to ensure that I won’t forget anything (i.e., so I can anticipate all of my Target needs).

            Although I knew that I preferred to walk a certain route while in my local Target, I never know how important this script was or how strong I was on my event schema for this particular activity. The strength of my script only became apparent when I was asked to deviate from my normal routine while shopping at Target. Specifically, one day my friend needed to go to Target and asked me to accompany her. Like the good friend I am, I obliged her without hesitation. Once we arrived at our local Target I, as usual, started to head down the aisle that I normally do. I hadn’t gotten further than the card section (i.e., a few feet) before my friend grabbed my arm and said, “What the hell are you doing??” Not registering what I did wrong I promptly remarked, “Shopping at Target.  What are you doing?” Based upon the look on her face I could tell this routine of mine was not normal for her. After a moment of awkward facial expressions we promptly deviated from my script and got the items she need and left. 

(n=500) 

**I just hope my script never becomes strong enough to do this**

**....or let a cat make my bed**

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Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 36, 715-729. 

PrankvsPrank (2012, November 23). BLACK FRIDAY EMPLOYEE PRANK. Retrieved on February 18, 2013, from http://youtu.be/vtNTgwzt7iY. 

Read, S. J. (1987). Constructing causal scenarios: A knowledge structure approach to causal reasoning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 288-302.  

The only way I am like the Dallas Cowboys.....

Ironic Mental Processes

I like to pride myself in knowing my own strengths and weaknesses. I know I am good at soccer and tennis (especially after having played both sports since I was five), just like I know I am bad at dancing. Growing up I was always a tomboy. As such, I preferred soccer camp to dance camp every single time. I lived in a blissfully ignorant world thinking I would never have to dance. Because I chose to attend a liberal arts school, I am required to take a performing arts credit. Wanting to choose a class for my last semester of college that would leave me with plenty of time to focus on social psychology, I chose to take jazz dance. I thought to myself it would be fun and not too demanding. Come to find out I was completely wrong and came out of my fist class with a syllabus that said one of my course objectives was to “move to the beat” and a reaction similar to this.

In spite of my hesitations, I was determined to get over my non-dancing Jewish white girl stereotype and successfully master moving to the beat. After two weeks of learning my dance, today it was time to perform the dance in small groups in from of the ENTIRE class. In the days leading up to class I practiced many times. I knew the dance backwards and forwards. However, after practicing many times I noticed that I started to over think things that had come so naturally me, things I had never gotten wrong before; I would freeze up and “choke” (Baumeister, 1984). Baumeister (1984) noted this concept as part of self-control; that when individuals try to become so self-focused, especially under pressure, it usually ends with “choking” as a result of trying too hard or thinking too much. I tried so hard and thought about the dance constantly. In my head I envisioned that I was dancing flawlessly, however it came out more like this video of Justin Timberlake and others trying to dance like Beyoncé.

In being a knowledgeable social psychology student who does her readings, I was conscious of this notion and thus started thinking about chocking. I know that consistently thinking of chocking was only going to make my dancing worse and was thus succumbing to ironic processes (Wegner, 1994). Ironic processing is basically when, in trying so hard to suppress, ignore or inhibit a feeling thought or behavior, it becomes even harder to ignore or succeed (Wegner, 1994). Specifically, in my case, every time I tried not to think about messing up my dance or chocking, I ended up thinking about it even more and ended up chocking worse than before.

(n = 457)

I ended up not doing too bad on my dance – I distracted myself with humors YouTube videos absent of dancing. However, I like to further test all concepts I learn about, therefore I leave you with this video and DARE you not to think about it and or sing it the rest of the day. 

*fun fact - these children go on tour to sing this song (I say this song because I don't know if they have any other songs)
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Baumeister, R. F. (1984). Chocking under pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performances. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 610-620.

Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101, 34-52.

5anal (2011, February 13). Beyonce and Justin Timberlake - single ladies. Retrieved on February 5, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLVY5VTanJc.

13twentythree (2012, August 6). Hot Cheetos & Takis [HD]. Retrieved on February 5, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YLy4j8EZIk.