Do people's pain thresholds change depending on whether or not the pain is perceived as voluntary or not? According to Zimbardo's 1969 study of electric shocks, yes, those who thought they had a choice in the matter reported feeling less pain than those who felt they had less choice. Because of the cognitive dissonance that is created in feeling that they have little external justification for allowing themselves to feel this pain, people turn inward to change their attitudes about the pain. In finding a way to justify the pain they feel that they themselves have allowed to happen, they convince themselves the pain isn't that bad, and their bodies actually believe them. They actually have less galvanic skin conductance than those who believe they have little or no choice in receiving the pain.
From an early age, I have hated getting boosters and other types of shots. I would scream and cry no matter what type of needle I was going to be pricked with, and though the screaming and crying has ceased, I still have a panic attack when I get blood drawn or get an IV. I feel that these things are not really voluntary, as I need them to be well. Therefore, when I'm in a situation in which I need to be stuck with a needle it feels like it hurts immensely. According to Zimbardo et al. this perceived pain is due to the fact that I blame the pain on the external factor that it is medically necessary.
On the other hand, I have three tattoos, including two on my feet, and also have had my lip and navel pierced. While I'll admit that both the tattoos on my feet, and the lip piercing hurt, the other two (the navel and the other tattoo) were very minor in the pain scale. Surprisingly, I did not panic when I got any of these things done. I was very willing in my decision to have these things done. All of these things hurt far worse than getting blood drawn or getting an IV, but they caused me much less physical stress. This is because in knowing that there were no external factors to blame, I had made this choice on my own knowing they would hurt, I actually convinced myself and my body that the pain was not so bad. If tattoos were a medically necessary procedure I think myself and many others would probably pass out during the process. But when tattoos are a choice, such as they were for me, I found myself even watching the needle while it was pricking me (which I wouldn't dream of doing during a blood draw).
References:
Zimbardo, P. (1969) The cognitive control of motivation. Glenview, Ill; Scott Foresman.
Zimbardo, P. , Ebbeson, E. & Maslach, C. (1977) Influencing attitudes and changing behavior (2nd ed.). Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Blog 6
Miller and Campbell (1959) demonstrated the recency and primacy effects in jury decisions by having the presentations of the defense and prosecution in differing orders, and differing in the time between the argument presentation and the jury's decision. They found that when the decision was delayed a primacy effect was in place. However, when the decision must be made directly after the presentations, that a recency effect occurred.
While there are probably a plethora of examples of this phenomenon, one example is an error that I make on a regular basis. When I walk through a store of any sort, I try my best to spend as little money as possible. I get only the things that I decide that I absolutely must have. However, when I get to the impulse isle at the checkout stand, I am usually ruined if there is a line at all. Looking at the magazine covers, the candy, and often the little gidgets and gadgets is too much!! Even if I have seen the item elsewhere in the store I cannot resist them when I'm in the home stretch. Even if it is a 5 dollar item I can justify it to myself even if when I was in the store far away from checkout I decided that it was not worth it. I guess I feel that it is my last chance to make a change before I checkout.
Reference:
Miller, N. & Campbell, D. (1959). Recency and primacy in persuasion as a function of the timing of speeches and measurements. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 1-9.
While there are probably a plethora of examples of this phenomenon, one example is an error that I make on a regular basis. When I walk through a store of any sort, I try my best to spend as little money as possible. I get only the things that I decide that I absolutely must have. However, when I get to the impulse isle at the checkout stand, I am usually ruined if there is a line at all. Looking at the magazine covers, the candy, and often the little gidgets and gadgets is too much!! Even if I have seen the item elsewhere in the store I cannot resist them when I'm in the home stretch. Even if it is a 5 dollar item I can justify it to myself even if when I was in the store far away from checkout I decided that it was not worth it. I guess I feel that it is my last chance to make a change before I checkout.
Reference:
Miller, N. & Campbell, D. (1959). Recency and primacy in persuasion as a function of the timing of speeches and measurements. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 1-9.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Blog 5
According to Ajzen and Fishbein (1977) our behavior correlates with our held attitudes only when the attitude is very specific toward that behavior. Otherwise, our attitudes toward something are usually not a very good predictor of how will we behave in a given situation. For example, although I am a strong environmentalist and have participated in many many highway cleanups and other types of beach cleanups, I am the only person among all of my friends who has a littering ticket. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that I am the only person I know of who has ever gotten a ticket for littering. While the people in my various volunteer groups would be shocked to know this, and admittedly I am still shocked by it, the situation in which my ticket occurred did not reflect my attitudes toward the environment.
In fact, I think it would be fair to say that most people in my situation would have behaved the same way regardless of their attitudes. I had a car packed full of things because I was going on a camping trip with some friends. Of course, 35 South was stacked and packed with cars as well, and traffic was stop and go for miles. During one run of the highway we began to pick up speed, then all had to slam on our brakes. Unfortunately, when that occurred some cans from the 12 pack of cokes in the back slid out of their packages, hit the side of the dog kennel and exploded all over me and the car. As they were exploding, I threw the cans into the median of the highway, only to find out that a motorcycle cop was just 3 cars behind me.
If my attitude was that littering is immoral no matter the circumstances, and that the earth comes before anything, I probably would have behaved in accord with that attitude and kept the cans exploding all over the place. But, since my attitude is that you should try to throw away your trash in the trashcan and not be lazy and throw it out the window, in this particular situation my behavior did not necessarily line up with my attitudes.
Reference:
Azjen, I. & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 888-918.
In fact, I think it would be fair to say that most people in my situation would have behaved the same way regardless of their attitudes. I had a car packed full of things because I was going on a camping trip with some friends. Of course, 35 South was stacked and packed with cars as well, and traffic was stop and go for miles. During one run of the highway we began to pick up speed, then all had to slam on our brakes. Unfortunately, when that occurred some cans from the 12 pack of cokes in the back slid out of their packages, hit the side of the dog kennel and exploded all over me and the car. As they were exploding, I threw the cans into the median of the highway, only to find out that a motorcycle cop was just 3 cars behind me.
If my attitude was that littering is immoral no matter the circumstances, and that the earth comes before anything, I probably would have behaved in accord with that attitude and kept the cans exploding all over the place. But, since my attitude is that you should try to throw away your trash in the trashcan and not be lazy and throw it out the window, in this particular situation my behavior did not necessarily line up with my attitudes.
Reference:
Azjen, I. & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 888-918.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Blog 4
When we feel that we are representative a group, or a cause larger than ourself, we often feel pressure to ensure that we are representing that group in a positive fashion. It is important to us that we belong to strong groups. That is why when we feel that when we are representing a group in an area in which stereotypically our group does poorly, we feel added pressure to perform well at the task (Ben-Zeev et al., 2005; Blascovich et al., 2001; O'Brien & Crandall, 2003).
I can remember feeling pressured to represent women in several different areas throughout my life. One example is when I was an athlete the summer before my 6th grade year. I was 12 years old and one of the best female athletes in my school. That summer I took The Althlete's Course, a challenging and rigorous daily morning workout offered at the high school. Only one other girl took the course, a 10th grader at the high school. I felt intimidated by all of the high school football players, and also felt that I was representing not only my sex but also my age. I worked hard every day, and got to the point where I was bench pressing 70 pounds. To this day, I cannot even bench press that amount of weight, but I felt especially pressured to do well, and among guys lift upwards of 100 pounds and much more, I definitely still had a long way to go.
Similarly, I have always been interested in math and science. I've excelled in those subjects as well, passing a year and taking algebra a year earlier than others my age. In my advanced math and science classes, there were usually more boys than girls. One year, I was one of 2 girls in a class of about 15 students in an advanced biology class. I felt added pressure not only to make good grades for myself, but also to break the stereotype that men are better than women in the physical sciences.
References:
Ben-Zeev, T., Fein, S., & Inzlicht, M. (2005). Arousal and stereotype threat. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44, 170-202.
Blascovich, J., Spencer, S., Quinn, D. & Steele, C. (2001). African Americans and high blood pressure: The role of stereotype threat. Psychological Science, 12, 225-229.
O'Brien, L., & Crandall, C. (2003). Stereotype threat and arousal: Effects of women's math performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 782-789.
I can remember feeling pressured to represent women in several different areas throughout my life. One example is when I was an athlete the summer before my 6th grade year. I was 12 years old and one of the best female athletes in my school. That summer I took The Althlete's Course, a challenging and rigorous daily morning workout offered at the high school. Only one other girl took the course, a 10th grader at the high school. I felt intimidated by all of the high school football players, and also felt that I was representing not only my sex but also my age. I worked hard every day, and got to the point where I was bench pressing 70 pounds. To this day, I cannot even bench press that amount of weight, but I felt especially pressured to do well, and among guys lift upwards of 100 pounds and much more, I definitely still had a long way to go.
Similarly, I have always been interested in math and science. I've excelled in those subjects as well, passing a year and taking algebra a year earlier than others my age. In my advanced math and science classes, there were usually more boys than girls. One year, I was one of 2 girls in a class of about 15 students in an advanced biology class. I felt added pressure not only to make good grades for myself, but also to break the stereotype that men are better than women in the physical sciences.
References:
Ben-Zeev, T., Fein, S., & Inzlicht, M. (2005). Arousal and stereotype threat. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44, 170-202.
Blascovich, J., Spencer, S., Quinn, D. & Steele, C. (2001). African Americans and high blood pressure: The role of stereotype threat. Psychological Science, 12, 225-229.
O'Brien, L., & Crandall, C. (2003). Stereotype threat and arousal: Effects of women's math performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 782-789.
IAT blog
As someone who considers themselves open-minded and accepting of all walks of life, I took the IAT with conceptions in mind already of how I would fare. As someone without any conscious biases I expected the IAT to reflect this lack of biases. I took the tests for the gender/job and the black/white faces.
The first test, the black & white bias test, confirmed my conscious belief that I was not biased one way or the other regarding race. I was categorized as someone who does not favor one race over another. This was not surprising, as my whole life I have been around people of all races. My father was a reggae musician for several years up until I was 3 years old, and as a result had many friends of African American descent who babysat me or came to the house from the time I was very young. Early on I learned that people were all different colors and never thought much about race until middle school when race suddenly became a conscious issue between my peers and I. Despite cultural differences that emerged during middle school, I maintained relationships with my friends of various races and have always supported the idea that ALL men are created equal.
The second test, the gender/job correlation test addressed an issue that I care deeply about. Gender roles for females have always outraged me, as I feel that women have been oppressed and under-advantaged because of their societal roles for centuries. Because of these beliefs, I was extremely surprised by the results that I was moderately biased toward men with scientific professions and women with humanities professions. It was especially stunning because when I came to Southwestern I was a biology major aspiring to become a bio-engineer. Furthermore, I refuse to see male doctors and will only rely on female doctors within the field. I thought for a while after reading my results about why I would receive such results. My first reaction, which may not be completely wrong, was to think that it had to do with the order in which the categories appeared. The intuitive societal beliefs were presented first, followed by the non-traditional roles second. I feel that in all three of the tests I was slower when attempting the second condition than the first. Despite this test-order bias, I strongly believe that my results reflected not a personal bias but rather reflected the well-known societal bias toward these career paths and the personality traits associated with them between the genders. Perhaps because of the stereotypes and proportions of actual men and women in these fields that I have personally encountered I am more likely to associate women with the liberal arts and men with the sciences. I need to re-evaluate my own perceptions and assumptions about these professions and the professionals within them.
In order to test my theory that the tests indicate an influence by the effects of the order presentation, I retook the tests in order to determine whether or not order effects were influencing the results. I retook the gender/career IAT, and this time the counter-intuitive or less societal norm condition was presented first. The results indicated a complete flip, in which I was slightly biased toward men having liberal arts professions and women having more science-based professions. This change in results indicates that I am slower at learning the associations for the second condition, after I already have the old associations learned. I feel like while the IAT is valid to some extent, because of order-effects one would need to retry the test at least 3 times to ensure that the results reflect internal beliefs or biases rather than a reflection of the order effect of the conditions.
The first test, the black & white bias test, confirmed my conscious belief that I was not biased one way or the other regarding race. I was categorized as someone who does not favor one race over another. This was not surprising, as my whole life I have been around people of all races. My father was a reggae musician for several years up until I was 3 years old, and as a result had many friends of African American descent who babysat me or came to the house from the time I was very young. Early on I learned that people were all different colors and never thought much about race until middle school when race suddenly became a conscious issue between my peers and I. Despite cultural differences that emerged during middle school, I maintained relationships with my friends of various races and have always supported the idea that ALL men are created equal.
The second test, the gender/job correlation test addressed an issue that I care deeply about. Gender roles for females have always outraged me, as I feel that women have been oppressed and under-advantaged because of their societal roles for centuries. Because of these beliefs, I was extremely surprised by the results that I was moderately biased toward men with scientific professions and women with humanities professions. It was especially stunning because when I came to Southwestern I was a biology major aspiring to become a bio-engineer. Furthermore, I refuse to see male doctors and will only rely on female doctors within the field. I thought for a while after reading my results about why I would receive such results. My first reaction, which may not be completely wrong, was to think that it had to do with the order in which the categories appeared. The intuitive societal beliefs were presented first, followed by the non-traditional roles second. I feel that in all three of the tests I was slower when attempting the second condition than the first. Despite this test-order bias, I strongly believe that my results reflected not a personal bias but rather reflected the well-known societal bias toward these career paths and the personality traits associated with them between the genders. Perhaps because of the stereotypes and proportions of actual men and women in these fields that I have personally encountered I am more likely to associate women with the liberal arts and men with the sciences. I need to re-evaluate my own perceptions and assumptions about these professions and the professionals within them.
In order to test my theory that the tests indicate an influence by the effects of the order presentation, I retook the tests in order to determine whether or not order effects were influencing the results. I retook the gender/career IAT, and this time the counter-intuitive or less societal norm condition was presented first. The results indicated a complete flip, in which I was slightly biased toward men having liberal arts professions and women having more science-based professions. This change in results indicates that I am slower at learning the associations for the second condition, after I already have the old associations learned. I feel like while the IAT is valid to some extent, because of order-effects one would need to retry the test at least 3 times to ensure that the results reflect internal beliefs or biases rather than a reflection of the order effect of the conditions.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)