Why does Ross Marry Rachel?...I mean Emily

In the show, Friends, two main characters Ross and Rachel are in a serious relationship, and then break up. In order to move on, Ross begins dating a new girl, Emily. Throughout their relationship, Ross finds himself continuously thinking about Rachel, and the viewer is led to believe that Ross still has feelings for her, and wants to get back together with her.

In this predicament, Ross faces cognitive dissonance in the sense that his actions: dating Emily, do not line up with his feelings: loving Rachel. In order to reduce his discomfort, Ross has three options: change his behavior, change his cognition, or add a new cognition. Ross chooses to change his cognition. He really loves Rachel, but he is dating Emily. So, in order to change his cognition, he tells himself that he loves Emily. Ross forces himself to recall all the positive attributes of Emily and all the negative qualities that Rachel would bring to a relationship.

Ross exacerbates his situation by proposing to Emily, but reveals his true feelings when he accidentally says Rachel’s name at the alter. Ross further justifies his dissonance by claiming it was an accident, and forces himself to continuously profess his love for Emily, and, by no coincidence, he says Rachel’s name again.

While Ross doesn’t every actually cheat on Emily, he does in fact think about Rachel throughout the entire relationship, which can be classified as emotional cheating.

To bolster this proposition, the experiment, “It did not mean anything (about me)” tested whether thinking about prior acts of infidelity promotes cognitive dissonance. In the study participants, who reported having one prior relationship that lasted at least three months, were asked to remind themselves about how faithful they consider themselves to be, and then were given bogus feedback suggesting they had been either somewhat faithful or unfaithful. The participants were then asked to complete measures of self-concept discrepancy, psychological discomfort, and affect. In conclusion, participants who were led to believe that they had been unfaithful reported symptoms associated with cognitive dissonance.

As the study suggests, Ross’ infidelity to Emily leads him to a dissonance between his need to be a righteous person, and committing an immoral act. Ross tries to reduce this dissonance by supporting his decision even though they are mere justifications as opposed to real feelings. This proposition makes us wonder, how often are we in relationships in which we subconsciously justify our partner when in reality we are emotionally not into the relationship?

-Kara McCormack

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships November 2013 vol. 30no. 7 835-857

The One with Monica's Boots: Cognitive Dissonance in Friends

Since we talked about justification as one of the ways in which we resolve cognitive dissonance, I started thinking about which behaviors we often feel the need to justify. One of the ones that I related to was shopping—what we buy, why we buy it, and how much we spend on it are things that we feel need a reason behind them. Logically, it makes more sense to spend money on things we need rather than items with more hedonic value. When we spend more on things we want, rather than need, we experience cognitive dissonance. Thinking about this, I was reminded of an episode of Friends where Monica buys a very expensive pair of boots, specifically the following scene: 

You can hear the slight guilt and discomfort in Monica’s voice as she says, “They’re a little more than I usually spend on boots, or rent.” As Chandler responds, he voices more of the dissonance that Monica is feeling, asking whether Monica purchased boots or boats, and sarcastically stating, “I’m going to miss being able to afford food.” To resolve dissonance, we need to either change our behavior to be consistent with our beliefs, change our beliefs to match our behavior, or add new cognitions or thoughts. Chandler suggests that Monica return the boots, which would reconcile her behavior with her beliefs, but instead she adds a new cognition instead: “I know they cost a lot, but I’m gonna wear them all the time, you’ll see!”

Based on the study, “The Effect of Effort and Expectation on Perceptual Contrast and Dissonance Reduction,” in which participants completed a shopping task in high expectation, low expectation, high effort, and low effort conditions, Monica’s response is not the most common way to resolve dissonance, but makes sense for the circumstances. Spending more money on the boots can be likened to high effort because if the price of the boots is outside of Monica’s budget, which, considering Chandler’s reaction, it is, more effort does have to be used to obtain the boots. The study showed that inflating the value of the object received, which was a pen, “was not the preferred means of dissonance reduction, even though such inflation did occur slightly more often among high effort than low effort subjects” (Cardozo & Bramel, 1969, 61) Because Monica put more effort into buying the shoes, their perceived value was increased, especially in terms of their utility (wearing them all the time). In Cardozo and Bramel’s study, high effort was believed to increase high expectations in the high expectation condition, leading to the prediction that this condition would cause increased distortion of the value of the pen. Though the pen was rated higher by the higher effort group than the low effort group, the results were not statistically significant. This may be somewhat due to the item being a pen; maybe the phenomenon would happen at a greater rate within the study if a different object was used, since the value of a pen seems to be something that would fluctuate very little. Monica can be assumed to be in the high expectation category because she is in love with the boots, so she expects to be very satisfied with them, which in combination with the effort put in to get them causes her to rate their utility value more highly. She exhibits both effort justification and addition of a cognition in resolving her dissonance. 

The best part of the episode is that after Monica has resolved her dissonance, she is confronted with another issue: the shoes are incredibly painful to wear!

[Submitted by Shannon Kay] 

References

Cardozo, R., & Bramel, D. (1969). The Effect of Effort and Expectation on Perceptual Contrast and             Dissonance Reduction. The Journal of Social Psychology, 79, 55-62. 

Diversity Day: Prejudice, Discrimination, and Stereotypes

I can honestly say I have never met a person who does not enjoy the show The Office. In fact, about a week ago one of my friends from home decided to play a cruel joke on me and tell me that the show had been removed from Netflix... when the first tear was about to fall from my eye she decided to be nice enough to save me some tissues and say that she had lied and the show is still alive and well. One of the aspects of The Office that people find most comical is the blunt way in which Michael Scott, the show's main character, approaches uncomfortable issues within the work place. In just the second episode of the series, Michael comes up with a "creative" way, so to speak, to portray and, in his mind, deal with diversity within the office. On what is known as Diversity Day, Michael Scott has each of the employees place an index card on his or her head without looking at what is written on it. On each card there is a "race" (as Michael refers to it); the activity that the members of the office participate in is that they must each go up to another person and describe stereotypes that pertain to the group of people written on the card on the head of his / her colleague.

Although Michael's activity can very much be considered flawed and inappropriate, it serves to convey a major societal issue of prejudice, our assigned topic of discussion for week 7. The obvious way in which the activity is flawed is the use of the word "race" as the term for the groups of people written on each card. As for the appropriateness of the activity... I don't think any explantation is needed.

Prejudice is defined as a hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership to that group. The cognitive component of prejudice is stereotypes, which are defined as generalizations about a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among the members. In the clip below, Pam hesitantly uses the stereotype that Asian people are bad drivers. In turn, Dwight associates this same stereotype with women. Describing both Asians and women as bad drivers is also an example of out-group homogeneity, which is the belief that every member of a distinct group is more alike in one way or another than the individuals of the group are in reality (in this case, all Asians and all women are bad drivers, not just the specific examples of either that we have encountered).

If prejudice is the affective component and stereotypes are the cognitive component, then the last piece of the bias-puzzle that is left to discuss is the behavioral component: discrimination. Discrimination is an unjustified negative or harmful action toward members of a group based solely on their membership in that group. If the prejudice feelings and stereotypical thoughts presented in these previous scenes of The Office were carried out into the real world, you might see Pam and Dwight laying down on their car horns and screaming slurs out their windows at an Asian and female driver in front of them, respectively. In a more worldly context, however, where do we see many examples of discrimination and the harmful affects that it has on people of target groups?

A study done by E. Ashby Plant and B. Michelle Peruche was done to examine shooter bias, a major issue that we have seen in recent years largely publicized in the news. Shooter bias is the idea that prejudice towards and stereotypical thoughts of African Americans lead police officers to pull their guns on African American suspects quicker than on white suspects. In a computer-simulated experiment, police officers were posed with pictures of either a white or black assailant accompanied by either a gun or a neutral object (ie. a wallet). The officers were instructed to hit a button that represented shooting the assailant or a button that represented not shooting the assailant. The results of the study showed that officers made the most errors when white men were shown with a gun (not shooting) and when black men were shown without a gun (shooting) (Plant & Peruche, 2005). The findings prove that a shooter bias does exist. The reason for this bias can be contributed to black stereotypes that associate African Americans, men especially, with violence, criminality, danger, etc.

Michael Scott, as seen in these clips and the remainder of his time in The Office series, could clearly use some help in reducing his prejudice way of thinking. Social psychologists have come up with methods to do so, including the contact hypothesis, which simply says that putting different groups in some sort of contact with one another can lead to less prejudice feelings. In a study done by Muzafer Sherif in 1961, the lead social psychologists and his colleagues were able to bring two groups of boys, who had purposely been pitted against each other in a camp-like situation by the psychologists, by giving them a superordinate goal, which is one that requires mutual interdependence, the need to depend on one another to accomplish a goal that is important to both sides.

[Submitted by: Alexis Leighton]

References

Plant, E., & Peruche, B. (n.d.). The Consequences of Race for Police Officers' Responses to Criminal Suspects. Psychological Science, 180-183.

Hay on the Roof

I have read an interesting story about a smart farmer and a “stupid” cow. One day, a visitor came to the farmer’s village and saw the farmer was feeding a cow. Instead of putting the hay on the ground, the farmer placed the hay on the roof of his house, at where his cow had to work hard in order to get its food. The visitor was curious and he asked why the farmer has done so. The farmer told him that the quality of his hay was not so good that the cow might refuse eating them when it could get the hay easily. Yet, when he put the hay on the roof, that the cow had to try hard to get them, the cow would eat all of the hay quickly. 

You might laugh at that cow, because we all know that the hay are the same but the cow is more willing to eat the hay that is not easily accessible. You might find it unbelievable as well. But I am telling you now that we are very often the cow in our daily lives, will you believe it? 

Have you ever experienced that you always feel your friend’s meal look better than yours when you might have something very similar? Have you once asked your friend that why does he cheat on his girlfriend, with another girl, who, in your opinion, might not even be as pretty? Have you noticed that you would be more cautious when you spend your money that you have earned? Have you ever wondered that why your mom always prefer a Chanel handbag to an unknown brand bag even though the unknown brand bag is much cheaper and the only different between them is the Chanel logo? The key to those questions is a common reality that exists in our daily lives, which we call effort justification. 

People always believe a goal is worthwhile if they have worked hard to get there. Emma S, Gray G and other experts in psychological field have conducted an experiment about rats, which could prove the effort justification effect. In this study, sixteen male rats were given sucrose reinforcers under four conditions: a low-effort master condition, a low-effort yoked condition, a high-effort master condition, and a high-effort yoked condition. Rats were required to make 10 or 50 lever presses to receive a 60-second presentation of sucrose, when in the low-and high-effort master conditions. In the corresponding yoked conditions, rats received reinforcements at the same time as the rats in the master conditions, but did not have access to the lever. The result suggests that rats perceived the reinforcers as more palatable in the high-effort condition than in the low-effort condition. 

The experiment explains why the cow was more willing to eat the hay on the roof, too. Because of the effort justification, the cow's brain let him believed that the hay on the roof is more delicious so working hard for them is worthwhile. Similarly, the theory can be applied to explain that the reason for people always prefer things that are not so accessible to us. Although the only different between a Chanel handbag and another unknown bag is the logo, we tend to in favor of the Chanel bag because we have to work harder to get one and we probably spend more time thinking cautiously which one to get. The Chanel bag is like the hay on the roof for the cow, and the universal theory that has been applied to both of the example is our effort justification. Now can you still comment confidently on the cow saying it is stupid? 

Let’s reflecting our daily lives. Although effort justification is a common phenomenon, it is definitely worthwhile to sit back and think about effort justification in our lives. We all have dreams and goals and we are working hard for them. But at the same time, are we blind to things that we already had? Are we ignoring things that close to us? “Other’s soup/other’s dress/other’s girlfriend/boyfriend” are always better than ours, but is that really what we believe? It is always good to aim big, but meanwhile, why don't we stop chasing and looking for the hay on the roof, but halt for a minute to cherish things and people that are around us, and the life we have at the present. 

Lydall, E., Gilmour, G., & Dwyer, D. (2010). Rats place greater value on rewards produced by high effort: An animal analogue of the “effort justification” effect. Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(6), 1134-1137. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.05.011




[Posted by Siyu Liu]
THANKS FOR READING and Have a nice DAY!:)

Why did Mr. Clark Shoot Innocent Surgeons?

               Netflix and chill…That’s what I did during fall break aside from working at the YMCA.  During my Netflix sessions, I decided to re-watch some of my favorite episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and analyze them in the lens of Chapters 5 and 6.  Best of both worlds…got to Netflix and chill while doing social psychology at the same time, how much better could life get!!!  I revisited Season 6 Episodes 23 and 24 titled, “Sanctuary” and “Death and All his Friends” respectfully.  SPOILER ALERT.  The husband of a patient who was taken off of life support comes back to the hospital to seek “revenge”, “an eye for an eye” against Dr. Shepard, Dr. Weber, and Dr. Grey.  As with all drama television shows, they do a great job exhibiting the behaviors and emotions that real people could portray if they were in a similar situation of an active shooter.  My goal is to explain why the shooter felt the need to seek revenge against the surgeons that tried to save his wife’s life. 

                The shooter’s agitation (Mr. Clark) level increased and was exhibited by harsher tone and being less tolerant to those who were too busy to help him find the chief-of surgery, (Dr. Shepard) and shot those who did not care for his need to see the chief.  As people continued to not point him in the direction of the chief of surgery claiming to be surgeons and already busy enough, he assimilated the “busy surgeon” mentality to the care that he felt Dr. Shepard, Dr. Weber, and Dr. Grey failed to give to his wife.  He generalized this schema to cover all surgeons and when he encountered Dr. Bailey, Dr. Percy, and patient, he questioned them, “Are you a surgeon,” this simple “yes or no” question decided whether he shot them. 

The question that I had was why was Mr. Clark shooting innocent doctors instead of only shooting his three target people?  Did the revenge feel more justified by killing the generalized surgeons?  To answer this question, I visited the literature specifically the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology to an article titled, “Displaced revenge: Can revenge taste “sweet” if it aims at a different target?”  They tested this by randomly assigning participants to a 2 x 2 between-subjects design in which the first condition was entitativity: low vs. high and the second condition was revenge: direct vs. displaced.  Entitativity is a word to describe the connectedness of the target group.  Participants read a vignette to arouse the desire to take revenge which was then assessed  through a 6-point Likert scale.  There was then a second vignette which described how the revenge took place and participants then assessed their justice-related satisfaction on the same scale.  This study concluded that displaced revenge against a member within a group with high entitativity alleviated negative feelings such as regret and increased the satisfaction of the revenge process.  This can be linked back to Mr. Clark because in a hospital setting all the surgeons wear the same color scrubs which physically show high entitativity.  Additionally their high entitativity is shown when Christina and her surgical team perform heart surgery on Dr. Shepard to save his life, the shooter ends up shooting another doctor because he came in between Mr. Clark and his number one suspect, Dr. Shepard.  The strong cohesiveness of the surgical residents and attending physicians allowed Mr. Clark to generalize that all surgeons were bad like Dr. Shepard and that further justified him to shoot the uninvolved surgeons.

Gollwitzer, M. & Sjostrom, A. (2014). Displaced revenge: Can revenge taste “sweet” if it aims at a             different target? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 56(2015), 191-202.                                   http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsep.2014.09.0160022-1031/.

Corey LaForest-Roys

Hipster Barbie & Deceptive Impression Management

Ah, Instagram, a social media platform as ubiquitous to current American culture as apple pie. Everyone you know has an account: your friends, your school, most major companies (Taco Bell has 640k Insta followers, I'm not kidding), and probably a few extended family members you wish didn't. 

Many have criticized Instagram for promoting unrealistic expectations of reality, but none better than @SocalityBarbie, a satirical account that aims to show how unauthentic images of supposed #authenticliving can really be.

All forms of social media are tools that allow users to actively engage in impression management, a process whereby individuals attempt to control the way they are viewed by others. It is only natural to want to show ourselves in a positive, flattering light so that we can both maintain high self-esteem and gain the esteem of our peers. But what happens when we try so hard to portray our best selves that we begin to diverge from reality? What happens when the aspirational "selves" we see online cannot be brought in line with what is possible? 

In most instances, we know that our friends are pretty similar to us. Yes, they might have felt truly #blessed for their #starbucks #PSL on Thursday morning, but we saw them post-selfie and knew they were late to class and wearing the same clothes we saw them wearing in the library the night before. That caffeine was the only thing getting them through class. Despite their social media presence that suggests otherwise, they, just like us, are human. But then there are people we don't know outside of their online personas: celebrities, athletes, or complete strangers who just happen to have an eye for good lighting. These are the people being addressed by Hipster Barbie and all her beautiful, scenic snapshots of the Pacific Northwest. We know that her mountaintop selfies are mere moments in time, and that they are genuinely illustrative of neither that moment nor her life as a whole. The account's creator started this project to make fun of the fake lives people pretend to lead, but somewhere deep down we want Hipster Barbie's perfect life, and the perfect lives of everyone else who is Insta-famous, to feel real. Because if they can do it, maybe so can we. Do instagram accounts such as these inspire us to  live beautiful #authentic lives, or do they promote negative self-evaluations and feelings of inadequacy? 

In a recent publication, Lup et al. (2015) found that, well, it depends. In this observational study, online questionnaires were used to establish each participant's Instagram use and administer self-report scales regarding depression and social comparison behaviors. Unsurprisingly, Instagram use correlated positively with depressive symptoms (though only marginally). But, statistical analysis also revealed that the amount of strangers followed moderated the association between Instagram use and depressive symptoms via social comparisons. The SparkNotes version of their results essentially suggests that Instagram will negatively impact your sense of self if you follow a bunch of strangers but won't if you follow fewer strangers.

Following beautiful instagram accounts will fill your feed with pictures of happy, beautiful people living happy, beautiful lives, but the repercussions of such selective curation might be less joyous. Next time you're looking through your account, consider leaving the celeb selfies to TMZ and just following your friends. 

Lup, K., Trub, L., & Rosenthal, L. (2015). Instagram# Instasad?: exploring associations among Instagram use, depressive symptoms, negative social comparison, and strangers followed. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(5), 247-252.

[Post by Colleen Hynes]

The GOAT and Growth

Yes, I am a Bostonian, and with it comes a zealous devotion to an annoyingly successful plethora of sports teams. So on Sunday, while eating the nachos and chili my mom so lovingly made and watching the highly anticipated matchup of the Patriots and Cowboys game, Tom Brady reminded me of a social psychological phenomenon. Brady repeatedly evolves and picks himself up after difficult times. In 2008, Brady stepped up to throw a pass to wide receiver Randy Moss in the week one matchup against the Chiefs, but was unfortunately sacked and tore his ACL. Many athletes have suffered this injury and failed to come back better and stronger. However, Brady did just that. In 2009, Brady won the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award. Since the injury, he has led the Patriots to win 2 AFC Championships, 1 Super Bowl, attended the Pro Bowl 6 times and was named Super Bowl MVP.

     This is a perfect example of the growth mindset. Which is the idea that our abilities are malleable qualities that we can cultivate and grow. This mindset is crucial to an individual’s success. Those with the opposite, a fixed mindset, are more likely to give up after a setback and less likely to motivate themselves to achieve more. Those with a growth mindset are allowed to alter their goals and find new constructive ways to achieve them. 

     An example, of this can be related to a study conducted by Lee, Heeter, Magerko, and Medler in 2012. They tested undergraduate students and had them play a game called Do I have a Right?, which is a serious game play for teaching United States Constitutional Amendments. They developed two mindsets and then had the participants answer questions for each category. They measured the participants' learning ability and how well they performed the game over a course of four days. This study used survey and gameplay server data to examine the different mindsets in the context of learning a game. The findings show that growth mindset players performed better than fixed mindset players, their mistakes did not affect their attention to the game, and they read more learning feedback than fixed mindset players. In addition, growth mindset players were more likely to actively seek difficult challenges, which is often essential to self-directed learning.
    

     From the study and example it is clear that growth mindset can help with knowledge and learning as well as athletic goals. It is apparent that a growth mindset allows for people to achieve more in challenging circumstances. It would be wiser to maintain this outlook, because it makes an individual more persistent in their endeavors. I apologize, but I will use Brady as an example again. Coming back from the drawn out scrutiny of Deflate-Gate, many expected the great quarter-back to face a season of distraction and failure. However, once again, he utilizes growth mindset and even in adversity, remains successful. The key to a growth mindset is to always challenge yourself and reinvent ways in which you can handle problems. 

[Submitted by: Katie Hayes]

Reference

Lee, Y., Heeter, C., Magerko, B., & Medler, B. (2012). Gaming Mindsets: Implicit Theories in           Serious Game Learning. Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, 15(4), 190-194.       doi:10.1089/cyber.2011.0328

Is there a dark side to collectivist thinking? Cognitive dissonance in the U.S. and Japan

Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is discrepant from one’s customary, typically positive self-conception. Like many other topics we have learned in Social Psychology, cognitive dissonance varies across cultures. Japan has a collectivist culture, meaning that the needs of the group matter more than the individual. As a result, Japanese individuals are more likely to experience cognitive dissonance when their behavior shames or disappoints others instead of themselves.  

 Growing up in a Japanese-American household, it has been extremely interesting to learn about how cultural differences have an affect on many aspects of Social Psychology. We’ve seen that Western societies tend to have Individualistic cultures whereas East Asian societies tend to have Collectivist cultures. We have learned that this difference in cultures has led to analytic vs. holistic style thinking as well as a difference in the attribution of internal and external attributes. After learning about how these cultural differences have an influence on behavior, I’ve started to make connections about observations I have made about Japanese behavior during previous visits to see family in Japan.

Recently, Japan has experienced incredibly high rates of suicide. When I travel to Japan, it feels like there is a train delay due to an “accident” every day of the week. Unfortunately, these “accidents” are due to individuals jumping in front of trains to their death. Many times, footage will show businessmen in full suit attire committing this act of suicide on their way home from work. The news will broadcast later that night that this businessman had recently lost his job and was too ashamed to face his family. To avoid shame by his community, he felt his only option was to end his life. This kind of suicide is so common in Japan that trains have been remodeled to make the post-suicide clean up process easier and new calming blue lights have been installed in many train stations in effort to persuade suicidal individuals not to jump.

Blue lights added to train stations in attempt to decrease suicide attempts.

Many attribute this suicidal tendency in Japan to a term called senkentei, which is a person’s reputation in the community and the pressure he or she feels to impress others. The effects of senkentei have caused many recent college graduates in Japan to fall victim to hikikomori, which is the tendency for young people to withdraw from society and remain indoors for fear of social failure. Seemingly small set backs such as low grades or rejection from college may trigger hikikomori and cause these individuals to withdraw from society by taking shelter in their homes. Unfortunately, parents of children that withdraw and fear the outside world are reluctant to get help because the parents also fear judgment from society for admitting that they have a child with hikikomori.  

A study of Japanese and American college students in 2004 looked at the difference in cognitive dissonance in these two cultures. They asked both Japanese and American students to rank their top 10 favorite CDs as well as what they thought were the top 10 favorite CDs of the average college student in their country. They hypothesized that Japanese students would show a dissonance effect by changing their ranking if they are primed to worry about how others would judge their choices. Supporting this hypothesis, Japanese students were in fact more likely than American students to adjust their ranking of favorite CDs when self-relevant social others were salient (Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus & Suzuki, 2004). On the other hand, priming the American students to worry about how others would judge their choices did not cause them to change their original rankings of the CDs. Instead, American participants’ dissonance reflected a worry about their own competence and internal attributes. American students were more concerned with whether or not their choices were foolish of themselves, whereas Japanese students were concerned with whether or not their choices made themselves look like a fool to others.

This collectivist concentration on the way an individual appears to others can cause increased levels of anxiety about bringing shame to their family or community. I’ve personally witnessed the some of the consequences of this heightened level of anxiety during my visits to Japan. Reading about the effects of culture on Cognitive Dissonance has made me think about whether some aspects of cultural values can be reversed to prevent some of the adverse consequences of the fear of shame. Unfortunately, it seems as if some of the attempts at decreasing suicide are more focused preventing train delaysrather than focusing on decreasing the societal pressures that lead individuals to feel intense Cognitive Dissonance and seek suicidal actions. 

[Submitted by: Tiffany Holland]

Reference

Kitayama, S., Snibbe, A. C., Markus, H. R., & Suzuki, T. (2004). Is There Any 'Free' Choice?: Self and Dissonance in Two Cultures. Psychological Science, 15(8), 527-533. doi:10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00714.x

Cutting Away Death Anxiety

     This past Saturday, I started out fall break the same way any respectable student would: Netflix binge. However after a few hours, that got old and I decided to give live TV a chance. Looking to be more educational I decided upon watching Botched for its amazing surgical technique. Yes the drama, and ridiculous characters are an added bonus, but as a junior on the pre-health track, I was totally watching for academic reasons...

          As one poor patient was getting his nose broken and reset for the fourth time in his life, I sat in my pjs while eating Nutella out of a jar. As I was sitting there, I began to think to myself, “What on earth is it that makes these people become so obsessed with looking like cartoon characters?” Don't get me wrong, I've looked in the mirror one or twice and thought about how I'd prefer a nose that wasn't shaped like a potato, but I've never felt the need to look like a Barbie Doll. There must be a multitude of different reason why these people want to change themselves.

        Thinking about this led me to recall what we discussed in class, about how the idea of the self is created. Not only do these patients trying to change their appearance, but they usually are trying to fix body parts that were incorrectly altered in their attempt to shape who they are as people.

           These patients are following their core motive of wanting to feel good about themselves. In doing so they are adhering to Terror Management Theory. On the surface, these patients are attempting to look better, and more youthful. However deep down they are inflating their self-esteem in order to protect themselves from thoughts about their own morality. Through use of Botox, and face-lifts, these individuals are attempting to kick aging to the curve.

         In a study done by Kim-Pong Tam, the use of cosmetic surgery as a symbolic coping mechanism against death anxiety was discussed. Researchers performed both a correlation study and an experiment where they hypothesized that, in accordance to Terror Management Theory, when someone's death anxiety is heightened, he or she would be more accepting of cosmetic surgery. In their first study, 242 participants were asked to complete the following three written tests, measured on a 7 point scale: the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale, the Death Attitude Profile-Revised, and the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale. The researchers found that there was a positive correlation between death terror and cosmetic surgery acceptance.

         In the second study, a typical TMT experiment was performed. 117 undergrad students were randomly assigned to three conditions: control, mortality salience with no delay, and mortality salience condition. Those in the mortality salience condition were primed with a reminder of their own mortality. The participants completed the previously listed written tests and it was found that those reminded of their inevitable death were had a higher acceptance of cosmetic surgery than the control group.

        After reading this article, and I began to look at Botched a little differently. Yes, not all of these participants were trying to look more youthful, but those individuals who did get such procedures probably were trying to cope with death anxiety. This doesn't mean that they will by any means beat death, but they have distracted themselves from what is yet to come. I may not be jumping to go under the knife, but now I have a better understanding of why others do. Death anxiety is real, and people will do whatever they can to suppress it.

Tam, K. (2013). Existential Motive Underlying Cosmetic Surgery: A Terror Management Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 43(5), 947-955. doi:10.1111

-Alyssa Kastrinakis 

TMT and Advertisement

Now a day almost every popular television show involves some component of death.  Main characters are no longer safe from being killed off and it is almost impossible to come up with a current show that does not have any element of death.  It is also impossible to watch television without ads coming up every 10 minutes; a recent study has shown that advertisements immediately following a death scene increase the effectiveness of those ads.  While one would think that a scene involving death would lower our desire for material consumption, Terror Management Theory explains why the opposite is true. TMT suggests when reminded of our own death we attempt to bolster our cultural values and self-esteem.  In America we value materialism and possession, so consuming becomes our way of fighting our death anxiety.

            In 2012, Ilan Dar-Nimrod conducted a series of studies in an attempt to prove these theories about death scenes and advertisement efficiency.  He showed two groups of participants two different, 10 minute clips from television shows, the control saw a scene which did not mention death, and the experimental group saw a scene in which an infant died of SIDS.  After the clip each group saw a series of comparable advertisements and were asked to rank them in various categories.  The results of the study showed a significant higher desire and willingness to buy for the products show immediately after viewing a death scene.  A second study was conducted similarly to replicate and expand the results, which they were. 

            This study is just one example of the power of Terror Management Theory, it shows how even fictional deaths can trigger our own death anxiety and cause us to act in ways we otherwise may not.  Even if it is unconscious, when we view the death of a character on a television show we become anxious about our own death and lose some self-confidence.  We begin to look for ways too sooth that anxiety and before we know advertisements are playing and an opportunity presents itself.  American values tell us material possessions are of high value and so the ads playing in front of us become more effective without us even realizing it.

            When looking back it is hard to find a real-life experience supporting this because for the most part it takes place below the conscious level, but one particular instance does stand out.  I was watching a show with my brother when one of our favorite characters died.  One the first commercials following that scene was for a pair of shoes I had been debating buying for a little bit and upon seeing the commercial decided to go online and buy them right then.  At the time I thought nothing of it but when reconsidering it is possible to see how the death of the character was able to influence my decision. 

            Terror Management Theory can be manifested in many ways, this is just one, but it is one that may not be considered right away.  One may not realized how consumerism is linked to a theory about death, but these studies clearly outline how they are related.  TMT may spread way further that we realize and this is just one example of it affecting something we would not normally consider.

DAR-NIMROD, I. (2012). Viewing Death on Television Increases the Appeal of Advertised Products. The Journal    of Social Psychology, 152(2), 199–211.

- Tom Haracz