WTF Do I Do? Why, Social Psychology of course!

PhizzleDizzle put up this post before I left for vacation, her own "WTF Do You Do" meme. Since JLK is bored out of her freaking mind right now, I'm going to take this opportunity to explain my field to you.

(How many posts is this in 24 hours, like 7? Jeeez......I have to clean my house or something)

Fig 1: JLK is totally that hot.

So WTF does JLK do? My focus is the field of social psychology. Wikipedia defines social psych as "the study of how people and groups interact." I don't like that definition, what else does it say....

Their approach to the field focuses on the individual and attempts to explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by other people. Psychologically oriented researchers emphasize the immediate social situation and the interaction between person and situation variables. Their research tends to be empirical and quantitative, and it is often centered around laboratory experiments, but there are some computational modeling efforts in the field.

That's better, but still not quite right. I much prefer the definition that my social psych professor gave us at MRU:

Social psychology is the study of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the real or imagined presence of others. 

May not seem like an important distinction at first, but it is. Let's say, for example, that I told you I had hidden cameras all over your house, watching everything you do. Regardless of whether those cameras are actually there or not, you will act differently than if you thought you were alone, even though no one else is actually there. And quite frankly, if you don't act differently, that's even more interesting to social psychologists. 

Fig 2: JLK does this all the time. Whether she's alone or not. 

The other major sub-fields of psychology include the following (for comparison purposes):

Clinical Psychology:

...includes the scientific study and application of psychology for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development.

Developmental Psychology:

...is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of the life span.

Cognitive Psychology:

...is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language.

Personality Psychology:

...is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences.

There are a ton of sub-sub fields in psychology, like health psychology, sports psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, etc. But the fields listed above are the most common specialty programs found at graduate institutions, with the smaller fields falling underneath their respective umbrellas. 

Personality psychology is the most closely related to social psychology. Many graduate programs combine the two, and the major journals are also combined, such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

Social psychology has produced probably the most controversial and most important psychological studies in our history. Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiments, Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, Bibb Latane and John Darley's Bystander Effect experiments, Eliot Aronson's Jigsaw Classroom studies, the list goes on and on.

The topics of research within social psych are numerous. My particular broad areas of interest include socialization and intergroup processes, though I also like to dabble a bit in personality psychology with respect to impression formation.

So WTF does that mean?

Let's start with socialization. I am going to define socialization as the process of the environment (other people, culture, etc.) acting on an individual as they develop an identity. Some people simply describe socialization as learning, which also works as long as you take into account observational/passive learning in addition to active processes. But I digress. 

I'm going to take a risk here and get more specific about my own interests, because at this point, frankly, who gives a shit. My apps are out, superfuckingrockstarholyshit.... program already rejected me, and I am without an institutional affiliation at the moment. So fuck it. 

Okay, so within socialization I am interested in two things: gender and birth order. Gender is my primary, birth order is just something I think is cool. I'll probably end up doing a separate post about gender, but I'll give you the basics here. 

How did you learn to be a "boy" or a "girl"? Chances are, from the moment you were born your parents and other adults were dressing you in either pink or blue clothing depending on your biological sex. You were given gender "appropriate" toys before you were old enough to develop a preference. You were read stories about princesses being rescued by princes. On and on it goes. You learned rules for behaving and looking like one gender or the other. Perhaps you were told "Act like a young lady" or "Boys don't cry." Regardless of the level or source of the influence, we were all socialized for gender based on our biological sex at birth. 

Fig 3: From a website that actually promises it can help you have a baby of the desired sex. http://www.arborita.lt/EN/miniStore/gender-selection-EN.htm

And make no mistake, biological sex and gender are two distinct, separate things. 

Now, gender research is incredibly controversial and there are major debates going on in the scientific community about this very topic. Some scientists feel that gender is inborn - I read a book by a doctor in which she claimed that attempts to raise children as gender-neutral fail. She used the example of a little girl who was given a fire truck to play with who ended up wrapping the truck in a blanket and holding it like a baby. Can't remember the book right now, if anyone is interested email me and I'll find it. 

Fig 4: Found it! This book is a crock of shit.

In any event, there is really no evidence to support this claim. Gender appears to be affected by both environmental and biological factors. But there are many who believe it is exclusively one or the other. 

I am interested in how gender is socialized with respect to communication style (both verbal and non-verbal), what the implications are of raising children as gender neutral as possible, transgender studies, and the psychological effects (if there are any) of being androgynous. At its most basic level, I want to know what gender differences can be traced to biology as much as possible, and which differences are entirely (or almost entirely) due to socialization alone. 

Okay, on to birth order. I highly recommend reading the book The Birth Order Book by Kevin Leman. Everyone should read it just for the hell of it, for yourself or for your children. The basic premise behind birth order studies is that where you fall in the family order has remarkable and long-lasting (if not permanent) effects on your personality. There's a good amount of research to back this up. Think about people you know - do those who are only or oldest children have distinct personalities from those who were the youngest in their family? If you or someone you know has a much younger sibling (7+yrs age difference), does that sibling have the personality of an only child? 

Fig 5: I loved this book. It's not so scientific, but it's a great intro.

Basically, only and oldest children are the targets of parental anxiety. They're the first-born, when parents have no clue what they're doing. There is a lot of pressure on them to succeed, and they tend to develop perfectionist personalities. Only children are more subject to this, because parents have an "all eggs in one basket" mentality. Youngest children, by contrast, tend to be attention-seekers, class clowns, and are overall much less serious than their older siblings. Middle children are even-tempered negotiators. There are tons of traits associated with each birth order slot, and it's fascinating to think about how much of a person's personality comes from when they were born. 

Last but not least - intergroup processes. For me, that means the -isms: racism, sexism, ageism, etc. Us versus Them mentalities. In social psych, there are "in-groups" and "out-groups." The group you are a part of is your in-group. Everyone else is the out-group, however those groups may be divided up. (Blacks vs whites, women vs men, freshmen vs seniors, Steelers fans vs Cardinals fans, whatever.) Interesting point of fact - we tend to view our own group has being more diverse than the opposing group. This deals with stereotypes. I am interested in counteracting intergroup processes by whatever means possible, including the popular media, school classrooms, etc. We know that meaningful exposure helps to combat stereotyping and -isms. I want to work to bombard our culture with meaningful exposure to minimize grouping effects as much as I can. Naive? Maybe. Worth working for? Abso-fuckin-lutely. 

I think that concludes my discussion of WTF I do. I would be more than happy to answer questions or direct people to other resources, just let me know. 

I am totally going to clean my house now.....