Sennett discusses about working with resistance. “Applying minimum force is the most effective way to work with resistance.” (Pg 210) I agree with what Sennett says because like his example which he talks about how a “Zen rule says that the skilled archer should stop struggling to hit the target and instead study the target itself; accuracy of will eventually ensue. (pg 210)

When Sennet talks about repairing I agree more with reconfiguration. “The broken objects serves as an occasion to make the object different than it was before, in function as well as in form.” (pg 214) I have used this in many ways. When i saw scrap wood that was just laying around I built a fence for my dog. You can also use this for different things like papers.

2:32 pm  •  25 April 2012

I am really not sure what I will do with this assignment. But I found some of the stuff we reviewed today interesting. The fun rhetorical video looks really fun to do. I have seen other videos before and always wondered how I could make them. I will research what it takes to make one and then I will decide. Either the article in newspaper or a persuasive is what I would be writing about. I am not sure about the topic though.

2:28 pm  •  16 April 2012

“Are Boys Better Than Girls At Maths?” PSYBLOG. 29 July 2008. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/07/are-boys-better-than-girls-at-maths.php>.

       Girls have gone through many hardships to try to get equality between genders for many years. Many of these stereotypes still exist because it is really hard to change. Boys are more talented, girls shouldn’t be able to lead, or boys are better at math than girls. These are some of the stereotypes I remember growing up with.

Professor Elizabeth Spelke, Psychology at Harvard University, challenges the question “are boys better than girls at maths? The old evidence showed that this was true. They did a study of the SAT scores during the 1990s to prove this theory. But now times have changed. Before both teachers and parents believed the stereotype was true. The girls were constantly reminded that jobs like engineering, physicist, and a mathematician were all for guys because they were better at math.

Now with the new studies things have changed. They did a math test where the girls that were reminded of that theory did a lot worse. Girls were reminded so much about it they actually believed it. In the new study by Professor Janet Hyde and colleagues they found some change. They are using 7 million young girls and boy’s tests from second grade to eleventh grade in 10 different states. They tested to see if boys were still doing better in math. The results came in and there was not much of a difference. They believe that since the gender equality has changed the girls are doing much better.

Do boys still out perform girls with harder problems? From the same tests as before Professor Hyde came up with a very small difference in performance. The only problem is no question is hard enough to actually test this theory so others will still argue that boys are smarter.

Even now as I sit in my engineering classes there is not very many girls in them. But the amount of girls joining now is a lot more then before. The hardest part of a stereotype is making it die down when it has been there for so long. 

12:37 pm  •  14 April 2012

“Oslo, Norway.” Oslo. PSYBLOG, 9 July 2006. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://www.spring.org.uk/2006/07/oslo-norway.php>

        Can you use stereotyping in a positive way? I didn’t believe I could use stereotyping in a positive way. But in order to understand yourself you must compare yourself to others, which in some form is stereotyping. I realized this once I read this article.  One of the biggest stereotypes one hears is about other countries.  This article explains how an Englishman went to Norway and explored their culture.

An Englishman went to the Norwegian capital, Oslo, he was amazed on how easy it is to stereotype other cultures and think yours is unique.  Two stereotypes about Norway is that it’s cold and depressing.  They really believe that the bad weather is the reason Norway has such a high suicide rate. Some of the weather that Norway has is also the same for some months in London. Compared to the United Kingdom , Norway has a higher suicide rate but compared to the United States they are about the same. Weird thing is that Norway is almost always near the top of the tables for the happiness of who lives there.

The Englishman studied how Norway really is. He explored the city because the city represents the people living there. He was amazed how the pedestrians and cyclists rule the city instead of cars. Compared to other cities back in his home where the streets are jam packed with cars.  The Norwegians are really eco friendly. The way they design buildings and all the stuff inside the building had a better design then he has seen in UK. One the stereotypes of Norway that was confirmed true was expense.  It is one of the most expensive places to be. But on the contrary you get you pay for. Oslo is clean, efficient, and odorless, while London is often dirty, and smelly.

Some of the stereotypes that are either made on the culture or the country itself are true but some that aren’t. When I went to Mexico I thought it was going to be dangerous and people shooting everywhere from the things I heard. But once I was there I just had a blast. There were a lot of poor people just wandering around asking for money but if you stayed on the safe spots everything went well and it was a beautiful place to visit. I learned a lot about the city. Even though there were a lot of poor people they were very nice and humble.

12:36 pm  •  14 April 2012

“Gender Differences in Reading Nonverbal Behaviour.” - PsyBlog. PSYBLOG, 3 May 2007. Web. 09 Mar. 2012. <http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/05/gender-differences-in-reading-nonverbal.php>.

         The battle between women and men to see who is better has been going on since I can remember. But what many don’t think about is that even when you were little these types of stereotypes were triggered in your mind. In my household 5 or 6 years ago it was believed that girls were just supposed to be in the kitchen. There are many other people who have that thought as it is believed in the Mexican culture. When you are a little kid you just listen to what they tell you. Once I got to think of it though that stereotype went away. 

            Not only does stereotyping occur in childhood but also in adulthood.  In a study by Horgan and Smith, participants were given an ‘interpersonal perception task. The participants were split up in three groups mixed with men and women to watch a video and figure out what is going on in the video. The video has no sound so the participants must pay attention to the body language.  The videos show different behavior in different scenes.  Some of the situations were competition, deception, kinship, status and intimate relationships. 

The first group was told that it was a test to see if the job applicants would make good social workers.  Researchers were trying to make participants think that women are better at this than men. The second group was told that they were searching for good interrogators. Researchers tried to make participants think men are better at this. The control group was told nothing and they just watched the movie.

As a result women performed worse when they were told it was a test for interrogators and men performed worse when they thought it was for social worker. This does not prove that women are better at reading body language then men. The explanation Horgan and Smith came up with is interpersonal goals. When a man is playing poker he can read the other players body language perfectly, but when he steps away from the table he is not able to speak to his wife as easily. When the goal was to beat the other guy it was more similar to his interpersonal aim, which was establish control. When the goal is sweet talk wife it isn’t as similar to his interpersonal aim. 

12:35 pm  •  14 April 2012

Sennet’s arguments about the how capitalism is not the best way to have businesses because no one cooperates or trusts the leaders I believe he is wrong. In a business everyone must work together for it to be a business that will do well. “… in a guanxi network are not ashamed of dependency. You can establish guanxi with someone who needs you or whom you need, beneath or above you in the pecking order.” In a business if you need help the people with more experience will help you. 

2:20 pm  •  14 March 2012

I really can’t think of any rituals I’m inquiring into. The only thing I do over and over again would be school and homework. But even that ritual changes every semester. Rituals would help because everything is just passed down year after year. 

2:15 pm  •  5 March 2012

“Does Internet Use Lead to Addiction, Loneliness, Depression…and Syphilis?” Web log post. Does Internet Use Lead to Addiction, Loneliness, Depression…and Syphilis? PSYBLOG, 27 Sept. 2007. Web. 03 Mar. 2012. <http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/09/4-internet-psychology-myths.php>.

  The Internet has always been a powerful tool to use.  They use it to check your email, Facebook, online dating, research paper, or simply just navigate the web.  Growing up the Internet wasn’t very popular but now everything seems to be going on the Internet.   You can find just about anything on the Internet.  But does using the Internet lead to addiction, loneliness, or depression?

   Two of the biggest claims are that the internet causes loneliness and depression.  When the internet first came out and they did the study it seemed like it was true.   Three years later they tested the same three people and found that all those symptoms were gone. Not only that, but they were more active socially. Even after this experiment they tried to argue that the internet was bad for teenagers.  Most teenagers use the internet for gaming, watching movies, or just looking at random stuff.

    Experts have trouble defining what an internet addiction looks like, what it does to you, and how you look.  After they defined what an addiction is they tried on 39 people who said were addicted and none fit the description. So how is addiction possible? This led experts to ask different questions. Questions they asked was what do you do on the internet?  Most answered they were gambling, shopping, or watching pornography.  Experts agreed that until they find the correct definition there is no such thing as addiction to internet only what the browser looks for. 

     I remember when my mom would tell me to get off the computer because it was bad for me. I never understood why when I was just either talking to a family member or playing games online.  In the article it said that internet can cause loneliness and depression which I do not understand because people use the internet in a form of communication.  They might not do it face to face but they still communicate with others.  Technology is becoming advanced that now there is video chat.  I don’t believe someone can become addicted to the internet. The internet only makes it easier for people to access what they look for. For the person that spends the whole day shopping online, well it makes you think. Is he/she addicted to the internet or a shopaholic?

12:41 pm  •  5 March 2012

(the anamorphic skull) Must step sideways to notice death skull.

Starting the chapter with a painting that represents religion gave me the idea he would talk about religion. “Apart from its beauty, The Ambassador is an iconic painting in that it marks three great changes in European society in the sixteenth century. These were the transformation of rituals in a religion; ranging practices of material production; and the appearance of a new ethics for sociability.” Explains how different the rituals change. I think Sennet is just giving an example of how rituals change. 

2:25 pm  •  2 March 2012

Idea: Why do people stereotype? How do we get that in our minds?

 http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/01/stereotypes-why-we-act-without-thinking.php

  “How can we consciously discard a stereotype if we’re not even conscious that it has been activated? And will this unconscious stereotype have any effect on our behaviour?” asked Yale Professor John Bargh and colleagues. So what they did was break a group of 34 people into 3 groups. Each group had to unscramble different words. One group unscrambled words that were polite. The other unscrambled rude words, and the last group was neutral. Then after they were done they had to wait for the experimenter which would ignore them for 10 minutes. The polite group had only 18% interrupt the experimenter while the rude group had 64% interrupt them.  The neutral group was right in between with 34%. So what they found out was that they could cue things in peoples mind unconsciously.  They still weren’t sure that they were doing the experiment correctly so they tried a different experiment.

“Would cueing people with words about age actually make them walk slower?” was the next question the professor and his colleagues tested. With the same thirty people he ran another experiment. This time they only broke the groups up into two groups. One group was unscrambling words like ‘Florida’, ‘wrinkled’, and ‘helpless’. The other group unscrambled words that were unrelated to age. To test how fast they were walking they would all walk down a corridor that was 9.75m long. They timed each person walking through. The results showed that people unscrambling the words with old age took a whole extra second on average.

 This experiment was very well conducted even though I had m doubts while I was reading it at first.  It explained how easily the brain is cued to stereotype even though we do it unconsciously.  Now I understand why some people stereotype on others without really knowing them.  The way other people behave or how things around us happen can easily cue the mind to start thinking like them.  Then the way we behave can influence others to do the same. Even though our mind is conscious they can’t stop when a cue to stereotype is triggered.  Why can we not stop the stereotype even if our mind is conscious?

1:04 pm  •  29 February 2012  •  1 note