Choices, Choices, Choices...

This semester has provided with me with numerous challenges but one of the most difficult ones I have faced thus far was that of deciding where to go for graduate school. I applied to various PhD programs in the fall and ultimately went and interviewed at two schools within the past two months. Both schools were great options and came with their own advantages. I had a great experience at each university which made coming to a decision that much more difficult. I weighed the pros and cons of just about everything you could think of: did I like the city/area the university was located? What funding was I going to receive and for how long? What kind of health coverage will I get? What are the labs and facilities like? How did I get along with the faculty and current graduate students? What is the cost of living in the area? How much teaching experience will I get? Which school did I feel most comfortable and “at home”? The questions went on and on. I was essentially making a decision that would determine my future, my career, and where I would be living for the next five years. I weighed my options heavily for what seemed like an eternity. I eventually made my decision and now I couldn’t be happier. In fact, I even find myself showing stronger preferences for the school which I am going to attend. This experience paints a wonderful picture of one social psychology concept in particular: cognitive dissonance theory and how this relates to justifying difficult decisions (Brehm, 1956; Festinger, 1957). Festinger’s theory is based on the premise that people are motivated to maintain cognitive consistency so when our actions don’t match up with our attitudes, we experience psychological tension which we are then motivated to resolve (Festinger, 1957). For example, I am trying to be healthy and eat better but yesterday I ate four cupcakes. My behavior contradicts my attitude so I thus had to reduce my psychological tension by coming up with some way to rationalize my behavior such as convincing myself that it really wasn’t that much sugar and I’m going to work out anyways so it balances out. This theory also applies to instances when we make difficult decisions just like I had to this semester. Furthermore, cognitive dissonance theory states that people rationalize whatever decision they make by accentuating the positive features of the chosen option and the negative features of the option that was not chosen (Brehm, 1956; Festinger, 1957). Right after I made my decision on where I was going to attend graduate school, this effect took action. I found myself focusing on the better qualities of my chosen program (such as better funding, closer location to family and friends, cheaper cost of living, strong relationships with professors and graduate students, etc.) and pointing out the negative aspects of the program which I turned down (such as limited funding, expensive area, not as nice facilities, much farther distance from home, etc.). This has definitely been one of the biggest decisions I have ever made so of course I had to justify my reasoning for my choice.

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Brehm, J. W. (1956). Post-decision changes in desirability of alternatives. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52, 384-389.

Fetinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

A Day of Compassion

This week I embarked on an epic challenge: to be maximally compassionate for a solid 24 hours. At first glance this may seem like a fairly simple task; however, I found that this proves to be rather difficult when actually attempted. I generally consider myself to be a fairly compassionate person on a daily basis but it wasn’t until this week that I gained a better understanding of what constitutes compassion, and furthermore what compassion means to me.

                Prior to the start of my 24 hour period, I had tried to anticipate ways in which I could express and maintain compassion in a variety of situations. I came up with several ideas including sticky notes with positive messages, personalized messages to loved ones, and taking on extra chores and cooking responsibilities. My marathon of compassion started on Wednesday evening and continued into the evening of the next day. One of my first acts of kindness was preparing dinner for my roommate who had been having a rough week. Typically we work together or split the tasks of cooking dinner and completing chores, but this time I took the initiative to cook for the two of us in hopes that she would have a chance to either relax or get some studying done. Following dinner, I went ahead and put away the clean dishes and loaded the dishwasher again to once again free up some of her time by finishing a simple task. This clearly wasn’t a magnificent feat, but I could tell that my roommate sincerely appreciated the gesture and thanked me several times. Starting with the next morning, before leaving for work I wrote up a couple inspirational messages (such as “expect good things” with a smiley face) on sticky notes and left them in several places in the apartment for my roommate to find later. She had a lot going on that day and an important test to prepare for so I wanted to offer some optimism and support to help her get through the day. I got text messages later in the morning telling me how much she appreciated the notes and having me in her life. Once I got to work (I’m a tutor/care provider), I made sure to smile as much as possible and provide compliments and encouragement when appropriate. Before leaving for the day, I also left a handmade card wishing everyone a wonderful spring break along with some cookies. Unfortunately, I was not there to see the reaction but I’m hoping they enjoyed my small “just because” gift. After work, I went to campus for class. I used this time as an opportunity to be really polite and smile often. I also tried my best to be really cooperative and patient during lab when we had to work together to construct a motor. My efforts actually made the process go by faster and seem less tedious. After lab was over I went to my second job (OA Staff Supervisor). I arrived a little earlier than normal so I went ahead and did some extra hole-punching and office work for the program coordinator.  Soon after, we went to go set up for Thursday’s OA session. Since our School Liaison was a little stressed out due to a large number of absences, another staff member and myself helped her get the pairings done and everything else ready. Everyone was much more at ease once these obstacles were tackled. I continued my compassionate efforts by being positive and smiling often. These are small changes but they definitely make a difference in having the sessions run smoother and ensuring that everyone has a good time. After OA, I came home to find a new furry friend in the apartment. This grey cat had apparently been crying outside our door and so my roommate took the cat in and put it in my bathroom until I got home. While on most days I would have been more inclined to be irritable and concerned about all of this, I took this as another opportunity to show compassion. Instead of snapping at my roommate for bringing this animal into our home which could potentially have fleas or some other disease, I chose to calmly ask about what had happened and how much the animal had been handled/exposed to the apartment. Then I calmly communicated my concerns about health and safety in addition to my shared desire to help this animal if I could. I’m not really a cat person. I definitely prefer dogs but I have a soft spot for situations like this. After taking the cat, which appears to be female, to a local clinic to be scanned for a microchip (with no success), we returned home with the cat. Instead of dwelling on all of my concerns and apprehensions, I chose to adopt a different mindset and focus on what is best for the animal. Thus, the cat is currently residing in my bathroom (because our visitor wasn’t a huge fan of our pet cat) until we can locate the animal’s owners. Strangely enough, the presence of this foreign cat doesn’t seem to bother me as much as I imagine it would have. In the midst of all the day’s events I also chose to send heartfelt messages to my mom and several of my close friends to let them know how much they mean to me and how proud I am of their accomplishments. These were things I’d been meaning to say for a long time but had kept putting off for various reasons. One friend replied saying my message brought her to tears and she thanked me for being there for her. My mom’s reaction was somewhat humorous in that her initial response was inquiring about what inspired my message. After explaining that I just wanted to send something nice to show how much I appreciate her, she ultimately found it very sweet and a nice pick-me-up during her long day at work.   Overall, the reactions to the “compassionate me” were warm, thoughtful, and thankful. I don’t believe anyone attributed my actions to some random situation, but more or less thought it to be a more pronounced display of who I am as a person.

The way in which I define and interpret the concept of compassion has certainly shifted this week as well. Prior to this experience, I viewed compassion as just a state of caring and kindness. Now I associate compassion not only with caring and kindess, but also gratitude. Especially when I wrote the messages to my mom and friends I found myself being more thankful and appreciative which, in my mind, conveys a deeper meaning of earnest appreciation in comparison to just “kind” or “caring”. This kind of expression definitely requires some energy and the ability to self-regulate (so you don’t chew your roommate out for putting strange animals in your bathroom) but the reward and satisfaction of helping others and contributing to their happiness is definitely worth the effort. You, in turn, feel great about what you have done and this fuels a cycle of positivity. Furthermore, I think I was able to get more out of this experience due to my mood being exceptionally great this week (thanks to some great news about graduate school). It’s a great example of the good mood effect which highlights the trend that when we are happy and feeling good, we are also more helpful and considerate (Aderman, 1972; Isen & Levin, 1972).

                This challenge of compassion has provided me with several new insights which are pertinent to different social psychology concepts. For example, this experience has elaborated on my understanding of Duval and Wicklund’s self-awareness theory (1972). This theory states that most individuals are not typically focused on themselves but particular situations can cause people to become more introspective and self-aware (Duval & Wicklund, 1972). Likewise, some individuals are inherently more self-focused than others. Self-awareness and the negative discrepancies that tend to accompany it can inspire individuals to change their behaviors in order to meet personal or social standards, or withdraw from self-awareness instead. This concept relates to my experience in that by placing myself in a situation where my goal is to be compassionate for an entire 24 hours, I have come to realize that I am not always as kind, gracious, or compassionate as I’d like to be. Thus, I now have a strong desire to work to change my behavior in order to meet a standard that I have imposed on myself. This process is not easy and requires a great deal of self-regulation but can be done successfully with sustained motivation. Studies have shown that when people are faced with lots of important demands, it seems costly to spend time on helping others and thus attention is devoted to those demands over the helpful behavior as a result of time pressure (Batson et al., 1978; Darley & Batson, 1973).  Because of this, I am going to have to compensate for my busy lifestyle and constant influx of distractions in order to see improvement and meet my new goals. Thanks to this experience, I hope to start incorporating more compassionate actions into my daily life and strengthen my social relationships in the near future.

                 So what’s my take home message based on my experience? If you want to foster compassion in yourself and others, smile (yay! facial feedback hypothesis) and adopt a good mood. In addition to that, shift your focus to other people, practice empathy, and actively work to change/maintain positive emotions and behaviors. It’s as simple as that.

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Aderman, D. (1972). Elation, depression, and helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 91-101.

Batson, C. D., Cochran, P. J., Biederman, M. F., Blosser, J. L., Ryan, M. J., & Vogt, B. (1978). Failure to help when in a hurry: Callousness or conflict? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 97-101.

Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). From Jerusalem to Jericho: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 100-108.

Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A theory of objective self-awareness. New York: Academic Press.

Isen, A. M., & Levin, P. A. (1972). Effect of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 384-388.

Implicit Association Test

People often fail to share or reveal their true attitudes and beliefs either because they are unable or unwilling to do so. As a result, the Implicit Association Test, or IAT, was developed to evaluate these hidden attitudes by measuring the degree to which specific concepts are associated (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998). The way that the IAT works is that you are presented with an image or word in the center of a computer screen and instructed to assign that word or image to a particular category (located in the upper corners of the screen). This choice is meant to be done quickly so as to measure the automatic responses and thus attitudes towards the categories being tested. For example, in the Young-Old IAT, I was presented with images depicting faces of older people and those of younger people as well as various positive words (joy, glorious, laughter, etc.) or negative words (hurt, evil, etc.). Using the “e” and “i” keys I quickly assigned the words and images to different categories. The categories are presented in various orders and combinations which tests the participant’s ability to learn new pairings. The idea behind this procedure is that easier pairings (denoted by quicker responses) represent a stronger association between two concepts in memory, which should then reflect that person’s true attitudes (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998).

I was definitely a little apprehensive about taking some of these tests simply because the thought of getting results that are inconsistent with my perceived attitudes and beliefs is bothersome. However, I think the IAT’s that I completed did a fairly decent job of predicting my true attitudes and beliefs toward young and old people as well as the relationship between gender and science. The interpretation of my results for the Young-Old IAT suggested that I have a moderate automatic preference for young compared to old. This wasn’t too terribly surprising to me given that society and the media often portray youth in a more positive light and the elderly in a more negative light. I have also had more negative experiences (experiencing the loss of a family member, going to funerals, dealing with the frustrations that come with teaching some people how to use technology, etc.) with older family members which might have contributed to my performance on this IAT.

My data for the Gender-Science IAT suggested that I have a slight association of male with science and female with liberal arts. This result also does not surprise me all that much given that this bias is fairly prominent in our society which is also reflected in the disproportionate gender representation in careers associated with science (which tend to have more men) and liberal arts (which tend to have more women). Yet, my bias seems to be limited which is likely a result of attending a liberal arts university in combination with other factors such as familiarity with female peers majoring in the sciences. 

Taking the different IAT’s was an interesting process in that it brought attention to how easily our attitudes and beliefs can be detected in simple tasks and behaviors. I would say that I was already pretty aware of my perceptions and any biases I may have, but this has definitely provided a new perspective in which to evaluate how I perceive different groups and concepts and has illuminated areas in which I can now work on to reduce or eliminate any prejudices I may possess.

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Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. K. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.