Vikings

           I don’t usually watch TV shows when I’m at college (breaks from school are another story), but I’ll occasionally have time to go to Hulu and watch something that I think looks interesting. A month or so ago, I remembered that my dad had told me about a new show on the History Channel called “Vikings,” so I decided to check it out. The show itself is very violent and gory most of the time, and while some parts can be disturbing, others fulfill my weekly dose of a great battle scene. The show is about the Norsemen of Scandinavia and especially focuses on the life of Ragnar Lodbrok, historically known as a great Norseman who travelled to and led successful raids into Britain and Gaul (Walker, 2013).

            As I have been watching the show, I have been paying attention to the power dynamic between the chieftan of the province and Ragnar Lodbrok. While the show depicts the chieftain as corrupt and autocratic, it is possible that, historically, he was not as harsh as he is made out to be in the series. Either way, his representation in the show definitely adds drama and conflict. When the show just started, the main plot focused on Ragnar’s aspirations to sail West rather than East to find new kingdoms to raid for treasure. Ragnar presents his proposition to the chieftain, asking for permission to sail West, but the chieftan, as he has done in the past, shuts him down. While the show does not go into this, I would be interested in investigating the decision-making process that goes into planning these raids. Does the chieftain have a group of close friends and family who serve as advisors? Does he hold meetings to decide what bands of men in the community he will give ships and supplies to so that they can carry out these raids?

            While all of this is unclear, it is interesting to speculate about the kinds of group processes that would occur to decide upon such matters. According to an article by Lars Walker, Viking government was essentially democratic, and the History Channel got this aspect of the show wrong by portraying the chieftain as an autocratic ruler. Either way, from what social psychologists know about the role of experts and authority in group processes, the chieftain has a significant amount of influence over the decisions the group comes to. According to social influence principles, people tend to comply with and be influenced by experts and authorities. This could be problematic in group processes and lead to process loss when only the ideas and suggestions of the leader in the group are considered seriously. Thus, if Vikings used group processes to organize and orchestrate raids, many of the decisions may have been influenced by the chieftain of that specific tribe or providence.

            In the case of this show, then, the decision to only sail East may have been influenced by the chieftain’s authority. Even if someone on the advising committee felt strongly that sailing West could be highly successful and profitable, he may not have even voiced this opinion, or if he had, the chieftain could have shut this idea down completely. As it turns out, when Ragnar went against the wishes of the chieftain and sailed West, he ended up coming back with a plethora of treasure from a monastery, showing that the decisions that the chieftain and his group of advisors made were not the wisest.

            While it is important to investigate group processes and decision-making, it would also be interesting to look at when individuals decide to go against the mandates of the group. If the influence of authority is so strong, then how are some people, like Ragnar Lodbrok, willing to go against decisions made by the group? We often look at group conformity and how social influences shape our behavior, but what motivates certain people to break through these social constructions?

References: 

Walker, L. (2013, March 12). History channel gets vikings precisely wrong. Retrieved May 3, 

2013, from The American Spectator website: http://spectator.org/archives/2013/03/12/history-

channel-gets-vikings-p 

Haverfest and Threat of Loss

            During the past two weeks, which are the two weeks before Haverfest, a group of students station themselves in the DC lobby to sell Haverfest T-shirts, mugs, sunglasses, and hats. While some students buy all of these items, the hot ones are usually the T-shirts and the mugs. Every year, or at least for the two years I have been here so far, there are two T-shirts to choose from and it seems as though most people end up liking one of the shirts over the other. This means that one shirt goes fast while there are usually leftovers of the other one. I experienced this last year when I took too long to make a purchase and the T-shirt type that I wanted, and the type that apparently everyone else wanted, was sold out.

            This year, I was ready and jumped at the opportunity to buy the T-shirt that I and everyone else seemed to like the best. I did not want to experience another lost opportunity like I had the year before. At this point, I hadn’t realized that one of the factors that was motivating my behavior was the principle of scarcity. The moment I realized this was when, the next day, the students selling the merchandise called out that there were only a limited number of the green shirts left, and I felt pretty good about getting a shirt before they had all sold out. I realized that what motivated me to by the better shirt early on was the loss I had experienced last year. If I had any waited longer to buy the shirt this year, not only would the memory of my loss from last year drive me to buy it, but also the fact that the salespeople were yelling out that there were only a few T-shirts of that kind left.

            I was thus hit by a double whammy of threat of loss, from both my past experiences and the current situation. My motivation to buy the T-shirt primarily lies in the social influence principle of scarcity. According to this principle, individuals are motivated by loss or a threat of loss. In the case of the Haverfest T-shirts, when there are a limited number of shirts left, they will become more desired and the students will think that because the shirts are going quickly, they are better. And because one shirt always seems to go faster than another, this shirt is considered to be the more desirable one. While it may actually look better than the other shirt, I think that scarcity plays a significant role in why that particular T-shirt becomes sold out. For instance, if a student had no preference for either of the shirts, but learned that one of them had only a limited number left, this threat of loss and the perceived desirability of the shirt would drive him or her to choose it over the other one.

            This simple example of how scarcity influences my actions and those of other students on campus made me think of how scarcity plays a role in other aspects of life at Haverford. Every so often, an organization on campus called FAB (Fords Against Boredom) gets tickets to sports games and musicals or has a certain of number of spots on a bus to go ice skating, skiing, and laser tagging, all for free! While giving students an opportunity to get off campus and have fun is enough incentive to sign up for these activities, scarcity also plays a role. Since there are a limited number of these tickets or spots, students will perceive the activities as being more desirable. There is also a limited time frame where you can sign up for the activities—students will get up at 7am in hopes of getting their names on the list. Would these activities be less desirable if there were an unlimited number of spots? The principle of scarcity would suggest this.

            The effects of scarcity are also evident in the context of academics when considering unlimited and limited enrollment classes. I have found that I am usually drawn to the classes that have a limited enrollment, especially the ones that are capped at 15, because I think they seem more interesting. What I did not realize is that the idea of scarcity has influenced me to think this way. Without knowing anything about the class except for the short description on the registrar, I have made assumptions about the quality of the class just because it is limited enrollment. It is interesting to speculate about how many aspects of our life scarcity influences, and to what extent. We may make decisions and be motivated to carry out certain behaviors not by rational thinking, but because of this perceived threat of loss.

Image: Haverfest 2013 T-shirt design by Caroline Fleet. From: https://www.facebook.com/Haverfest2013

Frisbee on Founders

           Yesterday, I was on Founders Green with one of my apartmentmates, Callie, who had brought a Frisbee to toss after we had finished planning our PAF session for later that day. I’m definitely not the best at Frisbee and it takes me quite a while to warm up and actually give a throw that is remotely near the person I’m trying to throw the Frisbee to. It had been a while since the last time I played, but I was starting to get the hang of it again, and it helped that Callie would compliment me on every throw, even if the Frisbee landed closer to where I was standing than to where she was.

            Everything changed when one of Callie’s friends on the ultimate Frisbee team was walking by and started to play with us. I got a little nervous, since both Callie and this guy are experienced and skillful compared to me. I started to think about the social facilitation and inhibition principles that we had learned in Social Psychology last Thursday, which definitely did not help my nervousness. I assumed that since I was not very good at Frisbee, the presence of this newcomer would make me perform even more poorly. And by worrying about my performance, I was distracting myself from the task at hand. I could tell that I was focusing so much on making a good throw that the throw actually turned out horribly. I was definitely overthinking Frisbee.

            In my eyes, I thought I did a lot worse when Bill came to play with us. Callie told me that I “held me own”, but I wasn’t sure if she was just being nice. I was definitely more conscious of my bad throws when I was playing with Callie and Bill, probably because I was throwing to Bill most of the time, as opposed to just playing with Callie. I wanted to make a good impression on this person whom I had never met before, while I felt no pressure with Callie since I’ve lived with her for two years now and nothing I do should surprise her. In this way, I was paying more attention to my bad performances when playing with the both of them, which could have led to a skewed interpretation of how I was doing overall.

            To determine if how I perceived myself playing was an accurate representation of how I was actually playing, I would have to count the number of good and bad plays I made. I assumed that I would play poorly in the presence of Bill since I know that I’m not good at Frisbee. Frisbee is a non-dominant task for me, thus added social pressure should inhibit my performance, according to the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Knowing this, I anticipated a poorer performance on my part. This could have either led to a self-fulfilling prophecy in which I played more poorly because I expected to, or perhaps it only made me more conscious of my mess-ups when I was actually playing the same, or maybe even better because of practice. From my perspective, I thought I wasn’t doing to well, but Callie thought I had gotten better from when it was just the two of us passing. The only way to find out, then, would be to actually monitor my passes and determine if Bill facilitated or inhibited my performance. I’m sure Bill had no idea about the inner-turmoil he was causing me to experience.

            I told Callie about my social psychological musings afterwards, and she had something interesting to add to the conversion. She said that when she plays Frisbee with ultimate players who are on her same skill level, she feels no pressure and plays well. But when she has to make a pass to the highly skilled players, she feels the pressure to make a great pass and to impress them. Ultimately, though, this backfires and she notices that she always does worse. It is important to not just consider the presence of others when we performing tasks, but also who is present. From personal experience, I always feel more nervous during a presentation or interview as opposed to talking to friends or other people who do not intimidate me. Sometimes, this works in my favor and I perform better, but in other cases, it works against me.

            When looking at performance in a certain situation, one has to consider both the task at hand as well as the people involved.  While simply having an audience in and of itself does affect how we perform on a task that is dominant or non-dominant, our perception of the individuals involved in the situation can also have a great influence. Throwing a Frisbee has become natural for Callie, while it takes me much more effort and practice to get the hang of it. However, when she is put in a situation with people she perceives as experts, she doesn’t perform well even though the task is familiar to her. All of these factors contribute to or take away from social facilitation, depending on the context.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Attraction

             A few years ago, I read The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and with all of the hype about the first movie and now the making of the second movie, I realized that the Hunger Games creates a perfect recipe for misattribution of arousal. In Panem, there is a Capitol and twelve districts. Essentially, the Capitol is the home of the authorities and wealthy individuals who rule over the twelve districts. Every year, the Hunger Games occur in which one girl and one boy from each district, called tributes, are selected from a lottery and must compete to their death. In the end, 23 individuals are killed and one is the victor. The Capitol creates a hostile arena in which these individuals must compete, all the while televising the Games in the Capitol and all of the districts. This is the Capitol’s way of punishing the districts for rebelling many years ago and to maintain their power.

            The Hunger Games thus produces an environment that is wildly fear inducing. Not only does a tribute have to watch out for all of the other tributes trying to kill him or her, but there are also countless death traps in the arena of which one has to be aware. At the start of  the Games, tributes try to either ally with others or go off on their own, hoping to be invisible from the other competitors. In an environment like this, it would not be surprising if the tributes were constantly physiologically aroused in response to the fear. And if they ally with other tributes, it would not be surprising if they start becoming attracted to these allies.

            The misattribution of arousal theory proposes that since the physiological response to fear and attraction are very similar (such as a faster heartbeat and heavier breathing), it is easy to confuse the source of the arousal. In the arena, not only are the tributes always on guard and ready for a flight-or-fight response, they also must be very active. Living off of the land, running from predators and disasters concocted by the Capital, and fighting and fleeing from other tributes requires extensive physical activity. This sort of activity also produces the same physiological response as attraction. Considering the constant state of fear and physical activity that the tributes are in, it would be understandable for two allying tributes to become attracted to one another and start developing feelings for one another. This would, obviously, complicate the fact that only one tribute can win the Hunger Games.

            In the case of Katniss and Peeta, the tributes from District 12, there is a progression of their relationship throughout the Games. Starting out as mere acquaintances when they were home in their district, they end up getting married in the epilogue of the third book. As a social psychology student, I have speculated as to how much of the initial foundation for their relationship—the attraction—was due to the fact that they were both in the Hunger Games. Would they have ended up falling in love if their names had never been chosen? While misattribution of arousal cannot account for the deeper feelings in any relationship, it can add to the initial attraction we feel for someone. Considering the fearful situation of the Hunger Games, it would not be far-fetched to speculate that the initial feelings of attraction between Katniss and Peeta could have developed or been enhanced by this phenomenon.

            Another aspect of Katniss and Peeta’s relationship may stem from the social influence principle of commitment and consistency. The wealthy folk of the Capitol develop favorites in the Games and are able to sponsor the tributes, sending them items that they desperately need in the arena so that they have a better chance of survival. In order to win the favor of the viewers in the Capitol, Katniss’ behavior towards Peeta gradually becomes more intimate and affectionate to perpetuate a “star-crossed lovers” theme, which the audience eats up. From a social psychological point of view, it is possible that by acting towards Peeta in this way to get sponsors, Katniss actually starts to feel have feelings for him. Since people tend to be consistent in their behavior and attitudes, whenever Katniss kisses Peeta, she may start to like him more, since, psychologically, the way we feel and the way we act should be consistent. It seems as though misattribution of arousal and the principle of commitment and consistency may play a role in the relationship of Katniss and Peeta. While it doesn’t delegitimize their relationship, it certainly calls into question the role and extent of these phenomena in developing their relationship.

Image:

Still from “The Hunger Games” movie

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/29900000/THG-stills-the-hunger-games-movie-29947869-500-350.png

Cupcakes and Central Processing

            I’ve been seeing a guy for a few months now, and about a month ago, it was his birthday. I, of course, stressed myself out trying to think of what to do for his birthday. I didn’t want to go overboard, since we hadn’t been seeing each other for too long, but I also wanted to do something nice. After much discussion with my friends, we decided that I should bake him a cupcake in addition to the gift I was already planning on getting him. The gift itself was easy, since I had something particular in mind and would just have to go to the store to get it. Buying cake mix, on the other hand, turned out to be a bigger ordeal. For the cupcakes, I had to first find a store with a good selection of mixes and then determine which one I would buy in order to make the best cupcake ever. Thus started my journey to find the perfect cake mix and frosting combination at SuperFresh.

            The grocery store is an optimal example of how information is processed and how we ultimately decide which items to choose. The different products have to somehow favorably push our attitude towards that product in a way that will stimulate the behavior to buy it. Normally when I go grocery shopping, peripheral processing dominates what I decide to buy. If I do not have a specific product in mind, I usually end up buying what catches my attention, or if I am choosing between two similar products, what packaging I seem to prefer. All of this is superficial processing in which I use heuristics to facilitate my decision-making. Otherwise, I would spend several minutes comparing different options for each item on my grocery list.

            I used a similar form of processing when I had to buy eggs to make the cupcakes. In this case, I ended up choosing the carton of eggs that was directly at my eye level, since it caught my attention above the other possibilities. But when I got to the cake mix aisle, my form of processing switched to central processing. While the type of eggs I bought should not have affected the cupcakes in any drastic way, I knew that the cake mix and frosting I would choose would make all the difference. In this case, I had high motivation to pick the best products and since my goal of the night was to make these cupcakes, I was in no way distracted. Thus, I wanted to focus my cognitive processing on choosing what I felt would result in the tastiest cupcake. If I were making cupcakes for myself or for a group of friends, I probably would have picked any box of cake mix that would have caught my eye. But in this case, I was highly invested in the situation and thoroughly scanned the different brands, flavors, and whether the cake would be moist or fluffy. I even read the backs of the boxes, which I rarely ever do, and scanned the ingredients. It was extremely difficult to make a decision based on the information provided. Since most of what was on the packaging was meant for peripheral processing, it was harder to choose a product based on central processing. For example, I was looking for the mix that would produce the best cupcakes, but I was given an assortment of colorful boxes with different names and different descriptions, all of which aimed to advertise in a superficial, making every product seem fantastic. What I really wanted and needed were customer reviews and ratings of the product, or even samples so that I could determine which mix to go for.

            In the end, I could only base my decision on the superficial information I was provided.  Even though my mind was ready and thirsting for some central processing, I probably ended up making my decision through peripheral processing since I was not able to access the information that I needed. Looking back at this scenario, I realize that I seem ridiculous and maybe a little crazy, and that I probably would have chosen the same cake mix and frosting if I had spent a few seconds making my decision. After all, it is probably a very good thing that I usually peripherally process when deciding what product to buy, since I was standing in that aisle for half an hour. If I did that with all of the items on my grocery list, I would have to spend the whole day in the grocery store.

            It is interesting to analyze how our attitudes and behaviors are shaped based on how invested we are in the situation. Even within a particular situation, our way of approaching different decisions can be completely different. Since the type of eggs I had to buy was not relevant to me, peripheral processing completely dominated the eggs that I ended up buying. In contrast, the type of cake mix and frosting was important to me, so I spent much more time comparing the products and trying to make the decision I thought was best based on the information, however superficial it was, that was available to me.

Pennies and Social Proof

            Every Easter, my grandpa unveils a jar full of money and asks all of the cousins to guess how much money is in the jar. Whoever gets closest, gets to keep the money. And this isn’t just your standard size jar, but can hold a gallon or more, so guessing how much money is in the jar can get pretty difficult. The first year he did this, it was all with pennies. Even though there thousands of pennies in the jar, it was relatively easy compared to the other years because we had to consider only one value and one size of coin. After this year, though, my grandpa made it more challenging by using an assortment of coins as well as dollar bills and the occasional five-dollar bill. In this case, those guessing had to account for the different sizes of coins and bills and also the value of these varying currencies. Regardless, guessing how much money was in the gallon jar, whether it was just pennies or an assortment of coins and bills, proved to be a challenge.

            I remember trying to come up with a logical way of determining how much money was in the jar, as all my siblings and cousins were trying to do. Some of the cousins were going around asking others what they were putting down as their answer. Most of us had absolutely no idea what to put down as our guess, so it made sense to ask around to see what other people were thinking. If your guess is extremely higher or lower than the others, then you are probably going change your answer. Since you have no idea if your guess is right, you look for confirmation from other people’s answers. If their answers are all similar and yours is drastically different, you would assume that their answers are right.

            Most of us, however, kept our guesses secret and would share what we put down after handing the slip of paper to our grandpa. There are a couple of cousins who always seem to overestimate the amount in the jar year after year. If I can remember correctly, my cousin Stevie put down that there were about 12,000 pennies in the gallon jar when I put about 5,000. Most of the guesses for that year ended up being from 3,000 to 5,000 pennies, so Stevie felt pretty nervous after he had turned in his guess. Since he realized that his guess was significantly higher than most everyone else’s, he assumed that his guess would be far off from the correct answer (which it was). As well, the cousins who had put down guesses that were much lower than what the majority of us were putting down felt pretty foolish after turning in their slip and finding out everyone else’s guesses. While they had been confident in their answers earlier, they then started to believe that an accurate guess would be in the ballpark of what the others had put down.

            All of this follows along with the social proof principle of social influence. People tend to look to others when they are not sure how to act in a certain situation. By looking at the behavior of others, they can garner an idea of how they themselves should behave as well. When we are unsure of how to act in a situation, we don’t just observe the behavior of others, but assume that this behavior is correct. So if one of the cousins had gone around asking what everyone else was putting for their guesses, he or she would most likely consider his or her own guess in this context and the guess, based on this phenomenon, would be close to the other guesses. Even if the cousin’s initial hunch was closer to the actual amount of pennies, if everyone whom he or she had talked to had a much higher number that wasn’t as accurate, the cousin would most likely change the guess to match theirs.

            The “monkey see, monkey do” situation works in this case because most of the cousins had no idea how much money was in the jar or how to go about guessing a correct answer. We were all unsure of ourselves and thus easily influenced by each other’s guesses. However, if one of us happened to be an expert on guessing the amount of money in a jar, we wouldn’t look to others to determine the amount we should be guessing. If everyone else seemed to be guessing an amount that was drastically different from our own, then the situation gets trickier. Depending on the confidence of the individual in his or her own expertise in guessing, he or she would either stick with the initial guess or change the guess to conform to what everyone else is guessing. While a situation like guessing the amount of money in a jar is not particularly earth shattering, it is interesting to speculate the effects of social influence in situations that are of greater importance.

The Culture of Reciprocity

             The phenomenon of reciprocity plays a large role in establishing social influence. While learning about this concept in class, I couldn’t help but realize how prevalent reciprocity is in societies across the world, especially in cases where reciprocity completely defines a community and the relationships between these people. After taking a writing seminar on the Nature of Money and an Intro to Anthropology course, I have become familiar with the kula, which is a ceremonial ring of exchange between islands located in New Guinea. At first glance, such a system of exchange might seem like a form of trading, but there is an apparent distinction that sets this system apart in the nature of the objects that are exchanged. Instead of giving an object to an individual that the individual needs in exchange for something that you need, these objects are not commodities and are not necessarily useful. They are gifts in the form of ceremonial bracelets and necklaces. The value is not placed on usefulness, but on ornateness, the history of the object, and on the symbolic power of the object.

            While the exchange of gifts between the islands establishes connections between communities that might otherwise be independent and distinct, they also created a political hierarchy. Individuals are able to gain social and political standing by either obtaining or giving especially valuable gifts, first within their communities and then with members from other islands. Forming and maintaining relationships between the islands can strengthen one’s political and social ties. Relationships within the islands are also dependent upon a continued gift exchange. The whole concept of gift exchange is somewhat misleading in that the ceremonial gift is not in fact a gift in and of itself, since the giver always expects the receiver to reciprocate, often with a gift of equal value or, preferably, of greater value. In this way, the whole system is based on reciprocity and creating binding social ties by the necessity to perpetuate the gift giving process. If an individual or family fails to reciprocate, this can completely destroy the relationship and cause conflict among the group. Similarly, if a tie is broken between islands in this manner, a very hostile situation can ensue. That is why the kula is so important in maintaining the unity between these islands as well as personal relationships within the islands (Malinowski, 1922).

            There is an apparent aspect of reciprocity in the social influences that we experience today in our own communities, and it is certainly interesting to observe other communities that are entirely based on this system.  Individuals feel obligated to reciprocate upon receiving something, a feeling that I am sure we have all experienced many times throughout our lives. The downfalls of reciprocity, which manifest themselves in our communities as well as those participating in the kula, are that they facilitate uninvited debts (and relationships) and often can result in unfair exchanges. Since an individual feels the need to reciprocate, he or she is, upon receiving a gift, obligated to give something in return.

            While there are situations in which unfair exchanges are apparent, like the example of a car salesperson offering a customer a Coke and in return, the customer buys a car, this phenomenon is not as evident in the case of the kula. It is favorable to give a gift that is more valuable than the one received, but the gift exchange is expected to continue as to maintain the relationship. Thus, the gifts become progressively more valuable as the exchanges continue and there should be no unfair advantage since each party takes turns giving the more valuable gift. There would be a problem, though, if the accepting party of a gift simply had no means of reciprocating in an equal or greater manner. This would reflect poorly on his or her social standing and ability to form strong relationships between other members of the community (Malinowski, 1922).

            It is interesting to see how reciprocity, which I sometimes fail to even notice in my day-to-day life, is so amplified in other societies. While reciprocity may exist where there is any human interaction, there seems to be a scale of how important and how pervasive it is depending on the culture. The kula is a prime example of how nearly all of the relationships, political hierarchies, social statuses, and other social phenomena are founded in this system of exchange and the need we all feel to reciprocate.

Reference:

Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagos of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.