It is a good thing to think sometimes, you know! :D

Have you ever had a friend or someone you know do something utter stupid which makes you question, “What a numskull he/she is! Does he/she even realize that humans were born with an organ named Brain?” There was once a man, who went to a liquor store, pointed the gun at the clerk and demanded all the money. He then asked for a bottle of whiskey. When the clerk refused to give the bottle of whiskey saying that the man was presumably a minor, the robber showed his driver’s license to the clerk as a proof that he was an adult. Offcourse the robber was arrested after two hours because the clerk called the police and gave the robber’s address and name that he got from the driver’s license.  A stupid fellow the robber was, right?

Psychologists call this kind of a behavior when people seem to forget to use their brains or use them utterly less, as a state of cognitive miser. Just as a miser is reluctant to use money even for his/her own good, a cognitive miser is reluctant to do much extra thinking (Fiske & Taylor, 1984, 1991).

Though humans’ capacity to think is greater than most other animals, it isn’t laziness always that makes it hard for people to give extra thought to a problem. Thinking takes effort. There is ample evidence to suggest that when thinking is already preoccupied, people tend to take more shortcuts to reduce the further need for thought ( Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988). But there are always examples of people who think at great length about things that are fascinating to them, like Albert Einstein who published 258 articles during his lifetime and changed the way we perceive science today. I love Daniel Radcliffe and have read and given ample thought to all the Harry Potter books.. lol

But as the theory of the duplex mind suggests, not all the thinking is equally difficult. Since automatic thinking is less strenuous than conscious thinking, people tend to conserve effort by relying on automatic modes of thought whenever they can. And though the automatic mind can give rough estimates and close to correct answers, it is necessary to employ conscious thinking in order to fully understand the problem and solve it logically.

So folks, the next time you meet a numskull and think of him/her as a new human species devoid of brain, please don’t degrade them by saying thus. They just need to get out of their cognitive miser mode and start using their brains a little more :D  

Still thinking (I guess ;) )

Nupur

It is your OWN fault!

Many times we hear people saying, “Oh, it was her own fault that she deserved such a pitiful state of affairs”, or “she deserves what she got” or “She should have known better than to have got herself in this situation in the first place”. People who say these things hold the victim accountable for whatever that happens (mainly the bad things that happen) in the victim’s life, even when it isn’t the victim’s fault!

Psychologists refer this phenomenon as Belief in a Just World (Furnham, 2003; Lerner & Miller, 1978; Lerner & Simmons, 1966). Belief in a Just World refers to the assumption that life is essentially fair and that people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. People believing in such a belief tend to blame the rape victims for their outcome, tend to blame the sick people for not taking care in the first place and tend to think that poor people are lazy and hence they are poor. They strongly and almost adherently believe that if you are good, no bad things will happen to you.

People who believe that the world is just will help others in need only when they feel that the helper deserves their aid (Zuckerman, 1975). These people are not helpful towards those victims who they believe are responsible for their own outcomes (which is most of the times, for the just world believers always seem to think that the victim is to be blamed). However, one positive side of withholding such a belief is that sometimes the helper tries to help others for he/she wishes to have good outcomes after helping others. Hence, this results in kind of a superstitious belief that when you perform good or helpful acts, you can expect that you will be rewarded later.

One study aimed at indicating this superstitious helping by students. Students at one college were asked to volunteer to do a good deed, such as serving as a reader for blind students to doing extra psychology experiments (Zukerman, 1975). During the routine part of the semester, volunteer participation was low and it didn’t matter whther the student had high or low belief in the just world hypothesis. But if this volunteer action was provided during the exam time, more students were willing to participate. These students believed at some level that their good deeds would be rewarded as a better luck and a better graded on exam. I performed such an act of believing in the just world hypothesis during the final match of the Cricket World Cup, 2011. India and Sri Lanka were playing to become the cricket world champions (and btw, cricket is a religion in India :D ). At one point, it seemed like India would lose and I made a pact with Lord, that if He allows India to win, I will do a week long volunteer service at the Rape Crisis Centre (Stupid deal right? I mean I should have had more faith in the Men in Blue that they would bring the cup home! ). I believed that if I do something good, something good will happen to me. And see, the Indian Cricket Team won the World Cup (the BCCI should sooo thank me in helping to bring the Cup home after the 1983 win..lol)

So folks, the victims are already in a state of depression thinking over the sorrowness that surrounds their life. Please don’t aggravate their feeling of sadness and helplessness by blaming them for their own outcomes. Many times people aren’t in control over the results of the events that happen in their lives and it is best that we support them who are in need of help, irrespective of whether we believe that they are responsible for their sorry state of affairs or not. Let’s spread a little more tolerance and love in the world J

Still believing,

Nupur

Aaaarrghhhh!! Ohkay, it will be kk.. aaarghhhh.. No, I should be in control, I am going to be fine!

How many times have you heard yourself repeat the title over and over again when something bad happened to you? Plenty, right? At least I have used this pretty recently. I had a test on Monday due at 11 pm. I thought that the test was due on Monday at 11 pm of the coming week. I got to know this at 5:30 pm the day that the test was due. I double checked then to make sure that the news wasn’t correct when in fact I should have done this earlier to make sure that I had the correct test date in mind. I freaked out (obviously!) I hadn’t studied as much as I had thought I should (obviously again, who studies a week before the test is apparently due?!) but I had to give the test. All the way back to home from the classes, I told myself that I will be fine and will do great on the test (false belief, I know..lol) but it helped me keep my calm, study for a couple of hours and give the test.

So how do psychologists explain the term “coping”? According to them, coping is the general term that people use to deal with trauma and go back to functioning effectively in life. People have different strategies which they use to cope with situations that turn out to be bad. And coping with the disturbed emotional state of affairs is important to be able to deal with reality in a coherent manner. Sometimes when someone’s house is robbed or a wallet is stolen, people aren’t as much affected by the financial loss incurred as much as they are affected by their dissonance in the world beliefs. Ronnie Janoff-Bulman (1992) calls such beliefs, assumptive worlds- the view that people live in social worlds based on certain beliefs (assumptions) about reality.

According to Janoff-Bulman, assumptive worlds theory consists of three kinds of assumptions that people live with:

1.)    The world is benevolent: people are good, surroundings are good, good things will happen to me.

2.)    The world is fair and just: the world is fair and if you treat other people fairly, they will treat you in the same manner.

3.)    I am a good person: I am someone of value and therefore deserve to have good things happen to me.

When something bad happens, like your wallet is stolen or like me if you mistake the date of the test, these beliefs are disrupted. And in order to ensure effective coping, one tries to figure out how to explain the misfortune while still believing in the assumptions. One tries to attribute the misfortune to oneself (Bulman and Wortman, 1977). This can be a pretty effective technique if there is a clear distinction made between blaming oneself for actions as opposed to blaming oneself for being a bad person. When I mistook the test-date, I attributed the mistake to myself saying that if I take proper care the next time, this won’t happen again, instead of saying that I am bad (btw, I know that I am good.. most of the times..lol) and thus only bad things should happen to me and that world is no more a good place to live in!

So folks, bad things happen, misfortunes occur and our hearts are broken sometimes, but the world isn’t all that bad you know?! It has some amazing people and things worth living for <3. Just taking few corrective measures, can make us live happily with those people and things J

Still believing in the world around me,  

Nupur

Offcourse, I love my utterly boring life :\

Have you guys ever faced a situation that required you to do something utterly boring with no apparent rewards, but when the time came to tell others about the boring job that you were doing on a beautiful Sunday morning, you said that you actually loved the job? Many of us have done this even in important situations. We have lied that we loved doing the work that we were doing though internally, we could have died of boredom.

Psychologists say that this kind of a situation reflects the cognitive dissonance theory. Cognitive dissonance theory states that inconsistencies between behavior and attitudes produce psychological discomfort which leads people to either rationalize their behavior or to change their attitudes. Psychological research in the 1950s, focused on persuasion techniques and adherently believed in the operant conditioning theory. But in 1959, Leon Festinger and J. Merrill Carlsmith, published a classic experiment to demonstrate the presence of cognitive dissonance. According to them, the dissonance theory suggests that if a person is given a small reward in exchange of doing work that he/she dislikes, most attitude change will occur as compared to the traditional reinforcement theory which suggests that bigger the reward, more the attitude change in the person doing the job.

In their experiment, Festinger and Carlsmith, asked participants to perform utterly boring jobs like (kind of like the ones that college students sometimes do to fend for pocket money.. lol) spending the first 30 minutes taking 12 little wooden spools off the tray, one at a time, putting back in the place and repeating the process over and over again. In the next 30 minutes, each participant had to turn 48 square pegs a quarter turn clockwise and again keep repeating it over and over again. The experimenter then said that the experiment was to actually motivate people to do such mundane tasks (this was false knowledge). The participants were informed that another previous participant (actually a confederate) who was supposed to tell other participants how cool the job was so that other participants would be motivated to do the job (this was in conjunction with the false knowledge) did not turn up and will they be willing to do the same job instead?

The participant was given either $1 or $20 to perform the task of telling other people how interesting the job was. This was obvious lieing, because the participants knew that the job was utterly boring. After they told another participant (another confederate) how enjoyable the task was, each participant was asked how much they enjoyed doing the task. As predicted by Festinger and Carlsmith, participants who received $20 to lie about the otherwise dull job, did not report enjoying doing the job. But those participants who received only $1 to lie that they liked doing the job, reported that they actually enjoyed doing the job. People who received $1 were in a state of cognitive dissonance. Since they did not receive a substantial amount to lie in the first place and since they knew that they would never lie about doing something (I mean common, even the criminal in the court says that he never lies, these are at least innocent, normal people! ), they changed their attitude towards the job. By attributing their behavior- saying to other participant that the job was enjoyable to actually liking the job they performed, they overcame the cognitive dissonance that they were undergoing.

So folks, cognitive dissonance can be a great tool if used properly to get people to change their attitude about something, without them even realizing it consciously! But I wonder sometimes that why this theory never seem to work with my papa when I give him lower results and still expect him to love me more! Somehow he stops talking to me :D

In a conscious state of dissonance,

Nupur

OMG, I could have killed myself if that didn’t kill me!

“OMG, I am such a stupid girl!” I would often say when I forget to wish my friends for their exams or birthdays (and few of them will actually vouch for me saying this.. lol). Haven’t we all, on numerous occasions displayed behavior that wasn’t appropriate? Sometimes, we wish that we would have done something completely opposite to what we have actually done and that too after knowing better ways to have dealt with the situation!

Psychologists call these actions as a part of Self-Defeating behavior- a behavior in which people bring failure, misfortune of suffering upon themselves. This theory seems paradoxical for those rational souls out there who ‘always’ do something rational and something that is beneficial to their core being. So how does one account for such a behavior? Matina Horner (1972), president of one of the most prestigious women’s colleges (Radcliffe), suggested that many women suffer from fear-of-success. This theory suggested that many women believed that if they become too successful in their work, they would eventually land up being lonely and rejected and will not find any romantic partners. And because of this fear, many women curtailed their otherwise highly successful careers! (I bet that they might have found benevolent sexist partners! Lol)

So there are two main outcomes of the research done to know the reasons for people engaging in self-defeating behaviors. One is that sometimes the good and the bad outcomes are linked together and in order to procure the good, one has to take the bad (Now, I am not repeating what our grannies told us years ago, that you have to take the good with the bad.. lol; but now I seem to wonder whether our grannies actually know about this theory before psychologists found it?? :O ). For example, I love brownies, and can eat them at any hour of the day or night. Eating brownies is good (that is what I tell myself when I accidently read the amount of calories they possess! Lol) , but what does one do about all the fat that accompanies them? Or getting tanned is completely fine if you do it the right way, but what about the peeling skin and redness of the face that happens a few days after getting tanned? Recently, many students from Trinity went to the beach for a weekend, and many of them forgot to take the sunscreen with them :O (I mean come on guys, we are in Texas and looking at your peeling faces with blotches all over isn’t a happy sight to watch! Lol)

Other reason is that people rely on faulty knowledge and on strategies that do not work. If I continue in the granny-like manner, sometimes people do not understand the world or themselves correctly, and hence, do activities that result in their downfall. Remember those times when you say that coffee makes you work better (ohkay, I usually use this excuse for drink more coffee.. lol). People who work under the effect of drinks rich in caffeine have disturbed sleep patterns and become irritable when they have high amounts of caffeine in their body, resulting in poorer work performance.

So folks, it is okay to defeat others and to protect yourself from others, but do not to handicap yourself under the disguise of Self-Defeating behavior- even the name sounds stupid! ;)  

Stupidly stupid,

Nupur

To be or not to be.. ??!

I remember the time that I landed in the US for the first time on 9^th August 2010. My papa said to me one important thing while departing, “Be one of them- the students, but don’t lose your own self in that process!” Before this time, I had never consciously given thought to a process which psychologists usually call the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory.

Optimal Distinctiveness Theory suggests that when people feel very similar to other people in a group, they seek to be different and when they feel different, they try to be more similar (Brewer, 1993, 1999; Leonardelli & Brewer, 2001; Pickett, Silver, & Brewer, 2002). People in groups always have this unending tension between trying to be different and trying to be similar.

When I first came to States, I went through a similar phenomenon. In classes and in social gatherings, I would want to be one of the many students who surrounded me. The initial mixer parties and gatherings that the college organized served a similar purpose. But in all this while I still wanted to keep my individual self, distinct. Hence, what all this resulted in was a constant tension between trying to be one of the 600 students of Trinity Class of 2014 and one of the 153 students of the SNK (my high school) Class of 2010.

One of the studies by Lau (1989), tries to verify this theory by assessing in which localities would African American women identify themselves as feeling closest to African Americans in general. The three types of localities were, predominantly Black, predominantly White and an area with about equal numbers of Blacks and Whites. Before having read this theory, I would have suggested that the African American women would identify strongly with other African Americans in a predominantly White locality. But according to Lau and based on Optimal Distinctiveness Theory, the women identified with other members of their group in a locality which had a 40-70% population of African Americans, a situation that provided an optimal, medium level of distinctiveness.

So folks, it is completely fine if you feel stretched in between wanting to be different and wanting to be one among the members of the group. But, if you guys ever feel the need to be relieved of this stretch, try being in a situation that has the ideal level of distinctiveness, a situation that gives you incentives to be similar while protecting your individuality.

With similarly distinct regards,

Nupur

I didn't do it! Or did I? :O

For those of you who have seen 3 Idiots (I recommended this Bollywood movie in the last blog I wrote, remember? So you guys, better watch it now.. lol), do you recall Chatur saying “I didn’t do it” every time he farted and used to claim all the credit for the tested he scored on? Well, he was exercising what psychologists say, Self-Serving Bias (Gonzales, Pederson, Manning, & Wette, 1990; Weary 1980; Zukerman 1979), a self-deception technique.

Self serving bias is a pattern in which people claim all the credit for all the good that they do and deny their blame for failure attributing it to environmental factors. Haven’t we seen numerous politicians do the same during and after election (sometimes, they even seem to take credit for the work they haven’t done.. wonder what term will psychologists come up with to address this issue.. lol)?

I remember that when I visit a party and am complimented on how I look, I tend to (secretly) attribute it to the few minutes that I have spent dressing up. But many times I blame the not so-good-night sleep for the presence of dark circles and puffy face when I do not seem to be doing well on the appearance scale.. lol

In one of the studies, students were randomly told whether they had done well on a test or not. Those students who received positive results rated the test to be fair and effective than those students who got negative feedbacks (Kunda, 1990; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Holt, 1985; Wyer, & Frey, 1983). Haven’t we done this at some point or the other- in school for tests, in office for a presentation, in family for an outcome of the incident?

We all have done one or the other tricks to deceive our own self into believing something false, by giving ourselves credit for all the good that is done and not taking any blame for the pain of failure. So folks, next time that you see your friend doing this, please understand that they might be doing it only as a way to protect themselves from blow of failure that they might have experienced!

Doing it her way,

Nupur

P.S. that doesn’t mean that when I tell you the next time that we meet at a party that I had a looong stressful week which has led to the dark circles under my eyes and the puffiness on my face, that you reject my reasoning saying that she is only coping up with the failure of Not receiving compliments ;)   

Strangers as friends or Friends as strangers?

There is a famous dialogue from the movie 3 Idiots; it’s a Bollywood movie (I highly recommend it!): “When your friend fails you feel bad, but when that friend is the first on an exam, you feel worse.” While the audience might have discarded the dialogue as a joke during the movie, psychological studies show that this statement might actually be true.

Studies show and even as we observe our daily life happenings, that social comparison- the act of comparing oneself socially and against perceived social norms, suggests that a person may suffer as a result of someone else performing better than him/her. Haven’t we all (except those highly moral souls who claim that they gain happiness even in their sufferings) had this feeling once in our lifetime of feeling really bad when a competitor out-performed us? And try to be honest (in private atleast), hasn’t that bad feeling aggravated when you saw that your best friend outperformed you or for that matter, even your sibling? You may want to hate me right now for having said the previous line, but there have been studies which do show that closer the relationship, greater the suffering when social comparison is considered. But, social reflection on the other hand suggests that one may benefit as a result of others’ good performance and closer the relationship, greater the benefit. So how does one determine whether social comparison or social reflection occur between friends and strangers?    

Tesser suggests that occurrence of social comparison or reflection is based on the relevance of the task and performance domain of the person in question. If the domain is essential to the person’s identity, social comparison will occur, and if the domain is not central to the person’s identity, social reflection will occur. In their study, Tesser and Smith (1980) told the participants that the task to be performed was either of high relevance to participants (for example relating to their verbal skills and leadership) or low in relevance (not relating to their identity at all). The participants were then told that they had done poorly on the task and were asked to give clues to their friend or stranger who had come with them to the study and who would be performing a similar task. As predicted, participants of the high-relevance group tended to give difficult clues (the clue-sheet had the clues numbered according to the increasing difficulty of the clue) to their friends than to strangers. The participants of the low-relevance group gave easy clues to their friends as compared to strangers.

So does that mean that our friends are not truly our friends? That our best friends, the people whom we say as can risk our lives with would eventually wish to sabotage us when the situation demanded and that too, over a stranger? On simple tasks, maybe. I am pretty sure that when my sister gave a speech which received more recognition than the one I had given the previous year on the same occasion, I felt bad. But when it comes down to her achievements in academics and other important things, I still am the happiest big sister ever!  

So folks, don’t be saddened by the fact that your friends may sometimes give preference to strangers over you, for you might have done that on numerous occasions yourself! But just as a side-note, Best friends do exist (I absolutely love my Best Friends and hope that they don't hate me after reading this.. lol) :D

Happy (be/-ing) friending,

Nupur

Is your man, a Sexist??

To those women who are reading this blog (and to those men who are now reading after the first few words), how many times have you been on a date where ‘your’ man opens the door for you with a warm smile ushering you in? Plenty right (my man doesn’t do so! :O )! and while you may start smiling with the memories of your most recent date where your significant other did so, hold on to the thought before you go any further. Your man might turn out to be Sexist, a benevolent sexist, but a sexist none the less.

Studies by psychologists suggest that there exist hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism as the name suggests, is hostile behavior of men towards the female gender and feminists regularly label men who display such a behavior as ‘male chauvinist pigs’ (I am sure you get the picture, right? ;) ). These are the kind of men who would always believe that a woman is suppose to do all the changes and sacrifices after marriage, or those who believe that women are too easily offended or that “once a women gets a man to commit to her, she usually tries to put him on a tight leash” (Glick and Fiske, 1996) But benevolent sexism actually turns out to be worse when compared with the hostile version of sexism for women’s cognitive performance (To women out there, do not get disappointed, I promise that there is a remedy ahead that you can use to still enjoy the love of your significant other when he pampers you with opening the doors and paying your bills..). The authors of this research (Dardenne, Dumont and Bollier, 2007), regard benevolent sexism as “insidious danger” leading to a greater insult of the woman. While some women adhere to it and accept it fully which makes it more harmful than hostile sexism, women with benevolent sexist attitudes might perceive safety rules (which are specially designed for women like not going on a long trip alone) justified!

Sexism is a form of prejudice in disguise. Some people might not even realize that they are sexists! The next time you are on a date, try to be vigilant and see if your guy holds doors for others and not just you. If he does open/hold doors for others, he is genuinely caring for you if not well you may want to check other guys! For those of you who might be thinking that why is holding doors such a great deal,

well then this kind of behavior is also exemplified when it comes to paying bills while living in a live-in relationship or while walking on the side of the road and the guy insists on walking on the side which conjoins the car side or to those who order wine for women thinking that wine is the only alcohol that women like (to women who do like only wine I do not mean to kill your initial buzz when you guy might have ordered it for you on your first date)! Benevolent sexism is grounded in gender stereotypes of women “having” and “expected” to behave in certain way.      

So folks, for women it’s time to check out your guy once again and for men, well you might just have the greatest revelation of your life today should you know if you are or not a sexist! ;)

Have a great week ahead!

With great benevolence ;)

Nupur

Picture citation: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://muslimmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/chivalry.gif&imgrefurl=http://muslimmatters.org/2007/04/24/a-return-to-chivalry/&usg=__IBF1sIg-XbNOSzmpmHQfgwedNh4=&h=233&w=248&sz=24&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=uijvKuGB7sdbRM:&tbnh=137&tbnw=146&ei=hgelTaOtDMaJ0QHArojaCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmen%2Bopening%2Bdoors%2Bfor%2Bwomen%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26biw%3D1345%26bih%3D583%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=126&oei=hgelTaOtDMaJ0QHArojaCA&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0&tx=78&ty=62