Molly McDonough
4.30.2008
The readings this week were a great way to sum up some of the things we have been discussing in class and a nice review after Aidan and Oliver’s presentation on aesthetics. They were dealing with the aesthetics of art, but art is a division (or diversion) of everyday life, making aesthetics a central theme in our making of daily decisions. This may be in part why I found the first reading Social Cognition in Humans, Frith and Frith (2007), so fascinating. The way we treat people is based on what they look like and how they present themselves. We are able to know if we find someone trustworthy in less than 100 milliseconds. I found this all very interesting and completely applicable to every day life, but my question is whether or not we are aware of looking untrustworthy? If so why not try to help that reaction? I am not talking about attractive versus unattractive, I’m referring to things we wear or facial expressions we choose to have to put up a certain façade.
We are so aware of others and their affect on us, but what about our affect on ourselves? I think the physical reaction to the way we look affects every aspect of our behavior. This doesn’t seem to coincide with Frith and Frith’s view that the awareness of self is described as awareness of self as others see us. How can we be different enough to be unique, and yet the same enough to be accepted?
This brings me to similar questions I had regarding the Frith and Frith (2006) How we predict what other people are going to do. In this paper they again address trust. Trust is intertwined with verbal and non-verbal communication. In the Hirschfield et al. experiment 2.2.4 (pg. 39) a situation of group stereotypes is conflicted with personal dispositions. It’s hard for me to determine whether or not this is a beneficial experiment because if a lot of young children’s mother’s cook, then they might choose the woman. If their father’s cook; they might choose the man, regardless of the individual question.
Our need for interpersonal relations is strange when it really comes down to it. Frith expresses that when we trust someone we are inclined not only to like their friends, but to dislike their enemies. Do we dislike the enemy because we are experiencing the bad feelings through our friends? I think this is another way of living through observing other’s experiences without having to get as emotionally involved. Then it brings the question of whether or not it can even be referred to as an experience of ours without the emotional attachment.
Although we can predict certain things about others, like whether or not our family will disappoint us by being late to some soccer game, the unpredictability of knowing is what leads to the way we mirror others and the need to share. I sometimes wonder why people can become so physically distraught with grief. Maybe it’s because through that depression, lack of nourishment, or sleep at some level we are trying to become a part of another’s experience.
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3 comments:
The idea of recognizing a trust worthy person in such a quick time period makes me wonder about a few things: is this the idea of a first impression from a scientific standpoint? Is it an evolutionary construct of the amygdala, as a kind of protection mechanism? (Those hunches we get which are far deeper then any rationality can account for) Or is it just an adaptive measure, we learn from our past experiences, or we decide from prejudice. If it is the latter, then it is peculiar to me that ones positive or negative reaction to a person does not change in the brain over time. Does that mean the amygdala never errs in its judgment? How come we cannot bring forth that rash decision as it could hinder us from getting hurt by untrustworthy people? So then again we must ask from the other side of the coin, why social construct imposes on us to go against our instincts? For example if in our presentations we were paired with a person that has an untrustworthy face in our amygdala’s opinion, we would still have to follow through and convince ourselves that we should give them a ‘second’ chance, but then end up having to do it all ourselves because our partner did prove to be untrustworthy. Why cant our amygdala be a little voice in our head?
I thought Molly asked an interesting question; "How can we be different enough to be unique, and yet the same enough to be accepted?" It does seem that there can be a limit to the acceptability of traits that are outside of the social norm. So, because are social creatures we value the human bond but also as human we have conscious awareness of our humanity and will strive to 'be different' or unique in some way. However, we can only take this desire to a certain extent without being socially outcast. On the other hand, we can be condemned for being too much like everyone else. In the Frith and Frith paper on Social Cognition in Humans they talk about the mirror/chameleon effect but state the the rapport it creates can be destroyed if a person becomes aware that they are being mirrored. I found that really fascinating because it captures the dichotomy of social consciousness in the sense that we are socially aware but when we are made aware of unconscious processes that aide in our sociability they can work against us.
Maggie, your summary is really on target. How fascinating that we should be so averse to something so necessary for our survival. It seems really curious that certain principles must remain under the radar in order to continue operating... the cameleon effect and social contagion makes me wonder what else lies just under the surface of awareness, yet directs our most passionate social decisions.
Additionally, the first chapter in the Handbook of Emotions (which I reviewed this week for conference) drove home the idea that emotions serve to maintain equilibrium in a healthy organism. That is, emotions act as regulators of experience, signaling action and motivating change. By doing so, they tend to perk up during complex situations and so our attention is likely to take note... Again, I may have confused this idea by simplifying it- but it was also evident in the Rejection article: noting that the dACC acts as a conflict or discrepency detector (295).
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