Cognitive dissonance
More freizeit dabbling in psych.
First paragraph especially interesting. Heavy micro-cultural implications:
In Festinger and Carlsmith's classic 1957 experiment, students were made to perform tedious and meaningless tasks, consisting of turning pegs quarter-turns, then removing them from a board, then putting them back in, and so forth. Subjects rated these tasks very negatively. After a long period of doing this, students were told the experiment was over and they could leave.
However, the experimenter then asked the subject for a small favor. They were told that a needed research assistant was not able to make it to the experiment, and the subject was asked if they could fill in and try to persuade another subject (who was actually a confederate) that the dull, boring tasks they had just completed were actually interesting and engaging. Some subjects were paid $20 for the favor, another group was paid $1 and a control group was not requested of the favor.
When asked to rate the peg-turning tasks, those in the $1 group showed a much greater degree of attitude change in favor of the experiment than those in either of the other two groups. Experimenters theorized that when paid only $1, students were forced to internalize the attitude they were induced to express, because they had no other justification. Those in the $20 condition, it is argued, had an obvious external justification for their behavior -- they did it for the money. But with only $1, subjects faced insufficient justification and therefore "cognitive dissonance" which they sought to relieve by changing their attitude in order to really believe that they found the tasks enjoyable.
Possible implication: when you get a bunch of people into a state of cognitive dissonance as mentioned above, they start forming artificial heirarchies and power structures to maintain a sense of competition, which in turn keeps productivity high. The core issue, however, remains: the entire structure is built on behavior related to cognitive dissonance. The key to keeping a structure like this stable is to a) keep the cognitive dissonance there (in case above, keep pay low), b) create artificial heirarchies to promote competition, and c) appease errant or rebellious notions through favors. These favors are perceived as scarce, eg. you can't get them anywhere else. This promotes loyalty and stickiness. Brilliant.
Intense emotional responses to music
Hmm.
I've been thinking a bit about the relationship between music and emotions. My question is this: is there a chicken-and-egg tension between how you're feeling and the music you're listening to? For example, do you subconsciously seek out songs that match your mood and allow you to explore it further? Or do you choose songs neutrally, then get into a certain mood while listening to them? I think that the type of music we listen to says a lot about our emotional character and socio-cultural background. Definitely worth exploring further. Sage has interesting articles on the topic.
Then, as the above article mentions, there's also the link between emotions, music, and physiological state. What does that say about highly emotional people who love listening to emotionally charged music? Errmm...
Man crosses Australia - by skateboard
He's cool.
Many Who Voted for 'Values' Still Like Their Television Sin
The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > Many Who Voted for 'Values' Still Like Their Television Sin
NYT has been running a series of articles on conservative politics vs. liberal culture. I'm not sure why NYT is so surprised by this - isn't it clear that the nation swung right due to fear and safety rather than traditional moral conservatism? As a culture, we're straddling a divide between fear and hedonism. We want to feel protected on the one hand. We recognize that the nation is no longer secure. However, we want to hold onto our uniquely American brand of indulgent entertainment. It seems almost reactionary to me - the more insecure we feel, the more we dive into indulgent, cheap, sexual TV programming. I mean, the drama just keeps increasing, and we are getting more and more absorbed into our cheezy TV shows. The sexual sleaze on TV increases proportionally to the IR hype on the outside. The more we see, the more we want to forget about it. So we flip from Faux News to that Housewives show, from extreme international insecurity to extreme sexual insecurity and lust. Interesting dichotomy. Now that I think about it, there does appear to be a correlation. Maybe these NYT articles are highlighting an important point after all.
Problem is, they're operating off an old paradigm that conservative politics => conservative media. These journalists need to get their skulls out of the 1950's. The world today is more nuanced, more complicated. Links between politics and culture aren't as straightforward as the old theories profess. We're living in a world composed of shades of grey, where national insecurity can actually lead to hypersexuality, where partisan polarity is a media construction rather than a sociocultural truth. Media simplifies. Media writes according to digestible paradigms. Result: a whole bunch of flat and/or irrelevant articles, aka. information noise. This is the problem with mainstream media. These people mean well, but their definition of accuracy is unfortunately somewhat stale.
An Essay: Computers as Authors? Literary Luddites Unite!
Kinda throws a code wrench into my literary pursuits.
Your Friends & Neighbors
Your Friends & Neighbors
Recommended to me.
Janis Joplin: The Essential Janis Joplin
Classic
