Give it up!

Though I've got my 5 entries, here's another one.

John's lecture last night prompted me to write this.
I was just on the MRT from Clementi to Eunos. Due to the fact that it's a public holiday, the train was packed. So I didn't get a seat until Bugis.
While seated, a couple of old ladies boarded the train, and one didn't get a seat. So I gave up my seat to the old lady, and resumed standing for the rest of the journey.

I admit that I wasn't being altruistic. Maybe there was no way to fake that I'm sleeping since the time was only a little past noon. Also I didn't want to endure the rest of the journey to Eunos station with the old lady standing right in front of me, reminding me that I'm supposed to let her have my seat. I guess I wasn't mean enough to wait longer for someone to alight and free up a seat for her.
So, yes, I gave up my seat, to reduce the cognitive dissonance. The dissonance between my behaviour and my cognition.
Behaviour: My butt still on the seat
Cognition: I'm supposed to give up seats for elderly folks.
What if she fell during the journey? That would have been on my conscience for a long time.

So, to reduce the cognitive dissonance, I changed my behaviour. And gave up the seat to her.

It's like Abraham Lincoln from John's story during lecture. He saved the piglets and I gave up the seat to get peace of mind.

Male Favouritism

Reading about gender stereotypes and gender bias made me think of my grandparents, in particular my paternal grandmother, aka dad's mom.


I head from my mom that paternal grandmother is gender biased, towards boys. She would favour sons and grandsons.

A couple of things that my mom told me regarding paternal grandmother actually made me quite upset.

I don't have any brothers, only one sister. My mom told me that when me and my sister were born, my paternal grandmother, being the mother-in-law, did not bother to visit at all. Imagine a new mom and the stress she experiences after giving birth, and her MIL not providing any support when her daugher in law is supposed to be part of the family.
My mom said that it's because she doesn't think much of granddaughters. Instead paternal grandmother would be really nice to my male cousins.

Even my mom feels that paternal grandmother is too biased, and so when both me and my sister managed to graduate with degrees, she was quite proud of us. My male cousins, from dad's side of the family, didn't make it to university. This is my mom's way of proving grandmother wrong.

In my dad's family, the sons are the ones who gets higher education, the daughters are asked to help out at home and are not given opportunities for much education.

Even though paternal grandmother doesn't openly express her biasness, her behaviour gives away her implicit attitudes and prejudice towards daughters and granddaughters. Even the way she treats daughters and granddaughters could result in self-fulfilling prophesies.

I think most Chinese parents who came from China, or had parents from China, are gender biased in this way. The reason for such gender biasness? I found this from Wikipedia:


"Chinese tradition says that most parents want their first child to be born a male. Female deselection is also due to deeply rooted Confucian traditions, and Chinese parents desire sons in order to make familial propagation, security for the elderly, labor provision, and performance of ancestral rites.
Parents may wish for a male child because in many cultures only a male will carry on the family name (traditionally when a bride gets married she effectively becomes a member of the groom's family) because they believe that a male is needed for work, or because they wish a male to earn an income needed to support the parents in their old age"

I'm actually quite indignant about this whole issue. Grandmother herself is a woman, so why is she so biased against daughters and granddaughters? If everyone kills female babies like what they did in China, won't the world be full of males and there will be no females left to give birth?

This seems to be the trend of most Chinese families, especially the earlier generation. Even though now these attitudes and prejudices are supposedly phased out, i believe that they still exist, except that these attitudes are more covert than overt.

Collagen

What is collagen?

Collagen is a protein.

"Often, collagen is discussed in relation to the skin. It works with keratin to provide the skin with strength, flexibility, and resilience. As people age, however, collagen degradation occurs, leading to wrinkles. As such, it is an important substance for those looking for ways to fight the visible effects of aging on the skin. Some skincare professionals actually advise people on ways to stimulate the production of collagen in skins cells." (Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-collagen.htm)

People who want to look younger, prettier, handsomer, reduce wrinkles, reverse signs of aging, can use this piece of information.

That's why the market for beauty products, including collagen, is booming.

Do you drink Vitagen? There's a new version of Vitagen, which has collagen added to it.(Supposedly). It's more expensive than your normal Vitagen, and a local TV actress is the spokeswoman for it. Here's more info if you are interested.

Two other beauty brands also sell collagen products.

FANCL Tense Up EX, sold by FANCL, is purported to contain collagen.

Imedeen Prime Renewal is being sold by IMEDEEN. Also said to contain collagen.

How come I know so much? Personally I don't take these stuff. But friends of mine have been talking about them, and using them. And yes, these stuff are not cheap.

Of the few friends who are trying these products, two of them are using the Fancl and Imedeen products, a 3rd friend is using the collagen matrix sold in Nature Farm.

My friends swear that this stuff works. Their skin is better, pimples heal faster, their wrinkles are lesser, so on and so forth.

Let's work out some costs here.

Imedeen costs USD260 for 1.5 months supply. So that's about USD3 a day. (From Amazon.com website)

Fancl costs about SGD6-7 for a bottle (if you buy in bulk, otherwise it's about SGD8 a bottle), dosage is one bottle a day.

Expensive! To me at least. I come from a middle income family. My friends are not that well off either, though they hold full time jobs.

I myself don't believe that it works. I think they are behaving just like Dissonance Theory predicts.

What are the dissonant cognitions at work here?

"I'm buying and eating collagen" and "Collagen is expensive"

There's a few ways to resolve the dissonance.

One way is to change one of the cognitions directly. So either they stop taking collagen, or they convince themselves "Collagen is so cheap! Less than 10 bucks a day!".

Another way is to add cognitions that support the behaviour. So they tell themselves that taking collagen DOES make them prettier, and their skin smoother. So theirbehaviour is now justified.

So my friends are choosing the 2nd method to reduce dissonance. They are telling each other that taking collagen DOES make their skin better. And they are trying to convince me to start taking too.

Having taken Psychology, (especially STATS with John!) we know that causality can't be proven so easily.

So many confounding variables could have caused the change, or PERCEIVED improvement in skin condition. Stress, sleep, environment (working in an aircon environment vs non aircon), food intake, exercise, close relationships and many others.

Of course the websites claim that scientific research was done and the results prove that their products REALLY work. But we all know that many many things can go wrong.

ESPECIALLY if the research was funded by the company that made the product!

So I think my friends need to take Psychology. :p

This example also shows how easily people are persuaded to part with their hard-earned money. People who want to look good and young, have a FEAR of aging. So anything that is aimed at reducing this fear ("drive reduction theory") would convince people to act to prevent or slow down this aging.

If a person doesn't care about his or her looks, their susceptilibity to such messages would be lower.

If these people are inoculated against these messages (as suggested in inoculation theory), they will be less susceptible. One good example is moi!. After having gone through 3 gruelling stats modules, I'm now better inoculated against these 'scientific' research and claims!

Black Eye

This happened to a classmate.

A few days ago she went to the 3rd level student services centre, and had approached M to ask her about some issue. This classmate had a ‘black eye’. There was quite a big bruise around her right eye, especially below the eye.

Some background information first. This classmate had been with JCU for a few trimesters already. M, being a staff of JCU, knows her, given the efficiency of processes in JCU. M herself, is quite a nice lady, efficient and helpful. Most of us have to approach her and she does make dealing with the JCU admin issues a little smoother.

So my classmate was approaching M to talk to her. She had barely started before M quickly interrupted.
“It’s ok! You don’t have to tell me what happened! Just fill in this form and do this and that and….”

What’s happening here?
M had obviously seen the ‘black eye’, and her automatic mental process took over and she made a judgment based on her schemas, instead of using any information that she could have obtained just by asking and activating a controlled mental process.
Her schemas had helped her arrive at the conclusion that my classmate was the victim of abuse, had gotten beat up, and thus the ‘black eye’.
She was probably uncomfortable about it and so didn’t want to know anything more.
M’s attitude towards this is quite obvious. She doesn’t want to know or talk about it. This is an example of an implicit attitude, which is also automatic.

Food for thought:
Would you have made the same judgment if you had seen my classmate, since most of us would have the same kind of schemas? Or would you have asked?
On the other hand, given the nature of physical abuse, would you have felt comfortable bringing it up when you suspect that person was a victim of abuse?
What is your own attitude towards victims of family violence? Avoidance? Concern?

So what really happened to my classmate?
She didn’t get beaten up by a husband or a boyfriend. She had fainted and fell on her face, resulting in a huge bump on her forehead, from which the blood had flowed to below her eye, and settled there, forming a bruise. Something like that, and simple as that. :-)

I thought that this story was hilarious, the part about M of course, not about my classmate having a fall. :-p

Art or mutilation?

This article caught my eye.
This guy, Alexx Ng, has three rows of Teflon beads and a star-shaped silicone implant under the skin of his right arm.
This guy claims he doesn’t know why he did it, and that he’s not an attention seeker.

People who see his implants ‘scold him’ and aunties in coffee shops scream at him in Hokkien, calling him crazy. People point and stare at him when he’s on the MRT. (The Sunday Times, Lifestyle, Mar 23, 2008) Even the police stop him and his group of friends to contact checks and tests for drugs.

Why such a strong reaction to him? If you check out the photos, you may be shocked too. This guy obviously doesn’t conform to social norms in terms of appearance. It’s no wonder that the public and police react in such a manner.

However, he does conform to some other norms; those of his group of friends. He has “10 or so friends” who have such implants.

“A reference group is a group that serves as a standard of comparison for an individual, whether in terms of attitudes, values, or behaviour. Individuals try to conform to the norms and values of their main reference group.” (Social Psychology Alive, Pg 223)

Most people conform to reference groups by imitating their appearance and behaviour in order. Peer conformity, though normally appearing in children and adolescents, seems to be at work here in these young adults. Alexx Ng could likely be conforming to his main reference group which is his group of friends. Having the same appearance, in this case the implants, shows their attitudes and identities. They convey an identity that connects them to this group which they are a part of.

What perceptions do the public have of him?
The aunties think he is crazy. The passengers on the MRT probably think so too, as they are staring and pointing at him.
What do they attribute his different appearance to? They think there’s something wrong with him. They are attributing his behaviour to internal factors rather than external ones. Is there a fundamental attribution error here? Or is it really internal factors that are the causes for his behaviour?
Is it his eye for beauty and creativity at work, or some other reasons like stress relief due to work pressures? We are not offered much in the interview to help us make a conclusion.

The actor-observer effect is observed here as well. The observers, people who see his implants, were thinking that he’s crazy, or just out to do something illegal.
The actor himself, Alexx Ng, made some external attributions for his actions.
He said he’s not an attention-seeker, and that he’s a normal guy with a normal job, thus there’s no internal attributions here. He claims that the “body modification” community website sparked his interest, he talked to the people on the site, and thus got into it. He’s externally attributing to the community website.


Alexx Ng claims that he doesn’t know why he got his implants. Does he really not know or is there some cognitive dissonance going on, but he has yet to resolve this dissonance?
He may have resolved the dissonance, but chose not to reveal it, which makes me even more curious.
Whether it’s denying the health risks or emphasising the aesthetic value of his new appearance, we don’t have a clue what he is thinking until possibly the next interview.

Stereotypes and Representative Heuristics on the MRT

This happened on Saturday evening when I was taking the MRT from Outram Park to Redhill Station. I saw a couple in front of me, but their backs were to me.
From the back, their physical appearance was quite normal. The man was casually dressed, pants and a polo t-shirt, had greying hair, and looked about fifty-ish. The woman was wearing a white dress and had long hair tied in a pony tail.
What attracted my attention was their behaviour. The woman was clinging on to the arm of the man, somewhat like those young couples who had just fallen in love. The man’s body language was quite nonchalant whereas the woman was almost leaning on his arm.
Remember these observations were from their backs.

They were waiting for the same train at another door, so they didn’t board at the same door as me.

At Tiong Bahru, just one stop later, the door that I was standing at opened for passengers and that man hopped in from the platform. The woman was on the platform, and waving good bye to him. She was quite reluctant to leave. This can be observed from the way she waited until the door closed, and only when the train started to move, did she start walking away. All this while she was waving goodbye to the man.
When she was on the platform I saw her face for the first time. She wasn’t much younger than the man, maybe about 40 or older?

It appears that earlier the couple had boarded at another door and were in the next cabin on the train during the journey. They had alighted at Tiong Bahru. The man had gotten off the train with the woman to 'send her off the train' but had hopped back on the train in my cabin at the door I was at as his destination was not Tiong Bahru. The woman however was going to Tiong Bahru.
Observing their behaviour led me to conclude that this couple, or at least the woman, was quite ‘in love’ with the man.

I only got a closer look at the man when he hopped in at my door. He really had greying hair, and a paunch, typical of middle aged men. And he was also wearing clothes that men of that age normally wear.

I had quickly stereotyped the couple.

This man had the characteristics of the typical middle aged Singaporean man. He was middle aged, had a paunch and greying hair. Applying the representative heuristic, he probably had a family, with children who were teenagers or even young adults. He looked Singaporean, and Singaporean men of that age typically had families already.

Typical middle-aged Singaporean married couples are not love- dovey. Most do not even walk side by side, much less hold hands or indulge in long romantic good-byes. This is a sterotype as well.

Thus I concluded in my mind, the woman was not his wife.

And of course, since there is limited information available, the ‘story’ in my mind may not even be accurate, but I had already formed my own impression and biasness against them in my mind.

This is potentially harmful and even dangerous, since a judgement was passed on them based on mere observations and not the truth or facts. Just like in the case of Amadou Diallo.