Go Mental: The Sociology & Psychology Discussion Thread

[Woofer]

My 24 hours of Boomhauer speak are over. Phew! That was difficult.

------

A thread for this is an excellent idea!

Darkers, I totally understand what you're saying. I don't want to go into too much detail, but we have someone at our office right now and EVERYONE is having some level of problem with this guy. Even the nicest, kindest, most easy-going people in our office have had some sort of run-in with him. He has only been working with us about 6 months, and suddenly everyone has a problem. Have we all spontaneously and simultaneously developed short tempers or maybe there's a dickweed working with us now?

[jayson]

in light of recent conversation in the immrn thread, it was time to start a new thread dedicated to discussion of sociological and psychological issues.

i will copy the relevant posts over to this thread so we can continue the discussion in progress.

enjoy

[Unfound One]

Excellent!

A psychology thread.

The current discussion reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
- Anais Nin

I have more to say but I have to get to work - I shall return soon!

[idk, my bff jill?]

My type is ENTP, and although I was pretty skeptical at first, what this page says is awfully accurate.

And I love some of the famous ENTPs.
Matthew Perry as Chandler being one of them was a very pleasant surprise since he was always my favorite character, and I was talking about Friends with someone today.
Plus George Carlin, Lewis Carrol, Alfred Hitchcock, etc.

[rosie real]

Excellent!

A psychology thread.

The current discussion reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
- Anais Nin

I have more to say but I have to get to work - I shall return soon!

SJ i think i will be stealing that quote for my sig. thank you.

[Unfound One]

You're welcome!

I don't recall where I first heard it, but it definitely stuck.
I remember thinking at the time how true it is, and how much that can taint our perceptions of people and events.
Dang.

[rosie real]

i took the test when SJ first posted it on facebook (at like 3:30 in the morning). i was wide awake, unable to sleep actually, listening to some of my favorite music, calm and in a reasonably good mood.

my results were: ISFJ which put me in the guardian classification. and was me to a fucking fault. i mean it was so me it was scary. and, by the way, every time i've taken this test (in any version, with any questions) this has been my result.



i just retook it. about an hour ago i woke up from a nap i wasn't planning on taking. i'm in a foul fucking mood. i want ice cream and there isn't any. i'm in a fucking lot of pain. my husband went out and once-a-fucking-gain didn't leave me a note telling me where he was going or anything. and he's not answering my texts or my calls (on the top of my pet peeve lists - if i do that to him he has a fucking heart attack). and yeah the rant is relevant.

today my results are: ISFP which puts me in the artisan classification. this is so NOT me it's scary. it's like someone else took the test for me.


so any theories? thoughts, comments, critiques? does mood really play that big a role in psychological testing? does pain? does anger? on something like the mmpi i can see how it would, but why on this kind of test?

[Unfound One]

so any theories? thoughts, comments, critiques? does mood really play that big a role in psychological testing? does pain? does anger? on something like the mmpi i can see how it would, but why on this kind of test?

Oh absolutely mood plays a big role in psychological testing.
That's why we always have a control in our experiments - in your case, you in your normal awake and alert mood would be the control. And you got the "correct" result, since you say that it goes it and that you've gotten the same before.

When you're in a bad mood and get a totally different result, THAT would be something to look into. I don't know why it happens, I'm sure there's some very interesting psychology behind it though.

I have to do research this semester to graduate and I was thinking about doing some gender stuff, but mood would also be super interesting to research...

Plus that gives me an excuse to piss people off and then make them take a test.

[Unfound One]

Oh, and about if pain plays a big role in testing - there's a big difference between your pain and the apparent pain of another. Because how somebody else's pain influences you is based on SO many different factors.

Oh man, this makes me want to start monologuing right this very moment, but I have to close down Scooters. Maybe later tonight.

I freaking love this thread.

And I can say that because I didn't actually start it.

[rosie real]

well, i'd be happy to let you piss me off and then give me a test to take. i find these psychology things fascinating. i just don't get why on a "standardized" test, mood would play such a big role. i don't *think* i answered any of the questions differently, but obviously i did - and i did based on how i was feeling.

i could see if you were taking a rorschach test or a word association test or something. but something like this? that just blows me away.

speaking of the rorschach test. SJ - how do you feel about wikipedia having all of the inkblots up with all of the common responses? do you think that impacts testing or do you think it's used so little now that it doesn't make a difference either way? (and for the record, i didn't see any of what they said people usually see. does that make me crazy?)


ETA: i have no idea what you are talking about with the pain thing. i was talking about my personal pain. and you are talking about the apparent pain of another? do you mean taking a test while watching someone in pain? or while knowing that someone is being hurt in another room? cause dude, seriously, if that's the direction that testing is going i withdraw my offer. . . .

[Unfound One]

Oh, there have been a few tests just like that.
And yeah, I'm talking physical pain.
And actually, they are some of my favorite psychology things.

Okay, the best is the Milgram experiments.
Basically this guy came up with a way to test if a person would continue to inflict pain on another just because they were told to by the experimenter. It was testing obedience.

They obviously weren't hurting anyone, but they thought they were. Basically, Milgram put them in a room with a "shock control station" in front of them. They were to ask the person in the next room (who they thought was hooked up to some sort of shocking apparatus) questions, and if they got them wrong, they were to inflict a shock on the person by pushing a button.

If they started to feel badly about it, the experimenter sitting next to them would encourage them by saying things like "you must continue" etc. The shocks kept getting higher and higher, and people felt awful about it, but they kept going because they were obeying an authority figure.

This was the last straw in psych testing as far as ethics - the participants doing the shocking were not briefed before the test as to what they were doing, and many were extremely traumatized by it. Now there are Institutional Review Boards and much red tape to make sure this doesn't happen again.

More about Milgram's Experiment here.

[rosie real]

i vaguely remember reading about that in psych class in college. and some test about prisoners and guards? don't remember much about it though.



ETA: do you think a test like that would work today? ignore the ethics board issues and the red tape. do you think that people today would do something like that? or was that a result of the era in which the persons participating lived?


ETA #2: that experiment is fucking barbaric.

ETA #3: found the prison experiment (it's quoted in the article).

[Woofer]

i vaguely remember reading about that in psych class in college. and some test about prisoners and guards? don't remember much about it though.



ETA: do you think a test like that would work today? ignore the ethics board issues and the red tape. do you think that people today would do something like that? or was that a result of the era in which the persons participating lived?


ETA #2: that experiment is fucking barbaric.

ETA #3: found the prison experiment (it's quoted in the article).

I absolutely think that people today would zap another person. However, I think the reasons might be a bit different. I believe today there is quite a bit of pent-up frustration that many would tap into for a test of this nature, whereas before it was more a question of following orders. Still, I believe there would be other forms of impetus that would cause? enable? people to participate; e.g. following orders (again), over-zealous patriotism, need to educate someone.

INTJ

[jayson]

Still, I believe there would be other forms of impetus that would cause? enable? people to participate; e.g. following orders (again), over-zealous patriotism, need to educate someone.

with little surprise to anyone i am sure, i agree with woofer.

i won't say much more as what i have to say really belongs in the political discussion thread, but suffice it to say, i've seen more than enough people unquestioningly support potential torture to think differently.

[Woofer]

Still, I believe there would be other forms of impetus that would cause? enable? people to participate; e.g. following orders (again), over-zealous patriotism, need to educate someone.

with little surprise to anyone i am sure, i agree with woofer.

i won't say much more as what i have to say really belongs in the political discussion thread, but suffice it to say, i've seen more than enough people unquestioningly support potential torture to think differently.

ETA: If we need any further proof that we (humans) are still perfectly capable of this, we need look no further than YouTube.

[SigTauGimp]

Hooray! A thread I can sink my teeth into.

I lloovvee this stuff...I was a double major in Psych./Soc. in college.

As for the test, INTP.

You are:

* distinctively expressed introvert 67%
* distinctively expressed intuitive personality 62%
* moderately expressed thinking personality 25%
* slightly expressed perceiving personality 22%

Sounds pretty close to me. Something that one of my middle school teachers said to me always comes to mind with tests/conversations/discussions like this. I can't remember who originally said it, but it was something along the lines of:

"I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am."

[Darkthoughts]

Excellent thread name

The results of the Luscher Colour Test are greatly affected by mood and situation, my Dad used to use that one a lot in his work. But most of these tests aren't really designed to be taken over and over within a short period of time. I can't remember why, I think it was something to do with you learning the responses etc.

[jayson]

Excellent thread name

i always try to go with a song title. with this one, i knew it would be a ramones' song. it was just a matter of picking which one since so many apply.

[pathoftheturtle]

Personalities do change, but usually incredibly slowly. How others percieve you to be is entirely irrelavant to who you are. Their perceptions are part of their personality not yours. Although a test can have no personality the tests perception of who you are functions the same as another person's perception of you in that it can only explain and define on an extremely limited basis. It's not the answers you give that yield a certain result, but the specific questions asked. It's not that I'm unhappy with the results. I simply know them to be wrong. Actually my horoscope is much more accurate. So why do we need to categorize people at all? I think it's detrimental to any real understanding. If we say all people fit into x amount of boxes/descriptions we are just imposing our own limits on reality. It can be interesting or entertaining, possibly even useful in a transitive way, but really not very accurate, IMO.

About.com link: What is Gestalt Psychology?

[Unfound One]

I was a double major in Psych./Soc. in college.

"I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am."

You were?
Why didn't I know this?!?

I really like that quote.

[SigTauGimp]

Silly goose, because you never asked.


I've been a fan of Psych./Soc. for as long as I can remember. All the way back in the 3'rd grade, one of my teachers made the entire class write a letter to themselves as an assignment, talking about what they wanted to be, who they hung out with, what music they liked, all that stuff...of course, everyone forgot about it, and then, on graduation day, she mailed the entire lot of them out to us. Mine could have been written the day before graduation, and you wouldn't have seen a difference. I even put (at 8 years old) that I'd like to be a specialist in Abnormal Psychiatry.

I had plans to go to med school to specialize in Abnormal Psych. after graduating, but that was before my financial aid shafted me, and I had to do the whole withdrawal thing. That slightly long-term goal has been shifted to really long-term for now.

I love that quote too...it's one of those random things that have stuck with me all these years later, through all of my altered states of consciousness and memory loss.

[Emily]

How others percieve you to be is entirely irrelavant to who you are.

This is interesting to me because I've always thought of it oppositely. I've always felt that who you are is completely irrelavent to how others think of you. I guess it's kind of the same thing, but not really. For example, a lot of times when my friends try to rationalize hooking up with random guys, they'll say things to the effect of, "I know I'm not a slut so I don't care what other people think." But I always think to myself, they're going to think you're a slut whether you feel like you are or not so it doesn't really matter. Does that make sense? Also, I think of myself as confident but uninterested in the goings-on of people I know, but I'm sure that people view me as shy and awkward. I feel like you can think whatever the hell you want about yourself, but it doesn't make any difference what so ever to what people say/think of you. This also probably has to do with personal opinions about society and the world as a whole. I guess depending on who you are and what is important to you, you may think of it the way that I do or the way that Brice said it. I don't really know.

I'm also a little drunk right now. So hopefully this isn't embarrassing tomorrow when I read it.

EDIT: Also I'd like to point out that when I say people will think my friends are sluts, I don't mean that I think they are. I don't think that at all. I think people should do whatever the hell makes them happy. K. Just wanted to clear that up.

[pathoftheturtle]

...So why do we need to categorize people at all? I think it's detrimental to any real understanding. ...

Who cares about real understanding these days? We categorize people because modern society is structured around division of labor. Rather than diagnosing the repressed and neglected elements of a personality in order to foster individual growth, as Jung intended, we prefer to just identify their most readily exploitable aspects.

It's normal for some areas of the mind to be underdeveloped, because self-cultivation requires time and energy. However, if one wastes no time in one's life, if one puts serious priority on excellence, it is theoretically possible to be strong in all of the areas of psychological function, just as it is possible, despite stereotypes, to be athletic and intelligent.

A person with good extroversion and good introversion, strong in sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling is an ideal human. The kind we crucify.

[cozener]

I have no idea how the test came out with this considering the questions that were asked but I can only assume that these guys know what they're doing because, damn, this is spot on dude.

INFP Innocuous Nymphomaniac Freaky Pervert.

Butts description: While most know you to be the harmless sexual eccentric that you are it is quite obvious that your obsessions can dominate your thinking. Your freakiness, while amusing and even charming to an extent, could cause discomfort to the uninitiated. Your preoccupation with sexual adventure can cause you to lose focus at times and might lead you to say things that you shouldn’t at some very inopportune times. The upshot is that everyone around you knows exactly whats on your mind all the time and its very easy to strike up a conversation with you as long as the discussion revolves around your penis and what you might like to do with it.

[Brice]