Are we innately good or bad, or do we have a choice?

           Is every act of kindness actually a selfish act? Advocates of prosocial behavior and altruism would definitely oppose this notion of selfishness; to them, people are willing to do good for no personal benefit, even at a cost to their own well being. For instance, a rich person who gives away a huge portion of his money to an orphanage would certainly lack the norm of reciprocity. Wouldn’t that then, be purely altruistic? After all, he must have empathized with the poor and fulfilled the empathy-altruism hypothesis, where a person who empathizes with others tries to help them for unselfish reasons. Further supporting his cause is his ability to help members of an out-group, the orphans, to whom he cannot identify with. Not only that, but he would also defy the urban overload hypothesis, since he did not give in to the overwhelming stimuli around him. What if, however, these assumptions were incorrect? What if he gave away money in order to raise his self-esteem, or to reduce his cognitive dissonance through self-affirmation?  Would that make him a bad person?

            Let us consider another situation. A group of people watched a rape take place but did nothing to stop it. Wouldn’t those people definitely be bad? No. The bystander effect is perhaps more powerful than their best motives, for the greater the number of bystanders, the more that pluralistic ignorance takes place. In other words, everyone depends on the others to help, so no one actually helps. A huge diffusion of responsibility takes place, where each person’s sense of responsibility decreases.  Consequently, the assumption that those bystanders are innately bad would be a fundamental attribution error. But what about the rapist committing the crime? Such an aggressive act that is aimed to cause physical and psychological pain must truly make a person bad! Rape, in this case, is far from instrumental aggression, but an act that is solely hostile. Perhaps this can be explained by the frustration-aggression theory, where an aggressive response was elicited due to the inability to attain a goal. Regardless of social scripts, emotional catharsis was far more critical. So the question is, was this rapist put in a bad situation, or is he innately bad? Are people born “blank slates” and develop their personalities along the way, or are they born either good or bad?

            I guess we can take a final example. A little child watches his mother use a knife to cut bread, while another one watches his father use it for murder. Couldn’t that single scene permanently alter a child’s understanding of what knives are for? The Social Learning Theory suggests that people learn negative and aggressive social behavior through imitation. Not only that, but phenomena such as operant conditioning and classical conditioning also play a huge role in a child’s behaviors, attitudes and construals. I think it is safe to say then, that we are born not knowing what is good and what is bad, but we learn along the way. Accordingly, it is possible for acts of kindness to be selfless acts, for ignorance to be situational, and for negative acts to stem from personal traits. However, it is ultimately up to each person to decide whether they will overcome the bystander effect, perform philanthropic deeds, or act in ways that are purely selfish.

Below is a video which displays people who chose to stop and help, others who were urbanely overloaded, and those who simply decided to walk away.

BLOOD INDIANS

 

We are in a parallel universe. There is neither an evolutionary approach to explain sex differences, nor does psychological essentialism exist. In this universe, our universe, gender roles are reversed; gendered division of labour is in favor of women, where they are more dominant and hold most positions of power. They have an immense social influence on men’s construal and on all societal structures in general. In fact, the president and her secretariats were just discussing yesterday the possibility of enlisting men in the army! They believe that it is a decision that will raise men’s self-esteem and one that will not limit gender stereotypes to personality traits; in other words, a decision that will encourage elaboration. But can you imagine! Men in the army!!! I also heard the other day, that some factories have started manufacturing trucks for boys to replace their barbies! How ludicrous! Is someone trying to change our gender schemas here?

Whats going on? Hasn’t there always been high consensus towards a social hierarchy with women superior to men? Maybe it’s this new movement known as the male rights movements. I know, I thought it was strange too! I mean, doesn’t the stereotype emphasize that men should only be househusbands? They need to be home to take care of the kids and to do the cooking! Nevertheless, menists are using the most absurd defensive attributions like, “But the only reason we are househusbands is because of the self-fulfilling prophecy! Its not our fault!”  Huh? If thats actually true, shouldn’t they try to prove “us” wrong? Assuming of course that there’s an us and a them here. Even if they tried to prove us wrong though, what good could they be in the “outside world”? They’re all the same, anyway!

Oh wait, that’s the out-group homogeneity effect! Well, maybe they’re a little diverse; after all, some men do curl their hair better than others and they kind of get creative with nail polish! Yet, I still can’t help but conform to gender classifications, for when I automatically think of men, I think….househusband! There is even cross-cultural agreement on that. I have a thought, though. If categorization is based on roles and functions, which are affected by the self-fulfilling prophecy, then that means that by creating gender clusters, subtypes, and schemas we cause people to act in a way that coincides with our original categorization. It is all a cycle then, where our actions and beliefs of a certain person cause him to act the way we think he will, therefore, reinforcing the original stereotype. I guess that is the basis of the social role theory, which suggests that characteristics pertaining to gender, are rooted in social roles and occupations. Nonetheless, there are definitely some cases of gender deviance, such as the man who tried to run for president before! That was surely odd; however, we’re very unlikely to disconfirm our idea of gender roles based on a few exceptions.

On the contrary, some Psychologists have been trying to prove that instead of the two fundamental modalities (where men must have extremely high communal competence and women are high on agentic competence), men are now increasingly more competitive and independent, while women are developing emotional and interdependent qualities. What’s up with these Psychologists? I swear, its like the second we get all our heuristics in order, they have to come up with a new study! They’re trying to hint that we should be gender blind, you know, promoting equality and supporting the male rights movement and all. They should know that being gender blind is impossible! We’ve already been conditioned and primed to believe in stereotypes. The furthest we can go is perhaps encapsulation and evaluation, where we learn to create and perceive subtypes that contain “exceptions to the rule.” But who sets the rules, and what are considered exceptions?

According to the cultural approach and social learning theory, gender is the byproduct of a social structure that encourages a specific way of gender socialization; children observe specific gender expectations and begin to fulfill them. For instance,  daughters accompany their mother’s to football matches, and so, they grow up with the notion that girls must watch football. Similarly, boys who watch their father’s cook, do the laundry and dishes, learn by default that they should grow up and do the same. As a result of years of this kind of observational learning, no controlled thinking is really required when we later “perform gender.” Not only that, but the way we perceive ourselves is also affected. Girls will usually develop a growth mindset and a strong self-serving bias, because of the positive external stimuli that they are receiving. On the other hand, due to society’s constant pressures, boys are very likely to have extremely low self-esteem. The fact that boys are expected to starve themselves to be “perfect” and how they are considered “objects” to be used, are factors that contribute to their fixed mindset; they believe that their qualities cannot be cultivated.

Before we go back to reality, here are some pictures of our parallel universe.

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Now, lets go to a different kind of reality, or perhaps a parallel universe in our own world: Blood Indians who reside in Alberta, Calgary.

They are a people whose culture has adopted very similar gender socialization to our parallel universe; their women are the primary providers for the family, while their men stay at home to take care of the kids. About eighty percent of Blood men are unemployed and when asked who the provider is, they agree that it is the woman. However, it would be a major fundamental attribution error to assume that Blood Indians are intrinsically motivated to lead this kind of lifestyle, for it is the situation that is in control. The reversal of gender roles is due to the high education rates of Blood women that allow them to obtain jobs, and it is not because of a particular social structure. It is not a surprise then, to learn that women still stick to “feminine” activities such as knitting and cooking, while men lose their self-esteem and resort to alcohol and physical abuse. It is here that the evolutionary approach provides the most sufficient explanation, as it claims that sex differences are biologically based. Accordingly, when Blood Indians were given the chance to reverse roles and ignore any kind of gender schemas, both men and women still went back to their “natural” preferences.

Perhaps the evolutionary approach gives a valid explanation, but it would make no major difference to understand why we live in a patriarchal society if there was no chance for that to change. Shouldn’t the question then be, whether it is possible for our parallel universe to one day be a reality? Could the Blood Indians be the initiators of that world, or are they merely the last people to adjust to the gender-based hierarchy that is in favor of men?

Here are a few images of the Blood Indians.

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Are you a Bully too?

         It was a completely random day at school, and I somehow found myself sitting with a guy that I don’t usually see a lot. We started talking and then all of a sudden he blurt out, “You were such a terrible person in the ninth grade!!” I asked him why, and he said, “You told me I was weird, but you said it in such a terrible way!!” I was shocked at his comment because it had been three whole years since that happened (I couldn’t even remember) and he was obviously still hurt! Does that mean I was a bully?

I could’ve been “weird” to him too.

How many times have YOU bullied someone?

It probably does, and it makes sense to me now! Why I bullied him, I mean. Naive Realism. I was so convinced with my own definition of “normal”, that I considered anything else as weird or bad. I gave very little value to individual differences, and as far as I was concerned, if you didn’t perceive things the same way I did, then you were wrong, and I would do my best to tell you that you are! I guess that’s why construal comes from the inevitable need to be accurate. . . Anyways, the fact that he was very introverted and sat alone all the time was a bit unfamiliar to me and I tried to explain that in terms of his character (weird), completely disregarding the situation itself. Perhaps people do that a lot. Enough times to coin a term for it, at least: “fundamental attribution error“… If my peer hadn’t approached me, I would’ve never known the negative impact that my words had on him! Think about that! How many people do we bully and not even know it? Are you a bully too? That seemingly insignificant conversation really highlighted social influence for me. The power of one word, one action, one gesture…it can linger on in a person’s mind long after the incident itself has happened. And we are part of that social influence whether we like it or not.

A video on bullying as a form of social influence.