5 sexiest theories, 5 favorite social psychologists

Sexiest Theories

1. Self-Awareness

· Self-awareness theory states that attention on the self leads to a notice in self-discrepancies, which leads to an escape from self-awareness or a change in behavior (Duval, & Wicklund, 1972). To solve this, there are two ways of coping: (1) Shaping up, behaving in a way that reduces self-discrepancy or (2) Shipping out, by withdrawing from self-awareness.

· I think this theory is sexy because it forces a person to pay attention to him or herself and notice what he or she believes is wrong within him or herself. Then, when those discrepancies are noticed there are two ways that he or she can deal with not being his or her ideal self. He or she can either change or withdraw. I think this theory demands that a person own up to either be happy with his or her actual self, and if not, then he or she can change.

Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A Theory of objective self-awareness. New York: Academic Press.

2. Attribution Theory

· A set of two theories that describe how people explain the causes of behavior: personal attribution or situational attribution. Personal attribution is when the behavior is explained as a result of the person’s personality, and situational attribution is when the behavior is explained as a function of the environment or other external factors (Heider, 1958).

· This theory is sexy to me because it addresses the person’s perception of the person or situation. The attitude that the person has can be implied by which attribution is made. Say someone forgot to bring something to class. Well, a personal attribution can be made (the person is unreliable) or a situation attribution can be made (it must be a busy day). The personal attribution reflects negatively upon the person as opposed to the negative external factors in the situational attribution.

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.

3. Cognitive Dissonance

· Cognitive Dissonance is the theory that people are motivated to reduce the dissonance that results from the inconsistencies in thought (Festinger, 1957).

· Cognitive dissonance is sexy because it basically is a mind trick. The individual is making positive reasons for why he or she made the decision that he or she did, even when the alternative was just as, or more, appealing.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

4. Social Role Theory

· Social role theory states that small gender differences are magnified by the unequal social roles occupied by men and women. Social role involves three factors: (1) through a combination of biological and social factors, (2) masculinity vs. feminity and (3) dominance perception.

· I think Eagly’s social role theory is sexy because it points out the difference between genders, but points out that it is actually a small difference but socialization has taught us to make it bigger. Really, this would be sexier if everyone were more aware of this theory so that gender roles would cease to exist.

Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

5. Triangular Theory of Love

· This theory states that there are eight basic subtypes of love and can be derived from three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment.

· Intimacy is the emotional component

· Passion is the motivation component

· Commitment is the cognitive component

· This theory is complemented by a triangular diagram that can be used to determine which subtype of love is observed

· This theory is extremely sexy because it is (1) about love, (2) there are different levels of love identified, and (3) a diagram to help determine the level of love.

Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93, 119-135.

Sexiest Social Psychologists

1. Daryl Bem (Self-Perception)

· Bem is one of my favorite social psychologists because of his theory of self-perception. I have been interested in this side of psychology since research methods. If I am ever able to do a project on my own where I would try to do something dealing with self-perception because it is remarkable how much one can learn about oneself just by observing his or her own behavior.

2. Fritz Heider (Attribution)

· Heider is one of my favorite social psychologist because he is responsible for attribution theory and balance theory. I really like both of these theories, so I respect the person that came up with them.

3. Sternberg (Triangular Theory of Love)

· I am astounded that someone was able to come up with such an understandable and identifiable model of love levels. This theory just blows my mind.

4. Icek Ajzen (Theory of Planned Behavior)

· How applicable is this theory? Super. It makes a lot of sense and is so identifiable in everyday life that Azjen should be a household name when it comes to decision-making.

5. Leon Festinger (Cognitive Dissonance)

· Cognitive dissonance is such a sexy theory that it makes Festinger look amazing. In addition, he also came up with social comparison theory, which is also really sexy. Two sexy theories automatically merits favoritism.

All five of these social psychologists are in my top five because they have each made a contribution to social psychology that I find personally awesome. They have gathered information to form incredibly applicable theories.

Check your balance.

According to Adams (1965), equity theory is the theory that people are most satisfied with a relationship when the ratio between benefits and contributions is balanced between both partners. In other words, you're happier in a relationship when what you're getting out of it is similar to the level of what your partner is getting out of it. More visually put:

(your benefits/your contributions) = (your partner's benefits/your partner's contribution)

The main point to understand from this theory is that there must be a balance. When one person is receiving more benefits than he or she is contributing, then he or she is being over benefitted; whereas the other partner is receiving less benefits than he or she deserves, then he or she is being under benefitted.

Honestly, I feel like most of my relationships I am the one that is being under benefitted. I am more willing than the person that I am in a relationship with, whether it be romantic or friendly, to contribute more. I feel like I am providing more rewards than I should be because I rarely see the contributions being reciprocated. I have a few friendships where our equity is balanced; however, I have yet to have a romantic relationship where it is. Because I have not had any romantic relationships balanced, this led to the termination of the relationship because we would both agree that we were on different levels. However, I am extremely grateful for my friendships where there is a balance of benefits and contributions. I just believe that in order to show appreciation for someone then there should be actions that demonstrate that. Whether these actions are verbal or nonverbal, I believe that there should be equal contributions and benefits because feeling resentment toward someone is no fun. For example, this past weekend I went out with a good friend of mine and he took amazing care of me and introduced me to all of his friends, which are now friends to me. He and I are always there for each other and treat each other to meals and gifts just because we like to show each other that we care and appreciate for each other. I think it's just nice to show someone appreciation. You can tell them all you want, but it doesn't mean anything if it isn't backed up by a kind act. I am happier in this friendship than other ones where there is little contribution and benefits because I feel like this friendship is more stable. We have invested time and money into each other that we won't get back. In addition to equal benefits and contributions, we have not yet had a negative experience with one another, so I think that says something about how we treat each other as well. We're totally balanced. :)

Adams, J. S. (1965). Equity in social exchange theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267-299.

Any ideas?

Osborn (1953) came up with a technique for groups that would allow them to come up with better ideas; this technique became known as brainstorming. Brainstorming can be defined as a group of people who are interacting with each other to come up with creative ideas for a task. This method of thinking encourages members of the group to speak openly and and freely without fear of judgment. Brainstorming requires that the group express all ideas that come to mind because the more ideas the better. In addition, there should be no criticism and ideas can build upon each other because the ideas belong to the group (Osborn, 1953).

In theory, brainstorming sounds like it would be a really useful technique to implement; however, research has shown that brainstorming is not a helpful a method as Osborn claimed. Research shows that groups are not as productive than individuals working alone (Mullen, Johnson, & Salas, 1991).

This concept can easily be applied to our University Programming Council (UPC) meetings. Last semester, we used to start all of our meetings off with a brainstorming activity. The chair would ask us to brainstorm PR ideas for next week's Friday Night Live (FNL) event. Our PR consists of all the banners and gimmicks you see around campus that advertise our upcoming event, just to help illustrate what we're being asked to do. Therefore, it is a good idea to get a council of 40 plus people to think about ideas, perhaps someone will come up with a PR idea that we have never done before that just sounds amazing. This unfortunately, has never happened. I think our chair was able to observe how inefficient this brainstorming activity was, so we cut that out of our agenda. However, when we did use to do it. It would waste a good fifteen minutes of our meeting where maybe a few people would contribute their ideas, sometimes people would communicate with others and come up with decent ideas, but there hasn't been any stellar ideas resulting from this activity. Most of us do not pay attention to "unimportant" parts of the meetings, whereas others are too quiet to share their ideas.

Without the council sharing or paying attention, brainstorming activities were identified as inefficient and not helpful, so we took them off the agenda. Most people socialized during their brainstorming time, so people were not contributing, which is a factor in this technique's lack of effectiveness. Brainstorming can also be good because it can build cohesion, but it did not do that for our group. Our group is already really cohesive because we spend out Thursday nights and Friday nights together planning and executing all kinds of events.

The way we have solved this problem now, is that the small group that is in charge of the week's event emails ideas to their chair or talk about it on PR work days. When there isn't as much pressure from people watching and they have had time to think about it.

Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 40, 659-665.

Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied imagination. New York: Scribner.

Like a BAWSE

Obedience is the act of changing your behavior (either to be defiant or submissive) when under the influence of someone in a position of power (Milgram, 1963).

Most people have grown up holding true to their morals and ideals, but when someone of power is pressuring you to do something that violates those morals and ideals, will you comply, or will you stand true? It is generally assumed that people will stick to their morals because they know what is right and wrong, but in Milgram's (1963) shock experiments, this was not the case. Participant's were asked to administer an electric shock of increasing voltage to a person in a different room; however, the person would only receive the shock if he or she answer the question wrong. Therefore, there was the chance that he or she could get all the answers correct, but that was not the case here. The learner, the person in the adjacent room receiving the shocks, was a confederate. An experimenter would sit in the same room with the participant to monitor. The confederate would answer the first few questions correctly, but then it would decline from there. The participant would have to begin conducting the shocks to the learner, again each one greater in voltage than the one before. Once the participant became aware of the learner's discomfort (e.g., through grumbles and exclamations), the participant would sometimes object. The moral conflict was easily observed, but the experimenter would continue to encourage the participant to continue with the experiment, and he or she would despite all the mental conflicts (Milgram, 1963).

Regardless of the participant's moral beliefs, he (back in the day it was always men) would continue to administer the shocks. Why would someone want to continue hurting someone? How is this possible? How can you live with yourself? Well, there are a few factors to take into consideration to understand why:

Who: Participant shocking an innocent human being

Closeness of authority: the experimenter was in the same room as the participant, continually encouraging the participant to continue

Closeness of learner: The poor learner is in the adjacent room. We cannot see him, but we can hear him.

These factors are important to consider because they are ones that we innately take into account when we are being told to perform a task. Who is giving the direction? Is it your boss? Is it the boss's assistant? Is it perhaps an intern? People are going to be more likely to obey direction from the boss and the boss's assistant than they are going to from an unpaid employee. Also, where is the authority figure in relation to you? Is he or she on the phone giving this instruction or right in your face? There is more pressure to follow direction when the person is close by watching you rather than when he or she is far away unable to watch your every move. Also, where is the person you are performing the task on? Who is the intended audience? If they are in the room with while you are performing your task you are definitely going to feel the pressure and want to do your best, but if they aren't able to watch you, who says you have to do everything perfectly?

One would generally think that a person who is firm in his or her moral beliefs would refuse to continue with a study such as Milgram's famous electric shock series. However, when you are under the pressure of someone that you feel is an authoritarian figure, you have been trained to not dissent. Let us watch some examples of someone obeying someone who is in a position of power:

In this first example we have professional staff asking a student to perform a task. Who is the authority figure? The professional staff member, Hector, is asking Amber, the student worker, to perform office duties as well as a personal errand. Because he is standing right there and in the office, she has to obey him. He is able to see everything that she is doing and can punish her if she does not follow his orders.

In this example, Amber is taking instruction from Hector over the phone. Hector has asked Amber to perform all the same duties as the previous example, but because Hector is not around to actually check if she has done it or not. Because Hector will not be around to see if she is doing her duties, Amber has taken on the attitude that she will not do what he has asked. Her face at the end just beautifully shows this attitude. In other words, this is an illustration of someone dissenting.

We have seen different examples of obedience, and essentially it is when a person chooses to alter his or her behavior (to comply and be submissive or to dissent) when being given instruction by a position of authority.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social psychology, 67, 371-378.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.

Bloopers:

So...now that you've done this can you....?

Robert Cialdini has outlined a number of different request strategies, one of which is the foot-in-the-door technique. The foot-in-the-door technique can be defined as a two-step compliance technique where the person making the requests gets the individual to agree by first having the individual agree to a smaller request (Cialdini, 2007). In other words, this is a strategy that one would implement if he or she were trying to get someone to do something that this person would not otherwise agree to initially. Therefore, the requester asks their target to perform a very small task or favor (smaller in comparison to the ultimate task or favor). Following this, the requester can return to his or her target and ask him or her to perform the ultimate task or favor, and at this point, it is more likely that he or she will agree to do it. Why is this? This agreement can be attributed to a person's desire to be consistent with his or her self-perception. Because he or she has agreed in the past, then he or she feels that he or she must be consistent with previous actions and agree again. He or she is committed to being consistent, because we are consistency-seekers.

This concept can be applied to my life pretty much everyday. I have a friend who asks me for everything, and I have this sad problem of saying no. I just don't know how. At first, the requests were little things like borrowing items, or using things but would later be returned or I would be given some appreciative gesture. These were fine. As long as you know you show your appreciation for what I've done then I'm fine with you continually borrowing or using my things. However, it has now escalated to where I don't even get an appreciative acknowledgement. It almost feels more like commands when this person asks for things. These things are not little anymore either. They are acts that cost me time and money, both of which, as a college student, I do not have a lot of. In addition, it just gets really old because it happens everyday without fail. Also, I do not think this person understands that it has now become a burden for me to assist this person. I feel really bad, but I just don't think he or she understands that these grand gestures require me to go out of my way. I wish I could say no, but because I have said yes every time in the past, I feel like I can't. I also think he or she would no longer be happy with me and think that I am mad or something. I don't really know how to handle this situation, but I do know I won't have to deal with it much longer because school is almost over.

30 days until senior week begins.

Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: HarperCollins.

No, I really do like sports.

Since I was about five years old, my parents have forced me into every activity that they could think of. Apparently, I was a girl scout...for about a day. They got my involved in piano lessons and soccer, but the one that stuck with me was tennis. I have been playing tennis on and off for the past fifteen years of my life. Too bad I didn't play consistently, then maybe I wouldn't have money problems? Anyways, I did not like tennis at all when I was younger. My parents made me practice all the time and were really harsh coaches, which I think was the root of the problem. My parents kept making me feel like tennis was an obligation. I had to be outside practicing and working out, and that I had to play like a pro. Well, much to my parents' disappointment, I only made it a year and a half in college level tennis. I was ranked first during high school, but that didn't mean anything when I advanced to this level of competition. Regardless of how negatively I felt about tennis, I continued playing it. Soon, I began to enjoy the sport and now play recreationally. I need to play tennis or else I feel that something is not right with me.

These actions can be explained through the theory of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance can be defined as an imbalance between our beliefs and our behaviors, and when this dissonance is created, we are driven to reduce it by changing our beliefs (Festinger, 1957). My initial attitude towards tennis was dislike and unenthusiastic participation, but my behavior was consistent(ish) play. However, because the attitude I had was in disagreement with my behavior, I began to change my attitude. I told myself that tennis was worth it because I was a) getting a great work out in b) working on my mental toughness c) learning skills that can be applied to everyday life and d) gaining more confidence. By looking at the positives that tennis can bring, my attitude changed to love and enjoyment of the sport rather than ew, I really have to run and swing a racket?

Thanks cognitive dissonance for helping me see the benefits of tennis. Unfortunately, I am in my off season. Summer should bring it back... I hope.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Participant Observer Blog - IAT

We all unconsciously sort people into different categories and make quick perceptions about people. Sometimes these unconscious judgments won’t meet our approval because they are against what we present to others, but how can you deny automatic responses?

The Implicit Associates Test (IAT) was designed to illustrate that we are under an illusion that we are better than how we really are. More specifically, it was designed to point out that there are unconscious feelings that we have hidden from ourselves and others. A person is either unwilling or unable to admit to something. The person is either unconsciously hiding something from themselves or from other people. The IAT was designed to measure implicit attitudes (Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002). Implicit attitudes can be defined as actions or judgments that are controlled by an automatic response that the person is unaware of (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998).

The IAT offers a set of test options to view your unconscious feelings towards certain stereotypes or prejudices. For example, there are tests over age, sexuality, and skin-tone. The age IAT requires the test taker to distinguish between old and young faces, which indicate the test taker’s preference for either old or young. The sexuality IAT tests over whether a person can distinguish words and symbols that represent gay and straight people and which they have a preference for. The skin-tone asks that the test taken distinguish between light and dark-skinned faces and shows which skin-tone he or she has a preference for. The IAT can be considered a reliable test because it resists self-presentation strategies. Because the tests require the test taker to respond automatically, or the results cannot be interpreted, then the test taker is forced to respond with their true unconscious decisions (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998).

I took two IAT tests and retook one of them to see if I received the same result. The two IATs I took were the Gender-career IAT and the Weapons IAT. My result for the gender-career IAT indicated that I have a slight association preference for Male with Career and Female with Family compared to Female with Career and Male with Family. For the Weapons IAT, the results showed that I have a slight association of White Americans with Weapons compared to Black Americans.

The Gender-Career IAT results both surprised and did not surprise me. It did not surprise me because I am an extremely family oriented person who was primarily raised by her mother, which is also odd because my mom worked two jobs while my dad worked one. I also like to see myself as a the person who, when this situation applies, to want to be a stay at home mom until my kids are old enough that it is acceptable for me to go back to work. Although, I am also the type of person that wants to have a successful career, much like everyone else. However, the words from the test are words that I would to be associated with me (e.g., professional, and manager).

My results for the Weapons IAT were also not very surprising. I watch television shows that mostly focus on white suspects, if that counts for anything. Also, for someone who wants to maybe work for a rap/hip hop label or artist, I do not think it would be a good idea if I showed a preference to associate Black Americans with weapons over White Americans. It just wouldn’t be in my best interest. In addition, of all the Black Americans that I know, I cannot associate anyone one of them with a weapon, but I have plenty of White American friends that I can associate with weapons.

Based on my results, I believe that they accurately portray me for who I think I am. I do still kind of like to believe in the ideal of a female being with family and the male with the job that provides, but I do wish that I was ranked neutral because I want a female AND male to fall under both categories. In a relationship the male and female should share both responsibilities. I think it would help each partner understand each other better. My Weapons IAT result is one that I do not believe defines me, nor would I care to change it just because it goes against the majority of people according to Project Implicit. Like I mentioned, I do not think it defines me in any way. I believe that that is just how I see things based on my own experiences.

Completing these IATs did slightly make me think a little differently about stereotypes and prejudice than I did before, but that’s just because it was available to me. I will not change my opinions based on results of these tests. If my results do change it will be based off of any personal experiences I gain, or what information is available to me at the time that I retake the test. Like most people, I try not to stereotype or be prejudice against others, and I think I do this to the best of my ability. However, when I wait tables, trust me when I say I stereotype. There has only been one table out of the hundred plus I have waited on that has completely surprised me in tipping. I do not wish to say what race it was because it isn’t one that will immediately come to mind, but this table left thirty percent, which made my entire night. I was only expecting maybe thirteen percent. I try my best to wait tables all fairly and without discrimination because I think they’ll tip me poorly, but honestly, it’s not something that I can help. Because in those first few minutes, I can pretty much tell how you’re going to tip me and I know that there isn’t much that I can improve on to squeeze another couple bucks out. I also have co-workers that refuse to wait on certain races because of bad experiences; I don’t want to be like that. I try to look past this stereotype and give them the benefit of the doubt.

To see if my results were consistent, I retook the Gender-Career IAT. Ironically, my results changed. The results indicated that I have a slight association for Female with Career and Male with Family compared to Male with Career and Female with Family. I thought this was extremely funny. Either, I really am neutral and it just depends on how I am feeling and what information is available to me at the time, or I thought too much when taking the test the second time. I do remember seeing more red x’s the second time around, though. I don’t know if this changes my opinion about the IAT. I still think it is a valid and reliable test because it does account for self-presentation strategies by only interpreting valid automatic responses.

I think the IAT is an awesome development, and when I am able and willing to see what the results will be for the others tests, I want to take them.

Nosek, B. Banaji, M, & Greenwald, T. (2002). Background Information. Retrieved from https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/background/index.jsp.

Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.

Social Identity Theory- Do I Belong Here?

Not everyone is fully confident with themselves, but we all do what we can to think positively of ourselves. Our self-esteem is comprised of our positive and negative self-evaluations. We have a strong desire for high self-esteem, and when we need to enhance it, one method we can use is social identity theory. Social identity theory states that people favor ingroups over outgroups in order to enhance our self-esteem. Ingroups are defined as groups in which an individual feels a sense of membership, belonging and identity; whereas, outgroups are groups in which an individual does not feel a sense of membership, belonging or identity.

To enhance our self-esteem using social identity theory, there are two pathways in which an individual can take: personal identity and social identity. Through personal identity, one will gloat about personal achievements. For example, I know someone that takes pride in her academic achievements, which we are all entitled to do, but she does it in a manner that is unhealthy. In taking pride in her high grades, she belittles those around her who did not do as well and make them feel worse. She is not relating to anyone else, only to herself. Another such example would be a guy that I knew back in high school. When I was on the tennis team in high school, we had a guy who didn't want to socialize with our team. He was always about himself and not the success of the whole group. He flaunted his personal accomplishments (e.g., gold medals and advancing to higher competitions), but he didn't work with the team to ensure everyone was reaching their potential. Both of these people feel better about themselves when they do better than others.

Social identity is when self-esteem is enhanced through group accomplishments. For example, this past weekend, we executed a wonderfully successful event, as we do every week. As a council, UPC, is consistently getting complimented on our efficiency, team work, and leadership. We have a cohesive collection of leaders and followers. We are a well balanced organization. We take direction well and interact with others in a professional and respective manner. We had multiple compliments from professional staff congratulating our success, and I feel that I am a more worthy person just being apart of UPC. Also, in high school, I was on our track team. We won our distract conference four years in a row. Though I wasn't the most valuable player on the team, I still felt like I belonged. I got along with everyone and was associated with all the success that our team experienced.

There are also other drives to enhance self-esteem than just the desire to acquire a more positive outlook about oneself. Threats to one's self-esteem can also lead a person to seek membership in an organization. Honestly, I am guilty of doing this. I do enjoy being an officer in organizations that I am involved in, but I need to feel that I am more than just an expendable member. I run for offices or leadership positions to feel that way, and it works.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. In Social Psychology (7th ed., pp. 135-153). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

I promise, I'm not arrogant.

Self-presentation is defined as the process that we take to shape what people think of us and what we think of ourselves. The methods in which self-presentation is utilize include: what we do, what we say, how we dress, and how we act. I just wanted to share some ways that I consciously try to present myself in a positive manner by using self-promotion (i.e., an attempt to gain respect through competence).

First, I make lists and keep a planner. By doing these things, I am trying to come off as extremely organized, and it works. I get comments about how organized and on top of things I am quite often, but in all honesty, I really don’t think I’m that organized. I do get my things done when they need to be done, but just because I can cross things off of a list and plan out my time doesn’t make me awesome. It just means I know how to focus my attention, but if you’re going to be impressed with my ability to do this, then by all means, I welcome it. Although, I would also like to add that these lists and color coded planner pages do keep me sane.

Second, I don’t really want to admit this, but I will. I think that I am really qualified at my job. As the appointed off-campus marketing coordinator, I have done a great job at securing some radio ads as well as online ads. My failure, though, was in interviews. It’s extremely difficult when the artist’s publicist doesn’t do much, and when people won’t return your phone calls, but I am not attributing this to anyone. It’s like a mutual fault if that is possible. Back to me being qualified, it has paid off enough to where I am trusted to do things that professional staff is responsible for. Also, the day of Large Act, I have been given the title of being the “manager”. I will really be working under Jaime, but either way, I’m the big boss’s right hand woman. If that doesn’t elicit some feeling of respect or intimidation, then I don’t know what will.

I really do not enjoy that this sounds like I am patting myself on my back, but that’s what self-promotion is. I am completely guilty of utilizing this form of self-presentation to gain the respect and confidence of the professional staff.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). Self-Presentation.. In Social Psychology (7th ed., pp. 82-83). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Because I Love It.

This is all I could think about while I was reading the section of Chapter 3 about the overjustification effect. The overjustification effect can be defined as a decrease in intrinsic motivation when an activity has become associated with a reward. In other words, when the activity that you do out of pure joy and satisfaction now precedes a reward of some kind, then you begin to lose interest in performing the task because you used to work for the reward and now it just comes easily (Kassin, Fein, and Markus, 2008).

I have been working for the past eleven months on the Large Act concert and FINALLY, we will be able to announce it tomorrow. You have no idea how much effort and emotion we have all given to this event. Our emotions have ranged from extremely sad to terrified to stressed and to ECSTATIC. The happiness that we are all feeling right now because we are preparing to share our hard work with other people is so thrilling. We are concerned with how the campus will respond to the artist we have chosen, but we decided that this is the best choice and time. Because of the work I have done with UPC and Large Act, I have decided to pursue this as a career path. What terrifies me the most is if I will begin to no longer be intrinsically motivated to work as hard on concerts and entertainment public relations. I really love what I do with these things and if the overjustification effect takes over I don't know what I will go into. I think a paycheck would be nice, but I don't want it to turn into an extrinsic motivation.

It's part of the reason I want to go to New York. I want to be in that environment. Fast paced, stressed, and working on music promotion all the time. I am so happy when I am working on it and do not mind doing anything for the success of the event. This is such a big deal that we have a newspaper coming to cover the ping pong drop tomorrow. How awesome is that? If I lose my intrinsic motivation to do this, then I will have lost all the passion I have for work. These emotions that I feel correspond with Shachter's two-factor theory of emotion. The two-factor theory of emotion states that the experience of emotion depends on two factors: physiological arousal and the person's cognitive interpretation of that arousal (Kass, Fein, and Markus, 2008). My heart races and there's a definite increase in galvanic skin response. I smile a lot. When we went downstairs for lunch today I was telling everyone I know and jumping around the entire commons. I don't think anyone has ever seen me that hyper. I perceived this reaction to not only be overcome with excitement and a sense of accomplishment, but that I truly know what I'm doing and that I love doing it. There really isn't a doubt to how much it makes me happy. When I'm doing something right with this, like when I get feedback about the work I am doing, it boosts my confidence and helps me believe in my ability to successfully execute a plan.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2008). Self Perceptions of Motivation. In Social Psychology (7th ed., pp. 59-60). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.