BackStage

I’ve totally changed my mind. Money does = happiness! The proof?

Money bought me these:

which came in the mail today.

I am stupidly happy because of my new socks. Dancingly happy.

Law and Order SVU has a tendency to include social psychological theories in its stories. Tonight’s was a prime example. I was all excited to watch because it starred Robin Williams, by far one of my favorite actors (Fisher King is brilliant).

Tonight’s episode centered around a character who called fast food restaurants posing as Detective Milgram, that’s right… A play on the Milgram you are all thinking of. The episode was loosely based on the real life story of a man who called McDonald’s restaurants (Taco Bell and Applebee’s too) and told managers to detain (and strip naked) employees because the officer had proof of the employee’s thievery. He did this around SIXTY times in three years. The real criminal wasn’t clever enough to call himself Detective Milgram (Scott instead). Much like in the study, the managers followed the orders of the “police officer.” One extreme example of the real life case:

On Nov. 30, 2000, the caller persuaded the manager at a McDonald’s in Leitchfield, Ky., to remove her own clothes in front of a customer whom the caller said was suspected of sex offenses. The caller promised that undercover officers would burst in and arrest the customer the moment he attempted to molest her, said Detective Lt. Gary Troutman of the Leitchfield Police Department.

There are worse examples–including one where the caller had the man who was holding the employee hostage give him fellatio. The obedience is not only on the part of the workers who do the searching, but also those who were searched. Says one victim (and victims they were):

“I was scared because they were a higher authority to me,” she said. “I was scared for my own safety because I thought I was in trouble with the law.”

The SVU example was not this extreme, but went into Milgram more in-depth–I won’t give away the ending if you haven’t seen it. There is another great episode that utilizes Asch conformity (from a few years ago) to attempt to explain why two girls went along with a murder. I use this for a paper assignment.

Really, if you don’t know about this, read the article. I think it would be a great example of obedience to authority when discussing this in class. Always when I taught about this, students would argue it is no longer the same as it was in Milgram’s day. Even when discussing the more recent repeats of Milgram’s experiment, students still deny it would happen in America. Showing parts of SVU, perhaps, or assigning this newspaper article could be a great addition to a social psych class. It would also work for some organization courses, I think.

Okay, Internet sociologists and others who stumble my way. Here is what I have been looking at for the past FOUR HOURS.

This is after several days of looking at the same thing.

How do you get past severe writer’s block?

Well, there are two topics that I really want to write on in this blog. The first is on the existence of a backstage that I talked about way back here. The second is the interplay between agency and structure. As I point out in my interests section, I really do think that coming to an understanding of this is the main purpose of social psychology in sociology — well, at least my main purpose. But, both of these topics are so huge, that I will need to talk about them in chunks. For my sanity and yours. I thought the first thing I would do is address the comment about agency and structure that Belle talks about in her spotlight of my blog that you can find here.

Belle comments:

My work in employment discrimination law demands that I be equally sensitive to organizational constraints and individual choice (although I argue that emerging choices are themselves products of constraint).

Are emerging choices a product of constraint? How much agency is there? Is it an illusion?

Great question!

A blog I found through Orbital Teapot (great blog name, by the way–and great blog), is Architectures of Control. Although I’m relatively new to reading this blog, it is basically about how geographies and products within structure the way we behave. For example, this post discusses how the size of trash bins has an impact on how much we throw away. Lockton comments:

That aperture dimension is important. It (to a large extent) determines the volume of rubbish that can be thrown away in one go. That in turn determines the size of the bins that users of this chute will (probably) have in their houses or flats, and thus how often the bin will have to be emptied. Taking the rubbish out can be a chore; halving the bin size doubles the number of trips to the chute, doubles the inconvenience.

Now how much this changes behavior is still a question to be answered, as he notes. But, this is just one of the many examples of how structure (in this case, the actual physicality of the environment) influences possible choices to be made.

Before I started reading this blog, I spent very little time thinking about how the physical environment acts as a constraint, but it now seems obvious to me. In sociology, Yang Costello writes about how the physical environment of academia socializes us into our profession. The cafe at the law school teaches young lawyers how they are supposed to eat. The decorations in the hall indicate the type of people we should be. She also goes on to talk about how this is problematic in terms of race, class and gender (good read, ya’ll). Anyway, the point is, this research really shows the power of seemingly innocuous forms of structure impact our behavioral choices (and, thus, our agency).

But, the question becomes: When do individuals have opportunities to make choices outside of the current structure? Are there opportunities to do so? I think the answer is YES.

Racialization researchers write about how the “browning of America” through the increase immigration (and growth of population through generations) of Latinos/as and Asians, especially in “new destinations” or areas that have historically unprecedented growth in these immigrants (such as Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa–the Midwest in general, except Illinois which has an historically greater pattern of settlement), challenges the current system and meanings within. The immigrants who are coming into these communities are bringing with them their identities that were created, enacted, and reinforced in their sending communities. Furthermore, while these areas do not have incredibly large populations (currently)–not big enough to have a Portes and Sennsebrenner type of enclave, they do have sufficiently large enough numbers to create and sustain their own businesses and churches. As such, there are sufficient interaction partners that these individuals can turn to in order to continue to enact and legitimate these identities. [damn, that's a lot of to(s)]

I *think* this is what Stryker is talking about when he talks about how open a structure is. Okay, Sheldon Stryker may be my sociological guru and god, but I really wish sometimes he would define his terms better. But, I think this is a safe understanding (I’m still searching through his writings to determine exactly what he means, because he seems to change from one article to another what he means by this).

The point is, these immigrants can enact, successfully, these identities in these new communities. As such, when they interact with “Anglos” they have the ability to challenge the altercasting (the roles, meanings, that others attempt to assign to a person when developing a definition of the situation) performed by these Anglos. And, in challenging, they challenge expectations, roles, etc. which could create change in these expectations, roles, etc. Of course, this is not easy. Power and status limit the ability of immigrants to do this successfully, but the “openness” of the system (where they can go down the street and confirm their identities) creates the possibility for this challenge and the possibility of change.

Yes, this is highly theoretical. No, there is not much evidence this is the case (there is some stuff by racialization researchers, but they do not talk about it really in this terms–damn Columbus Syndrome that Fine talks about in the relation to symbolic interaction, 1993*). But, it makes sense to me. And, as I flush it out, I think there is abundant theory (and tests of these theories) that support the steps of the logic. So, welcome to my dissertation (at least part of it).

*Fine, Gary Alan. 1993. “The Sad Demise, Mysterious Disappearance, and Glorious Triumph of Symbolic Interactionism.” Annual Review of Sociology 19:61-87.

I actually went on a road trip last night to meet up with one of my oldest friends (Mijum!!!). We went to see Kids in the Hall. Amazingly fabulous sketch comedy.

Here is a clip from the show last night (not a live clip, but one of the short films they showed while changing/resting). Just so you know, it includes some adult content:

Also, here is one of my favorite sketches of all time. Enjoy!

Something I have noticed when a person goes from PhD student to PhD candidate (ABD, ya’ll), is that this new candidate is suddenly full of advice for every person they run across. It’s like successfully defending your prelims suddenly gives you the license to spout off about anything and everything. I am not claiming not to be affected myself, in fact, I think I have been highly affected. Whether we are asked or not, we suddenly have no issue providing wisdom from our high horse of ABDness. And, usually, I think we run on too long and say way too much. I have been on the receiving end of this advice, even after becoming ABD myself, and have noticed that a question that you ask that should take 5 minutes to answer, suddenly becomes a marathon discussion of what you should be doing, who you should be reading, etc.

I’ve been wondering about this a lot. I have also been trying to control this advice giving disease, with limited success. Even in the responses to posts on this blog, I have found myself doing that (such as going on and on to Kristina B. about how she should visit departments. I mean, duh, I’m sure she knows that. It’s like I can’t help myself!). If I do go on and on, this is my apology. It doesn’t seem controllable.

Why does this happen? Some hypotheses please:

1. Perhaps it’s a status thing. Becoming ABD is a huge step in the PhD process. While I am constantly shifting between high status and low status depending upon my interaction partners, ABDness suddenly makes these shifts less extreme. You are very close to a lot of the newer faculty (although they still beat you with the status stick, it’s a less harsh of a beating than before). You also have higher status than most of the other graduate student in the department. Rather than the unclear 1st year, 2nd year, Nth year distinctions, this is a legitimate claim to higher status. That’s heady for someone who is usually on the low end.

2. I will never forget the talk given by the head of my MA department about what graduate school is. She indicated that our purpose here was to be an apprentice. I love that, and find it very true in the way I approach everything. Well, becoming ABD signals that the apprentiship is nearly over (especially when you ignore that pesky, pesky dissertation). We are slowly shifting our identities from graduate students to professors. I think perhaps we try to signal this shift by taking on more of the professorial roles–such as mentoring students. Not only do we say, “Look at my shinny new status,” we also get to say, “See how close to a professor I am now? Now I can start doing some of the things they get to do. So listen to me rattle on and on.”

3. At least when I do this, it is from a geniuine desire to help. Really. I want to help. I imagine that is similar for all ABDs who find themselves with the advice disease. This is the reverse of the incivility issue I discussed two days ago. But, we have to wonder how much of our motives involve: (1) Confirming my nice person identitiy; or (2) Confirming my almost-but-not-quite professor identity?

Thoughts? Anyone else have this disease? Can you tell me how to treat it?

Sometimes I really have no desire to become a professor. Although I love research and enjoy teaching in practice (I dread it in theory), there are times that I want to run screaming from the ivory tower. Today was one of those days.

I won’t go into the details of what happened. I know that my anonymity is barely shielded here, and have little to no hope that it always will be. As such, I don’t think it’s a good idea to spread dirty information about a department which can be traced back to that department (or will be able to be traced back at some point). Suffice it to say:

Politics are inherently a part of academia. Put a whole bunch of Type As on committees together and you are going to get ruffled feathers. Hell, I’m just a graduate student and there are one or two other graduate students that I wouldn’t mind never ever ever having to be in the same room with again. But, why does this lead to bullying? To pettiness? To backstabbing? I know my department is not the only one that faces these issues. And, honestly, mostly it’s not that bad. But sometimes, it just affects me and makes me angry, frustrated, and sad.

Kieran has some covered in this edition of Grad Skool Rulz over at orgtheory.

There also seems to be some newer books on it. Like this one.

So questions for all of you out there: Are there university types where this problem is less pronounced? How do you deal with the bickering? How do you not get involved?

Well, if you’ve seen today’s Sociological Images, you saw that I sent in a urinal pic. As a side note, what the hell is up with Nun urinals? Racking my brain, I got nothing on that one. Oh, social psychological powers! Why hath thou forsaken me?

While looking around, I found this game.

A game that tests your knowledge on men’s urinal usage. I wonder how much of this came from natural observation, or if the game developers are also a fan of Gary Alan Fine?

First, in your head, you should read the part two as they say it on those “I Love the [insert decade]s” VH1 shows. Just sayin.

I did absolutely nothing this weekend besides read about 1200 pages of Sci Fi fantasy and go to two departmental type events. Don’t start thinking I’m a joiner, I’m not… I just really feel my obligations. Anyway, I’m saying that I may discuss this later, after I get a little caught up on all the work I was supposed to do but refused, but wanted to give important links.

A few days ago I blogged about the relationship between happiness and money. See that original discussion here. Since that time, I found out that Wolfers is talking about these findings of his and his coauthor in the NYTs. So far he has three parts of this discussion in the Freakonomics blog (which, I have not yet read that book… it’s staring at me from across the room). Read them: here, here and here. In these papers, he attempts to dumb down discussion of logistic models for those of us who don’t know (although, it looks like he still uses the concepts of z-scores without really explaining them). But, figuring that most of us that read this blog do know at least a little somethin somethin about logistic and other regression models, I was super excited to find this link — the original paper! It was linked in the part 3 by Wolfers I list above. Don’t be too scared by the 71 page pdf. Only 33 seem to be text, with the rest references and pretty pretty pictures.

In case you were wondering, I’m the one sitting in front. Over edumacted is I.

We must need return to the days when women played whist in the parlor while men adjourned to the study to drink port, smoke cigars, and discuss these important matters.

Women: KNOW THY LIMITS!!