Beauty and Attractivness

Ideally speaking we'd like to think that everyone is beautiful no matter who he or she is. But this is not always true. No matter how objective we are we always end up to be subjective. I am in ways similar, for example babies as you know are mostly cute, but what would you do if you went to someones house and perceived that their baby was particularity ugly. would you still carry it and play around with it or just leave it. Sadly in most circumstances people decide to leave the baby as it is known most things are done on the basis of attractiveness. However this story that I read a some time back which remind me of an interesting perspective regarding beauty and attractiveness. This story is about a two nobleman who are dressed up in disguise to go around the villages and when they stop at one of the villages they see this small child playing in the mud. They both think what an ugly child this is. However sometime later the mother comes out and coons to the child as takes him in her arms and pacifies hims. She then see the two nobleman and chases them out saying they were disturbing her child. Thus it can be seen that beauty is relative to who perceives it and that it depends on how people perceive that defines attractiveness and beauty.

Gender Stereotyping

Gender stereotyping can be seen through the ages. It is still held and though of as the basis of how individuals of different gender should behave in many places. Stereotyping is a generalization of a group of people in which certain characteristic are assigned to almost all members of the group regardless of the actually variation among the members. In this case characteristics are given to specific genders. For example male, are supposed to me strong, brave and tough while females are supposed to be kind, caring and gentle. A of the primary example of where these characteristics are inbuilt are in fairy tales. In these stories the female character is often portrayed as the weaker sex, in that they are shown unable to defend themselves and depend of a man to help them. The female characters are mostly portrayed as beautiful and kind whilst the males are portrayed as handsome and brave. These values that are often carried within an individual once it is inbuilt in them.

Although we currently live in the modern era where gender equality is claimed, many people in various places still hold on to this stereotype. For example in Singapore why aren’t women conscripted into taking the two year mandatory period of national service but only required for men. Gender stereotyping occurs not only in developed but less developed countries where by women are still expected to stay at home and look after men. This can be seen in the middle eastern countries where women are rarely seen going out of the house and are not allowed to go the mosques and attend prayers with their husbands but have to do so separately. The complexity of gender stereotyping is vast and is intertwined into our way of life be it one way or another thus making it hard to remove or put aside such a stereotype that has existed for the most of human existence.

Conformity in Adolescences

Conformity is known as a change in behavior caused by another person or a group. I think that the greatest period when a person in circumvent to conformity is during their adolescent years. This simple act of going to school can hold many opportunities for conformity to take place. For example in America where public schools which do not have a dress code conformity can take place in the type of cloths you wear to school. It the social norm of the school is to dress in a certain way most adolescence would dress in that particular way to avoid being ostracized. Another example of conformity can be seen to authority is school, where by if asked to do something by a teacher the student would mostly likely conform to the teacher, this could be due to the normative influence and authority that is held by the teacher. Peer pressure and bulling also way in which conformity is present in the lives of adolescences. Peer pressure in a group of adolescence often results in compliance whereby they agree to conform to the expectation of other individual in the group.

Propaganda

Propaganda can be defined as a concerted set of the messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people. The picture to the side show classic propaganda. This is a picture for recruiting new member in the first world war.

It can be seen that similar type of propaganda is used in the media for various aspects. For example the next picture shows a communist propaganda which is advertise by the media to encourage people to play only a certain radio station. The emphasis was put on the word communism to show that the radio station reflects communism . This is portrayed via a communist official listening to the radio with a citizen. This type of propaganda is mostly used in conformity of a mass population and it is known to work on fear or people.

Propaganda is usually portrayed by the media for different purposes. It often gives persuasive messages as to what the government wants done. For example the third picture show that message that is being given is that cheap oil is right and and that conservation is a way of letting the terrorists win. This can win the opinion of various people. However the question that has to be asked is that if the message is right. In that way if have to ask if all type of propaganda should be observed.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The picture to the side shows how easy it is to make attribution errors. Judgments about why an event occurred or why someone behaved in a certain way are called attributions. When attributing something or someone, people often tend make mistakes. This is usually known as fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias. This error is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person’s behavior is due to internal and dispositional factors and to disregard external or situational factors.

The picture above illustrates this error. The picture shows of a lady who is giving a man money because she thinks that he is homeless. In doing so, the lady is attributing his disposition to that the fact that he is out on the street and in shabby demeanor that he is homeless. However she is not considering other external factors that could have led him to be out on the streets. The fact that he is a home - a - phobic is something that the lady did not account for when assessing his situation .

Disclaimer:

This blog was setup as a part of the module requirement to apply Social Psychological aspects in general to various aspects.