honors project

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October 15, 2009

Goals and Intentions for Year 38, Plus Outcomes

Posted by Nathen under Abandon Ship, African dance, blogging, celibacy, dancing, David Waingarten, goals/intentions, graduate school, healthcare, honors project, meditation, songwriting
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Add new knowledge to the field of social psychology with my honors thesis: Yes, I did this, though it was not the knowledge that I was hoping to bring forth. I uncovered some information about how and when people think about power—being under someone else’s control versus controlling yourself versus controlling others. See the discussion section of my honors thesis for a thorough explanation.

Break my habit of scratching and picking my skin: No, I did not do this. I managed to stop for a couple months, using a cognitive-behavioral intervention, but it did not stick.

Celibacy: Yes, by my definition I was strictly celibate all year. Now, making this resolution might have made it sound like not having sex was a lifestyle change, but it wasn’t. I don’t go around having sex with people I meet and never have. I just tend to think about sex a lot, and that’s why I decided to be intentional about my normal, celibate lifestyle. I had hoped to get some specific insights out of it, which I’m sorry to say I did not get. I’d hoped that being celibate would take sex out of my mental conversation, kind of like how I stop fixating on sugar when I go off sugar. I hoped, too, that changing my mental conversation in this way would show me my own, unconscious sexism in a clear way; how might I treat women differently if there is no chance or intention of having sex? Maybe I would get to see what it was like to think of women as fellow human beings, and no more. In fact, I thought about sex significantly more while I was celibate. My celibacy acted as a trigger: Being around women reminded me that I was celibate, which reminded me of sex. Oh well.

On the other hand, I do think that being celibate was a valuable experience, just not in the ways I was expecting. I would recommend it to any single person. I don’t feel at liberty to go into those details right now, though. Ask me about it some time.

Dance every day, working on 1) musicality 2) vocabulary 3) style: Well… I danced nearly every day, and I did improve my musicality, vocabulary, and style significantly. But I did not work on those three elements as consciously or rigorously as I’d intended. I just danced a lot and got better. That said, I’m happy with my level of dancing. I can almost always have fun on the dance floor these days, and that’s satisfying.

Finish bachelor’s degree: Yep. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and graduated with honors.

Get accepted into a couples and family therapy graduate program: Yes, I got accepted to the CFT masters program at the University of Oregon—a great program, very competitive and highly regarded.

Maintain this blog: Yes, some months better than others. I love it.

Meditate every day: This I did not do. I meditated about two out of three days, on average.

Produce a record with David Waingarten: Nope. He made a movie instead of a record.

Record an EP with my band, Abandon Ship: No. We do have all the songs written, though. They just need arrangements. Coming, coming…

See healthcare provider each month until all body concerns are resolved: Yes, I did this but while it felt good to look for help, I failed to resolve any of the symptoms I was having when I wrote this goal. And I’ve added two more… but at least I spent a lot of money. I feel even more cynical about the ability of health care providers.

Set up a slick system of musical collaboration over the internet and use it regularly: No. I’m still on the verge, but I failed to get my studio up and running after my move. This is the failure I’m most sad about. I was really wanting to have my system set up by the time I started grad school, so I could just record and email a demo whenever I got an inspiration, without hassling with gear. Now I’m super busy and there are several hours of work between me and easy recording.

Shift my schedule three hours earlier for at least one term: In bed by 11 pm: Nope. I did shift my schedule two hours earlier, on average, and I did get to bed by 11 for about one term, but not in a row, which was my intention. I like the earlier schedule, though, and I’m on track for in-bed-by-11 this term so far.

Sing out every day: I did not sing every day. I sang more, but not every day. When I did sing, I sang out, like I meant it, and I think my voice has improved in some ways. So many things to do every day!

Take African dance classes: Yes. I took two or three classes and loved them. But they made my back hurt and I haven’t gone since last November. I ended up taking ballet classes instead.

Write at least one song per month: No, I did not do this. I barely wrote any music. It makes me sad. I don’t like it.

I count 7 yeses, 8 nos, 1 clear kind-of. Not too bad. And 4 of the nos weren’t complete failures. Overall I’m pleased with what I accomplished this year

 

June 12, 2009

Honors Thesis Posted

Posted by Nathen under honors project, perspective taking, power, psycholinguistics, psychology, questions, school, science, writing
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I just posted the last two papers of my undergraduate career: my honors thesis, “Differentiating the Effects of Social and Personal Power,” and my research project for Psycholinguistics, “The Relationship between Clarity of Enunciation and Idea Density.” They are under ‘writing,’ which is under ‘out’ in my sidebar.

I don’t recommend reading them unless you are a researching these topics (in which case, I do recommend reading them). If you’re not used to scholarly writing, just read the abstracts–the first paragraphs. They tell you everything you need to know. It’s kind of funny that I just worked really hard for over a year on something that almost no one will be interested in reading. It was an astounding amount of work, comparable to making a record, from songwriting and rehearsing to mastering. And a lot more work than some records. This was not a punk record.

Well, since I just said not to read it after I’ve been posting about it for months, I guess I should at least summarize it. Here we go:

Social power is power over other people. Any kind of power. There is a lot of research on what having social power does to you, and it’s mostly bad: more stereotyping, less perspective taking, seeing others as a means to your ends etc. It’s the kind of stuff that might keep powerful people in power. Reading this stuff is pretty alarming for a feminist like me. It’s way more complicated than that, of course, but you’re getting the super short version here.

Personal power is power over yourself. There hasn’t been much research on its effects, just enough to suggest that it’s what people really want when they are struggling for power over each other, the real goal is self-governance.

I tried to test whether personal power has similar or different effects on perspective taking than social power. I was not able to do that, for complicated reasons. I was, however, able to find evidence that people consider personal power a broader category than social power. That is, you can sink to greater depths and rise to higher heights of personal power than you can social power. Second, I found that without a salient reminder of personal power, people did not make a distinction between social and personal power. That’s pretty interesting, because if people are out there trying to claw their way up the hierarchy, it may just be because they haven’t made the distinction between what they probably really want–personal power–and what they are working for–social power.

That may seem intuitive and like “why would you want to spend a year finding evidence for something so obvious?” but for a scientist, coming across something that seems obvious that hasn’t been tested is a gold mine. All kinds of obvious things have turned out to not be true. That’s one cool thing about psychology–it’s a baby science, so those unlooked-at areas are all over the place. There is only one other scientist that I’m aware of that’s looking into this subject too, Marius Van Dijke, in the Netherlands. Luckily, he’s got resources and will likely have much more traction on it than I could as an undergrad with one year to work and a $100 budget.

 

June 6, 2009

I Am About to Graduate

Posted by Nathen under community, graduate school, honors project, school, Uncategorized
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Next Friday, sometime after 5 pm, I will have a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Oregon. I’m going to walk and have a cap and gown and everything–I just borrowed the costume from a friend. I was supposed to buy a green braid for $12 too, because I’m graduating with honors, but it seemed like a scam. A lot of what comes up around graduation have seemed like scams. You can spend thousands of dollars on costumes and invitations and rings and memberships in various societies, not to mention airfare, lodging, and party supplies for friends and relatives coming from around the country. I have to admit to being a bit cynical about the whole thing. I only decided a couple weeks ago that I was going to walk. I went to the ceremony for the psych department last year and was not moved by it. Plus, I’m a little disappointed in how little you have to know to graduate from college. You can learn a lot, if you set your mind to it, but you don’t have to. I doubt you could graduate without being able to read, write and do some math, but I know for certain that you don’t have to do any of them well.

But I changed my mind. First, I was nominated to speak at the ceremony. I didn’t get the gig, but it seemed possible for a while, and I thought it would be a great challenge to come up with something good to say, and deliver it effectively. That would make the ceremony meaningful for me, and it would be weird to speak but not walk. And then when I started thinking about it I liked the idea more and more. Doing my honors thesis in the last year I’ve made several friends in my graduating class. We’ve been through the wringer together and supported each other and I feel really warmly towards them. I’ve also gotten to know some of the faculty and grad students in the department. And I have a bunch of good friends in Springfield and Eugene now, from dancing and music and Not Back to School Camp. It would be great to see them all in one place. I sent an email invitation to everyone nearby who I have an address for. I have no idea who will show up, I’m looking forward to seeing whoever does. (If you live in the area but did not get the email, I’m sorry. I may not have your address. Please come!)

Then there’s the importance of graduating itself. That I’m not so sure about. I love going to school. I love learning. I’m chronically curious. My getting a BS is about as momentous as skiing a lot is to someone who loves to ski. A couple of my friends who are graduating with me will be the first people in their families ever to graduate from college, and I can see that that makes a difference. My family has graduate degrees within a few generations on both sides, and everyone I’ve met in my family could easily have gotten a graduate degree if they’d been interested. They just haven’t been interested. Can I feel pride about this? I’m not sure. I think I’m going to give it a try. I have made the most of it. I have truly applied myself, learned a mountain of information, learned how to conduct scientific research, made myself into a much better reader and writer and more rigorous and open-minded thinker. I’ve also gotten myself into a graduate program in which I intend to become a strong and resourceful ally for couples and families. That is stuff to be proud about.

 

April 30, 2009

My Fledgeling Sabbath

Posted by Nathen under being kind to myself, Damian Lester, goals/intentions, honors project, lists, sabbath
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Inspired by my brother Damian and by the book My Year of Living Biblically, I’ve been taking a weekly sabbath this term. I am not religious but the idea of a day in which I was not allowed to work fascinated me. It seemed like a good way to take care of myself. It has been great. It is a radical lifestyle change for me, almost shocking. I have four rules for the day:

1. No school or business related work at all.

2. No fretting.

3. No counting, timing, or keeping track of anything.

4. No planning.

It’s a work in progress. Some grey areas I’m wondering about are reading and writing. So far I haven’t been doing them, except some brainstorming… which can verge on planning, now that I think of it… well, that’s why it’s a work in progress. The key elements are that it is restful and rejuvenating, and that I only do things for the pleasure of doing them, not for some future result.

I almost called this post “My Fledgeling, Faltering Sabbath,” because after three good weeks, I worked straight through last weekend, ten hour days, just like old times, and it’s looking like I’ll do the same this weekend. I have a draft of my thesis due on Tuesday (actually it was due tomorrow, but I renegotiated) and I will need at least every coherent hour until then to pull that off. I wonder if I can get back on track. Often I find that I only stick with things as long as I have a “no exceptions” rule. “Trying to do such and such a little more” is rarely effective. And I don’t have a religious community to keep me on the straight and narrow. Hmm. It seems like breaking my sabbath to worry about my breaking my sabbath.

 

April 25, 2009

Year 38 Goals, Midway Update

Posted by Nathen under Abandon Ship, African dance, Balboa, ballet, blogging, celibacy, cooking, Damian Lester, dancing, Darlene Lester, David Waingarten, goals/intentions, Grace Llewellyn, graduate school, honors project, Karly Barrett, lists, Maya, meditation, mindfulness, practicum, psychology, questions, Reanna, record production, school, science, sleep, songwriting, stress, Zen Zenith
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I am a few weeks past halfway through my 38th year, conveniently marked by my brother Damian’s birthday, and the start of my spring term. Here’s an update on how my intentions for the year are coming along.

1. Add new knowledge to the field of social psychology: I have just finished (I hope) crunching numbers for my honors thesis, and I can say that I have helped produce some new evidence, at least. It is not as sexy as I had hoped, but I have learned a whole lot about the process of psychology research, and that is the main point, as my advisor keeps reminding me.

2. Break my habit of scratching and picking my skin, including biting my lip: I have made some progress here, using a technique Reanna told me about: snapping myself with a hair band around my wrist whenever I had the urge to touch myself. My success varies clearly with my stress level. It requires mindfulness. Another insight/confusion: picking and lip biting, I can tell, are pure stress responses, but the scratching I think is more than that. I seem to be an itchier than normal person. A dermatologist told me that it was the “notoriously harsh” hand-made soap I have been using. I accepted that explanation until I realized on my ride home that he had been wrong. I only use soap on a few key areas. By his reasoning my armpits should be itchier than most of me, and they are not. Any ideas?

3. Celibacy: This has been no problem. I have not been tested, however; no one that I am aware of has wanted to have sex with me. When I first told Grace about this one, she said, “You are going to learn a lot from doing that, but you know, now that you are committed, you will immediately meet someone who will make it very challenging.” Well, not yet.

4. Dance every day, working on 1) musicality 2) vocabulary 3) style: This is going pretty well, though some days my dancing is just a token, so I could say I did. I had a big breakthrough in musicality on my fast dancing at Seattle Balboa Festival in February. The choreography I have been working on with Karly has been helping my working vocabulary. And the main reason I decided to take ballet is to improve my poise and lines. It is easy for me to get into an I-could-be-doing-so-much-more/better state. There is a guy who started in the same beginning class that I did in Eugene who really dove in and is now a rock-star dancer in Portland, winning national competitions. But I still give myself a thumbs up on this one.

5. Finish bachelor’s degree: Yes. I am on track to graduate with honors on June 13, 2009.

6. Get accepted into a couples and family therapy graduate program: Yes. I start in the University of Oregon’s CFT masters program on September 29 (happy birthday to me!), 2009. I’m very excited.

7. Maintain this blog: I have a lot more ideas for posts than actual posts, but I am pretty happy with NME so far. It has been a consistent source of inspiration for me. I get about 20 clicks a day, on average, which seems pretty respectable. The lowest I go is three (two of which are my ever-hopeful-for-a-post Mom, I just discovered), and my peak was 62 on March 31, the day after I posted the guide to my sidebar. I wonder who you all are.

8. Meditate every day: Yes. Sometimes just a few minutes, but yes.

9. Produce a record with David Waingarten: This is not going to happen this year, which I’m sad about. I love this guy’s voice and songwriting. He also makes movies, though, and that’s what he did with his time and money this year. The movie looks good, though. Here’s a preview: This Is Now

10. Record an EP with my band, Abandon Ship: This project is not on schedule, partly because of #12, below, and partly because of how much work an honors thesis is, on top of an internship and classes. I am working on it , but it will almost certainly not be done by my birthday.

11. See healthcare provider each month until all my body concerns are resolved: Yes, I have been doing this. I’ve seen a dermatologist, an orthopedist, a urologist, and two chiropractors. I’m disappointed with the results, so far. I seem to be collecting concerns faster than I am resolving them. Hmm… That makes it seem like I am on my last legs. I am quite healthy, overall, actually.

12. Set up a slick system of musical collaboration over the internet and use it regularly: This has come together much slower than I anticipated, but I have every reason to believe I will be up and running by early May. I can hardly wait.

13. Shift my schedule three hours earlier for at least one term: In bed by 11 pm: I’m very happy with this one, so far. I have not pulled it off perfectly for a term straight—my dance schedule conflicts somewhat with it—but I’d say 90% of the time I’m in bed by 11:30, at least, and that means I’m waking up naturally before my alarm 90% of the time. I love it!

14. Sing out every day: I have not been doing this as I had hoped. I am still inspired to sing out like my friend Zen Zenith, but I have not been working on it with any regularity.

15. Take African dance classes: Yes, I have taken two classes from master dancer Alseny Yansane, and they were awesome. Unfortunately, I have been having this low back pain that has kept me from dancing with that extreme athleticism. When my back stops hurting, I will go back.

16. Write at least one song per month: Nope. I have not written even one complete song. Ouch.

17. Make at least one of each item in Maya’s cookbook: Yummm. I have made four of 19 recipes: Fluffy Whole Wheat Pancakes, Super Hero Granola, Corn Chowder, and Maya’s Tomato soup. They were all excellent except I burned the granola.

 

March 9, 2009

Portland Lindy Exchange 2009

Posted by Nathen under blogging, dancing, honors project, school, statistics
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I see that my last post was about a dance event, which makes it look like all I’m doing is dancing. I am doing a fair amount of dancing, but what I’m mostly doing is school-related: my internship at Stepping Stone, statistics for my honors thesis, and studying trigonometry. It’s the last week of my term, and I’m busy. I’ve got some more thoughtful posts in the works, but only short and hopefully sweet ones for now.

I just got back from the Portland Lindy Exchange–at 3 am this morning. Three nights of dancing. I had  so much fun. I don’t think I can effectively express what is so fun about it right now but I can tell you about another couple compliments that I really liked.

There was a lot of fast music–northwest dancers like fast music. I do, too. I’ve been doing a lot of Balboa, which works well for fast music, and I’ve gotten comfortable with fast tempos, and able to lead musical dances. At the last dance, about 24 hours ago now, I was dancing with a great Portland dancer named Desha, and in the middle of the dance, she said, “Nathen, I love how relaxed you are! So many leads start to feel rushed when the music gets fast, like they are struggling to keep up.” I really liked to hear that. I feel relaxed! Woohoo!

On Friday, a young woman I didn’t recognize asked me to dance. She was good and we had a fun time. Afterwards she thanked me and said that last year she had come to this exchange after having been dancing for only a month, barely knowing how to do it, and her favorite dance had been with me–that I was the guy who had made her feel like she was doing a good job and that she was fun to dance with. I liked that, too. It reminded me a little of when someone I taught to swim joined the swim team, partly because of my enthusiasm for her talent, and a few years later was an all-star swimmer.

 

November 26, 2008

Final Stretch, Fall Term 2008

Posted by Nathen under bicycling, blogging, charting my life, co-counseling, dancing, exercise, GTD, honors project, meditation, school, sleep, songwriting, thinking
[4] Comments 

This has been my busiest term of school ever. I’ve got two very challenging classes, Social Psychology and Applied Data Analysis, my honors thesis, and a ten hour a week internship at Stepping Stone, a residential treatment center for adjudicated teenage boys. On top of that, I’m taking the GRE (Graduate Record Exam–a really hard test, like the SAT for getting into graduate schools) during finals week. That’s on the same day as my last final. That’s the point in my story where my classmates’ eyes bug a little. “OK, that’s crazy.”

This is too busy. I don’t like it. I like being in heavy intellectual training. I like being in this kind of shape; I can read and understand a journal article in a couple hours, for example. I enjoy being this productive, too, but I’ve gotten stressed out. About halfway through the term I started skimping on my non-intellectual stuff, to keep on top. My meditation practice is getting the squeeze–I’m rarely sitting for more than 15 minutes a day and often it’s just a token few minutes. That’s when I feel how strong my mind is going the most–when I’m sitting to meditate or lying down to sleep, this clear, powerful thinking, like a force, pushing up to the front of my head, driving my awareness and dominating my experience. I am getting enough sleep, at least. I’ve been strict with myself on that and it makes a big difference. My exercise has been getting the squeeze, though. All I do is bike, and I like biking but I also like to run, lift weights, and swim. I just can’t do them as part of my commute. I ride for transportation 30-90 minutes a day. I bike between classes. Sometimes it feels like all I do with my body is bike, sit, and sleep. Not very much walking, even.  I dance, too, probably four hours a week on average. That’s gotten some squeeze, but not too much. My songwriting and music playing has gotten the squeeze. My emotional support has gotten the squeeze. I’m down to maybe one co-counseling session a week and no phone time with friends. I’m lucky to live with good friends, so I still get supportive conversations. I get almost no physical affection, though. I can’t blame that on my term–I’m just far away from my most affectionate friends and family. Danielle, Maya, Jeannie, Mom, I miss you! I miss the rest of you too. I want to be in your lives more. I want to know how you are and what you’re doing.

But not for a couple more weeks. After this post, I’m putting my head down, business only, until the term is over. I’ll start posting again in mid-December. Have a great Thanksgiving and end of fall!

Here are some photographs of my calendar I took when I first conceived of this post, a few weeks ago. They are the first six weeks of my term. I’m a little nostalgic about how much more balanced I felt in those days. (Look at all that blue, red and pink!) Here’s what you’re looking at: I kept track of what I did, as I did it. Anything that I did for at least 15 minutes at a time made it on here. (My week calendars do not look like this ahead of time–they have only firm commitments and deadlines in them, GTD-style.) The columns are days, Sunday to Saturday, from about 8 am to about 11 pm. The purple is school stuff, like classes and studying. The blue is personal stuff, like cooking, eating, cleaning, and talking with friends. Green is office work, blogging, working in the elections office, teaching dance classes or lessons. Orange is dancing. Red is meditation and co-counseling. Pink is exercise. Yellow is Suntop stuff–chores, meetings, and outings.

Week 1

Week 1

Week 2

Week 2

Week 3

Week 3

Week 4

Week 4

Week 5

Week 5

Week 6

Week 6

 

November 11, 2008

A Day in the Life, Fall Term 2008, or How I Am Spending My Year, Part 3

Posted by Nathen under dancing, food, honors project, music, psychology, school, sleep, statistics, thinking
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I documented my day today. It wasn’t an unusual Tuesday, but my days aren’t all like this; I have classes only three days a week and often have a dance practice or something else scheduled. Also, I only wake to an alarm a couple days a week. Still, I think this gives a sense of what I’m working on, the pace, and intensity.

7:45am—Woke to an alarm after more than 8 hours of sleep but kind of groggy and nauseous (not uncommon), and a little dehydrated. Rolled out of bed in about ten minutes. Tamed my bedhead a bit, opened my shades. It’s raining but not hard. I took a photo for the blog and I look grumpy, probably because I am grumpy.

Bedroom Window

Bedroom Window

Grumpy

Grumpy

Breakfast

Breakfast

Made my oatmeal like I usually do, with a lot of cinnamon and ginger, a big handful of raisins, and with butter and agave nectar on top. Delicious!

Said good morning to a couple early-rising housemates, Kyla and Nick.

Packed my computer bag full of school files. Also rain gear, fruit, a salad, workout gear (optimistically), my water bottle, PDA, and camera.My Load For the Day

Rain Gear

Rain Gear

Bike

Bike

8:35—Out the door. I bike fifteen minutes to school, mostly on a trail next to the Willamette River. It’s very pretty. The light is grey, the leaves yellow, and it’s cool, not cold.

Bike Trail 1

Bike Trail 1

Bike Trail 2

Bike Trail 2

Bike Trail 3

Bike Trail 3

Bike Trail 4

Bike Trail 4

Bike Trail 5

Bike Trail 5

Willamette River

Willamette River

Franklin Blvd

Franklin Blvd

Straub Hall

Straub Hall

Computer Lab

Computer Lab

8:50—Lock my bike up at Straub Hall, the psychology building on the University of Oregon campus. I go to the computer lab and start working on a homework assignment for my statistics class (called Applied Data Analysis) that’s due at 3 pm. It’s due every week at 3 pm and usually takes 12-15 hours to complete (and that’s not including the 5-9 hours of reading I have to summarize as part of it, full of sentences like “So, the regression coefficients associated with the contrast-coded categorical predictors in this model that includes their interactions with the covariate tell one about simple mean effects when and only when the covariate equals zero”). I spent 10 hours on the homework, already, over the weekend.

Karyn

Karyn

9:30—I meet with Karyn, the TA for Applied Data Analysis, and grill her with questions about the homework for 40 minutes. She is very smart and patient.

Labmates

Labmates

10:10—Back to work in the computer lab. Now several of my classmates are working alongside me. It’s stressful because of how involved the thinking is, and because of how many elements I have to remember and pull together, but it’s also fun, because we’re all in it together. No one else spent all weekend on it or went to see Karyn, though, so I end up doing a more helping than getting helped. It’s good—I understand things much better after I have to make a case for them. We go straight through with no breaks. Instead of my hoped-for lunch (not to mention workout) I eat the banana and apple I brought and drink a half gallon of water.

2:40pm—I email in my homework, 13 pages, 15 hours and 40 minutes long (I’ll post it for fun under ‘writing’), and ride to the local Whole-Foods clone for lunch: a chicken thigh and two bagels. I’m feeling hyped up and pretty good.

Lunch

Lunch

3:00—Back to the computer lab, I eat them, along with the salad I brought, as I write a weekly update for my practicum: I’m interning 10 hours a week at a residential treatment center for adjudicated youth. I wrote about a “Responsible Decision Making” class I sat in on with them, about homophobia, and how it related to a article I’m reading, called “Prejudice as Self-Image Maintenance: Affirming the Self Through Derogating Others.” It’s about some experiments that found people (successfully) use prejudice to feel better about themselves when they are put down.

Gerlinger Hall

Gerlinger Hall

3:35—I ride to Gerlinger Hall, where my first class is, and finish eating while I read for my Social Psychology class (the paper I mentioned above) and swap homework war stories with another stats student.

4:00—Applied Data Analysis, taught by Dr. Holly Arrow. The lecture is on factorial ANOVAs, which is a method of analyzing data from experiments with multiple independent or quasi-independent variables. I understand most of it. It’s a graduate level class, mostly for undergrads doing honors theses, like I am. It’s really difficult and often confusing but also fun and exciting because it’s such a challenge, and because my classmates are so smart—it’s (exactly) like being in a class that consists of only the one or two other smartest and hardest-working people from all of my other classes. There’s a sense of camaraderie—we can just look at each other and shake our heads, laughing, knowing what we are all going through.

Applied Data Analysis 1

Applied Data Analysis 1

Applied Data Analysis 2

Applied Data Analysis 2

5:20—Ride down the hill to Lillis Hall. It’s dark now, and raining pretty hard. Still not cold, though. It’s been a beautiful day.

5:30—Social Psychology, taught by Sean Laurent, who is also my honors thesis advisor. He’s an entertaining lecturer and the material is all of this counterintuitive stuff about how people are (usually without knowing it) shaped by their situation. For the first time in the term I haven’t done all of the reading for a class (didn’t finish the paper I mentioned above) but it didn’t hurt me. We covered it in a hurry at the end and I have a slightly slower day tomorrow, so I can catch up. We talk first about attitude change and how emotional and intellectual persuasion work best together: Someone is more likely to quite smoking when shown a photo of a diseased lung along with information on how to quit smoking than with neither or just one of those, for example. Then we talked about research on stereotyping and how it relates to death sentences (pretty shocking stuff—worse even than I thought), prejudice, and self-esteem boosting. A classmate, Annalisa, brought a bunch of leftover Halloween candy and I eat a few gummy creatures and body parts. Not great.

Social Psychology - Class

Social Psychology - Class

Social Psychology - Sean

Social Psychology - Sean

6:50—Class is over but I hang out, asking Sean a few more questions about the stereotyping research.

7:15—Ride back to Straub, go upstairs to a lab and work on my honors thesis. I finalize my new measures and manipulations, compose a modification document for the Institutional Review Board, and send it all to Sean to go over before I send it in. These are the final changes to my experiment—ideas I got from my lab when I did my project presentation a couple weeks ago. I’m strengthening the manipulation and adding a couple of measures, like one that asks how much you like your name. Did you know that how much you like your name is a reliable measure of self-esteem? During this process, I see that Patrick Johnston, an old friend of mine from high school, has friended me on Facebook. I’m pretty excited about that. He was one of my favorite people at Yucca Valley High and I haven’t talked to him in almost two decades. No time to make contact now, though.

8:50—I pack up and leave campus. It’s not raining anymore and it’s a really nice ride home. My mind is going strong, thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking about writing this, partly.

Dinner

Dinner

9:10—Make and eat a light dinner, salad and a couple cheddar-in-corn-tortilla quesadillas. (Oh, and my current supplements, calcium/magnesium/D and fish oil.) The house is dark. My housemates are either gone or sleeping already.

9:30—Begin writing this, listening to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, my favorite album of my year, so far. In my enthusiasm for the post, I forget that it’s my night to clean the kitchen, leaving it for the third time this term for Kyla to clean tomorrow. (Sorry, Kyla!)

Desk

Desk

Stretching Out Space

Stretching Out Space

10:40—Time to chill out and get ready for bed: clean my teeth, stretch, meditate, go over my choreography a couple times, sing a song, and do my daily chart, journal entry, and gratitude prayer. In bed by 11:30.

Bed

Bed

 

October 25, 2008

My Honors Project, or How I Am Spending My Year, Part 1

Posted by Nathen under honors project, psychology, school, science, social cognition lab
1 Comment 

I am in good spirits today. I presented my honors project to my lab I and got an enthusiastic response. This lab is full of really smart and critical people. I’ve seen them demolish articles that I’d thought were good and send big projects practically back to the drawing board. That’s probably not fair to them… I mean, I don’t think they would quite agree with what I just wrote, and to be honest, I can’t quite keep up with their thinking most of the time. They talk quickly and with such certainty and use a lot of lingo that after a year of hard study I’m just getting on to. Anyway, I was nervous to make that presentation and happy to find that in this area of social psychology I’m able to keep up with the thinking of these scientists. I had even anticipated most of their concerns and was able to respond well. From that place, I was able to appreciate their suggestions instead of get defensive. It’s quite an honor, really, to have that many (there are about ten people in the lab) brilliant people helping me think. Wow.

I also ran my first four participants today and it went really smoothly. All of the work I put in on the front end (lots) is paying off. As I ran them, I was able to relax and allow the process to unfold. And as I was doing that I got a lot of good thinking done. One of those thoughts was, “I haven’t posted on my blog for a while, partly because I’ve been spending so much time on this project. Maybe it’s time to write about what I’m doing here.” I’ve been putting in 60-hour weeks on school work, and about a quarter of that has been on my honors project. So, here it is:

I took a class last spring called Experimental Methods in which I was to design an implement an experiment. In my research for that project, I first came across an article by a rock star in the social psychology world,Adam Galinsky, called “Power and Perspectives Not Taken.” In a series of really creative experiments, he showed that having power over other people hurts your ability to take other people’s perspectives. That grabbed my attention because my main philosopher these days, Ken Wilber, is really into developing perspective taking, saying that it’s a super key cognitive ability. The journal articles I’ve been reading agree, too, showing that perspective taking is a major component of empathy and reduces stereotyping, for example. Then I came across an article, called “Power, Approach and Inhibition,” proposing a theory of power based on all the recent research. It painted power in a pretty bad light: Other than making you feel good, power is not a good thing to have, in terms of psychological outcomes. The more power you have, the more likely you are to stereotype, take credit for other people’s work, see others as a means to your own ends, and a bunch of other no-nos. It’s disturbing because these effects of power will tend to cause power to accumulate and keep the powerful ignorant of their faults.

This was a little disturbing personally, too, because in my community, “living powerfully” is a big deal. Don’t live a small, timid life! Live a big, impactful life! On the other hand, empathy is a big deal, too. And what good postmodernist likes stereotyping? But I also noticed that all the papers on power I was reading defined power as “having control of others’ outcomes.” In other words, the kind of power they were talking about is hierarchical power, and that’s not really the kind of power my community is into. In fact, for some of us, it’s against our religion.

Then I came across another, more obscure, article by some Dutch scientists named Van Dijke and Poppe, called “Striving for Personal Power as a Basis for Social Power Dynamics.” They had found that what people who strive for power want is not power over others, but freedom from the power of others. They call that freedom “personal power” to distinguish it from the hierarchical “social power” that has been getting all the attention in the research. When given a choice, people will act to increase their personal power instead of their social power. In fact, if they can get personal power, they will often give up social power. This is big news for any non-anarchist.

So then I did an extensive literature search for research on the psychological outcomes of having personal power, also called agency, autonomy, and a few other things. I found almost nothing, and absolutely nothing on how personal power might affect perspective taking. I was suspicious of that so I emailed MariusVan Dijke about it and he agreed: “I think the distinction is actually a new one, and I am not aware of any other research.” This is a dream for a scientist—a wide open field, and potentially an important one, too.

That’s what I’m doing this year. I’ve designed an experiment to replicate Galinsky’s (which showed that power hinders perspective taking) and adding a personal power dimension to it. If I can reproduce his results then I will be able to add some knowledge to the field. How does having personal power affect perspective taking? I have no idea. I have a hypothesis, of course, because that’s how you do science, but it’ll be exciting not matter how it turns out. If personal power is detrimental to perspective taking, like social power is, that’s pretty big news: Autonomy, bad for perspective taking! If personal power is not detrimental to perspective taking, that’s really big news: In all these struggles for power, the thing that people really want is benign! OK, I know, those are oversimplifications, but there is truth to them. And if it’s somewhere in between, if the perspective taking abilities of people with personal power fall somewhere between the tyrant’s and the slave’s, well, that’s something too. I think that’s most likely, and that’s my hypothesis: Having personal power will bring its own cost and benefit package, and for perspective taking it will be not great but not too bad.

So this term I’m running participants in my experiment, while I learn how to crunch numbers. Winter term I’ll crunch the numbers. Spring term I’ll write it all up. The best case scenario is that my results will be good enough that someone in my lab will do some follow-up experiments and publish it all in a research journal. That would be great. I’d love to be part of the conversation going on out there about human nature. I don’t think, though, that I am going to devote my life to perspective taking research, or power research, or even social psychology. Or even scientific research, though I’m closer to that than I’ve ever been. I think I’d be a good researcher—I’m thorough and smart and I love putting information into contexts and being on the cutting edge of a conversation—but so far I have no indication that I’d be brilliant. I know it’s not fair to compare myself to the others in my lab who’ve been working and studying in this field for years, but that’s what I do, and when I do think about it, so far, it seems that my best strengths lie in a more interpersonal direction. And, so far, that’s where I’m headed. But that’s another story. For now I’m happy being a scientist.

 

October 3, 2008

Goals and Intentions for Year 38

Posted by Nathen under Abandon Ship, African dance, being kind to myself, blogging, celibacy, dancing, David Waingarten, goals/intentions, graduate school, honors project, lists, meditation, psychology, record production, school, sleep, songwriting
[2] Comments 

Add new knowledge to the field of social psychology

Break my habit of scratching and picking my skin, including biting my lip

Celibacy

Dance every day, working on 1) musicality 2) vocabulary 3) style

Finish bachelor’s degree

Get accepted into a couples and family therapy graduate program

Maintain this blog

Meditate every day

Produce a record with David Waingarten

Record an EP with my band, Abandon Ship

See healthcare provider each month until all my body concerns are resolved

Set up a slick system of musical collaboration over the internet and use it regularly

Shift my schedule three hours earlier for at least one term: In bed by 11 pm

Sing out every day

Take African dance classes

Write at least one song per month