The Ethics of Disagreement: The Abortion Issue Introduction You already have an opinion about abortion. Even I do. I chose such a difficult topic to force myself into the difficult position of analyzing a subject from positions that I don’t ordinarily consider. The journey won’t be easy and I may fail, but this will be the beginnings of a dialogue that I… Read More
Three Responses to #BlackLivesMatter, Individual Evolution, and Institutionalized Racism (A Tribute to Sandra Bland) and My Replies (Below are three responses to my previous essay. My responses are in italics.) N.’s Response: Michael, I just read your paper with great interest. You make a number of important points. However, you say repeatedly that not every group needs to follow all of the 10 steps [required according to IndividualEvolution.org] to be successful. However,… Read More
#BlackLivesMatter, Individual Evolution, and Institutionalized Racism (A Tribute to Sandra Bland) “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” -Assata Shakur. While I am certainly not qualified to compose a proper tribute to Sandra Bland, I am qualified as a social psychologist to analyze some elements of #BlackLivesMatter in… Read More
Radio Appearance and Download-Stream For your listening pleasure, here is my radio interview from last night. This is something I had not thought about doing until the opportunity was presented to me by the producers of Radio Islam who found my content here. For those of you who are curious, I am open to other opportunities to discuss cultural conditioning/propaganda, sexism, racism… Read More
Unintentional Sexism: The influence of language upon media propaganda, individuals and small groups Abstract While propaganda in the form of unintentional influence and the language of sexism has been independently researched, a review of literature reveals no such studies that link these two topics. In this paper, I link these two subjects to study the hypothesis that the language of sexism, embedded within media, unintentionally influences individuals and… Read More
Content Analysis Hypothesis Development (And so the saga continues as I wrassle with determining a proper hypothesis. The below is an indication of how far I have come and ow far I need to go. But I am getting closer.) Original Hypothesis: Individuals and small groups are influenced by intentional sexist propaganda embedded in media texts that influence unintentional… Read More
Summary Analysis of Levy, Collins, and Nail’s A New Model of Interpersonal Influence Characteristics Summary. The authors present a reformulation of social influence theory as a taxonomy, decision tree, and glossary sorted through the basis of “Four Fundamental Interpersonal Influence Distinctions,” cognitive processing (conscious/unconscious), perceived intentionality, relative social status, and direction of change. (p. 715). The authors suggest that this reformulation suggests several directions for further research by asking… Read More
Summary Analysis of I’ll Have What She’s Having: Effects of Social Influence and Body Type on the Food Choices of Others Introduction. This study examines consumer body type affects the food eating habits of those around them adjusted for whether the influencer is overweight or thin and whether the person being influenced has high or low self-esteem. The authors note that several authors point to a sedentary lifestyle and the high consumption of food as the… Read More
Summary Analysis of Social Influence in Stockmarkets: A Conceptual Analysis of Social Influence Processes in Stock Markets Introduction. The common misconception is that investors in stock markets, referred to as homo economicus at the beginning of the paper, are isolating individuals who do not gather in herds, and are thus not influenced by the herd. However, homo sapiens do gather in herds and are influenced by other humans, whether it is sometimes… Read More