Assignment 10 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 1 - Opening Skinner's Box

Summary: The chapter talks about the experiments conducted by psychologist B.F. Skinner and the controversy that surrounded his methods of experimentation. Operant conditioning, one of the main categories studied by B.F. Skinner, is the ability to train other humans and animals to perform a range of tasks through positive reinforcement (rewards). Skinner believed that humans are controlled and that free will is simply a response to life's "cues". He also believed that positive reinforcement worked better in establishing behavior than negative reinforcement (punishment).

Discussion: This chapter was very interesting because of the unconventional and controversial ways that B.F. Skinner conducted his experiments. Reading about the myth that Skinner's daughter sued him for keeping her in a box when she was younger, and that she later committed suicide when she lost the case in court was crazy. It is a good way to draw in the reader and get them excited to read on. Reading about all the other types of experiments was pretty cool, too. And, although there may have been a lot of controversy surrounding B.F. Skinner, he contributed greatly to the field of psychology (positive reinforcement > negative reinforcement or reward > punishment).

Chapter 2 - Obscura

Summary: This chapter talks about Stanley Milgram and describes Milgram's obedience to authority experiment. The experiment involved a subject who would be called the teacher and two actors (learner and experimenter). The subject would read a set of words to the learner and for every wrong answer, he would administer shock that rose in intensity for every incorrect answer. When the subject would try to stop the experiment the experimenter (the authority) would ask the subject to continue to test obedience to an authoritative figure. The results of the experiment showed that 65% of people would obey a credible authority, even if it meant harming another human being. The chapter went on to discuss the importance of the Milgram's study.

Discussion: I thought that Stanley Milgram's experiment, although controversial and somewhat messed with the mind of participants, was awesome. It's crazy that someone would even think of an experiment to test how people react to authoritative figures. It makes you think of how you would react if you were in that situation, but the thing is you don't know. You can never know how you would react in a certain situation until you are actually put into the situation. I've always wondered if I would have the guts to cut off my arm if I ever needed to to survive. Right now I say I don't think I would be able to, but I can't know for sure until a situation like that occurs. There are so many things that weigh in on a person's decision, so until given the stresses of a certain situation, you can't fully know how you would react in that situation.

Chapter 3 - On Being Sane in Insane Places

Summary: The author talks about David Rosenhan and an experiment he performed to test how well psychiatrists differentiate between sane and insane people. Rosenhan and 8 friends went to different mental hospitals and pretended to hear a "thud". One in the mental facility for a while, they acted normal and said they were no longer hearing any noises. This allowed them to determine whether or not the psychiatrists could distinguish them from insane patients. However, even though they were perfectly normal and sane, they were given the same treatment as insane patients. Slater then talks about how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders changed due to the results of Rosenhan's study. She also talks about the same study repeated by herself and her findings.

Discussion: It was very interesting to read about Rosenhan's study and how psychiatrists, who go through extensive coursework and training, could wrongly classify a patient. It kind of bothers me how psychiatrists could possibly diagnose someone as insane even though they are perfectly normal because psychiatrists should be reliable. It makes you think about all the patients who are possibly normal but are too drugged up to speak out so they just conform to insanity. When the author repeated the experiment, although she was not admitted to the mental facility, she was given anti-depressants. This is another remarkable finding because it just shows that psychiatrists may not have any idea about what they are doing, but no one questions them because of their authority.  

Chapter 4 - In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing

Summary: Lauren Slater talks about a crime that happened in New York in 1964, where a woman was stabbed and raped by man. There were witnesses, however, none of them stepped in to stop the crime from happening. After the incident, Latane and Darley conducted studies at NY University to determine why people did not intervene and help stop the crime when they had the time/opportunity to do so. One of the experiments involved a college student that was put in a room and made to believe there were student's in other rooms, by putting tape recorders in the rooms. One of the tape recorders played a recording of what sounded like a student having a seizure and the results showed that: 31% of students reacted to the "seizuring" student when they thought others were around and 85% tried to help when they thought they were the only person around.

Discussion: This chapter I found interesting because it relates to my life very well. I was at the Rec one day and a girl wasn't paying attention to where she was going and tripped over/fell on several bikes. It happened right in front of me and since there were several people around, I just kept walking and assumed someone else was going to help her. Her friend was right next to her, so that may have had something to do with me continuing on without helping but I can't believe I didn't stop to help, now that I look back on it. It's an interesting thing to think about.

Chapter 5 - Quieting the Mind

Summary: In this chapter, the author talks about Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance.Cognitive dissonance is the phenomenon in which an individual adjusts his/her beliefs to better fit or justify one's behavior. One experiment of cognitive dissonance performed by Festinger was one where a group of people believed the world was going to end on December 21st by a huge flood. Festinger predicted that when the prophecy turned out to be false, a huge effort to gain social support would happen to downplay the disconformation of the original belief. He infiltrated the flood group and his prediction was later confirmed. He also performed an experiment where student's were paid $1 and $20 to perform boring tasks. The student's who were paid $1 said the experiments, which were time consuming and boring, were fun, while those that were paid $20 straight up told the truth and said the tasks were boring. The students that were paid $20 experienced little dissonance, so they were honest in their responses. However, those that were paid $1 had to justify spending a considerable amount of time doing pointless tasks, so they said the tasks were enjoyable.

Discussion: This chapter, to me, was kind of boring; however, the theory of cognitive dissonance was quite interesting. I was watching a show the other day about the "end" of the world on December 21, 2012 and there were quite a few people who had given up a lot because of their belief. It is going to be real interesting when the world does not come to end; I wonder what all the believers are going to say/do. Their was also a real interesting belief from one of the people . His belief was that the world is a computer game and at a certain time on December 21, 2012 there is going to be a portal that opens up, in the middle of a canyon somewhere, that will enable you to teleport out of this "virtual" world. He is going to jump off a cliff at that time to jump into this portal and be released from the video game. Stupid belief that is somewhat related to cognitive dissonance.  

Chapter 6 - Monkey Love

Summary: This chapter is about the experiments performed by Harry Halow on monkeys to determine what the basis for love was. He separated new born monkeys from their mothers and gave them a mother figure in soft, cloth towels. The baby monkeys became extremely attached to the towels. Harlow then made surrogate mother monkeys out of wire and nails, but gave them the ability to dispense milk. He found that the new born monkeys were still extremely attached to the soft, cloth surrogate mothers, although they would approach the wire surrogates whenever they were hungry. The baby monkeys preferred the soft surrogate mothers who could not feed them over the metal surrogates that could provide food. Based on these results, Harlow concluded that touch was the basis of forming love.

Discussion: Although the experiments performed on the new born monkeys were done to further the field of psychology, the torturing of the monkeys was not cool at all. It just makes you question what kind of person Halow was and what kind of environment he grew up in. I don't see how anyone could be so cruel to harm an animal like that. The ONLY silver lining to the experimentation is that now we are more aware of what is needed for proper child development.

Chapter 7 - Rat Park

Summary: I really liked the topic of this chapter and the nature of the experiments. The chapter talks about a psychologist, Bruce Alexander, and his research and experiments regarding addiction to narcotics. One psychologist by the name of Dr. Herbert Kleber believed that the ease of access to narcotics was the main factor in the risk of addiction. Bruce Alexander believed that there is nothing addictive about drugs and that even repeated exposure to enticing drugs does not lead to problems. In experiments on rats, narcotics were proven to be addictive since rats would suffer pain in order to suck drugs through a straw. However, Alexander argued that the rodents became addicted because of the environments they were kept in (i.e. tiny cages). He believed that if the rodents were kept in an environment that was comfortable and "happy", the rats would not care for the drugs. So he created a "Rat Park", a park for rats with sufficient space and clean water, and performed the narcotics experiment. He found that in this environment, the rodents preferred not to ingest the narcotics even if they were previously addicted. Bruce Alexander showed that drug addiction is more likely to occur in sad environments or in times of misery/difficulty; however, if we are happy and have nearly everything that we desire, addiction is not a problem.

Discussion: This was a really interesting experiment, however, like the new born monkeys experiment, it was cruel to force addiction upon the rats and cause them to harm themselves to satisfy their addiction. I do agree with Alexander's theory because I feel like those who grow up in good environments are less likely to become addicted/try to drugs. The results may not be 100% accurate because some people just want to do  drugs because they like the way they feel, but I think there is a high percentage of accuracy.

Chapter 8 - Lost in the Mall

Summary: This chapter discusses Elizabeth Loftus's research about human memory and imagination. Loftus says that humans often confuse things from memory and their imaginations. She says long term memory is very fragile and can be easily manipulated. This led her to believe that many people were wrongly convicted in child abuse cases because evidence based on childhood memories could be easily altered. To prove this, Elizabeth Loftus created an experiment called "lost in the mall" which involved telling participants about ture childhood memories along with a fake memory about being lost in a mall when they were young. The parents of the participants cooperated in the experiment, too. The results showed that a large number of participants actually believed that they were lost in the mall and fabricated stories of how they became lost. Loftus claims that the human mind replaces white spaces in memory with filler memories that may deviate from the truth. If someone trustworthy tell us something about our past, we often believe them and make memories as if it really occurred. However, some psychologist argue that traumatic memories are different from normal memories and are stored differently in the brain; traumatic memories can't be forgotten or messed with.

Discussion: I really liked this chapter because it made me think about memories that I think happened when I was younger and whether or not they are true, partially made up, or fully made up. I recently watch a show that also discussed how memory can be messed with. A robbery occurred and people who witnessed it were asked to describe the person that committed the robbery. Several actors were put in place to make things up about the robber and when they did so, several participants began to agree with them. This showed that memories can be tampered with easily, especially by outside sources.

Chapter 9 - Memory Inc.

Summary: This chapter discusses Eric Kandel and his research on human memory and its storage in the brain. It talks about Henry who experienced seizures and convulsions, due to epilepsy, and had his hippocampus removed by Dr. Scoville. The brain surgery stopped Henry's seizures but also kept him from being able to make new memories. After reading about this story Kandel learned about neurons and human memory. He performed experiments on sea slugs because of their easily accessible neurons and discovered CREB and CREB repressors. CREB is a brain molecule that triggers the production of proteins that hold memories. Later, Kandel started a company that produced pills to help with memory enhancement.

Discussion: This chapter was pretty cool. Reading about something as complex as the human brains is usually interesting and the part about the brain surgery was intriguing. I do think that messing with the human brain whether it be through surgery or pills is not a good idea, though. Unless we know the consequences of removing part of the brain or the effects of taking memory enhancing pill, we should leave the human brain as is and let nature do its thing. Messing with the brain could have undesirable effects and mess up someone's life.

Chapter 10 - Chipped

Summary: Psycho surgery and lobotomies are the main topics of this chapter. The author talks about Antonio Moniz, the father of lobotomy, and his experiments in psycho surgery. The author also talks about the positive and negative effects that a psycho surgical procedure can have on a person's life. However, she notes that some people would rather face the negative effects of a surgery than deal with their depression, anxiety, and other related issues. Late in the chapter, Charlie Newitz and his OCD is discussed. He tried a bunch of different medications, however nothing worked so he underwent psycho surgery. After the surgery his OCD was gone, but also reported feeling depressed. He did think that dealing with depression was better that dealing with OCD.

Discussion: It's crazy to think about how far research on the brain, medicine, and surgical procedures has come. I do not agree fully with taking medicine or surgery because I feel as if it would make you a completely different person. I would not know what it is like, but when you take medicine it puts you in a different place and doesn't allow you to be yourself. Surgery is a little worse because once the surgery is performed, you are stuck with it. Medications can at least stop being taken, but with surgery you will be stuck the way you end up, which could be good OR bad.

Assignment 9 - Obedience to Authority

Chapter 1 - The Dilemma of Obedience

This chapter introduces the book and talks about obedience and how it is an important aspect of social life. The author describes the experiment in some detail, the motives behind conducting the experiment, and a brief description of some of the results. This chapter is boring at first because it does not go into details of the experiment, but it does a good job of introducing the reader to the experiment.

Chapter 2 - Method of Inquiry

In this chapter, the author goes into more detail about each step for setting up the experiment. He talks about the participants, the recruitment process, the characteristics of the participants (age, race, occupation, etc.), description of the learning task, the actual setup of the experiment, and detailed descriptions of the shocking procedure and the machines. This chapter was a little better than the first because it started to build anxiety and a wanting to see what the experiment would yield.

Chapter 3 - Expected Behavior

Stanley Milgram gathered groups of psychiatrists, college students, and middle-class adults and explained the experiment to them, leaving out that the learner was an actor. He asked them to predict the results of the experiment and most of them predicted that subjects would not go through the whole experiment and stop when the learner asked to be let out. This chapter was interesting because it showed how people thought they would react and eventually showed different results than what the experiment yielded.

Chapter 4 - Closeness of the Victim

Obedience depended on the proximity of the victim to the learner. If the learner was out of sight or farther away, the subject was more likely to continue through to the end of the experiment. If the learner was in the same room as the victim, disobedience was more likely to occur. It was interesting to see how face-to-face and remote confrontations could produce such different results. However, it does make sense and is something I have personally experienced. I have texted someone to avoid a face-to-face confrontation with them.

Chapter 5 - Individuals Confront Authority

Some accounts are given of people that participated in the experiment and Milgram discusses some of the forces (background, subject-experimenter interaction,etc.) that affect the way a subject responds. He puts some of the actual verbal exchanges between the experimenter and the subject in the chapter which made for a good read. It was kind of cool to see how the victim interacted with the experimenter.

Chapter 6 - Further Variation and Controls

Changes are made to the original experiment are described in this chapter. Some of the experiment changes were: adding a heart condition to the learner, changing personnel, changing the proximity of the experimenter to the subject, the impact of women, emphasizing the contract of the subject, the impact of the institution, and the option of the subject choosing the shock to administer. I liked this chapter because it showed that the author thought about every possible scenario and made an experiment that would reflect that type of scenario.

Chapter 7 - Individuals Confront Authority II

This chapter was pretty much a continuation of chapter 5 except with accounts from different people. I liked this chapter because I liked to read the conversations the subjects would have with the experimenter. Elinor Rosenblum pissed me off though. She kept on going on about how she ws the most marvelous person and painting herself to be the nicest person in the world. If you're so nice, then why did you do shock the crap out of the person. She reminds me of the Lori in the walking dead; annoying.

Chapter 8 - Role Permutations

The role of the individual was tested to see whether it played an important role in affecting the responses of the subject. Experiments 12-16 reflected the role permutations and they showed that a hierarchy of authority is crucial when choosing an authority to follow. For example, you wouldn't follow someone off the street in a laboratory environment, but you might follow someone perceived to be a scientist.

Chapter 9 - Group Effects

In this chapter, obedience is differentiated from conformity. Obedience comes from an hierarchical authority and the person will say they performed an act because they were just following orders. Conformity comes from following what a group of peers does. Stanley Milgram performs some experiments using these two entities. I thought this was interesting, too, because I do notice that one person in a group usually goes along with what a group will say instead of stating his/her own thought.

Chapter 10 - Why Obedience?

Around this chapter is when the book started to get boring for me. The author begins to discuss some of the reasons why obedience occurs, hierarchical models and their effect on obedience, and agentic shift. This chapter was still kind of interesting but it seemed like he began to bring up the same argument over and over and I got tired of reading it.

Chapter 11 - The Process of Obedience

Again, the author talks about agentic state, although a little more in depth, and explains antecedent conditions, binding factors, and consequences. Some antecedent conditions discussed were family, institutional setting, and rewards; binding factors keep individuals in the agentic state. This chapter was also boring to me because it kept going on and on about stuff in the previous chapter.

Chapter 12 - Strain and Disobedience

Strains and strain-resolving were discussed and how they influence a subject to obey/disobey. When the binding factors are greater than the net strain, obedience occurs; if the binding factors are less than the net strain, the result is disobedience. The author goes on to talk about strain, its sources, and strain resolution. Other than reading the account of the experimenter and the subject, chapter was pretty boring.

Chapter 13 - An Alternative Theory: Is Aggression the Key?

Stanley Milgram discusses the theory of aggression in the shocking experiment which says that the subject wanted to hurt the learner out of frustration/anger. I liked this chapter because it talked about an interesting aspect of the mind. Some people are just angry, so I figured getting aggressive people in an experiment would increase obedience, however, when given the subject was given freedom to use whatever shock level, they remained low. In a psychology class I am taking, we are discussing aggression so this chapter really interested me.

Chapter 14 - Problems of Method

Another boring chapter. The author answers 3 questions from critics of the experiment. He dismisses opposing views and restates his point; the 3 questions were: (1) Did the subjects correctly represent society at large, (2) did they believe the shocks were real from the start, and (3) Can you generalize the results and apply them to real life experiences?

Chapter 15 - Epilogue

This chapter was very cool because it had a Q and A session between a Vietnam soldier and Mike Wallace of CBS news. It was interesting to hear about what he did and why he did it, although what he did was terrible. It gives some insight as to what his mindset was at the time (none; just listen to authority) and how he felt at the time. The accounts of the subjects in the book along with this interview were by far the most interesting of the book followed by the results of the experiment(s).

Summary/Reaction

Overall, Obedience to Authority was a good read. It was very interesting because it showed the nature of human's and how saying how you react to something doesn't always translate. You can never know how you will react until you are put into the actual situation, as the shock experiment demonstrated. I liked reading how the dialogue between the experimenter and the subjects during the experiment. It showed what they felt, what they were thinking, and showed how they were sometimes caught in conflict with their conscience and authority. A lot of the reasons the author gives for obedience to authority make sense because there have been times where I have felt I was in a similar (but not hurtful) situation but followed through with instructions because of the figure of authority. This was a good idea for an experiment and all the variations of the experiment shed light as to what type of scenarios generate higher obedience. From the class readings, so far, Obedience to Authority is my favorite just because of the content of the book and how it relates to life.

Assignment 8 - Gang Leader For A Day (whole book)

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 1

This book reminds me of one I read in my English class called Freakonomics. It may have been mentioned in Freakonomics, I can't remember, but the writing style is very similar. This first chapter really got my attention because I live in an area of college station that is similar. On my street, there are a bunch of college kids and families living around me, but the next street over there are mostly black people living there (not projects but appear to be low income households). A lot of the time when I go to the convenient store on the street corner, I run into several black people in the store and it is interesting to see how they interact with their friends and the cashier/store owner. They talk to the cashier/store owner, who is Indian (and real cool with me and my friends), like he is one of their friends and sometimes try to trick him into thinking they paid for something they didn't. They joke around with him, too, but sometimes they get loud with him and sometimes it's really hard to tell whether or not the situation will escalate and become violent. Either the guy in the book was really naive (which appears to be the case), brave, or dumb because he was trying to conduct a study in what seemed to be a drug infested and gang-run neighborhood. I feel like back then, gangs weren't as violent/crazy as the ones now, so he may have lucked out there.

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of this book is really awesome because the author is slowly becoming more familiar with the gang, learning the hierarchy of gang members, and observing the different things the gang does other than sell drugs. It's as if Sudhir is being "initiated" into the gang by J.T. The main reason why I like this chapter is the fact that Sudhir has been somewhat accepted into the gang and it is now becoming part of his regular life. The coolest part was when J.T. confronts C-note about moving cars so that there could be room for the monthly basketball game. It would have been crazy/awkward to be exposed to that for the first time. I know I feel awkward when two friends fight even if it's over the phone, probably because I don't like conflict, so I can just imagine how the author felt. Watching C-note getting beat up would have been hard, too. One thing that I've noticed, though, is that the author uses the word "nigger" in the book a lot. I think the gang was using the word "nigga" and from what I have experience the two words have different meanings. "Nigger" has a negative connotation to it while "nigga" is used amongst friends, sort of like bro, homie, dude.

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 3

This chapter was really interesting because it showed that gangs are not just gangs. They are communities that work together with citizens in their neighborhood, even if they have conflicting views. Sometimes the help the gangs give to the community is illegal, but they help out the best they are able to. There is a lot more that goes on inside of a gang, and this chapter sheds light on the thoughts of gang members/leaders and the inner workings that drive the gang.

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 was kind of annoying because Sudhir was supposed to be the gang's leader for a day, but he didn't really do all that much. It still seemed as if J.T. was the gang's leader and Sudhir would just nod and say yea to everything J.T. said. I guess you can't just give Sudhir the power of gang leader and let him do everything on his own, but Sudhir barely did anything with the position he was put in. The biggest decision he made was deciding who to punish between Otis and Billy, but even then he didn't have the gang leader mentality and tried to cancel out their "penalties". 

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 got away from the gang functions and focused more on Ms. Bailey and the tenants of Robert Taylor. It showed mostly how the higher-up people in the community work to get what the families in the community need (Ms. Bailey exchanges liquor/beer for clothing, food, etc.). The chapter gives insight on how the Robert Taylor community survives without money and how each person helps each other. You could say that Ms. Bailey is someone who is looking out for everyone or you could say she using her "help" to control everyone (when she gives things to only certain people). 

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 6

Although Sudhir is a educated graduate student, this chapter made me question his intelligence. When he told Ms. Bailey and J.T. about the secret financial earnings of the tenants, he had to have known that J.T. and Ms. Bailey would hit up the tenants. In a way, there are times where trying to help someone results in drastically hurting others without even knowing, but this seemed to be an obvious situation where he should have known to keep that information to himself. 

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 7

I kind of feel bad for Sudhir because no matter what he does, he seems to get on everyone's bad side. The tenants were against him for giving away their secret earnings, he's against J.T. if he doesn't do everything with him, and the cops are pissed at him because he is keeping track of all their actions by doing this ethnography. When hustlers were being described in the book, it appeared as if they were describing Sudhir. He's a hustler just like everyone in the gang and Robert Taylor. 

Gang Leader For A Day - Chapter 8

This chapter showed just how much Sudhir had learned from the gang.

"How could I learn so much, absorb so many lessons and gain so many experiences at the side of a man who was so far removed from my academic world.”

This quote pretty much summed up Sudhir's experiences with the gang, tenants, police officers, etc. He learned that calling an ambulance in the gang environment is a lot different than calling it in a "normal" environment. In Robert Taylor, that ambulance would never come, but in any other place it would show up quickly. He also learned that gangs have their own organized government and work things out differently than a regular society.

Gang Leader For A Day - Whole Book

Overall, the book was interesting. It's crazy to me how naive/stupid the author was, going up to gang members and trying to get to know them. Now it is well known that you do not mess with a gang at all if you aren't with them because something is bound to happen to you. Sudhir got lucky that he was able to come out of such an experience with no harm done to him. And although I thought Sudhir was extremely dumb for attempting to do this ethnography, it turned out to be an interesting and enlightening experiment. It shed light on the economics of gangs and how things work around them. A gang in the area not only affects the gang and its members, it affects the nearby stores, people living in the area, etc. Today's gangs are much more violent and deadly than those in the past, in my opinion, and it would be awesome, if there was someone brave enough, to study them. It would be really cool to see how gangs have evolved, if they have at all, and see if they still perform "community service" similar to what J.T. did.

Ethnography Idea(s)

Idea for me:

I have never played MMORPG games like World of Warcraft or Runescape before, so I think it would be interesting to see how people, who play the game frequently, behave and to interact with them through playing the game. I like to play video games, but I have never been into computer games and never been exposed to hardcore computer gamers, so this would be something new and interesting for me to do. South Park makes World of Warcraft seem fun.


Idea for someone else:

I'm really interested in sports and play/watch them pretty often and I feel like not many computer science students are exposed to stuff like this, so it might be interesting for them to either play pick-up games, join a fantasy league, or go watch games with others. I know when my friends and I are together the main thing we talk about is fantasy football and it gets crazy with stats and analysis to where it's almost nerd-like.

Assignment 7 - Nonobvious Observation

               I thought the making of the videos was an interesting project to do. Filming the different points-of-view of classmates was cool because you are able to see the world through  another's eyes. Everyone interacts with their environment differently and it's really interesting to see exactly what someone pays attention to or reacts to as they perform everyday tasks. Things as simple as walking to class, ordering food, or even just sitting on a bench on campus create many situations where you unconsciously interact with people and the environment around you. Although the interactions on the videos may not be completely genuine (because of the awareness of the camera), I believe they closely reflect a person's normal interactions. I know when I first started doing my task, the camera was making me think about my interactions, but after a while I felt like I started doing things as I normally would (mainly because I felt people weren't looking at me funny). I think the project would have captured interactions a lot more accurately if the camera was not as obvious. The people wearing the cameras wouldn't have felt like they stood out with a big, clunky camera on their head, thus making their interactions with the people/environment more normal. Nonetheless, the project was by far the most interesting computer science project I have had so far.

               There are several nonobvious things that can be looked at to determine more about a person. You can look at how fast they walk. If they walk slow this can mean that the person is a relaxed, laid-back kind of person. Maybe they are lazy or just like to enjoy their walk and surroundings. If the person walks fast, maybe they are the kind of person who is always busy/in a hurry, impatient, or someone who is often late to appointments. Another thing can be whether or not the person is looking at everything around them or if they look in the direction of their goal the whole time. Looking around can show that the person is new to the environment and focusing on the goal can show that the person is very familiar with the task. The reactions of the people they pass by and whether or not the person looks at the people he/she walks by or looks down can give a hint as to what the person's personality is like. For example, looking down as they walk by others can mean that they are shy or nervous around people they are unfamiliar with, while looking up and making eye contact or even smiling at someone can show that they are friendly, outgoing, and comfortable around people they do not know.

Assignment 5 - Ethnographies

“Ethnography consists of the observation and analysis of human groups considered as individual entities (the groups are often selected, for practical and theoretical reasons unrelated to the nature of the research involved, from those societies that differ most from our own). Ethnography thus aims at recording as accurately as possible the perspective modes of life of various groups.”

- Structural Anthropology (1963), by Claude Lévi-Strauss.

“[Ethnography has a] goal, of which an Ethnographer should never lose sight. This goal is, briefly, to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world. We have to study man, and we must study what concerns him most intimately, that is, the hold life has on him. In each culture, the values are slightly different; people aspire after different aims, follow different impulses, yearn after a different form of happiness. In each culture, we find different institutions in which man pursues his life-interest, different customs by which he satisfies his aspirations, different codes of law and morality which reward his virtues or punish his defections. To study the institutions, customs, and codes or to study the behaviour and mentality without the subjective desire of feeling by what these people live, of realising the substance of their happiness—is, in my opinion, to miss the greatest reward which we can hope to obtain from the study of man.”

- Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) by Bronislaw Malinowski.

This definition given by Claude Levi-Strauss, to me, is the most straightforward of the 7 listed at http://www.americanethnography.com/ethnography.php, but also gives some details as to what an ethnography’s aim is.  However, the definition given by Bronislaw Malinowski, in my opinion, is the most meaningful and detailed. It seems to be defined from an emotional standpoint because the words used appear to try and provoke emotions from the reader and it has a much deeper meaning than the others. I think a combination of the two definitions would give the best description of an ethnography because of the deepness of Malinowski’s and the straightforwardness of Levi-Strauss’.

From the reading of:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa

Ethnographies appear to be almost like debates between ethnographers. An ethnography is supposed to be an unbiased study of a culture, but somehow results seem to get skewed. In the Wikipedia article, Coming of Age in Samoa, Derek Freeman and Margaret Mead butted heads on the data collected from a Samoan tribe (Freeman started the head butting and waited for Mead to die before he started talking crap!). I don’t think Freeman was wrong for trying to disprove Mead’s results. If he tried to disprove without talking so much crap and instead just conducted his own ethnography (which he later did) then he would’ve been cool with me. He went about it the wrong way by calling her out and just saying that she was plain wrong; he seemed to have his own intentions in mind. With that being said, I think it’s hard for any ethnography to be conducted without getting some results wrong. People react differently with different people. I react differently with my computer science classmates than I do with my roommate and close friends. So Margaret Mead’s results may have been the results of Samoan’s reacting to a woman and Derek Freeman’s results may have come from reactions of him being a man. There is no accurate way to determine whether or not a person will act the same way with different people, so results can sometimes be skewed. The best way, I think is to set up hidden cameras and watch without knowing, that way genuine interactions can be recorded and looked at (there is the issue of privacy though).

 In short, I think an ethnography conducted on the same culture with ethnographers of different race, gender, age, etc., would produce differing results. People react differently to different people so the results would differ depending on the ethnographer.

             Ethics plays a big role in ethnographies, too. There is an 8 page code of ethics that ethnographers are required to abide by when conducting research, teaching, applying a study, and disseminating results. Here are brief guidelines for them:

• Conducting Research-When conducting research Anthropologists need to be aware of the potential impacts of the research on the people and animals they study. If the seeking of new knowledge will negatively impact the people and animals they will be studying they may not undertake the study according to the code of ethics.

• Teaching-When teaching the discipline of anthropology, instructors are required to inform students of the ethical dilemmas of conducting ethnographies and field work.

• Application-When conducting an ethnography Anthropologists must be "open with funders, colleagues, persons studied or providing information, and relevant parties affected by the work about the purpose(s), potential impacts, and source(s) of support for the work." 

• Dissemination of Results-When disseminating results of an ethnography the code notes that "[a]nthropologists have an ethical obligation to consider the potential impact of both their research and the communication or dissemination of the results of their research on all directly or indirectly involved." Research results of ethnographies should not be withheld from participants in the research if that research is being observed by other people.

There are also many types of ethnographers:

• "The kindly ethnographer" – Most ethnographers present themselves as being more sympathetic than they actually are, which aids in the research process, but is also deceptive. The identity that we present to subjects is different from who we are in other circumstances.
• "The friendly ethnographer" – Ethnographers operate under the assumption that they should not dislike anyone. In actuality, when hated individuals are found within research, ethnographers often crop them out of the findings.
  
• "The honest ethnographer" – If research participants know the research goals, their responses will likely be skewed. Therefore, ethnographers often conceal what they know in order to increase the likelihood of acceptance.
• "The Precise Ethnographer" – Ethnographers often create the illusion that field notes are data and reflect what "really" happened. They engage in the opposite of plagiarism, giving credit to those undeserving by not using precise words but rather loose interpretations and paraphrasing. Researchers take near-fictions and turn them into claims of fact. The closest ethnographers can ever really get to reality is an approximate truth.
• "The Observant Ethnographer" – Readers of ethnography are often led to assume the report of a scene is complete – that little of importance was missed. In reality, an ethnographer will always miss some aspect because they are not omniscient. Everything is open to multiple interpretations and misunderstandings. The ability of the ethnographer to take notes and observe varies, and therefore, what is depicted in ethnography is not the whole picture.
• "The Unobtrusive Ethnographer" – As a "participant" in the scene, the researcher will always have an effect on the communication that occurs within the research site. The degree to which one is an "active member" affects the extent to which sympathetic understanding is possible.
• "The Candid Ethnographer" – Where the researcher situates themselves within the ethnography is ethically problematic. There is an illusion that everything reported has actually happened because the researcher has been directly exposed to it.
• "The Chaste Ethnographer" – When ethnographers participate within the field, they invariably develop relationships with research subjects/participants. These relationships are sometimes not accounted for within the reporting of the ethnography despite the fact that they seemingly would influence the research findings.
• "The Fair Ethnographer" – Fine claims that objectivity is an illusion and that everything in ethnography is known from a perspective. Therefore, it is unethical for a researcher to report fairness in their findings.
• "The Literary Ethnographer" – Representation is a balancing act of determining what to "show" through poetic/prosaic language and style versus what to "tell" via straightforward, ‘factual’ reporting. The idiosyncratic skill of the ethnographer influences the face-value of the research.

All of these different types of ethnographers somewhat support my idea that there can hardly every be truly unbiased results.

Emotional Design vs Design of Everyday Things

     The “Design of Everyday Things” focuses on how the design of an object affects the users perception of how the object should be used. The primary focus is not the look (pretty or ugly) of the design, but the mappings of functions, feedback given from the object, visibility of certain functions/information, and how the human mind makes models of an object by simply looking at it. It discusses design on more of a scientific level. For example, the book talks about how having buttons, shaped like something associated with their function, helps the user determine what the button does and how it is to be used. It also discusses how information can be gathered from the object and the environment, so that the user can paint a mental picture of the affordance of the object. Emotions are left out of the design and the object's functionality/usability is the main objective the book tries to convey.

     “Emotional Design” also talks about an objects design; however it discusses how the look of an object (attractive or unattractive) affects its ease of use, by manipulating human emotions. Based on the first chapter, the book focuses on how human emotion and aesthetics affect how someone uses an object. When someone is happy, they are more creative and are able to figure out alternate solutions to a problem. When someone is anxious, they tend to pay more attention to details and get tunnel vision. These emotions are taken into consideration and used to design objects that help users during times of stress and/or relaxation. For example, alarms and flashing lights can be used to symbolize danger and help workers focus on the problem at hand, while background music can be used to induce happiness and creativity on the job. However, overdoing the negative emotion triggers can cause even greater problems by stressing out the person and having them focus too hard on one thing, keeping them from finding a solution to the current problem.

      These books differ from one another because “Design of Everyday Things” talks about design from a physical standpoint (not looks though), while “Emotional Design” uses more of a emotional/aesthetical analysis. They are similar in the sense that they both analyze how the mind works and how objects can be designed to cater to the way the mind processes information. Other than that it is the physical appearance of the design versus the emotions a design generates.