Opening Skinner's Box - A Review (Chapters 1-10)

Chapter 1: Opening Skinner’s Box

Lauren Slater opens her book Opening Skinner’s Box with a chapter with the same title. She takes an intimate look at B.F. Skinner. She starts by discussing how infamous he is. Personally, I had heard about his experiments before, and I do not think I would consider him “infamous.” I think I would prefer the term “eccentric.” His experiments reflect a very different train of thought compared his peers and even among many psychologists today. He looked at the state of psychology at the time and how it was based mostly on anecdotes or observations. He applied principles derived from the scientific method and applied it to this “soft” psychology. He revolutionized the world not just with his experiments but also with his methods.  He thought out of the box (pun intended). He was a very analytical person, but at the same time he was very philosophical—a perfect fit for behavioral psychology.

A significant part of this chapter is Slater’s discussion of Skinnerizing her daughter to stop crying and demanding to be held at night. This anecdote lets the reader see how the application of operant conditioning is still relevant in everyday life. Most people also realize that we employ operant conditioning in training domesticated animals. It is almost disturbing how easy it is to condition someone to do what you want them to. Finally, when Slater meets Julie, one of Skinner’s daughters, I cannot help but think that she has been conditioned to adore her father. When she speaks of him, tears of love and memory swell up in her eyes and voice. She is also very defensive of him whenever anyone starts to criticize any aspect of his work or personality. It would not be too far-fetched to think that Skinner used his operant conditioning techniques to, perhaps unintentionally, condition his children to love him and to abhor any negative comments about him.

Chapter 2: Obscura

Because we, as a class, already had the opportunity to read Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority, we had very good background knowledge about Milgram’s experiments. Nonetheless, Slater allows us to get a different perspective on Milgram and his experiments—one that is a little more subjective and humanistic. Slater begins this chapter with a hypothetical personal experience about participating in the experiment as the subject. I would have to admit that most of those thoughts would have reflected by own. However, I am still convinced that I would not go all the way to the end. I know that I would have gone most of the way though—even with a basic knowledge of lethal levels of electrocution. When I think about how obedient I am to any authoritative figure, I try to pick out the little things that I do to defy authority. Overall though, I obey without questioning. That is disturbing.

Milgram himself seemed to have a strange curiosity about people’s behaviors. He seemed especially interested in the nonobvious. He wanted to point out the counter-intuitive things that people do. For example, he experimented with people looking up at the sky solely because someone else was doing so. I wonder if his acute awareness of his mortality was a contributing factor to this personality trait. Furthermore, I wonder if he knew beforehand about the impact that he would have on the subjects that he experimented on. Whether they obeyed until the end or disobeyed at 150 volts, many of these people still feel the effects of the experiment as if it happened yesterday, not fifty years ago. Perhaps the biggest impact of Milgram’s experiments does not come from the results themselves, but, as Slater alluded to, it is the questions that people ask about obedience to authority.

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places

I have always had a slight disdain for psychiatry. Maybe it was the images of the horrible insane asylums. Maybe it was the possibility of me being slightly crazy. Maybe it was Rosenham’s little experiment. Nonetheless, I find it hard to feel confident about psychiatrists telling me what is wrong with me. Rosenham’s experiment, although not perfectly scientific, exposed a lot of the troubles with psychiatry in the 1970s. It was so easy to diagnose someone with schizophrenia and throw them into an asylum. One voice that said only “thud” and that’s it! When people like Spritzer retorted with everything they had and even challenged Rosenham, they were humiliated again. Rosenham said that he would send pseudopatients to psychiatrists. They were convinced that they found forty-one such patients. He didn’t send anyone. Slater’s modern day version of the experiment reflected a shift in psychiatry. Now the doctors were more humanistic to their patients, but they were very quick to write prescriptions for drugs. This practice is also seen in the medical sciences. They all seem to be following the motto “when in doubt, medicate.” That is just as concerning for me as being called crazy.

It is ridiculous how context shapes our expectations, especially in a field such as psychiatry or even the medical sciences. If your profession is diagnosing sick people, you are going to expect that everyone you see has some sort of illness. These diagnoses can affect people in the worst ways. These doctors are affecting peoples’ wellbeing. Even when the intention is to keep someone alive or improve their health, they may at the same time be putting these people closer to death. These kinds of professions should critically analyze what is happening as a whole to these individuals who are adversely affected by their practices.

Chapter 4: In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing

I have heard of the concept of the diffusion of responsibility before in a sociology class that I took. I believe we also looked at the Catherine “Kitty” Genovese case. I still cannot believe what happened to that poor lady. It is the worst feeling, both physically and emotionally, to be stabbed repeatedly three separate times, know that people were around, but not getting any help. However, when I put myself in that situation, what would have I done? Would I have stood by listening to those screams? Would I have immediately called the police? I honestly think I would have done nothing. Darley and Latane’s experiments confirmed this. If you do not respond to an emergency within three minutes, you are ill-likely going to respond at all. There are multiple times when I could have helped someone who dropped their papers or was juggling books and a hurt appendage, but I did not. I thought to myself, “Someone else will probably help him.” No one else did.

We can make some connections from Darley and Latane’s experiments to Milgram’s experiments. When there’s an authority figure there, we rely on them to tell us what to do. When there is no authority figure, who is going to accept responsibility? Groupthink, peer pressure, and conformity also affect the outcomes of obedience and reaction to emergencies. Where is the independent thinking that Americans are so proud of? It seems to be there when the pressure is on you, the only person around. However, when there are other people involved, we appear apathetic and immoral. Maybe one day, everyone can understand these studies and experiments and be more conscious about their actions. The Kitty Genovese case should never happen again.

Chapter 5: Quieting the Mind

A staple in most psychology classes is cognitive dissonance, so its meaning is relatively well-known. Cognitive dissonance explains what happens when there is a conflict between one’s beliefs. Someone is more likely to modify their beliefs to fit the behavior rather than change their behavior to fit the belief. Essentially, this is the rationalization of incompatible beliefs and actions. Slater’s opening with the cult appears to be a clear-cut case of this. Arguably, religion in general contains many forms of cognitive dissonance. For example, there are religious texts that declare that women are lesser beings than men and those that dictate that people cannot eat meat. However, many of the people who follow these religious texts are feminists and/or love to eat meat. When people—especially the devout—are asked about these inconsistencies, they usually have some strange rationalization or perception about it that makes the belief and the behavior somehow compatible.

When I read about Linda and Audrey Santo’s story, it really made me sad. A young girl almost drowned to death, is now a vegetable, and has become, her mother claims, a direct line to God.  However, the different events that have occurred around Audrey are strange. How does one explain or rationalize the “hemorrhaging” oils? How does one explain the claims of being healed by these oils? Now Linda has breast cancer, and she refuses to be helped by her daughter. I wonder if this is a form of cognitive dissonance; Linda says that she refuses to be healed by her daughter because she does not want to make her suffer on her behalf. There is no way for us to know if she had tried already to be healed and just failed though.

Cognitive dissonance, like operant conditioning, does not explain everything about the individual person. It is only one piece of the extremely complex human being. It is impossible to claim that one theory explains everything about people and how they act. It is the intense mixing of all of these theories that piece together the human being. I think that Slater is not trying to make us focus on these different theories and people because she wants us to choose the one we like best. She wants us to understand the different pieces that make us whole.

Chapter 6: Monkey Love

Harry Harlow is a very interesting man. I do not think I would have been friends with him, but no one can deny the amount of contributions that he has made to our world. He was so obsessed with love that I could imagine him being a very clingy person. Slater also portrayed him as a very emotionally-dependent person. He looked for physical attention through affairs, he was always seeking to outdo himself to impress his colleagues, and his extreme focus on the mother and the child all reflect this desperation of outward emotional reconciliation.

Harlow’s experiments were merciless. Harlow did not care about the separation of the rhesus macaque monkeys from their mothers, nor did he seem to think about the implications his experiments would have on the monkeys once they were grown and ready to mate. I think we are starting to see some of the same disturbing results more and more with people these days. In a more highly technological world, there is an increasing need for quick and easy methods to raise children. Women are choosing to work after they give birth, whether by choice or by necessity. Culture also plays a large role in influencing parenting styles. I think there is a lack of touch, play, and motion—apparently the necessary ingredients for love—which are creating children who are increasingly antisocial. I wonder what implications this will have in future generations. Also, is this something that is happening solely to Americans? Or is this a worldwide phenomenon that we need to be concerned with?

Chapter 7: Rat Park

Television shows like Intervention and Dr. Drew highlight the tragedies that follow drug addiction. We see it glorified with celebrities’ constant visits to high-profile treatment centers. It does not affect just the user; it also hurts the user’s family and friends. It is not until that person is willing to get help that they can begin the process of recovery. These shows reflect the predominant belief that drugs “cause” addiction. It is something that cannot be avoided, no matter how disciplined a person is. Everyone argues that addiction is a disease, which needs to be clinically treated. Addicts go through programs in order to get themselves to heal themselves. But it does not always work.

Bruce Alexander argues that drugs do not cause addiction—it is a “life-style strategy.” He conducted the Seduction experiment and compared rats in the rat park, a luxurious environment, and rats in a typical lab setting, a miserable environment. Predictably, the rats in the dismal environment chose to become intoxicated by drinking morphine-laced water. However, the rats in the luxurious environment did not care for the sugary morphine water. This experiment is especially interesting because it is a stark contrast what popular belief about addiction dictates. I never really heard about Alexander’s experiments, but now that I have, I have a completely new take on drug addiction. I still cannot let go of my intense need for medical and scientific evidence of addiction. At the same time, though, I can now look at these arguments with a grain of salt. Alexander’s arguments help explain how I have no interest in getting intoxicated myself, even with access to intoxicants. I oftentimes do not even want to drink alcoholic beverages. To me, intoxication is not a “life-style strategy” for me.

Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall

I am very aware of Plato’s and Freud’s concepts of memory. I personally like to imagine that my memories are stuffed away in unorganized filing cabinets in my brain. These memories, like paper, become more fragile with time and can even fall completely apart. Also, there are some memories that I lock away so that no one, not even me, can ever see them again. Those are my “repressed” memories—memories that should not see the light of day ever again. Sometimes I get some of these files get really dusty so I have to brush them off to read its contents. This is the process of remembering. After reading this chapter, I wonder if these dusty files are really my own or counterfeits.

Elizabeth Loftus is an interesting person. Her curiosity about memories and her drive to protect those who are accused of terrible things based on the “repressed” memories of others is compounded by bravery. Who has the courage to fight against someone who claims was raped? Who has the courage to defend the person who is being accused of the rape? Loftus shows us how easy it is to implant a memory of being lost in a mall and how elaborate these fake memories can become. This work needs to be publicized more. People’s lives are being vastly affected by these “repressed memories,” which may or may not be fabricated. As Loftus says, we must have corroboration to be more certain that events occurred. The memories of one person are not reliable enough to depend on. That is the reason why people keep diaries, journals, and (of course) blogs—to keep record of what has occurred.

Chapter 9: Memory Inc.

The last two chapters of the book took an extremely close look at the physical brain. In this chapter, Slater analyzed memory.  Her first story was about a boy Henry, now only known as H.M., who had his hippocampus removed by Dr. Scoville to stop intense seizures. Scoville was successful in stopping H.M.’s seizures, but he also stopped H.M. from being able to create new memories. I wonder if the benefit was worth the cost. In his old age, H.M. is able to control his movements, but he cannot record events in memory. I wonder if he even realizes this. I cannot fathom what it would be like to live for as long as he had and not have fond memories of my life. Brenda Milner was able to record H.M. and observed that the hippocampus somehow converted short-term memory into long-term memory. Eric Kandel, who broke memory down to the few neurons of slugs, was able to discover cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB), which was what made short-term memory into long-term memory—in other words, memory glue. He also discovered its repressor, which would cause one to forget.

Slater spent a large part of the chapter analyzing the possible implications of Kandel’s company Memory Pharmaceuticals. They could produce pills that make one forget, or they could produce pills that make one remember everything. If these kinds of pills were made available to the general public, I think it would create controversy as intense as those of abortion or cloning. There would be fervent supporters and opponents who would be willing to fight over these pills. I personally would find some benefit in being able to select what I want to forget and what I want to remember, but I worry about the abuse of such pills.

Slater said that Elizabeth Loftus and Eric Kandel offered conflicting arguments. I think theirs are actually complimentary. Kandel looks at how short-term memory becomes long-term memory. Loftus looks at how fabricated stories can become short-term memory and, in turn, long-term memory. Repression itself is a different issue altogether. Like Loftus said, corroboration is probably the best way to verify an event actually occurred. However, there are even flaws with corroboration if memory is involved.

Chapter 10: Chipped

This chapter looks how physical modifications to the brain can help heal people. Antonio Egas Moniz, who won the Nobel Prize for 1949 for the discovery of psychosurgery, started this long, dangerous, and beneficial journey into psychosurgery. To this day, there are debates over the costs and benefits of psychosurgery. In the United States, Walter Freeman and James Watt promoted psychosurgery as the means to fix any mental illness. This is one of the reasons why psychosurgery has such a bad reputation. The early pioneers of psychosurgery were willing to work on anyone for any reason. I am still affected by this reputation. I get anxious at the thought of someone poking around in my brain. I would rather take pills no matter what.

Slater’s story about Charlie Newitz provides a present-day example of the role of psychosurgery. Lobotomies are only allowed as a last resort for patients. However, the surgery on Charlie shows how far psychosurgeries have come since the 1950s. At the end of the chapter, Charlie says that he would be willing to have another surgery in order to stop his depression. This begs the question of whether or not someone could get addicted to psychosurgeries. Another question that arises is whether psychosurgery is better than prescription pills or vice versa. We live in a culture where, if anything is “wrong” with you, you can fix it with a little chemical modification here or a little physical modification there. Everyone is striving to live a “normal” life or be a “better” person. Unfortunately, this is causing people to become overdependent on drugs and surgeries to fix everything. Where will this lead us in the future? As more is discovered about the brain, many people may want to remember everything that is good, forget everything that is bad, dissolve anxiety or depression, and improve productivity. Is this a good thing?

Obedience to Authority - A Review

Obedience to Authority – Overall

Stanley Milgram’s book Obedience to Authority analyzes the series of experiments that he performed concerning the power of authority. While humans are generally moral, independently thinking beings, they are easily swayed by authority to do things that are against their personal virtues. There are multiple factors at work, but the two biggest factors are morality or obedience.

I had already known about Milgram’s experiments before I read the book, but it was merely a superficial summary of it. There was no reason provided as to why people obeyed or, more significantly, why they did not disobey. I had the same initial reaction as many other people to the results of the experiment; there was no way that almost everyone would shock an innocent person to death. Unfortunately, the data speaks for itself. When it comes to morality versus obedience, obedience often prevails.

After reading the book in its entirety, I think I understand the experiment a little more. Although the reasoning and procedure of the experiments are sound, I wonder if it was too narrow-minded in how different variables affected obedience. I think he should have explored more possible variables with more people involved. Variables such as age, socioeconomic status, and occupation should have been more closely analyzed. A person’s disposition has a lot to do with his or her tendency to obey. Statisticians say that having a sample size of at least forty-five is a good size, but many of his experiments included only twenty people. That is not nearly enough to get reliable data and draw conclusions from. Honestly, I would have been more satisfied with his results if he had several hundred subjects.

I was a little put off on how black and white Milgram was about the obedience. He said that all he focused on was whether the subject obeyed or disobeyed. There was a lot of stress and strain involved for many of the subjects. There are a multitude of factors at work when obedience and morality conflict. Milgram pointed out that the presence of an authority figure was sufficient to get compliance. However, when the authority figure is gone, or there is a precedence of disobedience, it is easier to follow one’s morality.

Milgram’s conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. While it is surprising how many people will defy their own personal moral convictions to follow authority, there are those who would not allow it. After reading the book, the results are not as surprising as I originally thought because of the conditions that were used in the experiments.

In conclusion, Milgram offers us a very interesting study on the obedience to authority. When discussed, though, there should be discussion on the environment these subjects were in. The environment and other conditions greatly affected people’s tendency to obey, and oftentimes this was neglected when summarized. I think this sort of discussion should continue so that people are more conscious about not always blindly obeying authority when the situations arise.

Obedience to Authority - Chapter by Chapter

Chapter 1: The Dilemma of Obedience

I feel that this introductory chapter attempts to say too much before finding the results of the experiment. I appreciate Stanley Milgram’s brief discussion on the issue of morality versus obedience, but he delves too quickly into the conclusions of his series of obedience experiments before really describing them in detail. This first chapter left me with a bad first taste in my brain.

Chapter 2: Method of Inquiry

This chapter was a very straightforward chapter. Milgram outlines the procedures of the experiment and makes sure that the reader is sure that every step in the experiment was deliberate and well-thought out. Nothing special can be said about this chapter.

Chapter 3: Expected Behavior

The predictions on the results on the experiments were very clear: most everyone would not shock the learner after he protests. Of course, I would have said the same thing. On the surface, it is easy to see the moral issue of shocking someone against their will. Many of us would be quick to shout, “Stop the experiment! That poor man is in pain!” hypothetically. However, once we scratch deeper past the surface, we will find out that there is more there than the moral issue of hurting someone.

Chapter 4: Closeness of the Victim

Finally, we start seeing actual data from the first experiments on obedience. Of course, the results are extremely different from the predictions from the previous chapter. The data clearly shows that many people obeyed authority and shocked the learner all the way to the 450 volts. However, I believe that Milgram goes too far in overemphasizing the results in obedience. In the first experiment, where the learner was in a different room, even I would be able to say that there is a sense of detachment on the subject’s part to the learner. In experiments 2-4, there is a marked decrease in obedience because of the mere presence of the learner. A significant amount of people disobeyed when the learner began to protest. These are some results that, although possibly less significant than that which shows how many people went all the way, still need to be noted.

Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority

The personal stories from specific participants really interested me because it allowed me to find out about the people’s thoughts during the experiment and their reactions afterwards. However, I feel that Milgram was a little quick to make some of the judgments on how and why the people acted as they did. I wish he had just told us what they said and left it to the reader to analyze and deconstruct.

Chapter 6: Further Variations and Controls

The variations on the original versions of the experiment left me with a question that Milgram did not directly address: Where is the learner relative to the teacher? We already learned that proximity makes a huge difference on how people obey the experimenter, so I wonder where Milgram decided to place the two of them. It would have helped better analyze the results from these variations. Nonetheless, the variations allowed us to look at different factors affecting the subject’s obedience or disobedience in the experiment.

Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II

This series of interviews included women this time. It still surprises me that women were not included in the original experiments. I also wonder if women are included in any experiments other than the one completely dedicated to the gender. This marked distinction between men and women concerns me a little because in the interviews that he chooses to share, Milgram invariably exposes some prejudice about women.

Chapter 8: Role Permutations

Now that I know the results of the previous experiments, the results of these role permutation experiments do not surprise at me at all. In Experiment 13, where an ordinary man gives orders, I find it the least believable for the subject, which could have partially compromised the premise of the experiment. I think that this experiment might be a little more complex than what Milgram describes.

Chapter 9: Group Effects

Milgram introduces a new factor to his experiments in this chapter: conformity. Peer pressure has just as strong an effect that obedience does, so this was interesting. When alone, the subject may not even realize that quitting in the middle of the experiment is okay. In these experiments, the precedent is there; the subject can quit if he wants. I think this, in conjunction with peer pressure, aids in getting more people to break the experimenter’s authority.

Chapter 10: Why Obedience?—An analysis

In this chapter, Milgram looks at why obedience is such a strong influencing factor in people’s behavior. His analysis seems quite obvious for me. As humans found mutual benefit in forming and maintaining groups, we needed order. We allow for someone to dictate this order in the group to ease the burden on oneself. Thus authority exists. In order for order to be maintained, we must learn to obey the authority.

Chapter 11: The Process of Obedience: Applying the Analysis to the Experiment

Milgram delves a little deeper into why obedience happens on a more psychological level. I did not find this chapter particularly interesting personally. Nothing really novel came out of this chapter.

Chapter 12: Strain and Disobedience

I am glad that Milgram included this chapter. He explicitly explained all of the strain that the different subjects experienced. This gives the dimension of clear conflict in moral standing versus obeying authority. Even though many people will obey authority over their own convictions, they were not blindly following authority.

Chapter 13: An Alternate Theory: Is Aggression the Key?

I think this chapter was mostly to address many people’s immediate reaction that the subjects in the experiment are horrible, mean people. This chapter, therefore, did not mean much to me. While there are truly mean people out there, many of them are moralistic and humane.

Chapter 14: Problems of Method

Milgram finally addresses some of the issues that I had with the experiment itself. To me the most significant factor to the experiment was the believability in the learner actually being shocked, but I think it would be easy to see that the shocks are not real. Many people, even if It was a minority, were not completely convinced that the learner was really being shocked, which may have skewed the results. Nonetheless, I appreciate that Milgram kept these subjects in his results and did not just dismiss them.

Chapter 15: Epilogue

In Milgram’s final chapter, he starts looking at the present and even at the future. In general, obedience to authority will not stop. The Vietnam War reflects some of the effects of obedience to Americans directly. I think this is the reason why people dislike the Vietnam War so much. This war really made Americans face the clear-cut conflict of authority versus morality. This conflict can be seen today in the War on Terror.

Gang Leader for a Day

Book Reflection

Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day was a very interesting book to read, especially since we had to read it for our Human and Computer Interaction class. Venkatesh was given a unique opportunity to observe and be an intimate part of the Black Kings gang and the Robert Taylor Homes through the gang leader JT. JT himself is a very interesting person; his willingness to let Venkatesh into his world even at the risk of Venkatesh getting him killed or incarcerated is uncharacteristic of someone in his position. Venkatesh’s years of “study” and involvement in the projects and the Black Kings gang gives a real human face to the poor black families and individuals in the America.

Venkatesh is from white suburban California, so when he was willingly thrown into the black projects of Chicago, we see a large clash in culture, behaviors, and norms. I think this was the biggest reason why his work is significant. He reflects the outsider’s—presumably the reader—views and thoughts on inner-city life. In Gang Leader for a Day, he admitted that he was playing the naïve student in order to find out about the intricacies of poor blacks in America. I do not feel that he was as naïve or careless as he portrays; he knew that there was a give and take—or hustle—that was necessary to achieve his goals.

JT was a charismatic leader who has seen both the legitimate and illegal ways of making money and surviving in America. He went to college and even got a “real” job. However, he came back to gang life when he realized that he found more respect, power, and opportunity for growth there. He made a conscious decision to be part of a gang. It appears that many other gang members share a similar sentiment. They only choose the gang because either: 1) they want to make enough money to do what they really want, 2) they feel like it is expected of them (i.e., self-fulfilling prophecy), or 3) they have no other choice. If other opportunities had existed, then they probably would not have chosen the gang life. For example, in other neighborhoods where there was a real opportunity to work and make a decent wage, it was harder for JT to recruit gang members. However, the practices seen in gangs are apparent in all walks of life. Ms. Bailey manipulates her tenants for her favor and personal gain. The police officers are not all-ideal enforcers of the law. Politicians want voters to elect them to higher positions of power within the government. Even students brown-nose their professors for recommendation letters and references for their careers.

Venkatesh’s personal involvement and biases really make Gang Leader for a Day less of an ethnography than a sort of memoir. His work shows some of the issues with ethnographies and the debates that go on about their legitimacy. If one becomes too involved with the culture they are studying, they may become blind to the little things that make the culture the way it is. However, if one becomes too objective and scientific, they lose those qualities that make cultures unique and human. I personally see some benefit of qualitative studies and quantitative analyses, but I cannot see if they are making a significant impact—in terms of federal policies or overall knowledge.

While I did not grow up in the projects or in the ghetto, I have seen the “darker” side of America: having to survive by less legitimate means. The culture of the United States creates these pockets of communities where the federal, state, or city laws do not always align with the activities that often occur openly. The government is failing and neglecting large sectors of people, so some of them must create their own ways to govern themselves. The close relationship of the Black Kings and the Robert Taylor Homes is an example of this. The gang was necessary to keep order (what they define as order) because no one else would.

Chapter Reflections

Chapter 1: How Does It Feel to be Black and Poor?

This first chapter really revealed how sheltered Venkatesh is. He walked into the Lake Park projects with no sense of needing to carefully watch himself and others. Even the first question on the questionnaire, “How does it feel to be black and poor?” and the use of the Likert scale was insensitive to those he intended to interview. I found that JT’s interest in Venkatesh was motivated by both curiosity and selfishness. I think JT wanted to know what Vankatesh’s intentions were with the gang just as much as Vankatesh wanted to learn about being black and poor. This simultaneous curiosity is probably what maintained their relationship.

Chapter 2: First Days on Federal Street

In this chapter, Venkatesh focuses on the people in the projects. He introduces many people to the reader, including Ms. Mae, Clarisse, and C-Note. He also introduces the Robert Taylor Homes and the dynamics between the tenants and the Black Kings gang members. There is a delicate balance between these two groups. Each needs the other for survival. The situation with C-Note and JT reflects this. JT wants to maintain this authority in the community, and C-Note knows this. However, C-Note needs to show that JT does not dictate the all of the happenings in the Robert Taylor Homes, which is why he talked back to JT yet took his beating with little resistance.

Chapter 3: Someone to Watch over Me

The third chapter was filled with a multitude of lessons that Venkatesh had never experienced before. He learned about how JT and the Black Kings had to work with politicians in order to operate successfully. It is surprising that Venkatesh did not realize how much politicians and gang leaders had to work together to maintain each other’s interests. Kris and Michael and Boo-Boo also offered him insights into how the Black Kings was, in a way, both a blessing and a curse. The Black Kings offered them protection and a voice, but they had to give up something in return—whether it was money or a little autonomy. Finally, JT had to be extremely explicit to Venkatesh about how he was affiliating himself. If he was “with” JT, he had different affordances compared to if he was “with” Autry. Venkatesh had to be really careful about how he affiliated himself, because that determined who could protect him.

Chapter 4: Gang Leader for a Day

When Venkatesh talked about being “gang leader for a day,” I think he glorified it to the point of narcissism. While he did make some “decisions,” it was ultimately JT who determined what happened that day. JT just wanted to see if Venkatesh could handle doing what he did on a daily basis. It is similar to how so many people think they can be president of the United States and do a better job than whoever is in office. The truth is, no matter how much education or know-how you have, you can never be prepared for such a job until you are put in that situation. This chapter sort of annoyed me because of Venkatesh’s haughtiness, but it allowed the reader to see the complexities of being a leader.

Chapter 5: Ms. Bailey’s Neighborhood

Venkatesh painted Ms. Bailey as the Taylor Roberts Homes equivalent to JT and the Black Kings. She takes care of the tenants because she sees how they can benefit her. She relishes the power she has and finds her happiness in controlling the tenants. This chapter also reveals the complex relationship between JT and Ms. Bailey. They both realize that they must cooperate together in order to achieve their goals, but at the same time they must distinguish their independence from each other to maintain their status in their respective arenas.

Chapter 6: The Hustler and the Hustled

It surprised me that it took four years for Venkatesh to question his legal and moral obligations as an ethnographer and observer. The IRB and the legal system have very explicit rules about what a researcher should report to the authorities. It also surprised me how shocked Venkatesh was when the people he had talked to about the ways they make money were mad at him because he told Ms. Bailey and JT. He could not have been that ignorant. I think he was playing too much into his naïve nature here. Catrina’s death was disheartening, but not too surprising to me. Also, although the subsequent writing workshop was in good faith, he should have expected the accusations of him having sex with the girls.

Chapter 7: Black and Blue

In the previous chapters, the police presence was portrayed as nearly nonexistent with the exception of Officer Reggie. Now, the reader sees that the police do get involved sometimes, but not always for what they would expect of them. It is sad that the police are so organized in their corruption; they sign up to raid gang parties! It is also sad how jealous they are of these gang leaders. It makes me wonder why they decided to join the police force. The demolition of the Robert Taylor Homes sounded like one of those predictable endings to a book, so when I read this, I felt like it was reading fiction instead of an ethnography.

Chapter 8: The Stay-Together Gang

The ending of the book saddened me. It really seems like Venkatesh was in it just for his research and dissertation. This contradicts his desire to humanize poor blacks in America. He was ultimately interested in using them for his dissertation. His dwindled relationship with JT also disappointed me; I think he should have at least acknowledged JT as somewhat of a friend. 

Ethnography Ideas

If I had sole discretion on the culture that I wanted to study for my ethnography project, I think I would choose the culture of the TAMU student organization Cepheid Variable. It is a club that supports "all things science fiction, fantasy, horror, science, and technology." I have heard of this organization from friends, and it seems like an organization that has created its own rules of acceptable behaviors and norms. I think this would be an interesting opportunity for me to immerse myself in their culture. I could also critically analyze how such an organization within the university can be so drastically different from the overall image that Texas A&M portrays.

An idea for other people's ethnography projects could be the Help Sessions that the Math department offers for math classes. Help Sessions offer opportunities for students in math classes like Calculus I or Contemporary Mathematics to get some help on a concept they learned in class or homework. The largest difference between the Help Session and other ways of getting academic help (Weeks-in-Review or visiting a professor during his/her office hours) is that the Help Sessions are run by undergraduate students, so there is a smaller difference in age between the staff and the students. This creates a different dynamic and atmosphere that could be analyzed.

Nonobvious Observation

As a precursor to our ethnography project, everyone had to record themselves doing some task that included interaction with other people. We will then use the videos to observe each other’s interactions in order to determine who that person might be. For our travel plan, the group that I was in decided to simply go to Spoons and get some yogurt. We felt this would give us an opportunity to show our personality through our selections of yogurt flavor and toppings and through the interactions that we had with the other patrons and the employees there. I noticed a wide range of reactions from almost every single person at Spoons, both obvious and nonobvious. The most significant thing that people reacted to was the head-mounted camera itself. Without going into detail—since it would reveal my video and identity—I must say that there were those who embraced the video recording and others who avoided me altogether. With the camera on my head, I noticed that I was significantly more conscious about my own movements. I could tell where my eyes were going and the pace at which I walked. It felt as though my personality became more apparent with the camera on my head. I really hope that all of the videos came out well and that everyone else will have as much fun watching the video as I had in making it.

The article about nonobvious things that reveal more about a person was very dry for such an interesting subject. I agree with Molly Ireland and James Pennebaker; when two people interact, there is a “dance” of sorts. When people interact, it is very normal for them to seek common ground. This does not only apply to interests, but it also includes how they speak and even their postures. The most obvious nonobvious thing to notice is gaze. If somebody’s gaze is similar to the other’s, then there is more of a connection. Ireland and Pennebaker state that listeners better understand the speaker when he or she matches the speaker’s gaze. I notice that when I speak, I sort of unintentionally try to match the way that the other person speaks. Especially in different circles, the manner in which I speak is different. I am adapting to the people with whom I am speaking. Ireland and Pennebaker say that this is an subconscious way to affiliate oneself with a group. You must speak like everyone else in order to be with everyone else. When I took a public speaking class, the professor told us that one of the most important things about speaking is not necessarily the speaking part. It is the nonverbal gestures and movements that make an impact. To engage the listener, look at them, do not speak in monotone, and stand straight. In public speaking, these are things that are clear to us. However, in everyday interactions, it is more subtle and not as obvious. They still have the same implications though.

The first chapter of The Secret Life of Pronouns, written by James Pennebaker, is a really interesting read. I really made me think about how I talk. I even tried to go to the analyzewords.com website to analyze my tweets, but I have not posted enough to get an analysis. Pennebaker’s fascination with how writing reflects the writer’s internal emotional and physical state was his motivation for his work, and I think this is an important subject to be researched, not only for social psychology but also for other fields like HCI. Because this is only the first chapter of the book, I am skeptical about how one can run an objective, scientific analysis on people’s writings--especially writings about traumatic experiences. Martha E. Francis’s computer program Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) seems to try to make this as scientific as possible. However, the development of the dictionaries is based on people’s subjective perceptions of words. Nonetheless, Pennebaker’s conclusions about healthy writing are profound. He said that, when writing about traumas in life, one should “acknowledge the negative but celebrate the positive,” value the construction of the story, and look at the situation from different perspectives. I hope the rest of his book is as interesting as the first chapter.

Ethnographics

The definition of “ethnography” can be found in the word itself. The ethnos part refers to people, and the grapho part means to write. The dictionary definition describes how ethnography is a qualitative work studying cultures or individual people. However, to many other people—like Malinowki, Levi-Strauss, and Geertz—ethnography is much more than a study of cultures. Sanjek divides ethnography into two subcategories: the product and the process. I tend to see ethnography as more of a process, where one immerses himself or herself into something that is not completely familiar. Ethnography is not just crunching numbers and boiling things down to a science. It is much more fluid because it involves people, who themselves are always changing.

Before this class, I could not even pronounce the word correctly without stumbling over it first. Now, I have to wrap my mathematical head around this sort of anthropological and sociological thinking. One of the most difficult parts for me to comprehend is how to be completely objective in a study of cultures. I know that everything that I think of and do is influenced by my own culture and mindset. How can I set that aside and objectively view and/or experience another culture? I guess this is part of the ongoing debate about the value of ethnographies. When I got to the section in the Wikipedia article on Ethnography that discussed ethnographies in other fields, I realized how this applies to HCI. We have to understand the people that we design for in order to better serve them. After all, our programs and products are for them, not for us.

Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa sounds very interesting, especially since it was done in the 1920s. Mead really paved the way for anthropologists and ethnographers in general. Her exploration into the adolescence of young women took her to a completely different culture compared to that of the United States. Her work seemed very thoughtful. She did not throw away her American upbringing; she used it to give her some perspective on the upbringing of the Samoan teenagers. In the end, she found that adolescence in Samoa was not filled with awkwardness and rebelliousness like in the United States. She said that the transition from childhood to adulthood was “smooth.” I think her conclusions make sense. The things that the United States is proud of are what make adolescence so difficult. Children in the United States must learn to assert themselves because of the need to be independent at the end of their adolescent years. Rebellion, making personal philosophical decisions, independence, and many other life-altering choices are the hallmarks of the culture in the United States. This is contrasted with Samoan society, which was monocultural and did not hide the “basic human facts” of sex, bodily functions, or death. I think that this openness of sex was probably a culture shock to Mead’s readers, considering the time period in which her work was published. Even today, sex and death are awkward topics to discuss. Derek Freeman tried to discredit Margaret’s work so fervently. However, it is obvious, in hindsight, that he simply had some sort of vendetta against her. Such bias and disregard for courtesy and respect really disgusted me. I am glad that he was discredited in that aspect for the most part by later research on other cultures and her preserved notes. 

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things - Chapter 1: Attractive Things Work Better

When I read the title of the first chapter of Donald Norman’s book Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, I was struck by shock. I asked myself, “How can someone who wrote The Design of Everyday Things be talking about pretty things?” It baffled me. Nonetheless, I read on. This chapter is a stark contrast to the book he wrote decades earlier. Instead of focusing on the physical layout of an object or device, Norman is now looking at how attractiveness improved its usability. Personally, I think this first chapter is a good introduction to Emotional Design. However, I am skeptical on how Norman can provide techniques or strategies on designing pretty things.

Norman’s anecdote about Israeli scientist Noam Tractinsky, who was convinced that the Japanese researchers Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura’s results of their pretty ATM study was the result from a cultural disposition of aesthetics, really started things off on the right foot. I, too, was convinced that it had to be a random occurrence. However, one cannot dispute the continued concrete evidence that attractive things are perceivably easier to use. Norman’s explanation of why this is the case was that when people feel good, they think more creatively, and therefore can figure out how to use things more easily. In Design of Everyday Things, Norman put most of the burden on the designer to make everyday things easy to use for the everyday user. He focused on aspects like the conceptual image matching the system image, visibility, good mappings, and good feedback. He even had a cycle of actions that people go through to find out how to accomplish a goal and how designers should make that process easier.

Emotional Design delves into the user-centric world by analyzing how the three levels of processing—visceral, behavioral, and reflective—affect a user’s ability to use an item. Once again, in contrast to Design of Everyday Things, the burden comes off of the designer in a way and puts the burden on the mental state of the user. If the user is relaxed and happy, then they are more capable to deal with minor problems of a device. This is enhanced if the device itself is fun or pretty. If the user is anxious or upset, then they are more focused; they look at the details and neglect the bigger picture. This is when the principle that Design of Everyday Things comes in. The design on consoles and devices then must reflect the situation. If the user is working at a nuclear power plant, there needs to be lights and sounds that create anxiety. Similarly, there can be light whimsical background music that creates happiness. The designer now has to take into account not only the technical aspects of a device; they need to be very aware of the emotional and mental state of the user. Are they working on instinct (visceral), are they doing contemplative work (behavioral), or are they thinking philosophically (reflective)? Norman also warns about going to the extremes, especially in high stress situations, like a fire, when people are acting instinctively and not logically.

The Norman’s lists of pleasant things and negative or stressful things to evoke positive or negative feelings, respectively, are interesting. People have adapted to some of those things, like heights, so that they are not so affected by them. The things that make us human are the things that make it so difficult for designers to create products that satisfy everyone. This is highly contrasted to Design of Everyday Things because in that book, we did not differentiate between people. We designed for the generic user with no thought of their personality or preferences. In Emotional Design, we are given an extra level of complexity because we have to be able to design for people in different emotional states and with different traits.

While this first chapter of Emotional Design seems very psychologically-oriented, it has the same implications as his earlier work The Design of Everyday Things. The designers of products and devices need to keep the user in mind because they are the ones who will be using their products in the end. If the user is unhappy with it, then the designer has failed. Adding emotional factors into design seems extremely intimidating for the designer. I hope that Norman can offer some effective ways to accomplish this in the rest of his book.