The First Impression Sticks

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/you_might_look_gay_and_first_impression_sticks_say_social_psychologists-129744 

The article opens up about a new paper that was presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual conference that says that even when told whether a person was gay or straight, participants generally identified the person’s sexual orientation based on how they looked.  The paper says appearance shapes everything from whether we end up liking someone to sexual orientation and trustworthiness.  This is interesting to how it applies to everyday social interaction.  Everyday is filled with new social interactions and its interesting to think about what we might be subconsciously each time.  The article states that these judgements happen with a fraction of a section.  It is interesting how to see whether or not these judgements are accurate or not.

Joe

Are social norms steadily unraveling?

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-12-social-youth_x.htm?csp=34

This article in USA TODAY is about research that has been analyzed across six decades that concludes that “young people today are less concerned about social approval and society’s standards than their peers of generations past.”  Out of the responses from 40,745 children, adolescents and young adults find less need keep to social norms and accepted standards of behavior.  To me these findings aren’t all that suprising.  Perhaps certain etiquette isn’t as highly valued as it was in the past.  Michael Haines a director at the National Social Norms Resource Center at Northern Illinois University isn’t concerned as he says “other measurements of conformity to society’s accepted norms, such as teen drinking and teen pregnancy are down, indicating to him that the need for conformity depends on which standards are being considered.”  Perhaps social norms unraveling doesn't mean all that much but our society is changing and adapting and some things aren't valued as highly for good or bad.

Joe

Social Psychology of the Selfie

Selfies or self portraits are widely used across social media platforms as a way to gauge social rank. As much as the selfie is visibly about the photographer, it is also very much about the way a person's recognition surrounding their portrait stacks up against the praise and recognition of their peers. In social media culture, appreciation of a person's posts are measured in "likes" and comments. The aftermath of these posts can deeply affect a person's self esteem whether the photo is received well, poorly, or goes completely unnoticed by others. Many people feel driven to compete with others in their network, and focus the material of their selfies as an attempt to directly one- up the other person's post. If the self initiated competition ends in victory, it provides an extra dose of self esteem, even more so than a randomly taken selfie that collects a satisfactory amount if attention. All of this attention helps a person learn about which of their assets are the most popular whether physical or social. It seems to me that this feedback could be both practical and detrimental to a person. In some ways a person learns about themselves and how others value what they have to offer, but in other instances a person might turn off or hide aspects of themselves that are actually really great and genuine qualities, but resulted in negative social feedback for whatever reason (which is a shame). That being said, if a person drastically changes themselves because of a previous experience with a selfie, they probably have a larger self esteem issue which is influenced by pretty much any social encounter, not just ones that occur on Instagram.

The Psychology Behind Social Media

This article touches on the reliance that brands and consumers have on each other within the realms of social media.  It also interestingly brings up the idea that people have a fear of missing out if they do not regularly check social media.

https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2014/jan/8/the-psychology-behind-social-media/

This is a really cool article about how the brain works. It provides a lot of insight into what is going on inside of our brains when we complete certain tasks over others. I think this is very important for artists to understand over most other types of people because our brains are pretty messed up sometimes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140202132337.htm

The Science & Psychology Of Social Media

http://marketingland.com/the-science-psychology-of-social-media-66093

This article basically deconstruct the process and the steps, showing how social media and psychology is related. Social media was never about technology, but its all about mental playing (psychology and science). Understanding your viewers and how their minds work is very much important for increased engagement. The key to social media is to getting them to spend that capital on you by sharing, liking,commenting, recommending and, ultimately buying whatever your trying to sell or trying to promote. Social psychology makes all this possible. I find this article very interesting and it also applies to me this semester because I'm taking advertising class and in that class we not only design a image to promote a product, but at the same time we have to consider how the viewer see this, and what they would like to see.

The Rise of Fashion Psychology

I m not a fashion major but I feel like this would be really relative to those who are. The article is talking about a new rising field in psychology focusing on the psychology of fashion and the fashion industry. There is an interview with a fashion psychologist named Karen who explains the field in depth, including the type of cliental she gets. She also uses fashion as a tool in healing peoples psychological issues, which I find a little bazar.

http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-fashion/fashion-coverage/the-rise-of-fashion-psychology-20140115-30u3u.html