(Hard to follow if you don't play World of Warcraft but go to 2:40 to hear how gamers rage)

Lose yourself in the:

-music

-moment

-art

-feeling of it all

-emotion

These are all common phrases that people sometimes use to tell others, "Loosen up a little, stop holding yourself back and just live a little, FEEL ALIVE".

As we are all repressed daily by social, cultural and other institutional standards of how to act, think and feel, it seems important to just sometimes let go of that inhibition.

However, can letting go of that inhibition we use to guide ourselves day in and day out become more than just a "feeling" and become "action"?

Gabriel Tarde (1890) and Gustave Le Bon (1895) certainly do believe so.  These 19th century French scholars argue that when people are in a crowd, they can become uncontrollable and mindless, to the point of losing oneself.

Philip Zimbardo (1969) refined this concept and coined it as "deindividuation", a social psychological phenomena that occurs when a person loses their sense of their own individuality in a crowd. In other words, a person may feel or realize that they are just one of dozens or hundreds of others in a crowd of people.  When people lose their sense of individuality it makes them feel much more anonymous and this feeling can lead to an increase in impulsive or deviant acts.  Literally, it becomes 'losing oneself' to a moment (it can be any length of time) in a crowd and acting in ways that you would never act otherwise if you were not feeling 'anonymous'

Deindividualtion does not necessarily have to be a negative phenomena where we only act 'deviantly' or 'badly', although sometimes it does lead to people flipping over cars, smashing windows and starting fires.  Nonetheless, it is interesting to see how that as social beings in a social world we are constantly monitoring our behavior so that it matches correct and orderly social norms.  We wait our turn in a line, we do not scream obscenities to random people on the street or lift up women's skirts in public.  However, when we let go of these restraints in our behavior, we can suddenly become an entirely 'different' person from the one that is normally cordial and orderly.

One particularly new social environment in which this phenomena is observed is on the internet.  Millions of people use the internet every day to search, read and post information.  Nonetheless, our identity on the internet becomes deindividuated as our identities and place in the world (Bob Smith, Math teacher at XYZ School in XYZ Town, USA) becomes nothing more than just a username (Boblovesburgers123).  Thus, people feel deindividuated in the sea of the masses on the world wide web.

The reduced accountability for our actions and self-awareness become the driving factors behind deindividuation.  Personally, I have experienced many moments of deindividuation on the internet through online gaming.  By using an avatar, I am able to lose a part of my usual identity and individuality and become an anonymous player on the internet.  Therefore, I am less inhibited to act in ways that a part of my usual demeanor.  Whereas I would normally never tell someone that they are a complete failure for failing to do a task correctly, on the internet I let other players know when they are not playing to my standards.  Do I do this in a nice and cordial, "Keep up the good work, don't worry we'll just try it again!" attitude like I normally do in real world social situations? No!  I would say things like, (Excuse my language) "What the fuck! Are you shitting me you fucking twat?  L2P or ALT+ F4**"

*L2P : Means 'Learn to Play' (the game)
*When you press Alt + F4 on a Windows computer, it quits whatever program you're using

Using derogatory language to insult other players was something I experienced every day and I am rather certain that most players would never outlandishly insult other people they interacted with in real life in such a way.  However, on the internet you lose a part of your individuality and thus that sense of responsibility for your actions is also lost.  Therefore, many players become much more hostile online that they would be in real life.

n = 703

(Side Note: However, not all online video games allow such behavior to be carried out without consequences.  In fact, much of the social rules and norms that we have in our real lives are also replicated in the virtual, online communities of games such as World of Warcraft.  If you're interested in knowing more, check out research from Dr. Nick Yee at www.nickyee.com )

------


Le Bon, G. (1895). Psychologie des foules. Paris: Félix Alcan.



Tarde, G. (1890). Les lois de l’imitation. Étude sociologique. Paris: Félix Alcan.

Zimbardo, P. G. (1969). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 17, 237–307.

Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Over-thinking and Reclaim Your Life

by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Ph.D

In today's society, women are often ruminating about their lives.  When they are not thinking about their careers, co-workers and relationships with their bosses they are caught up worrying about problems with their family, at home, and many other relationships in their lives.  However, can all of this over-thinking cause problems in women's lives? The answer is yes, over-thinking can deepen depression and make women feel hopeless.  Through her experience and research on rumination and depression, Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema offers an overview of why women tend to over-thinking, suggests strategies to overcome the over-thinking and identifies some of the most common themes (i.e., relationships) that women tend to over-think about.

When I first decided to choose this trade book, I chose it because I often felt like I was much of an over-thinker.  Day after day, I catch myself spending large chunks of my day just going over every problem in my life or replaying different scenarios (where I wish I had behaved differently) in my head.  Therefore, I thought this book would offer a great way to escape this endless cycle of rumination I had  fallen victim for.  In addition, the book had raving reviews on Amazon.com, so I thought, "Great! Sounds like I picked a perfect book"

Well, that's a yes and no.

When I first started reading the book, I was very put off by the author's writing style.  First, the author used these odd descriptions to introduce different over-thinking women (e.g., Sandy, a crusty fifty-year-old waitress from Brooklyn (p. 15)) that I thought were unnecessary ways to describe the women in the book.  Second, her writing style seemed repetitive.  I understood what over-thinking was by the first couple of pages but it takes 40 pages for the author to feel comfortable enough to move past just giving example after example of women who take over-thinking to the extreme and discuss what are some of the causes of over-thinking.  However, despite the repetitive introduction, I feel that this became the turning point of the book.  Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema's writing becomes much more purposeful in why women over-think and offers strategies to overcome the over-thinking.  

I feel that overall, the book is a good choice.  It may have not have appealed to me immediately because I am use to reading either heavily scientific writing (psychological) or philosophical writing and this probably influenced why I felt that the first part of the book was so repetitive.  However, for the average person who has no background in psychology, I think by offering so many examples of over-thinking to the reader it allows for a wider ranger of readers to find an example of a woman that is most like them.  The examples offer many opportunities in which readers can read about a woman in the book who over-thinks and personally relate to them on some aspect (e.g., age-wise, career-wise or same style of over-thinking, same life circumstances/experiences).  Despite the repetitiveness, I think the book offers a great social commentary on how today's values and expectations of ourselves and others can lead to over-thinking.  

I probably would not recommend this book to friends my age (Personally, I feel that my friends are use to more intellectual writing but I know there are women my age who would benefit from reading it).  Although the book does use examples of young women in college who are over-thinkers, I feel that most of the examples are about women with jobs, family and children.  As much as each of these experiences are some I hope to have in the future, they are currently not very relevant to me.  Therefore, I feel that the target audience for this book is for women between the ages of 25 +., it targets women who are in long-term relationships (i.e., marriage) or in the middle of building their careers and families.  Thus, I would recommend the book to women who a bit older than me but this book is still very applicable to almost any woman (despite their age).  The topics of over-thinking, the causes and how you can move past over-thinking are very relatable and easy to understand.  Moreover, because it is a psychological book written for a general audience, I think anyone (any woman) can read this book and find valuable information; whether it is the reasons why we over-think and/or how to overcome over-thinking.  I also feel that this book would be an interesting read for men.  Men may often not understand all of the intricacies of how women think and feel about, well everything!  "Women Who Think Too Much" can offer insight to men about how women in their lives are being overwhelmed by hundreds of thoughts at once and they may be able to:

A) Understand their girlfriends/wives style of thinking/thought better

B) Aid in ways to help overcome their over-thinking (e.g., such as being responsive to their change in moods, help women find ways to relax)

C) Most of all, understand that their significant other is not 'crazy', women have just been brought up to be worried about many things at once and thus it causes them to be overwhelmed most of the time.  

When this book was published, Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema was a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.  However, a year after it was published she was a professor and researcher at Yale and head of the Yale Depression and Cognition Program* (She has since then recently passed away).  (*See references below for information).  Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksama has been researching how depression and rumination affects men and women lives and cites several of her own studies throughout the book (e.g., p. 17, depression and anxiety in students before and after the World Series Earthquake in San Francisco on October 1989).  In addition, all of the woman that she mentions in the book are all woman with whom she interviewed, studied or spoke to.  Thus, she offers insight from all of her years of research and her personal engagement with women who over-think.  Nonetheless, she does offer copious amounts of examples of research from herself and other scholars that give insight on over-thinking.  For example, she discusses in her book that our brain can be prone to over-thinking.  Although her explanations are quite clear (i.e., all of our thoughts are interconnected, therefore when we think about one specific thing, it is easy for it to provoke thoughts about other things that are related to it) (p. 34) she always offers evidence of research that backs up her arguments.  In the case of the interconnectivity of our thoughts, she mentioned psychologist Gordon Bower's research on how our network of thoughts are also connected to our moods and emotions.  Thus, it follows that our negative over-thinking leads to more negative thoughts and over-thinking (p. 34).

Once again, what I liked the most about the book was her commentary on some of the reasons why women over-think.  She says that there are four major cultural trends:

1) The Vacuum of Values: Now, more than ever, people are making choices for themselves about what they want to study, what careers they want, whether or not to get married, ect.. However, the media somehow always puts these values into question.  It is as if even when we attain what we want, we're never rich enough or skinny, sexy or popular enough.  Therefore, we just keep getting pushed down by all these standards that others set as "the best" way to live and we then ruminate on how the choices we made were not good enough because we are not living to those standards.

2) The Entitlement Obsession: We feel entitled to always get what we want and when these expectations are not met, we are quick to ruminate and over-think.  An example of this (directly from the book) is:

Why am I not progressing in my job?  Why am I not rich?  Why haven't I  benefited from the economic boom of the last ten years?  We answer these questions, based on our sense of entitlement, by continuing to over-think even more: Maybe it's because my parents wouldn't pay for me to attend an Ivy League college.  Maybe it's because my family responsibilities are holding me back.  Maybe it's because I'm not as smart as everyone else.  (p. 43)

3) The Compulsive Need for Quick Fixes: Essentially, if there is something wrong with us, we want it to be fixed quick, fast and with the most minimal effort.  

4) The Belly Button Culture: Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema says that one of the popular themes of psychology was self-awareness (e.g., Express your inner child) but that we have taken it too far and spend our time "staring at our own navels" and are too self-absorbed and hyperanalyze events in our lives to find meaning.  

(pg. 41 - 47)

I think the major trends she points out are very spot-on on how our social norms and standards create an environment that leads to over-thinking.

In conclusion, the main message to this book is that we are all prone to over thinking, we live very busy and loaded lifestyles.  However, if we let our over thinking become our only way of thinking, we will soon find ourselves to feel depressed and hopeless.  Therefore, it is essential to understand why we over think and how to overcome it so that it does not rule our lives and we can be much more positive, optimistic and happy about ourselves, our relationships with others and our futures.  

n = 1598

----

Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2003). Women who think too much. New York City: Henry Holt and Company.

*Yale Depression and Cognition Program: http://www.yale.edu/snhlab/

*Article on Author's Recent Passing: http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/01/04/psychology-department-chair-dies/

Basically the way things work in this world is that if this man (Don Draper) were to ever just, I don't know, find me in the middle of the street and ask me for my underwear because he needs it for his advertising empire I would comply and give it to him in a heartbeat because he's Don Draper and that's how the world works.  Laws of gravity = giving Don Draper my underwear.

Thousands upon thousands of people each day in the marketing industry are trying to find ways to get you (and I) to consume, consume, consume, and buy, buy, buy.  Otherwise, how would their Fortune 500 companies sustain themselves if they weren't constantly making profit?  Thus, a great part of their industry is dedicated to the question, "Well, how do we make profit?"  Amongst all of the soft drinks in the world, how has Coca-Cola (again and again) become the leading provider of carbonated soft drinks (and all other sugar laced waters, teas, ect..)?  Advertising.  Money spent by the companies to create ads that tell the consumers of (their and others') products that their product IS the product to buy. However, how can they get YOU to buy THEIR product (over any other one available on the market)? This is the fundamental question.

Fortunately for marketers (but I find most unfortunate for us and our wallets), there are ways to tap into the inner strings and tendons of human behavior that draw us into making a purchase.  

One strategy used by marketers and advertising gurus is to tap into a powerful rule of social behavior, the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960).  This norm says that (on average) people have an outlook that we should treat one another the way we would like to be treated.  Therefore, if someone hurts us or harms us, we may feel this drive to hurt or harm back.  However, the way marketers have tapped into this gold mine of human behavior is that because we feel the need to equally pay back what has been given to us, when we receive gifts (and other goodies) our norm of reciprocity drives us to feel like we need to return the favor (which usually becomes), "I need to buy their product to return the favor".

An example of where I have experienced this very strategy used to reel me into making a purchase is at makeup counters. At MAC Cosmetics, one curious little stroll can turn into taking home a goodie bag of sample foundations, concealers and a sit down lesson on how to properly apply bronzer.  However, these MAC Artists who are just treating me like your homegirl next door just giving you THE hook-up, they're not exactly oblivious to what they're actually trying to do.  Using the norm of reciprocity, if they give me gifts (aka free swag) and offer valuable services to me (make-up lessons) then I am going to feel like they have GIVEN me something and therefore I will feel the drive to equally GIVE back.  You start feeling that guilt, "Man, they just invested ALL of this TIME into me and I'm surrounded by all these other girls (or guys, they need oil based eye liner for their waterline too you know) making purchases and I am going to be that ONE person who just takes ADVANTAGE of all these free gifts and DOESN'T give back? What kind of sick…HORRIBLE monster am I?"

GUYS THESE BRIGHT LIGHTS THEY USE AT ALL OF THEIR COUNTERS AND STORES, THEY'RE SHINING THE SPOTLIGHT ON ME, EVERYONE IS GOING TO NOTICE THAT I AM NOT PURCHASING THEIR PRODUCT AFTER THEY HAVE SO WILLINGLY JUST TREATED ME WITH THE UPMOST CARE, DEVOTION, AND PATIENCE. HOW COULD I EVER LIVE WITH MYSELF?

So, how do I give back?  I buy their products. 

I become one more successful sale of the day. And gain some conturing skills. 

n = 643

Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25, 161–178.

Human beings like to have consistency between what our attitude (about something is) and our behavior.  However, when there is not a consistency between these two factors, we feel uncomfortable (physiologically and psychologically).  Psychologists call this experience of inconsistency cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957).  Moreover, we don’t like to feel uncomfortable with ourselves, therefore to resolve this inconsistency (or dissonance), we change our attitude. 

One form of cognitive dissonance is called effort justification (Mills, Aronson & Robinson, 1959).  In sum, people come to love what they suffer for.  Thus, our attitude towards a behavior may change (from hate to love) because we have put so much time and effort into the behavior, we feel that we need to get something out of it.   

I think this basically sums up why (the hell) I stayed in my last relationship for so long.  At first, I was not really into the guy I was dating.  I dated him because I had been in a weird, one-sided fling with someone else for such a long amount of time that I wanted someone to want ME for a change.  Therefore, someone who was head over heels about me just walked on by and I thought, “Why not!”

Well, I have to admit…This guy was pretty much the OPPOSITE of someone I would date (ever, for the rest of my life).  This guy was one of the most insecure and emotionally unstable people I have ever (had the displeasure) of knowing.  I invested so much of my time and effort in the relationship just basically holding his hand and reassuring him about everything that after a couple of months, I was very emotionally and psychologically drained from dealing with him.  However, my attitude (I HATE YOU) did not my match my behavior (I CARE ABOUT YOU, SINCERELY. HERE, HAVE 3 HOURS OF MY TIME SO THAT I CAN COMFORT YOU AND THEN DO IT AGAIN TOMORROW BECAUSE YOU’LL HAVE SOMETHING ELSE THAT IS SO MEANINGLESS AND MINOR BREAK DOWN ALL OF YOUR PRIDE).  Therefore, I experienced cognitive dissonance, an inconsistency of my attitude and behavior towards this person.  To resolve my dissonance, I justified my behavior with a change in my attitude through effort justification. I had spent so much time trying to help this poor guy’s self-esteem/self-worth that I surely did care about him, otherwise why would I put up with it?  Having to deal with him is teaching me a lot about people and how they can feel so down and depressed at times.  As a psychology major, learning to deal with his emotional turbulence is just good practice for me in the future! It even says something good about me as a psychologist, I am teaching someone to emotionally cope with their life!

I deceived and lied to myself for several months that the relationship was worth my time and effort (because I invested so much time and effort).  However, I did eventually reach a breaking point where the rewards (or benefits) that the relationship provided for me (Now I look back and I don’t know what those were…really) were no longer enough reward for the severity of the punishment I was suffering by being in the relationship.  Thus, I eventually changed my attitude again from “This is worth it” to “This is not worth it” and changed my behavior accordingly.  I broke up with him.

Probably the best decision I ever made. I actually jumped for joy when I broke up with him and bro fist-pumped into the air.

Moral of the story, just because you invest a lot into a relationship, doesn’t make it worth it.  Don’t lie to yourself and let cognitive dissonance tell you otherwise! If you don’t like it, get out!

n = 656

p.s. This same guy messaged me many months after the breakup with a little tidbit on how, "You say you want to dedicate your life helping people, well what about helping me?"

I was...this close to throwing my laptop across the room in rage. 

-----

References

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Mills, J., Aronson, E., & Robinson, H. (1959). Selectivity in exposure to information. The Journal Of Abnormal And Social Psychology, 59(2), 250-253. doi:10.1037/h0042162

Every day of our lives we are surrounded by hundreds of marketing and advertising placements on television, ads, and even each other (e.g.,clothing brands) that are calling out for our money through persuasion.  Buy me because when you do, you will gain A, B, and C. (You will LOOK great, you will FEEL great and you'll get to have MORE or BETTER sex, tends to be the general message in my opinion).

However, are we always persuaded by just pretty lights, photoshopped models and flashy commercials?  Sometimes yes but sometimes no.  One theory proposed by Petty and Cacioppo's (1986) called the "model of persuasion" divides our route to persuasion into two different routes. The first route is the central route to persuasion.  In the central route of persuasion, a person is influence by the strength and quality of the arguments presented to persuade.  

For example, I remember during the first huge wave of the Occupy Wall Street movement I constantly kept up with news reports and internet debate over the movements positions on certain issues.  Simply 'hearing' about what the movement was really all about through a random news source was not enough for me.  I wanted to hear both sides of the story, investigate claims made by the occupiers through different sources and ultimately come to my own conclusions as to what the movement was really advocating for.

I could have relied on some reliable American journalism like Fox News but I actually wanted to use more than just 1/4 of my brain to process all of this information.

However, we don't always engage in thorough, logical and critical analysis of an argument.  Sometimes we focus on information or cues of an argument or message that are not a part of the strength and quality of the argument such as the articulation or reputation of a speaker giving the message.  When we take this route it is called the peripheral route.  

I am most often a victim of taking this route when it comes to school elections.  I usually never know much more than, "He's a Pike" or "He's a douchebag" or "She's a [insert liberal arts major]".  Unlike my thorough research of political candidate such as presidential candidates, I base my decision on the SU Student Body president on not much more than, "Oh so and so told me to vote for him" or "I like this fraternity more than the other one".

Lastly, when a person is engaging a message and taking one of the two aforementioned routes of persuasion, recipients of the message are also affected by their ability (time, effort) and motivation (personal involvement) to take a route.  The more motivated and able a person is to analyze a message, the more likely that person will use the central route versus a peripheral route.  Thus, because I do not feel like the SU Student Body President elections really change the climate of the campus in general, I do not feel like I have the motivation or ability to care about who I vote for.  Therefore, I base my decision on meaningless things such as Greek affiliation or who looks less douchey. 

n = 562

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag.

 

SXSW 2013

As a person with moderate to high public self-consciousness (Feinstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975), the way I appear outwardly to others is important to me.  In addition, I am also moderate to high in self-monitoring, meaning I monitor social situations and will change my behavior to suit the social situation (Snyder, 1974). Thus, although I can be more outgoing in a social situations where I feel that being an outgoing person is more beneficial for my interactions with others, the confidence I have in being outgoing stems from having confidence in my outward appearance.  My confidence in my outward appearance is both behavioral and physical.  I have to have confidence in how I am carrying myself socially and in how I appear: from hair, clothes to makeup, if I don’t feel confident about what I’m wearing and how I am dressed, my confidence usually plummets. Therefore, to be a different person for a day I decided to:

• Be a confident person in my social interactions throughout my day.  Not because it was beneficial or right thing for me to go but just be constantly confident

• I was going to give up my constant worrying and focus on my physical appearance in public for a day as one of the main ways I was going to remain confident throughout my daily interactions with others.

I signed up to volunteer for several days at SXSW this year as a way to do something different for my spring break.  My first full day volunteering was this past Thursday, working from 9am to 10:30 pm.  I decided this would be a great, full day of social interactions where I could work on being a different, more confident person for a day.  When I woke up in the morning I went through my usual morning routine for my hair and makeup and dressed comfortably for the day.  Rather than stuffing my bag with some extra makeup or my compact mirror, I left them at home.  As a confident person, I was going to be confident that I did not need to look in a mirror several times a day and touch up my makeup to have a positive outward appearance.  In addition, facial expressions have an affect on how we feel known as the facial feedback hypothesis (Laird, 1974).  Laird (1974) stated that when we change our facial expression, it triggers changes in how we feel emotionally.  Therefore, I also left my apartment with the best accessory of all, a huge smile on my face that I planned to wear all day throughout my day of confidence.

After arriving to the Austin Convention Center for my first shift I went straight to my first shift with Registration/Wristbands.  Just walking through the convention center became my first test.  Uusually, I fall into constant cycles of self-focused attention as predicted through the self-awareness theory (Duval & Wicklund, 1972).  The self-awareness theory indicates that when we are engaging in self-focused attention, such as looking into the mirror, we will begin to pick out self-discrepancies about ourselves and seeing such discrepancies motivates us to change our negative self-image.  According to Carver and Scheier (1981) the two ways we can escape are to ‘ship up’, by changing our behavior to improve our discrepancies or ‘ship out’, by escaping or retreating from the negative looming over discrepancies.  Therefore, to avoid getting trapped in my self-focused attention, as I walked through the convention center I avoided looking at my reflection in the glass windows as I passed by them.  Normally, I spend most of my time scrutinizing the way I walk, my posture and others aspects of my physical appearance when I pass by anything that is reflective.  However, I knew that avoiding that common habit of mine was part of being a confident person for a day.  I personally found it very hard to avoid looking at myself and did glance every once in a while but avoided it as much as possible.

When I arrived to my post at the convention center, I was all smiles and greeted everyone with a friendly hello or nod of acknowledgement.  Almost immediately after arriving to my post, one of my shift leaders pointed me out from a couple feet away and asked me to come with him.  He said to me, “You look like you have an engaging face, I have a job for you.”  It was amazing, in less than 10 minutes since I had arrived at the convention center someone had noticed the confidence I had in my demeanor.  I followed my shift leader and was given a job to direct people to different registration booths to pick up their SXSW badges.  For several hours I stood next to people and asked them to be prepared with the necessary materials needed for registration, answered questions and directed people to booths.  I tried to keep my section running as smoothly as possible by being assertive but polite with people who tried to jump ahead of their lines.  After a few hours directing people, I was rotated to work behind the registration booths.  I knew that several hours had passed by since I had last looked at myself in the mirror.  I looked down (long hair so I can see a big part of my hair) and could see that the air in the convention center had made my hair slightly frizzy.  Looking at my hair was the starting point of my self-focused attention cycle.  I started to think about how my makeup was probably off and that I must look pale and lifeless.  However, I stopped myself from keeping my mind from going further off on discrepancies (using the ‘ship out’ strategy as mentioned above) and ignored these otherwise unsettling signs.  I took a deep breath and just started to smile larger so that I could continue to have a positive and confident emotional state.  As people came over to my booth I decided to be very engaging. I asked people how their flight was, if it was their first time at SXSW, encouraged them that if it was their first time they were going to have a blast, told people they were looking great in the pictures I was taking for their badges (regardless of the several hours they spent traveling) told people they had a terrific smile in their pictures and complimented people in general.  Almost everyone thanked me for my speedy service and several people told me, “You’re doing great/awesome at your job”. 

In addition to being engaging with registrants at the convention, I also confidently engaged with my co-volunteers.  Normally, I wait for people to make small talk with me and it usually takes time for me to feel confident enough to speak to others.  However, this past Thursday I spoke to everyone around me without letting my shyness hold me back.  Through these conversations with everyone around me I experienced the immense diversity of the people working with me.  From college students to parents, people came from all different countries and backgrounds.  One particular guy my age told me that he is a virology major at UT (didn’t know virology existed).  Another young man told me about his physical and cognitive rehab experience after flying 8 feet in the air, falling down and slipping into a coma for 2 months.  Being confident and engaging helped the day pass by quickly and I made a lot of new acquaintances at my station. 

Overall, I felt I had a good, confident and engaging experience at my first day at SXSW.  Nonetheless, I think Thursday was just a small glimpse of how confidence can affect your day.  The next day (Friday), I decided to carry out this change in my behavior for an additional day to see how I would feel.  Little did I know that Friday became a real challenge for me.

First, I came home the night before (Thursday night) to a note from my house keeper.  Apparently, she had dropped my curling iron in my toilet, thus rendering it useless.  I immediately freaked out (not at her, accidents happen to every one) because I use my curling iron to style my hair every day.  Therefore, Friday morning I had no way of styling my otherwise frizzy hair.  I frowned in the mirror that morning when my hair was doing everything I never want it to do but just sighed and smiled as wide as I could.  Oh well, I just have to think I look great anyways!  After driving into Austin and taking what seemed eternity to find parking (because I did NOT want to pay $20 to $30 to park in some of the garages around the convention center), I was blocks away from the convention center and it was drizzling hard.  I did not anticipate having to walk so far from my car to the convention center and therefore only packed a light cardigan that did not help in keeping me dry.  As I walked to the convention center, I could feel my volunteer shirt starting to get soaked and my makeup run on my face.  I cursed the rain under my breath and cursed even more at the thought of my hair.

Humidity + Voluminous Wavy Hair = 90's hairstyle

I knew I was going to look like I couldn’t even run a brush through my hair that morning with how the rain was ruining the way I looked.  Nonetheless, I remained confident and avoided spending too long trying to fix myself after I arrived at the convention center.  I could feel my public self-consciousness creep on me as all I could think about was probably how ridiculous I looked with my frizzy hair and soaked t-shirt.  Suddenly, I felt that everyone was looking at me for how ridiculous I looked and that everyone was noticing me.  What I was experiencing was the spotlight effect (Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000).  Due to my public self-consciousness I started to feel that some spotlight of attention was being hung over my head and every one around me was noticing me much more than usual.  However, I remembered that we all fall victim to the spotlight effect and brushed off feelings of negative self-image through the self-focused attention strategy of just ignoring my negative thoughts about myself.  Confidence, confidence, confidence, is what I kept telling myself over and over.

The next highlight of my Friday where my confidence faltered because of my worrying over my outward appearance was right after I got off my shift for the night.  A friend of mine had invited me to attend a RSVP-Only show that night to see one of our favorite artists.  I had originally said I could not go because I was not going to get out of my shift with SXSW in time.  However, I still RSVP’d for the event online and brought an extra shirt to change into (I have to wear SXSW volunteer shirt) after work to see if I could catch the show.  I figured he would be seeing the show by the time I got to the venue so I probably would not see him anyways.  When I got out of the convention center I saw that I had a missed call from him and called him back.  When he answered he told me he was in line with several of his friends and that I should come join him in line to see the show.  I felt so mortified.  I was wearing an outfit that did not match, with some random shirt I just stuffed into my bag, half of my makeup was gone (falls off throughout the day), my hair was a big frizz ball and I was going to need to jog to make it in time because they were towards the front of the line.  I groaned in frustration and embarrassment.  Really, out of ALL the days, the day I look like a complete mess, this is the day you invite me out with your friends?!?!

On a day where I was not feeling confident about myself, I would have called back and say I felt too tired to meet up to avoid having others see me the way I looked.   Regardless, I just kept my insecurities to the side and confidently jogged all the way to the venue to meet up with him and his friends.  Although I felt embarrassed at first because of the way I looked, I ended up having a great time that night.

XXYYXX (yep, that's his artist name)

Overall, I was skeptical that I would be able to remain confident throughout an entire day (especially two) by not focusing on my physical appearance.  Although I was a little nervous at first I think the experience was very eye-opening.  People did not reject me or treat me differently because I had frizzy hair.  My smile, confidence and friendly demeanor made people gravitate towards me.  People attending the conference came to me with questions and made small talk with me.  I met all kinds of new people at my shifts and will enjoy engaging in conversation with them throughout the rest of my volunteering shifts at SXSW.  In addition, I am sure that I will now definitely seek them out if I run into them during SXSW.  In general, being confident about myself helped me feel better about myself throughout my day.  I don’t know if I would have been able to enjoy Friday (and Friday night) as much as I did if I had let my usual insecurities about my appearance take over. 

Being a different person for a day helped me see that although we may often be very set in our self-concept (Markus, 1977),  my self-concept or belief that my physical appearance is all I have to offer has been slightly changed.  I find that I do not need to always be worrying about how I look because:

• I probably look fine
• Other people probably do not notice all of the small details of my appearance that I notice
• A smile + confidence is the best makeup to wear on your face

Although we may be very set in our beliefs about ourselves, small changes throughout our day can help us feel better and more positive about ourselves.  In my case, it helped me enjoy situations where I normally would have felt very negative about myself. 

n = 2,371

----

References

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1981). Attention and self-regulation: A control-theory approach to human behavior. New York: Springer-Verlag. 

Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A theory of objective self-awareness. New York: Academic Press.

Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F., & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 522–527.

Laird, J. D. (1974). Self-attribution of emotion: The effects of expressive behavior on the quality of emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 475–486.

Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(2), 63–78. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.2.63

Snyder, M. (1974). The self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal

of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526–537.