Cognitive Science’s Perspective on Hierarchy

In Ricardo Blaug’s paper “Cognition in a Hierarchy,” he discusses a cognitive science explanation of hierarchy. Blaug argues that our cognition exists certain kinds of bias: confirmation of our existing knowledge, tendency to amplify our personal importance, and separation of socially structure to be external and independent of individuals. These factors combined allow elite groups to corrupt and subordinates to collude within a hierarchy.

I think it is interesting that how the underlying mechanics of a large social structure function and be broken down into small elements such as how individual’s cognition work. Blaug’s argument is qualified because each component of his argument is backed up by the result of relevant researches and experiments conducted by experts.

Is Distraction a Negative thing in Today’s World?

My original essay questioned the validity of distraction in today’s world. The source that I found, “Learning and the Undergraduate Classroom Learning Environment: Classroom Distractions” proved to be very relevant to my life today and many other students’ as well. The author did a study on what students found the most distracting and if it was negative to their learning environment. Individual distractions seemed to be one of the most common distraction that she found. Johnson’s article brings up a new point of view about a “Divided Attention”. This goes against Rothman’s argument that distractions help us rather than harm us. This allows for a more critical analyzing of Rothman’s argument and how it can be disproved through my essay.

The consequence of honesty

There are two groups of scholars studying honesty: economists and moral philosophers. Economists are mostly pragmatists. They care about the outcomes, the actual states of the world. Philosophers on the other hand, care about the norms behind this. Specifically, when we talk about honesty, philosophers make debates on whether honesty is moral, while economists discuss on whether honesty brings good outcomes. This difference is notable and therefore, it is valuable to see two aspects when studying on such a topic.

I read “An evolutionary advantage for extravagant honesty”, which is a paper on evolutionary game theory, which is a study area of generalized economics. This paper constructs formal game theory model to study the effects of human/animal behavior. It concludes that honesty might work as a signal that enhances the overall welfare of community.

Are such models effective? Some people who prefer relying more on data and experience may strongly object such studies because they might think that such theoretical models rely too heavily on unrealistic assumptions. I would, however, prefer to rely on models to explain the world, although there might be inaccuracy.

Voting Rights and Voter ID

The journal entry, “Changing Focus and Exposing a Solution: Using Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to Defeat Tennessee’s Voter Photo ID Law”, published in The University of Memphis Law Review journal and written by Emma Redden. In this piece Redden goes over many problems with the law and tries to provide a solution. She argues about voter fraud first. She says that the ideas about voter fraud being so widespread are false because there is no substantial evidence behind them. She gives a background into voter laws to provide the reader an understanding of past discriminatory laws that were created to stop certain people from voting. She uses this by connecting it to how this new law works as a way to prevent people from voting and how just like the past laws in functions in a way that is not directly aimed at certain in the wording of the laws but that it is targeting them without mentioning them. Then she moves on by giving evidence for how many people are prevented from voting through these ID laws. In the rest of the journal entry she explains how the Voting Rights Act can be used to defeat these new laws like how the past discriminatory laws were removed. I very much agree with her argument about voter ID laws and that are unfair to specific groups of people. This article is relevant to my research question of what obstacles are in place for people trying to obtain voter ID. I will be able to reference many of the points she made about why certain people cannot get the IDs.

Honesty in Relationships: Morality towards the Other or a Self-hood Conceptions?

In a journal entitled “False Excuses: Honesty, Wrongdoing, and Moral Growth”, Diana Mertz Hsieh from the Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado at Boulder, discusses about the dishonesty we commit in everyday life. Specifically, she explains about a type of dishonesty which is false excuses. Throughout this journal, she explains why people are giving out false excuses such as self-defense, conceal privacy as well as true character. Then she continues to argue about the effects of false excuses to the people who commit dishonesty themselves and how dishonesty by giving out false excuses inhibit their morality towards others. All in all, she asserts that these can be avoided if they were being honest at the first place. However, she acknowledges the conflict between being honest or dishonest in some cases. For example, when a man cheated on his wife and telling the truth can disrupt the relationship as well as the trust he gained from his wife. Nonetheless, even if he lied to his wife about his affair and when the truth finally comes to his wife, dishonesty will add to the pain he caused consequently broke the relationship and the trust. After all, that can be prevented if he is being honest and loyal all along. This article really compliments my research questions: Is honesty still important in relationships? Is honesty affects us more than the people in the relationship? Is honesty still a noble thing in our morality or just a self-hood conception?

Critical Thinking and Liberal Arts

According to “Critical Thinking and the Liberal Arts” by Jeffrey Scheuer, promoting liberal arts education also promotes civic dimension, economic citizenship, and cultural citizenship. These things include things such as voting, volunteering, information sharing, doing something useful for someone else, campus organizations, and cultural events. He argues that although we need “pilots, farmers, and hairdressers as well as managers, artists, doctors and engineers…” we need to obtain skills that help us be active, thoughtful, humane, and productive citizens. I agree with Scheuer’s argument, and I think more students should consider incorporating liberal arts into their STEM field. This allows for more critical thinking and creativity in STEM innovations.

Structural Racism

In the article “People of Color Cannot ‘Get Over’ Structural Racism”, Zusha Elinson talks about how racism is always treated at an individual level and it has never gone deeper than that. It is always about blaming a certain individual for their wrongful attitudes towards other people of different race but we rarely address where racism actually started. Thus, in this article, Elinson focuses primarily on structural racism and it is defined as “the normalization of an array of dynamics–historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal–that routinely advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.” To prove her point, she provides substantial evidence of whites over-exceeding the blacks in terms of average wealth and the difference amounts to almost 600%. It is not about blacks being incompetent or unqualified, it is about the structure of the system that causes whites to have advantage and privilege. Consequently, the whites would always come up on top, and the people of color falling behind.

I agree with the arguments that Elinson brought forward. She iterated in her article that she does not intent to ignore the problem at an interpersonal level. She thinks that by acknowledging and solving the problem at its roots would be a more efficient way of combatting racism. Her argument is well-supported by data that she gathered and it definitely indicates that whites have an upper hand in the economic world. However, I think that her arguments could have been stronger if she had included data and statistics on other aspects as well such as the housing system, education and politics.

How School Dress Codes Contribute to Rape Culture

In “The Effects of Dress on School Discipline” by Norman L. Sommers, he gives data-based facts that when students “dress down”, i.e. do not follow the dress code, more cases of inappropriate behavior are found. A study was conducted where school children wore clothing that followed the dress code and then clothing that did not, and it turned out that following the dress code made students 38% less likely to get sent to the principal’s office for inappropriate behavior. 

This study makes me think back to Konnikova’s article, in which she argues that social institutions and expectations drive people’s behaviors. Probably a large reason that so many more instances of kids acting up on the day they “dressed down” was because of the message those clothes sent that it was okay to act inappropriately. Schools combat this with dress codes, which seem to work, except they fail to address the problem at the root, because in the real world, there are no dress codes. People’s clothing choices, along with other factors that may contribute to others’ inappropriate behavior, cannot be filtered all the time. A more effective and long-lasting solution to the problem of inappropriate behavior would be to punish the perpetrators and educate kids on proper conduct. Only this way will students know how to control their actions in the future when dress codes are no longer a reality in their lives.

Eating Disorders Perpetuated by Media

In “Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders,” the author analyzes the change in ideal female body type over time and the current views of weight for men and women. They argue that children should be limited to their exposure of media, as it provides young kids with role models that possess unrealistic appearances. This exposure is associated with higher rates of depression and body dissatisfaction. I find these facts very upsetting because media should be promoting health and wellness to our nation’s youth as opposed to pressuring them to attain unachievable goals. The expectations placed on individuals to look a certain way causes unfair consequences such as eating disorders. I think the argument made in this paper is correct in that there must be a decrease in exposure to media, as media itself seems to be unchanging.

Rape and the Police

In “Law Enforcement Officers’ Perception of Rape and Rape Victims: A Multimethod Study” the author analyzes the views of police officers dealing with rape cases. They looked at what rape myths the police believed. Definitions of rape terms were also asked for and what they found was that the officers all had different definitions of what rape is. Something that I found interesting is that a lot of the officers overestimated the amount of rapes that were lied about. This is what makes me very angry. The article makes the argument that more education for officers on the legal side of the crime and the sensitivity side of the crime is necessary.