Social Psychology
Just some thoughts...
I proctored a math competition today, and to pass the time I read my social psychology textbook. I made note of a few things that always seem to happen in test-taking situations. (1) After the first person finishes their test and turns it in, several others immediately follow suit. (2) People like to finish at the same time their friends finish the test.
These behaviors can be thought about in terms of one's need for validation. A person would probably like to know how their performance rates in comparison to their peers. It's hard to be that first pioneer to turn in the test; they might think that perhaps they've missed something vitally important on the test that's taking everyone else so long to finish. But once someone finally turns in their test, others who are finished can feel more confident about their performance. As for finishing the test with one's friends, people like to discuss their personal performance with their peers to gauge how well (or poorly) they did relative to everyone else. This serves to comfort them if their performance is perceived to be within a 'normal' range, thus validating their intellect.
Though not inherently so, taking an exam is a social experience. Such can be said about the web. Without the knowledge or existence of certain conventions of web-behavior, one is unsure how to act. Taking cues from peers is a way of validating one's own 'web performance' by acting in accord with 'normal' behavior. For instance, danah boyd and Jeffrey Heer's "Profiles as Conversation: Networked Identity Performance on Friendster" explains how people modeled their own Friendster profiles upon those of their associates.
Information on the web has a funny way of interacting with the real world. After the competition was over, I chatted with the other proctor as we exited the building. I mentioned that I'm a Cog Sci and Psychology double major, and to my surprise he replied that he knew this [since I'm the secretary of the Math Club this information is on our website]. I'm not sure how I feel about people knowing more about me than I do them.
I proctored a math competition today, and to pass the time I read my social psychology textbook. I made note of a few things that always seem to happen in test-taking situations. (1) After the first person finishes their test and turns it in, several others immediately follow suit. (2) People like to finish at the same time their friends finish the test.
These behaviors can be thought about in terms of one's need for validation. A person would probably like to know how their performance rates in comparison to their peers. It's hard to be that first pioneer to turn in the test; they might think that perhaps they've missed something vitally important on the test that's taking everyone else so long to finish. But once someone finally turns in their test, others who are finished can feel more confident about their performance. As for finishing the test with one's friends, people like to discuss their personal performance with their peers to gauge how well (or poorly) they did relative to everyone else. This serves to comfort them if their performance is perceived to be within a 'normal' range, thus validating their intellect.
Though not inherently so, taking an exam is a social experience. Such can be said about the web. Without the knowledge or existence of certain conventions of web-behavior, one is unsure how to act. Taking cues from peers is a way of validating one's own 'web performance' by acting in accord with 'normal' behavior. For instance, danah boyd and Jeffrey Heer's "Profiles as Conversation: Networked Identity Performance on Friendster" explains how people modeled their own Friendster profiles upon those of their associates.
Information on the web has a funny way of interacting with the real world. After the competition was over, I chatted with the other proctor as we exited the building. I mentioned that I'm a Cog Sci and Psychology double major, and to my surprise he replied that he knew this [since I'm the secretary of the Math Club this information is on our website]. I'm not sure how I feel about people knowing more about me than I do them.
posted by Moni at 2:00 AM
2 Comments:
Never though of a math competition as a social experience. I guess nerds are social beings.
So then if you are walking around and people you've never met before start making funny faces at you, chances are, they saw your presence on the web. The web makes everybody feel famous!
As for the test thing, I wonder if it could be that people are working as fast as humanly possible, where they end up finishing together. How do you know that they are in fact doddling till someone gets up? As for me, I'm usually hoping to be the first person done so I can get everyone in the class to look at me and go, "How'd he finish so quickly???"
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