blah again.

the role of individual, social, and cultural factors on entering or maintaining long-distance relationships, preference for online-dating, the role of honour and social media in collective mobilization, etc.

look at own observations in your daily life and travels. you need to take some time away from the internet, and get a piece of pen and paper, and write. read novels too, enough of scientific articles, they cause brain-freezing, and creativity-loss, even loss of flexible thinking-ability.

what "feminism" is all about.

I really love this BA student's definition of what feminism is all about:

"I don’t think that any definition I can give here would do the concept of feminism justice, but I do think a key part of it is to understand the power structures that society creates and thrusts people into based on its ideas of how things “should” be. Of course understanding them is only the first step, one must also acknowledge the ways they affect everyone, own up to their privileges and do their best not to take advantage of their place in the social hierarchy to exploit others. This will happen, whether it be intentional or accidental, but being able to admit to it and attempt to rectify it will go a long way in the goal of tolerance."

Keep on searching!

I dedicate this to all my beloved friends who are researchers, want to be a researcher or just like research:

"There is really no such thing as research. There is only search, more search, keep on searching." (Bowering, 1988, p.5)

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culture contact - own experiences more than enough for sources of research ideas. look at your psychology sketches.

Muy Interesting Abstracts !!!

Yogeeswaran, K., N. Dasgupta, et al. (2011). "To be or not to be (ethnic): Public vs. Private expressions of ethnic identification differentially impact national inclusion of White and non-White groups." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47(5): 908-914.

Many pluralistic nations are witnessing vigorous debate about multiculturalism. In the U.S., Americans generally embrace principles of ethnic diversity but dislike minorities who express strong ethnic identification. Two experiments examined this seeming contradiction by differentiating between ethnic identity expressed in private vs. public by non-White and White individuals. Then we tested whether individuals' identity expressions differentially affected perceivers' construal of their entire ethnic group as legitimately American. Results indicated that at a conscious level, White and non-White ethnic groups were held to the same standard and construed as significantly less American when members expressed their ethnic identity publicly vs. privately. However, at an unconscious level, a double standard emerged: non-White ethnic groups were implicitly rejected as less American if members expressed ethnic identity publicly, while White ethnics were implicitly accepted as legitimate Americans regardless of where they expressed ethnic identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

Pennekamp, S. F., B. Doosje, et al. (2009). "In matters of opinion, what matters is the group: Minority group members' emotional reactions to messages about identity expression." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45(4): 778-787.

Two studies investigated the reactions of minority group members to messages about identity expression by ingroup and outgroup sources. Our main hypothesis was that compared to ingroup sources, outgroup sources arouse more anger when they argue for identity suppression. In the first study homosexuals evaluated an outgroup source arguing for identity suppression more negatively than an ingroup source, felt more threatened by this source and as a result, experienced stronger feelings of anger towards this source. The second study among members of a language-based minority replicated and extended these findings. Furthermore we showed that the anger that is experienced towards an outgroup source causes a willingness to change the opinion of this source. When ingroup or outgroup sources supported identity expression, evaluations and experience of anger did not differ in both studies. The importance of a source's group membership in reactions to opinions about one's group is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

Thomsen, L., E. G. T. Green, et al. (2008). "We will hunt them down: How social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism fuel ethnic persecution of immigrants in fundamentally different ways." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44(6): 1455-1464.

Despite the fact that SDO and RWA are correlated with one another and both predict support for ethnic persecution of immigrants, it is argued that this aggression is provoked for very different reasons. For authoritarians, outgroup aggression against immigrants should primarily be provoked by immigrant refusal to assimilate into the dominant culture because this violates ingroup conformity. In contrast, SDO should be associated with aggression against immigrants who do assimilate into the dominant culture because this blurs existing status boundaries between groups. Using samples of American and Swiss college students, the data were consistent with this status boundary enforcement hypothesis regarding social dominators and largely consistent with the ingroup conformity hypothesis regarding authoritarians. National and ethnic identification did not account for these results. The results further support the argument that outgroup prejudice and discrimination is most fruitfully seen as an interactive function of individual differences and situational constraints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved) (from the journal abstract)

Outten, H. R., M. T. Schmitt, et al. (2009). "Coping options: Missing links between minority group identification and psychological well-being." Applied Psychology: An International Review 58(1): 146-170.

Using concepts from social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) cognitive theory of stress and coping we tested the capacity for group identification to foster beliefs in one's ability to cope successfully and in turn predict psychological well-being. Black American participants appraised the availability of coping options that varied by level of identity (individual, intragroup, and intergroup) as well as function of coping (problem-focused and emotion-focused). Replicating prior work, participants who were higher in racial group identification reported more positive well-being. Appraisals of individual emotion-focused and intergroup problem-focused options mediated the relationship of group identification with both self-esteem and life satisfaction. Appraisals of intergroup emotion-focused options also partially mediated the relationship between group identification and life satisfaction. Findings suggest that the relationship between minority group identification and well-being may partly be due to its influence over a person's sense that they and their group can respond effectively to disadvantage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

communication - in the plane

I enjoy meeting people naturally very much, and creating a bound with them naturally, coincidentally.  I think life has this power, to bring  the utmost joy to one’s life in the most unexpected times. When good things happen unexpectedly, they mean more to us, they occupy our minds longer because of the surprise we feel along with the happiness which the unexpected evokes.

This lab seems like it is heaven

http://www.stanford.edu/group/mcslab/cgi-bin/wordpress/examine-the-research/#project6
Remember this:

The Dynamic between Independence and Interdependence in
Middle Eastern Cultural Contexts

Although we have had increasingly close political and economic ties with the Middle East in the past decades, there has been very little research to understand the Middle Eastern cultural contexts so far. Existing few studies in the literature indicate that individuals in the Middle Eastern contexts possess independent and interdependent tendencies in different domains. Although they tend to have self- enhancing biases, such as unrealistic optimism, even more than the individuals in the Western contexts, they also tend to highly value conformity just as the individuals in the East Asian contexts do. In this research, we aim to understand the roots and nature of this dynamic between independence and interdependence in the Middle Eastern cultural contexts along with its implications for the relations between the US and Middle East

Social Butterflies

Speaking of where research ideas come from...I wonder if there has been  research done on social butterflies...I should look into this.