3 Questions

1. What are the real-life implications of implicit legal bias specifically when it comes to racialized sexual assault?
2. What negative effects does the correlation that is seen within our media between sexuality and violence have in sexual assault cases?
3. Describe ways in which authors and critics of sexual assault can justly describe these stories, according to the claim that race plays an incredibly impactful role?

Writing Prompts

1. What are the implications of animal cruelty and how does it affect society as a whole?

2. What can explain the variation of how different people feel about the rights and well-being of animals? Is it innate or environmental?

3. Are humans ethically responsible for animals that are not under human manipulation/ do they have the right to interfere with nature? Or are humans only ethically responsible for the animals that they interact with?

Guide questions

1. To what extent do parents' self-esteem affect the self-esteem of their child?
2. What method of psychological conditioning is closest to the way people learn the double standards,  and how applicable is it?
3 What level of influence does the entertainment industry have on the double standard of sexuality? Is it equally to blame for the stigma or are the standards depicted just results of the mindsets of the masses?

Questions

1 Since social media has in fact affected the way we perceive love and affection, where will it lead in the years to come?

2 What are some possible results of the growth of social media's presence in our love lives in regards to different psychological aspects or even economic aspects?

3 Given that social media has such an impact on how we perceive love, what would be some possible ramifications if it were suddenly removed and inaccessible?

3 writing prompts

My 3 writing prompts are:

• In what ways can a standardized education be useful to students? (counterargument)
• What is the effect of the difficulty to implement change on the education system?
• How are students affected by the false impressions given off by standardized test scores?

Writing Prompts

1) Can psychotic disorders be considered as a mechanism of psychological defense? If so, is it safe for an afflicted victim to try and 'cure' their disorder, or would that cause more problems than it solves?

2) What exactly are the benefits of psychotherapy as compared to regular medication?

3) Is there a link between physical and psychological trauma? By extension, can physical trauma trigger symptoms of psychotic disorders the same way psychological and emotional trauma can?

Guide Questions

1. To what extent do conformity and socially constructed ideas play a role on the sexual development of the child?

2. Does the neglect of parents significantly affect how comfortable children feel of their identity?

3. What does it mean when a child feels the need to live up to gender stereotypes constructed by society and reinforced by parents?

3 writing prompts

1. If dissociation is such a natural process, why is it interpreted and received so negatively by others? Is it forced, or does it come about on its own?

2. Understanding coping mechanisms as an individually tailored system, to what extent do our experiences with certain interests influence the way we cope and imagine? (e.g. i like superheroes...I will handle the situation like Batman will!)

3. to what extent is imagination formed through experience as well as naturally as we grow older and experience more and more?

Three Writting Prompts

1. What do you make of the fact that although narcissism has many negative outcomes, it is still promoted in certain institutions? What does this say about the education system as a whole?

2. For what reason has the problem researched (narcissism, animal cruelty, etc.) been ignored or not researched as thoroughly in the past? Are there benefits that outweigh the negatives?

3. What is the importance of your research for the real world and how can we use your discoveries to benefit our communities? Is there a mechanism for us to use that can overcome the problem researched?

Three Writing Prompts

1. Are coping mechanisms a method of hiding from a traumatic reality or confronting it?
2. To what extent does misuse of coping mechanisms have mental, emotional, and physical implications?
3. Is a certain coping mechanism more harmful than another? For example, does dissociation cause a larger separation from reality and the present than does the psychological immune system?

Research Paper RD1

Samuel Koshy                                                                                                                                                                 Exposition and Argument: HM                                                                                                                    Erin Kelly                                                                                                                                         Research Paper RD1                                                                                                                           11/17/16

Education and Economy: Breaking the Cycle

            One need only turn on the television, surf the internet, or check any form of social media to see what the biggest problem plaguing American society today is: inequality. From the days of institutional slavery to the civil rights movement to the protests and demonstrations happening outside our own windows, inequality and unfair treatment seem to be problems we just cannot solve. These kind of social inequalities, while partly driven by personal bias and prejudice, can also be attributed to economic, or income inequality. Every group which finds itself on the fringes of society categorically receives fewer economic opportunities, on average earns lower income, and has less buying power and financial stability. These monetary factors drive social ones and cause inequality in other various aspects of life. Solving income inequality is therefore the first step in curing rampant racism, sexism, etc. The causes of income inequality can be traced back to the classroom, as it is there where children are prepared for future careers that will provide the income they receive as adults. The income inequality reflects an educational imbalance between different groups of people. Somewhat ironically, the determining factor of one’s quality of education appears to be income itself. Poorer neighborhoods send kids to poorer schools, while those from well-off households have access to not only better school districts, but also infinitely more educational opportunities. Various, current studies and research indicate a correlation between level of income and quality of education, however my research seeks to show both causality and a cyclical pattern between how much a person makes and the education he or she receives. High paying jobs do not seek out qualified candidates from the general population of neighborhoods and schools. Instead, they seem to pull the vast majority of their employees from the same few colleges and universities, which only take students from well-performing school districts. Essays such as Cathy Davidson’s “Project Classroom Makeover,” Karen Ho’s “Biographies of Hegemony,” and Andrew Solomon’s “Son” together support the existence of this rich-get-richer-while-poor-get-poorer cycle while also providing a potential solution. If education plays such a substantial part in the level of societal inequality, can we then alter the education systems to repair the damage and promote equality instead. My research will attempt to support this claim as well.

            Stemming from the controversy involving how kids living in the same country, even the same state or city, receive very different educations, research indicates a correlation between poverty and slower learning rate and capability (Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, & Maczuga, 2009). In their article they cite other research suggesting the low-income communities lose out to their affluent counterparts when it comes to educational resources such as books, supplies, technology, grants, etc. Offering an explanation for this phenomenon, Davidson shares how the education system is currently designed in a way that solidifies disproportionate opportunities.  Davidson discusses how education in America has been structured to build worker drones to fill the needs of the labor force. This idea can be extrapolated to say that school systems breed adults who fill the roles society has for them. Poor communities filled with unemployed adults and minimum wage workers produce more manual laborers or simply discourage kids from learning and encourage them to drop out and find odd jobs, while affluent communities made up of white-collar workers tend to produce doctors, lawyers, and other highly technical and highly paid individuals.  Ho makes a similar argument in “Biographies of Hegemony” that higher education merely keeps the power and wealth dynamic where it is by offering those who already have economic privilege even greater economic mobility and does nothing to provide those opportunities to those near the bottom so they too can climb the ladder of success. This continual cycle creates a feedback loop that merely makes income inequality an institution in this country. It is wired into the way the world works. In order to fix it, we must tear out the wires.

Andrew Solomon, in his essay, “Son,” describes how social norms and cultural acceptance are bred in classrooms. Changing the attitude and atmospheres in schools can create cultures of tolerance in society at large. This idea can be expanded to show that changing the way schools and the education process works in this country can reverse the deleterious impact it has had thus far. Davidson’s essay also provided evidence to suggest that changing the way education operates in this country, even in tiny ways, can having lasting impacts on society. The iPod experiment she employed not only helped produce numerous educational applications and uses for the device, but also fostered a greater interest in open-ended learning in the students. This process repeated could be used to create workers who think creatively and collaboratively. So, by creating a system that does not favor the wealthy, and in fact does not take economic status into consideration at all, we can actually build an American society in which income, education, health, and social inequalities are things of the past.

Works Cited

Davidson, Cathy. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Miller, Richard E. and Kurt Spellinger. The New Humanities Reader. 5^th ed. United States of America: Cenage Learning, 2015. 48-68.

Ho, Karen. “Biographies of Hegemony.” Miller, Richard E. and Kurt Spellinger. The New Humanities Reader. 5^th ed. United States of America: Cenage Learning, 2015. 165-191.

Solomon, Andrew. “Son.” Miller, Richard E. and Kurt Spellinger. The New Humanities Reader. 5^th ed. United States of America: Cenage Learning, 2015. 368-391.

Morgan, P. L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., & Maczuga, S. (2009). Risk factors for learning-related behavior problems at 24 months of age: Population-based estimates. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37, 401-413.

Resesarch Paper RD

Research Paper Intro

In the United States, women have fought toward equality for years, a clear example being the fight for women’s suffrage from the late 1910s through the early 1920s. In the century since then, the fight of equality has shifted toward matters of work and home life, abolishing the idea that women could not maintain a job and have a family (“History of the Women’s Rights Movement”). However, this movement of equality has overlooked one crucial freedom: the freedom to express one’s sexuality. Sexuality is the psychological and physical opinions one has concerning sex in regards to themselves, and sexual expression is how a person chooses to display and/or satisfy their sexuality. Due to the neglection of sexuality in the fight for equality, modern society evolved to be more open-minded for women being equal to men in most other areas, while a disapproving double-standard (an attitude “which is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups”) that favors males’ sexuality and restricts that of females persisted from generation to generation (“Double Standard”). Researchers who have looked at this subject have shown that in terms of sexuality, there is a clear gap between what is acceptable for males versus females. While society accepts a man’s sexuality, often expecting higher levels of activity, the same can not be said for the attitude towards a woman’s sexuality. Leslie Bell’s research in her essay “Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom” shows the overarching pattern of confusion among real women on how they have expressed their sexuality, but felt insecure about doing so. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research into the explanation for this double-standard, despite this being a crucial aspect needed for women to gain social equality. Drawing from the ideals of Andrew Solomon and Michael Moss, it is the influence of a person’s family, friends, and media that perpetuates the stigma that women, like those Bell speaks about, should not express their sexuality. The significant amount of time parents and other authority figures, as well as friends, during a child’s development start molding the child’s opinions to be similar to that of the parent. Then, the media’s portrayal of women, often as either overly sexual or prudish, hinder the younger generation’s ability to think of the average women as having a balance between the two extremes.

Society teaches young girls that sexual feelings are a healthy and normal part of life, yet it disapproves of women who develop with a higher sex drive as they get older. In her book A Return to Modesty, Wendy Shalit describes how her school began teaching sex education in fourth grade, so when she was about nine or ten (Shalit 15-16). Shalit’s school is one of the many that offer sex education to prepubescent children. These lessons focus on preparing the kids on the changes that will happen to them in the next few years. Teachers discuss physical changes, relationships, and sexuality, emphasizing how the changes are natural and no one should be embarrassed, yet in ten years time, almost all of the girls will feel insecure about their sexuality. In “Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” Leslie Bell describes the story of “good girl”  Alicia, a woman who “knew what she wanted from sex and actively fantasized about it…[but did not] share those desired with the men with whom she was in relationships” (Bell 31). Alicia most likely attended a school that offered a program where she was taught that those feelings were normal, so why does she still feel uncomfortable? Alicia and women in positions similar to hers feel like this because of the double-standard surrounding sexuality in young adults. In an attempt to explain the double-standard, Mildred Weil, writer of Sex and Sexuality: From Repression to Expression, states “The conservative version...states that women who engage in premarital intercourse are to be condemned...while men have the right to engage in premarital coition” (Weil 22). This expectation for sexuality and sexual expression completely undermines the fight toward social equality by placing men and women in two separate boxes, each with a limited view. Women can no longer utilize their twenties as a time of sexual exploration or freedom, unless they want to risk being shamed by society as too promiscuous, or a “being a slut” (Bell 27). The removal this double-standard requires an understanding of how it has continued from generation to generation.

The unconscious transfer of ideals from parents, or other authority figures (a school teacher for example), to child ingrains a large part of the double-standard into children. From birth to their twenties, a child most likely spends a majority of their time with their parents. As they grow and become more aware of their surroundings, they look to their parents as a moral guide. Teaching them what is right, wrong, socially acceptable, and what is unacceptable. Most parents realize this to the point of teaching their kids where to poop, how to eat, and play nice. However, guardians do not realize that this system of teaching occurs even when they are not intending to give their child a lesson. In his essay “Son,” Andrew Solomon relays the story from his childhood when he and his mother were at a store and Solomon had a choice of either a pink balloon or a blue balloon. He wanted the pink one, but after his mother’s intervention he took the blue one (Solomon 374). While his mother was simply trying to protect him from the judgmental system of society. Her influence on the decision perpetuated the stereotype that boys can not like the color pink as it is a girl color. Societal norms like these depend on the parent reinforcing them onto their impressionable child so they appear normal and fit in with others. Regardless of whether it is a boy having a pink balloon or female sexuality, if parents continue reinforce the expectation, the system will not change, even if the original reasoning becomes lost or extremely outdated.

The media also plays a hand in perpetuating the stigmatization of women’s sexuality.  Due to the internet, society’s connection to each other has exponentially increased. It has also facilitated the ability for the entertainment industry or other media to reach a larger audience. Nowadays, most people over fifteen have at least one social media account and/or a way to watch television shows or movies, either online or on cable. With such high levels exposure, teenagers are almost forced to base their opinions of certain topics off of what they see.

With the stigmatization of a female’s sexuality, the title of being a modern, open-minded society must remain hopeful goals for the future.

research paper RD1

Marc Anthony Novillo

Exposition & Argument

Erin Kelly

November 15, 2016

Research Paper Intro

            “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality” ~Jules de Gaultier.

The power of the mind is one of the most beautiful, complex, interesting and fascinating systems known to mankind, where it is indeed possible for the fantastical to exist. The mind is an extremely powerful agent against the evils of reality such that it is built with defense mechanisms that encourage the formation of such outlandish yet comforting strands of a story. These stories are put together by our minds in an attempt to escape the fears and anxieties of the here and now. The brain can be rewired to perform these processes, so much so that the senses can be enhanced when approached with physical trauma such as blindness. “The Mind’s Eye,” by Oliver Sacks, details how the brain physically rewires itself to compensate for blindness, exemplifying the physiological and biological feats the brain can perform in order to operate at full potential. Similarly, Robert Thurman’s “Wisdom” discusses the importance of being open to the ever-changing environment and allowing for experience to mold a person into a specific “self.” This molding is one of many rewiring techniques of the brain, suggesting a certain plasticity evident in the minds and brains of everyone, assuming the person has a healthy and normal brain. Plasticity, rewiring, and molding all contribute to the manner in which humans biologically cope dissociatively, as mentioned in “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday,” by Martha Stout. The idea of a divided consciousness is present in everyone who has experienced trauma at some point in their lives. Divided consciousness, the separation of mind from reality, allows for a temporary state of imagination where all is typically okay, and this serves as the basis of an example of how humans cope with trauma and issues such as stress, emotional damage, mental challenges, etc. The imagination is an escape route; the mind presents an opportunity to step out of reality and enter a realm of bliss and eternal possibilities. With that, the deep inner minds of people are reflections of the true self, the true person a human is but will never be fully understood as. The way a person thinks, feels, interacts, and emotes reflects the imaginative and dissociative mind of the individual; a mind so affected by the trauma and issues once experienced.

            In a very linear sense, before a complex interaction occurs between humans, a physical, biological, and chemical factor must be played out. “The amygdala receives sensory information from the five senses, via the thalamus, attaches emotional significance to the input, and then passes along this emotional “evaluation” to the hippocampus. In accordance with the amygdala’s “evaluation” of importance, the hippocampus is activated to a greater or lesser degree, and functions to organize the new input, and to integrate it with already existing information about similar sensory events. Under a normal range of conditions, this system works efficiently to consolidate memories according to their emotional priority” (Stout, 421). What this means is that all information is tagged with an emotional significance, a ticket saying “this is how I felt when this happened.” Every event and action, stimulus and trigger presented after a specific moment is tagged a certain way and the emotion experienced is now fundamentally the associated trait of the action. Each and every time a similar stimulus is presented, the associated emotion is recalled and retrieved. As a prioritization tool, the brain will organize memories based on emotional importance. Psychologically, the brain can “remember” events that never actually happened in an effort to make a cohesive story out of the bits and pieces that are missing from long term memory. In a physical sense, electrical signals are sent just like normal recall, with chemical signals being induced and emotional memories being formed. In a complex sense, the imagination will form vivid representations of what should have or what one wanted to happen. This occurs to make sense of old memories and cope with events that bring about many strong emotions. Events that call forth strongly felt emotions will conduct an interesting process in the mind. What one felt at the moment will affect the perception of the actual situation, forming strands of made-up memories of things that never actually happened, simply based on the fact that a certain emotion was felt strongly at the time. For example, person A and person B may get into a heated argument and person B may say, “Nothing will get resolved if we don’t think rationally.” Nothing is particularly wrong with that statement, but if person A interpreted those words as “You’re irrational and won’t let me solve the issue,” then they may easily ‘remember’ person B calling them irrational and using hurtful or offensive words. Even if it did not happen, it is remembered that way, and this is a simple coping mechanism when it comes to threatening or traumatic experiences (not necessarily petty arguments). When the situation is in regards to something traumatic, for example a divorce, remembering the situation as being completely against you is a coping mechanism that the brain naturally activates. In other words, no matter whose “fault” it may have been, it is a completely normal and acceptable process to first say, “It was their fault, not mine!” That is simply a stage that is necessary to first calm the many mixed emotions flowing through the mind and body. Of course, this is not an excuse for prolonging of said stage!

            Communicating issues to others serve as a temporary buffer for emotional pain, but the most important player in the game of self-healing is imagination. “…exposure to trauma may temporarily shut down Broca’s area…the means by which we most often relate our experience to others, and even to ourselves” (Stout 421). Not knowing how to relay emotions calls for a mechanism to be practiced that is tailored to the individual, built so in a way that makes an individual feel best because of its specific and personal qualities. That mechanism is of course imagination. The way a person will relate the experience to himself/herself will be through interests, a certain comfortable medium that does not ignore the experience and its pain, but does indeed make it interesting and slightly easier to cope with. For example, a comic book fan might look at a terrible situation such a domestic violence as a superhero. Acting like the hero themselves in their own head, they may interpret the situation as a battle with a villain and that though they may be down now, someday they will win the fight. This imaginary response does not deny the fact that damage is present but it allows for a more positive outlook of the future of the ordeal.

Rough Draft 1

Emily Montgomery

Exposition and Argument Section HM

Erin Kelly

Research Paper Rough Draft #1

17 November 2016

The essential difference between humans and all other animals is human ability to self-reflect and recognize one’s own existence. Why, then, do humans treat different animals differently. Animal welfare is a major ethical issue in society and there are many areas in which conditions for animals should and can be improved. Humans are capable of thinking of themselves as humans and also thinking about the consequences of their actions on others. Therefore, humans are consciously treating some animals much better than others. We treat our companion animals as part of our families, some pets even live better lives than many humans. Contrastly, we treat livestock as if they were not even alive, with cruel and inhumane techniques in order to maximize profit and time. These conditions are described by Peter Singer and Jim Mason in “Meat and Milk Factories”. Additionally, as Charles Siebert exemplifies in “An Elephant Crackup?”, our wild animals are captured or disrupted rather in many cases rather than protected or left alone. What causes this discrepancy between treatment and type of animal? Humans feel more ethically responsibility toward animals they perceive as more human-like but these human-like characteristics can also be overlooked to fulfill another purpose, such as monetary gain. The treatment of animals is entirely reliant on an individual’s ethical morals and ability to recognize the animal as a living thing much like oneself. Many factors contribute to a person’s individual ethical views. The reasons for animal abuse and mistreatment can be used to combat the problem. In order to lead people to respect and proper treatment of all animals, the people must see the animals as similar to themselves. This is important because animals deserve fair and humane treatment just as humans do.

Humans feel more inclined to treat beings that they relate to better than those that they do not relate with. Humans are inherently selfish beings, as all organisms are, which leads us to care predominantly about ourselves and others similar to us. This causes a stronger ethical responsibility toward animals that we associate with and a separation from animals that may not be as obviously similar to us.

Humans treat companion animals so well because we attribute human-like qualities to them. We regard our pets as members of our families with individual names, personalities, and lives. We treat our companion animals as if they were humans. Pet humanization is extremely populars, especially among the more fortunate and wealthy. This trend is transforming the pet product industry. A PR Newswire article discusses how “Humanization is a natural expression of the "pets as family" trend, whereby pet owners treat their pets like children and are highly receptive to products similar to the ones they use for themselves”. Because our pets live with us and are such an integral part of our life, they are treated as if they are humans and given human-like characteristics that they may not even possess. Dogs are often described as loyal, and unconditionally loving. In studies regarding the bond humans and dogs feel between one another, it was revealed that dogs experience a rise in oxytocin when interacting with humans and wolves, dogs closest wild relatives, do not experience this. As Nagasawa and others note in the study, “dogs show distinctly different behavior toward caregivers as compared with hand-raised wolves” (Nagasawa et al. 334). Wolves are wild animals which do not develop a chemical bond with humans while our pet dogs demonstrate this rise in oxytocin from gazing into human’s eyes.

Humans do not treat wild animals as well because they do not relate to their way of life. Humans do not develop a mutual bond with wild animals, nor do they interact with them regularly which leads most people to simply not care much about animals in the wild. Siebert discussed something known as the the “Human-Elephant Conflict” which is basically the increase in elephant aggression due to the disruption of familial bonds from poaching, habitat loss, and other human-caused factors. Elephants exhibit familial bonds comparable or even greater than many humans. They also mourn their dead similarly to humans. Siebert explains how “elephants of decimated herds, especially orphans who’ve watched  the death of their parents and elders from poaching and culling, exhibit behavior typically associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders in humans” (Siebert 530). The aggression and damage in elephants is directly caused by humans. Additionally, the elephants are demonstrating characteristics similar to a human that had gone through the same kind of trauma.

Humans do not treat farm animals well at all because they deliberately de-animalize them to justify mistreating them in order to efficiently produce cost-effective products. There is evidence that many livestock species display just as much intelligence and compassion as companion animals, mainly dogs. As Singer explains in his essay “Pigs are affectionate, inquisitive animals… capable of doing everything a dog can do…” (Singer 546). He goes on to explain how pigs have even been trained to operate video games and that they are fast learners. Despite all of this, the treatment of pigs is entirely unethical when compared to the way we treat dogs. There are no laws regulating livestock welfare while on the farm and there are exemptions in the laws that do exist for “common farming practices”. The farming industry is no doubt important and essential, but it is not ethical to place the efficient production of food over the basic welfare of animals. Even the terminology used in the farming industry is aimed at distancing humans from livestock. Instead of saying give birth we label it farrowing and animals are not referred to as pregnant, but instead they are “gestating”. Workers at factory farms are shown to completely remove themselves from the idea of killing a living thing and simply think of the animals as a commodity rather than an animal like oneself. In “It’s Just a Jobs” Hamilton and McCabe describe how factory farm inspectors also look past the ethics of factory farming and “displayed an intriguing, apparently unemotional and almost ‘mechanized’ disregard for the chickens they were indirectly involved in killing.”

There are exceptions to each claim, but the general trends in animal welfare in relation to species is an important issue that needs to be resolved. While there are cases of animal abuse in companion animals, and there are farm sanctuaries where livestock species can live happily, these are the outliers not the norms, which is why we need to work toward the humane treatment of all animals.  

The best way to change people's view of animals and thus, the mistreatment of animals, is to portray them as relatable to humans. Humans will be more inclined to treat all animals with kindness and humanity if they are able to see how alike we are to them. The de-animalization of farm animals leads to the masking of the human-like characteristics they possess, such as intelligence and compassion. Additionally, animals in the wild are similar to humans in more ways than many think. They have complex societies and relationships. In order to promote animal welfare, humans need to stop considering animals as products for human use and consumption and just recognize them as animals just as we are.

Rough Draft Research Paper Zack Larmer

Zack Larmer

Exposition and Argumentation: Section HM
Erin Kelley
1 Nov 2016

Research Proposal Final Draft 1: The Modern Relationship and Social Media

The topic of this paper is essentially the ideas of “love”, or “an intense feeling of deep affection” and the ways in which modern technology - specifically social media, or “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking” - can affect the ways in which we give and receive it through the “relationships” (primarily “serious intimate relationships” or relationships involving physical or emotional intimacy which have been ongoing for several years) which social media affects. This topic will cover the common held beliefs about “love” and will describe it as something  much simpler than the “butterflies in your chest, warm feeling” that people often think of “love” as by looking at the idea of “love” and the reasons why we form certain bonds with certain people from a scientific standpoint, focusing primarily on biology and psychology. My paper will also expand on social media and the ways in which it can impact our idea of “love” and whom we give it to.  Essentially, my essay will probe the question, how has social media redefined our understanding of love and relationships (again, primarily in regards to “serious intimate relationships), with one another and the ways - both positive and negative - in which it can affect existing relationships between us? A secondary question which my paper may focus on is how does social media affect the ways in which we sexually identify ourselves? That part may be added later on depending on the amount of data I’m able to find regarding my primary and that secondary topic
            The biggest controversy here is the idea of “love” in itself. “Love” is often romanticized and made exclusive to one or two “special people” in your life, but looking at the idea of “love” from a scientific standpoint, one which focuses specifically on the psychological and biological processes that create this feeling, I will take a side that refutes these common held beliefs regarding “love” and discuss how the very thing we think we make exclusive to one or two people in our lives is actually something which we display to almost everyone we regularly interact with, including those we interact with through social media. This leads to the hypothesis of how this very uncontrollable, unpredictable, yet very prevalent emotion can not only allow us to form relationships with others which can become intimate and last several years (hence, becoming “serious intimate relationships”), but can also damage the relationships we already have established and that social media can be a contributor to either of those ideas.

The way in which I will address these ideas is first by understanding the biological processes that control the emotion in question and psychological aspects regarding the emotion shown in children, and the means through which they contribute to our making of relationships. The essay, “Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become” by Barbara Fredrickson discusses these biological processes by examining three main contributors to this emotion - oxytocin, your vaus nerve (both of which will be described later in the essay), and the human brain.  “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other” by Sherry Turkle discusses the psychological effects of digital programs and machines designed to act life-like on humans, specifically children, by analyzing the way in which children interact with different toys and what they deem as “living” or “nonliving”. This will be used to describe how a desire for affirmation can be overwhelming to some who will look anywhere to find that sense of safety and social media parallels this idea of finding affirmation in nonliving bots and has implications for the future of relationships. I will additionally refer to outside sources such as the Health Hormone Network, Nature, statistics presented by the Pew Research Center regarding online dating and social media, sources to be determined which contradict my own ideas for a sense of contrast within the essay, as well as other sources yet to be determined, all of which will ultimately support my own ideas.

            Both Barbara Fredrickson and Sherry Turkle discuss what causes the emotional aspects of relationships, but from different viewpoints. Fredrickson analyzes the biological aspects which create the feeling of “love”, contributing this emotion to a combination of a chemical in our brain known as oxytocin, a specific nerve known as the vagus nerve, and the brain itself.

            Oxytocin, is a chemical “produced by the hypothalamus and secreted by pituitary gland” which plays an important role not only in childbirth, but also plays roles in “human behaviors and social interaction” such as “recognition, sexual arousal, trust, anxiety, and even stress levels” (What Does Oxytocin Do?). While oxytocin plays a role in all of these things, it’s not constantly at a high level in your body. Oxytocin fluctuates in concentration within your body over time and thus affects your decision making and behavior per situation. An experiment described by Fredrickson and published by Nature utilized an oxytocin nasal spray and a placebo nasal spray to affect how much money investors would give to trustees with the chance of not getting any money in return at all or of receiving back a higher amount than they gave. According to this experiment, “trustees [those who received money from investors and had the option to keep all of it or send some back] given oxytocin do not show more trustworthy behaviour [than the placebo groups]” but,  “oxytocin specifically affects the trusting behaviour of investors [those who chose how much money to give to the trustees]” (Oxytocin Increases Trust in Humans). Additionally, the more trusting we are, the more oxytocin our bodies produce - it’s a positive feedback loop of sorts. Oxytocin, however, does not create a sort of “blind trust” within us, but rather largely controls our “fight-or-flight” response and the capacity of our trust which we’re willing to give. According to Fredrickson, “[oxytocin] heightens your attunement to cues that signal whether others are sincere or not. Through eye contact and close attention to all manner of smiles-and the embodied simulations such visual intake triggers-your gut instincts about whom to trust and whom not to trust become more reliable...oxytocin helps you pick up on cues that signal another person’s goodwill and guides you to approach them with your own” (Fredrickson 116). Oxytocin can essentially sharpen your ability to tell whether someone is being genuine or not and help you evaluate how to act in different situations as a result of those feelings it inspires. Oxytocin plays a key role in determining whether or not we can trust someone, but it’s not the only biological factor affecting our ability to build relationships with one another.

The second biological factor mentioned by Fredrickson which controls the “love” we have for one another is the vagus nerve. The main functions of your vagus nerve, according to Fredrickson, include helping you make better eye contact with the person with whom you’re speaking, it allows you to time different facial expressions in conjunction with the other person, and even shifts your ears slightly so you can hear someone better. In essence, your vagus nerve controls how socially flexible and adaptable you are through something called your vagal tone. Vagal tone is a sign of how well your vagus nerve works, as determined “by tracking your heart rate with your breathing rate” (Fredrickson 118). The higher your vagal tone, the more adaptable you are in social situations, the more control you have over your emotions, and it also results in a “higher loving potential” (Fredrickson 119). Your vagal tone is important for successful social interactions and building relationships with others, but your brain is also a large contributor to this success.

An experiment described by Fredrickson studied how brain activity between a speaker and listener can resemble one another with a slight delay, and how the listener’s brain can even make anticipatory decisions of which areas the speaker’s brain will be active in the next coming second or two to successfully mirror and synchronize with it. The synchronization of brain activity – between speaker and listener – is known as “neural coupling” and the more synchronized the activity of your brains, the more attuned to the other person you are. The abstract, published by Harvard Business Review, describes how a story told by a student within an fMRI machine (functional magnetic resonance imaging machine used to make detailed images of your organs and tissues) which tracked the storyteller’s brain activity was later played back for listeners who also had their brain activity monitored. After hearing the story, those who had more synchronized brain activity with the brain activity of the speaker, were able to recall more details from the story than those who had less synchronization. The more the listener’s brain activity synchronized with the speaker’s, the more they “clicked”, and the more the listener enjoyed the story. While Fredrickson primarily concerns herself with the biological functions that create the unique feeling of love we’ve all experienced, Turkle concerns herself primarily with the psychological effects love has on us.

Turkle begins her essay with a personal anecdote of the mid 1970’s when she spent studying under, and later co-teaching with a Joseph Weizenbaum. They worked with computer bots – or programs that were designed to act life-like. The bot they primarily worked with, ELIZA, was able to recognize strings of words and spit out a response based on those words. “To ‘My mother is making me angry,’ the program might respond, ‘Tell me more about your mother,’ or perhaps, ‘Why do you feel so negatively about your mother?’” (Turkle 458). Being a computer program, ELIZA didn’t actually understand relationships, emotions and titles such as “mother” or “angry”, but it still managed to seem lifelike enough that students soon began to use ELIZA as a method of venting, describing incidents that happened in their life that are worrying them or that upset them. Despite ELIZA not being human, it’s ability to analyze words and produce a response, which may seem genuine coming from a real human being, students felt connected to it. Fredrickson would hold that even though a bot can’t have brain activity, the results of its responses resemble the aforementioned story-telling experiment that studied neural coupling. By getting a sort of affirmation from something that seems just life-like enough, the students’ brains were active in areas that would be active had they been talking to another real person. Additionally, this sort of affirmation and venting could increase levels of oxytocin within the students to help them calm down and momentarily forget some of their troubles because as mentioned before, the more trusting we are, the more oxytocin our bodies produce and since oxytocin in part regulates our stress levels, venting to a computer could have a positive impact on the emotional state of the students venting at that very moment. In essence, the students were creating an emotional bond with ELIZA – they were showing signs of love for a computer.