#Social Psych

[charliemaybeghost]

Crowley, Aziraphale and McGrae's Trait Perspective.

(I have a psych test coming up this is the only way I can study.)

The first trait is Openess, which is how happy you are to experience change and new things, if you're happy to face challenges, and if you're creative. Crowley scores higher here than Az I think, especially with the magic scene where he shoots a gun for the first time and is worried about shooting Az but does it anyway. Compared to Az thinking he's going to fall for lying once. (poor baby). Az is however quite open to anything if Crowley tempts him long enough.

Conscientiousness - being well prepared, having a set structure, being detail oriented, spending time planning. I think Aziraphale more than Crowley for this one because of how well he planned the ball, and was very goal oriented with his selling of books (anything to dance with Crowley apparently). Then again Az did go to France during the revolution for crepes. (unless it was all along a secret plan to be rescued by crowley).

Extroversion- tbh they both score quite low. they don't have very developed social groups, not very many close friends, they don't particularly like new people. But Az would score higher because he likes people watching him do magic even when he fails spectacularly and he has more conversations with random humans than Crowley seems to. Although Crowleys glowering distaste for the people they do interact with might be mostly jealousy. and because he just expects to be let down by everyone - not good enough for heaven not evil enough for hell :( and now not even accepted by Az. abandoned by everyone he's ever loved and cared for.

Agreeableness- this includes trust, which Az has in God and Crowley. Affection (watch how many times he reaches for Crowley at the slightest chance.) Kindness ("I think mynexactly is different from your exactlt" - Az helps anyone even the guy that tried to kill him), Altruism, and other prosocial behaviours also come under this. Crowley ofc would get in trouble for being too nice so this makes since. (he still does try though. and then get tortured for it :/ ) but his lunched at the Ritz and trying to get Az to stay over - very affectionate

Neuroticism - Crowley all the way. Gets upset easily? mood swings? sad and anxious? (my poor child), worried about everything (reading the magic manual, fire extinguishers, hating Gabriel, etc. He isn't particularly afraid of discorporations though it seems, compared to Az-"drive slower!"-iraphale. Az is more worried about upsetting heaven though. tbh they are both very anxious.

[er-cryptid]

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Obviously we have to wait for the video to know the story, but for anyone who’s studied any kind of social history/psychology/sociology/etc. And knows a little about the diagnosis of hysteria, Victorian mores, the use of lobotomies/shock therapy/etc to treat women who failed to live up to patriarchal ideals and the minimizing of women’s physical and mental health issues historically in the medical and psychiatric fields plus the old Hollywood of it all… the imagery is Telling The Story. I am fucking SEATED.

[somepinkthing]

tim and damian are the exact same level of annoying-know-it-all.

Tim is definitely an 🤓umactually type BUT he can concede a point once proven wrong.

Damian is far less likely to 🤓👆 BUT he has a big ol' superiority complex and would rather start a physical fight than concede a point.

Together, they r a whole menace. The most annoying entity in your college class. Truly powerful stuff. They can clear a room just by holding a civil (well they think it's civil) conversation.

[reasonsforhope]

"It's easy to lose touch with friends, especially when you live far apart. And sometimes the longer you've gone without speaking to someone, the harder it feels to pick up where you left off. However, a new study suggests that reaching out to pals—especially ones that you have not talked to in a while—is even more appreciated than initially thought.

“People are fundamentally social beings and enjoy connecting with others. Yet, despite the importance and enjoyment of social connection, do people accurately understand how much other people value being reached out to by someone in their social circle?” the study asks. To answer this question, the authors gathered 5,900 participants and put them through a series of experiments.

In one scenario, half of the participants were asked to remember the last time they contacted a friend they had fallen out of touch with, then estimate on a seven-point scale how appreciative the person was (with one being the lowest score, and seven being the highest). Then, the other half of the participants were prompted to recall a time when someone had reached out to them and assign a number to how grateful they were. When these two groups were compared, the researchers found that people greatly underestimated the value of reaching out to someone.

“Across a series of preregistered experiments, we document a robust underestimation of how much other people appreciate being reached out to,” the authors continue. “We find evidence compatible with an account wherein one reason this underestimation of appreciation occurs is because responders (vs. initiators) are more focused on their feelings of surprise at being reached out to. A focus on feelings of surprise in turn predicts greater appreciation.”

In another experiment, participants were told to send a note and small gift to a friend they had not interacted with for a long period of time. They were then asked to estimate on a numerical scale how thankful the person would be because of the contact. Additionally, the receivers of the gifts were asked to rank their feelings upon accepting the gift on the same seven-number scale. Once again, the gift-givers greatly underestimated how much their gesture meant to the other person.

The study concluded that reaching out to people—particularly those that you've lost contact with—is almost always appreciated. It can seem challenging to maintain healthy social interactions, especially due to an increased amount of people working from home and a lack of opportunities. But clearly, the evidence suggests that a little extra effort is worth it.

“For those treading back into the social milieu with caution and trepidation,” the study adds, “feeling woefully out of practice and unsure, our work provides robust evidence and an encouraging green light to go ahead and surprise someone by reaching out.”"

-via My Modern Met, 7/31/22

[daegu-based-terrorist]

“Why did moving to South Korea ruin your body image?”

(North Korean posters and actresses on the left and South Korean ads on the right)

[hyperlexichypatia]

One of the most common criticisms of "housing first" initiatives (programs to provide housing for unhoused people unconditionally without gatekeeping) is that housing first "does not improve mental health."  Now, let's set aside for the moment that this criticism is irrelevant -- the purpose of housing is to provide shelter, not to "improve mental health" -- what definition of "mental health" could possibly make this true? As much as I try to critique and deconstruct the social construction of "mental health," how could it possibly be true that having a safe, assured place to live would not result in greater happiness, greater inner peace, less depression, less anxiety, less negative emotions, than living on the street?  What possible definition of "mental health" would not be improved by being housed rather than unhoused?

Answering this requires unpacking the wildly different, almost completely unrelated, definitions of "mental health," one applied to relatively privileged people, and one applied to oppressed people.

For relatively privileged people, the concept of "mental health" is centered on emotional well-being, introspection and self-awareness, and the mitigation or management of negative emotions like pain, depression, anxiety, and anger.

For oppressed people, the concept of "mental health" is centered on compliance, obedience, and productivity.

Like most privilege disparities, this isn't binary. For most people who are privileged in some ways and marginalized in other ways, "mental health support" will include some degree of the emotional support given to privileged people, and some degree of the compliance and productivity training given to oppressed people, with the proportions varying on where exactly each person falls on various privilege axes.  All children are oppressed by ageism, so all children's "mental health" has some elements promoting compliance, obedience, and productivity. But relatively privileged children may also receive some emotional support mixed in, while children of color, children in poverty, and children with existing neurodivergence labels will receive a much higher ratio of compliance training to emotional support.

One of the clearest illustrations of this disparity is the contrast between the "self-care" recommended to privileged people, and the "meaningful days" imposed on oppressed people.

Relatively privileged people are often told, by therapists, doctors, mental health culture, and self-help books, that they are working too hard and need to rest more. They're told that for the sake of their mental health, they need work-life balance, self-care, walks in the woods, baths with scented candles. Implicit in these recommendations is that the reason these people are working too hard is because of internal factors, like guilt or emotional drive, rather than external factors, like needing to pay the bills and not being able to afford a day off.

By contrast, unhoused people, institutionalized people, people labeled with "severe" or "serious" or "low-functioning" mental disabilities, are literally prescribed labor. Publicly funded "mental health initiatives" require the most marginalized members of society to work tedious jobs for little or no pay, under the premise that loading boxes at a warehouse will make their days "meaningful" and thus improve their "mental health." And unlike the self-care advice given to relatively privileged people, the forced-labor-for-your-own-good approach is not optional. People are either forced into it directly by guardians or institutions, or coerced into it as a precondition to access material needs like housing and food.

The form of "mental health" applied to relatively privileged people has some genuinely useful and beneficial elements. We could all stand to introspect and examine our own feelings more, manage our negative emotions without being overwhelmed by them, have self-confidence. We all need rest and self-care.

Still, privileged mental health culture, even at its best, is deeply flawed. At best, it tends to encourage a degree of self-centeredness and condescension. It's obsessed with classifying experiences as "trauma" or "toxic." It's one of the worst culprits in feeding the "long adolescence" phenomenon and generally perpetuating the idea that treating people as incompetent is doing them a kindness. Even the best therapists serving the most privileged clients have a strong tendency towards gaslighting and "correcting" people about their own feelings and desires.

But perhaps the worst consequence of privileged mental health culture is that it gives cover to the dehumanizing, abusive, compliance-oriented "mental health care" forced upon the most marginalized people. Privileged people are encouraged to universalize their experiences with sentiments like "We all deal with mental health" or assume that the mild, relatively benign "mental health care" they experienced are the norm, so what are those silly mad liberation people complaining about?

Tonight, I listened to a leader from an agency serving unhoused people talk about how "Everyone struggled with mental health during the pandemic"... and then later mention that their shelter categorically excludes people with paranoid schizophrenia diagnoses. So perhaps "everyone struggles with mental health," but only certain people are categorically excluded from services, from shelter, from autonomy, from basic human rights, because of how their brains happen to work.

As always, it seems like so much effort in the mad liberation/ neurodiversity/ antipsychiatry movement is spent holding the hands of relatively privileged people receiving relatively privileged "mental health care" and reassuring them that we're not trying to take it away from them. Fine, it's great that you like your antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication and your nice therapist who listens to you and your support group. Great. Go live your best life. But that has nothing to do with our fight against forced drugging, forced labor, forced institutionalization, forced poverty. It's not even close to the same "mental health."

[whereserpentswalk]

When I say I want pysch meds to be less stigmatized I don't just mean people should be allowed to talk about the ways meds helped them, or talk about how they used to have depression and then meds cured them. People need to be allowed to talk about the way medication has harmed them and hurt them, about going off of meds, about the way the system forces meds onto people and doesn't care about their well beings, about side effects that most neurotypical people would find horrifying, about not wanting to be on meds, about being on meds but not magically becoming normal. The neurodivergent/mentally ill experience should not be watered down to make people comfortable, and especially not to make people comfortable with the largely neurotypical run medical system that often victimizes us as much as it helps us.

[psyxhic-angels]

I NEED PSYCH MOOTS!

[lazycranberrydoodles]

🎂happy blogaversary!!🎂

EVERY ONE OF MY HUA CHENGS I COULD FIND IN PROCREATE :)

[37q]

"my child is fine" your child is curating their language to be as un-implicating as possible in a future callout post

[neuroticboyfriend]

I lost my fear of/contempt towards bugs because when I was (involuntarily) in the psych ward, there was a fly in the unit. For anyone who doesn't know, psych ward windows don't open. They're bolted shut, and this unit was on the 3rd floor. The doors are also always locked and unless staff are coming in/out (happens less often than you think).

That fly was trapped in there as much as I was. I felt my heart break a little looking at it. We were stuck together - I wasn't alone even when it came to nonhuman living beings. In that moment, all that weird stigma against bugs vanished in me. I hope that fly found its way out, and I hope one day people don't get imprisoned in these places anymore.

[discountscholar]

hi everyone! i'm starting a new post series where i talk about a few relatable concepts from psychology and research, so if you're interested in these niches, you might want to follow this!

without further ado, let's talk about-

self-serving bias

the self-serving bias is a phenomenon in social psychology that is pretty self-explanatory through its name.

we exhibit this bias when we attribute positive qualities like our successes and wins to ourselves, but we attribute negative outcomes or qualities to factors outside of ourselves.

it is called a 'bias' because this attribution is erroneous.

i'll give you an example!

if you had a good exam, you'll say that it went well, or you scored well because you worked hard.

but if you have a bad exam or score a bad result, then you'll attribute it externally and claim that the question paper was difficult, or that the examiner did not like you.

you can also describe this as making excuses for your situation when it is unfavorable and taking credit for favorable situations!

let me know if you have observed this in yourself and the people around you! until next time <3

link to masterpost

[aroaceleovaldez]

do you have any 75% god ocs?? like, children of demigods who have a godly parent

i imagine that it wouldn't be a common thing at all but mixing all of this ancestries it's really fun i love doing it, even if they end up kinda op,, sometimes that's the fun of it yknow

I would prefer to not refer to them by any percentages, because that feels extremely uncomfortable, but yes I have oc legacies who are also direct descendants of deities. I talked about Anton in a previous ask (legacy of Mars, child of Ceres), and I have a legacy of Summanus kid in the works who is also a direct descendant of a wind god, but I haven't decided who exactly yet and I only have one doodle of them because they are a Literal Baby and that one doodle is them as a toddler being tiny and babey.

So let's talk about some rogues I've been working on!

These are my waterfowl lesbians. They are born out of me learning that in some myths, the Graeae can turn into swans and I thought it'd be fun to make an Enyo & Nemesis duo who can both turn into waterfowl, plus I also wanted to make an Enyo & Lua combo kid who can just telekentically throw weapons around, because that's cool. Also just playing around with Enyo kids having fire eyes/demigods with nonhuman traits, because Yes Please. It's just fun. Knives ended up with an Odile/Black Swan theme, just cause I thought it'd be neat and I wanted her to look cool. Anser has some swan Valkyrie theming kinda sprinkled in there just for flavor, ergo the Thor legacy (also just fun for her being super loud + a personal hc of mine about Norse rogues being more common) even though she's a goose, not a swan.

I have plenty of other multi-legacy demigods as well, just not ones who are direct descendants specifically, because a.) I always find it fun to think of how powers and themes would mesh, and b.) I actually have a very specific headcanon that multi-legacies are super common in the First and Second cohorts, due to the whole their-families-are-more-likely-to-live-in-New-Rome thing.

I've actually been bouncing around an idea recently of Roman demigods who are children of lares, because there is mythological precedent for that and technically they are house gods. It's just the mortal parent is probably a New Rome citizen and that's sure to get awkward quick some way or another. There's no way a lar parent can not end up awkward, which is hilarious. I also have a fun OC whose concept is based on the idea of two mortals who moved to New Rome with their demigod partners but one way or another ended up single again and then married each other and had a completely mortal kid who just. Grew up in New Rome and joined the legion anyways. I'm just a big fan of getting really funky with riordanverse ocs.

[elitehoe]

Matt putting in the bio they're never bringing back bte was a threat actually and when I say he will be hearing from my legal team about it I mean that

[creature-once-removed]

I've never seen anyone mention it, but I'm rereading Harrow (just for fun tbh) and we do think that Ianthe kept the luscious portraits of Cyrus and Valancy around because they reminded her of Corona and maybe even Babs, right? tell me I'm not alone with this