Category Archives: Assignment 3

Rosenhan Experiment

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Monica

A couple of says ago I mentioned an experiment that was done in the 70’s (1973 to be exact) in which a small group of people was coached to act “crazy” in order to gain admittance into an insane asylum. Psychologist David Rosenhan published On Being Sane in Insane Places, in which he described his and eight other participants’ experiences in respective psych wards. None of these participants had a history of mental illness. Among those taking part in the experiment were psychologists, a grad student, and a pediatrician.

Once the patients were admitted into the ward (they all went into different types of hospitals with different types of funding), they no longer gave any sign of being mentally ill. There are several things about this article that are interesting.  Most of the participants were diagnosed with schizophrenia (at the public hospitals) and one with manic-depressive psychosis (at the private, better funded hospital, no less), a diagnosis which has a far more optimistic diagnosis, with better outcomes than schizophrenia, according to this article.

Once the participants were labeled as mentally ill, everything they did was attributed to their diagnosis. Rosenhan himself points out that “the perception of his circumstances was shaped entirely on his diagnosis” (on a particular patient’s normal family history, which was manipulated to aid in his diagnosis as schizophrenic.)  One bored participant was though to be nervous, simply because he was pacing the corridor. In a comical anecdote, Rosenhan describes a situation in which, “One psychiatrist pointed to a group of patients who were sitting outside the cafeteria entrance half an hour before lunchtime.  To a group of young residents he indicated that such behavior was characteristic of the oral-acquisitive nature of the syndrome.  It seemed not to occur to him that there were very few things to anticipate in a psychiatric hospital besides eating.” Although it’s easy to assume that this particular psychiatrist, who I’m sure was a learned and esteemed member of the psychiatric community, lacks any and all common sense, it’s easy to see how enshrouded a mental patient can become in his or her label. Rosenhan calls this section The Stickiness of Psychodiagnostic Labels, a title which is all too appropriate. Ironically enough, the only ones who were able to detect the patients as far from crazy, were other patients in the ward. Some of these voiced their suspicions from the get go, accusing the participants of being journalists or professors because of the constant note-taking. They weren’t far off.

Crazy?

On a side note, the study also brought attention to some very unorthodox practices, such as orderlies using excessive force with patients, patients regularly not taking their medication, and the incredible depersonalization that the patients went through on a daily basis. Such treatment would make anyone feel crazy.

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Sidewalk Rage is real!

Posted on August 10, 2011 by LISA CHRISTENSEN

Hey guys. After we left class on monday I was thinking deeper into the social construction of illnesses and the first connection I made was to something I remembered seeing on the news a couple weeks ago. Well with alittle online-searching I found an article (actually a few!) reporting it.

I chose this article out of all the others mainly because it appeared on The Wall Street Journal, a pretty reputable, popular and wide spread publication that reaches millions of people. To summarize, the important parts of the article pretty much say that we now have developed the concept of “sidewalk rage” and defined it as something that, in extreme cases, can signal a psychiatric condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder”. Sidewalk rage is “real” and one scientist has even gone to the extent to develop a “Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale” to help classify the levels of rage people experience. The article mentions how scientists are trying to figure out what it is that really makes people angry so that when it becomes a personal problem it can be helped. “When your emotionally upset, your impared,” says Dr. Leon James from the article (which is perhaps why scientists and doctors are exploring this concept more). The article then goes on to give symptoms, scenarios, and suggestive tips for you to keep your cool on the sidewalk and help prevent sidewalk rage.

OK, to me, this is ridiculous. This is New York City, the streets are crowded, its summertime and hot out, if your in a rush and getting slowed down by a mob of tourists I’m sure EVERYONE has felt frustrated! I believe these are normal, natural feelings given our location and lifestyle! For society to minimize something all the way down to “sidewalk rage” and even associate it at all with a medical condition really seems stupid. Millions of men and women are getting brainwashed with this and can then perhaps use it as an excuse to justify their behavior they do something rash; especially if their reasoning has medical associations! Dont get me wrong if someone is getting mad at people on the sidewalk non stop/everyday I definitely think it could be abnormal (because honestly, its not THAT big of a deal!) but to me, “sidewalk rage” is fake and if its that much of an issue its just plain old rage and will most likely be exhibited in other scenarios throughout life and should be treated for those reasons of its own.

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Surveillance ! (Zhanna Onishchuk)

Posted on August 8, 2011 by

“The Outsiders” has made the point that certain people set the rules, and others are forced to abide by them.  Although we tend to rebel in our minds against the police and the government, we often just accept rules because they seem credible. There’s this new “Smart Meter” technology, an electricity meter to be installed by major electric companies in homes, that is advertised to reduce green house emissions and reduce electric bills. I heard about it from “Lionel’s” Commentary on the WB 11 news. Here’s the video :

Lionel Commentary

Can you believe it ? Now the government is not only surveillance criminals through unethical methods, as per our classmate (@Antonio,) but it is surveillance regular people.  If you do any research about the smart meter, which homeowners probably wont, it is difficult to find out out about the surveillance characteristics that the meter has, all that is advertised is its beneficial bill-reducing capabilities.

How are we supposed to follow rules when they are not justified at all ? We are blinded by everything that the government wants us to hear – and we have done nothing wrong. The government applied bad stigmas to regular people just as much as they do to criminals.   Otherwise, such deception and surveillance would not exist. This is proven over and over again with intrusive privacy legislation that applies to everyone. So are we all really criminals that need to be controlled ? If we look at aourselves as criminals, we can justify breaking laws. Which comes back to the government’s need to surveillance us. This loop will never end !

Zhanna Onishchuk

 

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Racism in America

Posted on August 7, 2011 by laurentio.stan

According to the article by CNN, America still tends to struggle with the issue of racism. Although in the past century several human rights and struggles for equality among classes and races have occurred, it still tends to be in the early developing ages when it comes to racism. White supremacists, still tend to invest their time on hate and plenty of propaganda on white (Aryan) power that dominates the majority of U.S. Unfortunately, as seen in this article, many lives (innocent) tend to be sacrificed for an expired belief (Nazism) that has left it dark spot on history 7 decades ago. I belief that stronger legislation on these hate crimes will lower the level of racism across U.S., but that seems a long way ahead.

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Crying Wolf – False Rape Accusations

Posted on August 7, 2011 by ylukovsky

Rape is a very topic. I believe that any human being that forces themselves onto another, is not worthy of life, air, they are just the lowest scum of the earth.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2007, there were 248,300 victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.1 (These figures do not include victims 12 years old or younger).  That’s almost a quarter million people assaulted each year, and that’s just the one who reported the attacks. Although most people believe that females are the only victims of rape, what they are not aware of is,

“About 3% of American men – a total of 2.78 million men – have experienced a rape at some point in their lifetime” (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006).

Because of these biased beliefs, the judicial system shows favoritism towards women when it comes to these matters. Authorities are much more likely to believe and investigate a woman’s claims of rape then a man’s. Also the jury is more inclined to believe that a man is guilty of rape, and are less likely to convict a woman because it’s difficult to put the woman in the aggressors’ shoes. Also women are the majority of the sexual assault victims, so when it happens to a man its just difficult for people to fathom. Women know this fact and will use it to their advantage. There are women out there who have screamed rape, because they know that most people will not only suspect them of lying, but will fully believe their claims. This puts the man in a very vulnerable position, because it’s basically his words against the women’s and lets be realistic here, most juries will side with the women. Society has labeled the man as the aggressor and the woman the victim when it comes to these matters. The link I provided is a rare instance where a women’s guilt got the best of her and she actually admitted she was lying. The accused was set free, and I personally believe she should be held accountable and be incarcerated herself!  This is just one instance; there are hundreds of men sitting in jail as I am typing this, because of an evil woman’s lies. LIES LIES LIES!!!!!

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Tampering with witness’ testimony

Posted on August 7, 2011 by irina.tyumentseva

The movie about child molesters that we watched in class reminded me off another documentary I watched about wrongly convicted. (its in two parts, part 1 and part 2)

In Law and Psychology class we were looking at the Cotton Case where young woman was raped by guy who broke into her apartment. She identified one person, who after years in prison was released when DNA identification linked rape case to other prisoner. The victim met with the man she mistakenly put into prison, he forgave her and understood how she was made to believe that he was the one who raped her. They wrote the book and toured together. The book and tour was about how police can manipulate victim’s judgment. It can be done through the way questions are stated, or potential offenders positioned in a line-up. In that case it was through how the picture of the same man was shown to the victim in different sets of pictures.

This case, as well as cases of child molesters that we watched in class, shows how different factors can tamper with witness’ memory.  Victims in both cases were in doubt throughout the case trial and were convinced or made to testify false by police. But the Cotton case has another analogy with what we discussed in class, because the convict was eventually released on the base of DNA evidences. We had some discussions in class and on blog about the harm of storing DNA information on people. I personally posted a blog last week that argues against State’s storing of DNA samples from people who commit misdemeanor. The Cotton case may serve as an example of how DNA information help to free innocent people  from jail. It serves as a good example of an opposite side of the argument about the use of DNA in justice.

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“Alone Together”-Shifting Stigma

Posted on August 7, 2011 by laura.szymanski

Everyone knows about the social stigma that crying in public is shameful and embarrassing. From early childhood, we are taught when and where it is appropriate to cry. Boys have this stigma tied more closely to them than girls because it’s taught that boys should never cry. Boys are taught from society and family members, especially from their fathers that if you cry “you’re a sissy.” However, overall crying is viewed by society as a weakness and something that should be done behind closed doors.

This article talks about being “alone together” in NYC. Being “alone together” suggests social isolation in public. There are all these people around us in public but yet we all seem to create our own wall with ipods, cellphones, etc which connects us to a world outside of where we are, creating the illusion of privacy. Therefore, when we see someone crying in public we don’t reach out or say anything, we don’t break through their wall of privacy.

This article ties in with the topic of anonymity versus privacy which we spoke about in the first week of class, however, the author of this article poses the question, “Is public expression of emotions like crying shifting as a stigma and becoming more acceptable due to all of the devices we carry and essentially being “alone together?” It is more likely that we will receive news of a family members death or a break up phone call or text (not cool) and cause us to express our emotions in public. Now if we all understand this then is it more acceptable to express these emotions in public?

Since we are “alone together” and have our own private wall set up then we must feel okay about crying in our own spaces. I don’t know about you but even if I had my ipod on I would still feel weird and embarrassed crying on the subway. I guess I have internalized the stigma that comes along with crying in public. I believe that just because we are “alone together” in NYC doesn’t mean that people still aren’t watching, passing judgment and essentially stigmatizing. What do you think?

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Refusing to Hire

Posted on August 6, 2011 by LISA CHRISTENSEN

Hi guys, I responded to a post on stigma and unemployment and found it interesting so I decided to look alittle further into it. The first thing that came to my mind when trying to relate it to our crime/punishment class was the obvious stigma that comes with being a criminal or ex-criminal. If you think about it, most of the major social-institutions people encounter want to know if you’ve committed a crime. Schools, work, the army, all have typical applications asking you if you have every been convicted of a crime and some even ask if you have ever been arrested! Because once you have, you are labeled. With this label can come an unavoidable stigma; or as Goffman would say, “an attribute that is deeply discrediting” and restricting.

I found this article that I thought was interesting and relevant. The article is pretty recent, and it talks about a request made to outlaw criminal background checks as a tool to screen job applicants because it presents a hiring barrier for minorities. The articles talks about that because hispanics and african americans have higher rates of crime involvement they subsequently suffer an unfair rate of discrimination and it presents a hiring barrier for them.

To me, this is obviously raciest but looking beyond race and more closely at the criminal part of it all I can understand why a potential employer would want to know if they are hiring a criminal or someone who has been involved with crime, but I’m not sure how I really feel about it. Having something on your record pretty much ‘defines you’ to someone who is just looking at you and your credentials on paper. There is the stigma that if you messed up once, your likely to mess up again. However, this isnt always true. I know someone I went to highschool with has a felony on his record from when he was 18 years old and was basically just at the wrong place at the wrong time and he will forever carry the stigma of being a criminal with him. Its hard for him to find a job, many of which are not even available to him anymore even if he wanted (the army, teacher, police officer, etc). I guess thats life but holding that stigma is definitely deeply discrediting and restricting.

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Stigmas and Unemployment?

Posted on August 6, 2011 by antonino.fioretto

I came across this article and it spoke about the relationship between stigmas associated with people who are unemployed. I found it very interesting that unemployment was a stigma. People who have recently been unemployed due to this downward economy are being put in a category and are unable to find jobs. They are faced with the unemployment stigma and employers are not hiring them. Even someone with 15 years experience in one company are being overlooked at because employers are labeling them as lazy and unable to get back into the job market.

I think this is ridiculous but I have had some friends and family who have lost their jobs due to getting laid off and are unable to get a job. One of my friends was working for a company for over 8 years and was unfortunately laid off; she cant even get a job at Starbucks because they feel she is overqualified. At first I didnt understand how that is a bad thing, having 8 years experience, but then I realized that they probably think she was only going to work at Starbucks for the time being until she gets a better corporate job. To an extent this makes sense but I think everyone knows the thousands of people who have been laid off and its not fair. These people who have lost their jobs have not done anything wrong yet they are being labeled and stigmatized as lazy or overqualified. To have lazy people and overqualified people in the same category is absurd. I think everyone needs to be given a chance to get back into the job market and this really should be illegal. I find it fascinating that it is illegal to discriminate against age, race, and sex but its not discrimination for not employing the unemployed.

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Language & How We Label Criminals

Posted on August 5, 2011 by nikhil.wagh

In the following clip, Steven Pinker (a American experimental psychologist) discusses how we use language to show (and sometimes politely “mask”) our emotions and true intentions. He gives the example of a man who is trying to seduce a woman will propose “Would you like to come view my etchings upstairs?” instead of directly asking for sex.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU

His basic point is that language is not always direct. And for a good reason to! For one reason or another (emotions, cultural norms of politeness and etiquette, or institutional rules and requirements) we can not always be direct in our speech. We can not, when pulled over by a traffic cop for speeding, immediately and directly offer him a bribe in return for being let off the hook.

This same indirectness in language and how labels can influence the way we think was discussed in Stuart Hall’s piece that we read, “The Social History of a Moral Panic”. In this piece, Hall’s main point is how the term mugging was adopted by the British from the Americans and led to misperception about a “new wave” of crime that was occurring, all due to the fact that the media adopted the new term “mugging”.

I think a modern day example of how a new term can lead to a misperception of a “new wave” of crime is terrorism. In the past two decades, terrorism has been the go-to word in any foreign policy debate or discussion. Any Islamic, Arabic or Middle Eastern/Asian looking male who commits a crime on western soil is immediately thrown under the label of “terrorist”. However, as we saw with the Norwegian “gunman” Anders Breivik, the media constantly labelled him a “serial killer” “gunman” “assassin” but almost never a “terrorist”!

Why? This could be for many reasons. A superficial analysis of this would lead us to say that the media is racist and only labels brown people terrorists. But this only scratches the surface. One could argue that the media of any market based country has an agenda to cater to the interests of those in power, as Noam Chomsky would argue (this does NOT mean that it caters to those in power in that country specifically. The media could be catering to the interests of a larger, looming superpower). Thus, when Norway’s media fails to label Anders Breivik as a terrorist, it is possible that they are doing so to continue perpetuating a concept of “terrorist” throughout the country of Norway (and the world) as a brown, most likely Islamic fundamentalist who is anti capitalist, anti western and through heavy media implications, anti-freedom and ultimately anti-“good” and therefore evil.

To label Anders Breivik a terrorist then would be mislead to the masses and go against any neo-conservative interventionist agenda to “spread democracy” around the world. This is because terrorist is portrayed as an exogenous threat, that can be solved with the correct institutional building and good-seeking cultural influence from the USA and its followers. Terrorists are NOT portrayed to seem like they can come from next door. And this is why Anders Breivik has not been generally labelled a terrorist. Even though he did terrorize his own people and his argument was ideologically and irrationally based, he is still a westerner. And it would be inconsistent on the media’s part to label him a terrorist.

I think that the video I showed hits on an important point. At minute 3:30, Steven Pinker discusses Alan Fiske and his concept of how language is used in 3 different universal settings of 1) dominance 2)communality or 3)reciprocity. I think this selective use of the term “terrorist” fits under communality as it is used to help the masses interpret an event in a certain way, according to the best ways seen fit by those in power.

Its hard to fit my thoughts into the 250 word limit (which I clearly surpassed) but the discussion continues! Its interesting to see how language plays an important part in how we view crime, both domestically and internationally.

-Nikhil Wagh

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