Watch the ads, Save the Earth, Does it work?

What do you think about global warming? Do you make any special effort to help curb this phenomena? With Earth Day just over and Earth hour happening a month ago, it seems that global warming is becoming a big issue. In CNN.com news website, it was reported that many countries took part in Earth hour by switching off their lights. When you go to the supermarkets nowadays, incentive in the form of discounts are given when you bring your own bags. Some places require you to purchase plastic bags to lessen the usage.

Different people might have different attitudes towards such movements. A person with a positive attitude towards such movements and when their subjective norm support this behavior will most probably engage in ways to help. Subjective norms are individuals’ feelings of social pressure to perform or not to perform an action. They are based on the person beliefs that others want or do not want them to perform the action. Therefore, when a person feels that the people around him or her would want them to have a part in curbing this phenomena, they become more likely to engage in behaviors like saving electricity and bringing their own bags.

However, not everyone has similar attitude. Some people see it as a marketing gimmick used by supermarkets, a trend, a big fuss, thinking that it’s all a hoax, or impossible to happen. So how can their attitude be changed?

Advertisements have been created to persuade people. Using the elaboration likelihood model, it can be seen that both advertisements via the central and peripheral route to persuasion have been created.

An example of an advertisement via the peripheral route is this

It doesn’t provide much information and seems to be using the peripheral route to persuasion as it invokes humor and may condition the person watching it to feel good about it. Besides, it doesn’t require much cognitive elements. However, for people who rely on information, this advertisement might not work for them.

An example of an advertisement via the central route to persuasion is this

It provides information about how one can help save energy. With all the information, people can rationalize if changing their attitude to save energy is beneficial or not.

Of course, having people to change attitude isn’t that easy as there are a lot of other factors present. So have the advertisements worked for you?

To whale or not to whale

I experienced some dissonance within myself while reading an article about whaling from Yahoo! news. Cognitive dissonance theory states that having thoughts in harmony of each other makes us feel good while clashing thoughts makes us feel bad. The discomfort produced by dissonant thoughts spur us to do something to change our state.

The article talked about a clash involving Japanese whalers and anti-whaling activists. The Japanese whalers thought that the actions of the activist were dangerous and to them, whaling was required to pursue their research. However, Australia is firm in their views that there is is no scientific justification for the whale hunt and is determined to end whaling.

I have two opposing views on whaling. A part of me believes that whaling isn’t right. To me, whales are creatures that are part of the wild and they represent freedom. Killing animals (in big quantities) that don’t replenish themselves as quickly and endangering them for our own selfish reasons like selling them expensive as delicacies just seemed cold and uncaring for the environment. I thought,” you can farm animals to eat. So why be greedy and pursue something that belongs to the wild?” I found reasons which they gave like conducting research unacceptable as they continued to sell the meat commercially. Besides, there are other non lethal methods that they can use for conducting research.

Although I believed rather strongly about how creatures belonging to the wild should be kept free and not caught in big numbers, another part of me understood that whaling is part of a culture. Whales provide a source of food, oil, and craft material for people. Unlike a fish or chicken, every part of a whale is useful. It’s comparable to a cow but a whale feeds much more people. In the article, it said that whale meat holds sentimental value for some Japanese who ate it after the world war II. Being such a huge animal, the large amount of meat could feed many people especially during times of poverty. The oil can be used for fuel or cooking, the bones as craft materials or useful tools, the skin as clothes and the internal organs for other uses.

Besides the Japanese, other cultures in other parts of the world depend on whales too. Being very interested in Inuit (a group of people who live in the artic region of Alaska) culture since young, I understood that whaling was also part of their culture. Living in a cold climate, whales provide them with food, clothes, tools, fuel, etc. However, they believed in harmony with nature and had rules about the number of whales they could catch and letting the whales replenish themselves. In this way, whaling didn’t seem wrong to me. It was part of a culture which didn’t aim to harm.

To me, whaling was both right and wrong. If I agreed with the activist, I would be conflicting my beliefs of preservation of culture. However, if I agreed with whaling, I would be at odds with my idea that animals of the wild should be free and not killed in large numbers.

If I did not know about the culture related to whaling, I would be against the idea of whaling completely. This idea of leaving the animal alone was more important to me. Therefore, after thinking and pondering, I rationalized that; killing whales in large numbers for commercial use is unacceptable unless hunting was done on a small number of whales using old methods of the past which allowed more chances for the whales to escape. This way, hunting can still be done but we do not endanger the lives of the whales too much.

However as I ponder further, the shortage of whale meat in the commercial market might lead to the increase in poachers and they might use more brutal methods of killing the whales. Sigh… I guess this will be an argument that might take a while to settle.

Handsome vs Ordinary

People compare with one another for several reasons. Sometimes they do it to make themselves feel better, sometimes it is to make us want to improve. This process, termed as social comparison, is done when we make comparisons of ourselves to others in order to judge ourselves. We want to know what we are truly strong or weak at and the actual validity of our opinions and attitudes. This means that we need to set ourselves side by side with others to find out if we are really as strong or weak as we think we are pertaining to certain issues. Upward social comparison involves comparing ourselves with someone who is better to provide ideas for how to improve. Downward social comparison involves comparing ourselves to others whom we think are worse in order to feel good.

Social comparison is also done by people in romantic relationships. LeBeau and Buckingham (2008) stated that upward and downward comparisons among people who frequently compare their relationships with others cannot be avoided. They found that people who frequently compared received information that their relationship is both better and worse than others and this mixed information might lead to insecurity in their relationship.

In the Life! section of The Straits Times on the 7th of April 2008, a journalist, Suzanne Sng, discussed about dating attractive men. She called it the “Clooney conundrum”, named after actor George Clooney who in her opinion, is very attractive man. The confusion was described by her by her asking, “who doesn’t want to go out with the sexiest man alive” but also mentioned that there was a downside to it. She mostly did a comparison between dating physically attractive men and less physicaly attractive men and expressed that dating ordinary men were better than those of movie-star calibre and having low expectations meant not being disappointed. She wasn’t dating anyone but she did both upward and downward comparison based on her girl friends. Basically, the entire article was about dating physically attractive men versus ordinary men and the compatibility between partners.

Downward comparison wise, the only good thing about dating a physically attractive man to her is, well, he is basically more attractive than other men.

Interestingly, there was more upward comparison when comparing dating a physically attractive man to a ordinary man. She quoted one of her friend making a comparison between good-looking men and non good-looking men and said that there are a lot of unfunny good-looking men as compared to non good-looking men. To her, pairing up with someone like Brad Pitt must be very stressful as there is bound to be insecurities. According to LeBeau and Buckingham (2008), relationship social comparison tendencies were associated with low self-esteem,anxious attachment style,and relationship insecurity,which all tap some aspect of insecurity. Self-esteem can also be affected by social comparison (Alicke, 2000 as cited in Breckler, Olse, & Wiggins, 2006). If she didn’t compare herself with other women and a physically attractive man to a ordinary man, would such insecurities be present?

Furthermore, she said that a girlfriend of a movie star might be wondering when he is going to move on to someone else showing that besides comparing the men, there would be comparisons to other female

The most interesting thing she said was one of her friend, too smitten with her good-looking partner, crashed her car into a tree while examining his facial features. Something to which a friend said it was more important to date someone who was really interested in her as compared to a good-looking man who is in love with himself. It seems that too her, in this comparison, good-looking man would love himself more than he would love her.

Turning it around by comparing ordinary men to physically attractive men, it would become a downward comparison based on the disadvantages of dating a physically attractive man. Buunk, Oldersma, and Dreu (2001) said that downward comparison seems weaken the negative effect of discontent (which in this case, being less physically attractive) on the evaluation of the relationship, whereby realizing that it could be worse (like having a narcissistic good-looking partner) helps individuals to be less harsh on their relationship.

Can people stop comparing? I guess not. In my opinion, it is innate in us to want to compare with others. We compare protect ourselves from being too critical on ourselves, to prevent ourself from overestimating and falling down and to strive to get something better. But when it leads to confusion and insecurity, maybe we should stop a little while to find out what we sincerely want instead of how we match up to others.

References

Breckler, S. J., Olsen, J. M., & Wiggins, E. C. (2006). Social Psychology Alive. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Buunk, B. P., Oldersma, F. L., & Dreu, C. K. W. d. (2001). Enhancing satisfaction through downward comparison: The role of relational discontent and individual differences in social comparison orientation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 452– 467

LeBeau, L. S., & Buckingham, J. T. (2008). Relationship social comparison tendencies, insecurity, and perceived relationshop quality. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 25(1), 71-86.