What have I watched? Of note, I watched a video from the Fashion Week Internationale series highlighting Seoul. The series seems fairly interesting, despite it's superficial discussions, because it focuses much less on fashion than it does on the differences between cultures highlighted by the events, so I might watch more. This one taught me some surprising things about the beauty culture of South Korea, and subsequently sparked an interest in Asian history, since it occurred to me that I really don't know much about the individual countries that compose "Asia."
(Continues beneath the cut...)
Did you know that South Korea is the country with the most plastic surgery done per capita? One in five women have had something done- they profess to consider physical alterations similar to makeup or clothing- and it is even a popular highschool graduation gift. The most frequent purchase is a "double eyelid," which sounds very sci-fi, but in reality is simply the introduction of a crease in the upper eyelid to make the eye look more western. Overall, the people interviewed were remarkably candid in admitting the "western" is the ultimate beauty ideal for them, prompting me to wonder, "Why?!"
Other topics included the K-Pop scene, and the trend among couples of buying matching underwear. At first, I was a little put off by the underwear phenomenon, but I have to admit that when the two kids picked the same sets of underwear without consulting each other, I was impressed, and a little envious of their relationship.
The second video of note that I perused was a Big Think video introducing Psychology.
Paul Bloom covered three subjects of interest: Compassion, Racism (Stereotyping), and Sex in less than fifty minutes, and I am now going to summarize it, purely for my own gratification.
First, Compassion:
Bloom and his compatriots believe that there is evidence that infants, instead of being "blank slates," are born with a certain amount of ingrained behaviors, including compassion. For instance, babies will usually cry if they hear another baby cry; toddlers confronted with another upset toddler will pat the kid, or offer a toy; and toddlers who see an adult in some simple difficulty will often help, even without being asked.
[Here is where I exclaimed aloud at the cuteness of a baby helping an adult. The short clip is at 7:10 in the video.]
This seems to imply that human beings are naturally compassionate, but further studies indicate that it is a vary narrow compassion, only extending to those who are close, physically, emotionally, or biologically, and that strangers often inspire a mixture of fear, hatred and disgust. Thankfully, in most societies this "stranger anxiety" fades as the individual progresses through life, due to exposure to more and more people, but in small scale societies such as primitive tribes, the "circle of compassion" stays restricted, and can create environments where a member of one will kill a member of another on sight.
Interestingly enough, there is a fascinating parallel between the feelings of disgust that human beings experience for things like dead flesh and feces and feelings of disgust for members of "outgroups." If you are easily disgusted by certain things like dead animals and so on, you will be more likely to feel adverse to certain classes of people, while on the other hand, if you are hard to gross out, you will be less likely to have bad feelings about "strangers."
In the same vein, if you are exposed to something disgusting, such as a bad smell, you will be more likely to judge people harshly. Huh.
Of course, human beings as a whole are wonderful, compassionate beings who can help and give and care for people that they have never met, and psychologists are naturally interested in how this can happen. Some say that it is simply an understanding that our fates are interconnected with others, but Bloom also spends some time discussing how we are able to empathize with masses of people we have never met (such as the victims of natural disaster) by imagining that we know individuals. Keeping this in mind, instead of quoting figures of the thousands who die of starvation, charities often focus on one, specific, photogenic child and hold her up as an example. Charities that employ this strategy gain roughly twice as much support than those who promote a more global view.
Secondly, Racism:
Bloom began with a discussion of the importance of generalization to gaining an understanding of the world. Without the ability to group things together and expect them to behave similarly, we would be unable to learn, paralyzed. Stereotyping was not only crucial to thought process, but it is often correct, and even positive.
However, Bloom continued by pointing out three problems with stereotyping human beings: Firstly, if your information is incorrect, you will extrapolate incorrectly. Secondly, those people stereotyped often respond to stereotyping by conforming to it, consciously or unconsciously. Thirdly, we are ourselves within groups of human beings, and it effects our perception: positively if we are within a group, and negatively if the group we are considering is outside of us or in any way competitive. Fourthly, and finally, it is argued that all human beings should only be judged individually, for the simple reason that we are not animals, and have a different, inherent, dignity.
It is wonderful that human beings as a whole are rather vehemently against stereotyping each other, but there is an unconscious system within the mind that often causes us to make biased decisions without realizing it. After citing a few examples of this, Bloom finishes by acknowledging his particular appreciation for our ability to trick ourselves back into non-bias. For instance, once managers of symphony orchestras realized that they were unconsciously biased against women, they implemented blind auditions, and the gender balance immediately improved.
Thirdly, Sex
Sexual behavior is perhaps the area of psychology most obviously linked with evolution, but before diving into the issue of "survival of the sexiest," Bloom pointed out that, in general, the males of a species can impregnate multiple females, while females can usually only be impregnated by one male at a time, and bear the burden of "pregnancy" in one form or another. While males can run around depositing their genes wherever they can, females have to be choosy. Consequently, a dual competition emerges: the males develop methods of aggression to remove each other from the ring, and also methods of convincing the females that they are worthy of reproduction. The popularity of prostitution and pornography among men supports this drive: men have more of an evolutionary need to find receptive women than women have to find men.
As a side note, humans are not the only beings to appreciate pornography. Apparently, certain male monkeys will give up treats to stare at images of female monkey anatomy, or even the faces of monkeys of high status, reflecting the human practices of using porn and idolizing celebrities. [3:53]
Finally, Bloom turns to the idea of attractiveness, and points out that there are certain characteristics that, regardless of sex, culture and age, are attractive to everyone. Among these are round eyes, full lips, and smooth skin, which make sense since they are characteristics of youth and health. He also mentions that, again across the board, people are attracted to "average faces," that is, faces that are composites of other faces, with uniform, smoothed out features, and no extremes. What is particularly interesting is that the characteristics of an attractive face remain the same even when using infants as the test group.
However, attractiveness does not ultimately come down to facial characteristics, but to relationships. It is scientifically proven that if you have affection for someone, you honestly find them prettier that you would have otherwise. The number one characteristic that people from different walks of life and different sexes wanted in a spouse was kindness.
Okay, that was way to much typing and text. I am going to have to edit this later... Good night!
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