Quiet and Sqeaky (PO)

On Wednesday March 6, 2013 I acted like a different person.

I have the self-concept or the sum total of my beliefs that I am a social, friendly and talkative person. My self-concept like everyone else’s is made up of my self-schemas; beliefs individuals have about themselves that guide their ability to process self-relevant information (Markus, 1977).

On any usual day, when I see someone I know when I’m walking around campus I generally smile, wave, and if I have time make small talk. In my classes, I actively participate by asking questions or answering questions and among my group of friends, I am by my friends own words “loud and opinionated”. I am a very social, talkative, and friendly person, even though I didn’t realize to what extent I was until Wednesday.

On Wednesday I decided I would be an unfriendly and most importantly quiet person; quiet being the key word. I changed several aspects of my daily life, but not talking was the biggest. Talking was and is so important (schematic) in my idea of being a friendly and social person, I gave myself the rule of only talking when someone started talking to me and even then my answers had to be short and quick, and I could not keeping the conversation going (Markus, 1997).

Other aspects of my behavior changed as well, when walking to my classes or to my dorm, I made an effort to look down and avoid any eye contact. When I saw people I knew and they waved or smiled at me, I once again avoided eye contact and tried my hardest not to respond by waving and smiling back at them. In my classes I did not ask questions, answer any questions I knew or thought I knew the answer to, nor did I participate in any of the discussions.

During lunch and dinner when eating with my friends, I ate with them so I could see their reactions, but I did not participate in the conversation and when I was having a one on one conversation (which I tried to avoid), my answers were short and simple. At work (I proctor at the Studio Arts Building) I did not look up when someone walked in and I avoided all attempts of eye contact or conversation with any of the students, who I generally like to talk to. The day was finally over and at 12am I was finally allowed to be myself again.

To say the very least Wednesday was a very, very difficult and frustrating day for me.
By constantly monitoring my actions and in general observing myself, I learned more about myself than I ever thought I could from one day (Bem, 1972). I already had an opinion about my personality before; I knew I was social and friendly by observing the facts that I’m talkative, make eye-contact, and enjoy being around other people and talking to them.

I never thought that Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory, an individual gaining self-insight by observing their own behavior, would imply to a situation where an individual wasn’t acting like themselves. Throughout the day though I observed how difficult it was for me not to raise my hand and wave or smile back at someone when they waved or smile at me. I had to make a constant conscious effort to not make eye-contact, ask someone how their day was when they asked me how my day was, and not smile back. Not initiating social interaction was one thing, but not responding to another person trying to socially interact with me was nearly impossible.

I always thought being social meant that I like and did initiate conversation or in general social interactions with other people. Which is true, but there’s another part to it, being social also means responding to other people, at the very least responding to other people interacting with me is a huge aspect of my personality and me being a social person (Bem, 1972; Markus, 1977).

Even more interesting throughout the day I started seeing myself as not being a social person or friendly person, because I wasn’t acting like one. Even though it was just an act and I was aware of that fact, I couldn’t help but think of what a terrible, non-friendly person I was, by the simple fact I wasn’t talking back to other people or smiling back at them (Chaiken & Baldwin, 1981; Schlenker & Truedeau, 1990).

It was definitely an experience seeing quickly my self-concept could change.

One thing that became very clear to me during this day is that the situation accounts for someone’s behavior (Ross, et al., 1997). In the obvious way, my behavior for the day was due to the situation of me doing the assignment and despite not knowing about the assignment all of my friends, simply assumed there was something going on with me that particular day.

 When I explained my behavior for that day, most of my friends commented that they did notice something different, but they didn’t think much of it and assumed that I was simply just “busy”, “distracted”, and or “stressed out”. They didn’t see me as a different person, even though I was acting like a different person. This also shows social perception, my friends were judging my sudden change of personality and were processing clues I was giving them based on three sources; who I am, the situation the thought I was in, and behavior. Even though they didn’t know the situation I was in, they found an explanation for my behavior in situations they made up for themselves. My friends also weren’t as affected as I was or as much as I thought they would be (Gilovich, et al., 2000; Kassin et al., 2011).

At dinner I was already pretty done with this little experiment and I wanted to see the day end. So for dinner, I left by myself and made no effort of telling my roommate or my suite mates that I was going to dinner. For the purpose that I could have some alone time and also so that when they arrived I could see more of their reactions of me not inviting them to dinner. They didn’t arrive at dinner before I had to leave for work though, but I did have two very interesting one on one reactions with two of my other friends.

One of my friends, Steve (fake name), was already at the commons when I arrived. Steve to say the very least is not a very social guy, he tends to be very quiet and to put it lightly awkward when he meets new people. Steve also hates one on one conversations and in the two or so years I have known him he has done two things consistently; avoid one on one conversations to the point where there is almost painful awkward silence and secondly he leaves dinner for orchestra practice a few minutes before his class start (on average two-three minutes).

To be honest I was happy to see him, because despite wanting more interaction with people for the participant observation blog, I honestly did not want to interact with anyone. I was happy to see Steve, because I thought that I could just eat in silence and not feel bad about not responding to people on purpose, I was very wrong.

Steve in the fifteen minutes we were eating by ourselves tried several attempts to engage me in conversation, despite me cutting off all his attempts. Steve who apparently (I asked him later) was so use to me always talking and actively trying to engage him in conversations, felt so uncomfortable with me not talking or being myself, was unknowingly changing his behavior to fit the situation I was putting him in (Ross, 1997).

Eventually Steve left for orchestra, which would have been like any other Wednesday, except for the first time Steve left for Orchestra ten minutes before the class began.

After Steve left, I felt extremely guilty and worse about myself and I really wanted to be alone then. To my dismay though another friend came to join me about five or so minutes after Steve left.

Michael (fake name), is more like me as he actively enjoys interacting with other people and he likes to talk a lot. I was not happy to see Michael, because I honestly did not know if I could keep up my act of being a different person. I thought I would be safe with Steve who doesn’t really like to talk or isn’t really that social active and he tried to actively engage me in conversation. I was terrified of how Michael was going to react and in turn how I had to act.

In two minutes of being alone with me, Michael asked me if I was okay and when I responded I was fine, he did not seem to believe me. Michael’s exact words when he was asking me again if I was alright, were “you’re being all quiet and squeaky, and usually you’re loud and not very squeaky. Are you sure you’re okay?” Michael like many of my friends that day assumed there was something causing my sudden quietness and lack of socializing and though they were all technically right in their assumptions I had to tell him I was fine.

Michael tried about three attempts to engage me into a conversation before he gave it up. This was surprising to me, as Steve had tried about ten different attempts to get me to talk to him. In the short dinner I had with Michael, I watched him become a different person. He was quiet, withdrawn, and avoided looking me in the eye, as I asked him later and he apparently thought that I was mad at him and he didn’t know what to do. Eventually Michael left too and even apologized for impeding my dinner with his presence.

Michael was sitting with me for ten minutes before I drove him away. In about thirty minutes of me being at the commons, I had managed to change the rather supposed consistent behaviors of two of my friends with the situation of me acting different and I also managed to drive both of the away.

I never realized until after dinner when I was heading to my job of proctoring at the studio arts building how schematic I really am to being social, friendly, and especially talkative. I knew I was social, but I had no idea how many times I smiled or waved at people in one, and I certainly had no idea how much I actually talk in one day (Markus et al., 1987).

Throughout the day I felt worse and worse, I felt like I was upsetting people and like I wasn’t a good person, despite knowing that very few people in my whole entire day even noticed my change in behavior (I hope) and that the people who were concern for me or who I felt extremely guilty for not talking to (Steve and Michael) would know in a little bit of time why I wasn’t talking.

Until Wednesday, being social and talkative was just a part of who I was, I never saw it as an essential part of myself nor did I ever noticed how quickly I am to judge myself and I guess others for their own socialness and friendliness (Markus, et al., 1987). One thing I noticed even in the beginning of this day, was how I perceive someone being talkative as someone being social or friendly. I knew that it was important to my idea of being social and friendly, because not talking was the main thing I was changing about myself for Wednesday. It wasn’t until during Wednesday, that I realized how important talking was to me and how much it was a key concept of my identity, self-esteem, and ideas of a person being social and friendly (Markus, et al., 1987).

I know I have said this several times, but I honestly had no idea how important talking is to me, despite knowing that talking was important aspect of who I was. I just never fully realized how essential it is.

Due to the spotlight effect; the belief that the social spotlight shines more brightly on an individual more than it does for other people; Wednesday was far more worse for me then for anyone else and I was really the only one noticed how much I changed for the day. Others people may had notice my behavioral change and it may have affected a few people in a small part of their day, but I was the person who noticed the most and was affected the most. I was so consciously aware of myself and so self-conscious when I was out in public, that I felt like everyone was paying attention to me and was deeply affected by me, even when they weren't and even when I knew that they weren't. (Gilovich, et al., 2000). 

I have to honestly say I hated doing this little experiment and I was so thrilled and happy to be able talk and be myself again. In fact, my roommate notice how happy and excited I was when I got back from room and even commented on the fact that I was being oddly chipper.

I knew how difficult Wednesday was going to be, just on the fact that I had tried to do this several times before, but I would forget for a second and have a very engaging conversation with someone, ruining the aspect of doing this for a whole entire day. I however was not accepting how much a negative impact not talking and socializing with other people would have on me.

To say the very least, I don’t have any plans of becoming less social, friendly, or talkative and I like the fact that I automatically respond to people when they wave or smile at me. One thing that has become very clear to me though is  my behavior and my friends' behavior and people’s behavior in general are based on other people's behaviors and what we do, say, and act can both positively and negatively affect others (Michael and Steve are two prime examples).

In general I’m glad I’m not a quiet and squeaky person and honestly I don’t think I really could ever become one.

Word Count-2409

I used my one day late free coupon for this assignment.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

References

Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowtiz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 1-62). New York: Academic Press. 

Chaiken, S., & Baldwin, M. W. (1981). Affective-cognitive consistency and the effect of salient behavioral information on the self-perception of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 1-12.

Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savistsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one's own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211-222).

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. F. (2011). The social self. Social Psychology, 8, 55-98.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. F. (2011). Perceiving persons. Social Psychology, 8, 102-104 and 116-119.

Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63-78.

Markus, H., Hamill, R., & Sentis, K. P. (1987). Thinking fat: Self-schemas for body weight and the processing of weight-relevant information. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 17, 50-71.

Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The false consensus phenomenon: An attributional bias in self-perception and social perception processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279-301.

Schlenker, B. R. & Truedeau, J. V. (1990). The impact of self-presentations on private self-beliefs: Effects of prior self-beliefs and misattribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 22-32.