Virtual Identity

As we get deeper into discussing virtual identity a few things come to mind. One is that people will always be deceptive. It is human in nature, and the only way we will see a decrease in fake profile pictures and false claims is if we see an increase in the overall moral of man. That being said, I also agree that when specifically looking for intimate relationships online, users are more willing to portray truthful attributes because of the future chance of meeting their partner in person, in the flesh. Where problems regarding online dating arise for me is the effectiveness of finding a companion based off of their profiles, or their ability to speak in an online conversation.

Sure it is easy for us to judge someone's characteristics based off of their info on their profile, or the correctness of their spelling, but to what point are our judgments accurate? While poor spelling may indeed indicate a lack of education or care for being punctual, but does that mean the person is not right for you? I guess what I mean is, fifteen years ago, before online dating and Facebook, how did any of us unsocial, average human beings ever find love?

Suddenly with the rise of the internet people are becoming subject to harsher and harsher judgement, when in reality they feel that things are easier. Fifteen years ago, a horrible speller like me, who happens to be very educated, could walk into a coffee shop, sit down next to someone, start conversation, and by the end of the hour have a date. Now, we have to run spell check, analyze what other's will think of the personal information we include in our profile, and then after all of that carry on conversation over instant messenger for god knows how long, all in hopes that the person on the other side correctly decoded all of your messages. Humor, puns, and sarcasm included.

My point is (I think), that this introduction of the internet (as much as I use and love it) has slowly began to eat away at our ability to interpersonally coincide with each other. Yes, some of us will always have that ability to interact because those people are just naturally social. But for those of us who need to work on being social in order to become acceptable at it have this dilemma of either having to take the easy way out (online dating) or do it the good old fashion way. Like learning a language, if you take a hiatus, or change the way you work to become fluent with it, than you run the risk of loosing progress. In summation and opinion, using the internet as a hub to meet new people is a-okay, but when we begin that intimate relationship online we run the risk of thinking something of the relationship that is not true. I do believe human connection can happen over the internet, but its health and vitality depends on our ability to show connection without having to send it through pixels and digital signals.

The Shift from Threat to Challenge

"Rising to the threat" is an article that attempts to come to a conclusion about whether belonging to a group that emanates weakness has the ability to make people preform poorly at a given task at hand. Prior research suggests that viewing a task as a threat compared to a challenge makes the participant preform with a significantly lesser quality. Additionally, when the participant is reminded of his belonging to a weak group he is likely to preform with less quality. This study tested (1) if re-framing a threat as a challenge gave the participant more ability to preform well on a test, and (2) if mentioning their membership in a weak group prior to the test would activate their stress levels to rise, therefore preforming poorly on the test. The study found that if the participants low group status was mentioned prior to the test, but framed as a challenge, the participant would do just as well as as their peer counterparts who did not belong to a weak group. People reminded of low group status "performed more poorly than their peers on an academic test" (Rising to the Treat, 170). This being said, I will now move into my analysis of the study.

Upon first thought, it is difficult to understand that even an underlying negative stereotype could unconsciously effect someone when a stressful task is at hand. It is, however, easy to understand the idea that approaching a situation as a challenge is more effective than making the task seem threatening. One easy example of how this works can be seen in a mother telling her son to study for a test. If the child is made to believe that he or she is capable of the task at hand (capable of overcoming the challenge of doing well on a test), than that child will be more effective in his studying because of the confidence that lays not only in himself, but in his mother. On the flip side, a student who's mother makes the test seem like an unreachable accomplishment will accumulate more stressful attitudes toward his studying, and in effect toward his test taking. Understanding this, the tricky part is now understanding the way belonging to a group perceived as weak or of lesser quality can hinder a persons ability to successfully reach a goal.

I agree that posing a threat as a challenge is an effective way to change the way people perform a task. I understand this because I can now see how it works in my own life. Filled with stress, my days are typically revolved around tasks that i must complete with respectable quality, yet many of those "things-to-do" are things that I have failed at many times and in effect have a threatening effect on my work performance. What I may suggest is evaluating your typical day-to-day routine and trying to pinpoint those situations where stress is prevalent factor, and then tailoring your thoughts to calm that stress down. An important part of this, in my opinion, is developing healthy relationships with people. I only say this because of the fact that many of these performance effecting issues seem to lay deep within our thought, and often go unnoticeable. Changing a threat to a challenge may require encouragement, which (personally speaking) is something that usually does not come from within, but from another person who you consider a influential member of your life. This individual will most likely belong to a similar group as you, which gives you the chance to either identify with that person (which could reduce stress) or receive support from a person who can help you make that shift form threat to challenge.

Before I end this I must say that although I agree that these are factors that can change your performance level, I don't believe that the studying of these factors can single handedly work as a "stereotype threat-management intervention" (Rising, 170). I believe that part of the cure for this issue lays in the individuals themselves. Like any other intervention, it involves cognitively understanding the issue at hand, and its ability to change. If I have it in my mind that tomorrows test is impossible, than in my mind is where it first must change. Encouragement from outside sources no doubt can foster a less stressful attitude about a task, but until the individual is able to recognize his causes of stress he will never be able to fix these issues himself, and in turn will put reliance on others to give him confidence. Issues like this can be taken care of on an situational basis, but its not something that one can rid himself of forever which is why personal understanding of they way you act in given situations is important.