Thursday, February 28, 2013

Experiments of a Psychological Nature Part 1: The Dawning of the Age of Experiments

Last week was a hectic one, what with final preparations and performances of the latest CUPS (Clark University Players Society) play, Sarah Ruhl's "Melancholy Play." It was a rousing success and every performance was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys (a thing which isn't very much fun at all, but is, in fact, rather depressing).

Today I've just turned in homework for PSYC 108 -- Research Methods, which involved the planning of an experiment on the nature of perception of personality. Some original research on the subject, which piqued my interest, was conducted by Solomon Asch, whom I would recommend reading. Asch's most famous experiments were conducted on conformity, as you may be aware. If you're not aware, please allow me to inform you. First conducted in 1951, the Asch experiments took average people, put them in a room of strangers, and made those people change their opinions. How interesting, I hear you cry. But what if I told you the experiments were conducted with lines on paper? That's right: lines. Interested now? ... I'm not explaining this very well, so I'll consult my Social Psychology textbook: "The experimenter shows everyone two cards, one with a single line on it, the other with three lines labeled 1, 2, and 3. He asks each of you to judge and then announce out loud which of the three lines on the second card is closest in length to the line on the first card" (Aronson, et. al. 2013). The experimenter presents another set and then another of the same style. Eventually, the other people in the room blatantly give incorrect answers. Because the participant is at the end of the line, he answers last, and frequently was induced by NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE to choose the same incorrect line. If you guessed that everyone except one participant in the room were confederates, you're correct. Bravo.

Another sort of normative social influence is exhibited at the end of George Orwell's "1984," but most people would argue that it's an example of conditioning. I say it's both, so there. "1984" is all about social influences. And politics, and English, and stuff. It's a pretty great book. One of my top 10 books.

This is not what my class experiment is about. That experiment is on perception, not conformity. Unfortunately I can't say much about it because it would compromise its integrity. In fact, I may have said too much already. This blog post will self destruct in 10 seconds...
It's a pretty simple study though; participants will read a story and answer some questions, which'll enable the measurement of perceptions of personality. Just vague enough to work.
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Speaking of psychology, I've got a midterm exam in Social Psychology tomorrow. It's going to be on such amazing topics as "what is Social Psychology?" "How does Social Psychology differ from Developmental/Cultural/Clinical Psychology?" and "What do we mean by an overconfidence barrier?" Let's just say that my passing this exam will be my leaping an overconfidence barrier... or something... Maybe, I'm gonna take down that overconfidence barrier... The joke is that an overconfidence barrier refers to peoples' usually having too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgements... I don't know where to go from here... I'll just move on...

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And lastly, that paper I have to write for my French Cinema class. That wasn't a sentence, but you know what? (What?) This next sentence will be a sentence: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
That, let it be known, will not help me write the paper.
The subject of the essay will be something like "Describe the place of the unlikely hero in some of the films we watched," or, "French film is an art. What's up with that?" or, "Yo, dude, what's up with all the war movies?"* I haven't really thought about it, but it'll be great when I do.
*I must note that, though the institution which I attend is liberal and progressive, and all that, it still has some standards which I believe would bar the asking of this sort of question. Not all French movies are about The War.

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Spring break begins for me after 1:15pm tomorrow, and after I've finished that essay. Enjoy the weather. Or don't. Whatever. Free country. Home of the brave. America. Free association. Woo.

Friday, February 15, 2013

The Part Where I Don't Give Away the Endings to a Bunch of Movies

Let's talk about French movies. For the last two weeks my French film class has been mainly about perspectives on the two world wars and their impacts on France and the French. Out of the four films we've seen I can recommend them all for the French film enthusiast, but will discuss the two that most caught my attention and held in my memory.

"Joyeux Noël" ("Merry Christmas") (2005): This is the first feel-good war movie I've ever seen, and make no mistake, it is that. I felt uncomfortably optimistic at the end, since I've been conditioned throughout the viewing of every other war movie I've ever seen to expect nothing but destruction and despair. Possibly the most upbeat ending to a war movie I'd seen previously was that of "Casablanca," and it's really not that happy. Despite the intentions of all the characters to keep their own peace and lives, we have to accept that French Morrocco's police force is still corrupt and there's still a war on. I'm not the type to give away endings to things other than Shakespeare (Tragedy: They all die at the end; Comedy: They all get married; History: They probably all die at the end, but somebody might get married), so watch the movie if you haven't. Casablanca's a great movie. One of my top 100 favorites. Top 50.

But, back to "Joyeux Noël." I felt like Roger Ebert did when he saw the end of "Dead Poets Society" ("I was so moved, I wanted to throw up.") The (American) cover of the movie says it all: "Christmas Eve, 1914..." something something... "Based on a true story" and three guys walking toward the camera: French, German, and Scottish officers. The story is that of an unsanctioned truce between the three armies during Christmas and how we're not so different, all of us, and what's the point of all this fighting anyway? Why don't we sing some songs and play bagpipes and soccer (or, football) and get along? For two hours.

This same perspective of people being similar and not having much reason to fight except to quell the disputes waged between individuals hundreds of kilometers from the action is shared in the other WWI film we saw, "La Grande Illusion" (1937), directed by Jean Renoir, son of the painter. I won't discuss this one much because I felt it went on a bit, but it's worth a look. It's not as touchy-feely a film as "Joyeux Noël," but it's still a fairly sterile look at war. As one of the most famous French war movies, I had to include it in my run-down here, but I feel about as ambivalent to it as I do to "Citizen Kane" (I'll begin accepting the hate-e-mails).

The other movie which didn't bore me for a moment was "L'armée des ombres" ("Army of Shadows") (1969). This was a WWII French Resistance film. (I'd say imagine French MacGyver, except he already exists (Henri Charrière), and they already made a movie about him; it's called "Papillon" (1972) and it's got the two most un-French actors I can think of: Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.) "L'armée des ombres" is about a web of spies moving bombs around occupied France and England, parachuting over the countryside at night, and carrying out hits on guys who blabbed. It's an intensely suspenseful and satisfying film that doesn't have a happy ending. Thank goodness; I thought I'd have to go through my whole life without finding such a picture (you know, aside from "American Beauty," "The Green Mile," "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence," and every movie about a physically deformed protaganist ("The Elephant Man," "The Phantom of the Opera," and "V for Vendetta" (which is essentially "Phantom" with political motivation).

Now here's where I will reveal the ending to a movie (sort of). If you watch the film today, it opens with a parade of German soldiers marching in front of L'arc de Triomphe for about 60 seconds. That scene was originally at the end. The director, Jean-Pierre Melville, kept switching back and forth on which end of the picture the scene should appear. It was only after the cans of film had been delivered to the six Parisian cinemas in which they began showing the film that Melville decided to take his editor and a splicer to each of the theatres and tack the film to the beginning. The first audiences apparently saw the scene at the end. As it looks now, the last scene faces toward the Arc de Triomphe and cuts to black, just where the film begins.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Second Semester of Sophomore Year: Part 1: The Beginning of the Middle

Another semester quickly begun. And so it has gone on for many days now. It's already February, so it's probably reasonable that I get a post up.

Many things've happened already in the three weeks that I've been back to our fair school. Of the most notable:

- I've seen five stage shows, seven films, attended 11 production meetings, and heard 14 class lectures.

- I'm involved in four upcoming Clark theatre productions (Molière's "Tartuffe," Sarah Ruhl's "Melancholy Play," Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis's musical "Urinetown," and Shakespeare's "Tempest").

- I've taken on new classes the likes of which I've never seen before (sort of).

For the next few months I've got these on the agenda:

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Psych 170: Intro to Social Psychology

It's rather nifty that I can finally make a course on social psychology fit into my schedule, as it's the area of the discipline that first intrigued me. This course lays down the foundation for other courses in social psychology (read: prerequisite). It's a sort of survey of key aspects of social psychology, including what it is, and what social psychologists do, and why we can't do unethical social experiments that were defining characteristics of psychology in the 60s and 70s. Oh, well.
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SCRN 263: French Cinema

This is a class taught in English, just for the edification of all before anymore is said on the matter. It counts for the French minor, but not the major. It was a difficult decision, the day I had to decide to take the 6-course minor instead of the slightly more rigorous 8-course major. I'm sure I'll regret the decision for the rest of my life. I just know it's going to be the thing that keeps me from my work as a theatre psychologist for Cirque du Soleil (is that a thing? I kind of hope that's a thing).

Anyway, it's a watch-movies-and-write-papers class. But it's so much more than that. It's a way of life. Maybe.

I've never taken a screen studies class before, because I was certain my own passion for the cinema would be enough to tide my soul. At this point, I'm not sure if I can claim that the class is giving me a fuller appreciation for France, or cinema, or culture, or things of that nature, but I'm holding out hope. So far we've studied two films: "Cleo de 5 a 7, " identified with the new wave movement, and "La Grande Illusion" a pre-WWII film about WWI. Very different films, both very French in their own ways. One of the first questions we're considering in this class is on the matter of how we can identify a film as "French," but you can take my word that these two films are pretty French.
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TA 127: Analysis: Theatre Production

One of the most important classes I've ever taken. Hands down. Every week we go see a show, talk about it, and write a paper about it. I say it's an important class because, for theatre majors, or those interested in the workings of theatre, it's an invaluable opportunity to examine different types of shows. It would be easy enough to get a theatre degree without ever actually seeing a show that you weren't involved in, but it would be like someone trying to write a book without ever having read one. You're going to be rather terrible at your job if you don't analyze other people's methods before diving headlong into "your own style." Now, that's not to say that you should consciously imbue your style with those of others, but, you know, Shakespeare certainly wasn't hindered by it. Just saying.

So far we've seen Trinity Rep's (Providence, RI) "Crime and Punishment," and Huntington Theatre's (Boston) "Invisible Man." Next week we'll be at Holy Cross seeing their production of "Spring Awakening" (comparisons between their show and ours will be drawn, to be sure).
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Psych 108: Experimental Methods

This is a research methods class. No other comment at present.
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That's all I got. Time for a nap.