The prevalence of text message usage has increased dramatically in the last decade.

I’m not sure if you noticed but there are a lot of people using cell phones these days. In fact, today’s cell phone is probably inaccurately named.  Cell phones do still make phone calls of course but they are  increasingly becoming more like portable computers than merely phones.  This dramatically improved functionality of cell phones has not necessarily made texting more prevalent per se but it has opened the door to less costly plans and more text-friendly telephones.  As a result, the prevalence of text message usage has increased dramatically in the last decade.

What started as a novelty nearly 20 years ago has since grown into somewhat of a cultural fixture.  With all of the texting lingo, it is easy to understand why there is debate about whether or not texting is harming today’s children. It seems a little unlikely that the new linguistic patterns found in texting is negatively impacting today’s youth but one has to wonder: What exactly are kids saying?  More directly, what types of things are today’s youth using text messages for?

Who Are They

Crispin Thurlow and Alex Brown of the University of Washington-Department of Communication

What They Did

Thurlow and Brown utilized 159 first year college students from Cardiff University (Wales, UK) and analyzed 544 individual text messages for 1.) Message Length 2.) Main linguistic content, such as actual text (like this), or emoticons  ( :-p ), and abbreviations (Laymanpsych is Gr8).

What They Found

As is perhaps expected, Thurlow’s findings seem to indicate that users are often brief.  The technology limits the length of the messages to (typically) 160 characters, most users used around 65 characters (though there was a lot of variation; some used much more, some used less).   This size limit seems to explain the need for abbreviations; the findings reveal that of the 544 examples, there were 1401 abbreviations (or about 3 per message). Interestingly, this only accounts for roughly 20% of the content.

Each message was then categorized by content (of the 544 examples, 121 were eligible for categorization) into one of eight categories as follows:

*Informational-Practical: Exchanges of practical details or requests (14%)

*Informational-Relational: Exchanges for requests or personal favors (8%)

*Practical Arrangement: Plans to meet (15%)

*Social Arrangement: Plans for recreational meetings (9%)

* Salutary: Greetings. Often very brief and non-specific (17%)

*Friendship Maintenance: Apologies, support, thanks, etc. (23%)

*Romantic: Maintenance of romantic relationships (9%)

*Sexual: Explicitly sexual overtones. (3%)

*Chain Messages: Long messages passed from user to user (2%)

Separating these eight categories into two groups, “low-intimacy, high transactional” and “High intimacy, high relational”, further reveals that the majority of text messages were to set up or maintain relationships (roughly 61%).

Other themes of note were a large level of humor and general “joy” as well as what Thurlow has described as “Hyper-coordination” in which users updated others with information about looming plans. For example: M25 “C u in 5 min x” or M27 “Where r u? We r by the bar at the back on the left”.  Lastly, texts were frequently used to have separate personal conversations between individuals while within a larger group.  Many, for example, were texts to fellow classmates about the lecture at hand, or about individuals within the group.

What does it all mean?

The study at hand is rather simplistic and on a certain level, one could argue, somewhat foreseeable.  This study seems to make it clear that text messaging has become an imperative communication tool for younger individuals. In the context of a hyper-active world in which people are often running in many directions at once, text messaging appears to be a viable way for people to not just remain in touch with each other but actually increase their social productivity.   Although one could argue that the content of these messages is an abomination to the English language, it’s also a possibility that there is simply a new communication paradigm that has formed.  In areas where speed is not an overly important aspect of the interaction, whether it’s on a term paper or even on Facebook, language appears to remain in tact.

Perhaps for a new form of communication (text messaging), for it to be as efficient as possible for its intended use, requires a new language of its own.  It seems likely that English remains safe and text messaging will continue to facilitate an ever-busy society that still has a strong urge to remain in touch.

Further Reading

Generation Txt? The sociolinguistics of young people’s text-messaging (link to article)

The Psychology of Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social Networking Devices

Danny from the Biggest Loser lost an incredible 239 pounds

The Real Life Example

Here is a task for you:  Go to Wal-Mart and look around.   America. Is. Fat.  In fact, America is only getting fatter.  There are, of course, many reasons for this and you’ve heard them all before so we shall spare you that story.  As America gets fatter, nighttime television is consumed by the latest and greatest weight loss schemes.  They do not work of course, which is (perhaps) one of the reasons the industry continues to grow.

The reality is that obesity is costing America a fortune while at the same time Washington debates healthcare reform.  An easy solution to both the obesity and health-care problem would be to lose weight. Simple as it sounds, most know that losing weight is far from it.  But why?  As you might imagine, psychologists are on the front lines in trying to find out why.   Recently the winner of a popular reality show lost 239 pounds in less than a year.  Turns out he also won $250,000.  As you might expect, it seems money is one of the best motivators to for weight loss.

Who Are They

Kevin G. Volpp, MD, PhD; Leslie K. John, MS; Andrea B. Troxel, ScD; Laurie Norton, MA; Jennifer Fassbender, MS; George Loewenstein, PhD

What They Did

Volpp et. al. gathered 57 overweight (though otherwise healthy) individuals between the ages of 30 and 70 years old.  The participants were then randomly placed in one of three different groups.  The first group was placed in a lottery system where those who met or exceeded weight-loss goals would have a chance at winning money.  The second group was part of a “deposit-contract arrangement” in which they pooled together their own money.  The money in this group was then split up among the top weight losers within the group.  The final group was given no cash incentive to lose weight.
The groups were all given 16 weeks to lose weight with a goal of losing one pound per week.

What They Found

Volp et al. discovered that those individuals who were given a cash incentive to lose weight performed significantly better than those given no incentive other than their good health.  By the numbers:  53% of the “lotto” group met or exceeded the 16 pound weight-loss goal, 47% of the deposit-contract group met or exceeded the 16 pound goal, and only 11% of the group with no cash incentive met or exceeded the 16 pound goal.  A follow up study revealed that not only did the weight loss end as soon as the cash incentives did for most of the participants, but the weight actually begin to come back.

What it Means

Unfortunately it looks like a random group of American’s isn’t very intrinsically motivated to be healthy.  In fact, by and large it required cold hard cash for individuals to lose weight. Sadly, once that extrinsic incentive was taken away, so was the motivation to lose weight.  What’s scary is that other findings about financial based incentives may mean that those who once lost weight as a result of a cash incentive, may now have even less motivation to be healthier on their own accord.

So is money the answer to a healthier America?  Early indications suggest not, at least not for the long term.  There is some hope, however, in that it is possible to motivate otherwise unmotivated people to do something with a little bit of money.  But for those of us who work every day, this isn’t news at all.  Volpp et. al. do wonder if a longer-term incentive program would begin to actually change the way the participants think by suggesting that a 12-18 month program would result in such drastic weight loss that the extrinsic motivation of cash would begin subside to an intrinsic desire to remain healthy.  Perhaps we should follow up with Danny in a few months to see how he’s doing…

Layman Psych Definitions

Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation can be thought of as the internal desire to accomplish something for the sake of accomplishing it.  Intrinsically motivated tasks are still accomplished due to a reward but the reward exists within the task itself.  An example is listening to a song because an individual likes how the song sounds.

Extrinsic Motivation: Extrinsic motivation refers to “external” motivation to drive us to finishing something.  With extrinsically motivated tasks, the desire to complete the task has less to do with the rewards within the task itself and more to do with the rewards that come as a result of the completion of the task.  For example, you go to work to get paid. The work is the task, the motivation is the money you get from the job (this is, of course, unless you love your work).

Further Reading

Financial Incentive–Based Approaches for Weight Loss (link to study)

Swat teams, Oakland Raiders fans, The Wicked Witch of The West, the Russian MIGs in Top Gun, ninjas, and L.L. Cool Jay in Any Given Sunday all have two things in common; they all wear black and they are all pretty intimidating.

Our association with Black and Evil is pretty well known and interestingly it does not seem to be attached to a single culture but is instead accepted across many cultures.   Why we associate black with evil is as much (if not more) historical than it is psychological. But what are the psychological implications of this association?  It turns out that this has been studied quite a bit, perhaps most interestingly by a team of researchers from Cornell in 1988.

Who Are They?

Mark G. Frank and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University in 1988.

What They Did?

Frank and Gilovich wondered what wearing the color black might do to ones aggressiveness on sports teams.  So they designed 4 studies that investigated what wearing black uniforms in athletics did to perceived and actual aggressiveness of the participants involved.

What They Did: Study 1–Semantic Interpretations of Team Uniforms

Frank and Gilovich found 25 subjects who knew nothing of the NFL or NHL and nothing about the corresponding sports (football and hockey, respectively).  The subjects were shown various team jerseys and were asked to rate them on 5 aspects (good or bad, timid or aggressive, nice or mean, active or passive, and weak or strong).

A uniform was considered black if 50% of it was black.  In the NFL this included the Steelers, Saints, Raiders, Bengals and Bears (although the Chicago Bears uniform is technically a deep blue, a pre-experimental test showed that most perceived it to be black and in fact much of the football world refers to their uniforms as being black).  In the NHL this included Vanvouver, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago.

What They Found

Despite the fact that jersey’s were shown out of context and without an athlete wearing them, the three scales relating to aggressiveness (good or bad, nice or mean, timid or aggressive) correlated to each other in a way that allowed for the researchers to combine them into a single score that demonstrated an overall aggressiveness level when combined (in other words, subjects who picked “good”, for example, tended to pick the same for the rest of the areas).  What they found was that teams with black uniforms were consistently rated as being more aggressive than their counterparts. Again, the interesting thing about this is that the subjects knew nothing of what these jersey’s represented, only what it looked like.

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Obviously a jersey that looks aggressive doesn’t automatically equate to a team that acts more aggressive.  So they sought to find out what the facts actually said of the teams that wore black uniforms.

What They Did: Study2–NFL and NHL Penalty Records

Frank and Gilovich went to the NFL and NHL and requested official penalty records for all teams from 1970 through 1985(NHL) and 1986(NFL).  Because in football, more aggressive penalties (such as roughing the passer, pass interference, or unnecessary roughness) equate to larger yardage losses, the aggressiveness of a given team was based on the amount of yards it was penalized in a given data set. If a team was assessed more penalty yards, it was viewed as playing more aggressively.  In hockey, a player who commits a foul is given a time penalty.  More aggressive penalties equate to more time. Therefore, a hockey team’s aggressiveness was based on its total penalty time in a given data set. If a team had more penalty time, it was viewed as being more aggressive.

What They Found

As they expected, the top 5 most penalized teams in the NFL over the duration of the data set were also the 5 teams that had black uniforms.  The same held true with the NHL teams in terms of penalty minutes with the exception of one team that came in 4th. Coincidentally, it was the New Jersey Devils.

Even more interesting, perhaps, are the findings of two of the NHL teams, Pittsburgh and Vancouver, who actually switched to black uniforms (from non-black uniforms) at one point in the data set. Further analysis revealed that the teams in fact had more penalty minutes post-black uniforms than pre-black uniforms, one of these changes (Pittsburgh) even happened in the same season, and therefore on the same team!

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At this point we have found two things. First of all, people seem to think that individuals dressed in black are inherently more aggressive (study 1). Second, we discovered that in two professional sports, teams wearing black uniforms are in fact the most aggressive teams in their respective sports (study 2).  This leaves us with an obvious question though: If people view individuals who wear black as being more aggressive, isn’t it possible that the people calling penalties are simply more prone to calling them on teams in black?

What They Did: Study 3–Bias in Calling Penalties on Individuals in Black or White Uniforms.

To address the above question, Frank and Gilovich decided to directly investigate whether or not people would call penalties more on individuals wearing black than some other color. To be a experimentally sound investigation, the plays needed to be the exact same for those wearing the  black uniform and those not wearing black.  To overcome this dilemma, Frank and Gilovich videotaped two plays.

The two videos showed the exact same play with the exact same penalty likely occurring. The only difference in the two films was that for one, the defense wore black while the offense wore white and in the other, the defense wore white and the offense wore black.  Aside from this, the videos were designed to be as close to each other as possible.

Frank and Gilovich utilized a group of college students and a group of referees who would assess whether or not they felt a penalty had occurred. Every subject viewed the exact same plays. However, the referees and college students were each split into two groups (thus forming four groups).  The first group watched the videos in color, allowing them to plainly see that one team was wearing a black jersey.  The second group watched the video in black and white, and therefore they couldn’t tell if the darker jersey was black or another color like blue, red, or pink.

What They Found

The results showed that black jerseys tended to get penalties called on them more than white jerseys.    This held true for both plays, from both college students and professional referees, despite the fact that they were shot identically.  In other words, if you felt that the offense made a penalty in video 1, you should have felt the offense made a penalty in video two, regardless of the change in jersey color.  This is not what was found. Instead, more referees and college students felt that the black jersey teams made a foul than the white jersey teams.

Furthermore, the college students and professional referees who viewed the black and white films (the groups viewing the “non-black jerseys”) made no significant change in the way they called the play.  If they felt it was the offense in video 1, they felt it was the offense in video 2.

In other words, when the subjects knew that the team was wearing black, they felt they made more penalties, regardless of what side of the ball they were on. But when the color of the dark jersey was unclear, there was no bias in how they called the play.

–

This leaves us with one final question.  We obvioulsy perceive people wearing black as being more aggressive, even when they may not be (study 3).  So if we perceive others who wear black as more aggressive, what do we think of ourselves when we’re in black?  This question leads us to Frank and Gilovich’s final study.  For their final study, Frank and Gilovich sought to discover if people became more aggressive simply by wearing black uniforms.

What They Did: Study 4–Inducing Aggression by the Wearing of Black Uniforms

Subjects were put into groups of 3.  Each group was informed that they would be competing against each other in a series of 5 activities from a list of 12 possibilities.  Prior to being grouped each subject was asked individually what their 5 favorite activities were.  The list of activities ranged in aggressiveness.  Since some sports are inherently more aggressive than others, the choices they made indicated their level of aggressiveness.  For example, golf is a rather un-aggressive sport, while basketball is somewhat aggressive, and football is inherently aggressive. To determine actual ratings for aggressiveness of the activities, prior to the study a separate group of 30 individuals ranked the aggressiveness of 20 activities and the 12 most consistent results were averaged together to form a scale for the study.

Once the groups were together they were asked to then collaborate with each other on which sports they wanted to participate in.  The teams were either issued white uniforms, or black uniforms.  While making the decision on what activities they wanted to participate in, they did not see their opponents.

The study was looking for two things: 1). Would a team wearing black become more aggressive than they had been as individuals and 2). Would the teams wearing black chose more aggressive sports than the white uniformed teams.

There are therefore 4 groups to look at.

Individuals who would eventually be on a black uniform team
The black uniform teams
Individuals who would eventually be on a white uniform team
The white uniform teams

What they found

Not surprisingly, the results were conclusive.  As individuals, levels of aggression between groups was about the same.   However, once individuals were put on a team with a black uniform, the group then became significantly more aggressive in their choice of activities.   Not only were the group of black uniformed teams significantly more aggressive than the individuals as a whole but they were also more aggressive than their white teamed counterparts.  Furthermore, the white uniform teams aggression hardly changed at all from what they had chosen as individuals!

What does all of this mean?

The 4 experiments above outline some pretty interesting facts on human aggression.  The first alarming finding is that we make quick judgments  about people and what they are wearing.  We automatically assume that individuals wearing black are inherently more aggressive than individuals not wearing black.  But, as it turns out, we may be doing this for good reason because when individuals are wearing black seem to feel, and certainly seem to act, more aggressive.

The only advice I have for you; watch what you say to your buss boy!

Interesting stuff…

More Reading
Black Uniforms and Aggression (full article)

The history of social networking is probably quite a bit older than most people realize.  The internet has made it possible for humans to remain connected in ways that probably would have blown your father’s mind when he was a kid.  In fact, when I was young I use to ponder how neat it would be to go to my 10 year high school reunion.  By the time I got to high school however, instant messaging, email, myspace and (by the time i was in college) facebook made the prospects of attending any high school reunion seem unnecessary.  I already know what Tom has been doing for the last five years and I’m in constant contact with the friends I wish to remain in contact with.

In fact, I know more about people I don’t care about than I ever thought I would. Just the other day I announced to the world that I had intended on “unfriending” 75% of the 357 facebook “friends” I have because I didn’t know or care about their lives.  I haven’t gotten around to that, and I’m not sure I will.  Humans value the networks they are a part of.  Those 357 “friends” are sort of a resource, I realized. I may not care about Mary’s colonoscopy that she told the world about last night, but you never know when she’s going to post about a job opening at her company.

I mention a colonoscopy on facebook as a joke, only…it’s not a joke. I’ve seen that come across my “news feed”.  The amount of personal information shared on the likes of twitter, myspace, facebook, message boards, or whatever the social-networking-flavor-of-the-month is, is somewhat mind blowing.  It’s obvious that the information we share on these sites is put out there for a reason. It’s as if we are reaching out to the world, trying to quench that ever-present thirst for attention and sense of importance.

It seems likely that our desire to scream to the world about our every moment and–if you chose, our colonoscopies–is driven psychologically.  In fact, a new website called TweetPsych allows you to check the psychological breakdown of your tweets. It says of tweeting extraordinaire Shaquille O’Neil that, “Many of your Tweets reference various social behaviors.” As interesting and fun as TweetPsych is, research into the psychology behind social networking is in fact under way.

Who Are They

Researchers Young, Dutta, and Dommety of Stanford University’s Psychology Department

What They Did

Young, Dutta, and Dommety formed a simple research experiment that sought to identify a relationship between the things people put on their facebook profile about themselves in connection to their intentions, specifically whether or not they were using facebook as a tool to find a romantic relationship. The team utilized 150 facebook profiles representing a random mix of individuals.

What They Found

As they predicted, the research found a statically significant pattern between certain information listed on their profile in correlation to their relationship status.  Specifically, they found that individuals who listed their religion on their profile also tended to list the fact that they were single.

What This Means

The researchers recognize the simplicity of their study but also point out that, to their knowledge, this is the first study of its kind (often, entire branches of study stem from small, seemingly insignificant studies such as this). They conclude from this that it is likely that individuals are using social networking sites, like facebook, to paint a picture of themselves to potential partners.

The premise is that if an individual is not seeking a partner, there is no need to share with the world very individual and personal moral views.  Only does this matter if you are quietly informing people who may be interested in you. In a sense, facebook becomes a filter for the individual to weed out incompatible mates.

In Another Study

The truth is that for every 5 friends I have that are on facebook, I can probably think of one who isn’t.  The fact is that not everyone has a desire to share themselves to the world like others might.  Certainly, the internet did not create narcissism, but many would argue that social networking websites aid in it. Furthermore, it seems a safe conclusion that narcissistic individuals are more prone to utilizing social networking tools.  Recent research seems to confirm this conclusion.

Who Are They

Buffardi and Campbell of the University of Georgia’s Department of Psychology

What They Did

Buffardi and Campbell collected self-reports detecting narcissistic tendencies of users of social networking sites. The profiles of these individuals web pages were then coded to detect the levels of subjective and objective content. Lastly, strangers viewed these profile’s and rated them on three areas: agentic traits (the level at which an individual is a product of their society), communal traits, and narcissism.

What They Found

It turns out that an individuals level of activity on their social networking website is strongly correlated to their level of narcissism.  In short, people who like themselves tend to show more to the world about themselves.

Why Is Social Networking So Prevalent?

Narcissism is generally not a celebrated trait. Why then is social networking so widely accepted if it is so related to narcissistic tendencies?  Is it possible that the internet merely allows an all-to-easy outlet for these tendencies to surface from people who may otherwise not possess them? According to one study, this seems to be the case.

Some people are far more shy than others but to a certain extent we all possess a little of this–even the “kings of narcissism”.  Being shy is a defensive measure that allows an individual to protect themselves from ridicule, or worse.  The internet has allowed individuals an uncanny intimacy while maintaining  a near-infinite level of physical separation.  What effect might this have on shy individuals?

Who Are They
Orr, Sisic, Ross, Simmering, Arseneault, and Orr  of The University of Windsor’s Psychology Department

What They Did

Orr, Sisic, Ross, Simmering, Arseneault, and Orr  set out to study correlations of shyness to various aspects of social networking websites.

What They Found

By coding individuals level of shyness based on self reports and then analyzing their usage of facebook, Orr, Sisic, Ross, Simmering, Arseneault, and Orr, discovered that individuals who were more shy spent far more time on facebook.  What they also unexpectedly found, was that despite the fact that shyer individuals spent more time on facebook, they had a significantly lower amount of friends associated with their profiles.

What Does All This Mean?

Although social networking is reaching, arguably, the end of its 3rd generation, psychological research on the matter is still very young. However, recent studies seem to indicate what logic would surmise.  Social networking is, at its heart, fueled by long-existing psychological tendencies. The desire to be loved and be important to the world.  Certainly there is nothing abnormal about this. However, the ease at which information can be placed on the internet, the furious nature with which that information spreads, and the permanence of that information, is cause for concern.

Individuals who have problems finding friends or romantic partners by “normal means” may go to the internet and unleash the narcissism within themselves in an attempt to grab the worlds attention.  Unfortunately, it seems reasonable that shy individuals who can’t meet people by “normal means” (perhaps at a concert, diner, or bar, for example) do not have the filter of shyness that prevents them from sharing more than they may want to with the world.  The results may have the reverse effect that they are seeking.

In any case, it is interesting!

More Reading
Extrapolating psychological insights from Facebook profiles: a study of religion and relationship status (2009)
Narcissism and social networking Web sites (2008)
The influence of shyness on the use of Facebook in an undergraduate sample (2009)
Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited

I was at a bicycle race the other day.  Just adjacent to the course was a road that we were using to warm up on.  A while into riding up and down the road I noticed a teammate of mine watching the race that had been going on.  A short while later another one of my teammates stopped, and so I did too and began chatting with them.  Within a minute, I looked behind me and everyone else who had been warming up had now stopped to look at what we were looking at.  What they did not know wast that I had stopped to talk to people I knew. What they saw, were three people stopping to look at something, and so the twenty unrelated riders decided that they should too.

What was going on here? In two words: Social Proofing

Social proofing is nothing more than the phenomenon that occurs when groups of humans rely on the actions of the group to make decisions. It works under the assumption that “I don’t know, but they obviously do”. In other words, an individual may doubt their own actions, so they rely on the actions of the group to determine their own course of action.

The following study is a classic example of the power of social proofing.

Who Are They

Researchers Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, Lawrence Berkowitz in 1969

What They Did

Milgram, Bickman & Berkowitz designed a very simple and clever study. They took a busy street corner in Manhattan and placed an individual there and told him to do nothing but stare at a particular spot on a tall building.  They then noted how many passers by either stopped and gazed up with the experimenter or looked up as they passed by.

They ran the experiment a few times, each time increasing the number of people who initially were standing on the corner gazing. Each time noting the number of people who looked up or stopped and gazed with the experimenters.

What They Found

The data they collected was, perhaps expected, if not interesting.  When the experiment took place with just one person gazing at a building, only 20% of passers by joined in gazing or looked up themselves.  However, when as few as 5 people were gazing up at the building, 80% of passers by joined in gazing or looked up themselves

What Do We Make of This?

It’s clear that the urge to look up increased with the number of people who were also looking up. A classic case of social proofing: If those 5 people are looking at something, there must be something to look at. This is a response that seems to be wired into our brains. Remember the last time you were driving on a highway and had to look at the accident as you drove by? Or how about your recent desire to check out twitter–CNN is talking about it, and so are my friends, it must be great!

Social proofing exists for a reason. It is a short cut that can allow us to make decisions quickly based on the actions of others. If you think back to the horrific videos from the streets that were taken during 9/11 you might recall the crowds of people that were running away from Ground Zero. This is a legitimate example of how social proofing can save your life.  Just keep in mind, though, that sometimes three guys looking at the race are just looking at the race.
Read More

The Drawing Power of Crowds (link to the study)

Wikipedia on social proofing

Random blog discussing the study