I decided to choose being extremely introverted for a day in order to observe the reactions of the people, especially my friends’ reactions to this change in my behavior. I chose this particular dimension because I consider myself usually to be very outgoing and outspoken. One of the main reasons for this is because I would consider my self-monitor (Snyder, 1987) to be on the higher end of the spectrum, and because of this I have many different groups of friends that I would say I am close to, many of which probably don’t even know of the others’ existence, therefore there were many different reactions that I could record. Changing this particular dimension would mean that I went a day being very quiet, and not talking a lot even to my close friends, which goes against my self-concept as I am definitely schematic for these traits (Markus, 1977). Since for most of the day I was dealing with people that I am close to. I was seeking self-verification (Swann, 1987), which made me able to be introverted for such a long time.
Implementing this change was not easy for me, but after a couple of hours through the day I got the hang of it. At the start of the day I knew what I was supposed to be doing, but I didn’t really know how to go about it doing it. I would have conversations with my roommate or my neighbors, and I would try to convince myself that this is not the type of situation that I could be introverted, when in reality this trait would be evident in every part of daily life. As I began to realize this, I slowly started to become more and more shy, stopped talking so much, and by 11:00 AM I was almost completely silent. For example, by the time one of my classes came around (a class that I usually participate in regularly) I didn’t say a word until the professor started to call me out and ask me questions. Even then I would try to answer her questions in the least amount of words possible, and in what might as well be whispers. She probably thought I was having a bad day.
Other than my professor, almost all my friends noticed my change in behavior. After my initial interactions with my friends, when I was trying to get into character, I immediately started to switch gears. I also started to implement changes to my non-verbal behaviors, such as looking down when I walk, as opposed to looking straight, and taking faster and shorter steps, in order for the introvertedness to be more apparent. At lunch, I was eating at a table with my friends and I did not start or participate in any discussion whatsoever. They were quite confused by this, and in the corner of my eye I could see them trading strange looks as I continued to stare at my food. A couple of time they asked me what was wrong as they assumed that I was extremely stressed and/or had something on my mind.
I usually play FIFA (a soccer game) daily, with another group of friends, and as you might imagine,it usually gets very loud and competitive. This time however, I tried to say as little as possible which resulted in a very interesting gaming session. What is usually a profanity fest was instead a room filled with the sound of awkward silence, as I just sat there playing and not saying a word. I’m not too sure how they interpreted my change in behavior. I mean, they couldn’t have attributed it to stress as I was nonchalantly playing a videogame with them for an hour. Either way, they definitely took notice and didn’t know how to respond.
Before getting into the role, I have to admit I was pretty nervous because I anticipated the task to be much harder than it actually was. Thankfully that day I didn’t have much work to do for my classes, as studies have shown that under cognitive load, it is very hard to change self-presentation strategies (Schlenker, 2003). As mentioned earlier, it took me a few hours to fully be introverted, and even after I got into character I felt it difficult to maintain at first. At the end of the day, however, I got used to being passive and I felt that I could keep going if I had to (thankfully I didn’t). At the end of the day I was able to return back to being my normal self in an instant, because as much as I got used to playing someone else, I really wanted to go back to being me.
I would say that I learned quite a bit about myself and human behavior after this experience, especially about the relationship between the self-monitor and whether or not a person is extroverted or introverted. The way I see it, the higher a person’s self-monitor is the easier it is for them to be extroverted, and vice versa. I personally favor being extroverted as it makes it easier to form plenty of different close relationships which in my opinion leads to a much greater and more diverse social life. Though some people may say that this trait means that I am “fakey” or something along those lines, I just see it as being extremely adaptive to various situations, and is much more beneficial than it is negative.
From this experience I learned that the self-concept can be changed with time and effort. The self concept is always changing with experience (cite) and even though I was changing a trait that I was particularly schematic for, after a while I would start to find myself introverted. Even though I feel this is the case, because the trait that I was manipulating was so important to my self-concept, I was able to change back with ease, which goes to show that important traits are probably much harder to fully change than those that are not. I would also go as far to say that those with low self-monitors will have a much harder time trying to change traits that are important to them.
Word Count: 1042
References
Markus, H. (1997). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 35, 63-78.
Schlenker, B.R. (2003). Self-presentation. In M.R. Leary & J.P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and
identity (pp.492-518). New York: Guilford.
Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances/private realities: The psychology of self-monitoring. New
York: Freeman.
Swann, W.B., Jr. (1987). Identity negotiation: Where two roads meet. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 53, 1038-1051.
Implementing this change was not easy for me, but after a couple of hours through the day I got the hang of it. At the start of the day I knew what I was supposed to be doing, but I didn’t really know how to go about it doing it. I would have conversations with my roommate or my neighbors, and I would try to convince myself that this is not the type of situation that I could be introverted, when in reality this trait would be evident in every part of daily life. As I began to realize this, I slowly started to become more and more shy, stopped talking so much, and by 11:00 AM I was almost completely silent. For example, by the time one of my classes came around (a class that I usually participate in regularly) I didn’t say a word until the professor started to call me out and ask me questions. Even then I would try to answer her questions in the least amount of words possible, and in what might as well be whispers. She probably thought I was having a bad day.
Other than my professor, almost all my friends noticed my change in behavior. After my initial interactions with my friends, when I was trying to get into character, I immediately started to switch gears. I also started to implement changes to my non-verbal behaviors, such as looking down when I walk, as opposed to looking straight, and taking faster and shorter steps, in order for the introvertedness to be more apparent. At lunch, I was eating at a table with my friends and I did not start or participate in any discussion whatsoever. They were quite confused by this, and in the corner of my eye I could see them trading strange looks as I continued to stare at my food. A couple of time they asked me what was wrong as they assumed that I was extremely stressed and/or had something on my mind.
I usually play FIFA (a soccer game) daily, with another group of friends, and as you might imagine,it usually gets very loud and competitive. This time however, I tried to say as little as possible which resulted in a very interesting gaming session. What is usually a profanity fest was instead a room filled with the sound of awkward silence, as I just sat there playing and not saying a word. I’m not too sure how they interpreted my change in behavior. I mean, they couldn’t have attributed it to stress as I was nonchalantly playing a videogame with them for an hour. Either way, they definitely took notice and didn’t know how to respond.
Before getting into the role, I have to admit I was pretty nervous because I anticipated the task to be much harder than it actually was. Thankfully that day I didn’t have much work to do for my classes, as studies have shown that under cognitive load, it is very hard to change self-presentation strategies (Schlenker, 2003). As mentioned earlier, it took me a few hours to fully be introverted, and even after I got into character I felt it difficult to maintain at first. At the end of the day, however, I got used to being passive and I felt that I could keep going if I had to (thankfully I didn’t). At the end of the day I was able to return back to being my normal self in an instant, because as much as I got used to playing someone else, I really wanted to go back to being me.
I would say that I learned quite a bit about myself and human behavior after this experience, especially about the relationship between the self-monitor and whether or not a person is extroverted or introverted. The way I see it, the higher a person’s self-monitor is the easier it is for them to be extroverted, and vice versa. I personally favor being extroverted as it makes it easier to form plenty of different close relationships which in my opinion leads to a much greater and more diverse social life. Though some people may say that this trait means that I am “fakey” or something along those lines, I just see it as being extremely adaptive to various situations, and is much more beneficial than it is negative.
From this experience I learned that the self-concept can be changed with time and effort. The self concept is always changing with experience (cite) and even though I was changing a trait that I was particularly schematic for, after a while I would start to find myself introverted. Even though I feel this is the case, because the trait that I was manipulating was so important to my self-concept, I was able to change back with ease, which goes to show that important traits are probably much harder to fully change than those that are not. I would also go as far to say that those with low self-monitors will have a much harder time trying to change traits that are important to them.
Word Count: 1042
References
Markus, H. (1997). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 35, 63-78.
Schlenker, B.R. (2003). Self-presentation. In M.R. Leary & J.P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and
identity (pp.492-518). New York: Guilford.
Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances/private realities: The psychology of self-monitoring. New
York: Freeman.
Swann, W.B., Jr. (1987). Identity negotiation: Where two roads meet. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 53, 1038-1051.
I also did something very similar for my PO blog, but instead of being more introverted, I decided to just not say anything all day (unless it was completely necessary). I feel like your ability to talk throughout the day made it easier for you to deal with, because only being able to communicate through non-verbal behavior began to get kind of frustrating as the day went on. How differently do you feel your experience would have been if you had been around family members?
ReplyDeleteI also became more introverted/less social for a day. One thing I thought you did was interesting, was changing your behavior to being more introverted throughout the day. You started out by talking to people and then you started to lessen the amount of talking you did to the point where you really weren’t talking. Then your actions or body language also became more introverted. I’m curious how my day would have worked out for me if I had tried that, as I started off from the beginning of the day not talking to people, then what was necessary and trying to control my body language to being more introverted/less social. In general it’s very interesting how malleable one’s self concept is. People who are generally extroverted and social start feeling more introverted and isolated by only a few hours of changing their behavior (or that’s what happen to me) and yet the self-concept is still pretty stable by the fact that it can easily revert back to the normal self-concept. I personally feel it would be easier for extroverted people to become introverted for a day rather than vice versa. I wonder if your day would have been different if you started out by not talking from the very beginning.
ReplyDelete