PhiloPsycho Freedom

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a rather tall guy: 6'7" in fact. Those who do know me clearly know this fact as well (maybe not in such detail, but generally speaking).

Having said that, I regularly get told that I'm tall, or asked whether I play basketball, football or whatever. My question about this is why is it alright to constantly point out this physical feature, but most other ones aren't. Don't misunderstand where I'm coming from, I don't care that much, but at times people need to wise up and stop telling me something I clearly know, especially when I'm trying to say something or the conversation is going well and they just drop that bomb that kills whatever was just being said.

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As related note to the last post, I probably should have done this one first. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is a model of persuasion proposed by Petty and Cacioppo back in the 80's. It says that we have two routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.

Two factors dictates which route we take: our knowledge/ability to think about a topic, and our motivation to think about the topic. If you are high in both of these factors, you will engage in the high-elaboration, central route. If  you're missing either of these factors, or both, you'll default to the peripheral route. The central route is known as the high-elaboration route because we're more likely to want more elaborative information and to think about the information more thoroughly. So, if someone were to approach an existential nihilist and start making claims about the meaning of life, they would most likely consider the arguments and have the motivation to think about it. Once the motivation is there, we consider the argument: if we have favourable thoughts (according to the theory), we will accept the argument in whole, or in part; if unfavourable thoughts are evoked during the argument, we will reject the argument.

Today I thought I'd talk about advertisement. Do we actually pay as much attention to them as we think? or are we persuaded by external factors?

To start, I thought sexual content would be good because it's used over-abundantly. As they say, Sex Sells. But is that really the case? What research has actually been showing for the past while is that women aren't as persuaded by sexual content in advertisement, which isn't entirely a surprise. Obviously, the sexual content is there to sell the product to the male viewers, right? Well, that's what they're hoping, but what research is now showing is that when there's sexual content directed at males, men pay more attention to that content rather than the product; they're more likely to remember the girl (if they're straight) than they are to remember what the commercial was selling.

For almost my entire life, I've lived without a cell phone. Only some brief stints within high school (parents requirement to use their car) and 1 year during university (no land line in the house 2nd year) did I have one. It's come to be part of my identity to not have one and I kind of pride myself on having the ability to both survive without one, as well as keep that $30+/month in my pocket.

So now, It looks like I may be getting one because my parents are buying a bundle deal and there will be one waiting for me when it comes in. There goes a piece of my identity, only to be replaced by this synthetic, mainstream, hollow piece. Great.

For those who don't know me and want to know why I don't enjoy cell phones, here are some of my reasons:

When it comes to interpreting rules or laws, there are two main interpretations for them. In law, there are several different jurisprudences (the science or philosophy of law) other than just spirit or law (for example, feminist jurisprudence), but I feel that these two are the most pervading and easily understood when applying to everyday situations.

Mother parking. Such a novel idea, isn't it? Let's have a spot right near the front of the store, beside the handicapped spaces, for expecting mothers and mothers with young children! Brilliant! So Courteous!

Indeed, it may be a courteous thing to do, but I say it's a little too selective and misguided. Misguided because since when is pregnancy a disability? Why do these women need that much more help? As well, exercise helps everyone, including pregnant women.

How about we replace "pregnant women" with overweight people? It may seem ridiculous, but in both cases it is a self-inflicted "ailment" (maybe less so for overweight people) that are both just as in need for this extra boost of help. I'm not talking about morbidly obese people, either. A guy with a big beer belly, how is he in any less need of that closer spot than a woman who chose to have this child, but doesn't want to walk that extra 50 yards? Another example would be the elderly: they did not choose their outcome (the ailments, not their age). They've just been lucky enough to survive long enough to have to deal with the problems of getting old, so we can't say they don't deserve a little extra help because these are, generally, not self-inflicted problems. If anything, they're more deserving, and yet they will have to give up these spots and park further away in order for these fertile, younger women to get a helping hand. While we're at it, what about injured people? If I have a broken left leg, I can still drive, but I have problems with mobility. Or how about people with athlete's foot? It hurts to walk!