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I can see your underwear, from down here.
Oct. 4th, 2011 11:15 amSomething you might not realise is that most psychological research is carried out on psychology students. They're a widely available resource in psychology departments worldwide and encouraged to take part as many undergraduate courses offer free marks for taking part in departmental projects. What you should take away from this is that most psychological research is, as a result, pretty much worthless as the results are drawn from a small and unrepresentative sample of the population. From experience, 90% of psychology students are girls who've taken the course because they've got issues and they want to learn how to work themselves out, and 10% are boys who've realised that 90% of their fellow students will be needy girls with issues and that makes the students union a target-rich environment. There might be a few exceptions to this rule who took the course because they actually care, but I never met any of those.
Anyway, during my degree I got dragged into any number of experiments, and one sticks in my mind. I was told they were measuring emotional reactions to visual stimuli and that they wanted me to look at pictures on a slideshow and remember my two favourites. They gave me a clicker so I could move from one picture to the next and let me get on with it and, as I clicked, I twigged what they were really testing.
You see, the experimenters were one male, one female, and the pictures were a variety of people interacting with each other - everything from hugging and kissing to just talking to one strangling another. The male experimenter had left the room whilst I looked, but the girl stayed and it occurred to me that what they were really testing was how the presence of the girl affected which pictures I looked at. Did I click hastily by the pictures of the girl being strangled and linger on pictures of a couple picking flowers in the sunshine? Clearly they were timing how long I looked at each picture, and the study would be replicated with other subjects and the girl not there to see how a female presence alters male behaviour.
Naturally, from that moment on, I set on to skew their results. I clicked impatiently over the cuddling couples and lingered for what I hoped was a slightly disturbingly long time on a photo of a girl being strangled. Eventually I got to the end and the experimenters debriefed me (good experimentation practice this - you tell the subject what was going on), and, yes, I was right. they were testing to see how men with women present skip over images like the ones I lingered on and linger on the ones which I skipped over. I sauntered out in the cheery knowledge I'd messed with their results.
And that's why you should never trust psychological research. They carry it out on people like me.
Anway, I got to thinking about how men react with women present this weekend when the she-David took me off to Time for tease an afternoon champagne & cream tea event with a burlesque floorshow as entertainment. I'd been rather under the impression that burlesque was just posh stripping, but it turned out to be all pretty much good, clean fun; lounge singing, comedy acts and dancing with a certain amount of skin (but nothing my mother would disapprove of) but with its tongue firmly in it's cheek and a saucy tone rather than a raunchy one.*
One interesting thing for me, with my habit of people watching, was the audience. First, it was predominantly female - of about 40 people, only 5 were male - which I hadn't expected due to the amount of lady skin on show, and second, how subdued the men in the audience were. When the first performer came on (a lounge singer in Sally Bowles-esque basque/fishnets combo who did a rousing take on I always get my man), the men in the audience plainly didn't really know where to look, and it struck me fairly quickly that it was because they didn't want to be seen staring in such a female-dominated audience, especially as most of the gents present were with girlfriends.
Naturally, I stared. Well, I actually grinned broadly at the performers and held eye contact as much as I could, with the result that I got the majority of audience interaction from them; staring glumly at your cup of tea and shooting occasional glances at the girl on stage isn't the best way to deal with this sort of situation, I think. I just wished I'd worn my bowtie, as I'm pretty sure if I had been one of the performers would have undone it for me, releasing a cloud of steam from my neckline in a comical fashion.
The other thing which struck me about the other gents in the room was that not only were they subdued, but also the event description on the website clearly requests people make an effort in their dress and if a jersey and trainers are 'making an effort' I can only say that gents outfitting has come to a pretty pass. I was the only gent there in a suit! Disappointing. Very disappointing.
Anyway, the event was tremendous fun - the cakes were tasty, the overpriced cocktails were as overpriced as I like them to be, and I was entertained by saucy ladies in varying - but not quite as much as I'd've liked - stages of deshabille. If the she-David doesn't mind me smiling broadly at scantily-clad lovelies I'd go back, and next time I may take some like-minded chums to demonstrate to the performers that not all men who go to their shows are slightly wet, caring sorts who pretend not to be looking whilst they're dancing about.
*I must confess that my hopes had been unfairly raised when, upon arrival, the she-David had plonked me in a chair with a fine view of the stage with the words "Sit here, darling, you'll have a better view of the strippers".
Anyway, during my degree I got dragged into any number of experiments, and one sticks in my mind. I was told they were measuring emotional reactions to visual stimuli and that they wanted me to look at pictures on a slideshow and remember my two favourites. They gave me a clicker so I could move from one picture to the next and let me get on with it and, as I clicked, I twigged what they were really testing.
You see, the experimenters were one male, one female, and the pictures were a variety of people interacting with each other - everything from hugging and kissing to just talking to one strangling another. The male experimenter had left the room whilst I looked, but the girl stayed and it occurred to me that what they were really testing was how the presence of the girl affected which pictures I looked at. Did I click hastily by the pictures of the girl being strangled and linger on pictures of a couple picking flowers in the sunshine? Clearly they were timing how long I looked at each picture, and the study would be replicated with other subjects and the girl not there to see how a female presence alters male behaviour.
Naturally, from that moment on, I set on to skew their results. I clicked impatiently over the cuddling couples and lingered for what I hoped was a slightly disturbingly long time on a photo of a girl being strangled. Eventually I got to the end and the experimenters debriefed me (good experimentation practice this - you tell the subject what was going on), and, yes, I was right. they were testing to see how men with women present skip over images like the ones I lingered on and linger on the ones which I skipped over. I sauntered out in the cheery knowledge I'd messed with their results.
And that's why you should never trust psychological research. They carry it out on people like me.
Anway, I got to thinking about how men react with women present this weekend when the she-David took me off to Time for tease an afternoon champagne & cream tea event with a burlesque floorshow as entertainment. I'd been rather under the impression that burlesque was just posh stripping, but it turned out to be all pretty much good, clean fun; lounge singing, comedy acts and dancing with a certain amount of skin (but nothing my mother would disapprove of) but with its tongue firmly in it's cheek and a saucy tone rather than a raunchy one.*
One interesting thing for me, with my habit of people watching, was the audience. First, it was predominantly female - of about 40 people, only 5 were male - which I hadn't expected due to the amount of lady skin on show, and second, how subdued the men in the audience were. When the first performer came on (a lounge singer in Sally Bowles-esque basque/fishnets combo who did a rousing take on I always get my man), the men in the audience plainly didn't really know where to look, and it struck me fairly quickly that it was because they didn't want to be seen staring in such a female-dominated audience, especially as most of the gents present were with girlfriends.
Naturally, I stared. Well, I actually grinned broadly at the performers and held eye contact as much as I could, with the result that I got the majority of audience interaction from them; staring glumly at your cup of tea and shooting occasional glances at the girl on stage isn't the best way to deal with this sort of situation, I think. I just wished I'd worn my bowtie, as I'm pretty sure if I had been one of the performers would have undone it for me, releasing a cloud of steam from my neckline in a comical fashion.
The other thing which struck me about the other gents in the room was that not only were they subdued, but also the event description on the website clearly requests people make an effort in their dress and if a jersey and trainers are 'making an effort' I can only say that gents outfitting has come to a pretty pass. I was the only gent there in a suit! Disappointing. Very disappointing.
Anyway, the event was tremendous fun - the cakes were tasty, the overpriced cocktails were as overpriced as I like them to be, and I was entertained by saucy ladies in varying - but not quite as much as I'd've liked - stages of deshabille. If the she-David doesn't mind me smiling broadly at scantily-clad lovelies I'd go back, and next time I may take some like-minded chums to demonstrate to the performers that not all men who go to their shows are slightly wet, caring sorts who pretend not to be looking whilst they're dancing about.
*I must confess that my hopes had been unfairly raised when, upon arrival, the she-David had plonked me in a chair with a fine view of the stage with the words "Sit here, darling, you'll have a better view of the strippers".
