Saturday, February 7, 2015

Who Do You Think I Am?



          After having our introductory class, I began to think more and more about what I want to get out of this class. When I ask myself the question of what I want to make in this course, the same answer keeps popping up in my head. Race, ethnicity, and background remind me of identities and stereotypes. As a result, I think it would be really interesting to conduct a type of experiment or study. 

          I am very curious to see how much you can tell about a person just based on the way they look. This experiment would require participants to go against the old saying "Don't judge a book by its cover". When people look at me, I think they see a white girl, blonde hair, pretty face, and small figure. But that is just the surface impression. Beyond that, I think people will assume that they know things about myself based solely on my physical appearance. I would like to know what they think and how accurate they are compared to the facts.

Some possible questions that could be asked include:
        ~Do you think you can tell a lot about a person just by looking at them?
        ~What are your impressions of the girl in the picture? 
        ~Do you think this girl excelled in school, or struggled? 
        ~Do you think this girl is financially stable or poverty-stricken? 
        ~What ethnicity do you think this girl is?
        ~Do you think this girl would rather go to the gym or the mall? 
        ~Do you think this girl has a nuclear family, single-parent family, or a blended family?
        ~Do you think this girl is confident or insecure? 
        ~Do you think this girl is mean or nice?
        ~Do you think this girl went to college? 
        ~What career path do you think this girl has chosen?

Obviously, I would not be able to conduct the survey myself if the questions were about me because then the results would be biased and inaccurate. This project would require a friend or family member to show participants pictures of myself and have surveyors fill out their answers. Once enough information is collected, I would analyze the data to show whether majority of participants answered based on stereotypes or did not. 

My goal for this project is not to change how everyone views each other, I think that is unrealistic. My goal is to reveal that stereotypes DO EXIST. This study could educate people on how unreliable their judgments are... "There is more than meets the eye".

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