Aronson's First Law

Article: The Seattle Times

This is a sad story. But, this is a our tendency. 

Aronson's first law is that people who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy. According to The Social Animal, some situational variables can move a great propotion of us "normal" adults to behave in very unappetizing ways.

This article says that Pfc. Andrew Holmes, a soldier accused of killing an unarmed Afghan man last January, is on a trial. And, he is one of five soldiers alleged to have been involved in the killing of three unarmed Afganis. this case has drawn international media attention because some soldiers took photos of a platoon posing with the corpses. Although the fact that he is involved in this affair is still unclear, taking pictures with the corpses is obviously an abnormal behavior. The soldiers treated corpses as if they were dolls so that guards treated other boys who are prisoners as if they were despicable animals in a Zimbardo's experiment (In fact, I knew the experiment by watching the movie "The Experiment". It is known as "es" in Japan.). That behavior is crazy. If we met a corpse, we would not take a picture posing with it. Immediately we would call the police. I guess that we will have a nightmare for the next few days or few months. I think this is a usual reaction to corpses. However, in Afganistan the soldiers behaved differently from that. This is related to the situation, which is the war between Afganistan and America. How much different we behave in a war from in our usual life is shown by a lot of examples, such as the Holocaust, atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and so on. Thus this article indicates Aronson's first law.

An Unfortunate Day

I was pulled over by a police officer today. This was the first experience for me to be stopped by a cop, even in JPN I had never had. At that time, I was so nervous, because I was driving within the speed limit! What the heck was going on? The reason for that is that my licence plate was not updated. I had to update it, but actually I didn't know that because I've never received a letter to let me know running out the limit of my plate. Fortunately, it was not a serious case. However, I do never want to be stopped by police officers, even though she who made me pull over was kind. 

The Matching Hypothesis

Photo:

BEN STANSALL / AFP/ GETTY IMAGES



Recently I have been busy to prepare for my future. It is an excuse for readers in order not to have posted a Blog for a while.

Today I will introduce a kind of a hot topic. It is about a royal wedding, Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton. They will get marriage next year, according to an article of Seattle Times. The article focuses on predicting how the royal wedding will look like. However, I don't care about the thing. I am interested in the photo which I uploaded in the article. Are both of them a beautiful and attractive person, aren't they? I think so. Anyway, what do you think of them? Do they match each other?

Do you know what the matching hypothesis is? According to Walster et al. (1966), people tend to form long-term relationships with others whose level of physical attractiveness maches theirs. This is called as the matching hypothesis. The picture provides evidence that the hypothesis is cogent explanation.

Is the hypothesis fitting in our perception? In my own experience, couples generally have a pretty much equal level of physical attractiveness. However, my parents don't fit in it. My father is a fat, while my mother is a slim. So, I think the matching hypothesis is still "hypothesis" not theory.