“How a desire to stand out from the crowd
shapes behavior and creative thinking”
By: Hans-Peter Erb and Susanne Gebert
Published: Scientific American Mind; March,
April 2014 issue; http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/embrace-your-inner-eccentric/
To locate the article, go to the
Scientific American website, click “S.A.Mind” in the bar along the top of the
page and then search for the issue.
Level of difficulty:****
BEFORE YOU READ
·
How
do you define yourself? By your profession, your personality, your
expectations?
·
Give
an elevator speech: you are in a lift with a total stranger who you want to go
on seeing and you only have until the lift stops. Tell him / her who you are in
one or two sentences.
QUESTIONS
1.
What
makes you who you are?
2.
The
purpose of the Mohawk example is to prove that………………………………………………………
3.
There
is a positive / negative correlation between fitting in and creativity and
innovation.
4.
Read
Solomon Asch’s experiment carefully. The number of the subjects that gave the
wrong answer despite initially hitting on the right answer is due
to………………………………………………
5.
Read
the information concerning the uniqueness scale. According to the survey Erb
carried out, what personality trait was someone who was herd minded more likely
to be?
6.
The
purpose of Erb’s 2009 study was to see if ……………………………………………………………………….
7.
Read
Erb’s 2009 study to the end. What was the reason for the way the subjects
responded to the question concerning dining cars?
8.
What
interesting conclusions did Chan and her coworkers draw from the results of
their research?
9.
The
purpose of Chan’s second study was to determine…………………………………………………………
10.
How
exactly did the subjects both signal group membership and assert their
uniqueness in the test carried out?
11.
Read
Kim and Marcus’ 1999 experiment with the pens. Why did only one in four East
Asians choose the minority color?
12.
What
is the wider implication of this research for individuals and society as a
whole?
13.
Read
the following quote from the text: “To investigate this question, economist
Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Gérard Roland…”What question precisely were these
economists investigating? Use your own words.
14.
What
overall conclusion can be drawn from these economists study?
15.
State
the concluding statement of the text.
WRITING TASK
Either go to the advantages and
disadvantages essays on this blog and write about “the advantages and
disadvantages of being a member of a group” using the new information you have
gleaned, or provide a summary.
WHO AM I? KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES
This fascinating analytical text aims to analyze
the process through which we reach the answer to the question above. It lends
itself to some superb questions and is a taught cookie so treat it with respect
and keep your wits about you.
1.
Introspection
and interactions with the social environment
2.
We
set ourselves apart by affiliating with groups of people more like us
3.
Negative
4.
The
size of the group, the presence of a dissenter or two and all the group’s overall
status
5.
Introverted,
conservative, neurotic
6.
A
person’s propensity to seek uniqueness can temporarily shift due to certain
situations.
7.
People
who had been led to believe they were unremarkable had felt that their
individuality was threatened and thus offered dissenting opinion as a way to
differentiate themselves
8.
Our
taste in clothing broadcasts our identity to the people around us and we can
signal group membership and uniqueness simultaneously through choices in
clothing.
9.
How
a person’s choices can signal group membership and uniqueness simultaneously.
10.
Through
choice of a model or color
11.
They
are a collectivist culture
12.
If
a need for uniqueness is linked with creativity, then a culture’s orientation
towards individualism could enhance that society’s overall innovativeness…
13.
Possible
answer: how collectivist and individualistic cultures impacted overall
innovativeness
14.
One
way or another, countries of independent thinkers find a way to rally others to
bring their ideas to life.
15.
The
last sentence
This is a great post; it was very edifying. I look ahead in reading more of your work. essay online
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