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Visual Cues Communicate Social Categories to Observers NEWSLETTER OF THE UCLA CENTER FOR THE MAR09 CSW STUDY OF WOMEN b y Ke r r i L . J o h n s o n social vision VISUAL CUES COMMUNICATE SOCIAL CATEGORIES TO OBSERVERS 1 toc MAR09 IN THIS ISSUE SOCIAL VISION UPDATE ON MAZER PROJECT Kerri L. Johnson James Hixon 1 11 MUSAWAH MOVEMENT Director’s Commentary GETTING TO KNOW YOU Azza Basarudin (AND WHAT YOU DO) Kathleen McHugh 3 13 DEPARTMENTS Staff . 18 . 2 MAR09 DIRECTOR’S CommENTary Getting to Know You (and what you do): CSW Spring Symposia UCLA is a very big place. I am probably scholars working on gender, sexuality, plan (suggested by Sue-Ellen Case) and not alone in having the experience of and women’s issues throughout the host two faculty symposia titled “Works in meeting a faculty member from another university. We fulfill this function by Progress I” (see page 4 for the presenters) department and being shocked that I did introducing faculty, graduate students, and “Works in Progress II” (see page 5 not already know them, either because and undergraduates to each other and for the presenters) Each symposium will their research interests overlap with each other’s work in our newsletter, feature several of our faculty development my own or because I know of them by in workshops, and in speaker’s series grant recipients giving a brief summary of reputation and did not know they were featuring CSW affiliated scholars and their current research projects. We intend at UCLA or just because the work they faculty development grant recipients. these symposia to convey a sense of the are doing is fascinating and I wished While the newsletter and workshops rich and diverse research in our mission I had known about it sooner. One of have been very successful, we have found areas being done at UCLA. We invite CSW’s crucial functions is to facilitate in our speaker’s series that attendance everyone to come and join us for these interdisciplinary connections across tends to fall along disciplinary lines. exciting interdisciplinary symposia. I hope departments and divisions and to create To shake things up a bit, this spring you'll mark your calendars and plan on a vibrant intellectual community of quarter, we are going to implement a joining us. 3 MAR09 DIRECTOR’S CommENTary Works in Progress I – Kathleen McHugh Denise Mann Lois Takahashi Works in Progress I, on Wednesday, April 29th, from 4-6 pm, in 314 Royce, will feature Mona Simpson (English), The American Cousins (a novel); Lois Takahashi (School of Public Affairs/Urban Planning), Patriarchy/ Matriarchy Versus Blood Quantum: Cultural Mona Simpson Significance as Evidenced in Hawaii Land Commission Grants; Elisabeth Le Guin Andrea Goldman (Musicology), Jacaras & Tornadillas: Female Musical Ruffians in Early Modern Spain; Denise Mann (School of Theater, Film, and Television), Gender and Marketing in the Miriam Laugesen Post-network Era–An Ethnographic Analysis of the TV Workplace in the Age of Wikinomics; Andrea Goldman (History), The Staging of Elisabeth Le Guin Urban Culture in Beijing, 1770-1900; Miriam Laugesen (Public Health-Health Services, 4 MAR09 DIRECTOR’S CommENTary Works in Progress II The Politics of State Policies on the Human Gil Hochberg Patricia Greenfield Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine. Works in Progress II, on Wednesday, May 12th, from 4-6 pm, in 314 Royce, will feature Gil Hochberg (Comparative Literature), Queer Politics and the Question of Palestine; Rachel Lee (English), The Exquisite Corpse of Asian America; Susanne Kerri L. Johnson Lohmann (Political Science), Men, Women, and Universal Higher Education, Victoria Vesna (Design/Media Arts), Science Games for Girls: NANO BIO_BODS; Kerri L. Johnson (Communication Studies), Studies Kendra Willson on the social and contextual circumstances that prompt changes in the expression of gendered cues; Patricia Greenfield (Department of Psychology), Social Change and Shifting Rachel Lee Women’s Roles in a Maya Community; and Victoria Vesna Kendra Willson (Scandinavian Section), Susanne Lohmann Name Law and Gender in Iceland. 5 Social Vision, continued from page 1 DORIS TROY FAMOUSLY SANG, “JUST ONE LOOK, THAt’s all it tOOK.” INDEED, RESEARCH ON PERSON PERCEPTION CONFIRMS THAT MEANINGFUL SOCIAL INFORMATION IS RELIABLY DISCERNED FROM JUST ONE LOOK. This information ranges from appreciating category membership to evaluating more enduring traits and dispositions. These aspects of social perception appear to be highly automated, some would even call them obligatory, and they are heavily influenced by two sources of information: the face and the body. From minimal information such as brief exposure to the face or degraded images of dynamic body motion, social judgments are made with remarkable efficiency and, at times, surprising accuracy. Scholars have long recognized that one aspect of social perception in particular —social categorization—plays a critical role in our perception of others. Why might this be the case? In his early research, Gordon Allport suggested that people tend to think about others in categorical terms because knowing a person’s MAR09 6 CSupdateW toc sex, race, or age is informative. Specifically, to the product commonly explored by social perception: sex, race, and age. Evidence is social categorization brings to mind stereotypes psychologists. This nascent field of Social Vision mounting that sexual orientation is a likely associated with the relevant social category is providing key insights into these dynamics candidate to be added to this list. Recent (girls like pink, for example, and old people like of social perception that are essential to evidence, however, suggests that under some Florida). Regardless of their veracity, stereotypes understanding both intergroup perception and circumstances, perceivers may be able to resist were presumed to affect social interactions by interaction. the tendency to categorize others according establishing expectations. The vast majority As it turns out, not all social categories are to race and age, but not by sex. Perhaps this is of such research has focused heavily on two equally likely to be perceived. Sociologists have not surprising given the pervasive importance aspects of this stream of events: a) determining described master status categories as those of sex categorization in modern society. The the inevitability of social categorization, and b) categories that provide a lens through which importance of sex categorization begins even examining the consequences of perceiving social other aspects of social perception and interaction before birth, as parents proudly proclaim to categories. Only recently have scholars begun to are viewed. In this way, social categories become friends and family, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” appreciate the importance of understanding the context that has a pervasive impact on other The impact persists throughout the lifespan, process of social categorization beginning with aspects of social perception. Three categories dictating where we may go (for example, men’s the visual perception of others as a precursor emerge as the most likely candidates for social room versus ladies’ room), what we may wear MAR09 7 CSupdateW toc (for example, neckties or skirts), and which traits stereotypes of emotion expression bias the visual and sad) to research participants who judged and emotions are appropriate for us to express perception of body motion. We began with the the sex category of each target. Across multiple (for example, sadness versus anger; communion observation that perceivers are able to extract studies that implemented a variety of controls, versus agency). An individual’s conformity—or meaningful social information about others the results were telling. Displays depicting angry lack thereof—to such norms has implications based only on the body’s motion. From films body motions were overwhelmingly judged to for how they are evaluated by others. Put simply, that depict only points of light affixed to the be men, and participants were highly confident sex categorization appears to be compulsory, and body’s joints, observers readily perceive social of their judgments; displays depicting sad body it provides a lens through which other social information including sex category membership, motions were judged to be women. Put simply, factors are perceived and evaluated. identity, behavioral intent, and even emotion the gender typicality of the emotion being Research being conducted in my Social state. Of these domains, there is some evidence expressed in body movements biased observers’ Communication Lab at UCLA is examining that the emotion state of a target can be perception of sex category membership. how the perception of one social category processed without intent, and that its perception In other research, I have found that the contextualizes other domains of person affects other aspects of motion perception. perception of sex category is inextricably perception. For instance, in one set of studies We showed point-light displays that varied tethered to the perception of race category, my colleagues and I examined how sex-specific emotional body motion (angry, happy, neutral, even though the two factors vary orthogonally MAR09 8 CSupdateW toc To test this, we generated a set of face Black and Men and the categories Asian and stimuli that varied continuously from Black Women predicted the interference of mouse to Caucasian to Asian. In one study we found trajectory on low overlap trials. that when the gender of a face was ambiguous, Finally, we have examined not only how the participants’ sex category judgments varied body communicates sex category membership systematically with race category. Asian faces to observers, but also the development of were more likely to be judged as women; Black observers’ ability to exploit such cues for making faces were more likely to be judged as men. judgments, and the evaluative implications In another study, we tracked the trajectory of therein. In one set of studies, for example, my mouse movements as participants categorized colleagues and I used corneal-reflection eye- faces to be men or women by clicking boxes tracking to determine where observers looked as that appeared in the upper portions of the they visually scanned bodies.
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