For my ARP paper, I am going to discuss how Joss Whedon portrays stereotypes in both a common way and a way contradictory to our beliefs. In this episode, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, Captain Hammer is depicted as a typical male superhero, while Dr. Horrible has a personality that contradicts his persona. Captain Hammer is a typical hero who is both strong and brave. On the other hand, Dr. Horrible is supposed to be an evil villain, but he seems hesitant to do anything bad and ends up falling in love. Captain Hammer fits the typical stereotypes, while Dr. Horrible has his own unique personality. For this research, I am going to research stereotypes that are associated with our society today and how some stereotypes expect us to act in certain ways. For one source, I wanted to look into criminal profiling. Criminal profiling is a common tactic used by law in order to find a suspect. Professionals study a person and learn about their behavior in order to profile an offender. I was also thinking about discussing how people feel obligated to fulfill the expectations of others. Similar to stereotypes, people may do things they would not normally do just to conform to society.
Resources:
Forbes, Chad E. “Retraining Attitudes and Stereotypes to Affect Motivation and Cognitive Capacity Under Stereotype Threat.” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, Nov2010: p740-754. Web. 7 Apr. 2011
Townsend, Jean; Godfrey, Mary; Denby, Tracy. “Heroines, villains and victims: older people's perceptions of others.”Ageing & Society, Nov2006, Vol. 26 Issue 6, p883-900. Web. 7 Apr. 2011
Klapp, Orrin E. ”HEROES, VILLAINS AND FOOLS, AS AGENTS OF SOCIAL CONTROL.” American Sociological Review, Feb54, Vol. 19 Issue 1, p56-62. Web. 7 Apr. 2011
Devery, Christopher. “Criminal Profiling and Criminal Investigation.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Nov2010, Vol. 26 Issue 4, p393-409. Web. 7 Apr. 2011
Chan, Janet. “Racial Profiling and Police Subculture.” Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Jan2011, Vol. 53 Issue 1, p75-78. Web. 7 Apr. 2011
I think your idea of researching the influences of human behavior due to societal factors is a great topic, not only because I find that topic extremely interesting, but because it's very timely in the sense that psychological themes never go "out of style".
ReplyDeleteYou could easily obtain information about conformity within smaller groups...such as high schoolers or our age group.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting topic to research. Research I have seen shows that people would rather conform on something they are not sure of then trust their own insticts.
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