Respond to her
Chloe Vitrano
Elements of Social Cognition
by Chloe Vitrano18 hr
Actions
Scripts are "schemas about an event that specify the typical sequence of action that take place" (Greenberg, Schmader, Arndt, Landau, 2021). These schemas are an understanding about an event that have been stored in one's memory and they play out in a specific order. A script in my personal life that came to mind was grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. I always shop at the Trader Joe's in Westchester and enter from the same entrance at the back of the parking lot. I always choose the parking lane directly in the middle, which is one that allows me to park as close to the entrance as possible. Once I park, I remind myself to grab my reusable bags from the trunk of my car before heading inside. I grab a cart and always stop at the front entrance to look at the plants and flowers the store has on display, even when I have zero intention of purchasing any. Although, sometimes I end up buying a plant because I love them so much! Once I enter the store, I make my way down the aisles in a snake-like fashion starting from the right side of the store and ending on the left side where the cashiers are located. Because I always walk the same route, I know the order in which I will approach each section. I always make sure to grab my favorite essentials while also looking out for any new seasonal items that I may want to try. Once I make it to a cashier line, I mentally prepare myself to have an engaging conversation about my day with whomever is ringing up my items because I know that they will ask. I help them bag up my items and then make my way out of the store, stopping again at the store front to admire the orchids that are always set up just outside the exit door. I load up my car with my purchased groceries, return my cart, and exit at the back of the parking lot.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is defined as "the phenomenon whereby initially false expectations cause the fulfillment of those expectations" (Greenberg, Schmader, Arndt, Landau, 2021). Essentially, someone may expect another individual to act a certain way or they may expect an event to go a certain way and these attitudes can affect this person's behavior, which then results in the person experiencing the outcome they expected. The self-fulfilling prophecy reminded me of a job interview I experienced earlier this year. I was unhappy in the job that I currently held at the time and I applied to multiple different restaurants at once, hoping to find something that would work well with my school schedule. I got an immediate and automatic response from a fine dining restaurant located in Santa Monica asking me to schedule an interview. This restaurant was the one location out of numerous places I applied to that I knew I didn't really want to work at, but I decided to move forward with an interview despite my disappointment. I had worked at a bar in Santa Monica a few years prior that introduced me to a dangerous crowd of people and brought a lot of trauma into my life, so I was very anxious over the thought of potentially working in that area again. I was shaking during the entire drive to my interview and was having trouble taking deep breaths; I did not want to interview for this job and I was hoping that they wouldn't want to hire me. I was convinced that I was about to walk into the worst job interview ever. I checked in with the hostess and was told that a hiring manager would meet with me in the next five minutes, but I ended up waiting over half an hour before I was approached. The hiring manager read from a script for the entire duration of the interview, hardly made eye contact with me, and showed no emotion. It felt like she had no interest in interviewing me, which made me feel even more anxious and uncomfortable and I really struggled to answer her questions. This was the worst job interview experience I have ever had, as well as the only job interview I did not want to actually partake in. I was not surprised that I never heard back from them. I find it interesting how my thoughts and feelings about the situation played a role in the outcome of this experience.
Metaphor is "a cognitive tool that allows people to understand an abstract concept in terms of a dissimilar, concrete concept" (Greenberg, Schmader, Arndt, Landau, 2021). In other words, metaphors describe something by comparing it to something else in a non-literal way. I find myself using metaphors often and, lately, have been more aware of other people in my life using them frequently as well. The other evening while I was at work, it began to feel cold outside on our restaurant's rooftop for the first time in months and I noticed that a Spirit Halloween store had opened up across the parking lot; so I exclaimed: "fall is in the air!" Everyone around me understood that the season fall was not literally in the air, but that it meant we are to expect cooler weather soon as well as any other objects or events that people associate with that time of the year. Many of my coworkers made comments about needing to bring a jacket with them to work and about how they were excited for the upcoming season's festivities. This also led us to brainstorm seasonal drink ideas that were "fall inspired". Another example that came to mind was a statement my friend said to me recently: "I just feel very down, everything going in the world is so heavy right now." I understood that she wasn't using the word "down" in a literal sense, but as a way to describe her feelings of sadness. Same goes for her use of the word "heavy" to describe the current state of humanity as something that is upsetting and making her feel sad. I know that she isn't experiencing the literal heaviness of the world weighing down on top of her, but I was able to understand her use of those words in that context. I find it interesting how often we use metaphors in our everyday language to describe things that may be vague or difficult to explain with few words and how easily we understand these metaphors.
References
Greenberg, J., Schmader, T., Arndt, J., & Landau, M. J. (2021). Social Psychology: The Science of Everyday Life (3rd ed.). Worth Publishers