Specializations and Professional Associations
Many years ago I was joined a community of guys as a way of dealing with my depression. The group was made up of pickup artist. I had just recently read a book called “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artist” by Neil Strauss. This was a group of guys from all walks of life. They all had different backgrounds and upbringing. However, they studied human behavior from the standpoint predicting behavior as well as influence. Each one of the gurus had seemingly mastered the art of motivation and persuasion as well. It was during the course of hanging around them that I was introduced to Derren Brown.
Brown is a very famous mentalist and magician. He was the first person who I was associate with social psychology. Brown’s television shows, acts, and street magic were all based on well-known studies in social psychology. One such study was the study on obedience by Milgram (1963). Milgram carried out a study on obedience to authority and Brown turned this study into a segment on his television show. Brown was the gateway to social psychology for me by exposing me to things I was not familiar with at the time. I started watching his acts and shows several years before I would enroll. Brown had a penchant for persuasion, motivation, and manipulation. His mental acuity and mastery of hypnosis made him an excellent performer. However, Brown wasn’t the mastermind of all of this himself.
Brown consulted a well-known psychologist for his acts and television shows by the name of Dr. Richard Wiseman. Wiseman is Britain’s only Professorship of the Public Understanding of Psychology. In order to understand behavior and how Brown and by extension the pickup artists used to manipulate it and how, I needed to read. I read every book that Wiseman and Brown ever published. Reading one book led me on a journey through many other books that explained theories and gave insight to psychological practice. Brown had many books on his website that he recommended for reading, and I would eventually read those as well. I would be introduced to Zimbardo’s (1972) famous prison experiment which highlighted deindividualization to why advertising works and the fallacy of subliminal messaging which I swore was real at that time. I grew found of the study of persuasion, manipulation, deception, influence, and motivation. Learning about those topics grew on me, but readings in those topics led to other interests which included bias, prejudice, and racism.
As I maneuvered my way through my Bachelor’s degree program, I would find myself trying to make sense of the topics that were prevalent in the news. I wondered why were there more Blacks who were killed by police and imprisoned more than Whites when Blacks were a minority in this country. I started researching the causes of prejudice and the long term effects of bias on people of low socioeconomic status. Although it would be the study of persuasion and influence that attracted me to this field of study, it would be bias and prejudice that I had more of an interest in due to the the constant barrage of injustices I would read about an experience.
This interest expanded when I started taking a look at my own religious community and started noticing patterns of discrimination of those of a darker skin color or who were not of Asian or Middle Eastern descent. I then began to wonder why Blacks within the Islamic faith in this country followed a stricter form of Islam than others, which led to higher rates of in-group out-group bias from those who did not practice the religion as they had. Though I have several interests within social psychology, many of them are loosely related. My hope is that I will be able to research and address the issues that are plaguing Blacks in the Islamic community but also Muslims in general when it comes to the fallout of what happened on September 11^(th). September 11^(th) has had a profound effect on the Muslim community in this country and it’s growing increasingly obvious as time moves on.
After I enrolled at Walden University a couple of years ago to pursue my Bachelors of Science in psychology, I joined several organizations that spanned all of the areas of psychology I was interested in. The main organization of interest that I joined was the American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association has several divisions that address the areas and fields of interests that I am in. I joined and I am currently a member of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (APA Division 8), Society for Religion and Spirituality (APA Division 36), Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race (APA Division 45), and APA for Graduate Students. I am also a member of the Social Psychology Network, the Association for Psychological Science, MENA Psychology, Psi Chi, and the Association for Muslim Mental Health. I’ve involved myself in these organizations and associations by attending conferences, being active in listservs, and interacting with psychologists in the field with whom several serve as my mentors. I’m a regular participant of conferences and I use the time to do posters, learn about the latest research, and meet others in the field.
References
- Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371–378. http://doi.org/10.1037/h0040525 ↩
- Zimbardo, P. G., Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Jaffe, D. (1972). Stanford prison experiment. Stanford, California: Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc.