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Science Of Small Talk

The science of social behavior, one interaction at a time

by Sam Sommers

Sam Sommers, Ph.D., is a social psychologist at Tufts University. See full bio

November 4, 2008, Social Life

Comments on "The Power of Us"

The Power of Us

By Sam Sommers on November 4, 2008 in Science Of Small Talk

Customers who insist on paying with a personal check at the grocery store. Waitresses who don't write down your order. People who sit right in front of you at the movies when there are other free seats in their row. Drivers who insist on backing into spaces in wide-open parking lots. Squirrels. All of the above would make my list of Top 10 pet peeves. But at the top, without question, would have to be people who charge into elevators, head down, without waiting to see if anyone is getting off. That's what made the following interaction such a dissonance-inducing moment for me. Read More

backing in - not your main point at all!

Submitted by gee_why on December 5, 2008 - 3:12am.

I always back into parking spaces. It makes for a quicker and safer exit, and it really doesn't take very long or much effort. Usually one pass does it.

Anyway, all power to you for not getting fussed about trivial things!

backing in

Submitted by Sam Sommers on December 5, 2008 - 4:04am.

Well, you're apparently better at backing in than most of the people I get stuck behind. It's just so much easier to back out than it is to back in, so when you do the math, forward in + backward out it almost always much, much easier than backward in + forward out, no? In any case, thanks for reading (and for commenting)!

in-group shift

Submitted by John Adams on December 11, 2008 - 12:12pm.

has there been any research done on shifting subjects' in-group identification? For example, if white subjects are primed to identify with their "US Citizen" in-group and their differences with Europeans, could that affect subsequent interaction with African-Americans? (Maybe the measure would be "who would you pick to go on vacation with?" and have profiles of a Black American dude, a White English dude, etc)... I guess this wouldn't be that dramatic, but it might provide a nice afterthought for all of the post-911 racial harmony stuff.

ps- when I read "backing in" as the subject for the previous comment, I totally thought the reader was going to rant about the route you took to eventually explaining why there are no Black head coaches... Ballsy move: explaining this phenomenon without spitting venom at The Man.

First of all, you would have

Submitted by Matt Mertens on December 28, 2008 - 11:49am.

First of all, you would have made for a heck of a lawyer. This whole blog post is structured like a lights-out closing argument.

Second of all, I've been doing a fair amount of thinking about the racial imbalance of coaches to plaers in D-I football (or whatever the name got changed to) recently. I agree with you wholeheartedly: both that the ratio is an injustice and with your possible explanations for it.

However...here's a hypothetical question for you. People are so worried about proportionality. Should there be a 1:1 ratio of black coaches to black players? You didn't state that this was ideal in your post, but I've read that sentiment from a lot of other sources addressing exactly this topic.