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Being an international student was very scary in the beginning. Being an international student who grew up in Russia, even more so.
Thinking twice about everything you write and say just so no one notices that your English isn’t as good as a native speaker’s. Being scared to say you’re from Russia because “everyone thinks all Russians support the war.” This was my reality, maybe still is, but I’m definitely working on it.

Let’s look at the required conditions for Stereotype/Identity Threat:

1. Membership in a stereotyped group — Russian.
2. Knowledge of stereotypes about one’s group — yes, the stereotype that all Russians support the war.
3. Heightened salience of group membership — every time I introduce myself or speak, I feel extra aware that I’m Russian.
4. Identification with the performance domain — doing well in school and expressing myself clearly matters a lot to me.

These factors make me worry unconsciously whenever I have to talk about this matter. And this is just one example – everyone experiences something similar for different reasons. I’m also Jewish, and my mom is Armenian, so it’s fantastic to come from these very different backgrounds. But alongside that comes the burden of sometimes having to explain myself and break stereotypes over and over again

Has this all impacted my performance, my confidence? Of course! Worrying about these things limits you a lot. Let’s return to my example of being culturally raised in Russian culture: you meet someone you’ve never seen before, start talking about interests and experiences, and find yourself avoiding some crucial topics because they are tied to Russia.

Hopefully, with globalization and broader, more diverse information, people will start paying more attention to the other side of every issue. Every implicit bias could be challenged by a counter-argument, and people would live in a more diverse informational space.

It was very interesting to read the UBC article about the Bridge Experiment, especially because I had actually been to that exact spot when traveling to Vancouver when I was 10 years old. (Photos attached)

I think that arousal attribution, or better said, misattribution of arousal, happens to everyone at some point. Sometimes, it can be very annoying, especially when we are not aware of this concept. It can feel very out of control, which can hit harder for people who are more prone to anxiety and the need for control. When we are physiologically aroused, we don’t always know exactly why. We might be around someone, feel nervous, notice our heart beating faster, and then conclude, “I like them”.

Professor Maddox gave a great example in class: he said he might feel nervous either because he was lecturing about attraction in front of college students, or simply because he had too much coffee.

Misattributions like this happen all the time. If it only affects something like giving a speech or working on a task, it’s usually harmless. But it becomes more complicated when it influences important decisions. For example, imagine trying to figure out if you actually like someone and are ready to take the next, or first, step. If all your interactions with them happened at parties with your friends, you might mistakenly think you know them well. What you probably haven’t considered is that in all those situations, you were very likely aroused by multiple external factors: loud music, the energy of the crowd, drunk friends, and so on. Attribution of arousal from these sources onto the person can explain why passionate feelings sometimes seem stronger than they really are.

Another experiment mentioned in the article, I’ll call it the High Voltage Questionnaire experiment, showed something similar. When people are threatened by something, they sometimes mislabel their fear and assign it to the person they think they are attracted to. So, the big question is: how do we know if we are genuinely feeling attraction, or if we are just scared and confusing emotions? Should we actually start “building the bridge”?

Attribution of arousal is a very complicated matter. Even though the examples I described earlier are fictional, everyone has probably experienced something similar. The answer to figuring out what we’re truly feeling? Give it time. Change the setting. It’s all about sorting through the complexity and mix of emotions. Only by separating one feeling from another, over time, can we figure out what truly applies to us and what is just an excessive amount of coffee

When we were talking about groups, it made me think of my home friend group a lot. It’s much easier to analyze something when you’re far away. Well, I mean, it’s hard emotionally, but distance gives you a different, more objective perspective.

Last year, my home friends and I realized that there was a problem in our group. No, we weren’t arguing. There weren’t any moral or ethical concerns or even a lack of communication. In fact, everything felt too stable and good. That’s when we started to notice that we had slowly stopped sharing the “negative” stuff – mostly the self-reflective things, the deeper conversations about our personal struggles. Why? I didn’t really have an answer at the time. We talked about it briefly and moved on.

But our class reminded me about this issue.

One of the concepts we discussed was group norms – the informal or formal rules that shape how members behave in a group. Sometimes, these norms shift without us realizing it. In our case, I think an unspoken norm developed over time: to keep things light, not to bring up anything “too heavy.” No one said it out loud, but maybe we all felt all different sorts of pressure and stress, so we decided at least not to bring these things up when enjoying our time together. And once that became the norm, breaking it felt uncomfortable, even though we had always supported each other in the past.

Another factor could be group cohesiveness. Ironically, the closer and more stable the group is, the harder it can be to disrupt the established harmony by bringing up negative emotions or personal struggles. We were so focused on maintaining the feeling of closeness that we might’ve stopped being fully honest with each other.

Now, after reflecting on it through this new lens, I think we didn’t lose our connection – we just let our norms evolve in a way that didn’t serve us emotionally. Maybe the next time I’m home, I’ll bring this up again.

My family, friends, and I spent this spring break in Portugal. How is this relevant to my blog? Well, maybe at first glance, it’s not really relevant. But as I learned from reading in another class, tourism is, in fact, more about sharing than deeper inner change. Even if I don’t necessarily agree, in “The Case Against Travel” – Agnes Callard makes a bold argument that tourism is often more about external performance. She argues that tourists only care about collecting stories that they can later share with friends – not actually experiencing anything new. This concept of sharing and waiting for appreciation from others is essential to the author.

What if I told you that the relevance of the first sentence is direct? Alongside thousands of different post-break posts from my fellow Tufts students – it is an example of normative social influence. Normative social influence occurs when the influence of other people leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted.

I think the reference to Jonah Berger in our textbook is awesome. We read his book Contagious for one of my other classes – and his method of STEPPS (social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories) is essential to understanding what goes viral and why.

I want to specifically mention social currency in this context. Social currency is the first component of the STEPPS model. It’s the reason behind why you want to share something. In our case – traveling – it’s so cool to go travel, meet new people, experience new things. What could be better? The only thing better is sharing it with your friends. It makes you feel accepted. It’s considered cool by society to travel.

Another example I want to include here is the computer game FIFA – now FC after rebranding. It’s all about competition. When you win a match, you share that with your friends. It’s not just about how you’re doing, but how you’re doing compared to others. Wins make you feel good. Telling people about those wins makes you feel accepted by society.

But same as my disagreement with Callard, I don’t really agree with the point that all of this is just about sharing. I believe that traveling also brings very deep change. And the posts we share bring in stories and the genuine will to preserve them.

Have you ever told your brother that you’re tired, but you play one more fifa match after losing to smithereens 25 games to him after? I did. I had played better until then, but he had mastered his skills.

As a reader who might not be familiar with fifa, it is the most popular soccer simulator. I will say this most definitely affected my self-esteem. So how should I act and maintain it? The answer is self-handicapping.

It is hard to accept that your younger brother is something other than you are, so after losing the first game, one option is to say, “Well, I’m tired, but I will play with you one more.” If I lose, it’s not too bad; I was tired after all, but if I win, I win, and I also was tired, so this victory is more valuable.

But this, as any other excuse, is a positive illusion, and in the long run, it might do more harm than good. The only way to improve would be to put upward comparison on yourself. Or just ask your brother to teach you some tricks; it’s not lame.

As Twin Peaks Day approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about pie, specifically a Seinfeld episode that left a lasting impression on me.

In class, we discussed distinctiveness, and we watched a clip where Jerry couldn’t understand why his girlfriend, Audrey, refused to eat a slice of pie. His immediate assumption is that something is wrong with her – an internal attribution. But by the end of the episode, we see that Jerry behaves the exact same way in a different scenario, suggesting that the real reason may have been external all along.

This made me think about how we often struggle to figure out whether our actions come from something about us or if anyone else would have acted the same way. We review what we did, judge ourselves, and try to understand our behavior. I think this connects to two important ideas about self-concept:

1. Self-Perception – When we don’t know exactly how we feel, we look at our own behavior to figure it out.
2. Social Comparison – When we aren’t sure about our abilities or opinions, we compare ourselves to others.

For example, imagine having a big argument with a close friend. You get so caught up in proving your point that you don’t think about anything else. Let’s say you “win” the argument and your friend was actually wrong. Afterward, you start thinking: Would anyone else have argued as aggressively as I did? You might compare your reaction to how you’ve argued in the past or how others would handle it. You might even feel bad for being harsher than usual.

Now, back to the pie. How does this connect? The Seinfeld episode shows that relying only on internal attribution – thinking behavior is just about personal traits – is misleading. But at the same time, we can’t compare ourselves to others or only look at our past behavior. The truth is always somewhere in between.

To really understand our behavior, we need to compare it to how we’ve acted before and compare it to what is normal or expected.

Looking at it this way, you might realize that while you were more intense than usual, you also had a fair reason to defend your stance. It’s never just one explanation or the other – it’s always a mix of both.

Recently, I discovered that being alone started to be associated with being weird. Wow… I thought, but why? Whenever I’m with my friends, I’m very confident and calm, but being alone makes me anxious. The answer relies on the area of social cognition.

Because I was very social and participated in every activity possible at home, speaking my native language and not being ashamed of being misunderstood, this sort of socializing became the “norm,” even though in no way it was. It’s like doing something exactly opposite to what you’re used to, but as opposed to George `Costanza, it seemed that I wasn’t as successful in doing it.

It’s like the triangle of expectations we’ve seen in class, but instead of expecting something from others, I was expecting it from myself, and I behaved differently.

I was relying on my shortcuts, which were formed unconsciously, instead of analyzing the situation, exploring its root, and trying to find out why this wrong perception had been formed. This perception latter was targeted toward creating some irrational self-expectations that were leading me to wrong conclusions. While I’m still searching for the answer, it seems evident that some accessible and rapid pre-set thoughts have affected my perception of myself.

When we hear the words “Social Engagement,” what do we first think about? I think of it as being an active individual in society. But are we always active? And if we are not, does that mean we’re bad people? As we discussed in Social Psychology class, multiple obstacle factors play a role.

If we divide these obstacle factors into groups (as we did in class), they align with different stages of the decision-making process in emergencies: 1. Notice what’s going on: Distraction, self-concern. 2. Interpret as an emergency: Ambiguity, pluralistic ignorance (“Everyone else knows something I don’t – it must not be an emergency”) 3. Assume responsibility: Diffusion of responsibility (“Someone else will take care of this”) 4. Decide how to help: Lack of knowledge on how to help. 5. Provide help: Fear of getting sued, all sorts of “what ifs.”

One story came to mind as I was writing this. Our family from Canada was visiting us in Portugal, and on an unusually hot day, my uncle, two of my little cousins, my brother, and I went shopping. To cool down, it gets very hot in Algarve (the southern region of Portugal) in summer, we decided to get some iced coffee at Starbucks. As we were waiting for our drinks, my uncle suddenly moved toward me, speaking loudly. It all happened in a fraction of a second – in the blink of an eye, a woman in line collapsed. We later realized she had passed out, possibly due to the heat or something else. She regained consciousness within a minute, but I was shocked – first by what had happened and second by my own inaction. Why did I do nothing except move toward her and freeze? I thought I was just stunned and quickly moved on.

Yet, I still think about this situation and ask myself: Was it that I couldn’t react fast enough? Was I afraid to touch someone while catching them, possibly making them uncomfortable? Did I think that this wasn’t an emergency and I was overthinking and might overreact to what was going on? Did I simply not know how to help and thus freeze? I don’t know. What I do know is that my uncle reacted – he caught the woman before she could hit the floor and potentially injure herself. I’m proud of him. I also know that I learn from those around me, and this was a powerful example of how to act in such situations. Since then, I’ve started paying more attention whenever I think someone might collapse, preparing myself to step in.

Our society can be inactive at times. And, as much as I can’t believe I’m saying this – we have to learn from those who are half a step ahead of us, those who are ready to act.

This specific lecture made me reflect on moments when I genuinely wanted to help, but something held me back. It was an important lesson, not just in the context of Social Psych 0013, Section 01, Spring Semester 2025, but in life itself – and in the choices we make to act or not to act.

I’d like to keep this automated heading as this was the first thing that came to my mind when I was thinking of creating my blog on WordPress. The second thought was that I readily imagined Doctor John Whatson from BBC’s Sherlock posting about how his genius sociopathic friend solved another unsolvable crime mystery. Hopefully, this blog won’t be filled with crime and mystery, but I hope it will be just as engaging.

Engagement will be something I want to start this blog from social engagement; yes, that will be my first post.

So, Hello, world – let’s begin.