Unit objectives
- Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty.
- Investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging.
Original Post: People Watching
Reflection
This artifact is one of my favorites, as I love to people watch. This assignment asked us to people watch and evaluate that person’s values based on their dress and body adornment. Reading Sanders’ piece gave me the idea to people watch at the UO rec. The sentence that stuck out to me from the reading was, “We think about attractive people more often, define them as being more healthy, express greater appreciation for their work, and find them to be more appealing interactants” (Sanders 1). This quote states that we think attractive people are more healthy and more appealing so I wanted to go to a place where health was prominent and see if there was a correlation. As seen above, I observed a basketball game at the UO rec before playing and then completing my assignment to people watch. What I noticed is that the physical appearance can affect definitions of identity and belonging. For example, the college student working at the rec belongs to the group of rec center employees.
The reason this artifact meets the two unit objectives above is because people watching at the rec helped me evaluate personal values around body adornment and investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging. The assignment called for us to make assumptions on what we see, which was a good exercise given often our assumptions are subconscious. It would be interesting to see if any of our assumptions about the person’s values were right. By making assumptions and attempting to draw connections the essay investigates how physical appearance can define identity or belonging.
Future
Over the past couple of years I have noticed the impact assumptions and judgments have on others. After I noticed this I started trying to keep my assumptions at bay. I often like to be right so I would catch myself trying to guess what was going to happen next in order to say I was right if what I guessed came true. Assumptions are human nature and are good in some situations, but the problem is humans often believe their assumptions are true. It is fun to guess what someone’s values might be based on their appearance, but it is important to remember that there is always the possibility that those assumptions could be wrong.
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