Assignment #10 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 1 - Opening Skinner's Box
"I wonder if I am worthwhile." It amazes me that even people who have done so much with their lives still wonder this. I think Skinner's experiments were quite amazing in the pure discoveries they made and in the affects they had in the world. His work in operant conditioning has helped countless people suffering from disorders such as anxiety-disorders and schizophrenia. No one focuses on these things though. They let rumors and assumptions, such as locking his baby in a box for years, rule their thoughts of him and his experiments, and this is a shame. Some of the world's greatest successes have been tarnished by people just believing all the rumors they are told and not learning for themselves. Skinner and his boxes are just another victim. I would like to add though that I don't completely agree with the fact that we are completely controlled by our environment. While these 'silvery webs' do influence us greatly, I think that a person can take control sometimes and exercise their free will because there are many instances of people growing up in the exact some environment and making different choices.

Chapter 2 - Obscura
When I first saw that this chapter was over the same thing the last book was over, I was disappointed. I thought it would be boring and add nothing to my knowledge, but I was very wrong. The last book we read was chilling and cold with its factual basis, but this book is frightening in that it really brings home the fact that you very well may be one of the people who went all the way. The way the book is written really made me think about my personality and if I was a person that could do such a horrible thing. "The power of Milgram's experiments lies in the great gap between what we think about ourselves, and who we frankly are," and this chapter really make me think about who I am, how I approach authority and conflict. I am now terrified that I would be one of the 65%, but I think this is a good thing because now I can, like Jacob, reevaluate myself. "Milgram's discovery was not that people will hurt or kill one another; we have always known that to be true. Milgram's discovery was that people will do so in the absence of aggression; he effectively disentwined murder form rage." This terrifies people. If normal people, people like you and me, can do such horrid thing, what does that say about us? People shrink and hide away from thoughts like these, thoughts that make us question who we truely are, but that's the great thing about this experiment. It hits us right where it hurts and makes us think about these hard questions. To quote Milgram, " From these experiments come awareness and that may be the first step towards change." He is forces these hard life changing questions on us, and maybe if enough people let themselves accept this, we, as a society, can grow and change for the better.

Chapter 3 - On Being Sane in Insane Places
I found this chapter very interesting. I think psychological disorders are very interesting and like to read up on them. Each one has multiple ways that it can be expressed and there are such wide ranges of severity. It is still too subjective as David Rosenhan showed. You can talk to the person and see that something with them isn't normal, but who is to say what is normal? And even once you know they aren't normal, how can  you help someone when you don't even know why they aren't normal? I do think the author and Rosenhan are being to hard on psychiatry though. Medicine in the past was at the same point that psychiatry is at now. At one point, people use to think drilling into people's heads to alleviate headaches was a good idea. If society gave up back then because they didn't understand, we would be way worse off. Just give psychiatry some time. I think they will find their answers.

Chapter 4 - In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing
Nothing in this chapter was quite surprising to me. To me it is almost an extension of Milgram's experiment. People pretty much don't have enough will power to break out of social norms whether it is the bystander effect or obedience to authority. People no matter how good inside are quite capable of doing bad things, either doing the action themselves or just allowing it to happen. It does make me wonder if I would have done the same or not. I hope I would spur into action, but hopefully I will never find out for sure. I do agree with the author though that things like this should be included in schools. Schools, especially elementary schools, already have programs in place to teach good character. They have pictures of pillars of different traits that should be exhibited. It would be pretty easy to integrate this and Milgram's findings into a program and I guarantee it would leave a much better mark.

Chapter 5 - Quieting the Mind
Okay, there is going to be a lot of complaining about this chapter. I didn't even like this chapter, so I am sure everyone else hated it. She spends way to little time on the actual experiment and way too much time talking about the mother of the girl. It was an interesting side story, but it is so weird that she focused that much on it.  The experiment that started it wasn't even really an experiment so much as a mini ethnography. They just observed a group as events occurred. And then she spends at max a page on 'paid to lie' experiment. I wonder if this guy did any other experiments the author didn't share. We also didn't learn much about his life which is weird for her. Definitely not one of her best chapters.

Chapter 6 - Monkey Love
Disturbing. That is the only word for these experiments. I don't necessary agree with her that animals have the exact same worth as people do, but I do think they deserve better treatment than they are getting. If I had to pick between saving the life of a person and an animal, I have no doubt that I would pick the person, but I would do anything I could to save them both. We can learn a lot from animals, and I am not against using them for experiments. I am against going to extreme measures for very little useful knowledge. Taking babies from mothers, isolating them from everything in 'wells of despair', and putting them in 'rape rack's just to find out what factors are needed to make a well adapted child is wrong. Of course if a child never interacts with something living of it's own kind it won't know how to correctly interact! What is new about that idea? Nothing if you ask any normal person, so I don't think that was a valid reason to torture monkeys. I think sometimes scientists get to entralled in their experiments and don't lift their heads out of their work long enough  to determine if what they are going to learn is worth the affect if will have.

Chapter 7 - Rat Park
I quiet enjoyed this chapter. I thought she balanced her own little life stories quite well with the actual experiments over addiction. I have heard many times before about the experiments where animals in cages used drugs instead of ate until the point of starvation and death. I have not however heard of Alexander's experiments with the rat park. I found it fascinating that the rats in basically rat heaven didn't want to use the drugs. The fact that we don't live in people heaven doesn't disprove his findings, it just shows that they cannot be directly applied currently. Maybe they should be used as motivation for working towards a better life, such as better schools and cleaner housing projects. I personally fall somewhere between Alexander and Kleber. I completely think that addiction lies outside the drug, but I think that it is partly to blame on the person and on the environment. I believe that most of the time addiction is from the life circumstances people are currently facing, but I also think that some people are more predisposed to become addicted to substances because of other biological factors, such as a person who is bipolar or experiences chronic depression.

Chapter 8 -  Lost in the Mall
The idea behind this experiment is quite interesting. I've always thought the memories were not something to be relied on. Every person remembers the same experience differently, and memories change over time. I never thought about the fact that memories could be so easily implanted though. The idea is very interesting that just by telling someone that something happened to them, they start believing it and fabricating memories. Slater does not show Loftus in an attractive light though. She seems a little crazy and off, but I am realizing almost all of the experimenters are like that. One interesting thing to note is that Slater included very little of her own life in this chapter. I actually kind of missed it.

Chapter 9 - Memory Inc.
This chapter reminded me of the movie Limitless, where the guy took a pill that made me super smart by allowing him to access all parts of his brain and therefore he could recall everything he has ever heard or seen. If they ever come out with a pill that does allow us to remember better, I think there will be chaos. It would be like a performance enhancing drug for the mind. Obviously, poorer families won't be able to afford such a luxury pill, so that would put all their kids at a severe disadvantage when it came to college entrance exams and GPA and such. Is it really fair for kids who have to do it the old fashioned way to be compared to children of the privileged who can just pop a pill and remember everything they study no problem? I can see such pills extending the gap between the upper and lower class even farther than it is. This is something I think the world will have to face one day though. Science isn't going to stop advancing, and such a pill would be such a great help to Alzheimer's patients that there is no way the development process will stop. Even if the pill would only be allowed in such instances it will be sold just like ADHD medicine is currently sold around campuses. I don't think memory reducing pills should be developed at all. No matter how bad your past is, it is what made you and shaped you into the person you are today and taking that away will be changing the person you are. I think it is better to face the past and move on. Then again, I don't have a bad past experience so maybe my opinion would change if I did.

Chapter 10 - Chipped
I thought this chapter was very interesting! I am very interested in biology and medicine, and at one point considered going to medical school. It was very enlightening seeing the progression of such a hated and branded surgery. When the average person thinks of lobotomies, they only know of the shady past with the random cuttings and lost knifes, which is honestly all I knew too. I did not know that they were still performed and had a success rate like they do. I do agree with her that both cingulotomy/lobotomies and the pills we give to patients are both stabs in the dark. We don't know how the brain works all the way, so of course the surgeries are in a way taking educated guesses, but we also don't know why/how the pills we give help either. They basically soak the brain in chemicals, and that doesn't sound like a great idea either. I think science supports this method though because of the distance of responsibility  Yes they prescribe the pills, but the is still a distance there that doesn't exist when they actually poke and probe the brain itself. I think it will be interesting to see where the medical field goes from here.

Assignment #9 - Obedience to Authority

Chapter 1
This is a very interesting topic, and this chapter serves as an introduction to it. Obedience is usually thought of as a good thing, and we are trained throughout our lives to always be obedient. Always obey your father and mother, your teachers, the authority figures in the government, policemen, etc. But no one ever thinks about the negative side effects of this training. People can misuse this, and this has been seen throughout history. Hitler and Nazi Germany is just one example.

Chapter 2
This short chapter is meant to explain how the experiment is organized. The obtaining participants section was actually kind of interesting to me. I was surprised that anyone even responded to the mail request. I would have probably just thrown it out as junk. I also wonder what kind of people respond to requests for psychology studies. I know he got a wide range of participants, but I was surprised that many people from that many backgrounds were willing to do it.

Chapter 3
Chapter 3 covers how Milgram determined what would be the expected behavior of the experiment. The majority of people thought that the subject would stop as soon as the victim requested to be let out. I actually didn't think this would happen. I would hope and pray it did, but I figured in reality they would stop way later. I thought I was a little bit of a cynic, but apparently I am just a realist.

Chapter 4
This chapter goes into details in four experiments and what he learns from them. Each experiment puts the subject and the victim closer to each other. When there was no feedback from the victim people didn't even bat an eye when going all the way to the end. The touch-proximity experiment was most interesting to me. I was surprised still so many people could force someone's hand down to shock them. This is the first really surprising thing to me, and it shouldn't have been.

Chapter 5
This chapter was definitely the most interesting so far. I liked how he described five very different people and their very different reactions to the experiment. The first guy, Bruno Batta, was the one who got to me the most. It was chilling just how unfeeling he became when performing the experiment.

Chapter 6
The next 11 experiments he does explores variations of the original to test things like men vs. women or location changes. Nothing here was too surprising to me. I guess the most surprising thing to me was the fact that even though they got to pick the shock level in Experiment 11, there was still a person who went all the way to the end.

Chapter 7
Another interesting chapter! I felt there was more diversity in the people described her, but of course since there were women involved this time, that almost a given. Elinor Rosenblum was the worst in my opinion. She has such a high opinion of herself, but she was no better than anyone else. Milgram even said she had a cherished if unrealistic picture of her own nature.  

Chapter 8
This chapter explored what would happen if there were changes in the authority figure, such as two conflicting authority figures or the authority figure was the one being shocked. This was in my opinion a great idea on Milgram's part. Nothing he has done too far has changed how far people go too much. Changing the authority figure though really produced some results. For example, when the authority figure was the one being shocked, the subject stopped right away. While for the most part expected, the results do show some important features of authority.

Chapter 9
This chapter adds in a new element in the mix, other peers. He wants to test the effects of conformity on the victim's decision. When other people rebel it seems to give the user added ability to rebel. This makes sense. It is always easier to do something when peer pressure encourages it.

Chapter 10
This is were the book goes downhill fast. This chapter analyzes why obedience exists. It is really theoretical and I see no point in it. I didn't feel like this chapter added anything to my understanding of the experiments Milgram performed.

Chapter 11
Another chapter I think is pointless!!! It discusses more about the agentic state and what keeps a person in it. His list of binding factors was interesting but not particularly surprising. It is interesting looking back and seeing how these things influenced the people as they did the experiment.

Chapter 12
The engineering side of me liked the formulas he gave that determine if a person obeys or disobeys. They were nice and simple and made a whole lot of sense. His discussion on strain was very in depth and actually was a little interesting.

Chapter 13
This chapter made me laugh a little. I thought it was funny that he included an entire chapter to disproving an alternate theory. I do agree with him though. Most of those people were not aggressive. 

Chapter 14
This chapter was interesting. It was basically him trying to prove that his experiments were valid and applied to people in general. He went through several objections people had and explained how they were wrong. I feel like we learned most of these things throughout the book through the explanations of the experiments.

Chapter 15
This chapter wasn't actually that bad for being an ending chapter. I especially liked the interview that he added. I think it was a good way to summarize and show the impact of his research.

Book Response
This book discussed all the experiments performed by Stanley Milgram to explore the affects of authority. He basic framework of the experiments were there was a subject who came in thinking that they were participating in a learning experiment where the person was the teacher and another person was the learner. They would read out word pairs for the "learner" to memorize, and when that person messed up the teacher would shock them with increasingly higher voltages.  In reality everyone else is an actor, and the shocks weren't atually occuring. The experiment was to see how far the person would go before disobeying the experimenter who was telling them to move on.


I think the most important lesson of this book is summarized in these lines: "Something far more dangerous is revealed: the capacity for man to abandon his humanity, indeed, the inevitability that he does so, as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures. This is a fatal flaw nature has designed into us, and which in the long run gives our species only a modest chance of survival." This is so true, which is why I think this is something that everyone should know about themselves. It might be hard to learn, but if we don't know about it, how can we fix it, and if we don't fix, we will continue to destroy ourselves. There is no doubt about that.

Assignment #8 - Gang Leader for a Day

Chapter 1
Chapter one is all about how he started his ethnography in the gang culture of Chicago. I am very excited to read this book and see his observations. For so many people, the only experience they have with this sect of the population is what they hear in the news. To most people, these people are just statistics. They are nothing more than numbers, which is what Sudhir noted during the first chapter. I'm not going to act like I am much better than anyone else at this. I grew up sort of in the country, so we didn't have gangs or projects. Just like everywhere else though, we had a poorer group of students. In fact, I have this one friend from high school that grew up in a very unstable environment. His parents rarely worked, so most of the time they lived off of social welfare. They had to move around a lot and live with others often, just like many of the families in this book. From him, I know just how hard it is to leave this life. So many of this older siblings are now starting their own families and living the same way. He is working consistently, but even though he is working, he cannot leave his family because now they rely on him to eat and pay rent. He can't just leave his family behind, so it will be nearly impossible for him to ever fully get out of this environment. This story is way too common everywhere these days, and I hope studies, similar to the one we are starting to read, will actually be used to understand this part of society and help them.

Chapter 2
I collect quotes. I record things I read or hear that really resonated with me, so I can always look over it again and get that same feeling. Because of this, I have a tendency to dog-ear pages of book that I am reading to remind myself to add lines I read to my collection. Most of the time, I don't find much in class readings, but this chapter had three different things I felt deserved recording for later. The first was what J.T. said about the jobs they had open to them, "So you want me to take pride in the job, and you're only paying me minimum wage? It don't sound like you think much about the job yourself." This is such a true statement. I have family members and friends who work these kind of job, and let me tell you, there is very little motivation to go to these jobs. Minimum wage isn't even enough money for a person to support themselves on their own, and that is not even considering many of these people have children to support. How can anyone expect a person to be motivated to go to a job where they can't even make enough to provide for themselves? Ms. Mae said two things this chapter that also really stuck out to me: "Let me tell you something about us. We may be poor, but when you come over here, don't pity us, don't pardon us, and don't hold us to a lower standard than you hold yourself up to." and "We live in a community. We need a helping hand now and then, but who doesn't? Everyone in this building helps as much as they can. [...] And when I come over to your house, you'll share with me. You'll cook for me if I'm hungry. But when you're here, you're in my home and my community. And we'll take care of you." (Second quote shortened for space). Feeling bad for people does them no good. Pity is not what people need, nor is it what they want. Do you ever want people to pity you? Probably not. Just because someone is "black and poor" doesn't mean they are unhappy.

Chapter 3
I don't know why Sudhir is so surprised by the violence. He is either extremely naive or trying to make himself sound innocent. I am leaning towards the second one. I completely understand why J.T. beat up C-Note. He did challenge J.T.'s authority as J.T. said, and it was in front of other gang leaders. C-Note knows better! I did think it was funny that they told them to vote and to register people, but never how to do those things. Also in this chapter, J.T. is appearing more possessive. 

Chapter 4
I thought this chapter was a little lame. Sudhir was definitely not a gang leader for a day. He didn't really make a single decision on his own! It was probably good for his research though, since he was able to follow J.T. around and see his daily life a bit better.

Chapter 5
We finally get to know Ms. Bailey a little better in this chapter. I don't really like her too much.She does help these people, but only when she gets something for herself. I was wondering throughout this whole chapter if she cared about these people at all or only liked the power they gave her. People like her always seem to end up in politically powerful positions, which in my opinion isn't a good thing. They act like they are working for others, but they are so power hungry that becomes their main focus. I don't completely understand why Catrina idolizes her so much. Then again, I cannot judge her just off of what I have read. Catrina probably sees something I don't

Chapter 6
Sudhir is so stupid. Either that or way more self serving than he lets on. Of course, Ms. Bailey and J.T. weren't just hanging out together, laughing, and just casually interested in what he learned. He is either so naive and an idiot for thinking that, or he knew exactly what was going on, knew they would be angry and wouldn't let him continue if he didn't tell them, and so he blabbed his mouth off to save his own skin. This chapter made me so mad because of this reason.

Chapter 7
If he actually teachings at the university he works for, I hope he does better than he did with the gang members. I did think the police added a good twist. I am surprised he hadn't realized the police would be suspicious of him because of who he hangs out with. That's how the world works. It was good seeing how the police were corrupt too. It seemed very suitable considering the area they work in.

Chapter 8
This was kind of a tie off loss ends chapter. Everything to do with T-Bone was sad. He knew something was going to happen to him, so he wanted to give the one thing he could to Sudhir. At least from the perspective Sudhir gave us, he definitely deserved better in his life. I don't agree with Sudhir that J.T. and him weren't friends. They were definitely friends, strange friends, but friends none the less.You can't have that serious of a relationship with someone and not develop a friendship with them. I mean J.T. even gave him those contacts, and still used the words 'he's with m'. He wouldn't do that for just anyone.

Gang Leader for a Day as a whole
I really enjoyed the book as a whole. I don't think it is a good ethnography though. He was way to emotionally charged through the whole thing. His bias really showed throughout the book. I also feel that his view was a little skewed because he was being shown it by J.T. Throughout this book it because less and less controled by J.T., but as J.T. said throughout the book, Sudhir was with him.   Everyone knew that J.T. and him were friends and he was under J.T.'s protection. That allowed Sudhir access to things normal people wouldn't get to see, but it also skewed his view of what he was seeing.

I also feel that Sudhir twisted it a bit to make it a more interesting read. He also was writing about himself. That is a lot of biased information. No one is going to write in a way that makes themselves sound bad. He doesn't want people to look at what he did and think of him as immoral, so he writes in a way that makes him sound naive to what is happening. There is no way he is actually as surprised as he seems, especially after he had been there for several years. I don't think he was a bad person though either. None of us know what we would choose if we were in the same situation.

I think J.T. was a very interesting person in this book. We will never fully know the whole extent of their relationship or what J.T. actually thought about Sudhir. Many people said that J.T. liked having Sudhir around because he liked showing him off like a puppet, and I have no doubt that is true. When reading the last chapter though, I got another vibe from him too. I think J.T. was worried about being remembered when he was gone. When you live a gang life, you probably won't live too long and even if you do, your fame will probably die off after a bit anyways. Gang leaders of the far past were remembered with nostalgia, and I think J.T. wanted that for himself. It was his life, and he wanted it to mean something, to not be forgotten. I think he saw in Sudhir a way for that to happen, hence his obsession with his biography and how sad he was once Sudhir started pulling away.

To focus on what the actual topic of the book is, I think studies over these types of neighborhoods need to be done more often. So many of us get caught up in our own world that we cannot truly understand what it is like living the way they do. True, we can give to charities or volunteer with them, that doesn’t allow us to connect with those people or really help them in the ways they need it. The community didn’t like when people who didn’t understand them just came to feel better about themselves and do their good deed for the day. These people need more that than, and I hope people see that and start acting.

Ethnography Ideas

I think doing an ethnography on a different religion would be very interesting. Religion is sadly one of the biggest dividers in the world, and I think this is partly due to the lack of understanding between the different groups. I will be honest and say that I don't know much about religions outside of the Christian faith. I myself am Catholic, and I have many other Christian friends, so I think it would be very interesting to explore another religion, such as Judaism or Islam. This would involve going to worship services and joining in on campus organizations. It would be really interesting if the ethnography was performed during period when there was a religious holiday.

I think someone should do an ethnography on one of the Aggie bands. I was a member of my high school band and will attest to how unique the culture there was. Since the bands here are full of Aggies, I have no doubt that they will be even more interesting to observe. If the Aggie band wasn't feasible, I think any of the other musical organizations on campus would be good too. Musicians are always interesting people!

Assignment #7 - Nonobvious Observations

There are many different nonobvious things you are able to obverse about a person. For example, even without seeing the person, you will be able to tell a lot about the person from their posture. For example, are they looking up, down, or straight ahead? Are they walking fast or kind of shuffling around? There are also physical things you should be able to tell about the person. You should be able to tell how tall the person is compared to other people. You will be able to see hands in our videos, so looking at the size and appearance of the hands should also help you narrow down gender.

Outside of the actual person, you will see many nonobvious things based on the people around them and how these people treat the person. Since it was a requirement that we interact with others in the assignment, you will be able to gauge things about the person based on how they are treated. My team went to a bar, ordered a drink, and played a round of 42. In the bar environment, men and women are often treated differently by the bartenders and the other people in the bar. Based on how the bartender acted when the person went to order a drink could be a good indicator of gender. The type of drink ordered may also be a good indicator. If you know enough about the people on the team to know what they like, it would be really easy to deduce who is who. 

Since the game 42 is a partner based game of two teams, there are many different observations you could make. How does the person work interact with the people around them? Are they very outgoing and talkative or are they shy and introverted? Are they interacting with one person more than the others? Maybe if they are only focused on their partner or interacting negatively, then they are highly competitive. If they are just throwing random tiles out, then they might not care if they win or maybe they just do not know how to play. 

Obviously, these are just a few of the things that could be observed. Once you start looking at the whole situation from a variety of ways and letting your mind observe things you don’t initially think are important, you will be surprised at how much you can tell about a person. The readings, which focused on how words normally considered insignificant can be used to tell us things about people, were a good way to get our minds going.

As a side note on the readings, I really didn’t like either. The paper was extremely long and dense. It was mostly horrible to read. The book on the other hand was really easy to read, but it was too conversational for me. His writing style made me feel like I wasn’t going to learn anything significant from him. They did do a good job making me thing though, so I guess they did their job.

Assignment #5 - Ethnography Readings

I actually took a cultural anthropology class for my cultural diversity credit, so I knew a lot of the information contained in these pages. The first half of the class covered everything in the Ethnography Wikipedia page, and then the second half of the class was all about different cultures.  

 

While the Wikipedia page was not very interesting, I know for a fact that this research can be very interesting. There are so many cultures out there that we never know about. For example, the Nacirema who have daily rituals involving putting bundles of hog hairs in their mouths and moving it around. They also actually make holes in their teeth bigger through instruments used by holy-mouth-men (See http://www.ohio.edu/people/thompsoc/body.html for more information). This sounds so crazy and disgusting to us, but is it really? It is all a matter of perception, which is formed by culture.

Ethnographies are meant to observe the culture and learn how it developed based on many factors. This is very difficult because to fully understand the culture, they have to immerse themselves in it. I found this part of the task very difficult. Cultures just don’t accept you overnight. Ethnographers sometimes have to spend years in cultures just to be accepted. I cannot imagine personally devoting such a huge chuck of my life to this pursuit. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me.

A lot of people do see the point though, and actually, they oftentimes become very attached to these people that they are studying. Sometimes they even want to continue living and learning in this culture beyond the timespan of the report. I can see why this is such a common thing. If you spend all your days and nights with a people, you cannot help but to see them as family. You can easily grow to love them and not want to go back to your old way of living. 

This is where a lot of biased information comes in though. You either haven’t be in a culture long enough to be accepted, so you don’t see the true meaning of an action. You would start making assumptions, and these assumptions are often wrong. The opposite side has problems too. If you are accepted into a culture enough that you see the true impact of an action or ritual, you are probably too attached to them in my opinion to give an honest unbiased description of the action.

That is why many researchers, including Gary Alan Fine, correctly claim there is no way to truly be fair and honest when completing and ethnography. People are human and can only be so unbiased. 

Thinking on all these things, I cannot help but wonder how we are expected to complete one of these in such a short amount of time. There is no way we would reach the level of acceptance that we would see all aspects of a culture in the allotted time. It should be interesting to see how far we can actually delve into a culture of our choosing, and I am excited to be actively doing what I spent a whole Christmas break learning about.

Assignment #4 - Contrasting the perspectives of "Emotional Design" to "Design of Everyday Things"

If the assignment was to contrast the first chapter of “Emotional Design” and “The Design of Everyday Things” in general, then I would have a whole lot to say, such as DOET actually backs up its ideas with good examples and DOET actually talks about how its ideas actually affect design, but since the assignment is to focus on the two’s perspectives, I will try to limit my comparisons to the two views of the books.

Design of Everyday Things is very practical. It focuses on how the design of everyday things can help/hurt us when we are trying to figure out how to use them. The design should promote understanding through constraints, feedback, affordance, etc. Emotional Design focuses much more on the aesthetics of the design. He discusses how the aesthetics can affect how we feel and therefore how we think when using the object.

While the two books are very different, I do not see how they necessarily opposites of each other. I feel like these two different ideas can coexist peacefully in a world where all created objects can be functional, easily used, and affect our emotions the proper way. Nowhere in the first book did he say that the way the object looked had to be sacrificed in order for his principles to be used. He did give some examples where the design was difficult to use because they sacrificed usability for aesthetics, but he also mentions in the other book that it can be bad to go the exact opposite route too.  He mentions in Chapter 6 of DOET that selective attention is bad in any form. In my opinion, this is just an additional factor for designers. They must strive to handle everything Norman talked about in the first book, and in addition, consider how the design affects the emotional state of the user.