Psychology's Influence on Culture
Project Proposal
Hannah Staats
September, 2014

Developing a driving question for this semester’s project was a battle of balancing ideas big and small. My interest in the connections between evolution, psychology, and culture has only grown over the last year, but deciding what topics to specify or leave vague (a specific theory, or the whole of psychology? culture, or some smaller component?) was quite a task. After much contemplation, I chose to pursue this question: How does the way we perceive our own psychological mindsets further biological and cultural evolution? It’s possible I will make a decision to focus on either biological or cultural evolution at some point in the research phase, and I acknowledge that while my question presents the two subjects as dichotomous, this is not the case, and I think it would be interesting to show that with my research, giving a valuable new insight to my audience.

Any visions I have looking forward to the creation phase are vague, but I know I want to write a dramatic work of some sort, probably using a staged reading for my presentation. As I begin the research phase, I will also try to begin outlining the plot structure based on my findings, hopefully thus strengthening the connections between the art form and research as well as the final product itself. While at this point, I am having trouble imagining what this product may be exactly, I feel that my topic lends itself to this sort of expression; for example, I can imagine evolution being represented in a character arc.

In doing preliminary research, I concluded that I should start my research phase reading on evolutionary psychology, the more recent sub-field of psychology that bases its philosophy in the principles of evolution. I came across sources such as The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology by David M. Buss that I plan on investigating further. I also may want to do some research on the history of the study of psychology itself as a way of seeing how the way at least one group of people’s perception on their own psychology has evolved over time. My preliminary research also consisted of looking into specific psychological theories, which I plan to continue to do as my idea of the broader picture develops. I can use these as specific examples supporting my research. For example, one theory I found especially interesting was self-enhancement bias, a phenomena nearly all of us experience subconsciously where we all convince ourselves, against all evidence, that we are better than average. Because those thus delusioned would be more confident in all their proceedings, they would consequently come out on top more often, and passed their delusions down almost every single one of us.

My past projects have all started off with very general topics, and pulling together a moderate amount of valuable information on them has been a challenge. As a researcher and thinker, I want to strengthen my ability to dive into broad topics and surface not only with a greater general understanding, but with some strong and meaningful specifics. Being very passionate about my work, I often find myself sheltering my progress from others until I am completely satisfied with my project. In a professional setting, though, this creates complications: not only do I find myself off track of the pre-set schedule, but my communications with my advisors and other teachers become poor. I want to improve on this as a worker and collaborator to make sure I am open about my progress, allowing for potentially valuable feedback and greater understanding. In thinking about my creation process, as an artist I want to expand my ability to interpret research through an art form from representations to meaningful communications.