Summary and Analysis Rough Draft

Ashley Lewis

Instructor Thomas

English 101: Summary and Analysis

12 October 2012

Summary and Analysis of Sway

            Have you ever wondered why people are so quick to label others based on appearances or first impressions? Do we really pick up on traits that are assigned to us by other people, without even realizing it? Ori and Rom Brafman try to prove this in their book, Sway, in Chapter 5, which is titled, The Bipolar Epidemic and the Chameleon Effect.

            In The Bipolar Epidemic and the Chameleon Effect, the Brafman brothers talk about the sway, diagnosis bias. They argue that when it comes to diagnosing, people usually rely on random information. But, when we are diagnosed, we take on the traits ascribed to us, making the diagnosis reinforced. This can happen to almost anyone, including well-seasoned doctors, “bipolar” children, Israeli soldiers, adventurous hikers, and even normal women waiting for a phone call.

            While reading this chapter, I was able to follow each story pretty well. They flowed from one story to another, which was easy to understand. The Brafman brothers were able to tie the previous story to the next story and so on, which made the stories connected in some way. Each paragraph was the same length, which did not take away from the stories. The authors were able to give all the information that they needed to and it still made sense.

An example that I found the most interesting was the phone call between the women and the men. Fifty-one women had signed up for a study on communications. They just figured that they would be chit-chatting with a random man, who knew nothing about them. Little did they know, the men had also signed up for a communication study and they were given a bio and picture of the women they were about to speak with. The bios about each woman were true, but the picture was not. Some men were given pictures of very attractive women, while some men got pictures of more average looking women. Of course, every man is going to look at the picture more than the actual bio of the woman. After looking over both items, they were given an “Impression Formation Questionnaire.” Despite what the bios said about the women, the men had already formed their opinion. Men who saw pictures of attractive ladies, “expected to interact with sociable, poised, humorous, and socially adept women” (102). But the men that ended up with less attractive ladies, “thought the women would be unsociable, awkward, serious, and socially inept” (102). The conversations started and the women engaged in normal chitchat. But that was not the real experiment.

            The real experiment was playing back the women’s side of the conversation to twelve totally random people that knew nothing about the biases the men had. Surprisingly, those people caught on to what was going on. After listening to the recordings, “[The twelve people] attributed the same traits to the women based on their voices alone that the men had attributed to them based on their (fake) photos” (103).

            The Brafman brothers describe this as the “chameleon effect,” which is “when we brand or label people, they take on the characteristics of the diagnosis” (100). To break it down even more, “[the] mirroring of expectations is known as the Pygmalion effect (describing how we take on positive traits assigned to us by someone else) and the Golem effect (describing how we take on negative traits)” (100). So in the case of the women, when the men interacted with the “beautiful” women, they caught on to that and in turn, sounded beautiful. It is interesting to see how people put the “chameleon effect” into play.

            When I read that example, it automatically made me think of a situation my high school English teacher told our class about. He had signed up for Match.com and he started to talk to a woman that lived in Charleston. Apparently, she looked very beautiful in her profile picture. The two of them talked online and even talked on the phone. From what he saw on the woman’s profile, he thought that she was attractive and very sociable. The only difference between the Brafmans’ example and my teacher is that he actually got to meet the girl. He ended up going down to Charleston to go on a real date with her and when she opened the door, he was not pleased at all. He recalls the whole experience as, “hanging out with the whale at Charleston Harbor.” But, the two stories still have the same concept them and I was able to point that out.

            The Brafman brothers did an excellent job proving that diagnosis bias really does exist. Reading The Bipolar Epidemic and the Chameleon Effect really made me think about my actions and other people’s actions, which was the whole point of the chapter and the entire book, as well. Before, I never thought anything of “sways”, but now, I notice all the little things that people say and do and I automatically think of diagnosis bias. After reading this chapter, the Brafman brothers have made me a believer of the diagnosis bias.