Fruit on the Roof

A flat roof has much potential. For the past few months I have been attempting to get small, round hand fruit (I have used apples and oranges, but I would not rule out grapefruit, either) onto the roof of my dorm. I have come to within a foot. Getting hand fruit onto the roof is sort of like real-life Angry Birds, but I wouldn't know for sure--I am too mainstream to play it.

Down to the crux of my collegiate experience. I use the word crux because I played a magnificent Sporcle quiz yesterday whose subject was 4-letter words ending in X. Let me find a link for you. Here you are: http://www.sporcle.com/games/caramba/castlemaine

Anyway, the crux! The crux! I started taking this intro psych class this week, and it is mostly very interesting stuff. However, I am still ambivalent about the study of psychology. So far it seems to consist of a fun array of facts about the way people act, some of which are given fancy names like "motivated social cognition." Actually, motivated social cognition is one of the more entertaining ideas I've come across in this class, because it suggests that political conservatism is caused by nothing more than the emotional flaws of its proponents. I quote from my textbook: "In particular, the motivated social cognition perspective maintains that people respond to threat and uncertainty by expressing beliefs that help them to manage their concerns. Evidence supporting this perspective has come from studies showing that political conservatism is positively related to a concern with societal instability and death, a need for order and structure, and an intolerance of ambiguity (e.g., Jost et al., 2003)." I am tickled by the fact that these findings have been codified and substantiated within an academic framework; but is the academic framework really necessary? Even if I couldn't have phrased why some people are conservative in some fancy way, I think it's rather obvious why people ascribe to those views. Hey, this is a controversial post. If you have a particular outlook on psychology, you should write a comment about it! My roommate is not welcome to do so, however.