For this second blog post I plan to start an outline to my paper which will include research as well as excerpts from the Fifty Shades book. To begin with, I would like to write this paper in an exploratory fashion. I hypothesize that my research will show a strong correlation between peoples success rate with attracting those of the other gender (or those of the same if that is what they are doing), and casual bodily contact. I believe that people who successfully are able to incorporate this touching of the arm or wrist, I believe will have a higher success rate for beginning to attract the other partner. I have formed this hypothesis off of hearing personal accounts from friends and people who I have talked to. I believe that since people who I know are successful with this, I would assume it is universal. It is also mentioned in the book to have some of these subtle touching and arousing contacts. There are ample studies online that regard to this idea. I have read a few of these in the past (when I was younger) and though I do not remember what the results showed, I know that there is ample data out there. Many people also write personal experiences, which since they are anonymous, and not link able back to the person who wrote it, generally seem to be fairly unbiased. Through these two methods, I believe that I will be able to fully research the topics.
One such study that I found concludes that attraction is partially physical, but it is also genetic. Women are often times more attracted to men who display a strong physical body because that generally means healthy which biologically is a good thing. Contrastingly, people who are bigger and more subconsciously attractive are more likely to cheat and are recorded to have more trouble being emotionally caring and supportive in relationships. This data can be used to relate back to Fifty Shades of Grey, because in the book, he is depicted to be physically muscular and attractive, so I could conclude that she is more attracted to him biologically and that his methods of seduction emulate a locus of control which shows dominance which biologically some women are predisposed to be attracted to.
If my description of the study and my analysis seems slightly sexist that was not my intention!
OK -- enough conjecture. Get some solid research behind you. Substantiate your claims with some behavioral science. Not just "online" stuff. I also wonder if you want to focus on the parts of the novel where he (who is "he" anyway?) uses the tools of seduction and manipulation and compare it to your scientific research on the subject.
ReplyDeleteWell, I would like to start off by saying kudos to you Xander for doing "Fifty Shades of Gray" for a SCHOOL PROJECT. But hey, whatever floats your boat. When you told me you were going to read that book for this quarter's project, I had no idea what you were going to research. But the science of attraction, seduction, and manipulation is a very interesting topic. I have never read "Fifty Shades of Gray" but I have heard a lot of things about it. Let's just say you have a lot to work with when it comes to seduction in that novel. So what exactly will you be doing research wise? I'm sure you've got plenty of ideas, but a cool one could be if you researched what women find attractive in men and what men find attractive in women and then compare/contrast it to the relationship between Christian and Ana in the novel. It would be interesting to see what lines up and what does not. You could also see what is healthy in that relationship and what is quite the opposite, etc. Make sure you include specifics from the novel itself and relate them to your own research. This could be super interesting, so good luck!
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