Secret experiment

This is another story I was reminded of when I traveled to see some old college friends last month. That trip was mentioned in my post Too much to write. In my group of close friends, we all, at one time or another, took a class in psychology. But Andrea took more than most of us because she was majoring in animal behavior - a mixture of psychology and biology. So, she was given many projects where she needed volunteers for experiments. She usually asked her boyfriend Nick, one of my best friends and her future husband, to help but sometimes she needed more than one person or Nick was busy doing something else. So, this time, I was the subject.

She told me that she would be asking me to make up sentences given a verb as a starting point and using a subjective pronouns like "I', "we", "he", "she" etc. which I could choose. She didn't tell me the purpose of the experiment because that would have biased the outcome. She started by giving me a verb and I made up a simple sentence. Next verb - another sentence. As I spoke my sentences, I noticed that she would seem to approve of some of them with, "Good," or "Yes.". It seemed like she found some of my sentences interesting so, I started to make up more elaborate sentences.

Sometimes, when I thought I'd made up a really good sentence, she would say, "Good," but other times, she'd say nothing in response to what I thought was one of my better offerings. Or I'd even get a, "Hmm," as if I'd made a mistake. I was getting desperate and was almost reciting small short stories with a single sentence. I was determined to find out what subjects she was approving of. Was it when I talked about personal things or should I make sentences about world affairs? Maybe she'd respond better if I threw in a little romance. But that didn't seem to elicit as much response as when my sentences were about food - but then a sentence about dessert got a, "Hmm." Then I thought she responded better to sentences about sports. No, I think she likes funny sentences better.

Well, I was so wrapped up in my search for approval of my "story telling" that I was surprised when Andrea announced that the experiment was over. Once we finished, we were able to talk about the purpose of what we'd just done. It turns out, she was seeing if she could affect my choice of subjective pronoun and specifically the gender I chose - "him" or "her". So, when I started the sentence with "I", "we", or "you", she wouldn't say anything. If I used "she", Andrea would give some sign of approval. If I used "he", then some form of disapproval was used. Sentence structure, depth of the story or subject had nothing to do with it. She said that she didn't seem to be able to correlate any of my pronoun choices with her influence. But I said, "You certainly did influence me. Just not in the way you intended."

This happens so often in our lives. We don't want to overtly influence people but we try to do it in a "nice" way by implying things. But usually, in my experience, the person we're trying to influence gets the wrong idea. It's better to just come out with it.