Reading Response for 3/23

The reading by Stern and Kalof was a nice reminder of concepts I remember learning in 102 and in AP Statistics my senior year of high school. Reading about surveys especially brought me back to Stats because we had so many discussions about why many surveys actually don’t provide valid data. There are so many factors that one has to consider when making a survey that it almost drives you nuts; for example, how will the survey be delivered? If it’s through phone, you have to consider that some people might not own a landline. If people don’t pick up, that also affects the data. If it’s interviewing in public, the sample you get at a mall versus outside of a bar will get a different demographic, so you have to consider if the sample you’re getting is representative or not.

I was really fascinated by the von Reuden reading. The discussion of SSSs and LSSs reminded me of the book Big Fish, and the comparison of the metaphor of being a big fish in a small pond or a big fish in a big pond. It made me think of the SSSs and LSSs in my life. If you think of a household as an SSS, mine reflects what happens in an LSS, in that my dad makes more money, has more of an alpha male personality, and is the confident one that makes the ultimate decisions. It makes me wonder how that has affected the way I perceive what I leader is. Since I’ve gone to a liberal high school and college and have been exposed to progressive ideas from a young age, I think that would have altered any initial traditional ideas of leadership in my subconscious. Still, according to this paper, despite our beliefs, the leaders that actually show up in LSSs are more traditional.

My second thought from this reading is how do we change what a leader looks like to what society looks like? How do we get more women to be leaders, and more people of color? We all know by now that a leader doesn’t always have to be tall, over-confident, and masculine with aggressive tendencies. In fact, I remember reading last year that people prefer a leader not to look like that. What’s holding us back, and how can we fix it?

8 thoughts on “Reading Response for 3/23

  1. Alexandra Smith

    I was wondering the same thing as your second thought when reading this. I often think of a leader as the traditional figure the reading described but try to correct myself to a more diverse portfolio. I think one of the first ways we can have others do the same is expose them through education and books and media to figures outside the realm of normal so that they can imagine a more diverse group of people all being leaders.

  2. Sofia Torrens

    I completely agree, I was also reminded of my 102 and AP stat class in high school when reading the Stern and Kalof article. I also was wondering how I perceive a leader as well, but I grew up in an extremely conservative and white area so I think that there are definitely underlying perceptions that I have due to where I grew up. I think that going to college and seeing what different upbringings are like I definitely opened my eyes.

  3. Sarah Houle

    Your last paragraph reminds me a lot of the concept of descriptive representation. Descriptive representation essentially says that people are more likely to elect leaders that they can self identify with. For example, a Jewish American being supportive of Bernie Sanders because he is also a Jewish American. I think that one way to get a more diverse leadership group, in the context of race, comes with time. The United States is becoming a more diverse country that is on its way to not having a majority race. When this happens, assuming there are the people running for the positions, more diverse leadership within politics will follow working under the assumption that descriptive representation is a strong force for people when voting.

  4. Nikhil Mehta

    Implicit biases and an imbalance of financial and political power are the cause of the lack of descriptive representation. Men typically have more power and money to get themselves in a position to run for office, and society traditionally has seen more male leaders. We can counteract this by giving a more diverse leaders, both historical and modern, a bigger spotlight, instead of focusing on the same white, male leaders all of the time.

  5. Jesse Chiotelis

    Stern and Kalof’s reading also caused me to think about the statisics and data collection concerns with surveys that I learned last semester in my Psych Methods and Analysis course. I personally do not love statistics but when considering all the factors and social analysis that goes into conucting a survey that accuratly assesses what one is striving to analze definitly makes it much more interesting and easier to understand.

  6. Katharine Encinas

    This is such an interesting comparison to the Big Fish metaphor. That point really helps me understand the different power dynamics that SSS versus LSS leaders encounter. In a way, gaining power in a LSS means you have to be a “really huge fish” that beats other “big fish.” Also, I really appreciate the questions you had at the end of the reading about how we can use this information to create better leaders. These types of retrospective studies are only helpful in the capacity that people learn from them. By this, I mean that it is not enough we understand a situation, but produce solutions to fix its flaws.

  7. Henry Herz

    The good news to your last points is that in other countries across the world including Europe we see breakthroughs on some of these (Angela Merkel and Margaret Thatcher come to mind). What’s particularly interesting and worrisome is that despite building its identity in equality and liberty, the USA seems to still be stuck in those old fashioned leadership choices.

  8. Samuel Senders

    In order to make more women leaders we need to be made aware of our biases in order to correct them. Like in the implicit bias tests we took earlier we were made aware of our biases which would allow us to combat them. Many people are unaware of their biases and thus are unable to combat them because they don’t know they exist.

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