The Sociology of Human Behavior - External Influences on Perception of Others

This evening I decided that I would try a small experiment to test the theory that we all tend to "judge" others based on appearnace and come to some conclusions about the way that person is from those perceptions.

For the past 6 months I have been network marketing and have had a rather conservative picture on my Facebook profile. Tonight I changed that to a photo that was of me 3 years ago when I had my Wiccan shop running full time. The Witches Haven in Cedar City Utah.

I was not so surprised to see what the result was. The immediate result was that I received comments of shock...one even saying...WOW! Others were less "shocked" and ranged from a thumbs up to "I didn't have any clue". This is not a negative thing and my theory was not to show negativity versus positive resulting reactions but to see raw reaction...period.

I placed a status statement shortly after placing the picture on my profile that stated, "I changed my profile picture here to make a point. Whether you call your clergy Bishop, Father, Rabbi, or High Priest,etc...never judge by the cover as we are peaceful and only wish to assist our fellow man."

I am happy to state that while my theory was proven that we all make judgments or we tend to have pre-conceived ideas of one another we also have the intelligence to think about these ideas and notions and make informed decisions about our final judgment.

I hope that we all will take the time to think about how we are judging others based on appearances only and that we will stop and think about all of the reasoning and conditions that played into the way they appear. I may have looked like a "hippy" to some. A "satanic" person to others...neither of which would have been any where near accurate.

This article will be appearing in a post on my blog and by the time this is posted the picture on my FB profile will have been changed back. I neglected to mention that apparently it did have the affect that people were no longer friend requesting me and some chose to leave and that was also expected. I have left it on my blog as it portrays who I truly am...away from the politics...and out of the "lime light" as it were.

May we all be cautious about the way we are treating one another because of the language we may speak, the clothing we may wear, the creed we may hold ourselves to, and just treat one another with the respect that deep down we all deserve. In the end nothing else matters but the fact that we are all here on earth and we are all human and have feelings, emotions and frailties.

Until next time take care of yourselves and each other. Brightest blessings.