Social experiment.....

So I'm not a psychologist. Of any variety. Despite the fact that I completed my Master's degree and am partway through my PhD within a School of Psychology. I've never been trained in Psychology but being in these departments I've learned a tad about the overall subject. As a Master's student at MSU we were required to take courses in addition to our research and teaching commitments. One of the courses we took was Social Psychology and it afforded me a glimpse into a bizarre, subjective and often confusing world of all things social. I'm telling you this because, especially after taking that class, I had never had a desire to conduct a social experiment of any kind. And yet the day we visited Air & Space I was placed in a situation where I inadvertently conducted a social experiment for the first time ever. I never intended for this to happen. It just did. You probably see where I'm going with this. Being a person of sound body and mind I took in not only Air & Space from the vantage point of a wheelchair; I also had the opportunity to observe the behavior of everyone around me. Specifically their reactions to me: a person, they didn't know, in a wheelchair. From the chair I immediately noticed that people were doing one of two things: either they were purposefully avoiding eye contact with me (while simultaneously looking uncomfortable) or they were looking right at me with expressions of "I feel so bad for you" on their faces. Initially, I almost laughed out loud. I wanted to say, "Look, I'm just an idiot who took a misstep going down some stairs", "It's just a sprained ankle!". But there was no time or place for that to happen. I also noticed that innumerable parents who saw us coming where grabbing their children and yanking them out of our way. It was like the sea parting, magically, as we rolled through the museum's many exhibits and wings. 

Then it got better. I realized something. Jess, who had been pushing me around the whole time, had decided to wear a Wounded Warrior shirt. The campaign supports and honors wounded veterans and he had wanted to contribute and thus bought some of their merchandise. Like the shirt he was wearing that day. To push me in a wheelchair around Air & Space! Yeah. We must've looked like quite the pair. :) Then I really felt like an idiot. Not just an idiot but an impostor! By no means am I a wounded vet - just someone with a sprained ankle trying to see Air & Space! I was so embarrassed, still am. 

So there you have it. This was the social experiment I never intended to conduct. It was a powerful reminder that we make assumptions about other people all the time. Sometimes they are more wrong that you might imagine! Food for thought.