that Berkeley application thing.
Does this make any sense? I honestly can't tell anymore.
As a bisexual woman, I am aware of unintentional heterocentrism present within the social-personality psychology literature, and I hope to bring this awareness to the research I conduct. I have come across studies in which individuals who display right-wing authoritarianism are asked their opinions on gay men, lesbian women, and bisexual persons. However, in these same studies, there is no mention of the sexual orientation of the participants, and I believe this to be a very important and potentially interesting variable to look at. It appears that in these studies, the authors assumed that their target population is entirely heterosexual. Although it is likely that this assumption was unintentional, it is nevertheless an assumption. In regards to my own interest in interpersonal relationships, I believe it is essential to take into account of an individual’s sexual orientation and how it may relate to his or her same-sex and opposite-sex interactions.
My sexual orientation has also helped to shape my overall viewpoint of many things - most notably my tendency to see most things as being on a continuum rather than part of a dichotomy. As someone who herself does not perfectly fit into society’s favored either/or way of categorization, I find myself interested in those who also do not strictly meet either/or criteria, be it in their personality traits or their behaviors. That is, I find those in middle often more interesting than those at either extreme. In addition, I find myself more interested in how and why individuals differ within a group rather than the overall similarities of the group members. For example, I am interested in how individuals who experience empathic embarrassment differ among each other in regards to their familiarity with the embarrassment situation, their similarity to the embarrassed protagonist, their general level of embarrassability, and a conglomerate of personality characteristics and traits.
edit: I should've mentioned what this was from. It's the last portion of my Personal History Statement (which is different from my Statement of Purpose, which I'm also working on). This is the prompt:
"In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree."
I spent the first portion of the essay discussing my phonological disorder and family-things (which is an answer to the first part), and this section kinda goes with the second part.
edit, the second: I'm currently reworking the first sentence in order to ease the transition from the paragraph it follows, and to make it sound a little less like only bisexual women can be aware of heterocentrism.
As a bisexual woman, I am aware of unintentional heterocentrism present within the social-personality psychology literature, and I hope to bring this awareness to the research I conduct. I have come across studies in which individuals who display right-wing authoritarianism are asked their opinions on gay men, lesbian women, and bisexual persons. However, in these same studies, there is no mention of the sexual orientation of the participants, and I believe this to be a very important and potentially interesting variable to look at. It appears that in these studies, the authors assumed that their target population is entirely heterosexual. Although it is likely that this assumption was unintentional, it is nevertheless an assumption. In regards to my own interest in interpersonal relationships, I believe it is essential to take into account of an individual’s sexual orientation and how it may relate to his or her same-sex and opposite-sex interactions.
My sexual orientation has also helped to shape my overall viewpoint of many things - most notably my tendency to see most things as being on a continuum rather than part of a dichotomy. As someone who herself does not perfectly fit into society’s favored either/or way of categorization, I find myself interested in those who also do not strictly meet either/or criteria, be it in their personality traits or their behaviors. That is, I find those in middle often more interesting than those at either extreme. In addition, I find myself more interested in how and why individuals differ within a group rather than the overall similarities of the group members. For example, I am interested in how individuals who experience empathic embarrassment differ among each other in regards to their familiarity with the embarrassment situation, their similarity to the embarrassed protagonist, their general level of embarrassability, and a conglomerate of personality characteristics and traits.
edit: I should've mentioned what this was from. It's the last portion of my Personal History Statement (which is different from my Statement of Purpose, which I'm also working on). This is the prompt:
"In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree."
I spent the first portion of the essay discussing my phonological disorder and family-things (which is an answer to the first part), and this section kinda goes with the second part.
edit, the second: I'm currently reworking the first sentence in order to ease the transition from the paragraph it follows, and to make it sound a little less like only bisexual women can be aware of heterocentrism.