Annotated Bibliography

Kyle Anson

Prof. Andrews

English 1102

12/12/12

Farrell, Andrew, dir. "Is Yawning Contagious?" Mythbusters. Discovery. 9 Mar. 2005.Youtube.com. 27 Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.

            This is a video clip on youtube from the show mythbusters. The actual video in question covers only the latter half of the part about yawning but includes the important part I want which is the results. The results being that yawning can be manipulated and caused by a stimulus. This find transfers into the idea that we could be under the influence of any number of these kinds of manipulation throughout any given day without our knowledge, essentially proving my claim that manipulation is possible and is happening. However, the video only discusses the yawning claim which is something that is not testable under normal everyday conditions. In order to fully back up my claim I will need evidence of a testable noticeable situation of manipulation that happens often.

Katz, Albert N., Blasko, Dawn G., and Kazmerski, Victoria A. "Saying What You Don't Mean: Social Influences on Sarcastic Language Processing." Current Directions in Psychological Science. Vol. 13. N.p.: Sage Publications, n.d. 186-89. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.

            This source delves into the idea of sarcasm and its effects on language. A lot of the source is concentrated on the understanding of sarcasm as opposed to its effect, but the source is still helpful as sarcasm in itself can be a very strong method of manipulation. The point presented in the research is that sarcasm has been touched in many different researches as “one thing is said to express another” but not much has been specifically conducted on sarcasm itself. The idea was to shed more light on sarcasm that previous research has scratched at but never fully itched. Some of the research involves the understanding of sarcasm in contrast to social and cultural factors. Others involve the understanding of sarcasm as a whole and its uses. This is the part I will find helpful and relevant in my inquiry project.

Pennebaker, James W., and Graybeal, Anna. "Patterns of Natural Language Use: Disclosure, Personality, and Social Integration." Current Directions in Psychological Science. Vol. 10. N.p.: Sage Publications, n.d. 90-93. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.

            Now this source is pretty interesting. Essentially the idea is that, through research, they found that certain words when spoken or written down could be related to health. This means that when people write in journals or talk in person, certain words that are used commonly by certain people can be related to their health. This proves to be very interesting to me and my essay. This essentially means for me that I have found a study that helps to prove that language can be tied to biological well-being. That is a very strong form of manipulation and is much more easily proven as fact. This will definitely help me argue my stance that language can manipulate people and situations in the world. One of the studies they preformed showed a relationship between writing and visits to the doctor. Those who wrote for 3 days consecutively about a traumatic event in a journal spent less time at the doctor in later months. Pretty remarkable that words and language can have that kind of effect on the body.

Searing, Donald D. "The Psychology of Political Authority: A Causal Mechanism of Political Learning through Persuasion and Manipulation." Political Psychology. Vol. 16. N.p.: International Society of Political Psychology, n.d. 677-96. JSTOR. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.

            This is practically everything I really need. This is specifically about the use of manipulation in politics which is a cornerstone profession of the idea. I don’t really want to use this as too much of a source considering it roughly contains all the ideas I’ll express in my essay. Using this would be too close to trying to prove what I’m saying specifically as opposed to merely trying to validate the idea. Regardless the piece is incredibly helpful and is approached more casually than my other sources (not counting the video). Just like it suggests in the name, it attempts to be understood in a more casual way than a scientific experiment, at least that’s how a lot of parts seemed to be like to me. This makes it read more like a book to me which could potentially allow me to quote it in less terms of data results and more just helpful statements.