Chapter 2
DISCUSSION
What Judgments do people make they see a person with a beard?
I. Definition and Types of Judgments
People make a lot of judgments especially the basis of it will be on what they see from something or someone. Well actually, it is true and you've also been one of the victims of judgments. People are more on “to see is to believe”. But first, let us defined what judgment is.
According to the Merriam- Webster dictionary, 2012, Judgment is defined as an “opinion by judging something or the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing (http://www.merriam-webster.com/).”
From the root word itself, it means an opinion about through careful weighing of evidence and testing.
1. Analytic Judgment
This judgment is more on making reasons and further breakdown an idea piece by piece in order to gain information before making a judgment. It is like before judging something or an event, we tried to investigate and to gatherinformation in order to know what, when, why, and where so we can create a solid reasoning, we normally see this kind of judgment being used in the investigation of police and NBI, and in the hearing o court of appeals but we also used this in our daily lives. We usually do this when we have a question in our mind and our ordinary answer does not simply satisfies our question so we tried to solve and analyze to gain more information in order to generate an idea/answer that will satisfy our question before we create a solid thought about the subject of our question and this is how we do an analytic judgment.
2. Synthetic Judgment
In this matter, this judgment is whose subject matter is abstract or conceptual. It describes us the concepts and the characteristics of abstract entities. In easier way, you judge someone or something by using your senses (sight, smell, hear, touch, and taste). This judgment is more applied in our daily basis, even scientist use this judgment but it is more on observation (Scientific Method). For example, you observe a product and you judged it by the appearance of it (color, size and shape), by what it feels (rough, smooth, etc.), by what it smells (pleasant/ unpleasant), by what it tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter) and in music, based on what you hear then all-in-all, you'll com up to your final judgment if it is a good product or not and you'll even cite your comment based on your observation that will be your judgment.
3. Evaluation Judgment
This is the last judgment mentioned by J. L. Austin. This judgment is more on the significance, worth or condition of usually by careful study. In here, "judging is beyond descriptive content". The only difference of this to analytical that we do not have to make an investigation in order to come up of a judgment but to make a comment on a certain event, it is like explaining and sharing what is in our mind about an event. From the root word of evaluation, it means that we are estimating what we know about it. We see this kind of judgment to the older people in different places like sari-sari store, meeting places, and coffee shop and especially in the neighborhood. Also, this judgment is focused on the world and to be précised, it is about what is happening of the world and the status of it. It is like a "CHISMIS" being talked about the government, economic and many more.
These three judgments use only five things and that is our five senses. You will notice about it, investigating, estimating and observing. We always do this but we rarely noticed of it. And among these three kinds, the synthetic is more likely to be used for we always judge someone/something based on the outer appearance.
II. First Impressions to other People
According to Jeff, “The first impression we got of people are very strong and it is often difficult for us to change our minds.” Actually, I agree with him. When I was at high school, I saw the disciplinary officer of the school and he really looks scary and strict to students so I tried to be nice and quiet as I could so he would not noticed me. My impression to him really stucked in my head for a very long time but as time goes by, my impression changes from time to time, he was not really scary for he is a friendly teacher after all and the only reason why he is strict is because he wants the students to follow the rules while inside the school premises. In that moment, I realized that I was wrong about him that I have judged him wrong. Jeff also said that he usually make a conclusion about a person from their looks. “This then affects how we treat that person. In his article, he mentioned some of the facts that we so really use to judge people and some ways that we judge people that seem unfair. (http://tinybuddha.com/blog/3-causes-for-judging-people-how-to-accept-yourself/)
A. The Color of a Person’s Skin
A study found that light skin blacks were more likely to be described as intelligent, attractive, or wealthy while darker skinned blacks were often labeled as poor, criminal or tough/aggressive. We might also observe that when we see a person with a white a skin, we usually thought that he/she is a foreigner. The people who have black skin are most likely to be discriminated especially in some countries. Back then, white people treated black people as a slave for so many years and discriminations become a part of black person’s life because white people thought that they are far more superior to the black people. I have a white friend and she has a little black little sister. When they were children, my friend hated her little so much because for her, the little sister looks filthy. I think that until now, this judgment/discrimination is still present.
B. A Person’s weight
A study was conducted were skinny actresses dressing up in fat suits and the result is that people viewed people to be undisciplined, disorganized, and unattractive. Actually, no one has yet proved to us on why we really discriminate them but we all sure that many of us teased them because they are fat. All in all, people liked thin person more than a fat person.
C. The Clothes on a Person’s Back
A famous quote that everyone is familiar about it and we can all relate to this quote. “Don’t just the book by its cover”. I know that we are all familiarized about it and of course, we are guilty about it. We usually judge people on what they wear. It is not because they wear the clothes of a rock star that does not mean that they are a rock star nor have the wild attitude of a rock star, maybe it is just what they want to wear. But there is also another quote contrast to the first one, “You are what you wear”. So it is really hard to determine if you are right or wrong about it. For some instance like nerds, he really wears like a nerd for they are a geek but some people wear clothes like a nerd but that does not make them a nerd but because the these clothes look good to them. Even these two quotes are fighting, we still discriminate others by what they wear.
III. Impressions to People with Beards
1. Women are tending to be easily feared to other people, especially intimidated to men. Nowadays, many crimes have occurred from different places and the majority of the criminals are men and women are most likely to be the victims. Because of this, women are more on avoiding men. Having a beard to a man’s face, adds masculinity to their appearance then spreads his aggressiveness around him that makes him look brave, that in night, he looks like a bad guy that has an intention to do something illegal to his victim. But it has actually changed, a research was conducted and found out that these days, women judged bearded men to be attractive. (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/who_commits_crime.htm) (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Df-eQX_OQA)
3. People need a job to have money in order to live or survive and in the world of business, bearded men were having a hard time to be employed and in order to be hired or to get a job, they are required to shave their beards off and must be a presentable employee to their customers/clients. This requirement is actually the part of the dress code of the businesses. When customers or clients enter the building and saw an employee with a beard, they would automatically discriminate the employee for being a filthy one, then complain to the manager and would not have a transaction to they and eventually, the bearded man would be fired.
In relation to beard, the kind of judgment we used is synthetic judgment and obviously we judge them by their appearance. The larger, bigger and weirder it is, the expectation of judging is present. According in the article of Greg Voakes, a survey was conducted and it appeared that the other people judged bearded men to be older, more-more-respected and it resulted to be a positive judgment but another survey contrasted to the results of the first one that they view to be less generous, less caring and less cheerful. And also, the women are scared of them because they look like bad guys and scientists think that men shaved their beards just to make women feel safer so maybe this is the reason why we rarely see nowadays men that keep their beards. Because of this, beards became a mysterious thing. Lastly, a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of New South Wales and published in Evolution and Human Behavior found that women found men with beards so all in all, the judgment of the majority that they are ATTRACTIVE.(http://mysuperchargedlife.com/blog/how-do-we-really-judge-other-people/) (http://io9.com/study-finds-bearded-men-are-more-attractive-proves-my-493130473)
