Money. Money. Money.

We are all used to get anything we want for a certain price. And money plays THE part in the “goods and services” play.

We crave the best goods and services so much, that the dollar sign that pays off for them has somehow become cordial to us.
What does this sign mean to us today? It represents wealth, status, comfort and power. To some it is the meaning of life. To others it’s just a mean of attaining a goal.

Do you know what the dollar sign “$” meant to the United States before?

“The $ derived from the Spanish. In the late 18^th century, merchants in the North American British colonies traded mainly with two currencies: the British pound and the Spanish dollar. When the United States adopted its own currency in 1785, it used Spanish money as its model–a deliberate “screw you” to the British,” says The Atlantic.

Therefore scholars have assumed that the $ sign evolved out of an abbreviation for peso: The plural for pesos was “p^s,” which eventually became “ps,” and then it simply turned into an “S” with a single stroke denoting the “p”.

There is also a version that the $ sign was accidentally created by an Irish merchandiser Oliver Pollock. “In his attempt at abbreviating the word “pesos,” his poor penmanship accidentally created something close to the dollar sign we see today,” affirms Answers.Ask.com. The early instance of the $ symbol cropped up in a letter written by the merchant  in 1778.

The double-line through the S variation is less easily explained. Some believe they represent the twin pillars of Gibraltar illustrated on the Spanish coat of Arms. Others say it’s shorthand for the letter “U” superimposed over the letter “S”–for U.S.

The appearance of the dollar sign in print, in a 1797 book, signified the acceptance of the dollar as a purely American symbol, much as is the bald eagle.

Fleur de Lis

Let’s talk about symbols.

Rich in history and legendary, the Fleur de Lis, or sometimes spelled “fleur de lys” is one of the most recognized symbols across the world. It is an ancient symbol depicting a stylized lily or lotus flower. It consists of three spikes resembling the petals of a flower rising from a central crossbar, and it is clearly intended to represent a lily.

Origins:

Traditionally, the fleur de lis has been used to represent French royalty.  According to French historian Georges Duby, the three leaves represent the medieval social classes: those who worked, those who fought and those who prayed. It is also said to signify perfection, light, and life.

Significance:

The symbolism of a fleur-de-lis, however,  goes beyond the simple floral image.

According to one of the legends, an angel presented Clovis, the Merovingian king of the Franks, with a golden lily as a symbol of his purification upon his conversion to Christianity. Others claim that Clovis adopted the symbol when waterlilies showed him how to safely cross a river and thus succeed in battle.

In Christianity this flower is associated with the Virgin Mary, and all her virtues as well. The three spikes are suggestive of the Holy Trinity, and also of  the common three Christian values: faith, wisdom, and chastity.

Present usage:

Often by design, the Fleur de Lis is still used to this day and represents the ongoing presence of insignia in our everyday lives. “It is featured on military badges like those of the First World War Canadian Expeditionary Force, the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, and the Corps of Cadet at the Louisiana State University,” says Fleur de lis Facts.

It also appears as a logo for different sports teams, as with the Fiorentina soccer team, the New Orleans Saints football team, the New Orleans Hornets basketball team, and last but not least, the former Quebec Nordiques National Hockey Leagues team.

World wide designers find the fleur de lis very inspiring in creating new precious pieces of jewelry.  Eve’s Addiction website offers a great variety of Fleur de Lis styled jewelry.

It’s all about fashion!

Define fashion.

Do you know what colors are in this spring?

Are skinny jeans still fashionable?

Are printed shoes still a good idea for this season?

If addressed to a large audience, I believe, these questions will surely draw attention. People’s answers and reactions to them, however, will variate. Some people like to follow the trend. Others believe their individuality is beyond the fashion tendencies, and thus, continually keeping up with them is regressing.

The question, however, is: “Is fashion a hobby, style, confidence generator, or a necessity?”

Despite many subjective opinions, the proper formula for fashion equals the sum of all of the elements listed above. Therefore, the definition for fashion should be more complex than the ones presented in the dictionaries.

Fashion – a prevailing style in clothing and behavior, serving as a medium of social integrity for individuals.

Fashion is a prevailing mode of expression. The terms “fashionable” and “unfashionable” are employed to describe whether someone or something fits in with the currently popular mode of expression. Fashions are essentially a relief from boredom, a hobby, or a distraction from important matters, for the idle rich.

In 1800, all Western Europeans  were dressing alike: local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and then an emblem of conservativeness. Psychology Wiki says that fashion in clothes has allowed wearers to express solidarity with other people for millennia.

“Modern Westerners have a wide choice available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that person’s personality or likes. When people who have cultural status start to wear new or different clothes a fashion trend may start; people who like or respect them may start to wear clothes of a similar style.”

Human individuals unconsciously stick to particular fashion trends when they adhere to social groups, according to the writer Tony Engelhart. “We all follow fads. Though not everyone will admit to being influenced by fashion trends, the way we dress is a direct result of wanting to fit in with a certain group,” says Engelhart in his article “The psychology of fashion” .  Goth rockers, for example, might think they are rebelling against the mainstream, but in fact they are following  fashion trends as well. Most often they dress in black with silver accessories, because that is the accepted (and expected) attire for their circle.

The law of proximity might as well be applicable to this theory. If people look alike, there are more chances they will be associated as a group. Therefore, if somebody wants to belong to a certain group, he/she will try to be similar to a representative of that group.

Fashions may vary significantly within a society according to, social class, generation, occupation and geography. It may serve as an age indicator. “If, for example, an older person dresses according to the fashion of young people, he or she may look ridiculous in the eyes of both young and older people,” says Psychology Wiki

Fashion associates with confidence boost to most of the women. Good looks work for a higher ego. Women are known to be the more visually appealing gender, and men are easily visually stimulated when it comes to attraction. Appearance is an important factor in the women’s competition to find a mate. Perhaps even more importantly, it sends a signal of superiority to potential competitors of the same gender, who are frequently better informed about what’s fashionable than the potential mates are.

Thus, Fashion in fact IS connected to the human innate sense of social integration and coupling.

Survival

An interesting lecture by Richard Dawkins I found worth watching

Human sex and gender

Have you ever thought that the main behavioral differences between men and women are entirely based on their physiological distinctness?

Even jealousy is an evolution of a primary instinct of domination. Men are jealous if their partners get involved in sexual relationships with other men, while women get already jealous if their partners only speak to other women. This is because male procreative strategy centers on successful domination of a female’s procreative organs, whereas female procreative strategy is the pursuit of a monopoly on the protective and productive attention of a male partner.

The link between  biological evolution and gender and sexual psychology is emphasized in Daniel Pouzzner’s essay  “The evolutionary psychology of human sex and gender”.

Pouzzner develops some interesting facts about men’s and women’s sexual behavior and actions.

Check his essay out on http://www.mega.nu/gender.html

Why Evolutionary psychology?

From all the possible blog topics a college student could choose to entertain the web surfers, why choose Evolutionary psychology?

It is a complicated topic, most commonly pursued by professors, writers and psychologists themselves on WordPress, and less frequently met among students’ writing preferences. Still, I chose to take the risk and blog about it, because I believe it is a great opportunity for the human kind to finally understand and explain the most profound phenomena of human behavior: love and jealousy, anger and compassion, friendship and the aggressiveness, leadership, and altruism.

Let me start with a definition of my topic first.

Evolutionary psychology is a modern scientific discipline that studies the significance of adaptations in human behavior in different social contexts. It is based on the combination of evolutionary biology, anthropology, cognitive science, and the neurosciences. Evolutionary psychology is not a specific sub field of psychology, such as the study of vision, reasoning, or social behavior.  It is a way of thinking about psychology that can be applied to any topic within it.

According to Charles Darwin, evolutionary psychology attempts to explain how certain behaviors evolved over time, ensuring the survival of our kind and increasing the likelihood of survival for our offspring. I believe it is very important to know how we have acquired particular behavioral mechanisms and how we can control them.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will join me on this journey to the center of the mind.