But What Did Chloe Mean?

[Kaiphantom]

You don't say it, and I'm not saying you said it, but it's heavily implied based upon the way refer to Eli and Chloe's relationship. For example:

The implication would be yours alone. I've already said I don't mean anything of the kind. Thus, I know you'll drop this point because you don't want to be the kind of person that tries to insist someone said something, when they really didn't.

Yup. Now if you get nothing out of the friendship perhaps it's time to stop having a relationship with that individual. However, if Eli is expecting romantic feelings to be reciprocated when they aren't Eli is in the wrong here. Chloe is right.

There is no right or wrong here; I'm not quite sure why you keep trying to insist there is. I see no evidence Eli expects her to reciprocate. I mean, he's not complaining, he's not doing anything negative towards her. He's hurt, true, but I think he's doing a damn fine job trying to be her friend and someone she can depend on.

Why you think that's somehow wrong, is beyond me.

Consider this: there is no such thing as a typical woman. Generalisations make the world fall over.

Consider this: You don't have such a good understanding of psychology, nor the science involved with the human brain. Thus, you aren't aware of the fact that there are typical behaviors that men and women exhibit in common situations. It's not exactly "PC" to talk about (people will generally go into strong denial about it; a typical behavior of humans). Of course, you would then become somewhat outraged by this, not quite understanding that there are exceptions to the rule, thus of course not everyone is like this. I will be awaiting your declaration that you have a Ph.D in psychology.

[carmencatalina]

Consider this: You don't have such a good understanding of psychology, nor the science involved with the human brain. Thus, you aren't aware of the fact that there are typical behaviors that men and women exhibit in common situations. It's not exactly "PC" to talk about (people will generally go into strong denial about it; a typical behavior of humans). Of course, you would then become somewhat outraged by this, not quite understanding that there are exceptions to the rule, thus of course not everyone is like this. I will be awaiting your declaration that you have a Ph.D in psychology.

Ok, I know I'll probably getting moded for this, and likely deserve it, because hello - off topic city. But I have a PhD in biology, and my very best friend, chair of her department, has a PhD in Psychology - she specializing in brain studies of learning, with an emphasis on age and gender studies.

And on this - I call bull****.

Cite me the scientific papers, then we can talk. If you were one of my students, you would be getting a very poor grade right now.

[carmencatalina]

I apologize if I offended anyone - luckily, GW edited my unladylike swearing.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kai,

The inference is mine alone based upon what I believe your post implied. However, as you say, I don't want to put words in your mouth and will drop this as you insist you don't mean the implication I've infered.

[Kaiphantom]

Ok, I know I'll probably getting moded for this, and likely deserve it, because hello - off topic city. But I have a PhD in biology, and my very best friend, chair of her department, has a PhD in Psychology - she specializing in brain studies of learning, with an emphasis on age and gender studies.

And on this - I call bull****.

Cite me the scientific papers, then we can talk. If you were one of my students, you would be getting a very poor grade right now.

Ooh! Ooh! I can play this game, too! *ahem* I have TWO friends with Ph.D's in psychology! So that must mean my viewpoint is TWICE as more accurate as yours!

Sorry, couldn't help myself, but I just love the "I have a friend who..." arguments, heh. Anyway... you don't cite anything, but expect me to? See, if you really had a friend in psychology, then he or she could tell you that human beings do exhibit predictable, standardized behaviors with regards to various stimuli; that's the whole reason for the field to exist. They can evaluate behaviors and give you valid reasons why. They can analyze situations and tell you how people are likely to act.

In short, they can give you typical behavior patterns.

But why not ask your friend about Behaviorism, and Skinner's Box? Or perhaps you could explain to the class about positive reinforcement with regards to behavior modification, and how that affects a male or female's development?

My prediction? You'll still be angry with your next post. You won't be able to let this go. Perhaps angry enough to try and report me, when I am demonstrating the fact that behaviors can be foretold in advance, since typical human behavior is predictable.

The inference is mine alone based upon what I believe your post implied. However, as you say, I don't want to put words in your mouth and will drop this as you insist you don't mean the implication I've infered.

Thank you. It is good to see that you keep a level head in a debate. I do apologize if I gave the wrong implication in my posts, but I am glad we can clear that up with some honest conversation.

[carmencatalina]

Actually, I'm laughing at you if you think Skinner's box is anywhere near the forefront of current psychology research.

I'll drop it, but if you like, I can refer you to a few papers in case you actually want to learn anything. Otherwise, I'll just assume that you are someone who believes in that pop psychological books like "Men are from mars, women are from venus" actually represent science.

In one last ditch attempt to frame this in a real way; think of what we have learned about connectivity and intelligence. Generally, there is an overall pattern of denser, more highly connected brains and intelligence, right? Well, if we were to extrapolate that without thinking about the natural human variation that we know is everywhere, and without realizing that there is more to any measure of "intelligence" that we could possible come up with than what we can understand from brain studies, we would come up with the idea that humans are at their peak of "intelligence" at about 20 and that people in their 60s, for example, would always be less intelligent than those in their 20s.

After all, "typical" brain density peaks at about 20, and declines afterward.

Of course, anyone with any knowledge of various ways of measuring "intelligence" will tell you that it isn't that simple.

People less than 20 years of age learn faster, so are they more "intelligent"? People older than 20 tend to have acquired more information, have a more connected set of mental tools and experiences, and are often more "intelligent" by many measures (which is why, despite my aging brain, I'm at the front of the lecture hall teaching and my 20-something students, with their lovely fresh brains, are in the audience).

The same is true of gender studies. The gross anatomical differences that we find are so far from being able to tell us anything about "behavior" that it is laughable. We can't map behavior to any part particular areas of the brain, other than to make generalizations about what damage to some areas seem to do.

The idea that there are "typical" male and female behaviors, in the absence of cultural influences, is a hypothesis that can't really be tested - because we have never raised males and females in any human culture in a controlled way that would allow for that sort of study.

I won't bore the others on this thread further, but this is a real subject of scholarly and scientific interest, not just a pop-culture subject for discussion on Oprah and Dr. Phil.

Again, send me a message if you want some references - I assure you, they will be from actual scientific journals. My friend is a real person, and she told me last night she would be glad to send me more citations if you like.

A good place to start might be:

Kelly, Ostowski and Wilson (1999) "Gender Differences in Brain and Behavior: Hormonal and Neural Bases", Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 64(4):655-664

This paper is the introduction on a special volume on the subject - so the rest of the papers in that volume of the journal all deal with the topic.

Enjoy.

[carmencatalina]

One other thing: several times in your post you use the world "typical". But what do you mean by that?

Scientist don't usually use the word "typical" when discussing differences between groups; usually, we try to quantify our meaning. So for example, we might say that the average time spent on a spatial learning problem is shorter (implying greater ease of solving the problem) in males than in females.

And then we would do a statistical test to show that the mean time for males is smaller (shorter time) than females, and if the test gives us a certain result, say that the results are "statistically significant".

That's where I spend an entire lecture in biostatistics teaching my students the very important difference between statistical significance and biological significance.

Because of the variation inherent in human behavior (and indeed, in pretty much all biological processes), knowing that there is a difference in the mean of two distributions (for our example, the mean time in males versus the mean time in females) is a long way from telling us something about any particular member of the populations (any individual).

The "pop" in pop psychology comes not from saying that there are distributional differences in male versus female behavior (that can be shown for some specific traits, with the proper study), but that you can then use this result to accurately predict individual human behavior.

To give another example: male students in the U.S. score higher on the math portion of the SAT test than female students - that is, you can show that the mean score for males is higher than the mean score for females.

But the overlap in the two distributions is huge.

So if I give a particular score, say a perfect 800, was scored by a student in, oh, I don't know, say the spring of 1983, could you tell me if the student was male or female?

No, and you couldn't even give me a meaningful probability of one versus the other.

That's where saying Chloe's behavior (look! Mods, I'm back on topic!!!) is "typical" of females is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

And just shows your own bias.

[Kaiphantom]

Actually, I'm laughing at you if you think Skinner's box is anywhere near the forefront of current psychology research.

I never said it was, but there are still very good lessons to learn from it concerning the processes of positive and negative reinforcement with regards to behavior modification. There's actually been some current work detailing how many MMO's and online games (like FB ones) are being set up as Skinner boxes in order to keep their players addicted and playing. Fascinating and quite modern area of study.

Let's see, we'll skip the ad hominem and continue on to...

In one last ditch attempt to frame this in a real way; think of what we have learned about connectivity and intelligence. Generally, there is an overall pattern of denser, more highly connected brains and intelligence, right? Well, if we were to extrapolate that without thinking about the natural human variation that we know is everywhere, and without realizing that there is more to any measure of "intelligence" that we could possible come up with than what we can understand from brain studies, we would come up with the idea that humans are at their peak of "intelligence" at about 20 and that people in their 60s, for example, would always be less intelligent than those in their 20s.

A nice biological answer, which given your position as a biologist and not a psychologist, is somehow fitting. But otherwise... what's the point? We're discussing psychology, not biology.

The idea that there are "typical" male and female behaviors, in the absence of cultural influences, is a hypothesis that can't really be tested - because we have never raised males and females in any human culture in a controlled way that would allow for that sort of study.

Yeah, quick question, and I'm real curious to see how you respond... Generally speaking, would you say there are psychological differences between male and female humans? Given the reference book cited, I would say that you are aware of them. Thus, you have admitted that, generally speaking, males and females have typical behaviors.

One other thing: several times in your post you use the world "typical". But what do you mean by that?

Perhaps it wasn't clear, but it's another form of "generally speaking" which scientists do use. It's a reference to a larger percentage chance, while still acknowledging that there are exceptions to the rule.

Because of the variation inherent in human behavior (and indeed, in pretty much all biological processes), knowing that there is a difference in the mean of two distributions (for our example, the mean time in males versus the mean time in females) is a long way from telling us something about any particular member of the populations (any individual).

Then you are deliberately turning a blind eye to specificity with regards to human behavior from a very precise population. Remember, we're talking Chloe here, and her behaviors as someone raised from the US population. That means she shares behavioral traits consistent with other females from her pool.

The "pop" in pop psychology comes not from saying that there are distributional differences in male versus female behavior (that can be shown for some specific traits, with the proper study), but that you can then use this result to accurately predict individual human behavior.

Just like I predicted you'd respond. =) Of course, you might not consider my prediction to be highly valued, but it does show that human behavior can be predicted. Social Engineers, also known as grifters, scammers and phishers, use this principle daily on many different people from all types of backgrounds. They know how to act and what to say, to get people to give them money.

That's where saying Chloe's behavior (look! Mods, I'm back on topic!!!) is "typical" of females is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Well, considering you've basically admitted that females do share behavioral traits, you're either suffering from cognitive dissonance, or you already see that my point is valid and are trying to save face. Although, I do have an idea what you will say when you respond, so I'll just let you say it as it'll help the conversation along.

But let me further nail it down for you with a couple of questions...

Which gender generally evaluates potential mates for security and commitment primarily?

Which gender generally evaluates potential mates for physical beauty primarily?

Once you start down this path, you'll begin to understand Chloe and her decisions. But of course, if you still disagree, you may want to call these guys that did a study on What Men and Women Want in a Mate and tell them they're wrong. And perhaps you should then go to wikipedia, and tell them they should delete their entire entry on Sexual Selection since any it implies typical behaviors with regards to mate selection.

I predict your answer, if you respond, to be something along the lines of: "Yes, you are right about those scientific principles, but somehow they don't apply to Chloe."

[SupremeLegate]

I think it makes perfect since for Chloe to be with Scott, given her obvious initial physical attraction to him and their emotional connection, over the loss of parents. However I don’t think there is any deep emotional connection, as evident by her inability to talk to him about her nightmares or his inability to comfort her.

As for how Chloe feels toward Eli, I think they had a much stronger emotional connection than her and Scott. And while she does not have romantic feelings for Eli, yet IMO, he is important to her. This was shown when she talked to him after the events of “Divided,” and I find it interesting that we did not see it have much, if any, affect on Chloe and Scoots relationship.

So I think she meant: that Eli is important to her and that she knows about his feelings toward her, she just does not share them.

As for the other debate going on in this thread;

I think we are all the result of Nature & Nurture. On a biological level women, and men, are drawn to a person who will provide the best offspring and be able to provide for said offspring. This can also be adjusted by the society in which one grows up, as a result they will also be attracted to the type of person that society says they should be.

So it could be said that Chloe’s relationship Scott is based on biological and sociological conditioning, while her relationship with Eli is based on her own personality.

Thats how I see the whole situation as well as the meaning of what Chole said.

[Pharaoh Atem]

she knows how eli feels but she made her choice and is with scott. and scott's not blind he knows eli is fond of her but i think eli will respect her decision

[SupremeLegate]

she knows how eli feels but she made her choice and is with scott. and scott's not blind he knows eli is fond of her but i think eli will respect her decision

I agree that Eli will respect that she is with Scott, he has shown this all through season 1. However, I am not convinced that Scott truly realizes how fond of Chloe Eli really is. To me he has always come off as being completely oblivious to it.

[garhkal]

With Greers comment in Intervention part 2 to Scott, about "That boy won't let a lick of damag come to a single hair on her" i think shows that at least some do..