As I was sitting here thinking about what to write about, sassiness immediately came to mind. What is the biology behind sass or attitude, what is the psychology behind it? This week we started to learn about developmental psychology. This means the study of a person from birth to death. At about the age of 12 (could be from 9-16) for a girl, she goes through puberty. When going through puberty the body starts to release gender specific hormones, and in a girl, the hormone is estrogen. The release of estrogen causes girls to be moody and sassy.
While the release of estrogen is a biological event, it is also psychological. The estrogen influences the central nervous system, where it messes with the neurotransmitters secreted by the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal lobe. These neurotransmitters influence our emotions and cognition. If our amygdala neurotransmitters are all out of whack, our emotions go crazy. Those emotions are better known as SASS. This would also explain very well why sass is more prominent in girls and not boys. Testosterone doesn't do the same thing.
I hope that this blog has helped you understand why sometimes you just can't help but be sassy.
Great blog, Sophie. Your inner sass truly shines out. It's funny that we now know the reasons behind random things that no one ever really thinks about. It usually gets on everyone's nerves, because the AP Psychology class always just spits out random information about things that no one has ever really though of before. Learning the origins of sass is certainly enlightening!
ReplyDeleteI actually laughed out loud while reading this. I knew that hormones could produce sass, but I didn't think that they could produce Sophie-level sass. :) I wonder what other factors go into how much sass you express. I'm guessing that we'll learn more about this when we get to the chapter on personality, but I assume that there's a biological/genetic predisposition for sassiness, a psychological element (as you mentioned) and a social component of how the people around you are acting. This is really interesting stuff, and I'm interested to learn more!
ReplyDeleteLOL! I guess it is not just my New York accent that can make me sound sassy. It can not be though that people are sassy only because of that reason. There has to be other factors involved besides for psychological aspects. If not then every girl would be sassy at times. Also there are certain things around us that trigger us to be more sassyer then other times. I guess its just a classic bio-psyco-social approach.
ReplyDeleteGood blog Sophie. (I never noticed your sassiness though!) It's interesting how personality is effected by biology. I wouldn't have really thought that this was the explanation, because I would just shrug it off and think oh it's just her personality. I wonder if there are people that are sassy that don't embrace it like you and feel like they have a control over this sassiness. To what extent do we have a control over things like this?
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