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Psychologists Will Have Ringside Seat To Gasparilla's Debauchery

The Associated Press/Tribune file photo by Joseph Brown III (2008)

What would the father of modern psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, think of Tampa's signature tradition?

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 5, 2009

TAMPA - A cosmic alignment takes place in Tampa this weekend with the id and the super ego.

On one hand, there is Gasparilla Day, where work-a-day people lose touch with reality, dress up like marauding pirates, shoot off blanks from handguns and maybe, with a handful of plastic beads, encourage some lewd behavior. And those are just the guys in the parade.

Along the winding parade route, there are hundreds of thousands of grog-swilling sots on a daylong quest for their next drink. They scream for trinkets tossed from passing floats and have been known to urinate on the lawns of rich people along Bayshore Boulevard.

On the other hand, you have a gaggle of academics from all over the nation whose life work is studying bizarre social behavior. It's a match made in mental health heaven.

The Society for Personality and Social Psychology booked its 10th annual convention about a year ago. Members are holed up in two or three downtown hotels and attending seminars and discussions at the Tampa Convention Center. From that vantage point, they have a ringside seat to Saturday's pirate invasion and the annual debauchery and shenanigans that inevitably ensues.

Hmmmm, they may say. Verrry interesting.

The society has about 4,500 members worldwide and about half have come to Tampa for the annual event.

They will attend conferences at the convention center through Saturday when they will have to figure a way to ignore the blasts of cannons and screams of the young and excited to hear any lectures.

"What?" asked Laura Kray on this morning between lectures at the convention center, "I was unaware of this."

When the concept of Gasparilla Day was explained, she said it actually sounded like fun.

"Alcohol changes people's attitudes toward risk," she offered as her pre-session diagnosis of those she may run into on Saturday.

Kray, who chairs the Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations Group at the University of California at Berkeley, said she had planned to leave Tampa on Saturday.

"I'll probably change my flight to Sunday," she said.

Sebastion Brion, one of Kray's students, said he saw a mention on the society's Web site about Gasparilla Day.

"But," he said, "I thought it had something to do with the convention."

Ohio State University graduate students Karen Hines and Samantha Mowrer both were unaware of the scope of Gasparilla Day.

"I heard it was a big party," said Hines.

"I never heard of it before," Mowrer said.

Both will be here on Saturday to witness the bash first hand.

"Psychologists and pirates," Mowrer said. "That's interesting."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

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