TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Psychology Convention, Gasparilla Converge

ADVERTISEMENT

By KEITH MORELLI

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: February 6, 2009

TAMPA - A cosmic alignment will occur this weekend in Tampa involving the id and the superego.

On the one hand, there is Gasparilla, where average people lose touch with reality, dress like pirates, fire weapons (blanks, of course) and, maybe, with a handful of plastic beads, encourage lewd behavior. And those are just the guys in the parade.

Along the winding parade route, there will be thousands of grog-swilling sots on a daylong quest for their next drink. They will 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 people whose lifework 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 ensue.

The society has about 4,500 members; about half are here.

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 raised voices of pirates and paradegoers to focus on lectures.

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

When Gasparilla was explained, she said it sounded like fun. "Alcohol changes people's attitudes toward risk," she offered as her diagnosis of expected crowd behavior Saturday.

Kray, who is chairwoman of the Haas Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations Group at the University of California, Berkeley, said she had planned to leave Tampa on Saturday. "I'll probably change my flight to Sunday."

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

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT