31
Oct 16

Education

 

We have preexisting thoughts as to what our abilities are and how we are able to perform in this society. In education, our minds are shoved into an oppressive framework meant for only those who reflect the appearance and experiences of the leaders in academia. People of color, children of color, are told from a young age that they are lazy, stupid, ignorant, criminal minded, uneducated as a whole, prone to violence and criticized for any achievements they make. For example, when a student gets accepted into a university with competitive entrance, all people of color are assumed to have been accepted not due to their academic abilities, but due to affirmative action. I find it funny that white women benefit more than anyone else from affirmative action, but people of color are always the targets of derision when discussing affirmative action.

These criticisms of the character and abilities of people of color start in preschool and elementary school, and then continue into higher education. These stereotypes contribute to the formation of their academic self-concept—the feelings, attitudes, and perceptions students hold about their academic ability (Schneider, 2012). People of color are stereotyped viciously in the U.S. and other places around the world when it comes to academic achievement and how they can contribute to the betterment of society. These stereotypes contribute to Black and Latinx students not only being incorrectly categorized as having a learning disability, but also to them being disciplined 3 times more often and harshly than white counterparts for the same infractions (CRDC). When this happens in pre-K and elementary, children may associate education with negativity, and may internalize the discipline by adopting the belief they are “bad”. These stereotypes may also contribute to the self-fulfilling prophecy phenomena which happens when a person is bombarded by views, forced into a box so much they become exactly what was expected, but not who they are.

Some schools are fighting against these stereotypes by starting programs as mentioned in the text book, and others are choosing to use different types of discipline that may actually encourage students to be better. One school in Baltimore called Robert W. Coleman elementary utilizes meditation practices in place of detentions and suspensions and added a fifteen minute yoga session to the start of each day (CBS News 2016). They practice “mindfulness exercises and yoga” in order to take the students away from the situation and encourage self reflection (Gaines, 2016). The school has found by implementing mindfulness rather than punishment, the student’s grades have gone up by 10%, and there have been zero suspensions since the start of the intervention. Another school, Visitacion Valley School in San Francisco, which is majority Latinx and Hispanic, started having their students sit for two times a day in meditative silence for only a few minutes during the day. They call it “Quiet Time” and since its implementation, there have been 79% reduced suspensions (NBC, 2014).

For those students who never had a proper intervention, they went on to high school and university without the proper coping mechanisms to face the inherent racial bias in academia. The picture below is just one of the hundreds of screenshots related to a case where a Latina grad student was assumed to have plagiarized for utilizing a healthy vocabulary in her papers. The professor circled the word hence,  indicated the student should cite the source of this word by saying “This is not your word”, and accused her of plagiarism while shaming her in front of her class (Martinez, 2016).

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“My last name and appearance immediately instills a set of biases before I have the chance to open my mouth. These stereotypes and generalizations forced on marginalized communities are at times debilitating and painful. As a minority in my classrooms, I continuously hear my peers and professors use language that both covertly and overtly oppresses the communities I belong to. Therefore, I do not always feel safe when I attempt to advocate for my people in these spaces. In the journey to become a successful student, I swallow the “momentary” pain from these interactions and set my emotions aside so I can function productively as a student.” -Tiffany Martinez

This is the experience of millions of students of color around the country, and is labeled in psychology as stereotype threat—the anxiety students feel when they are faced with expectations consistent with the stereotypes associated with the group they belong to (Schneider 2012).  An example of this is when a woman of color is being treated badly, and the stereotypes about her race are that she is “angry and loud”. If she reacts to the bad treatment in any way, it will be dismissed as her just being a “stereotypical [insert race here]”. In academia this is apparent from teachers in response to students. There are notions about a Latina and a Black student (as shown above in the picture), that affect the way a teacher perceives the work done. They may underestimate the skills of the students based on skin tone, name or background and that discourages students from being successful (Schneider, 2012). There are ways to combat the negative teacher expectations through training (Schneider 2012). There is still a long way to go in the realm of racial biases including in academia.

 

 

References

CDC. http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/data.html

Cynthia McFadden, Tim Sandler and Elisha Fieldstadt. (2014). SanFrancisco Schools Transformed by the Power of Meditation. NBC News. Retrieved at: http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/san-francisco-schools-transformed-power-meditation-n276301

Gaines, James. (2016) This School Replaced Detention with Meditation. Upworthy. Retrieved from: http://www.upworthy.com/this-school-replaced-detention-with-meditation-the-results-are-stunning

Martinez, Tiffany. (2016). Academia, Love Me Back. Viva Tiffany At WordPress. Retrieved from: https://vivatiffany.wordpress.com/2016/10/27/academia-love-me-back/

Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.


31
Oct 16

Comparing Creative and Academic Challenges

Our environment and the quality of education we receive can shape our minds, our voice and our behaviors. Not every lesson or teaching method is tailored to every student’s needs and that can cause unnecessary frustration. So many students develop a poor academic self-concept because they cannot grasp the material in the way it is being presented to them and that affects their performance (Schneider et al., 2013).

The challenges we face both in a classroom setting and out in the real world can influence tour achievements (Hoffmann et al., 2015). The article, Intended Persistence: Comparing Academic and Creative Challenges in High School, studies how students approach and tackle said challenges. Researchers used 190 high school students, 73 males and 117 women, with an average age of 16 to complete an online survey. The participants were asked a series of questions that related to both creative and academic challenges they have recently experienced (2015). Data collected from these surveys showed that motivation and persistence were correlated to interest and that the students reported more interest in creative challenges.

In my opinion, the participants were more interested in creative challenges because those results are open to interpretation. While there are still right and wrong answers to be found in creative classes, like art and music, most of your findings can be your desires. You can create your own designs, draw up your own sheet music and not be afraid to think outside of the box.

Cao, P., Meister, S. & Klante, O. Mark Rev St. Gallen (2014) 31: 77. doi:10.1365/s11621-014-0427-y

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1412976381


31
Oct 16

School Violence: Bullying and Shootings at Columbine

Sociological research about school shootings indicate that in the majority of the cases, the violence is in retaliation to bullying and harassment perpetrated by the school elite on the school outcasts (Larkin, 2012). This blog will look at adolescent bullying and violence, and then conclude with interventions that might help prevent devastating incidents of school shootings like Columbine.

If we take the case of Columbine, Larkin (2007) observes that the school was pervaded by a sort of “cult of the athlete,” revolving in particular around football, such that athletes or “jocks” ruled the school and perpetrated violence and harassment upon outcasts. This bullying was tolerated and even encouraged by peer bystanders, who claimed that the outcasts were morally disgusting to the entire school.

Bullying increases beginning in middle school (Pellegrini, 2001), when peer relationships become unstable, such as during the transition from middle school to high school. Social hierarchies are in the midst of being established, and given the long-standing tradition of athleticism and physical domination as being signs of the elite, hierarchies are established through violence and intimidation, especially in the case of male students. Adolescent peer groups can be grouped into the jock elite, burnout outcasts, and the rest in the middle (Larkin, 2007). In Columbine, the jock elite was composed of members of the Columbine Sports Association, whereas the burnouts were called “goths,” some of whom went around in trench coats and called themselves “The Trenchcoat Mafia.”

Milner (2006) observes that peer groups can be unforgiving, in that though everyone knows who falls in what peer group, the wrong word or association can lead to an immediate fall in status. The formation of peer groups in the beginning of junior high or high school is therefore a conflict-fueled process, as social status begins in flux and then slowly crystalizes.

Bullying exists in an environment where it leads to rewards from peers and tolerance from school authorities. Brown and Merritt (2002) observed that in Columbine, the teachers would look upon bullying as “boys will be boys” and then look the other way. Bullies establish their higher social status and power by intimidating their victims, and thus are rewarded by rises in self-esteem and social competence.

What does bullying have to do with school shootings? Everything. Of 38 school shootings analyzed by Larkin (2009), at least 20 were in retaliation for bullying. Bullying and harassment ranged from small cruelties to near torture, with incidents of being burned by cigarette lighters. Prevention of school shootings therefore naturally ties into prevention of bullying.

Suggestions for prevention of school shootings have been compiled by Bondü and Scheithauer (2009). At the school level, the researchers recommend the development of a positive school climate, with a zero tolerance policy towards bullying, prevention and response procedures for bullying, and an increase in the number of mental health service providers like school counselors on campus. At the individual level, the researchers recommend concentrating on developing social and emotional competencies, limiting violent media consumption, implementing conflict resolution/mediation programs, and fostering social integration to prevent social exclusion.

References:

Böckler, N. (2013;2012;). School shootings: International research, case studies, and concepts for prevention (1. Aufl.;1; ed.). New York: Springer.

Bondü, R., & Scheithauer, H. (2009). Aktuelle Ansätze zur Prävention von School Shootings in Deutschland. Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie, 58, 685–701.

Brown, B., & Merritt, R. (2002). No easy answers: The truth behind death at Columbine. New York: Lantern.

Larkin, R. W. (2007). Comprehending columbine. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Larkin, R. W. (2009). The Columbine legacy: Rampage shootings as political acts. The American Behavioral Scientist, 52(9), 1309–1326.

Milner, M., Jr. (2006). Freaks, geeks, and cool kids: American teenagers, schools, and the culture of consumption. New York: Routledge.

Pellegrini, A. D. (2001). The roles of dominance and bullying in the development of early heterosexual relationships. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 2(2/3), 63–73.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


30
Oct 16

Youth Violence: A Learned Behavior

News reports on school violence and bullying seem to occur on a regular basis and involve children and adolescents of varying ages. Many question why violence is becoming such an increasing issue. There is a seemingly endless availability of violent material accessible to youths on the internet, television, and video games. According to the CDC, some of the most common forms of youth violence occur in the form of bullying, fighting, electronic aggression, use of weapons, and gang violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2016). It would seem we’re teaching America’s youth that violence is both acceptable and normal.

Albert Bandura’s social cognitive learning theory posits people learn through the observation of others’ behaviors, and the outcomes of those behaviors may be desirable or undesirable (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Social learning may also be the result of one’s own behaviors. If a child solves a problem through aggressive behavior they learn that this behavior is beneficial and are likely to continue its use. It is not uncommon for this type of social learning to occur early on in development (Syracuse University School of Education [Syracuse University], 2016).

It should be noted that not all children who are exposed to violent behavior will subsequently behave violently; however, numerous studies have concluded various risk factors exist. Some commonly reported individual risk factors are children with learning disorders or deficits in social cognitive information processing, having a lower IQ, and exposure to family conflict and violence (CDC, 2016). Family risk factors include lower socioeconomic status, low parental involvement and supervision, authoritarian childrearing styles, and parental criminal history or drug use (CDC, 2016). Other risk factors include social rejection, little to no community participation, association with delinquent peers, and subpar academic performance (CDC, 2016).

What can parents, communities and educators do to ensure we are raising well-adjusted children who understand resorting to violence is not an appropriate response? It has been suggested that schools and communities focus on teaching children positive social skills, conflict resolution, emotional self-control, teamwork, and work to build self-esteem (CDC, 2016). Parents may also focus on these same behaviors at home, while ensuring they spend more time with children and adopt a more authoritative parenting style (CDC, 2016). It is also critical that schools take a zero tolerance policy toward violence and enforce the policy.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016). What is School Violence? Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/schoolviolence/

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Syracuse University School of Education. (2016). Understanding the Causes of Youth Violence. Retrieved from http://soe.syr.edu/academic/counseling_and_human_services/modules/Violence_Prevention/understanding_the_causes_youth_violence.aspx


30
Oct 16

Education the Tool

What an amazing social psychology experiment done by Jane Elliott, who at the time was a teacher in a small rural town in Iowa. Iowa itself reminds me of the musical The Music Man; in which the main character tries to sale band uniforms and instruments under the idea that he is a band leader. However he is not a real band leader, he uses the people from Iowa because they were naïve enough to believe his con. With this is mind, I think Jane Elliott knew her 3rd grade students and possibly their parents were naïve to what it was like to be discriminated against, based off of a characteristic.

I was really surprise to see how long Jane Elliott was teaching about inequality. I saw a video of her teaching college students, in which she posed a simple question to the white students in her class. She asked who was willing to trade their skin with the skin of a fellow black student. She went farther indicating that the student wouldn’t trade their skin because they are aware of the unfair treatment of black people in general.  Everything she had done makes me think about intergroup attitudes about discrimination. However I wonder if education is really the key to solving intergroup attitudes about discrimination? Or does being educated about discrimination serve a weapon to continue making sure the social dominate group stay the social dominate group?

Studies on racial integration and education reveal that racial attitude among whites’ have changed larger due to education (Wodtke 2012). According to the enlightenment theory, intergroup attitude that are negative develop from narrow-minded, poorly informed, undemocratic world. Under this theory advance education provide people with information about historical, social and economic facts that allow them to combat discrimination (Wodke 2012). Unlike the enlightenment theory, the ideological refinement perspective argues that an advanced education cannot be seen as an enlightening agent because it does not liberate individuals from their group interests (Wodtke 2012). However, education does provide the tools needed for the dominant group to promote their interests more astutely (Wodtke 2012).

Looking back on the work done by Jane Elliot after having this new knowledge I wonder how much of a difference is it really making. Are we all just as naïve as the people from the musical The Music Man thinking that education is the band leader when it’s not.

 

Reference

Wodtke, G. (2012). The Impact of Education on Intergroup Attitudes: A Multiracial Analysis. Social Psychology Quarterly, 75(1), 80-106. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/stable/23120530

https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802487/modules/items/21234183

Frontline. (1985). A Class Divided. Retrieved online at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/ (Links to an external site.)


30
Oct 16

Social Life and Academic Success

Positive social, behavioral and emotional experiences are necessary for students to excel academically. Simply playing with peers help children to be more socially skilled and do better in school. Doing well in school is directly connected with one’s relations with peers. According to a research, early poor social adjustment leads to future academic difficulties, and eventual failure in school (Bullock, 1992; Ladd et al., 1988; Véronneau et al., 2010).

Relations with peers or classmates are different topics for us online students, because we don’t literally meet the people or the professor in our class. I have had several classes where I don’t even know one person from that class. Some classes require us to work on two or three projects throughout the semester with a group, which allows us to connect with our teammates on a different level than the rest of the class. Even that short and limited connection with my teammates motivate me a bunch and since online classes are hard to focus on in the first place, that motivation is very welcome. I do my assignments more carefully knowing my teammates will be reviewing them before the professor. I log in very early in the week in order to not stall my teammates off. These are not only helping me academically, but also helping me in a professional way. These social interactions are wanted in a professional work environment.

Parents should keep in mind that doing homework is as important as creating the right environment for social interactions with peers. A well-balanced social life indeed is going to bring a higher self-esteem and hence academic success.

 

Bullock, J. R. (1992). Children without friends: Who are they and how can teachers help? Childhood Education, 69, 92–96.

Ladd, G. W., Price, J. M., & Hart, C. H. (1988). Predicting preschoolers’ peer status from their playground behaviors and peer contacts. Child Development, 59, 986–992.

Véronneau, M.-H., Vitaro, F., Brendgen, M., Dishion, T. J., & Tremblay, R. E. (2010). Transactional analysis of the reciprocal links between peer experiences and academic achievement from middle childhood to early adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 46, 773–790.


30
Oct 16

Social Life vs. Education

Quite often, us as young adults believe that social life is more important than our education, especially while we are in college. I must say I made my fair share of mistakes in college, deciding to party knowing that I have to be up at 7:00 am for class the next day.

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An article written in The Guardian discusses how students say social life is more important than studying. Six out of ten students believed that their hobbies wee more important than getting good grades and two thirds of students said that having a good time with friends was as important if not more so than getting good grades. Exam aid questioned over 2,000 middle aged adults in England, most of which were studying for AS and A-levels. Seven out of ten individuals said they found their coursework harder than they anticipated, and 43% admitted to feeling less confident about getting good grades than before they started. Seven out of ten of these middle-aged adults said their social life was equally or more important than their work, but 17% of boys said a good social life was more important in comparison with 10% of girls. This article states that individuals with hard coursework believe that their social life is more important.

My belief is that if you are able to balance your social life and your school work than it’s okay to party as much as you study. There are tons of factors that come in the way when you’re in college – paid work, internships, externships, personal life and then there is school and social life. What many students should understand is what is more important long term? Will drinking and partying land you a job in the future? We don’t look at it that way until we are faced with real world consequences.

Social life more important than study, say students (2003, November 13). The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/nov/13/alevels2003.alevels


30
Oct 16

Boredom Encourages Imagination

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Education didn’t become important to me until I became a parent. As a parent there is a constant worry about whether or not your child is actively engaged in different educational activities. In our day to day lives we don’t always have time to sit down and work one on one with our children. So what ends up happening is we turn to television or video games to keep them distracted. Some may argue that some television shows and video games can be educational but how much is too much? I am guilty of telling my kids to go to their room and watch TV so I can get some homework done. This often leaves me feeling like a bad parent. I recently read an article about how we should let our children be bored. Of course, I was intrigued.

In today’s society, we are experiencing a youth of overscheduled kids. Between school, extracurricular classes and activities, sports and clubs, children are often left with no unstructured time during the day (MacQuarrie, 2014). Edgar (2014) says, that while these activities provide children with a variety of benefits, too many distractions can lead to generations of manic and anxiety-ridden individuals. Unstructured time gives them an opportunity to find creative ways to occupy their time. The most important thing during this unstructured time is to turn the electronics off, this means no TV, video games, phones, or ipads. This allows are children time to daydream. Daydreaming allows children to reflect, observe, and be introspective (MacQuarrie, 2014). In fact according to MacQuarrie (2014), “daydreaming is crucial to our mental health, to our relationships, and to our emotional and moral development. It promotes the skill parents and teachers care so much about which is the capacity to focus on the world outside our heads.”

boredomcultivates

Edgar (2014) believes that downtime gives children space and time which allows them to develop independence, take risks and helps them make sense of what they have learned or experienced. By giving children time to be bored we are providing them important life skills which are learned through the stimulus to be inventive, resourceful and self-reliant. Without these important skills they risk being left behind educationally. However, too much boredom is not a good thing. So parents need to find a good balance between good and bad. And of course you must supervise your kids. The key is to provide your children with a supervised balanced schedule that includes engaging activities as well as unstructured time (MacQuarrie, 2014).

MacQuarrie (2014) suggest four ways to help kids be bored:

1. Unplug.

2.Provide creative materials.

3. Encourage improvisation.

4. Provide time and space for quiet.

After I read about the importance of boredom on development I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. So I decided to do a little experiment with my own children. My children begged me to play video games and instead of giving in I told them to go play on their own. I watched as they ran around the house pretending to be characters from star wars. Then they went outside and collected acorns from our backyard. I’m not sure why but my oldest is obsessed with acorns. The good news is that we now have enough acorns to feed a family of squirrels for the entire winter. And well I’m not sure if this time was beneficially, I didn’t feel the guiltiness from letting them stare at a screen for hours. I also found enjoyment in watching them imagine and explore together.

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This illustration pretty much sums up the results of my experiment!!

References

Edgar, J. (2014). The Telegraph. Retrieved from Give your child time to be bored, pushy parents are urged: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10556523/Give-your-child-time-to-be-bored-pushy-parents-are-urged.html

MacQuarrie, A. (2014). Learning Lift Off. Retrieved from Why Boredom is Good for Kids: http://www.learningliftoff.com/boredom-is-good-for-kids/#.WBTl9jCQKtU

 


30
Oct 16

Fun Fact: Being social isn’t always the key to success.

You’re welcome to start a drinking game for each post I make in which I tell you the textbook’s incorrect, because here’s number two. Today we’re talking about the influence of a student’s peers on his or her grades and educational achievement.

So what am I nitpicking this time?

Children who have poor peer relationships, where they are either actively rejected or ignored by their peers, fail to develop competency in many areas of their lives, including academic achievement (Schneider et al., p.207).

This is practically the opening statement to Chapter 9’s subsection on the academic effects of peer interaction, and while it isn’t quite as blatant an offense as my last post pointed out, it’s still definitely worth mentioning.

It would be one thing to make the statement that positive interaction with peers is correlated strongly with academic achievement, or to say that social rejection can lead to academic failure. In fact, the text is welcome to cite a number of studies supporting this evidence – which it has. One in particular mentions that children fall into three categories:

(a) Children who demonstrated positive play behaviors also engaged in classroom learning activities, (b) children who hovered around play activities but did not interact with others very much were inattentive in class and less motivated to learn, and (c) children who were disruptive in their peer play also displayed conduct problems during classroom activities. (Schneider et al., p.207)

So there you have it, folks. You’re a social butterfly, you’re awkward and inattentive, or you’re a troublemaker. If you could please queue up in one of these three lines, that would be great.

…But it’s not quite that easy. In each class of 25 to 30 kids, there will be at least five kids who fall blatantly outside of these categories. (Note that this is a rough estimate based on my experiences in twelve years of formalized education.) You’ll have the social butterfly who can’t get good grades to save his life. You’ll have the abrasive kid who rejects everyone but aces his tests – or more commonly, the overlooked loner who maintains the highest GPA in the class. This is prevalent enough that the media has concocted stereotypes on the topic – dumb jock, loser nerd, etc.

What’s actually going on here?

I can’t even begin to fathom why the studies produced such a black-and-white outlook on this particular correlation. It’s possible that this could have been a product of the era; the studies cited by our text included two from 1988 and 1992, both older than I am. Two more were from the early 2000’s, which by now is a full fifteen years ago, hard as it is to believe. All of this is to say that it’s entirely possible that as society has developed over these last three decades, the interplay between social interaction and academic achievement may have as well. On the other hand, 80’s movies were pretty heavy-handed with the “unpopular nerd & dumb jock” stereotypes, so this doesn’t hold up too well under scrutiny.

My next thought was that it could be a product of the location in which these studies took place. I asked my roommate, an 80’s movie buff, about her take on this issue as seen through the lens of movies of the era (which is how I reached the above conclusion), and she cited location as the biggest influence coming to mind. In my school, social success and educational aptitude were almost entirely divorced concepts, but in hers, all of the popular kids were also in ASB and taking AP classes.

This tied back to the demographic in the area in which she grew up: The kids there were from affluent families with tangible social standing, and were being pressured to excel in all areas of their lives (social, academic, extracurricular). Even the delinquents were raised in an atmosphere in which intelligence and academic achievement was desirable above all other traits, and it showed. In contrast, the retirement town in which I went to middle and high school was one where the only adults (which is to say, the only parents) were either taking care of an elderly relative or were townies who never aspired to leave. This lacking level of ambition carried over pretty plainly in my peers.

All of this is to say that the location of the school in which the cited studies took place could easily be the key to unlocking this mystery. If the area was affluent like my roommate’s hometown, the studies may very well have been correct, but they lack external validity to generalize the results outside of other similar social demographics.

This seems like something the textbook might have taken into account, seeing as it taught us the concept of external validity in the first place. I feel like, in the name of taking a solid stance one way or another on the matter, our text has fallen prey to confirmation bias, in which it chooses to use as evidence studies which support the stance it’s choosing to take and similarly neglects to notice the studies which don’t.

What isn’t the textbook telling us?

There are quite a few facets of this particular social-educational interaction that the text doesn’t necessarily touch on.

  • Individuals who are “popular”/have good social skills can do very poorly in academic pursuits for a number of reasons:
    • Peer-pressure affecting the deliberate choice to succeed. This was demonstrated, for example, in a study on 11th grade students testing their willingness to sign up for an SAT prep course depending on whether or not their participation was visible to their peers. “We find that students respond dramatically to whether their decision to sign up for a complementary version of a valuable, online SAT prep course is visible to their peers, and in a way that depends greatly on who their peers are at the time they are offered the course. We also find evidence suggesting that the results are specifically driven by concerns over popularity and the possibility of facing social sanctions or gaining social approval depending on effort or investments, or at least, a desire to conform to prevailing social norms among peers in the classroom. (Bursztyn & Jensen, 2014)”

    • Prioritizing social obligations over academic ones. Speaking from experience, many adolescents are faced with a choice between peers and school and choose their peers. In class, they’d rather talk to their friends and make new social connections than pay attention to the teacher, and after school they’re found socializing rather than studying or completing their homework. This tends to come out stronger in high school, and could easily be a product of how much more difficult it is to be popular than to be good in school these days. This could tie in to the justification of effort effect (Schneider et al., 2014): Popularity would seem like the better of the two based solely on how difficult it is to obtain in comparison.

 

  • Individuals who are outcasts on a social level can do very well in academic pursuits for a number of reasons:
    • Self-motivated learning. Whether it’s a product of identified or integrated regulation or even genuinely an intrinsically-motivated desire, some students find motivation to succeed independent of the social pressures (positive or negative) coming from his or her peers. This it occurs in both social and less social individuals, but it’s much easier to notice in adolescents with fewer social skills, as academic achievement from a social butterfly tends to be taken for granted as “par for course”, despite all stereotypes to the contrary. It’s also more difficult to notice because both the self-motivated pressures and the peer pressures often point in the same direction, so it’s hard to discern one from the other.
    • Competition and defiance. While children on the receiving end of peer rejection or neglect often withdraw, human beings in general (especially at a young age) are primed to develop defense mechanisms to account for the environment they find themselves in, and defiance is often a child’s method of choice, built in from the age-old cry of “NO!” when a parent said it was time for bed (or time for basically anything else, really). If you can’t beat them, join them – but if you can’t join them, beat them. This is largely from personal experience, mine and that of a handful of people I know who shared my experiences. Essentially, we were unable to integrate socially, so we instead boosted our own self esteem in the wake of the blow delivered by our peers by becoming better than they were at any given thing, academics or sports or whatever we could come up with. Being “better than them” fortified us against being dragged down by them.
    • Failure to understand their status as outcast. This isn’t terribly common, since adolescents tend to pick up on social cues from their peers, but some – often those suffering from a mental issue which hinders understanding of social scenarios, such as those on the Autism spectrum. In this scenario, the lack of acceptance from peers may go entirely unnoticed as the student continues on as if he or she has plenty of friends but happens to not hang out with them often. In this case, academic achievement would theoretically not be affected in any way by the rejection or neglect.
    • Motivation from other social circles. For example, a social outcast who has a special rapport with his or her teachers – or has a particularly supportive family. In my case, I had no friends and a distinctly unpleasant relationship with most of my teachers throughout my grade school years, but my grandmother (who raised me) was both supportive and adamant that I succeed in school. She was my primary social connection, and she was the one who shaped my priorities aspirations, in lieu of positive social contact at school itself.

All in all, this is a broader and more varied issue than the textbook even begins to imply, and once again, the text has opted to be closed-minded for simplicity’s sake. Tune in next week for what hopefully isn’t a third argumentative post.

Crossing my fingers and signing out.

Bursztyn, L., & Jensen, R. (2014). How Does Peer Pressure Affect Educational Investments? doi:10.3386/w20714

Schneider, F.W., Grumman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.


29
Oct 16

Education and the New Challange

“When the Obama administration directed public schools on Friday to accommodate transgender students by ensuring that they may use school bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice, the latest battle in the nation’s culture wars became even more contentious. Conservatives called the action an illegal overreach that will put children in danger. Advocates for transgender rights hailed it as a breakthrough for civil rights.” (“How High School Students See the Transgender Bathroom Issue”, 2016)

With all the issues that the schools face, they are now faced with a bigger issue than ever before: transgender rights. Attending a high school within the city of New York, discussing LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) was not an alien thing to do. My high school had a very openly gay community and the school had developed a LGBT support group which was popular and had many participants. However, this is not the opinion that is shared nationwide; nationwide everyone is going to have to face this topic.

Should boys be allowed into the girl’s room, if they identify themselves as a girl? Per the New York Times, high school students have begun to voice their opinions on this topic and they range from being exceptionally content about it to being very upset about it. These are the hard decisions that the Supreme Court is currently looking into. We have to consider how this change will impact education if it becomes federally mandated that schools cannot force students to use one bathroom or the other. Would staff have to be incident the restrooms (outside the stalls) at all times now to ensure that students are behaving in school. We do have to consider that if boys are allowed in the girl’s room and girls in the boys’ room, there would be kids who would try to take advantage of this policy, especially when it comes to high schools, would students try to take this opportunity to engage in sexual act ivies in the restrooms? This is a very hard topic to discuss and a lot of people are not comfortable with this topic, however, if the supreme court decides to pass this allow for this, this is a new challenge that the educational system has to accept and figure out how to manage.

1) I don’t think it is the federal government’s job to dictate what each school district does with its students. That is extreme government overreach, and it sets a bad precedent for the future. 2) I think that it is endangering females by opening the doors for any man who wants to enter locker rooms and restrooms where females are. I am not saying that transgender people will be the ones committing crimes; however, these laws and orders will allow any guy who wants to to enter these previously all-female spaces without being restricted by law. If schools want to provide a gender neutral restroom or space where transgender people can go, that is one thing, but eliminating any place where girls can go and have privacy from men is a very bad policy. — Grace Driggers, 17, South Carolina

1) I don’t think it is the federal government’s job to dictate what each school district does with its students. That is extreme government overreach, and it sets a bad precedent for the future.
2) I think that it is endangering females by opening the doors for any man who wants to enter locker rooms and restrooms where females are. I am not saying that transgender people will be the ones committing crimes; however, these laws and orders will allow any guy who wants to to enter these previously all-female spaces without being restricted by law. If schools want to provide a gender neutral restroom or space where transgender people can go, that is one thing, but eliminating any place where girls can go and have privacy from men is a very bad policy.
— Grace Driggers, 17, South Carolina

References

How High School Students See the Transgender Bathroom Issue. (2016). Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/us/high-school-students-transgender-bathroom.html


29
Oct 16

Media Influence on Eating Disorders

Media Influence on Eating Disorders

There are quite a few websites known as Thinspiration, Pro Ana and Pro ED sites which promote eating disorders such as anorexia. Anorexia is a serious eating disorder that does not discriminate against gender, age, race, or social status. The users of these sites share stories about their goals of losing an extreme amount of weight. They also use photos of celebrities who have had experiences with eating disorders.

As adolescents are still learning their identity and building their self-esteem. These sites can have negative effects on their lives, by promoting unhealthy behaviors which can be life-threatening. An article written by Lewis, Klauninger and Marcininova, (2016) discuss that the number of searches for thinspiration sites soar on search engines when there is a story in the media or tabloids about a high-profile celebrity experiencing an eating disorder to lose weight (Lewis et al., 2016) In a 2012 study, researchers chose Lady Gaga as their high-profile celebrity. They wanted to see if media coverage of Lady Gaga’s eating disorder would cause a rise in the number of searchers for pro eating disorder websites. Results showed an increase in pro eating, pro-ana and thinspiration sites the same month that Lady Gaga’s story was covered in the news media (Lewis et al., 2016). It continued to increase in the following month. The results of this study show how people especially adolescents can be easily influenced by the media. Celebrities are role models who have millions of people who follow their every move on social media. Since being thin is heavily promoted in the media, there are so many individuals who are literally killing themselves to be thin.  Thankfully researchers are trying to counteract these searches with sites that promote pro-recovery sites that will pop up when an individual searches for these sites.

References

Lewis, S. P., Klauninger, L., & Marcincinova, I. (2016). Pro-eating disorder search patterns: The possible influence of celebrity eating disorder stories in the media. Journal of Eating Disorders, 4, 5. doi:10.1186/s40337-016-0094-2

https://newsfromthemargins.wordpress.com/tag/eating-disorders/ Web. Accessed 28 October 2016.


28
Oct 16

Look How Smart You Are

I’m not yet a parent, but I do have nephew. He’s seven years old and wildly precocious, and he knows it—partly because people, including me, tell him so. When he describes in detail the taxonomy of birds, or employs a sentence structure more advanced than our presidential candidates seem capable of mustering, I tell him how smart he is, and this makes him happy.

But should I be saying such things? Is it possible that, by praising my nephew’s intelligence—a behavior that seems so natural and intuitively correct that I’m unlikely to pause before doing so—I am setting him up for failure?

Research on academic self-concept has indicated that “teachers [should] create a classroom environment that… enhances students’ positive beliefs about their scholastic skills” (Schneider et al, 2012). Clearly, receiving the right kind of affirmation and feedback from teachers is important for a student’s academic development. However, teachers (and parents) need to be very careful when they praise students. How said praise is articulated can make all the difference, and saying the wrong thing may harm their long-term academic success.

So, what exactly is the “wrong thing” to say to students?

teacher-giving-praise

Extensive research conducted by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that praising a student’s intelligence can lead him or her to adopt the belief that intelligence is “fixed” (Glenn, 2010). In other words, the student will come to believe that their intelligence is a constant, stable aspect of their cognitive capabilities, a quality bestowed on them by their genetics that is simply a fact of their existence. They are smart (or stupid), and always will be. Students who believe the opposite—who see intelligence as akin to a muscle, which can be strengthened with use or atrophied with neglect—are said to have a “malleable” view of intelligence (Dweck, 2002). In this context of this discussion, it doesn’t matter which explanation of intelligence has more objective validity (not that the answer is clear, anyway). What matters is how these beliefs affect student’s academic behavior.

The effects can be dramatic, as it turns out. Students who believe that their intelligence is fixed often engage in a whole host of counterproductive and self-sabotaging behaviors. They often conclude that exhibiting effort in their academic work is a sign that they are unintelligent, because if they were smart, they shouldn’t need to expend much effort (Dweck, 2002). Relatedly, some students who subscribe to the “fixed” theory of intelligence withhold effort in an attempt to preserve their own self-concept: if they fail, they can attribute this failure to the low effort they expended, thus preserving their sense of intelligence; and if they succeed, they will have done so even without trying, thus solidifying the belief that intelligence means being “above” hard work (Dweck, 2002). Other students will avoid challenging academic tasks from the start, since what matters is appearing intelligent to others. They’ll choose classes and tasks that do not challenge them, rather than risk failure, thereby avoiding all opportunities for real learning (Dweck, 2002). And if they do fail, and conclude that this suggests they are unintelligent, they are unlikely to try again: if intelligence is fixed, why bother trying to improve yourself (Dweck, 2002)?

Clearly, all of these behaviors can be disastrous. A student may get through their academic career by employing these strategies, but they will not have learned much in the process; and when it comes time to enter the workforce, they will have developed poor habits that will not serve them well in their careers. Avoiding hard work, withdrawing at the first sign of failure, and self-sabotage are not the kind of behaviors that employers typically value.

It may be tempting to conclude, given these findings, that teachers and parents should avoid praising students at all—but this would also be a mistake. As mentioned earlier, students need positive feedback, but it must be phrased correctly: Instead of praising a student’s intelligence, we should praise their effort and hard work (Dweck, 2002). This subtly teaches the student that what matters is trying hard, and that intelligence is a product of effort—in other words, it teaches them that intelligence is malleable, and this is the best kind of belief for them to hold. It will lead them to seek out challenges, persevere in the face of difficulty, and strive to achieve real learning rather than seeking out the appearance of intelligence.

So the next time my nephew decides to explain the typical food chain in a freshwater lake, or tells me about how clouds are formed—both subjects I have no expertise in—I’ll hold my tongue and resist praising his intelligence, and instead praise the effort he took in learning about the world around him.

References

Dweck, C.S. (2002). Messages that motivate: How praise molds students’ beliefs, motivation, and performance (in surprising ways). In J. Aronson (Ed.), Improving Academic Achievement: Impact of Psychological Factors on Eduction (pp. 37-60). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Glenn, D. (2010). Carol dweck’s attitude. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/214641443?accountid=13158

Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.


27
Oct 16

Meditation In Schools: Reading, Writing, and Ohhmmm-rithmatic?

I was a pretty good kid as far as comparisons go.  I was a little lazy about school work (and still am), but I did what needed to be done and I respected the authority of my teachers.  This is not to say I didn’t get detention.  I did.  Mostly it was for being late to class or joking when it wasn’t appropriate.  What I remember most about detention was not reflection on what got me there, it was that I felt it was a waste of time.  All it did was make me ruminate on how unfairly I was being treated, that it sucked being stuck at school, and that i was missing Saved By The Bell (dating myself a bit here).

In my opinion, and it turns out many people agree, detention is not effective.  It only serves to make students resentful and feel that they’re being treated unfairly.  And, to be honest, I still think it’s unfair.  It turns out, I’m not the only one who thinks this way.

Just a few weeks ago, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and an article caught my attention. “This school replaced detention with meditation. The results are stunning.”  This article, posted on my feed by Upworthy, describes how Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, MD has replaced detention with meditation and reflection, and it works.

This method of behavior correction is encouraged by the Mindfulness In Schools Project (MISP).  This organization advocates the encouragement of mindfulness in students, rather than the application of punishment.  In effect, MISP trains teachers on how to manage student behavior in a more positive fashion, encouraging kids to reflect on their behavior.  Lately, the teaching of mindfulness to students has become more popular, and not just in substituting for detention.  Teachers often lead students in breathing exercises before class starts in order to help their students focus and control their emotions.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the biologist who first coined the term “mindfulness” in the ’70s, defines it as a state of mind: the act of “paying attention on purpose” to the present moment, with a “non-judgmental” attitude.  It was Kabat-Zinn who first formally brought mindfulness into a medical setting; he developed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which used specific exercises to help patients dealing with chronic pain and is now widely applied in other therapeutic contexts.

The bulk of scientific research emphasizing the positive effects of mindfulness training on mental health and well-being, at the level of the brain as well as at the level of behavior, grows steadily more well-established.  It improves attention, aids in stress reduction, promotes better regulation of emotions, and improves the capacity for compassion and empathy.

According to the U.S Department of Education, suspensions have decreased nationally as more schools test alternative ways to deal with students. As of 2016, 2.8 million K-12 students received one or more out-of-school suspensions, a 20 percent decrease from the number of out-of-school suspensions only two years ago.

Because there is no one group or institution monitoring mindfulness in education, no one knows exactly the number of teachers who have incorporated these techniques into their classrooms or the exact methods they’re using. The nonprofits MindUP and Mindful Schools say they’ve seen a steady increase in the number of teachers seeking their guidance in recent years; MindUP says it’s reached 500,000 students around the world over the last decade, and Mindful Schools says it reached 300,000 in the U.S. in the past five years.

Although the statistics on mindfulness in schools are not as comprehensive as they need to be in order to form a complete theory regarding the effectiveness of meditation and self-reflection, evidence points to improvements in childrens’ emotional wellbeing as well as self-discipline.  Some studies even show meditation dampering the effects of ADHD in children.  Mindfulness programs are growing in popularity, so I have no doubt that we will see more complete statistics on the benefits of these programs.  For the time-being, I think I’m going to go meditate to get through the semester.

 

 

Gaines, J. (2016, September 22). This school replaced detention with meditation. The results are stunning. Retrieved October 27, 2016, from http://www.upworthy.com/this-school-replaced-detention-with-meditation-the-results-are-stunning

Press Office. (2016, June 7). Persistent Disparities Found Through Comprehensive Civil Rights Survey Underscore Need for Continued Focus on Equity, King Says. Retrieved October 27, 2016, from http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/persistent-disparities-found-through-comprehensive-civil-rights-survey-underscore-need-continued-focus-equity-king-says

Wallace, K. (2016, February 2). Calming the teenage mind in the classroom. Retrieved October 27, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/08/health/mindfulness-teenagers-schools-stress/index.html.


27
Oct 16

More Than Just a Textbook

Online school is pretty tricky for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest issues is communication between teachers and students, or even students and students. Unlike in a face-to-face class, we don’t get the chance to bounce our ideas off one another or ask questions as they come to mind. We usually shoot off and email and more often than not don’t get a response for a few days, then by that point you may have even forgotten what you asked in the first place. It is important for the instructor to make themselves present with frequent communication, so the students can get the most out of their learning (Feldman & Zucker, 2012).

In the modern world, everything is just a click away for us. We could learn so much just by spending a few hours on the computer and reading a book. It is important for online educators (well, all of them really) to go above and beyond and bring something extra to the table. Lesson commentary should be an interpretation from the book and added knowledge from the professor about their own experiences on the matter. Why would a student want to waste their time listening or reading lesson commentary when it’s just a word-for-word repeat of what’s in the book? Instructor should also assign external readings or articlespencil-01-jpg

 

 

Some people see discussion post and blog posts as useless tasks, but to me they are a way to get a little something else out of our education. It’s important for teachers to give platforms for students to discuss their thoughts and ideas on the subject matter. I believe it promotes creative thinking and problem solving in a group manner. It gives us that little extra something that you don’t quite get from a textbook and simulates that face-to-face class experience.

References:

Feldman, R. & Zucker, D. (2012). Teaching and Learning Online: Communication, Community, and Assessment. University of Massachusetts. P 27-31.

 


26
Oct 16

The Magic School Bus

Even though the United States Constitution may promise we are created equally, not all of us are treated that way. In America, the single greatest predictor of a child’s potential in life–such as health, wealth, and happiness–is her parent’s socioeconomic status, more so than race, gender, and even individual initiative (Corak, 2013; Reardon, 2011; Garland, 2013; Kim & Park, 2015; Anderson et al., 2012). Nowhere is the impact of money–and the life opportunities it can afford–more significant than in the education system.

The American education system is funded by property taxes, so the wealth and income of a citizen of a school district is conferred to her neighbors and their children. Depending on how districts are drawn, this could lead to an equitable distribution of funds, but it is not. People tend to be segregated along social class and income, and this socioeconomic segregation has only been increasing in the past 40 years, an inequality that is then transferred to the schools (Bischoff & Reardon, 2014; Owens, Reardon, & Jencks, 2016). Put another way, those who can afford it tend to move to more expensive neighborhoods with more well-funded school districts, and the income is distributed to the schools unequally. Even though they make up 80 percent of citizens, lower- and middle-income families receive only 25 percent of the money spent on education in the United States (Corak, 2013; Pew Research Center, 2016). For instance, in the suburbs of Chicago, the Chicago Ridge School District spends $9,794 per student per year compared to the $28,639 spent in the Rondout District in Lake Forest, an affluent suburb on the north shore (Turner et al., 2016). As you might expect, this substantial difference in funding has significant effects on students. In Chicago Ridge, students share one nurse between three schools and the art and music teacher only spends half the year at each of two schools, while in Lake Forest, each student has their own individualized learning plan (Turner et al., 2016). When considering facts like these, it may be no surprise that children from poor to middle-class backgrounds are, on average, three to six years behind their rich peers (Reardon, 2011). That’s like skipping middle school, at minimum.

The average spending per student by school district (Turner et al., 2016)

The average spending per student varies considerably from state to state and county to county based in large part to the income drawn from property taxes and whether or not the state compensates for differences in income (Turner et al., 2016)

Socioeconomic inequality is not the only inequality the American education system has had to contend with. For much of the country’s history, race was the single greatest predictor of one’s life outcomes, and this was no less true in education than elsewhere in social life. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 ended formal racial segregation in schools–a case that was in no small part influenced by psychological research (NAACP, 2014)!–but to actually implement the decision, civil rights advocates had to force the implementation of the Supreme Court’s decision through social protest after social protest, court case after court case, act of bravery after act of bravery (Library of Congress, 2004). The Civil Rights Movement was a monumental transformation of American life made all the more remarkable by the cumulative effect of each individual effort.

Norman Rockwell's (1964) depiction of Ruby Bridges being escorted to school by U.S. marshals (as retrieved from This American Life, 2015). Bridges herself visited the White House to see the painting hanging outside the Oval Office and posed with President Obama (Brown, 2011)

Norman Rockwell’s (1964) depiction of Ruby Bridges being escorted to school by U.S. marshals (as retrieved from This American Life, 2015). Bridges herself visited the White House to see the painting hanging outside the Oval Office and posed with President Obama in front of it (Brown, 2011)

One major part of the Civil Rights Movement is the busing programs that transported students to different schools to increase integration and diversity. These students often faced considerable adversity, from racial epithets to all-out riots (Library of Congress, 2004), but the individuals who participated–whether as a student or a teacher–were doing their part to end segregation, and they reported being fundamentally changed by it years and decades later (Wells et al., 2005; Savage & Khan, 2016). For the students of minority backgrounds who were bused to wealthier schools with mostly or only racial majority classmates–and it was almost always in this direction rather than the reverse, as white families tended to flee the city rather than have their own children participate–the transported students fared far better academically than did students who stayed in neighborhood schools with improved rates of high school completion, college attendance, and college graduation as well as higher income levels as adults (The United States Commission, 1972; Tegeler, Mickelson, & Bottia, 2011). More than this, students of all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds were bettered by integrated, heterogeneous schools; they experience benefits ranging from improved academic performance to reductions in prejudice (Mickelson, 2015). Beyond the individual level, the racial gap in math and reading scores was lowest between white and black students during the busing program years (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). It might be a surprise to learn that such considerable societal effects were caused by such a small number of students:  Perhaps only 2 to 4 percent of students who used transportation to school were part of a desegregation program (The United States Commission on Civil Rights, 1972). Even if they were few in number, these individuals had a remarkable effect on society, carrying forward their increased tolerance and respect for others throughout life, attitudes they may never have developed otherwise given high rates of social segregation (Wells et al., 2005). With such considerable advantages at the individual, community, and national levels, it seems remarkable that the program ended at all.

Students hold hands during the second stage of Boston's integration efforts (image from NPR, 2004)

Students hold hands during the second stage of Boston’s integration efforts (image from NPR, 2004)

But end it did, despite the considerable benefits for those involved. Due in part to political pressure, defunding, and racism, federal judges stopped mandating busing programs, and as a result fewer black children attended integrated schools in 1980 than in 1954, before desegregation began (Faragher et al., 2012). As a result, the racial gap in academic achievement has grown again. It is now so substantial that it even outweighs the effects of many of the positive gains made by racial minorities since the 1960s, such as family income (Eaton, 2011). Given that both racial and socioeconomic segregation have been on the rise, it may be no coincidence that inequalities in wealth and income are higher now between races and social classes than ever before (Faragher et al., 2012). In fact, income inequality may actually be higher now in the United States than at any other point in history anywhere in the world (Cassidy, 2014; Stiglitz, 2014). Such inequalities tend to percolate and fester, only growing more noxious and potent if unaddressed.

Yet address it we can. American education does not have to emphasize the social differences between its citizens; instead, it can be a great equalizer from which all are afforded an equal opportunity to pursue their own potential. The simplest intervention is to simply redraw school districts to ensure greater equality (Owens et al., 2016). Indeed, students in such an equitable district who lived in public housing but attended a higher-income school fared far better than their peers who went to a lower-income school (Schwartz, 2010). If equitable redistricting and rezoning plans are be implemented or enforced, then the amount of spending per student can be better standardized. This would reduce relative deprivation, a social psychological concept that posits poverty and wealth are relevant only when compared to one’s peers (Kwantes, Bergeron, & Kaushal, 2012), as well as increase education quality for millions. In other words, reducing relative deprivation would mean no longer would some be afforded a more equal education than others. If redistricting were not enough, federal funds could more adequately supplement school budgets so spending per student would be more equitable. Although the proportion varies widely from state to state, when averaged across the country only about 9 percent of funding for public schools comes from the federal government compared to 47 percent from the state and 45 percent from the local government (The Educational Finance Branch, 2016). An increased amount of federal funding could therefore bridge the socioeconomic gap at the local and state levels to reduce relative deprivation. The aforementioned proposals would perhaps be best as they would reflect change on a macro scale; however, if micro programs may be more easily implemented, another potential intervention is to bring back busing to better integrate schools across racial and socioeconomic statuses. If busing the students to better schools is unfeasible, some suggest moving them and their families like with a voucher program. When families with students 13 or younger moved from a low- to a high-income neighborhood, the students had higher rates of school completion, college attendance, and incomes as an adult (Chetty, Hendren, & Katz, 2015). These results are remarkably similar to those of the early desegregation-by-bus intervention, and perhaps their success is due to a similar underlying cause:  Students succeed when they are granted the environment and opportunity to do so, and they and their classmates all benefit from the improved equality and diversity.

Women making signs ahead of a 1964 boycott of New York City schools to encourage the district to desegregate; the boycott became the largest civil rights protest in American history (image from Khan, 2016)

Women making signs ahead of a 1964 boycott of New York City schools to encourage the district to desegregate; the boycott became the largest civil rights protest in American history (Khan, 2016)

Ultimately, the school a child attends may be the largest factor in determining the education she receives, and her family and neighborhood income is the largest factor in determining the quality of that education. Indeed, characteristics of the school–such the heterogeneity of its student population and teachers’ preference for middle-class students–account for 40 percent of the differences between schools students’ academic performance, a greater percentage than any other factor including characteristics of the families (Borman & Dowling, 2010). Although the report did not consider spending per student, Borman and Dowling’s (2010) results suggest that once again, American schools are a prime target for an intervention to increase justice and equality for all. One question remains:  Do we have the courage to change?

 

Continue reading →


26
Oct 16

Fun Fact: Your textbook is absolutely wrong about sex.

Look at that title. We’ve got conflict, we’ve got adult material – it’s basically as close to clickbait as a school assignment can get.

Now that I have your attention, it’s time for us all to have a little talk about sex. Specifically, I’m going to refresh your memories on a passage at the top of page 147:

“Violent pornography includes sadomasochism and the infamous snuff films in which the female victims are tortured sexually and then killed.” (Schneider et al.)

RIght now, there are likely two groups of people: The people who aren’t sure where I’m going with this, and the people who felt that passage like a punch in the gut the moment they first read it.

WHAT IS SADOMASOCHISM?

Sadomasochism, as defined in Psychology Today since Webster’s was unhelpful, “can be defined as the giving or receiving of pleasure, often sexual, from the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. It can feature as an enhancement to sexual pleasure, or, in some cases, as a substitute. (Burton, 2014)” There are two things to note here: Firstly, note the the fact that it’s derived from giving or receiving.  Secondly, note the fact that despite the mention of pain and humiliation, this definition strongly centers on the pleasure of both parties – not, as our textbook might have us believe, some sort of violence.

In contrast, Fedoroff in “Sadism, Sadomasochism, Sex and Violence” explores sexual sadism and why it occurs. Note that sexual sadism is not sadomasochism, and is a paraphilia (leading to danger, significant distress, or impairment within the self and others), where sadomasochism is not. The key point in bringing this article into the fray is to reiterate one of the key points it makes early on: Sexual sadism within the context of mutual consent, generally known under the heading BDSM, is distinctly distinguished from non-consensual acts of sexual violence or aggression.

It only adds insult to injury when, on the following page, the textbook details a study on the effects of non-violent porn as a sort of ‘gateway drug’ to what is once again mentioned as “violent porn”, specifically: “bondage, sadomasochism, and bestiality (Schneider et al., p.151)”.  As if those three items are even remotely within the same category.

Time for some visual aids. Let me show you some bondage.

This is suspension bondage – colloquially, “flying”. I’ve yet to try it, but from every single account I’ve heard, it’s one of the most liberating sensations on Earth. And our textbook lumps it, under the general ignorant umbrella of “bondage”, in the category “violent porn” right alongside bestiality. While it’s impossible to pretend that no S&M is violent, especially that which can be found in pornography online, our text has painted this lifestyle choice with a broad-enough brush that, comparatively, would be like saying that obese people eat food, so obviously the existence of food is the problem.

Something is definitely wrong here.

WHY HAS THIS HAPPENED?

 

The availability heuristic, for one. BDSM absolutely has a stereotype, and we see that stereotype in both TV shows and adult materials all across the board. In the same way that regular sex is made larger-than-life for the camera, BDSM porn is tricked out and made nearly unrecognizable – but in that case, it slips past the radar, since entirely too few people know any better than to take it as truth. On top of that, dozens of comedies have made jokes out of female-dominant BDSM (dominatrixes, ‘crazy girlfriends’ who wanted to cuff them to the bed), which only added to the stereotype that BDSM is ridiculous and made for ridicule.

As if it wasn’t bad enough, Fifty Shades of Grey came out a couple of years back and entirely revolutionized how early-thirties housewives thought of BDSM, while the rest of the world suddenly had an example to point at in order to stigmatize BDSM even more thoroughly, with its depiction of a deeply unhealthy and destructive pseudo-BDSM relationship.

All of this is to say: every form of media makes a very specific (and negative) stereotype of BDSM available to the public, and next time they come face to face with any aspect of kink, the availability heuristic tells them exactly what to think of it.

Our textbook, unfortunately, has chosen (knowingly or unknowingly) to be one more source of stereotype confirmation.

YOU’RE NOT AS DIFFERENT AS YOU THINK.

This isn’t some off-the-wall irrelevant post on a subculture you’ve never planned to join. You’re much closer to this issue than you realize.

If your significant other taps on your nose, do you make a toothy chomp for their finger? What about tickling? You’re bound to have given that a shot, at least once or twice.

“Many ‘normal’ behaviours such as infantilizing, tickling, and love-biting contain definite elements of sadomasochism,” says Neel Burton, of Psychology Today. “It is possible to read this article and think that this sort of stuff only applies to a small number of ‘deviants’, but the truth is that each and every one of us harbours sadomasochistic tendencies. In the words of the Roman playwright Terence, ‘I am human, and consider nothing human to be alien to me.’”

On top of that, many elements of S&M have gone mainstream even without the help of Christian Grey’s sex dungeon. Fluffy handcuffs are practically a staple purchase for girls looking to explore their sexuality, and it’s no secret that confident and assertive partners have been increasingly popular with both genders in the last few years.

 

BUT WHY DOES THIS EVEN MATTER?

I’ll admit: This is personal.

I’m in a committed, loving relationship. I’m engaged to be married next July. Looking at us, how “normal” we seem, you’d never guess that we’re also nearly a year deep in a BDSM lifestyle dynamic. D/s, which stands for Dominant/Submissive, referring to my role and his respectively.

Many of you immediately pictured latex and riding crops. That’s fine. I might’ve even tried the ‘latex’ thing on for size, were it not entirely overpriced. And if you’ve seen any relevant porn (or even movies or television shows mocking that porn), you probably have some sort of hilarious stereotyped image of his role as well. Because that’s all BDSM is, right? An excuse to play dress-up and whip and degrade one another?

Maybe, for some. But it’s also one of the most fulfilling things you’ve ever felt in your life. Ask literally anyone in any form of BDSM relationship, and they’ll tell you about the trust. For the submissive party, they’ll tell you how freeing it feels to be able to give all of yourself over to another person. For the dominant party, they’ll tell you they’ve never felt more dedicated and protective, not once in their entire lives, than they are of this person who has chosen to trust them with every facet of their being.

It’s not about pain, or about humiliation.

It’s about knowing that someone is taking off all of their armor right there in front of you, and feeling the bolstering weight of your newfound responsibility to protect them until their armor is back in place.

It’s about being able to trust-fall with pieces of your psyche that have never felt human contact.

And in this crazy, messed-up world, it’s the least violent experience I’ve had in my entire life.

 

 

Burton, Neel MD(2014). The Psychology of Sadomasochism. Retrieved October 26, 2016, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201408/the-psychology-sadomasochism

Fedoroff, Paul J. MD (2008). “Sadism, Sadomasochism, Sex, and Violence”. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Canadian Psychiatric Association. 53 (10): 637–646.

Schneider, F.W., Grumman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.


24
Oct 16

Teenagers and their love of music

When I was a child one of my favorite things to do was when my mom was working was to watch MTV music videos. We didn’t have cable at home, so it was a treat when my mom went to work and took me to the babysitters for the day. She had cable and we could watch anything we wanted.

I was fifteen years old and in in the tenth grade when the song “Doing it Well”, hit the scene. You heard it all over the radio at all times of the day. When I was at my sitters house for an overnight I was allowed to watch MTV videos all night. Can you imagine a 15 year old child listening to this??screen-shot-2016-10-24-at-5-29-54-am

What I didn’t realize then that I realized when I was brainstorming for this blog was that this video and the lyrics to this song were a version of soft pornography. The songs lyrics are so sexually explicit, and the video involves simulated sexual images that are intended to portray the feeling that are written in the song.

screen-shot-2016-10-24-at-6-21-03-am

 

I was a teenager who listened to all types of music. I liked Brittany Spears, TLC, and others. They all sent some sort of message regarding adult relationships. But for some reason I loved to this song. When I think back on it now I think it’s because I loved to dance and it had the best tempo of the song. There are many teenagers in the country who listen to sexually explicit music that delivers sexually explicit messages are more likely to start having sexual experiences than teenagers who did not listen to that type of music.

I’ve been really thinking about this topic and I came across a study was done by Rand Corp that was done between 2001-2004. Steven Martino, the lead researcher on the Rand studies. They took 1,400 teenagers from a national sample of 12-17 year olds and asked them what kind of music they listened to and then followed up with them two years later.

This study found that teenagers who listen to sexually explicit music are more likely to have sex earlier. The teenagers were provided a list of popular artists music by varying genre and their album artwork and lyrics of the album.

According to Martino, “If the main message that teen gets from music is that women are sexual objects and men are players – to use common lingo – then that teen is likely to see those as plausible ways to be. So when that teen is then in a sexual situation or a potentially sexual situation, the messages that he or she has gotten from music are likely to guide his or her actions.”

References:

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Reaching the MTV generation: recent research on the impact of the Kaiser Foundation/MTV public education campaign on sexual health. Available at: www.kff.org/entmedia/Reaching-the-MTV-Generation-Report.cfm. Accessed December 10, 2007

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php

 


24
Oct 16

Is it Necessary?

Social media is quite an interesting thing. There is no doubt that the introduction of the media via television and new social networking avenues have radical changed human interactions. In the being, people were buzzing about the resources the internet could provide to make the world better place. However, today many people wonder weather or not the technologies of the 21rst century are actually as beneficial as once prospected to be.

Everywhere you look nowadays you will see at least one person with a cell phone in hand communicating with someone else not physically there. The internet has been great for families whom live apart, as it makes it much easier to stay connected, being able to call or facetime them whenever you want. IT also has allowed us to have instant access to an infinite amount of information at anytime we want. Additionally, this new technologies have aided in preserving the environment as now storing personal documentation such as photos, letters and videos eliminates the usage trees that would have other wise been used as paper.

Unfortunately, as great as this may sound, I am not convinced it is just as it appears. Although media may aid in getting stuff done more easily, that doesn’t mean it aids in making people better. Today many studies show that there is a multitude of negative effects that have resulted from the prevalence of media and the Internet. One study by Kessler et al. showed that in fact children are not learning the same processing skills as prior generations.[i] They are more reliant on spell check for spelling and a calculator for calculating that exercising their own brain. Plus, with the media constantly giving their two cents on every situation publicized, they are robbing young people of the ability to think for themselves. Additionally young adults tend to feel more isolated and alone, leading to higher rates of depression and anxiety, as they don’t know physically spend as much time as they may have in the past to uphold their relationships. Furthermore, (1 human+1 Human= another human) (1 human+ a computer= 1 human and their computer.) If we lose our ability to interact physically, we are unable to reproduce as it requires a face to face relationship. And Lastly studies show that people ar more violent and aggressive as a result of the constantly viewed violence in the media and on the tv.

Personally, I feel there are much greater issue social media poses. Everyone knows it is much easier to hide behind a computer screen than to deal with something face to face. However, face to face interactions are a necessary life skill that is only learned through ”getting out of one’s comfort zone.” If people today don’t have to go through the nerve racking experience of asking someone out for the first time, or giving their first two week notice, then they will be less socially equipped later on down the road. Ultimately the point I’m making is that, although technology when used appropriately is helpful, it can be very damaging if used as a crutch by someone who is “developing” and/or when “abuse” occurs. Life needs to be lived through the lens of experience, not the screen of a computer. WE must seek knowledge through experience and build physical bonds, or else the human race will cease to exist. I am not suggesting we extinguish media all together, as that is not possible. I am simply suggesting we use it with both moderation and caution. WE can all try a little harder to more frequently put down our computers and stepping away from our tv’s to live life first hand.

 

[i] Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication.

Kiesler, Sara; Siegel, Jane; McGuire, Timothy W.

American Psychologist, Vol 39(10), Oct 1984, 1123-1134.

 


24
Oct 16

Fear of Missing Out

One evening last winter, I was standing on the subway platform, waiting for my train home from work. I was reading the news on my phone, but the battery was running perilously low, and I knew I needed to conserve its power. I slipped the phone into my pocket and, for once, took a look at my surroundings. It occurred to me that each and every one of the sixty or seventy other people waiting on the platform with me was staring into their smartphone. No one engaged in idle conversation or even glanced at another person. Minding your own business is an East Coast big-city way of life, but this was different: we didn’t even seem to be occupying the same space, because everyone was absorbed by whatever world was displayed on their cellphone screen.

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Much of the literature concerning the relationship between media and its consumers focuses on how the former influences the latter. More recently, work has been done to inspect why certain people turn to media—particularly social media—to an almost-obsessive degree. Unfortunately, this is not an idle question: research has shown that “problematic smartphone use”—i.e., smartphone addiction—can lead to a whole range of physical and emotional problems, like “musculoskeletal health effects, poor physical fitness, and academic problems,” as well as physiological and psychological stress upon separation from your phone, and even “phantom vibrations” (a phenomenon so interesting it deserves its own blog post) (Elhai et al., 2016). Smartphones also distract drivers and pedestrians (or people waiting on a dangerous subway platform) and therefore can put innocent people at risk (Elhai et al., 2016). Studies have linked depression and anxiety to problematic smartphone use (although the correlation is “small to medium” sized), and smartphone use might instigate a viscous cycle, whereby overuse causes anxiety or depression, which stimulates even more use (Elhai et al., 2016).

A new concept has emerged out of this research to at least partially explain smartphone addiction. Scholars have identified a phenomenon that’s been termed “Fear of Missing Out,” or FoMO, and within the last few years a great deal of research has been devoted to investigating its influence on our cell phone use. FoMO is a personality construct characterized by a strong and “pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent” (Alt, 2015). For obvious reasons, social media—which connects us to others in an intimate (or at least intimate-seeming) way—can at least superficially fulfill this need for vicarious experience, but also compound it, because on social media people typically share the most exciting and interesting aspects of their lives, making the viewer’s life seem boring in comparison. It’s been shown that FoMO is a robust predictor of problematic smartphone use, a finding that shouldn’t be particularly surprising (Elhai et al., 2016).

This problem is acute on college campuses. When I first began my college career, back in 2003, smartphones had yet to be invented—but now, as a college employee, I see the same behavior I witnessed on the subway platform every day on campus. Research indicates that certain students might be more likely to fall victim to problematic smartphone use. Young adults who are having a hard time transitioning to college life—those experiencing isolation and loneliness, in particular—are more likely to experience Fear of Missing Out, and FoMA in turn has been demonstrated to be a mediating factor in smartphone (i.e., social media) addiction (Alt, 2016). Essentially, students who are having a hard time adjusting to college reach for their smartphones, and the social media apps they contain, to soothe the FoMO they are experiencing as a result of their dislocation.

So what’s the problem? If social media—sites and apps that foster connection to people who are far away—help students experiencing FoMA, why should we try and stop it? Unfortunately, students often satisfy this need during class, which may predictably lead to academic difficulties. On top of that, it seems that, as mentioned, using smartphones to soothe FoMA only increases isolation and its related difficulties over the long term; and that problematic smartphone use, along with FoMA, is linked to extrinsic motivation and amotivation in students—both of which can spell problems for a student’s academic career (Atl, 2015).

As you can see, the smartphone addiction epidemic is, at least in many circumstances, best understood as a symptom of deeper problems, and college students may be particularly vulnerable. Colleges and universities could address this underlying issue by making sincere attempts to identify at-risk students, and by instituting programs to help them socialize—in the real world—and make a fuller transition into college life.

 

  • Alt, D. (2015). College students’ academic motivation, media engagement and fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 49, 111-119. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.02.057
  • Alt, D. (2016). Students’ wellbeing, fear of missing out, and social media engagement for leisure in higher education learning environments. Current Psychology, doi:10.1007/s12144-016-9496-1
  • Elhai, J. D., Levine, J. C., Dvorak, R. D., & Hall, B. J. (2016). Fear of missing out, need for touch, anxiety and depression are related to problematic smartphone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 509-516. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.079

24
Oct 16

I want it, but do I need it?

As I sit here watching the Walking Dead, making myself sick over the mid-season premiere, I think about just how much of an impact and influence media can have on our lives. Along with the gut wrenching distress it can cause you, media can subconsciously make you do things on impulse. I have told myself numerous times that I need to cut back on my spending, unless it was a necessity, and then a few days later I am buying a new wardrobe. Searching the internet and checking our social media sights is a daily routine for most of us. I know it, you know it and companies know it and they use that to their advantage. Even without realizing it we are constantly coming in contact with advertisements. The article, How Social Media Influences Apparel Purchasing Behavior, analyzes our use of social media and our perception of and desire for the clothing articles the participants come in contact with.

Researcher’s have determined that consumers go through five stages when making a decision about a purchase. The first stage is recognition of needs followed by search for information, evaluation of alternatives, purchase and finally, post-purchase evaluation (Cao et al., 2014). In order to measure the significance of this scale, an online survey was created for 194 individuals, registered on at least one social media platform. For the first state, search for information, participants were asked which social media content was relevant for attracting their attention and inspiration (2014). Data was gathered based on choice of website for shopping preference and post purchase actions for the following four stages.

The results show social media does have a significant influence on our lives. A majority of the participants did consider social media to be a relevant platform for inspiration and easy access to promotions. Researchers were able to prove their hypothesis and answer their research questions. They determined that specific to the source, media influence can influence our offline purchases and found the best ways for companies to advertise and sell their product. While this study involved German women, data shows that the majority of media influence experiments take place in the United States, leaving out many cultures for examination (Schneider et al., 2012). Would a different part of the world, a different culture with different traditions and values be just as influenced to purchase items they see displayed on social media?

Cao, P., Meister, S. & Klante, O. Mark Rev St. Gallen (2014) 31: 77. doi:10.1365/s11621-014-0427-y

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1412976381

 


24
Oct 16

Social Media Bringing on Political Change Around the World

With the technological advancements and the ability to connect with people all over the world, information and ideas are also being spread.  The use of social media in particular has had major effects on human rights issues in places like Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prior to social media, people were dissatisfied with their quality of life and the treatment the received from their government but had nothing to compare their situation to.  With the spread of social media though, more and more people have become aware of the possibilities when it comes to life under a fair government.  This knowledge has brought on the call for change in various countries throughout Africa and the world and social media has given these people and nations a voice that they did not have prior.

In Kenya, general elections are held to elect officials and they are preceded by campaigns for voter support.  The use of social media though has led to the spread of the candidate’s platforms as well as the ability to share debate footage so that the people are informed on who they are voting for (Bing, 2015).  Social media has provided the people of Kenya with vital information that will directly impact them as citizens and gives them more control over their future so they can improve their quality of life.  The overall political knowledge within the country is no longer associated only with societal elites but now everyone can become part of the political landscape by engaging in discussions and debates using social media outlets.  The use of social media has also become an almost therapeutic tool for those subjected to oppression by giving them a voice as well the ability to show their true identity, free from labels and stereotypes.  An example of this comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

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Social media has become the platform for the Congolese as they demand attention be given to the issue of forced migration.  These people who were forced from their homes elsewhere used social media in a movement known as “Refugee Voices” (Godin & Dona, 2016).  Despite the troubles faced by the refugees, many elected to use social media to change the way they were viewed.  Many associated being a refugee with despair and victimization but the use of social media has allowed the Congolese to represent who they truly are to the world despite the stereotype they have been given.  Instead, their goal is to show how strong the refugees are and that they will be heard.  Instead of being seen as weak, the refugees are changing the perspective of the label via social media to call for political change in their homeland.

africa-facebook-users-infographic

Social media has become a great tool to deliver information and connect with people but it can be so much more.  Increasingly, society can see the use of social media in campaigns and activism efforts to bring out change and raise awareness.  In the United States, social media has become ingrained in society and its political uses continue to be explored.  The true beauty though is the spread of this tool to countries such as Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo where social media does not just raise awareness but sparks revolution.  There is a saying that knowledge is power; social media brings political and social knowledge all over the world allowing for people to increase the power they have in their own lives and to affect change around them.

Sources:

BING, N. (2015). Kenya Decides: Kiswahili, social media and politics in Kenya’s 2013 general elections. Journal Of African Media Studies, 7(2), 165-183. doi:10.1386/jams.7.2.165_1

GODIN, M., & DONÁ, G. (2016). “Refugee Voices,” New Social Media and Politics of Representation: Young Congolese in the Diaspora and Beyond. Refuge (0229-5113), 32(1), 60-71. 


24
Oct 16

Social Media and the Youth

Everyone teen that you come into contact with these days has some form of social media whether it is Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat. Many of these teens have full access to these media sites right from their phone. This is making it harder and harder for parents to be able to monitor what their children are doing. It is like they almost have another life that their parents do not fully know about. This secret life can have negative effects on these teens that their parents might not know about. The main thing that effects these teens is cyber bullying.

Cyber bullying is using electronic communication to bully other people. This can take the form of texting, snapchats, or even messages on Facebook. This is a new spin on the old original bullying. This new phenomenon has effected around 43% of all teens (“11 Facts About Cyberbullying”). The scarier part of this statistic is that of that 43% percent only 10% will actually tell a parent about being bullied. This is making it harder for parents to be able to step in to help their children.

The effects of cyberbullying on children are pretty extensive. In the study done by Aoyama, Saxon, & Fearson (2011) have shown that there is a correlation between being cyberbullied and having internalizing issues. They are more likely to develop low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and have an increase in stress. These issues can start to affect all aspects of the teen’s lives. This can cause poorer performance in school, less willing to go to school, keeping more to themselves, and appearing to be less satisfied in their life. There has to be a way for us to fixe this issues that is plaguing our teens.

One of the ways we can start to combat bullying is to first start having in school programs that talk to children about how bullying can hurt other people. This can be from in class discussions to even school wide assemblies. There are many programs such as “Let’s Fight It Together. What We All Can to Prevent Bullying” or Sticks and Stones: Cyberbullying that schools can use to address the issue of cyberbullying (Snakenborg, Van Acker, & Gable . These programs give lessons on the effects of bullying, how to talk about bullying, and how to address bullying. Not only do these programs help the children, but they help teachers understand how to handle bullying. Also, parents should talk to their children about the responsibility of having electronics. Explaining to them that they expect them to follow the rules. Talking to ones children might make them feel better about coming forward if they are currently being bullied. Parents also should try checking their children’s electronics to see how they are interacting with other children.

There are many different ways that could help reduce the problem, but I do not think that we will ever be able to get rid of the problem. Prevention plans are the best place to start in trying to get rid of bullying. Informing children of the ways bullying effect other people might give the other children a humanistic quality. Of course this will not work on every child, but it might for the majority. Bullying will always go on just like it always has.

 

References

11 Facts About Cyber Bullying | DoSomething.org … (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2016, from https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-cyber-bullying

Aoyama, I., Saxon, T. F., & Fearon, D. D. (2011). Internalizing problems among cyberbullying victims and moderator effects of friendship quality. Multicultural Education & Technology Journal, 5(2), 92-105. doi:10.1108/17504971111142637

Snakenborg, J., Acker, R. V., & Gable, R. A. (2011). Cyberbullying: Prevention and Intervention to Protect Our Children and Youth.Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 55(2), 88-95. doi:10.1080/1045988x.2011.539454


24
Oct 16

Does Violent Pornography Propagate Violence Against Women?

Today’s internet is full of pornographic content. A simple web search leads to a plethora of results to both free and paid websites. While non-violent pornography exists, it is not the norm. Many question why pornography is so popular and who the target audience is. Multiple studies have determined that men are the predominant visitors to pornographic websites (Janssen, 2014), and this may help to explain why women are primarily victims of violence in videos. Pornography panders to a male audience and often involves women being coerced or treated brutally during sexual intercourse (Shaw & Lee, 2014).

I questioned friends and strangers on why they accessed pornographic sites or why they believed others did, and most answered it was a quick way of obtaining gratification or a way to live out fantasies that may be illegal, taboo, or generally frowned upon. The fact that so many answered viewing pornography as a means of living out questionable fantasies was somewhat alarming. Even more alarming are some of the most popular searches for pornography with some of the top involving rape and non-consent, incest, and teens (“Fight the New Drug,” 2015). If these are some of the most popular searches on websites across the country, what does this tell us about the people viewing these videos? Multiple studies have concluded that men who view these types of videos may believe it is easier to have sexual relationships with teens or be more accepting of sexual violence toward them (“Fight the New Drug,” 2015). This is also true of rape videos. Studies have shown men viewing this type of pornography may have increased rape fantasies, decreased sensitivity to the violent act of rape, and even be more accepting of violence toward women (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).

Violence against women is already a worldwide epidemic, and pornographic videos promoting this violence and misogyny is highly problematic. Both psychological and sociological theories suggest that violence is the result of learned behavior (Sampson, n.d.), and frequent viewing of videos depicting sexual violence against women could in fact lead some to believe this behavior is acceptable. It has also been said that this type of pornography and subsequent behavior is accepted as a result of society’s acceptance of male dominance and sexism (Hooks, 2000).

Many people suggest the only way to mitigate the risk of violence from viewing violent pornography is to ban it (Schneider et al., 2012) which is highly unlikely considering pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. Others have suggested providing warnings of the effects of videos such as possible desensitization, prior to viewing the video (Schneider et al., 2012). A meta-analysis of multiple studies where “prebriefings” were conducted proved that there was a decrease in the negative effects of exposure to violent pornography (Schneider et al., 2012). Ultimately, we need to stop accepting violence, misogyny, and male dominance as the norm.

References

Hooks, B. (2000). Ending Violence. In Feminism is for everybody. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

Janssen, E. (2014). Why people use porn. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/special/why.html

Sampson, R. (n.d.). Domestic Violence. Retrieved from http://www.popcenter.org/problems/domestic_violence/

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Shaw, S. M., & Lee, J. (2014). Resisting Gender Violence. In Women’s voices Feminist visions. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.

The internet’s most popular genre of porn is disturbing. (2015). Retrieved from http://fightthenewdrug.org/this-years-most-popular-genre-of-porn-is-pretty-messed-up/


23
Oct 16

Wait… What?

The boob tube. The idiot box. The brain fryer.

Television has been called a lot of things, and it is no less a revolution in communication and entertainment for its colloquial nomenclature, but like all tools, it was both shaped by man and shapes him as well. In addition to the association between aggression and television as mentioned in this week’s reading (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2012), the media might have another impact on our minds:  We might not just be watching programming but be programmed by it as well.

From its onset, television programs have been divided into segments, sandwiched in between commercial messages from their sponsors. Audiences soon learned to tune out what they deemed irrelevant through a sort of operant conditioning, anticipating when the content–or reward–would return and avoiding or ignoring what they didn’t enjoy. Advertisers employed several strategies to combat this inattention, from incorporating their products into the programs themselves to employing characters from the shows to appear in advertisements, like the Flintstones shilling cigarettes and beer (Pathak, 2013).

The Flintstones in a commercial for Winston cigarettes (image from Pathak, 2013)

The Flintstones in a commercial for Winston cigarettes (image from Pathak, 2013)

As the line between content and commercials began to blur, and as the cost of that content continued to increase, television began to feature more ads. An hour of television in 1952 hosted perhaps eight minutes of ads; 50 years later, 20 minutes of that hour would air commercials (Schmidt, n.d.). Yet even as the commercial breaks grew longer, the ads themselves became progressively shorter. The initial 60-second clip was shortened to 30 in the 1970s, halved again to 15 in the 1990s, and sometimes appear as 5-second shorts today (Elliott, 2005). Much like the interdependent connection between the two established earlier, television content soon mirrored its ads. About 50 percent of news stories now are the length of a commercial–30 seconds or less–and the average soundbite is less than 8 (Jurkowitz et al., 2013; Fehrman, 2011). Is it any wonder that our attention may have followed?

(Image by Digital Brew, 2016)

(Image by Digital Brew, 2016)

The correlation between attention and television has been established in several studies. Two longitudinal studies that evaluated over a thousand children each found a strong correlation between television viewing habits in early childhood and later attention problems (Christakis et al., 2004; Landuis et al., 2007). More remarkable still, the effect of television on attention held constant even when the researchers controlled for other potentially confounding variables like socioeconomic status, early cognitive ability, early attention problems (Landuis et al., 2007) and characteristics of the mother, such as her age and whether she suffered from mental illness or substance abuse (Christakis et al., 2004). Both teams (Landuis et al., 2007; Christakis et al., 2004) postulated that television’s effects are cumulative and dose dependent in that the younger viewers start and the more they watch, the more significant the effects on attention.

“Brains are being rewired,” said Dana Boyd of Microsoft in a 2015 study the company did on attention and the media, although “any shift in stimuli results in a rewiring.” In other words, our minds adapt to the environment we expose them to, and our environment is now more media-rich than ever before. In 2000, when television reigned supreme over other forms of media and over our free time, the average human attention span was 12 seconds; in 2013, in the era of smartphones and dual-screening, it shrunk to 8, which is one second less than that of a goldfish (Microsoft, 2015). More than this, Microsoft (2015) found that the more forms of media a person uses, especially at once, the more their attention span suffers.

Surprised? He is too! (Oakley, 2016)

Surprised? Wait… Why is that again? (image from Oakley, 2016)

Unlike a goldfish, though, humans have the ability to keep information in their working memory for an indefinite amount of time if we choose to. While Microsoft’s researchers (2015) found that attention spans may be negatively correlated with media use, they also determined that the more participants used media the better they were at encoding information if their attention was engaged. In other words, television and the media may have increased our distractability and willingness to seek novelty and entertainment elsewhere if we’re bored, but it has not prevented us from diving deep into something that captures and keeps our interest, like Netflix binges, and remembering it afterwards. Perhaps Netflix itself, as an ad-free service, might even reverse attention the trend in time.

Television and advertising may have affected our attention spans, but so has nearly everything else in our environment. Our minds adapt and rewire themselves according to what we feed them, so our minds are made in our own image. The more of a role the media in general and television in particular plays in our lives, the more our minds adapt accordingly. Television is a tool, just like the telegraph and newspapers before it, and while it may shape us just as we shape it, we can still determine the impact it has on our lives. We can turn it off. Or at least skip the ads.

(Image by Wilson, 2012)

(Image by Wilson, 2012)

References

Christakis, D.A., Zimmerman, F.J., DiGiuseppe, D.L., & McCarty, C.A. (2004). Early television exposure and subsequent attentional problems in children. Pediatrics, 113(4), 708-713. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2004.00456_4.x

Digital Brew. (2016). Brief advice on videos for short attention spans [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.digitalbrew.com/tag/attention-span/

Elliott, S. (2005, APril 8). TV commercials adjust to a shorter attention span. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/business/media/tv-commercials-adjust-to-a-shorter-attention-span.html?_r=0

Ewoldsen, D.R., & Beverly Roskos, B. (2012). Applying social psychology to the media. In F.W. Schneider, J.A. Gruman, & L.M. Coutts (Eds.) Applied social psychology:  Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). (135-163). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Fehrman, C. (2013, July 20). The incredible shrinking sound bite. The Boston Globe. Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/01/02/the_incredible_shrinking_sound_bite/?page=full.

Jurkowitz, M., Hilton, P., Mitchell, A., Santhanam, L., Adams, S., …, & Vogt, N. (2013). The changing TV news landscape. The Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/special-reports-landing-page/the-changing-tv-news-landscape/

Landhuis, C.E., Poulton, R., Welch, D., & Hancox, R.. (2007). Does childhood television viewing lead to attention problems in adolescence?:  Results from a prospective longitudinal study. Pediatrics, 120, 532-537. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-0978

Microsoft. (2015). Attention spans. Microsoft Canada. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjm1YuMu_DPAhUCLyYKHX8ECVMQFggcMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fadvertising.microsoft.com%2Fen%2FWWDocs%2FUser%2Fdisplay%2Fcl%2Fresearchreport%2F31966%2Fen%2Fmicrosoft-attention-spans-research-report.pdf&usg=AFQjCNH9ESnw0PZxSj4N2L4ARL3Vme7sqQ&sig2=Mmfzh6ZaCNUTIizL3zIFJQ&bvm=bv.136593572,d.cWw

Pathak, S. (2013, April 2). Yabba dabba cough!:  Flashback to wen the Flintstones shilled cigarettes. Ad Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/rewind/yabba-dabba-cough-flintstones-shilled-cigarettes/240572/

Oakley, N. (2016, July 28). Owning one pet goldfish is illegal in Switzerland–and the reason might make you feel guilty [Image]. The Mirror. Retrieved from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/owning-one-pet-goldfish-illegal-8511105

Schmidt, W. (n.d.). How much TV commercial length has grown over the years. Retrieved from http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/commerciallength.htm

Wilson, C. (2012). Television zombie [Image]. Redbubble. Rpt. by http://www.sparklyprettybriiiight.com/ill-have-a-zombie-with-that-the-pop-culture-mainstreaming-of-sci-fi-and-fantasy/


23
Oct 16

Prison is modern day slavery

I find it so funny when I hear the term, “Make America Great Again” or the “good old day”, better yet “law and order”. Maybe I missed something in history class or missed something during my own personal research but when were these good old days and when was America great? I guess it depends on who you ask or what perspective you are talking from. If this is true, then the American dream must also be a nightmare because some people in America have never felt it was great place (nightmare), while others feel as if it was great place (dream). So who determines who has access to the American dream or the American nightmare? Better yet has American attitudes changed any since the early 1800s.

Ava DuVernay documentary 13th is such an eye opener to some of the major issue in American. The documentary deal with mass incarnation and the creation of second class citizens and the 13th amendment. Some of the statistic given in the movie were shocking to see, for example the documentary claims that although African American men make up only 5 percent of the world population; they make up 25 percent of the prison popular. Moreover the documentary claim that the prison population in 1970 was 357,292 but by 2000 had risen to 2,015,300. The likelihood of a white male going to jail over the course of his lifetime is 1 in 17. While a black male likelihood of going to jail during their lifetime is 1 in 3. Why does this difference exist? The documentary went farther to name systems like the punishment clause, convict lease system, black code, the 3 strikes and you’re out law, truth in sentence and the federal crime bill; in addition to the stand your ground law and SB 1070.

Is it possible that we as a country still have not dealt with the choices and decision our forefathers made? Is it possible that we want to pretend as if certain issue don’t exist? Is it possible we want to separate ourselves from our forefathers, so we are not held responsible for their actions? Finally should we be responsible for the things our forefather did and did not do? In my opinion yes. Yes to all of these question asked. As a country we have to deal with the fact that slavery was a choice and decision that was chosen, it did not just come about. We have to deal with the fact that after slavery we had a system like Jim Crow, and now we have to deal with the new Jim Crow—–Mass incarnation.

But when was the first big prison boom? To answer this we have to look at the United States and how the prison system was started. We also have to look at the 13th amendment and the loophole/clause that was added. According to the 13th amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

We all know that slavery is illegal, however thanks to the 13th amendment slavery is allowed if the person is being punish for a crime committed. The prison system did not take hold until after the Civil War when slavery had ended (Browne 2007). Laws like the Black Codes, which were used to make a legal activities criminal if done by African Americans; things like loitering and breaking curfew would be a reason to imprison an African American, making them slaves to the state. There was also convict leasing, where a person had the opportunity to purchase prisoners (mostly black) to work on their land, this was the same as slavery. Then you had the chain-gangs who we can thank for creating American massive road system. America was still getting free labor, just as they had done during slavery. If we jump to the 21th century we see the same things happing. For example private corporation are running prison for profits, it’s actually a multibillion dollar industry in every state; sounds familiar? Private Corporation can even take prisoners from jail to work inside of the business, all at no cost for the owner. Moreover we know America has not changed because it’s back to its old deceptive ways. For example the first women chain gang prison has been operating since 2007. Some state are pushing for laws similar to the black code like, curfews, anti-loitering and anti-association law (Browne 2007)

This brings me to my final point, the criminal system we have in place has always been design to keep slavery alive. It was not design to reform but to keep America free labor dream alive, to make America like the good old days great.

 

 

 

Reference

http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/856

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/08/14/slavery-legal-exception-prisoners-drugs-reform-column/14086227/

http://constitution.laws.com/13th-amendment


21
Oct 16

Media and Adolescent’s

I am a firm believer that social media sites such as Facebook should be limited to adults only. Facebook was created for college students to connect. As it grew in popularity, other adults started joining in the fun. Facebook is an excellent way to keep in touch with friends, old and new. I love being able to see the children of friends that I never get to see in person. Facebook has truly done a lot for friendships and acquaintances that don’t have time to keep in touch during everyday life. With that said, I do not think it is appropriate for children or adolescents. My reasoning will be discussed in the paragraph to follow.

While Facebook and other social media sites are great tools for adults to keep in touch and have a few laughs over a meme, it is mostly inappropriate for children. Many of the meme’s or even conversations started on Facebook contain racy content. Our children are being exposed to adult humor and adult content at earlier ages than ever before. I believe that this is harmful to a child. According to Brown et al. earlier exposure to sexual content indeed increases the odds that an adolescent will engage in sexual behavior at an earlier age (2006). An article published by the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry suggests that although the newest forms of media have not yet been adequately studied (such as Facebook), exposure to media in general causes increased violent and risky behaviors such as drug use, tobacco use, and aggressive behavior (Villani  2001).

In summation, exposure to social media is not necessary for children as they see each other every day at school. Text messaging and phone calls are sufficient means of communication for adolescents. There is absolutely no reason that adolescents should have access to social media or even unsupervised internet play.

 

Brown, Jane D. and Kelly Ladin L’Engle Carol J. Pardun Guang Guo Kristin Kenneavy Christine Jackson, 2006. Sexy Media Matter: Exposure to Sexual Content in Music, Movies, Television, and Magazine Predicts Black and White Adolescents’ Sexual Behavior. Pediatrics Volume 117 Issue 4. Web. Accessed 21 October 2016. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/117/4/1018.short

Villani, Susan M.D., 2001. Impact of Media on Children and Adolescents: A 10-Year Review of the Research. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Volume 40, Issue 4. Web. Accessed 21 October 2016. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890856709603877


20
Oct 16

Inadmissible Evidence

evidence-in-bagsInadmissible evidence is evidence that is determined to be “unreliable” or deemed by the judge to be inadmissible, in which the jury is instructed to disregard what they have seen or heard. Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts (2012).  This means that all evidence presented in a trial must be admissible.

 

When reviewing cases, jury’s must be privy to all evidence that is relevant in a case in order to make a decision regarding guilt or innocence of the defendant. There are four different categories for evidence. The examples are real evidence, demonstrative evidence, documentary evidence, and testimonial evidence.

During trial you do not need all to come to a conclusion, but the evidence should fall into one of the categories below. Real evidence is any object that was directly involved within the case. For example, a gun or a knife that was utilized in a crime would be real evidence example. Demonstrative evidence is an illustration or drawing of evidence, and an example of this would be a map or diagram of a crime scene. Documentary evidence could be letters, newspapers, or contracts. Testimonial, or anecdotal evidence, is verbal or written evidence from victims, suspects, and witnesses involved.

screen-shot-2016-10-20-at-8-30-45-pm

These types of evidence need to follow the rules admissibility, which are implemented to make sure that anything that will be introduced to the court, as evidence will meet three specific criteria.

The three types of evidence are relevant evidence; material evidence and competent evidence Relevant will prove or disproves a fact stated about the crime. This particular type of evidence may not necessary prove one’s guilt or innocence, but it does provide a piece of the puzzle the jurors and judge. A hammer stained with a suspect’s bodily fluid might be relevant in a murder case for example, but so will the person who sold the hammer to the person who is suspected of the crime. However, testimony provided from a toddler discussing a broken house contract would be irrelevant and inadmissible because a child was be too young to understand the what was happening.

screen-shot-2016-10-20-at-8-36-57-pm

Material evidence proves specific facts of a case. For example, if a defense lawyer attempts to prove that the wall in the kitchen during a murder was blue, the judge may state the color is irrelevant but the kitchen is admissible. Finally, competent evidence is any object or testimony that is proven to be reliable within a case. Examples of this would be something like matching fingerprints or DNA results.

References:

Dicarlo, Vincent. “Summary of the rules of evidence.” FindLaw.com, 2001. (June 30, 2008)http://library.findlaw.com/2001/Jan/1/241488.html

Nancy Steblay, Harmon M. Hosch, Scott E. Culhane, Adam McWethy, The Impact on Juror Verdicts of Judicial Instruction to Disregard Inadmissible Evidence: A Meta-Analysis., Law and Human Behavior, 2006, 30, 4,


20
Oct 16

How internet can change our perspectives about politics.

This is the 21st century and speed communication has been for decades one of our most valuable assets. With all the technology development, the easy accessibility to information and a little help from the world wide web we are now capable of using communication to establish network with people all over the world. Somehow, internet and social communication became an essential tool for all of us nowadays. We started with the radio, upgraded to the TV and now the most used tools are smart phone with internet and computers (PSU, WC, Psych 424, lesson 9, 2016). Everything we are exposed on our social environment can be easily assessed in the internet; all of our interests, knowledge, social interactions, our identity influences, lifestyle and beliefs (Manago, Graham, Greenfield, & Salimkhan, 2008). The online world is a large group of people interacting with each other without having to be at same place, the result for the large mixture of interactions is that our perceptions and beliefs about our environment very often are changed by newer concepts or facts that surface every day on a quick speed, sometimes faster than we can follow. This persuasive invisible environment has changed the ways we form our constructs about the world; and as much benefits the media in general and internet has brought to us, it also has started dramatic changes in the way we behave and perceive politics, health, religion and violence (Schneider, Grumman, & Coutts, 2012).

Politics is already a very controversial field because it involves human rights and personal beliefs. With the internet as our ally, our ways of thinking have been persuaded and we are now capable of being politically critic about leaders, laws, civic rights and participation. Some of this online influences can be positive and make our political system work in our favor, or it can be negative and cause social revolution when the population does not agree with their leaders. Recent research has shown that of those who connect to social network 40% had used them to engage in some political activity (Zhang, Johnson, Seltzer, & Bichard, 2010). For instance, many people have developed credibility in political online polls with the course of a virtual interaction. Their values and political expectations have changed due to exposure to all kinds and sources of different political views (Amichai, 2013). In a society where all of us want to contribute socially and be accepted by our peer group, share and follow idealist politic views is very common. In this scenario, trust on online political matters is defined as expectations that ‘‘people have of each other, and institutions in which they believe such as their political party” (Zhang, et. Al., 2010). As we all seek a moral social order, which is fundamental for organized societies, we expect political organizations to be responsible for this assurance; and with the use of the technology, they can easily reach citizens and spread our shared ideals (Zhang, et. Al., 2010, p. 76).

The Internet nowadays is used in a daily basis to build this civic participation among communities; in essence, the effect of the Internet on civic participation is contingent upon how individuals use the Internet. Information-oriented use such as information acquiring and exchange on the Internet provides users with opportunities for civic recruitment and further encourages political participation of the members of a community (Zhang, et. Al., 2010, p. 78). Online politics can also increase social tolerance and open discussions about community needs. Overall, because the young population does use internet for all their social needs, they are more likely to engage and participate in political decisions, such as the presidential election for 2016 if political parties and other online polls incentive them to do so. It is essential that we all have access to information regarding our social environment, and the internet of all the communication resources has proven to be very effective on this aspect.

However, we need to remember that the use of technology and internet can at some point be dangerous if our influences come across as extremists. Political views need to be respected in an individual level and even with the online access to others perspectives, we need to keep in mind that everyone has the right to protect and share their own opinion without harassment. Some participation in online political content can be viewed as illegal if it infringes the first amendment (Zhang, et. Al., 2010).  Because the internet is a large interacting group, it should be cautious to interact with others respecting their rights and beliefs; and let them chose by themselves if they want to change it. The internet and media are everywhere in our lives, the same as politics in our social environment. For that reason, we should carefully consider how we let the internet influence or change our perceptions about politics and other important matters.

References

Amichai-Hamburger, Y. (2013). The social net: Understanding our online behavior (Second ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199639540.001.0001/acprof-9780199639540-chapter-005

Manago, A. M., Graham, M. B., Greenfield, P. M., & Salimkhan, G. (2008). Self-presentation and gender on Myspace. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(6), 446-458. Doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2008.07.001 Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/science/article/pii/S0193397308000749

Penn State University, World Campus (Fall, 2016). Psych 424: Lesson 8. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802487/discussion_topics/11378502?module_item_id=21233980

Schneider, F.W., Grumman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

VanHuysse, J. L., Burt, S. A., O’Connor, S. M., Thompson, J. K., & Klump, K. L. (2016). Socialization and selection effects in the association between weight conscious peer groups and thin-ideal internalization: A co-twin control study. Body Image, 17, 1-9. Retrieved from: http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/1795490319?accountid=13158

Zhang, W., Johnson, T. J., Seltzer, T., & Bichard, S. L. (2010). The revolution will be networked: The influence of social networking sites on political attitudes and behavior. Social Science Computer Review, 28(1), 75-92. doi:10.1177/0894439309335162. Retrieved from http://ssc.sagepub.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/content/28/1/75.full.pdf+html


19
Oct 16

A Drug Offenders Prison Sentence

Since 1980, there have been 126,734 commitments New York prisons for drug offenses. The majority of these individuals were sent to prison because of class C-E drug offenses; class C-E is the least of serious felonies. In 2012, 93,000 individuals were in federal prison because of a non-violent drug offense (Adams, Samuels & Taxy, 2015). Now, after reading these statistics, what are your views on sending a non-violent drug offender to jail? Why do individuals sell drugs? Selling drugs is an easy and quick way to make money, however it is illegal. Many individuals aren’t worried about getting caught especially if there is money involved.

President Barack Obama shortened the prison sentences for 1-2 convicts serving time for drug-related offenses in his latest round of commutations. He has granted these commutations as a part of his push to reform the criminal justice system to reduce the number of people serving long sentences for non-violent drug offenses. Obama said “For too long we’ve viewed drug addiction through the lens of criminal justice.” He also stated that “Drug abuse is a health problem, not a criminal one.” I must disagree with this statement; drug offenders does not only pertain to individuals who used drugs, but also individuals who are in possession, sale or furnishing of. We cannot shorten prison sentences to those who may go back and do the same. I believe that if an individual is using, instead of sending them to jail we can send them to a treatment center – our government puts and gives our money to unnecessary things, they can possibly make use of it by doing something good.

References:

Holpuch, A. (2016, May 11). Obama shortens prison sentences for 61 drug offenders. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/30/obama-commutes-prison-sentences-drug-offenders

Reuters (2016, October 6). Obama Shortens prison sentences for 102 convicts: White house. U.S. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/10/06/us/06reuters-usa-justice-obama.html

Taxy, S., Samuels, J., & Adams, W. (2015, October ). Retrieved October 19, 2016, from Bureau of Justice Statistics, https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf


17
Oct 16

Crime Prevention

The crime rate has been increasing more and more every year (Sipes, 2016). It is a rising issue that many cities have to look into solving. There are a couple different ways in which they have gone about solving it. It seems that some of them may be grasping a little with their strategy, but at least they are trying to reduce crimes in the are. People need to come together to solve this very big issue that plagues every country in the world.

Many cities have come up with community crime prevention strategies. There of course are many of these strategies that do not work at all. There are two basic categories that prevention programs fall into; environmental, and social (“Crime Prevention Approach…” 2015). The type of strategies that seem to work the best are the ones that look into early intervention such as after school programs or community young organizations. They seem to be the most effective. Even though a lot of communities look into community development they are not effective in getting rid of crime in communities (“Crime Prevention approach…” 2015). They think that if they make the neighborhood a nice place people might take pride in it, but this does not work that well.

Another strategy that people think could help with crime prevention is giving out surveys to look into early signs and risks of becoming an offending criminal. This research would help give an idea of the reason people get involved in crime (Farrington). Once we have an idea of the signs that people might commit a crime it will help so that we can use early intervention strategies. The more that people know the earlier they can get involved to treat the problem at the source.

Some cities think that the proximal variable for committing a crime is the persons’ lack of income. This being part of the sociological reason for people to commit their crime (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012) They have come up with the solution of paying their criminals to not commit crimes. There are multiple cities that have come up with this solution. Richmond, California has started to pay their criminals twelve thousand dollars a year not to kill other people (Hawkins, 2016). However, they are not the only city doing there. District of Columbia is the next city thinking about this solution as well. They just recently passed a plan similar to the one that Richmond had passed. D.C. has not yet decided on the details yet, but they are also thinking about paying them as much as a thousand dollar a month as well. They are only thinking about paying the most violent criminals who have decide to become active in the community. There is not a lot of hope in this strategy from the public (Davis, 2016).

There are of course many ways used to get rid of crime and nobody knows which way will work the best. The most important thing that people need to remember is that we cannot give up. People need to band together and help everyone come together to get rid of the crime in our neighborhoods. It is not problem that we can ignore so we need to come up with ideas that maybe involve not paying criminals who have committed crimes. Once we find an effective way we need to implement it and realize that no method with fully get rid of crime. It is just a part of nature.

References

Crime prevention approaches, theory and mechanisms. (2015, April 24). Retrieved October 17, 2016, from http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current series/rpp/100-120/rpp120/07_approaches.html

CrimeSolutions.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2016, from https://www.crimesolutions.gov/TopicDetails.aspx?ID=10

Davis, A. C. (2016, March 28). D.C. plans to pay its most violent residents not to kill. Here’s why it could fail. Retrieved October 17, 2016, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-plans-to-pay-its-most-violent-residents-not-to-kill-here-why-it-could-fail/2016/03/28/92eb552a-f2c3-11e5-85a6-2132cf446d0a_story.html

Farrington, D. P., & Welsh, B. C. (n.d.). Family-based crime prevention. Evidence-Based Crime Prevention,22-55. doi:10.4324/9780203166697_chapter_3

Hawkins, A. (2016). CA City Pays Would-Be Killers $12,000 a Year Not to Murder. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/04/04/ca-city-pays-killers-12000-year-not-murder-guns/

Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Sipes, L. A., Jr. (2016). Violent and Property Crime in the US–Crime in America. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://www.crimeinamerica.net/crime-rates-united-states/

17
Oct 16

Lineup Procedures

In today’s legal system, various well-established procedures are no longer considered effective due to the problems that arise from their use.  One of these procedures is the use of a police lineup for suspect identification by witnesses.  Researchers and analysts have evaluated the police lineup procedures and effects and the results have shown that these procedures have an increased rate of bias.  This bias is caused by cues given by police or other members of the legal system as well as show-up lineup techniques but a solution has been proposed to use double-blind procedures for eyewitness assessing a lineup.

Cues have been shown to impact who within a lineup the eyewitness chooses.  A cue can be verbal or nonverbal along with intentional or not and is defined as an action that provides information using changes in tone, body language, etc. (“Non-verbal cue”, 2016). When a police officer is presenting the people within the lineup, they know who is being considered as a suspect.  As the lineup procedures progress and the eyewitness is brought in to view those within the lineup, cues given by the police officer can point the eyewitness in the direction of who is being considered as a suspect and who is not which leads to bias against that individual within the lineup whether or not the eyewitness truly did recognize that individual prior to the cue (Schuster, 2007). Cues are not the only aspect of lineup procedures that can call the eyewitness account into question.

A technique used previously in lineup procedures included a method known as a show-up method.  This method entails one individual being shown to the eyewitness to either confirm or reject as the one involved in the crime at hand (Wright, Carlucci, Evans, & Schreiber Compo, 2010).  This procedure is also surrounded by bias because the eyewitness views the individual that the police bring in and by that individual being there, the eyewitness already has in their mind that this person may be considered guilty by the police and therefore they view the suspect as suspicious.  This is why the use of lineups involving multiple people has become standard practice.

With the increased presence of bias when using eyewitnesses to identify suspects, researchers have suggested a procedure known as double-blind lineups.  This method involves presenting those in a lineup to an eyewitness by another person who does not know who is being considered a suspect.  Both the eyewitness and the lineup administrator have no indication of who is under suspicion and who is not (Wells, Steblay, & Dysart, 2014).  Researchers hope that using double-blind lineups will lead to a decrease in bias when evaluating the lineup.  This method presents multiple people to the eyewitness so that they can pick out who they recognize instead of only being presented with one person like with show-up lineups.  In addition, since the lineup administrator does not know who the suspected guilty person is, they cannot provide cues to the eyewitness which again decreases bias. 

Despite the controversy presented by using lineups for suspect identification due to bias, efforts are being made to decrease this aspect.  It is difficult to eliminate bias in single-blind procedures since the lineup administrator still knows who is considered suspicious and therefore can provide cues to the eyewitness. In addition, show-up lineup procedures are plagued with bias since the eyewitness is presented with the suspect alone and so the eyewitness already has in mind that the police are considering this person for one reason or another which may alter whether or not they confirm the suspect or not.  Researchers are hoping that implementing double-blind procedures will decrease bias that is prevalent in other lineup techniques. Now it is just a matter of compiling enough test studies that this method is truly effective so that implementation can begin.

References:

Non-verbal cue. (2016). In Business dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/non-verbal-cue.html

Schuster, B. (2007). Police lineups: Making eyewitness identification more reliable. National Institute of Justice Journal, (258).

Wells, G. L., Steblay, N. K., & Dysart, J. E. (2014). Double-bling photo lineups using actual eyewitnesses: An experimental test of a sequential versus simultaneous lineup procedure. Law and Human Behavior.

Wright, D. B., Carlucci, M. E., Evans, J. R., & Schreiber Compo, N. (2010). Turning a blind eye to double blind line-ups. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(6), 849-867.


17
Oct 16

Police Investigations and High Stake Liars

Most police officers think avoidance of eye contact and fidgety movements are hallmark signs of a liar (Vrij & Mann, 2001). However, these are actually signs of nervousness (Vrij, 2000). Vrij (2000) has studied behaviors of liars, and based upon a review of the literature, has concluded that liars actually do not tend to fidget nervously–instead they become unnaturally still. And what’s more, eye contact has nothing to do with lying at all. In a study by Vrij, Mann, and Bull (2002), the researchers analyzed videotapes of police investigations of crimes in which the suspect lied about some aspect of the case. Thus, the researchers had an opportunity to observe liars in action, in a real, high-stake situation, where getting caught lying would lead to a conviction. The researchers hypothesized that the high stake liars would demonstrate not signs of nervousness, but instead signs of cognitive load and attempted behavioral control.

The suspects in this case were being investigated for various offenses, including theft, rape, and murder. Their interviews were videotaped for an hour, and their stories were corroborated or debunked by the use of forensic evidence, so as to catch both their truth telling and lie telling behavior on tape. Objective, independent observers coded the videotape for eight behaviors, namely: gaze aversion, blinking, head movements, self-manipulations, illustrators, hand/finger movements, speech disturbances, and pauses. Inter-rater reliability was calculated and found to be sufficient.

The researchers found two significant results of their study. Firstly, the suspects blinked less while lying, and secondly, the suspects paused for longer periods of times when lying, both behaviors that are signs of cognitive load. Though this is a post-hoc inference, it is quite plausible given that the suspects had to fabricate stories as to fit in with what the investigators already knew. Quite opposed to the idea that most police officers have, that suspects who are lying display nervousness (of which blinking more is a sign), the suspects blinked less while lying. Interestingly, the tendency to blink a lot while nervous has been called the Nixon-effect, as per Tecce (1992), who calculated that Nixon blinked 50 times PER MINUTE during his resignation address.

While many police officers believe that there is a typical kind of lying behavior, the researchers found that there were large individual differences in lie behavior. Therefore, police investigators are recommended to establish changes from baseline readings obtained from the same suspect. According to the researchers, the most reliable indicator of lying is a departure from what is normal behavior in the suspect.

References:

Mann, S., Vrij, A., & Bull, R. (2002). Suspects, lies, and videotape: An analysis of authentic high-stake liars. Law and human behavior, 26(3), 365-376.

Tecce, J. J. (1992). Psychology, physiology and experimental. McGraw-Hill. Yearbook of Science and Fechnology, 375-377.

Vrij, A. (2000). Detecting lies and deceit: The psychology of lying and implications for professional practice. Wiley.

Vrij, A., & Mann, S. (2001). Who killed my relative? Police officers’ ability to detect real-life high-stake lies. Psychology, Crime and Law, 7(1-4), 119-132.

 

 

 


16
Oct 16

Is the Criminal Justice System Setting Inmates up for Failure?

Recidivism is a well-known issue in our criminal justice system. Many individuals simply relapse into criminal behavior after release from prison (National Institute of Justice [NIJ], 2014). The Bureau of Justice Statistics (2005) conducted a study that followed 404,638 recently released inmates from 30 states. Within three years of release, nearly 68 percent of individuals had been rearrested (NIJ, 2014). Alarmingly, more than half of the individuals had been rearrested within the first year of release, and the number of rearrests climbed as years passed. The results from this study are consistently replicated throughout the country suggesting that prison as a form of restraint and punishment is not a sufficient deterrent to prevent relapse into criminal behavior and rearrests.

Specific Deterrence Theory suggests that individuals who receive harsher punishments are less likely to engage in future criminal activity (Gendreau & Goggin, 1999). In addition to experiencing the harsh realities of incarceration, inmates also face stigmatization and psychological tolls due to the degrading experiences faced in prison (Gendreau & Goggin, 1999). Supporters of the theory believe that these costs to inmates will ultimately serve to discourage engagement in further criminal behaviors. Those who disagree with the theory may suggest that prisons are “breeding grounds of crime” (Gendreau & Goggin, 1999), and the longer time spent imprisoned, the greater the likelihood of continued criminal behavior upon release. Learned Behavior Theory may better explain why criminal behavior continues. Peer groups in prison are known to provide positive reinforcement to many criminal and antisocial behaviors (Gendreau & Goggin, 1999), and it may be difficult to unlearn those behaviors after incarceration has ended.

Many individuals question why prisons don’t focus more on the rehabilitation of inmates. The fact is that rehabilitation programs are both costly, and rather ineffective. Many repeat offenders claim to have resorted to criminal behavior as a necessary means of survival, especially after an extended incarceration. Most leave prison with little to no money, and have to worry about finding work and a place to stay (Femer, 2015). Programs that aid inmates with reentering into society may be more beneficial in reducing recidivism than in-prison rehabilitation. Louisiana has a re-entry program that allows inmates to learn trades such as welding or plumbing, and California is offering college education to inmates through the Prison University Project (Femer, 2015). The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (2013) published a study showing prison education programs had worked to lower rates of recidivism (Femer, 2013), suggesting that offering resources to inmates to assist with reentry into society may be highly beneficial.

References

Femer, M. (2015). These programs are helping prisoners live again on the outside. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/if-we-want-fewer-prisoners-we-need-more-compassion-when-they-re-enter-society_us_55ad61a5e4b0caf721b39cd1

Gendreau, P., & Goggin, C. (1999). The effects of prison sentences on recidivism. Retrieved from http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/e199912.htm

National Institute of Justice. (2014). Recidivism. Retrieved from http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/welcome.aspx


16
Oct 16

DOJ- Too Much Power

The criminal justice system strongly needs a reform. There are all kinds of issues going on within it all embedded so deeply and for so long that one would wonder if there would ever be a way to truly make any changes. Can one person make a difference or would it take years or riots and protesting, court cases and law suits before anything really changes. I truly hope not. But it is apparent that the criminal justice system is the center stage for the separation of America.  Some say that the issue is that the major issue with the Justice department is that it takes up too much of the approved government budget, as a whole, the US spends billions of dollars in its justice system (Schneider, 2012). However, many US citizens feel like all that money is going to waste because all of the media coverage proving that racism is alive and well in the Justice system.

According to the article “U.S. Prosecutors Have Too Much Power “ : “more than 90% of both federal and state court cases never go trial, but instead are resolved through plea bargaining. Autonomy and secrecy, complex criminal code and mandatory minimums — in combination, these factors have given prosecutors enormous leverage, and the opportunity to wield it relentlessly and selectively. The results, critics charge, are the undermining of the right to jury trial, mass incarceration, public skepticism regarding equal justice, and immense pressure on every defendant.” (Oppel, 2016). Every time that I see a case publicized in the media, all I can think is, that for 1 case that we see on television or our search engine’s newsfeed, there are 100 that we are not seeing.

If 90% of federal and state cases never go to trail, how many of these suspects are unjustly pleaing guilty to a crime just to get a reduced sentence?  The answer is that “Nationwide, 97% of federal defendants plead guilty instead of taking their chances at trial. Thirty of 316 convicts exonerated by DNA evidence had entered a guilty plea, according to the Innocence Project.” (Beekman, 2014). I would agree that prosecutors have too much power and if there were more cases being publicly conducted, a lot more cases that were unfairly treated would come to light. The issue would, how do we make this happen, how do we take away power from those who have too much?

Judge Jed Rakoff says plea bargaining can be unfair to innocent men like Rodney Roberts. (Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News)

References

Beekman, D. (2014). Judge says plea-deal process must be fixed. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/judge-plea-deal-process-fixed-article-1.1806358

Oppel, B. R. (2016). U.S. Prosecutors Have Too Much Power. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/briefing-room/us-prosecutors-have-too-much-power

Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing
social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

 


16
Oct 16

Insanity Defense

Criminal insanity has very strong criteria, yet black and white decision making is not an option. There is a lot of room in the grey area when it comes to deciding if someone was insane at the time of the crime. There are two pieces of criteria when it comes to considering if someone is criminal insane or not. The first piece of criteria is to determine if the defendant had planned the crime, and the second piece is to determine if the defendant committed the act with criminal intent (Borum & Fulero, 1999). The defendant must also be competent and coherent enough to understand trail process and the outcome.

Two very famous criminals are Jeffery Dahmer and Andrea Yates. The insanity plea was used in both of their cases. In these two cases, it is important to separate criminal insanity and overall mental health issues.

Image result for jeffrey dahmer

http://www.biography.com/people/jeffrey-dahmer-9264755

Jeffrey Dahmer was many things, but he was not criminally insane. He suffered from necrophilia, cannibalism, and other mental illness, but should not be considered criminally insane. As Dr. Fosdal stated, his illness did not get in the way of his ability to comply with the law or the realization of his wrong doing (Ewing et al, 2006). The key to that statement is that he knew of his wrong doing. Though he was not intentionally seeking individuals to murder, he did the act of murder purposely. After his conviction, he was quoted saying, “I know my time in prison will be terrible, but I deserve whatever I get because of what I have done.” (Ewing et al, 2006). This statement here shows us that Dahmer is fully aware and rationally understands the process of his prosecution and acknowledges his criminal wrongdoing.

Image result for andrea yates

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrea-yates-where-are-my-kids/

Unlike Dahmer, Andrea Yates was a success in life. She was valedictorian in high school, a college graduate, and professional nurse (Ewing et al, 2006). Yates didn’t start showing psychotic episodes until after the birth of her fourth child. Once she had five children, she was then moved into a trailer and was also taking care of her sick father. She tried committing suicide multiple times because of all these underlining stress factors. In my opinion, when she killed her children she was having a psychotic break or postpartum psychosis. When Dr. Gerald Harris evaluated her for trial, he found her to be psychotic because she was hallucinating and had difficulty paying attention (Ewing et al, 2006). Yates thought she was doing a good thing for her children by killing them due to religious delusions. This tells us that she was unaware of her actions while committing this crime, which is reason for psychotic break.

As stated previously, the insanity defense does have strong criteria, but there is no right and wrong answer. Just like other criminal cases, the evidence must be closely examined and the jury must stick to the facts that are presented.

References:

Borum, R. & Fulero, S.M. (1999). Empirical Research on the Insanity Defense and Attempted Reforms: Evidence toward Informed Policy. Law and Human Behavior, Vol 23, No. 3. North Carolina, Duke University Medical Center.

Ewing, C. P. and McCann, J. T. (2006). Jeffrey Dahmer (Serial murder, necrophilia, and cannibalism) and Andrea Yates (An American tragedy). In Minds on trial: Great cases in law and psychology (Chapter 12. pp. 141-152, and Chaper 19. pp. 229-240.) New York: Oxford University Press.

 


16
Oct 16

The Bystander Effect

cropped-step-up-_-step-in-1-high-res

Step up and step in sounds like a commercial for bullying. I choose this topic because I believe that we need more people to step up and step in when it comes to taking action. The bystander effect is a common term in psychology that more people need to be familiar with. I have provided a link below that discusses ten notorious cases of the bystander effect. I must warn you that some of the cases are really violent.

Did you know?

bystander2

Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts (2012) define the bystander effect as a phenomenon that states that people are less likely to help during an emergency when other bystanders are present. What makes this topic so interesting is that people often say that during an emergency they would hope that they would help but yet so often no one does. It is said that this occurs because of the diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility is a term used to explain the diminished sense of responsibility a person feels when they believe that others are or will help (Schneider et al., 2012). Basically people assume that they don’t need to help because someone else is. My father-in-law always tells me that “when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.” Please excuse the language but I find this statement appropriate.

It’s easy to sit here and say that you would take action. I too, would “hope” that if I found myself in an emergency situation where my help was needed, I would do something. I’ve always found myself to be a person who goes out of their way for others but it is hard to say what I would actually do in any given situation.

fivesteps_prevention-1024x472

According to Aronson, Wilson, & Akert (2013), there are five steps that occur before a bystander will decide to intervene. The first step is to notice the event. Step two is interpret the event as an emergency. The third step is to assume responsibility. Step four is to know the appropriate form of assistance and finally step five is to implement the decision. If at any point during the decision making, one of the steps is misinterpreted, then it will result in no intervention and no help is given (Aronson et al., 2013). I believe that the best way to prevent the bystander effect is through education. By educating others about the bystander effect as well as what to do in an emergency situation we can ultimately reduce the chances of it occurring and potential save a life.

One thing that I learned from my training in the Air Force is that people are more willing to help if someone gives them direction. The military gives you extensive training for different types of situations but for those without proper training you may think that there is nothing you can do. Most of the time when you are direct, people are more willing to help because it is a quick way to show people the seriousness of the situation. Let them know what you need or what needs to be done. In today’s society people are more likely to pull out their devices and start recording a situation than to actually intervene. In situations like this I think people need to reprogram their minds to stop hitting the record button and start dialing 911.

the-bystander-effect-is-getting-stronger-every-day_408x408

 

This link provides examples of the bystander effect.

10 Notorious Cases of the Bystander Effect

 

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2013). Social Psychology (8th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.


16
Oct 16

12 Heads Are Better Than Six

Jurors are critical players in the United States judicial system. In fact, the sixth amendment of the Constitution states that all accused defendants have the right to a trial by jury. Traditionally, juries have been composed of 12 members, all without preconceived biases about the case and ideally representing a varying aspect of the community. In the case of Williams v. Florida of 1970, the Supreme Court ruled that six-member juries were not unconstitutional, as the Constitution never specifically define a jury as consisting of 12 members (a ruling that was later overturned). Rather, six members were deemed acceptable, as they displayed the “essential features” of a jury. Six-person juries are attractive, as they save costs and time for the prosecution, and can potentially provide a speedier trial for the defendant (Pearce, 2009). Among the most notorious cases to be tried by a six-member jury was the second-degree murder charge of George Zimmerman.

George Zimmerman was a community watch volunteer of his neighborhood in Florida. Surveying from his car and armed with a gun, on February 26, 2012, Zimmerman called local police to report a suspicious person in his views. This suspicious person was 17-year-old, African American, Trayvon Martin. Though instructed by the police to not take action, Zimmerman confronted Martin, which ended with Zimmerman fatally shooting Martin. Zimmerman immediately claimed self-defense, as evidenced by his bleeding head and nose (Slifer, 2013). The shooting quickly exploded on a national level as being an act of racism that a white man report an African-American teen as being suspicious and proceeding to fatally wound him out of “self-defense”. Although, to the surprise of many, Zimmerman was later revealed to be Hispanic.

It has been speculated that six-member juries put a defendant at a disadvantage. As shown in studies conducted by Solomon Asch, individuals often cannot fight the temptation to conform to the majority, especially in smaller groups. Hence, despite being proportionately equivalent, one disagreeing juror out of six is more likely to conform to the views of the other five jurors than the same scenario by two out of 12 jurors. This is because an individual finds the courage to resist conformity among the agreement of another reluctant individual. Deviating opinions between jurors are of serious concern, particularly in criminal cases, where guilt must be proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” (PSU, WC, 2016). For this reason, the constitutional fairness of six-member juries was overturned in 1978, in Ballew v. Georgia, when the Supreme Court ruled that six-member juries were a serious threat to constitutional rights (Pearce, 2009). However, studies that have been conducted comparing 12 to six-member juries, suggest that six-member juries are not significantly different in their ability to 1) Engage in group deliberation 2) Be influenced by external intimidation 3) Display a fair representation of the community 4) Reach similar verdicts and conclusions to 12-person juries (Pearce, 2009).

On the charge of second-degree murder and pleading not guilty by reason of self-defense, Zimmerman’s trial commended in June 2013, under the judgment of six female jurors: five Caucasian and one Hispanic. In a nationally known, criminal case, was this jury selection fair to the accused George Zimmerman or the deceased victim, Trayvon Martin (Slifer, 2013)?

Based on the ruling of Ballew v. Georgia, and the conclusions of the human psyche made by Asch, the Zimmerman trial was unfair to both Zimmerman and Martin. According to Florida statute 913.10, 12-person juries will be provided for all trials of capital crimes and all other criminal cases may be tried by six (Slifer, 2013). Therefore, Zimmerman’s second-degree charge did not qualify for the mandatory oversight of 12 jurors. Concerning the media following and national uproar of the crime, it’s curious that 12 jurors were not recruited on behalf of ensuring Zimmerman’s constitutional right to a fair trial. On behalf of Trayvon Martin, the jury which was selected for his killer’s trial was not representative of a diverse cross-section of the community. Not one juror represented the African-American community, the community to which Martin belonged. Selecting 12 jurors has a stronger potential to represent the necessary diversity

While Florida stats laws uphold the ruling of Williams v. Florida, and allow six-member juries in any criminal case below the capital level, the method is far from bulletproof. It should be part of the law to enact fair judgement, assess each case separately and make decisions in the best interest of the people in the case. The George Zimmerman case was juried by six members with minimal demographic variety. The time and money that are able to be saved by the employment of a six-member jury in criminal cases is not equivalent to the constitutional threats that made to victims and defendants.

References:

Pearce, M. W., Wingrove, T. (2009). Is a jury of six as good as one of 12? American Psychological Association. 40 (7): 32. Retrieved from URL: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/07-08/jn.aspx

Pennsylvania State University: World Campus. 2016. Lesson 8: The Legal System/Criminal Justice. DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY: PSYCH 424.

Slifer, S. (2013). George Zimmerman trial: why are only six jurors weighing murder suspect’s fate? CBS News. Retrieved from URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-zimmerman-trial-why-are-only-six-jurors-weighing-murder-suspects-fate/

 


12
Oct 16

Racism in the Justice System

Although the founding fathers of our nation did their best to ensure fair and due process of law when they established our justice system, there is a sickness that’s eating away at what we know as the due process of law. Racial bias is alive and well in our justice system, and it has been found to influence jury decisions and subsequent sentencing. Right now, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on two cases involving explicit racial bias that has affected juror deliberations and ultimately the sentences recommended by these juries.

Almost ten years ago, the Supreme Court asserted that it is unconstitutional to base decisions on the assigning of students to particular schools on race, regardless of the goal being the integration those schools. The opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority dismantled two school districts’ plans for desegregation and created obstacles inhibiting the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. He justified the Court’s ruling by stating that “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

There are two cases before the Supreme Court right now that shine a light on the type of indisputable, unequivocal racial discrimination that fly in the face of the Chief Justice’s colorblind statement. The Court’s handling of matters of racism will decide the fate of two men and will also bring into focus the Court’s recurrent disposition to overlook the implicit racism that undermines our criminal justice system.

Pena Rodriguez v. Colorado and Buck v. Davis are two very distinct cases. Miguel Angel Pena Rodriguez was convicted of allegedly attempting to grope two teenage girls. Dwayne Buck was convicted of murder. Mr. Pena Rodriguez received a sentence of two years’ probation and was required to register as a sex offender. Mr. Buck was sentenced to receive the death penalty. The similarity between these two cases arises in juries that were both contaminated with explicit overtures involving racist stereotypes, which in turn jeopardized the process of deliberation.

In Mr. Buck’s case, his own attorney called an expert witness during the penalty phase of the trial, Dr. Walter Quijano, who testified that Mr. Buck was more likely to commit future crimes because he is Black. In Texas, where Mr. Buck was tried, future hypothetical danger posed, or “dangerousness”, is a factor that the jury must unanimously determine as existing in order to introduce the death penalty. The expert’s testimony was then utilized by the prosecutor during his closing arguments to convince the jury that Mr. Buck was too dangerous to not receive the death penalty. The jury subsequently issued a death sentence.

In Pena Rodriguez, the jury was in the middle of intense deliberations, when (according to two jurors’ affidavits) a juror who established himself as a former law enforcement officer, made a number of racist statements. Included in these statements were remarks that the defendant probably committed the crime because in his (the juror’s) experience, when he “used to patrol, nine times out of ten Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive toward women and young girls.” The juror also cast aside an alibi provided by a witness, who was also Latin, because the juror asserted that the witness was an illegal immigrant, even though the witness was in fact a legal immigrant. The jury was not able to come to a verdict on a felony charge, but instead found the defendant guilty of three misdemeanors.

Though in both cases the claims of racial bias are largely admitted to, the lower courts denied requests for relief due to obstacles in procedure. In the Pena-Rodriguez case, the Colorado Supreme court denied the racial bias claim based on the statute stated in the so-called Mansfield rule. The Mansfield rule states that jury deliberations are inviolable and does not allow testimony from jurors about those transactions, even in proceedings where jurors may have behaved improperly. It is now within the power of the Supreme Court to repair this error and elucidate that unequivocal, racist stereotyping during jury deliberations is so immoderate as to exceed any benefits awarded by the Mansfield rule.

In comparison, the lower courts have maintained that Mr. Buck waived his right to appeal the issue of the performance of his attorney in calling the expert witness and has defaulted in procedure on any claims in connection with the ineffective assistance of counsel. In this as well, Supreme Court precedent permits exception to such defaults in procedure, but lower courts maintained that Mr. Buck’s assertions weren’t “extraordinary” enough to warrant such an exception. The Supreme Court now has an chance to right the lower court’s improper decision that being subject to the death penalty because of racist stereotypes is not an exceptional circumstance.

These are just two instances of implicit racial bias in our justice system that are being heard by the highest court in our nation. The fact that racism is allowed in juror deliberations seems to undermine the entire process. Many jurors are sequestered from the outside influences of TV and print media as well as public opinion. Would it not also be prudent to ensure that juror’s explicit biases are not skewing their better judgment?

Buck v. Davis – Ballotpedia. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2016, from https://ballotpedia.org/Buck_v._Davis

Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (U.S. 2007).

Peña-Rodriguez v. State of Colorado. (2016, July 1). Retrieved October 11, 2016, from https://www.aclu.org/cases/pena-rodriguez-v-state-colorado.

Totenberg, N. (2016, October 11). Supreme Court Hears Case On Racial Bias In Jury Deliberations. Retrieved October 12, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/2016/10/11/497196091/top-court-hears-case-on-racial-bias-in-jury-deliberations.


12
Oct 16

[Criminal Justice] Yes on 62: Repeal the Death Penalty

yeson62logo

This November, voters in my home state of California will have two ballot measures to consider that will determine whether the state amends or repeals capital punishment. I will be voting “yes” on measure 62, which seeks to eliminate the death penalty. While the emotional desire to enact this ultimate punishment for murder can be strong, statistics demonstrate that it is an antiquated sentence that should be no longer be implemented. Here a just a few of the many reasons that capital punishment should be abolished not only in California, but across the United States.

It is racially-biased

The death penalty is a demonstrably racially-biased sentence. Study after study has shown that this sentence is disproportionally handed down to blacks convicted of murdering whites. In sum, “in 96% of states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both (Center, 2016). Check out this link to see a number of startling infographics on this bias and other drawbacks to the death penalty: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf .

It increases wrongful convictions

Both cognitive resource theory (Fiedler & Garcia, 1987) and generic prejudice (Vidmar & Schuller, 2001) increase the likelihood of jurors wrongfully convicting defendants in capital murder cases. This happens because the emotionally stressful nature of deliberating about the facts in a murder trial reduces a juror’s capacity to think rationally, because emotionally-charged facts are more salient than empirical facts. This in turn leads to a bias toward conviction based on the charges alone. Compounding this bias is the fact that jurors who are unwilling to impose a death sentence upon a guilty verdict are excused from serving on a capital case, yet “people who are able to give the death sentence as a punishment for a crime are much more likely to convict than the normal public” (PSU, 2016).

It doesn’t work

The possibility of receiving the death penalty seems like it would be an effective deterrent to murder, but this is an area where, again, the statistics reveal its inefficacy. For example, when surveyed, 88% of former and present presidents of the country’s top academic criminological societies rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. (Radelet & Lacock, 2009, in Center, 2016). Why? As Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt points out, “no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty, since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention” (Levitt, 2007). Incidentally, murder rates are lower in states without capital punishment (Center, 2016). No one wants to appear “soft on crime,” but when polled, even law enforcement officials concur that there are better ways to reduce violent crime (Center, 2016). http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf

 It’s expensive

Since California reenacted capital punishment in 1978, the state has spent approximately 5 billion dollars on death penalty cases and appeals, and has only executed 13 prisoners (“California proposition 62, repeal of the death penalty (2016),” 2016). No need to get out your calculator—that’s an astronomical $384,615,384 per execution. Repealing the death penalty in favor of a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole is expected to save California taxpayers approximately 150 million dollars a year (“California proposition 62, repeal of the death penalty (2016),” 2016).

 

In short, abolishing capital punishment will not only lead to more accurate and equitable sentencing, but it will free up considerable financial resources as well. I can only imagine the reduction in violent crime that could occur if instead of acting on our desire to seek revenge for heinous crimes, we instead followed the recommendations of police chiefs, who believe that being able to hire and properly train more officers, along with greater access to social services, would be a much better use of funds. I hope that this fall California will join the other 30 states in which capital punishment is illegal.

Resources:

California proposition 62, repeal of the death penalty (2016). (2016). Retrieved October 12, 2016, from https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_62,_Repeal_of_the_Death_Penalty_(2016)

Center, D. P. I. (2016). Deterrence: States without the death penalty have had consistently lower murder rates. Retrieved October 12, 2016, from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates

Levitt, S. D. (2007, June 11). Does the death penalty really reduce crime? Retrieved October 12, 2016, from Freakonomics Blog, http://freakonomics.com/2007/06/11/does-the-death-penalty-really-reduce-crime/

PSU WC. (2016). Lesson 8:  The Legal System/Criminal Justice [Online lecture]. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802487/modules/items/21234175

 


12
Oct 16

Negative Attitudes in the US

The United States ranks number 1 in power and in leadership, but unfortunately that’s all; overall the United States is number 4 on the best countries list. Those who live in America know that there is a lot of negativity floating around, more so now because of the upcoming election. The negativity has caused a lot of prejudice and discrimination across the United States.

Prejudice is an incorrect attitude (usually negative) towards an individual based solely on their membership of a social group; holding prejudice views towards a person of color. Similarly, discrimination is the behavior or actions (usually negative) towards an individual or group of people on the basis of sex, race, social group etc. Individuals who are prejudiced do not necessarily act on their feelings. However, individuals who are discriminatory do act on their behavior, which leads me to my next concern.

In 2016, I have read and seen many cases where discrimination has been presented. In June of 2016, Omar Mateen was responsible for the shooting in a gay nightclub in Florida. Although this act of violence could have occurred anywhere, it was a heartbreaking day for the individuals of the LGBT community. According to Mateens parents, he was once outraged when he saw two men kissing. This could’ve been the start to his plan to shoot down the nightclub.

The case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mississippi is a perfect example of discrimination. Although, Michael Brown stole something from a convenience store, that did NOT give Officer Wilson the right to shoot him several times.

According to an article written by Cella and Neuhauser (2016), homocide amongst blacks and whites have reached its highest levels since the election of Barack Obama almost eight years ago. Interracial killings rose up to 81% since 2015, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better. How can we stop this? Is there an efficient way?

I personally do not think that there is an efficient way in stopping the killings in the United States. There will always be a problem with the black and white community and I don’t think that will ever change. We thought having Obama as president would stop us from having certain problems in the U.S, however that was not true. Now, there are more problems occurring because Donald Trump is running for president.

 

Blow, Charles. “Why Blacks Loathe Trump”. Nytimes.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.

Cella, Matthew and Alan Neuhauser. “Race And Homicide In America, By The Numbers”. US News & World Report. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.

Ralph Ellis, CNN. “49 Killed In Florida Nightclub Terror Attack”. CNN. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.

 


11
Oct 16

Negative Team Remedies

In order for society as a whole to function efficiently and productively, it is important to realize that working as part of a team or group will be necessary at times.  If a team hopes to be successful in completing objectives, each member must be committed to maintaining positive working relationships as well as contributing quality work.  When the parts of the group begin to breakdown though, disastrous consequences can be the ending result.  In order to depict this team process and the importance of organization, I provide an example of a negative group experience and how the implementation of group roles and group norms could have greatly improved the situation and outcome.

When working as part of a group for a project my freshman year at Hofstra University, I was new to the procedures of group work.  I had always completed tasks independently which is how I preferred to do things.  Independent work allowed me to develop a plan that I was comfortable with along with a corresponding timeline.  In addition, I could go in any direction I wanted to when approaching an assignment.  This was not the case when working with a group though.  We all came together to discuss the project for the first time but this discussion turned into more of a debate than anything else.  We were not organized and we all wanted to approach the assignment in a different way.  Instead of discussing each option thoroughly and coming up with a plan that worked for everyone, one person in the group took over and established a plan and submitted the proposal and the rest of us ended up just going along with it and completing whatever tasks he said.

This group experience is far from what an efficient team should be.  Prior to developing a plan or strategy, the group should have specifically discussed what role each member would take on.  Group roles define what the member of a group will do within the group both when it comes to tasks and relationship duties such as being the group leader or being responsible for meeting minutes (“Group Roles”, 2016).  In my described group experience, no roles were established.  Each member was pretty much just interested in what they wanted personally.  This failure to organize and cooperate led to one person taking over the group as a result without discussion. By establishing who is responsible for what as well as the relationship role the person will play, each member knows exactly where they stand within the group.  There is not a power struggle or a dictatorship, there is just an agreed upon relationship structure within the group that allows for the tasks at hand to be assigned accordingly.  This type of organization allows for efficient use of work time as well as produces a work environment that is positive and respectful to each member.

Once group roles have been established, group norms must then be addressed. Norms are the behaviors that the group sees as appropriate and positive and what is considered unacceptable (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).  When each member fully understands what is expected of them as well as how communication should occur, the whole group benefits from a more positive experience and a higher level of productivity because it decreases conflict within the group. In my previous group, I assumed that everyone understood that each member would be responsible for an equal share of the work, would communicate regularly and respectfully, and would complete tasks on time.  Unfortunately, this is not what happened.  Everyone was given specific tasks to complete along with deadlines for each objective but some members failed to do their part of the work completely or would not have it completed until days after it was needed.  This led to further conflict within the group and decreased our productivity greatly. If not everyone in the group agrees on what a norm of the team is, breakdowns in the completion process are bound to occur.  So how is conflict avoided? When reading the article Peace and Conflict as Group Norms, the author brought up a great point. “A central insight of this group-based approach to peace and conflict is that when people identify… they enact their group’s norms collectively” (Louis, 2014).  When our group had first come together, if roles had been established as well as norms, the relationship aspect of the group would have been solid.  We would not have been fighting each other but would have been working together.  By doing this, the group would become cohesive and therefore would abide by the group norms with ease.

Unfortunately, none of the members in my group were interested in truly cooperating with one another. An environment of tension was established early on which led to the group not working well together at all.  We completed our project eventually but the process was far from positive and the result was not as high in quality as it could have been by any means.  If a team hopes to work together, it is essential to establish clear roles, tasks, and norms.  Each member should know where they stand with the group and what is expected of them.  This allows the group as a whole to be on the same page.  This also ensures that time is not wasted arguing over tasks and roles because they are clearly established early on.  When organization is created within a team, negativity and tension decrease while productivity and group identity increases.  This is ultimately what a team should strive for.

References:

Group roles. (2016). In Law, J.(Ed.), A Dictionary of Business and Management: Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 Oct. 2016, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199684984.001.0001/acref-9780199684984-e-2986.

Louis, W. R. (2014). Peace and conflict as group norms. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 20(2), 180-186. Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/1524162819?accountid=13158

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

 


11
Oct 16

People or Status?

Stress is defined as “a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being” by Lazarus and Folkman as cited in Applied Social Psychology (2012), and anything causing stress is known to be a stressor. The stress can be a state of being , just a situation, or in this case, an entire social status. The largest problem is socioeconomic status which is, generally, the monetary status a person has within their society which leads to places of work, access to education and housing affordable to their class.

Low socioeconomic status is one of the major stressors around the world and is associated with mental health disorders as a result of living with less than is necessary for survival, as well as poor access to education (Siefert, Bowman, Heflin, Danziger, & Williams, 2000).  In neighborhoods with poverty, there is less education due to schools losing funding because of low property value (Kenyon 2007). It’s well known that lack of education increases unemployment (no degree, no well paying job) which increases crime rates (Evans & English 2002) due to having an environment harboring and nurturing mental unrest, a myriad of stressors with no coping mechanisms and competition of limited resources. Not being able to provide for oneself is difficult enough without the societal pressures and norms of blaming the victims for their own demise.

Logging into Facebook every day I see the issues of race and violence in this country, and far too many conflating race issues with issues of poverty, which have intersections but not always. I constantly see people asking questions about “black on black crime”, which is a deflective statement based on misunderstanding of reality due to constant media bias. Crime has a common pathology worldwide connected to many different factors, the main one being socioeconomic status.  In America, this is easily conflated with race issues due to our long history of legal discrimination, a system based on oppression and excessive red lining (people refused assistance or loans due to the area they live in which has, both historically and now, contributed to people of color remaining impoverished as compared to other racial counterparts) among other factors which make it appear that there is something inherently wrong with people of color as a collective.

We know people of certain races have been (and continue to be) isolated to particular parts of the country and cities based on race and socioeconomic status, so it shows that crime will the majority of times be committed between people of the same background due to the proximity principle in social psychology. It’s called intraracial crime, and it has similar statistics across the board for race.

Another aspect of socioeconomic status that leads to crime is based in proximity theory. When people live too close to one another, on top of one another, in an environment that is competitive for resources, violence increases among themselves (Bell, Roncik & Francik 1981). These resources are limited in so many ways. There is still legal discrimination, as seen in the case last week where the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated it was perfectly legal to not hire someone who had dreads, which is discrimination according to the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37470929/this-is-why-employers-in-america-can-refuse-to-hire-people-with-dreadlocks) . This could be and has been extended to braids, a fro or any type of hairstyle the company felt was “unprofessional”, thus giving employers more room to allow their racial bias to flourish. This has personally affected me in my life many times while working being called a “n***** b****” and being turned away from employment for not straightening my naturally curly hair.

These factors prevent people of color from being a part of the workforce along with discriminatory policing, which prevents them from getting jobs, which prevents them from being able to support themselves, which leads to poverty, which leads to living in underfunded places without access to good education, which all ties together for a breeding ground of criminal activity. When a study was done to compare African American communities with low socioeconomic status in urban settings to white communities with low socioeconomic status in rural settings, it was found they both had very similar crime rates and the same mental health disorders (English and Evans 2002).

When speaking about crime in America, be careful not to conflate race and poverty. They have intersections for people of color, but that crime is due to the poverty, not to the race.

Resources:

Image 1: https://crimedime.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/trayvon-martin-homicide-intraracial-ucr.jpg

English, K., & Evans, G. W. (2002). The Environment of Poverty: Multiple Stressor Exposure, Psychophysiological Stress, and socioemotional AdjustmentChild Development July/August 2002, 73 (4) 1238-1248

Roncek, D. W., Bell, R., & Francik, J. M. A. (1981). Housing Projects and Crime: Testing a Proximity Hypothesis
Santiago, C. D., Stump, J., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2011). Socioeconomic Status, neighborhood disadvantage, and poverty-related stress: Prospective effects on psychological syndromes among diverse low-income families. Journal of Economic Psychology 2011, (32) 218-230

10
Oct 16

We’ve all been there.

Dealing with team dynamics can be difficult even in the most ideal circumstances. Teams are usually thrown together nearly randomly and expected to come together to solve complex problems with little or no conflict. This is often not the case. Things like power struggles, technology issues, and just intra-team conflicts can all cause issues within the team. Most people have experienced some kind of team conflict during their careers and I am no different. I will cover my personal experience with power struggles, technology usage, and conflicting group roles/norms in the workplace through three different scenarios involving teams.

Power is something that many teams often struggle with. One member may be overwhelming everyone else in the team or many people may be struggling to share power. I experienced this first hand at my current position. This is a team of 4 receptionists/attendants at a boarding kennel. The majority of us have been there for less than two years, but the team lead has been there for roughly 10 years. Being there for so long has not only given here expert power, but has also allowed her to rise to team lead. Expert power is defined as “the ability to influence through skilled knowledge and/or experience with a subject” (French & Raven, 1959). This position gives her legitimate power and also reward/coercive power over the rest of the team. Legitimate power is defined as “the ability to influence through official position in an organization” (French & Raven, 1959). Reward and coercive power are defined as “the ability to influence by providing a pleasant outcome” and “the ability to influence by punishment” respectively (French & Raven, 1959). Unfortunately, this person has a reputation for being very unfair and using her power to get her way instead of doing what is best for the company/team. This causes her to have very little referent power among the rest of the team. Referent power is defined as “the ability to influence through admiration” (French & Raven, 1959). This caused the team to have high turnover since the other members got sick of having to put up with the leader’s abuse of power. The obvious solution to this would be to contact the team leader’s boss collectively, but given the team leader’s nature, the rest of the team is afraid of retaliation.

Technology can often be a tricky team dynamic as well. Some people prefer to use technology in a way that they are comfortable and familiar at the expense of team productivity. I was once part of a team project that required a lot of coordination and meetings. The team was attempting to use a new piece of software called Adobe Connect to record parts of the team meetings for later reference. There was one team member that had an extreme aversion to using Adobe Connect. They were more comfortable with using Skype and thought the team should use Skype despite the fact that the professor specified that Adobe Connect needed to be used for the project. Admittedly, Adobe Connect was a little more difficult to use than Skype, but the point didn’t matter because the team needed to learn the new technology. This caused the team to lose valuable time trying to teach the reluctant team member to use Adobe Connect because they absolutely refused to learn how to use it on their own time. This is a good example of deskilling. Deskilling occurs when “workers do not “own” specialized skills that may be valued by management” (PSU, 2016). The team member had become so deskilled by using the same piece of software for so long that they had a very difficult time learning how to use a new piece of software.

The nature of the group roles, group norms, and even the maturity of the team can have a large impact on the effectiveness of the team. Many of the teams that I have had a chance to be a part of have been through my education. The unfortunate part about these groups is that that usually occupy the forming and storming stages of group development and never quite make it to the norming stage due to the short timeline of many class projects. During these stages the team is just becoming acquainted and feeling out the different personalities of each of the team members (Tuckman, 1965). There can also be issues with group roles when there is no clear cut leader within the group. This kind of disorganization leads to role conflict. Role conflict occurs when team members are “receiving contradictory messages from different people or the roles themselves that disrupt the work process ” (Jamal, 1984). Finally, group norms can also lead to problems within a team. Group norms are “unofficially stated rules of behavior within the team” (PSU, 2016). These unwritten rules can often cause confusion for team members that are new to the team or when expectations are not clearly set.

In conclusion, there are many different things that can cause issues within a team. I have personally experienced many of these issues first hand. While there is often a straightforward solution to dealing with the issues, it can be very difficult to actually execute the solution for many reasons. In the end, teams must be willing to confront these issues head on to ensure the productivity and continued success of the team.

References:

French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright and A. Zander’s Group dynamics. New York: Harper & Row.

Tuckman, B. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63 (6). 384–399. doi:10.1037/h0022100

Pennsylvania State University. (2016). Lesson 7: Organizational Life and Teams. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802487/modules/items/21234170


09
Oct 16

Groupthink: Are two heads really better than one?

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We’ve all heard the saying “two heads are better than one,” but how true is this statement? A study was conducted to see if two heads was indeed better than one, in which two participants were asked to work together or on their own to make a decision about visual images. They began alone and had to pick the image that contained the target (a lot like where’s Waldo). If the participants gave different answers they had to discuss who gave the right answer and collaborate. Their joint decision was then compared to their original work and it was concluded that two heads were in fact better than one when the participants were able to effectively communicate. However, it only applies when participants are able to discuss their different perspectives openly but when one person shares flawed information it can lead to negative consequences (Kanai & Banissy, 2010). There are also additional conditions that can effect group decision making.

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In 1972, a Yale psychologist named Irving Janis developed a new theory called “groupthink.”  Groupthink is the process of flawed decision making that occurs as a result of strong pressures among group members to reach agreement (Schneider, 2012). History has proven how dangerous groupthink can be when certain conditions apply. One example is the Challenger disaster. On January 28, 1986 NASA sent seven crew members, including a schoolteacher from New Hampshire, to their death. Under time pressure and a directive leadership the shuttle was instructed to launch even after warnings of freezing temperatures (Schneider, 2012).

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Some conditions in which Janis believes groupthink will occur is when there is high group cohesiveness, directive leadership, high stress, or when the group is isolated from outsiders. High group cohesiveness happens when group members try to fit in by conforming to group norms and individuals lose the ability to think for themselves (Frenz, 2016). A directive leader often doesn’t allow for alternative solutions, what they say goes. High stress happens when a decision puts pressure on the group so they base their decision on the first available option. When a group is isolated from outsiders they are isolated from additional outside sources and information that can used to make a better decision.

work-together

There are ways to reduce or prevent groupthink. Leaders play a huge role in a group’s success or failure so it’s important that they examine all relevant information and don’t rush into anything. When used efficiently, two heads is always better than one.

Reference

Frenz, R. (2016). Small Business . Retrieved from Advantages & Disadvantages of Group Cohesiveness & Productivity: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-group-cohesiveness-productivity-25046.html

Kanai R.  & Banissy M. (2010). Scientific American. Retrieved from Are Two Heads Better Than One? It Depends: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-two-heads-better-than/

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

 


09
Oct 16

Good hair-vs-bad hair

benny-1Chris Rock did a movie a few years ago and he asked the question, “What is good hair”. So really what is good hair? Is it hair that is in its natural form? Meaning there are no chemicals added to your hair to change or enhance the texture. Is it long straight hair or is it hair that can defy gravity? As black women myself my hair is part of my identity, it is part of my crown and glory. One day I can wear it in an afro, the next day I can braid it up, the following day I can wear it in a weave. All of the different things my hair allows me to do is why my hair is so important. There is a guy on social media, he and his daughter have changed what people use to believe about black hair;  their natural hair is so long that people cannot believe that it is real.  The debt about hair is something that black women in particular have been dealing with for centuries; but what is it about black hair that cause so much drama?

 

American first developed an obsession with black hair back during slavery. During slavery, slave’s hair was often removed; this would create a disconnection between the slave, their cultural and their identity. During slavery, black women did not have time to do their hair like she would have, back in Africa. Moreover the products she would have used in Africa are not available in America; as a result slave women would have to use things like butter and bacon grease to style their hair. The idea of good hair was also something that grow from slavery. Black women were made to feel and believe that their natural kinky hair was bad hair; while straight flowing hair similar to white women was considered good hair.  It wasn’t until the 1900 when Madam CJ Walker developed revolutionized black hair care making her one of the first black women millionaire. In fact black hair care is a billion dollar industry that makes money off of black women wanting to change the texture of our natural hair. However black people all over the world are starting to understand how powerful their hair really is.  Black hair can be worn in cornrows, black hair can defy gravity because of our afros, black hair can be worn in dreadlock, and black hair can be worn straight; Black hair can be done in weaves, black hair can be worn in high top and low tops; regardless of how black people wear their hair, if it does not reflect what white people consider to be beautiful, it will never be so. So why does white American hate black hair?

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The effect of the idea of good hair was so embedded in American cultural that even after slavery ended, this idea flourish. Good hair became the prerequisite for entering certain schools, churches, social groups and business networks (www.thirstyroots.com), unfortunately this had not changes.  In 2016, the 11th U.S. Circuit court of Appeals ruled that banning employees from wearing dreadlocks is not racial discrimination. The EEOC argued, that banning dreadlocks in the workplace does constitutes race discrimination because wearing the hair in the dreadlock form is physiologically and culturally associated with people of African descent (http://financialjuneteenth.com/banning-dreadlocks-workplace-not-discrimination/). My father is a Rastafarian, his dreadlocks are not only part of his religion, they are also how he identify with his cultural; dreadlock themselves are a symbol of power and strength.  Moreover I was taught that our hair is our crown and glory, and we should never cut it. However this ruling make it clear that if you want to work for a certain company part of your racial identity should be changed. The same issue is happening in schools all over the world. In South African, the Pretoria High School for Girls, were told to chemically straighten their hair or they will not be able to attend class. Pretoria is a prestigious school that was historically only for whites. The students asks powerful question that I would like to have answered myself. Why are black people not allowed to enjoy their black heritage?

 

 

 

 

 

https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/black-womens-hair-a-brief-history-1400-1900/

http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/08/how-natural-hair-is-shamed/

http://financialjuneteenth.com/banning-dreadlocks-workplace-not-discrimination/

http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-30/school-south-africa-tells-black-girls-chemically-straighten-their-hair

 


08
Oct 16

Following the Money

We all want to live happy lives. Since, for most of us, a good portion of those lives unfold at work, it follows that everyone craves happiness—or at least satisfaction—in their job. This much is obvious. What is not particularly obvious is how to go about finding this sense of satisfaction. Much research has been devoted to uncovering the right path, but the answer is not yet entirely clear. We can say, however, that many people believe they know what is right for them—how they personally will achieve satisfaction—and often it involves money. On a deep, instinctual level, we all see money as a major component, perhaps even a prerequisite, to finding happiness in work. But the empirical evidence suggests that we would be better off placing our hopes elsewhere.

How satisfied we feel in our job can play a huge role in the decisions we make—about where to work, about when to quit or go back to school, or about how much effort to expend when carrying out our responsibilities (Schneider et al., 2012). Research has identified three broad categories of job characteristics that are shown to determine satisfaction: job characteristics, social/organizational factors, and personal disposition (Schneider et al., 2012). The complexity of your job, how much autonomy you are granted, the organization’s work culture—these factors seem to matter greatly, along with plenty others (Schneider et al., 2012). If you are understimulated, never given feedback, or surrounded by a toxic culture, chances are you will dislike your job—and your performance will probably show it.

Lazy businessman

Notice, however, that “how much you are paid” did not appear in the preceding list. This is because researchers have repeatedly searched for a connection between pay and job satisfaction, and have largely come up empty-handed (contrary to all received wisdom). A meta-analysis conducted in 2010 looked at “115 correlations from 92 independent samples” and found that “both within- and between-studies, level of pay had little relation to either job or pay satisfaction” (Judge et al., 2010). Sure, some people who earn comparatively high salaries are more satisfied in their jobs relative to lower-paid workers, but the study identified many instances in which the opposite is true—for example, lawyers making about $150,000 a year who were less satisfied in their jobs than childcare workers earning just over $20,000 (Judge et al., 2010). Simply put, getting paid more to do your job does not make you more likely to enjoy it. In fact, motivational theory suggests that it may do the opposite: Getting paid large amounts of money might convince you that you only do your job to earn that nice paycheck, and once you’ve latched onto an extrinsic source of motivation, you can easily lose track of the more noble reasons you may have had when entering your career (Judge et al., 2010).

This trend, whereby increased salaries does little to boost happiness, is not only true at the individual level. Other work has shown it may be equally true for societies as a whole. It has been shown that, in the short term, when a nation increases its GDP, there is a related spike in happiness, but that after about ten years this effect wears off completely, and the citizens of that nation are, on average, about as happy as they were before their economic situation improved (Easterlin et al., 2010). This is a striking notion, one that seems to undermine one of the central assumptions in our society: That increasing our economic strength will lead to happier, better lives.

There is one caveat to all of this. Keeping in mind that pay on its own, out of context, does not seem to correlate very strongly with job satisfaction—or satisfaction in your life in general—there is one situation in which is does seem to have an effect.

A brief, personal anecdote: A few years back, an email was accidentally forwarded to me by one of my supervisors. It contained the salary information about one of my colleagues, a woman who had slightly different responsibilities but had the same job title. I alerted my supervisor to her mistake, but it was too late: I had already seen that my coworker was earning about four dollars more per hour than I was, for doing a job that, if anything, had fewer responsibilities, since I had been there longer (that translates to over $8,000 extra per year, before taxes). I felt sick to my stomach when I learned this. For a week or two, I felt less motivated, and this feeling seemed appropriate: If my supervisors pay me less than a similar employee, I must not be as valued, so why shouldn’t my performance match their regard?

Looking back, it is somewhat comforting to know that my reaction to this news was fairly typical. The one situation in which pay does effect job satisfaction is when we are comparing ourselves to other people. Research has found that when people discover that they earn less than the median worker in their pay unit, their job satisfaction plummets (Card et al, 2012). It would be intuitive to assume, then, that people who make more than their colleagues—and are aware of this discrepancy—would find increased satisfaction in their job. However, the evidence doesn’t support this. Those earning above the median do not seem to enjoy their jobs any more because of their pay level (Card et al., 2012). It is only the lower-paid workers who are influenced by their perceived compensation relative to other people. Making less money makes you miserable, but making more does not make you happy.

The most important aspect of our compensation at work (perhaps the only important aspect, beyond meeting our basic needs for survival) is how it stacks up to other people. One thought experiment gives people two options: Live in a world in which everyone is rich, but you are on the lower end of that spectrum, or live in a world in which everyone is poor, but you are the richest of the poor people. In the first world, you have more money and possessions that you would in the second world, but you’d be at the bottom when comparing yourself to everyone else. In the second, you have less, but you’re on top. Most people prefer the second, poorer world: they would rather be poor, but better off that their peers. (Frank, 2016).

This is all quite depressing, especially when we consider how much time and effort we expend trying to increase our earnings, while ignoring other work factors that might have a greater influence on how happy we are in our jobs. We’ve seen that earning more doesn’t make you happier in your job or in life—unless you already feel that other people are beating you—but perhaps the most important factor to influence how you feel about your job is whether or not you find meaning in what you do (Frank, 2016). Like the childcare workers mentioned above, it is entirely possible to be happy in your job while making very little money, as long as you see a noble purpose in your career. Reaching after ever-fatter paychecks will leave you no better off; but reevaluating your decisions, and making sure that what you do has intrinsic meaning—that you go to work because you are doing something good for society—can make all the difference.

 

References

Card, D., Mas, A., Moretti, E., & Saez, E. (2012). Inequality at work: The effect of peer salaries on job satisfaction. The American Economic Review, 102(6), 2981-3003. doi:10.1257/aer.102.6.2981

Easterlin, R. A., McVey, L. A., Switek, M., Sawangfa, O., & Zweig, J. S. (2010). The happiness—income paradox revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(52), 22463-22468. doi:10.1073/pnas.1015962107

Frank, R. H. (2016, ). The incalculable value of finding a job you love: Money and Business/Financial desk. New York Times

Judge, T. A., Piccolo, R. F., Podsakoff, N. P., Shaw, J. C., & Rich, B. L. (2010). The relationship between pay and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis of the literature. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 77(2), 157-167. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2010.04.002

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.


08
Oct 16

Culture: Hofstede, Individualism, and Collectivism

Let me start by giving a brief overview of my background. I consider myself a fairly multicultural person: I was born in a city in India, moved to suburban Detroit a year after, lived there for 10 years, then moved back to India, and then went to college in a town near Philadelphia for a couple of years.

In my journey across the world and through life, I have come in touch with the dimensions of Hofstede’s cultural taxonomy—in particular, individualism and collectivism—the worlds of the western, individualistic United States, and the eastern, collectivistic India. In this blog, I’d like to talk a bit about culture and self-identity, as per Hofstede’s dimension of individualism/collectivism, and give some insights from cultural psychology about the pervasive effects of culture.

Culture shapes self-concept, as thoroughly explained in a paper by Markus and Kitayama (1991). In individualistic cultures, the self is independent, with emphasis on individual goals over collective goals, and value placed on self-reliance and distinctiveness. There is importance given to standing out, whereas in collectivistic cultures, where the self is interdependent, there is importance given to fitting in. There is emphasis on collective goals, and close relationships and group membership are valued.

One’s upbringing is thoroughly influenced by the cultural psychology of caregivers, or ethnotheories, as per Super and Harkness (1986). Whereas in western, individualistic cultures, the emphasis is on independence from the parent, in eastern, collectivistic cultures, the emphasis is on the sense of oneness and cohesion, and the promotion of dependence between parent and child. Competence in individualistic cultures is defined in terms of behaviors associated with individuation, such as exploration, autonomy, efficacy, and self-expression. In collectivistic cultures, however, competence is more a question of social harmony, interdependence, emotion monitoring, and control. Expressing yourself in collectivistic cultures is often discouraged.

In individualistic cultures, parenting is a child-led task wherein the goals are autonomy and independence. Parents use praise and promote self-enhancement and place emphasis on happiness and personal satisfaction. In collectivistic cultures, parenting is more traditional, akin to training (jiao xun), with the goal being that of interdependence. Parents use criticism, and emphasize self-improvement and achievement, as personal achievement is a reflection of the family’s investment and effort (Heine, 2011).

Fiske (1991) looked at family structures across the dimension of individualism and collectivism, and found that Western, individualistic families are more egalitarian in nature, with emphasis on equality among all members and individual rights and privileges. In the East, however, collectivistic families are more hierarchical in nature, with emphasis on authority, tradition, prestige, protection, and care. Everyone in the family hierarchy needs to be aware of their roles and obligations. Family members who are higher in rank have more prestige and privileges, but the ones lower in rank are more entitled to protection and care.

Even emotions are affected by the dimension of individualism and collectivism. According to a study by Wang (2001), individualistic Americans see emotions as an important aspect of the self, and are elaborated upon as a way of facilitating individuality. Collectivistic Chinese, however, see emotions as a consequence of social interactions, and emphasize others’ roles in emotional expression. Emotions reinforce proper behavioral conduct and sense of connectedness within groups.

When it comes to love, there are different theories prevalent across cultures. In India, where collectivism is prevalent, marriage is arranged by parents based on socioeconomic class and religion, as opposed to marriage being agreed upon by the individuals based on their personality traits and attributes, as is common in individualistic cultures. Love in India is a duty, a feeling that blooms from the obligations of a familial alliance. In the west, love is more voluntary, and therefore more individualistic, with emphasis on the feelings that come about within each individual (Heine, 2011). The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center observed differences in Eastern collectivistic concepts of love and marriage and Western individualistic concepts, and found that love in the east is seen as an indissoluble bond, whereas in the west, love and marriage are more of a contract.

I could go on and on about how much culture influences us, but I’d like to end with a note on ethnic identity in multicultural individuals. It’s confusing to be brought up one way, and then live in a society that operates in a completely opposite way—there is a lot of psychosocial conflict that takes place, both within the individual and between family members who have conflicting cultural values. As globalization increases, there is more and more need for cultural awareness and acceptance of differences—without this understanding of diversity, relationships in society are going to be very difficult indeed!

References

Fiske, A. P. (1991). Structures of social life: The four elementary forms of human relations: Communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, market pricing. Free Press.

Heine, S. J. (2011). Cultural psychology (2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton.

Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological review98(2), 224.

Super, C. M., & Harkness, S. (1986). The developmental niche: A conceptualization at the interface of child and culture. International journal of behavioral development9(4), 545-569.

Wang, Q. (2001). “Did you have fun?”: American and Chinese mother–child conversations about shared emotional experiences. Cognitive Development,16(2), 693-715.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


07
Oct 16

Changing Health Behavior: Smoking

One thing I’d really like to do this year is give up smoking. Now, how can I use Applied Social Psychology to help me in this resolution?

One way is definitely by reading up on theories of changing health behavior and applying them to my external and internal situation. Therefore, I’ll use this blog post to discuss the health belief model, the theory of planned behavior, and the stages of change model, in the context of my resolution of giving up smoking.

First, the health belief model (Janz & Becker, 1984; Rosenstock, 1974). What are my beliefs related to the various components of the health belief model? Well, first of all, I do have an interest in staying fit and healthy, and I’d like to avoid getting cancer if possible. These are my general health values, the first component of the health belief model.

Secondly, I believe that smoking is a strong causative factor of cancer. As a smoker, I am more susceptible to cancer—therefore my perceived susceptibility to illness is high. Although I’d like to believe I’ll be one of those smokers who live to 100, I know that it is highly unlikely. I also know that cancer is deadly, and painful, and highly detrimental all around. Therefore, I perceive the severity of the illness to be quite high as well. I also think that giving up on smoking will reduce my chances of cancer—as yet, no one in my family has gotten cancer (touch wood), but no one in my family smokes either. If I give up smoking, I have a high expectation that I will be able to avoid cancer.

Now, where I do run into problems is my level of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977a). I do not think I have what it takes to give up smoking. I have tried before, and have failed miserably. I don’t think I can give up smoking. I use cigarettes to regulate my anxiety and stress, and without cigarettes, I really don’t think I’ll be able to manage those issues, no matter how much therapy I pay for. This is a considerable barrier to my giving up smoking, even though the above-outlined benefits are many. My cue to action, which is my parents’ and peers’ heavy encouragement to stop smoking, is just not strong enough to overcome this one big barrier that looms in the way of my giving up smoking.

Next, let’s use the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) to examine my wish to stop smoking. According to this model, there are three factors that affect my planned behavior: attitude towards behavior, subjective norms, and perceived control. My attitude toward smoking is pretty clear—it’s harmful, and I need to stop. Thus, I have a positive attitude towards stopping smoking. Subjective norms regarding smoking are a little complex—while my parents and some of my peers disapprove of my smoking, my best friend and I typically smoke together on a daily basis. It’s our bonding time, and I would be loath to give that up. My perceived control over my behavior, which is modulated by my perceived self-efficacy, is, to be honest, quite low. I’m pretty thoroughly addicted to smoking, and experience withdrawal symptoms, both psychological and physiological when I don’t smoke.

According to the theory of planned behavior, my chances of giving up smoking, though I have the wish to do so, are relatively low, given my low perceived control over my behavior. Norman, Corner, and Bell (1999) have found that smoking cessation is only likely when there is perceived control over the behavior—the odds are against me.

Finally, let’s look at the stages of change model (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983, 1986). I used to be in the precontemplation stage of this model, because I had no intention of giving up smoking. But lately, with pressure from my family and healthcare providers, I’ve been considering giving it up more and more. So now, I am in the contemplation stage of the model. I do intend to make a change in my behavior over the next six months—hopefully I don’t end up staying in this stage for years, like many other smokers. I hope to transition to the preparation stage of this model, wherein I cut down on my smoking in preparation of stopping altogether. It may be that when I stop altogether (the action phase) I will experience relapse and go back to the contemplation phase, but I would like to make it to the maintenance stage, where I’ve gone six months without smoking.

Will I make it? We’ll just have to see!

References

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.

Bandura, A. (1977a). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 191–215.

Janz, N. K., & Becker, M. H. (1984). The health belief model: A decade later. Health Education Quarterly, 11, 1–47.

Norman, P., Conner, M., & Bell, R. (1999). The theory of planned behavior and smoking cessation. Health Psychology, 18, 89–94.

Prochaska, J. O., & DiClemente, C. C. (1983). Stages and processes of self-change of smoking: Toward an integrative model of change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 51, 390–395.

Prochaska, J. O., & DiClemente, C. C. (1986). Toward a comprehensive model of change. In W. R. Miller & N. Heather (Eds.), Treating addictive behaviors: Processes of change (pp. 3–27). New York: Plenum Press.

Rosenstock, I. M. (1974). Historical origins of the health belief model. Health Education Monographs, 2, 328–335.

 

 

 


07
Oct 16

The Rejection: Hopelessness Theory of Depression

I’d like to use a case example to illustrate the hopelessness theory of depression in this blog post.

A 25-year-old man who had trained for years in animation and game design received admission to a Canadian university for a course in game design. He applied for a student visa to Canada, and settled in to wait for his paperwork to be processed. He bought his flight tickets and started to look for places to stay in Toronto, where he would be studying. The weeks passed, and his course start date came and went, but his visa didn’t come through. He went repeatedly to the consulate office to ask for expedition of the process, but got no answers. Thoroughly frustrated, he delayed his flight tickets twice, and still didn’t get his visa. Finally, he got his passport back in the mail. There was no visa stamp in his passport. His application had been rejected.

Thus ensued a period of major depression for this young man. He had applied for loans, bought flight tickets, and paid his tuition fees to the university. He was set to lose a large sum of money, and he had no backup plan of action. No job, no money, and seemingly, no future. He was in a situation where he felt he had no control over his future outcome. He had experienced a huge setback.

This life experience, wherein he had experienced such an unpredictable and uncontrollable setback, made the man feel thoroughly helpless, and as per Seligman’s (1975) learned helplessness model of depression, the man gave up his efforts to cope. Instead of looking for other options like a job in his hometown or further developing his portfolio, the man lay in bed and grew increasingly depressed.

Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale (1978) proposed the attributional reformulation of the learned helplessness model of depression, which suggested that depression was caused by pessimistic attributions on the part of the person, leading to a negative outcome expectancy, that is, helplessness. The man believed that his visa was rejected because he was simply no good, had no luck, and was not meant to succeed in life. This belief was an internal, stable, and global attribution—the man believed that nothing would ever go well in life again, and that this setback was proof of his inadequacy.

The hopelessness theory of depression (HTD), as proposed by Abramson, Metalsky, and Alloy (1989), suggests that depression occurs in people with a negative attribution style, known as a pessimistic explanatory style or a depressogenic attribution style. The man believed that the cause of the aversive life event, the visa rejection, was internal (he was not good enough), stable (was absolute and forever-lasting), and global (he had no luck). Hopelessness, as defined as “the expectation that highly desirable outcomes will not occur and that one is powerless to change the situation” (Needles & Abramson, 1990, p. 156), thus set in.

The man began to show signs characteristic of hopelessness depression—low self-esteem, lethargy, and apathy (Abela, Gagnon, & Auerbach, 2007). He became more dependent on people around him, while at the same time attempting to isolate himself. This contradictory behavior naturally did not lead to positive outcomes for him. However, he was lucky enough to have plenty of social support, in the form of friends, who nudged him towards a more positive attribution style—what Needles and Abramson (1990) call an enhancing attribution style. He began to consider his future options in a more positive light. He reevaluated his professional outlook, judged himself to be a skilled animator and designer, and recognized that he had jobs that were open to him. He received a job offer, and he evaluated the cause of this offer in a stable, internal and global way—he was a skilled professional, and he now had a path open for his future. He also decided to reapply for the Canadian student visa, and had hopes for his acceptance.

References

Abela, J. R. Z., Gagnon, H., & Auerbach, R. P. (2007). Hopelessness depression in children: An examination of the symptom component of the hopelessness theory. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 31(3), 401–417.

Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358–372.

Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E. P., & Teasdale, I. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Abnormal Psychology, 87, 49–74.

Needles, D. J., & Abramson, L. Y. (1990). Positive life events, attributional style, and hopefulness: Testing a model of recovery from depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 156–165.

Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development and death. San Francisco: Freeman.


05
Oct 16

Pyramid Schemes and the American Dream

Pyramid schemes are a growing problem in the United States but why do people fall for them? What is so alluring about these so-called business opportunities? I would argue that the idea’s presented in most pyramid schemes that attract so many people are the opportunities to ‘be your own boss’ and to work on your own time at your leisure. Many of these schemes present the idea that the amount of money you make is in your own control based on how much work you want to do. First let us discuss, what is a pyramid scheme?

A pyramid scheme is typically presented as a reputable company (I had one approach me under the umbrella of CITI, a multi-faceted and well known bank). The company makes itself look and sound like a successful, multi-level marketing program (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). The typical pyramid scheme will require money up-front from the participant, or employee. The employee is then promised good money in return for signing other people up for the scheme (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). According the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, pyramid schemes typically have no actual product and use the money from new recruits to pay the older recruits.

The world we live in today is busy and full of adults who have very little time and very little resources. Many of whom have more debt than their current income will allow. With this in mind, it is easy to see why so many people are duped into a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme promises high pay outs in a quick turn-around time. You want extra money, and fast right? A pyramid scheme offers a business model that might allow you to quit your current job and make even more money, while working for yourself. You would love to be your own boss right? How about all of the extra time you will have to spend with your kids? All of these promises are very alluring versus the lifestyle the typical American lives today. Does it sound too good to be true? As a general rule of thumb, it probably is.

Pyramid schemes are often violating federal laws however it is difficult to challenge these companies once you have joined. According to the 5th circuit court, “You’d have to be either dumb or venal to volunteer for the bottom rows of a pyramid scheme” (Frankel 2016). The federal government offers the following signs that the company you are looking into might be a pyramid scheme: no genuine product or service, promises of high returns in a short time, easy money, no demonstrated revenue from retail sales, buy-in required, complex commission structure, emphasis on recruiting (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 2013).

This brings us to the real issue plaguing many American’s today, time and money. The American dream of the olden days has been forgotten. Hard work is a thing of the past. People want the most profit out of the smallest amount of work. Why is this? An applied psychologist might be able to theorize that the economy shift has created this new mindset. The rise in monthly household expenses with little rise in income has made it difficult for families to live with only one working parent and thus time with family has fallen by the wayside. I believe a serious change must be made in the American economy in order to get back the American dream that this county was built upon.

 

Frankel, Alison (2016). En Banc 5th Circuit asks: Why do people buy into pyramid schemes? Reuters Online. Accessed 5 October 2016. http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2016/10/04/en-banc-5th-circuit-asks-why-do-people-buy-into-pyramid-schemes/

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (2013). Accessed 5 October 2016. https://www.sec.gov/answers/pyramid.htm


03
Oct 16

Gypsies

Diversity is quite an interesting concept. In essence, it is the formula that makes the human races unique. People have minds with the capacity to create various cultures that shape the core ways in which they think, behave and perceive the world. On the other hand, diversity has managed to become one of the greatest downfalls of mankind. It has caused various wars on religious beliefs, separation amongst people because of a lack on understanding and inequality because people are resilient to accept something other than the way they know it to be. One of the major areas we can see destruction of diversity is in the separation of the Roma gypsy population in various European metropolitan cities.

Continental Europe is roughly 3,997,929 square miles, composed of 27 different countries.[i] Each country has its own language, belief system, cuisine and worldview. Most major cities are melting pots, made up of people from every nation and culture. Normally, the inhabitants that flood these cities have moved to contribute something to the local society such as work, school, love and/or just mere pleasure.

However, amongst the immigrants living in cities such as Paris, France there is also the presence of those whom don’t contribute, such as Roma gypsy population. These people normally tend to live on the outskirts of the city, in poverty settings without substantial shelter or sanitation. Gypsies are known among Europeans to be thieves. They tend to migrate into cities and make their living by stealing from the general population. They organize themselves in a mafia or gang-like structure. There is a man at the head whom sends out women and children to beg on the streets and in touristic areas. They teach the children how to pick pocket at ages as young as 3 and 4 years old because they are immune from punishment until the age of 16. This is a major problem because it aids them in continuing to take form others what is not theirs without having to endure any type of penalty.

 

Additionally, the children brought up in gypsy communities are given no formal form of education. They do not attend schools in the country they reside nor are they taught to read and write in their mother tongue. Instead they are learning to beg, steal, and hate those whom oppose them. So, as this community continues to grow and take advantage of the system, the French continue to hate them back all the more.

For the French social system, the Romas are seen as a major issue. The French are resilient to have any form of compassion or understanding for these people. They want them out but the law won’t permit it; therefore, they’ve found their only resolve is to be passionately angry. They see them as a hopeless cause and even more so as an enemy. French resent the fact that they have to pay such high taxes to allow people such as gypsies to cheat their system and rob from them that they are not willing to fins any solution to help them. They are completely incapable of seeing a gypsy as anything other than the stereotype, even the children. As a result, the two communities continue to hate each other while remaining in the same house.

The great problem here is that when people are different they can put one another down. The French don’t see the gypsies as people worthy of helping and the gypsies don’t see the French as people worth respecting. Because the two are diverse, they can’t see eye to eye and therefore have yet been able to coexist togethe

[i] Rosenberg, Matt. “How Big Are the Continents?” About.com Education. About.com, 16 Jan. 2016. Web. 01 Oct. 2016. <http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/largecontinent.htm>.

 

Image: Laccino, Ludovica. “Roma-only Bus Route in Montepellier: 5 Countries Where Romani People Suffer Discrimination.” International Business Times. International Business Times, 13 Apr. 2015. Web. <http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/roma-only-bus-route-montepellier-5-countries-where-romani-people-suffer-discrimination-1496193>.

 

 


03
Oct 16

(Intergroup Relations/Diversity) Do All Lives Matter?…

…and why are so many hell-bent on saying that they do?

As I start writing this blog, I cannot ignore the anxiety and hesitancy I am feeling by doing so. I am worried of offending and I am worried that I could come off as someone who is conveying that they understand, when in all reality, there is no way for me to even begin to understand. I am worried that who I am will devalue the message I am trying to present and I am worried that my own ignorance on these matters will cause even more hurt when so much pain has been inflicted for far too long. I am most worried my words will not adequately convey what is in my heart. So who am I? I am a white woman. I am the product of an upper middle-class family. I was raised in a small city where people of color account for 6.1% of the population (United States Census Bureau, 2010). I am someone who was raised to believe that “all men (AND WOMEN) are created equal” and because of that, racism really did not exist, at least not on a large scale. I am someone who knows nothing of what a person of color faces on a day-to-day basis, but I do know one thing, and that one thing is that this is an uncomfortable subject and it is a subject that NEEDS to be talked about.

When the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement came to national attention, I was one of the first to say “all lives matter.” I cannot express how incredibly fortunate I am to have a dear friend who is not easily offended by my ignorance. I am fortunate to have a friend who was able to gently explain to me that, in the reality we live in and as unfortunate as it is, the truth of the matter is that all lives do not matter, and that is what BLM is addressing and trying to change. I am so thankful for my friend who is willing to make herself vulnerable in order to share her experiences with me so that I can crawl out of my own bubble and face the hard truth of racism and discrimination that I simply have just not wanted to recognize.

My parents ingrained in me the notion that we are all to be colorblind. I respect their intentions in doing this, but I am finally starting to understand how that mentality has contributed to the belittling of the individuals who are facing and suffering from the harsh reality of racism. When I look at it now through a different perspective, I realize that by carrying this attitude, I have been demonstrating ambivalent racism. I held the attitude that although minorities could be treated unfairly, the burden of responsibility was placed on their shoulders to “pick themselves up by the bootstraps,” and if they did, well then, they would be able to get ahead and succeed in life (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). For a long time, this soothed my conscience any time I would see the injustices and the suffering in communities that were made up of people who did not look like me.

I could be worse, right? I have been around people who demonstrate blatant racism. I have been around the people who have shouted racial slurs and have made it no secret that they thought themselves better and more deserving just because they were white (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). And for heaven’s sake, it’s not even like I was demonstrating aversive racism, right? I have family members swear up and down that they are anything but racist; they know that being racist is not a good thing, so they adamantly deny their racism, but once they are done denying that they are prejudiced, the hateful and condescending words come spewing from their mouths (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Wait, wait, I can’t REALLY be THAT bad can I? I’m not even a symbolic racist! I don’t have to preface my thoughts and ideologies with the phrase that “I have nothing against people of color . . ..” I don’t condemn programs that were created to give the disenfranchised equal access to rights and privileges like the symbolic racist does (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). No, I am just demonstrating the qualities of an ambivalent racist and that’s the least racist one!

 

I, Emily, the ambivalent racist.

I, Emily, the racist.

I am a racist.

 

Wow.

No longer may I take advantage of the privilege of trying to soothe my own conscience. So, what now? The only thing that I can come up with is it is no longer acceptable to stay silent. The only thing that I can come up with is that if I want to break free of my own racism and my own shame, I have to speak out and against the racism that is running rampant in our society, and to accept my own responsibility in its existence. I present this writing with little to no solution in regards to the stain on my own character and the stain on the character of society; I only write so that maybe a conversation can be started and with the hope that one day, a solution can found so that wounds may begin to heal.

So no, all lives do not matter. And, until that day, the day when black lives, and brown lives, and LGBTQ+ lives, and indigenous lives, and the lives of all those oppressed REALLY DO MATTER, I will stand, and I will fight, and I will no longer be silent.

**End note: I have attached a video that I encourage you, the reader, to watch. It’s about a half an hour long, so if you have some time, I highly recommend it. Two friends of mine that I grew up with held an event in response to the recent series of shootings of black individuals by law enforcement officials. Its purpose was to bring together a diverse audience and to have an open and candid conversation. The conversation was uncomfortable at times, some comments were prickly, but it was a safe atmosphere that  has hopefully set in motion the change that many of us want to see.**

(Cichocki, 2016)

 

References

Cichocki, C. (Director). (2016). The Grand Exchange: Understanding the Black and White [Internet Documentary].

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC: SAGE Publications, Inc.

United States Census Bureau. (2010). Community Facts. Retrieved October 2, 2016, from American Fact Finder: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF


02
Oct 16

Cultural differences and Diversity

This subject is very broad because it discusses diversity, and diversity is actually present everywhere we go. United States is a big example of diversity as we can encounter a huge mixture of race, languages and habits all in one country. Or at least, this is what everybody believes, that the diversity here is a positive visible factor of growth and the United States is formed by a great part of influence from other countries and cultures (Schneider, Grumman, & Coutts, 2012, p. 325). It is also known for all of us that this country is considered an individualistic society where most social experiences are focused around the individual and not around the collective group (Pfundmair, Graupmann, Frey, & Nilüfer, 2015). That being said, is United States really diverse? How much cultural influence is really absorbed by this nation?

Interestingly, many people believe that the influence is actually strong. However, when we approach actual different ethnic and social groups the scenario seems to be a little different. The percentage of interracial and intercultural marriages compared to the actual size of immigration slots is definitely small. Also, the interaction between minority and majority groups and the intergroup contact is definitely limited due to personal and social identity (Bikmen, 2011). Researchers are very interested in understanding how the cultures merge. Tili at al. (2015) have found that conflict in intimate, intercultural relationships is very common due to personal identity. Of course cultural differences are not exclusively the byproduct of culture; however, many people who decided to engage in intercultural marriages face unique challenges trying to adapt to the social context together. The same is applied to interracial marriages and social contact in the multicultural space (Tili, & Barker, 2015). The challenges are often related to diverse values, perspectives, and communication styles.

I personally have been in contact with people from multiple cultures, and it is very clear to me that the merging process can be complicated and frustration can easily arise because of the cultural differences. My own experience also says a lot, as I am a product of both interracial and intercultural marriage. It takes many years to finally be able to understand and cope with the other culture because the cultural values are definitely very different. The diversity conflict is everywhere in my life, from food consumption to social perception. At first it is a struggle to really accept those differences, but with a lot of comprehension, love and a compromising style (Schneider et al., 2012) the process gets smoother with time. The list of cultural shock and conflicts is actually endless, and it takes a lot of determination to get through it. I know for fact that my friends from other cultures, even Europeans, go through the same process and it is a relief to understand that the American diversity is in fact complicated not only for me but for most immigrants or descendants.

One good aspect of the diversity existent in the United States is that it generates social opportunities for everybody no matter the gender, race or social class because functional diversity is supposed to enhance group effectiveness and creativity (Schneider et al., 2012, p. 336). However, there are many other challenges that seems to overcome the good aspects such as prejudice and discrimination that exist and is very often reported (Huang, 1997). The most negative effect in social interactions between groups is perceived by ‘stereotyping’, the belief some people create about others’ behaviors or characteristics can really affect diversity and cultural interactions because those preconceived concepts create bias. This is a real threat to the cultural merging process and may explain why we live under a  social conflict that I call pseudo-diversity (Schneider et al., 2012, pp. 337-338). The stereotyping habit causes social conflict in marriages, schools or colleges, and at the work place.

Due to this scenario, I believe that the contact theory does not have enough effectiveness because cultures from all the world interact between themselves in the United States, although there is still a lot of biases and stereotyping behavior on the social environment. Of course other factors such as personal and social identity (WC, Psych 424, lesson 6) play a role in this scenario, but overall, what we expect is the existence of a cultural unity since the exposure to diversity occurs all the time. Instead, what I perceive all the time is a social dominance orientation among social groups, they develop their own group-based hierarchies’ system and seclude themselves from cultural influences from out-group members (WC, Psych 424, lesson 6). Seems to me that this kind of behavior make themselves feel more comfortable about their group compared to others.

Those intergroup relationships reflect the pseudo-diversity I believe exist in this country, as it is very clear that social interactions processes do not occur naturally for most of the groups. All interactions including cultural, educational, professional and personal are at risk of been biased and can be avoidant of contact with out-groups. It is a sad scenario, but it happens every day and the so believed diversity in this country is actually threatened by stereotype threat (Schneider et al., 2012, p. 338).

Reference

Ahrens, L. (2013, Feb. 26). “The Great American Melting Pot video.” Schoolhouse Rock. Music & lyrics by Lynn Ahrens; vocals by Lori Lieberman. ABC-TV, 1977 educational series. New York; United States. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/5ZQl6XBo64M

Bikmen, N. (2011). Asymmetrical effects of contact between minority groups: Asian and black students in a small college. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17(2), 186-194. Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/868623879?accountid=13158

Foner, N. (2009). The American melting pot is a rich stew: Immigrants become attached to their new country, despite fears to the contrary. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 89(2), 7.

Huang, F. (1997). Asian and Hispanic immigrant women in the work force: Implications of the united states immigration policies since 1965. New York: Garland Publishing.

Penn State University, World Campus (Fall, 2016). Psych 424: Lesson 6. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1802487/discussion_topics/11378499?module_item_id=21233957

Pfundmair, M., Graupmann, V., Frey, D., & Aydin, N. (2015). The different behavioral intentions of collectivists and individualists in response to social exclusion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(3), 363-378. doi:10.1177/0146167214566186 Retrieved from: http://psp.sagepub.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/content/41/3/363

Schneider, F.W., Grumman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012) Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Tili, T. R., & Barker, G. G. (2015). Communication in intercultural marriages: Managing cultural differences and conflicts. Southern Communication Journal, 80(3), 189. doi:10.1080/1041794X.2015.1023826


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