Whenever I have a free moment away from school and work, I like to spend some time online playing video games to free myself of responsibilities. Although it may not seem like much, there are a lot of different factors that bring me, and others like me, together online to play these games. There is also a big difference between the gaming community I am a member of compared to either my school or work communities.

Even though it is harder to develop these key factors or characteristics of a community when it is online, the gaming community allows me to experience four primary elements: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and a shared emotional connection with other members (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016). Firstly, in games or matches, I am often a member on a team or squad. Here, I am able to get to know others on my team and form connections with people who are of the same experience level as me. This feeling of fitting in keeps me returning to the games. The better I get at the game, the more influence I feel that I have. Others on my team can look to me for tips or directions on plays because of my experience with the game. This helps me to feel like I have some importance in my group. Integration and fulfillment of needs refers to this act of working together as a team to complete our common and final goal: winning the game. By working together and acknowledging each others skills, we are able to be more efficient and effective in our plays. Finally, I can find a shared emotional connection for the love of this game if I am talking to my friends over chat. I can hear the enthusiasm or anger in their  voices when we are playing a match. This helps to realize that they are just as consumed by this game as I am.

There is a big difference between my gaming community online and my work or school communities. Although my school community is also online, there is a much lesser urgency to work together or know my classmates. Most of my work for school is independent. In the gaming community, majority of the time there is a dependency on your teammates to help you win the game. In other words, communication is important in order to succeed. It is not hard to succeed in my online classes without the help of classmates (in fact, solo work is encouraged). For work, I am still going in and working face-to-face. With the gaming community, I do get to experience some anonymity. Although I am talking to my friends or complete strangers, they cannot see my face. I can hide emotions whenever I want. Working face-to-face lacks this anonymous ability.

Belonging to an online gaming community has been extremely beneficial for me. Especially during the pandemic, I have found this online world to be a boredom killer, an easy socializer, and an escape from stress. I also enjoy the little escape from reality. I can be whoever I want to be online. I don’t think this negatively affects my ability to communicate with others face-to-face because I am still seeing people at work. If anything, this time online gives me a release from constant pressures and tensions I experience on the daily in public.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

As we are all familiar by now, in March of 2020 the world was plunged into a devastating pandemic and life as we knew it radically changed. Before the start of the pandemic, I was living life the way a typical girl in her early twenties would. My weekdays were spent working, doing schoolwork, and going to spin classes in the evenings. My weekends were spent shopping, going out with my friends, and most importantly, traveling. Then when the pandemic began, and everything shut down, I went into a full-blown panic. What was I going to do to entertain myself now that I was stuck at home 24/7? My prospects seemed bleak and for the first few weeks I felt like I was stuck in a rut, in a constant cycle of working remotely, watching my university lectures and completing schoolwork. The reward and release that my weekends provided was gone. I began to search for new ways to entertain myself from home and that’s when I discovered the world of online communities, more specifically, The Morning Toast podcast.

The podcast/show, hosted by Instagram-famous meme queen and comedian Claudia Oshry and her sister Jackie, is a daily morning event about pop culture. The podcast talks about everything from celebrity news, to T.V. shows and even current events. The girls were successful in forming a community of hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners which they grew and expanded on their various social media platforms. Their most successful venture is a Facebook group called “The Toasters”. This is a group in which their community could post conversation topics and people could then join in and contribute to the various discussions. The Toasters group is where one goes to get the first inside scoop on everything pop culture, ask for recommendations on products, and even connect with people about things like job opportunities. There are even a bunch of Toaster subgroups, that is specific groups of listeners with common interests. For example, I joined the Miami Toasters group, Penn State Toasters group and Legal Toasters group.

With the development of the Internet, we now have a new type of community, that is, an electronic or virtual one. Recent studies have examined and tested the construct of “virtual sense of community”, and refined ways to measure this construct. A number of studies have found that establishing a sense of community online can be particularly advantageous for particular subgroups of people who may experience specific barriers to participation in communities of interest offline (Gruman et al., 2016). The Toasters allows for a group of girls with common interests to connect and experience events with one another. Some members of this community are so invested that they voluntarily elect to take on a managing role in these Facebook groups. That is, they monitor the posts to make sure there is nothing posted that would be deemed offensive and even take it upon themselves to organize local, in-person meetups for those interested. Members who have a strong attachment to their online community are crucial to its success. Strongly attached members also help enforce norms of appropriate behavior, police the community and sanction deviant behaviors, and perform behind the scenes work to help maintain the community (Ret et al., 2012).

Unfortunately, the Morning Toast has recently been plagued by scandal. It turns out that the mother of the two hosts is an anti-Muslim, far-right political commentator. The online community demanded that the sisters speak out against their mothers’ beliefs, but they refused to do so. In turn, their community lost thousands of members – myself included. However, my experience being a Toaster is much appreciated as it brought me a sense of community during a time when it seemed as if communities themselves were a notion of the past.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Ren, Y., Harper, F., Drenner, S., Terveen, L., Kiesler, S., Riedl, J., & Kraut, R. (2012). Building Member Attachment in Online Communities: Applying Theories of Group Identity and Interpersonal Bonds. MIS Quarterly, 36(3), 841-864. Retrieved April 1, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41703483

Two communities I thought would be interesting to compare for my blog post this week are my organization at Penn State, The Multicultural Undergraduate Law Association, where we help to prepare minorities for the law school journey. And my online community I am apart of via group me named “Black Girls Do Law”. These two organizations are very similar in which they provide resources and help minorities navigate the law school journey. The only differences are that one is specifically for women, and one is completely online and the other is in person (except for this year due to COVID).

I can personally say that these two organizations offer me different things. According to the reading this week states “participation on social networking sites promotes a sense of ‘networked individualism’ rather than a true sense of community” (Gruman, 2016). I definitely see this when it comes to my online community. There are about 2,000 women in the community chat I am in from across the world. When I joined the chat, I didn’t know what to expect. As I have been going through my law school application process, I realized they are a social support group. If I have any hardships or any questions about the process I can write in this chat and someone will get back to me within the next few seconds. There are also 2,000 women who attend different law schools from around the world that can be a great source of networking. In a few years, I will be able to give those answers to the new women in the chat who needs help as I did.

This online community differs from my face-to-face one in the sense that I initially joined it to make friends that had similar interests as me. I wanted friends to socialize with and although we would be talking about law school, I wanted a friend where we could hang out and do other stuff as well such as go out to eat, paint, watch movies, etc. In the reading it states “members of social networking sites tended to have large friend networks, their networks contained a number of people they didn’t know or knew on a very limited basis, and many of their “friends” did not know others in their network” (Gruman, 2016). From personal experience this is true. In my in person community, we do bonding events where even if I don’t personally know someone, I know somethings about them. In online communities, I pick and choose who to interact with.

Evidently, both my organization have its perks and things that may not be so great. However, the mission is carried out within both.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Hart, K. E., & Ianni, P. A. (2016). Applying Social Psychology to Personal Relationships. In L. M. Coutts, J. A. Gruman, & F. W. Schneider (Eds.), Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (pp. 525-547). SAGE Publications.

The United States and realistically, the world, has been seeing a great deal of social action taking place in recent months. Social action is the idea that great change can be achieved through the collective action stimulated by community organization (Lafreniere, Page & Senn, 2016). This idea has been known to be effective in achieving change, as demonstrated by the O’Hare airport bathroom protest, the 1960s “shop in”, and the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement (Lafreniere et al., 2016). These three examples of social action shared many characteristics, among these were following some of the rules written by Saul Alinsky in his 1971 book Rules for Radicals. All three community organizations followed the rules that “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself” (p. 129), and “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have” (p. 127) (Lafreniere et al., 2016). These examples of social action successfully achieved the objective they were designed for, and this outcome may cause many activists to attempt to tackle current issues through the implementation of these tactics. However, to achieve a similar outcome with current issues such as discrimination, these tactics may need to be adapted.

The world no longer operates primarily in a face-to-face manner unless it is necessary, especially with the effects of COVID-19. For this reason, the current protests aimed at discrimination, executed in a similar manner to social action designs of the past, may not achieve the intended effects. Organizing in large masses and speaking out against discrimination does achieve a sense of community, but simply by seeing the amount of people who partake in these protests, provides evidence that it is not the majority who retains a flawed mindset. To eliminate the belief that discrimination is acceptable in minds of those who exercise it, social action designs must target those individuals. One potential method for achieving this goal is the application of participatory research.

Participatory research is a process that involves the affected group in the investigation, education, and action processes of the study (Lafreniere et al., 2016). During the investigation process, the researcher conducts a social investigation of the affected group for the posing and potential solving of the problem (Lafreniere et al., 2016). Next, the researcher compiles all the collected information and educates both themselves and the affected group on the issue, its causes, and the potential solutions (Lafreniere et al., 2016). Finally, the affected group and the researcher collaborate to act against the problem and accomplish change (Lafreniere et al., 2016). The participatory research process would be effective in combatting discrimination, because it would identify the instances of discrimination, educate all who experience it on the potential occurrences of it, and how they must act to change the mindset of those exercising discrimination.

The scientific process is a tool that seeks to provide answers to problems people have either faced or thought of facing. A researcher forms a hypothesis and conducts an experiment to find out what causes or could solve the circumstances in their hypothesis. By simply employing outdated techniques of protest, social action is targeting entities that have the same ability to cause change as the individuals protesting. However, by employing the scientific process to identify causes and situations from affected groups and educate the same on when discrimination occurs and how they can achieve change, those who continue to discriminate against others can be targeted and combatted effectively. Specifically, the scientific process that would result in positive change against discrimination is participatory research.

References

Lafreniere, K. D., Page, S., & Senn, C. Y. (2016). Applying Social Psychology to the Community. In L. M. Coutts, J. A. Gruman, & F. W. Schneider (Eds.), Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (pp. 406-442). SAGE Publications.

According to the textbook, belief perseverance is when people tend to maintain their initial ideas or beliefs despite exposure to disconfirming evidence. They may discredit, ignore, misinterpret, or give the disconfirming information little weight, but the effect is the same in that their ideas or beliefs persist (Gruman, 2016). When I first read about this theory, it made me think of everyday situations. People often have belief perseverance for everyday things such as concepts in school, politics, theories, and even beliefs about other people that may not necessarily be true.

This made me thing of another common concept in psychology called confirmation bias. This is the tendency for someone to see things that confirm their own beliefs. I feel as though confirmation bias and belief perseverance are similar in various aspects. First being that both tend to stem from beliefs one may have previously. Another being that it tries to ignore facts as well as dismiss any other outside opinion because they want to believe their own.

From my personal experience, these types of people are demonstrate certain characteristics about them. They tend to be close minded and only associate themselves with people with similar views. Although this is a normal thing to do, I believe it is important to be open minded when it comes to your beliefs and values. Although you may still not change your mind, in order to become a well-rounded person, I think it is important to ensure you hear others out and not just seek validation from people you know will confirm your views.

These concepts make up our everyday lives. Interventions need to be implemented from a young age to reduce belief perseverance so our future children grow up to be more open minded as well as well rounded individuals. This can reduce issues within racism, discrimination, politics, etc.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Self-Handicapping is the act of undermining their subsequent performance, thereby having excuses for potential failures. (Gruman et al., 2017, 227) It can be seen as having an excuse ready, when you studied less than you should have. The common statement of: “Sorry, I do not have my homework because my dog ate it?”. Main of us are serial procrastinators, however, is it do to self-handicapping or is it vise versa?

Procrastination is the delaying of the completion of a task or intended course of action that can either be adaptive or maladaptive coping strategy (226). It can be due to working better under pressure, a fear of failing or a lack of self-regulation. According to the article by MindTools, there are eight ways to stop procrastinating. The steps is to first recognize that you are procrastinating, figure out why and adopt new strategies. the strategies include: forgiving yourself for procrastinating in the past, commit to the task, promise yourself a reward, ask someone to check up on you, act as you go, rephrase your internal dialog, minimize distraction, and aim to eat an elephant beetle first (get the hardest things out of the way) (the Mind Tools Content Team By the Mind Tools Content Team, Team, wrote, wrote, & wrote).

Beck, Koons, and Milgrim, studied the correlation of procrastination and self-handicapping from the self-report tests they collected from the 400 college students and found a positive correlations (447). Individuals who self handicap began studying for exams later than those who do not. Zuckerman, Kieffer and Knee (1998) found that self-handicappers were directly correlated with lower GPAs, less time spent on academic low and less efficient exam preparation (447). Elliot and Church (2003) found that self handicapping is positively correlated with fear of failure and negatively correlated with need for achievement (447-448).

The continuation of procrastination and self-handicapping will do more harm than good in the long run. One could say that procrastination leads to self-handicapping as one typically is aware that they are self-handicapping when they wait till the last minute to do things. The other argument could be that self-handicapping could lead to procrastination. If you are already going in with the assumption that you are going to do bad or already have an excuse ready, it will prolong you from doing your work. This association is similar to the chicken and the egg: who came first. Both are self-serving strategies that have evidence or understandings that one could lead to the other.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: SAGE.

The Mind Tools Content Team By the Mind Tools Content Team, Team, T., Wrote, B., Wrote, I., & Wrote, M. (n.d.). How can I stop procrastinating?: Overcoming the habit of delaying important tasks. Retrieved March 25, 2021, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_96.htm

Growing up is hard. You’re constantly changing, whether it be your mind, body, interests, etc. You’re stuck trying to figure out who you are, what you like and dislike, and in the school setting, you’re doing it at the same time as everyone else. Well, maybe not the exact same time as everyone else. Everyone grows and changes at different rates and it can take years until you finally figure out who you really are. Figuring all of this out at the same time as everyone else around you becomes a stressful situation for some. No one wants to be the odd one out in the group, we all desire to fit in one way or another. In some cases, some get put down by others even though they’re all going through the same growing-up processes, so why do they do it?

When you think of a bully, what kind of characteristics do you first think of? Bullies are often stereotyped as loners and people with low self-esteem. It is a popular belief that bullies make fun of others because they aren’t happy with themselves, but that isn’t the case all the time. Unfortunately, there are more reasons as to why school-aged children put down others in the first place. Most often, it is due to prejudice. If someone is different from the rest, they become an easier target. In this case, kids are made fun of for the things they have no control over. Kids with special needs are often found as easy targets for some school-aged children. Race, sexual orientation, and sometimes religion can also become a factor as well.

Some kids may bully others due to popularity. Some believe, due to the account of social positioning, that they will manifest a higher social status by their classroom peers by engaging in bullying. In these cases, the kids who are deemed as “less popular” are the ones getting picked on. This type of bullying can cause slut-shaming, gossiping, and rumors being spread around in order to make the targeted person feel lesser. This kind of reasoning for bullying also bleeds into two other reasons. The first one being peer pressure. A group might join in on bullying the target just in order to fit in with the group. There is a fear surrounding children and teens in school about not fitting in, and most will do whatever in order to stay within a group and not look like the odd one out. Another reasoning could be payback. Someone may justify their bullying because they were the victim of bullying. This kind of way creates what seems like a neverending cycle of fear and harassment, which is completely unneeded as kids grow up.

Bullying and getting picked on by peers in the classroom creates unwanted stress for kids. It’s hard enough to grow up, everyone knows that. Being picked on and seen as different should never be a bad thing, especially while in school. Over the years, schools have put into place different programs and activities surrounding bullying and how to put an end to it, but there seems to always be a mean streak deep inside of someone.

Reference:

Thornberg, R., & Knutsen, S. (2011). Teenagers’ explanations of bullying. Child & Youth Care Forum, 40(3), 177-192. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1007/s10566-010-9129-z

How people perceive themselves actually affects their performance. (Gruman et al., 2017) This is a practical example of self-efficacy, which essentially one’s belief in self of what they’re capable of and what they’re able to do. (Gruman et al., 2017) When one believes that they are capable or deserving of something they are more likely to achieve or obtain those things successfully. There are students that actually have false beliefs about themselves.

The Chapter 9 text shares that we often give ourselves too much credit.  Some individuals believe that they are more superior and more deserving of benefits and rewards. (Gruman et al., 2017) A false perception of self can also have an effect where one inaccurately believes that they are inferior. These beliefs lead to cognitive messages that they are not able to succeed. These beliefs also lead to individuals not believing that they deserving or are capable of achieving greatness. These thoughts and feelings of inadequacy lead to resentment in the classrooms. (Gruman et al., 2017) When students believe that they are not good enough, they began to feel resentment. This resentment towards themselves and their performance in school results in disdain towards school. (Gruman et al., 2017)

The disdain leads to a devaluation of education because of not valuing one’s self and lack of positive reinforcements regarding their academic performance (Gruman et al., 2017). It is highly likely that they will continue to perform poorly in the classroom. This also increases the likelihood that they will not successfully transition to becoming a successful and responsible adult. (Gruman et al., 2017) An unsuccessful transition will lead to the incapability of being able to provide for themselves and contribute in a positive and significant way to their community. When an individual possesses negative beliefs of self, it is unlikely that they will be equipped with intrinsic motivation.

The lack of intrinsic motivation will lead to self-serving strategies of procrastination and self-handicapping. (Gruman et al., 2017) The student will have a tendency to struggle with keeping up with tasks. The student will also tend to struggle with paying attention to the key details to perform and execute. These behaviors can serve as a deterrent and lead to even more demotivating internal factors. The thoughts and perception that a student has about themself significantly impact their performance in the classroom. (Gruman et al., 2017) This demonstrates the need for intervention strategies to provide an environment where the student feels a sense of belonging. The student should also be able to contribute in a meaningful way in the classroom as a result of intervention strategies.

References

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied Social Psychology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc

If you are anything like me, you believe you do best “under pressure”. In other words, you may be quite fond of waiting till the last second to finish everything you need to do. Maybe it’s the thrill of being on a time limit, or maybe it’s just pure laziness.. Whichever it may be, it seems to be a never ending personality trait of mine.

Procrastination is most simply defined as “delaying the completion of a task or intended course of action” (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016). Procrastination is not seen as a positive, especially in the educational universe. Many people struggle with procrastination on the daily. If a task seems too big or even too important, this could cause a lack of urgency to complete it. There are many reasons behind this lack of urgency, but the main reasons would be fear of failure or disinterest. Having a low self-esteem or low self-confidence can also lead to a life full of procrastination. Although it is a hard fault to combat, there are tactics that can be used in order to help prevent the act of procrastination.

In order to stop procrastinating, you need to fully dedicate yourself to improving your attentiveness to tasks that are urgent or undesirable. One way to stop procrastinating would be to promise yourself a reward after the completion of a task. For example, if I needed to write a paper for school, I could promise myself a trip to get a milkshake upon the completion of my paper. This way, I am replacing the thought of something undesirable (my paper) with something desirable (a milkshake). Another important factor to consider would be the minimization or elimination of external distractions. This could mean, but is not limited to: tv, music, social settings, or social media, etc. Some tasks can be daunting in appearance. If something seems to be too overwhelming, try breaking it down into different parts (Hochman, 2019). You may find that what seemed to be a huge and extensive task was really just a few simple tasks combined into one.

Sometimes procrastination can lead into self-handicapping behavior. Self handicapping “refers to creating barriers to successful performance prior to an achievement task” (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016). You may be a culprit of this if you often set yourself up for limited time to study, or miss a meeting or deadline. This type of behavior allows you to blame any failure on an “valid” excuse. An example of this would be going out the night before an assignment was due, leaving yourself minimal time to complete it. If you get a bad grade, you can blame it on not being home to do a proper completion of the assignment. If you get a good grade, you can feel pride in the fact you were able to do well under those conditions.

Although it is inevitable that we are going to procrastinate at some points in our lives, it is best to start getting out of the dirty habit. In the end, procrastination only hinders our ability to succeed. Even though I would love to claim that I do best when I’m cramming something in last minute, I know my best work is done if I give myself time and put in the most effort.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Hochman, A. (2019). Teach yourself how to stop procrastinating homework. Retrieved March 25, 2021, from https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/how-to-stop-procrastinating-homework-make-it-a-priority/

I have never heard of “A Class Divided” before this lesson. This lesson impacted me immediately, partially because I am a teacher of young children. The teacher has created a way to have children experience discrimination first hand. When you feel discrimination first hand, you can feel how terrible it is. When the teacher did this experiment with children, the children completely begin to change and turn against their friends because they are deemed “lesser”. Then when she did this experiment with adults, I was astonished how the adults reacted. Even the adults could learn this lesson, and it did change their mindsets. We often feel as if adults are stuck in their ways, but these adults felt the discrimination in an hour and a half.

The children were split into two groups brown eyes and blue eyes, then they were told that one group was superior over the other. This experiment solidifies the ideas that Bandura explained with his Bobo Doll Experiment. Children model behavior they see others do. These children quickly began name calling and outing the children in the other groups, after seeing the teacher treat the children this way.

The powerful lesson in this video makes me feel as if we all can try harder to help end discrimination. As a teacher, I feel as if I can use my voice to teach children about discrimination. The students expressed “feeling like a family” after going through their discrimination. This explains why minority groups unite together, and feel so deeply when someone in their community is targeted. These individuals all share the fact that they are discriminated against regularly. They can relate to that person on a deeper level. This video really has spoken to me, and has made me want to be trained to teach this lesson to my own students. I feel like this training is relevant, especially now. The teacher expressed how she wanted her training to be completely wiped out, but I think it needs to become worldwide. I wonder how much could change, if this was implemented in our schools.

References

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

During the time I spent studying at Erasmus University Rotterdam, problem-based learning (PBL) was the method of teaching used in my Psychology department. Problem-based learning puts emphasis on the active participation of the students to find the information necessary to understand and achieve their learning goals (Gruman, Schneider & Coutts, 2016). For a little background information, we would have one course going on at a time which would last approximately five weeks. We would meet in our assigned groups for the course twice a week for learning, and once a week as a whole department for our lectures. In addition, classes were referred to as tutorials so I will also be using that term.

Our PBL tutorials would consist of approximately 10 students. We would have a different tutor or instructor for each course who would guide us through the lesson. Each lesson followed the 7-step approach which consisted of clarifying unidentified terms, problem definition, brainstorm, analyzing the problem, formulating learning issues, and self-study (“Problem-Based Learning”, n.d.). The last step is where students come back to class and teach each other the material they have learned and answer the learning goals they made in formatting learning issues. This is where an assigned chair and scribe help guide the class.

The first six steps of the PBL approach allows students to give their opinion on the factors contributing to a particular phenomenon. For example, let’s say we were given a problem describing the bystander effect. While we clarify any unidentified terms, our tutor may suggest some terms important to understanding the problem. In the problem definition, we would formulate a question and sub-questions which we want answered. Regarding the bystander effect problem, one of our questions could be “Why doesn’t anyone help the homeless person who fell over?”.  During the brainstorm each student gets the chance to give their opinion, one by one, of what the answer could be and then we go on to analyzing the problem. Once we identify the possible factors contributing to the problem, we agree on a set of learning goals to answer. The sixth step is where we go back home and find the answers by looking through a set of textbooks assigned for the course. For each problem we usually have to cite two textbooks.

We were usually given two to three days before the next tutorial to gather our information. When we would meet back as a group, the assigned chair and scribe would take charge and we would answer the learning goals as a group. The tutor was there to answer anything students could not answer themselves but other than that, everything was pretty much run by the students. Whenever I was made chair or scribe, I felt the need to prepare well and maybe beyond expectations. I was never sure what would be covered during the tutorial, so I made sure to cross-reference more sources and add whatever the other was missing just in case a group member would bring it up. With PBL, I was given a lot more freedom than what is typical at Penn State however, with that there was more responsibility on me to make sure I gathered the right information for class. Class was definitely more interactive and fun but having to find our own answers for everything was a little stressful, especially when it came to topics like neuroscience.

Reference:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems : understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Problem-Based Learning. Retrieved 24 March 2021, from https://www.eur.nl/en/essb/education/exchange/incoming-exchange-students/education-essb/problem-based-learning

The intersection of Law and Psychology has a profound effect on both fields. In fact, the study and application of the Law is insufficient without understanding social psychology. Humans are wired to analyze and evaluate events from their own perspective and often fall prey to psychological loopholes.

Conformity is a prime example of such psychological loopholes. Being influenced by a group and culture, one might adjust or change their beliefs to conform to or fit in with the ideals of the group. Now, it can easily be argued that this is similar to assimilation, and as such, it’s just nature taking it course. However, what makes conformity a source of error is the fact that the change in behavior or beliefs is not rooted in logic and factualities, but it’s merely born out of the desire to please and the need to be included.

Take, for example, a jury for a case involving a death penalty case with the majority of the jurors favoring the death penalty for the committed act. Only one of the six jurors not only doesn’t favor the death penalty but also doesn’t believe in it as a form of punishment. Yet, that very same juror will conform to the group’s general consensus and vote in favor of the death penalty for this case. This is a prime example of unintended bias in the legal field.

Evidently, a study found that individuals who were put in a group that had an opposing political viewpoint were more likely to conform to the political beliefs of this group. This is contrary to the self-categorization theory which predicts that individuals will avoid conforming to the norms of the groups with which they don’t identify. Therefore, it is very likely jurors, just like any other individual, are prone to conforming the group’s beliefs.

Psychology is important to the field of Law and helps bring to light the errors and inaccuracies (intended or unintended) that will have a bearing on legal cases.

Though many generations and much time has passed since the era of blatant, explicit, mass, racial discrimination, that problem is not yet corrected in our society and more importantly, in the world. In recent months, the topic of racial/cultural discrimination and violence against “minority cultures” has been gaining traction, but we as the collective species of humans are far from an absolute solution. There are many factors that prevent the absolute abolishment of discrimination of all types, but a very simple first step that can be taken is creating unity and drawing the line where it always should have been, humanity. For this reason, I will utilize the word “people” to refer to the majority, regardless of the inclusion of individuals who may not employ certain behaviors, because until the human species (people) corrects its course, everyone is at failing. Additionally, the term “characteristic” will be utilized to identify any and all individual factors that may be used to cause division among people (race, culture, skin color, eye color, ancestral decent, height, mental capacity, etc.),  People consistently exacerbate the division of humans based on characteristics, and therein lies a root cause of the persistence of discrimination.

In 1968, Jane Elliot, a 3^rd grade elementary school teacher, conducted an experiment which demonstrated how identifying and praising even a single characteristic has devastating consequences. Ms. Elliot instructed her students to treat each other differently based on eye color, with blue-eyed people being superior one day and brown-eyed people being superior the next (Frontline, 1985). Within seconds of establishing this division, students began to treat the “inferior” eye-colored people with malice (Frontline, 1985). These students stated that upon the establishment of a condition where a characteristic made certain students superior, by an individual with the authority to establish such a condition, these “superior” children felt they were able to release all of their negative feelings (anger, frustration, sadness, hate) onto the “inferior” children without remorse (Frontline, 1985). When people create or maintain groups based on characteristics, division throughout the human species is maintained and increased, and the door remains open for discrimination to persist. This is due to imitating being a consequence of vicarious learning.

The world currently has many platforms with which authority figures and controlling entities can spread messages to the human species, the most prominent platform being the mainstream media. Albert Bandura, who developed social cognitive theory, stated that most of what people learn is in the messages distributed by the media (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). These messages and the way they are expressed enable the occurrence of the four processes necessary for vicarious learning (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). Bandura’s social cognitive theory states that individuals imitate behavior when it is vicariously learned (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). So, when the media distributes messages in which humans are divided based on characteristics, people vicariously learn this information and exacerbate the division of the human species into subgroups, consequently allowing discrimination to continue.

It is the identification and classification of groups by certain characteristics, which allows the problem of discrimination to persist. Discrimination is exacerbated by those who continue to believe that because history held certain characteristics as “superior” it is acceptable to sustain such a mindset. This mindset is objectively flawed, as we all share the unifying characteristic of humanity. In the pursuit of identifying all under the same characteristic of humanity, we must begin by, in the event of discrimination, identifying all within the United States as Americans rather than as members of subgroups. Though caution must be taken while eliminating the use characteristics in a manner that causes division into subgroups, as we do not seek to insult nor belittle these characteristics, but instead create the reality that all of the current subgroups within the United States are comprised of Americans, and an act of discrimination against one American is an act of discrimination against all Americans.

P.S. In case it is not obvious in the text above, I am not stating that characteristics (race, culture, skin color, eye color, ancestral decent, height, mental capacity, and include many more),  separate from the American should be eliminated. I am not stating that characteristics are irrelevant or insignificant, nor that they should derive a negative connotation. Rather I am stating that in the face of discrimination, the characteristic that identifies the victims should be the American. Victims of discrimination should not be identified by other characteristics while regarding discrimination so as to maintain unity throughout the nation and avoid allowing people to distance themselves from the responsibility of standing against discrimination.

References

Ewoldsen, D. R., & Roskos, B. (2016). Applying Social Psychology to the Media. In L. M. Coutts, J. A. Gruman, & F. W. Schneider (Eds.), Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (pp. 208-248). SAGE Publications.

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

Social media is such a big part of our lives now and it can either make us or break us. There is a rapper same Daniel Hernandez, also known as Tekashi69, many may not know him, but he has made himself well known in the world. He was just a regular kid from Bushwick New York, and his life changed drastically within the last three years. He started off a regular kid with friends hanging out and living his life. His father left him at a young age and his stepfather raised him for most of his life until he got brutally murdered. That changed Daniels life forever and the way he carried himself changed. He started to use social media for his clothing line when he was a teenager. While using social media selling his clothing, he started to meet people that he was not used to being around. Long story short he ended up becoming a world-famous rapper but hated by many around the world. Because of social media showing violence, drug usage, showing off weapons, etc., Daniel started to mimic what they do ten times worse.

When it comes to the Bandura social cognitive theory, this shows how Daniel imitate violence on social media when he got famous. In the first step: attention, he seen weapons such as guns being used, drugs, rappers going at each other’s throats, bullying through social medial so he started to do that. Second step is representational process which is basically remembering the violent actions that happens. Daniel who remember what others do and replicate it to make it seem like he’s the cool guy doing it know such as showing off guns and talking about other rappers. The third stage is behavioral production process, this is where you learn how to behave how others do on social media and try it out but do it in a worse way.

Daniel showed weapons off on social media and his music videos that were potentially used in a case the police department was investigating. The last step is the motivational process where the individual shows off the behavior, but it doesn’t have to be everything that he has learned. Daniel has shown the world and his fans a lot. Some others think his actions is funny that he is a “troll” other like me question like what is wrong with this kid. He talked a lot about others, started trouble with a bunch of other famous rappers and basically because of his actions of copying others, showing off violence he lost a lot of love from the world. He showed off he was down with a gang, smoking, weapons, drugs, etc., and he thought it was okay to do so on social media where there are millions of other people looking at him. He ended up in jail for his actions he put on social media, came out a year later and still talking about others through social media. Social media has its pros and cons, this is definitely a con. He took what he went through, what he thought was cool on social media and portrayed it in a worse way when he got famous.

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psycology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc

Witt, S. (2019, April 05). Tekashi 69: The rise and fall of a Hip-hop supervillain. Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tekashi-69-rise-and-fall-feature-777971/

I have always wondered why media violence always drew people’s attention. My family as well as my boyfriend always had a huge fascination with action movies as well as that is the only genre of movies they watch. They often say I am very boring because I like all movie genres besides action movies. According to the reading, premium channels such as HBO and Showtime have 85% of their shows containing violence (Gruman,2017). This is a coincidence because these are my family’s favorite TV networks.

It was very fascinating to read the reading regarding viewing media violence and the consequences, of this. Interesting enough, they state that watching violent TV shows often decrease violence which is known as the cathartic effect (Gruman, 2017). This was surprising to hear this because it is often believed that the more violence you watch, the more aggressive you become so this can be seen as a misconception.

This explains my family and my boyfriend though. They are the least violent and aggressive people you will meet, however, their entertainment consists of predominately action movies with killing, guns, and violence. I can say I am slightly more aggressive in comparison to them which proves the cathartic affect even more. Although there are studies such as the one in the reading that proves humans may imitate violence, there are a few factors that play a role in this in order for it to occur such as desensitization where people may learn aggressive behaviors but moral concerns and normative pressures will keep them from acting upon it (Gruman 2017).

My family and boyfriend are very religious and very moral people. Although they are entertained by this violence, they would never take part in anything like it because of their strong beliefs.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems : understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

As technology advances and becomes more of a norm, the role of social media begins to change. What was once something fun to interact with friends and family online, or even occasionally interact with to immerse yourself with different views in the world has now changed into something completely different. People heavily rely on social media nowadays. Some people use social media as a job, and those people are called “Influencers.” Influencers are people who have a large audience or fanbase and can help persuade, sell, advertise, or even influence their audience in whichever route they please. As influencers do this, they can create a steady source of income for themselves. Influencers only make up a small grouping of social media users, however, their use of media tends to bleed into what social media should be used for and how you, the viewer, should look like.

Influencers have a heavy role in beauty standards within society, without many people knowing it, in both men and women. When influencers post about their “perfect” life with their socially accepted and idolized bodies, the people viewing that start to think that they need to look like that to be accepted and wanted. The group of people who are affected the most by this are teenagers and young adults. Both men and women are affected by this, but there is more recognition in regards to women’s body standards. Influencers have such a heavy influence on society to the point where they have complete control over what can be considered socially acceptable or not just because of how younger generations look up to and copy what they’re doing. This can happen through product placement, fashion, and (as originally stated) beauty standards.

While some would think that social media influence can be shifted into something positive and understanding, helping easily impressionable minds be at ease with their body and their lifestyle, the effect is more of a negative one. Influencers post about their extravagant lifestyles, for the most part, showing off their traveling pictures, touched-up bodies, and faces. All influencers fit the same criteria, which is blatantly noticeable to anyone, making people believe that in order for them to be wanted and praised, they need to look like that. It creates a false reality and an impossible goal to obtain because most influencers don’t look like how they look on social media. Most retouch their faces and their bodies to remove “imperfections.” These “imperfections” are things out of anyone’s control, like acne, facial structures, or how their body looks. It creates an ideology that if you’re not “perfect,” you can’t be desired.

The type of influence influencers have on people is quite scary if you look at it. Some might go to the extremes in order to fit in with the norms when that shouldn’t have to happen. Social media has shifted into something that can be quite toxic. The need to be perfect and have a perfect lifestyle is overrated, in my opinion. Not everyone can live the same life as others, but that shouldn’t matter as long as you’re happy with the life you’re living. Social media shouldn’t be a place for competition and meeting societal goals and norms, and that’s something that needs to be changed for the sake of younger generations.

References:

Herring, S. C., & Kapidzic, S. (2015). Teens, Gender, and Self-Presentation in Social Media. Retrieved from https://info.sice.indiana.edu/~herring/teens.gender.pdf

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems : understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied Social Psychology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc

One of the most repetitive topics you learn about when learning about child development is how children act as little sponges. Children love to mimic things they see adults do, see other children do, or watch on a tablet or phone. I cannot even count how many times I have been asked to do something Blippy has done, because my students see him on their devices.

Due to my students’ ability to mimic my words and actions, I make sure to model the behaviors I desire such as manners, positive language, and good hygiene. When my students start displaying behaviors I have never seen before, my first question is always “are they mimicking this from somewhere else?”. When the parents/guardians cannot pinpoint where the behavior is originating from I immediately recommend them to watch some of their child’s favorite shows.

Many parents have realized that shows labeled for children are, in fact, teaching children the behaviors we do not approve of. Sue Palmer discusses the change in children’s behavior since television has become widespread. She explains that children are demonstrating more addictions, especially to devices. Teachers are reporting declines in empathy at alarming rates. Also, children are having a harder time remaining focused (Palmer, 2015). Sue believe this has a lot to do with television.

Sue’s claim does make sense, especially when you look at Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory. This theory explains that we learn vicariously through the media (Gruman, Schnieder, & Coutts, 2017). Therefore, these children can be learning these undesired behaviors through the shows they are watching. Personally, I know many families that have cut out screen time altogether for their children. While screen time can be partially to blame, I believe we need to remember that aggression is overdetermined. There are many factors that add to aggression, and while screen time may be adding to the aggression, it is not the sole reason.

References

Gruman, J. A., Schnieder, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2017). Applied Social Psychology (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publication Inc.

Palmer, S. (2015). Toxic Childhood. Great Britain: Orion Books LTD.

When I stayed over my friend’s house the other night, I was startled awake in the morning by the loud sounds of videos on YouTube echoing throughout the living room. Low and behold, her 5 year old nephew was fully immersed in his online world as if his hands were glued to his iPad. From the moment he wakes up, to the minute he falls asleep, that device is in his hands playing videos, listening to music, or playing games. Even at 5 years old, he knows the ins and outs of that piece of technology. This had me wondering: how detrimental is this technology to his social skills and abilities to express feelings? Also, how  safe are our youth on unprotected or unsupervised technology?

My biggest concern with children growing up in a heavily dosed technological society, is the almost certain disconnection from reality and a hindered developmental process. Because kids these days are constantly attached to their devices or watching a screen, they are losing opportunities to work on important social skills that require face-to-face interaction (French, 2017). This face-to-face interaction helps develop communication skills, verbal and non-verbal, as well as relationship and connection building. For instance, if kids are constantly glued to the screen and distancing from social interaction, they are beginning to practice isolation. This has the potential to cause few communication skills and negatively impact their ability to mingle or work with others.

Technology also encourages the behavior of a more stagnant lifestyle. In other words, there is little incentive for kids to join physical activities. Staying inside all day behind a computer screen leads to a higher risk of depression (French, 2017). Family time, socializing, and physical exercise are all necessary for the early development of children. This also falls on the guardians of the children. If parent’s are too involved in social media or screen time, this could disrupt their connection with their child. Being on their devices constantly is also setting an example for their kids. If any screen time is allowed in the household, it is recommended that it be with the accompaniment of an adult and less than one hour if the child is aged 2-5 (Westervelt, 2016).

Although majority of the sites and media my friend’s nephew is shuffling through are strictly educational or kid friendly, there are many opportunities for him to stumble upon something out of his age range. Yes, there are such things as parental blocks or guides in order to keep him on the right platforms, but who’s to say he won’t carry this learned information to other pieces of technology outside his home. Kids are fast learners. It’s incredible how much information they retain about technology at such a young age. Personally, I think the early introduction to technology opens a world of endless, and sometimes negative, possibilities.

It is understood that not every child develops the same way, so technology for some may be more beneficial than others. For example, educational sites may improve children’s ability to learn even while they aren’t in a classroom. Still, there is a threat that comes with technology at such a young age. Overall, it has the potential to impose negative traits or issues with development in children if technology isn’t guided or limited.

References:

French, M. (2017, April 12). Technology may have negative social effect on kids. Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://universe.byu.edu/2017/04/12/technology-may-have-negative-social-effect-on-kids/

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Westervelt, E. (2016, December 26). Screen time reality check – for kids and parents. Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/12/26/505905246/screen-time-reality-check-for-kids-and-parents

The year-long and continuous rampage of the COVID-19 virus has resulted in a shift of how people invest their time. Many individuals who spent their time toward developing/building careers, experiencing life, and exploring the world were forced to remain indoors and away from social environments. Since the indoor environment is not the one these people had become accustomed to, it was unclear how people would invest their time in the same. In 2009, 29% of adolescent time was spent on more than one source of media (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). Throughout the pandemic, many, if not all, of these adolescents are/were the adults who grew up utilizing multiple sources of media. Therefore, many people turned to the areas where they grew up spending their time, smartphones, computers, and television.

Media sources can be used for a variety of reason, and in the pre-COVID-19 world, they were utilized as primarily as a past-time which provided entertainment. This maintained a large part of the population free from experiencing agenda setting (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016) by mainstream media, unless they chose to expose themselves. Agenda setting is the idea that the issues people think about are controlled by the media (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). However, with media sources being the only methods for socialization during isolation and quarantine, and with humans being inherently social creatures (Miller, 2017), the array of content the population began to become exposed to widened. Media sources were no longer primarily a source for entertainment but were now the main source for communication and information. This expansion in content exposed more and more people to similar content and resulted in masses thinking about the same issues.

In 2020, the United States saw an increase in support and action against a myriad of social problems which many groups throughout the nation faced. Though this increase in support and action drives a positive change, the population must stay alert to the possible manipulation of the information they are exposed to. The agenda set forth by the media, can be manipulated so information shown covers only those issues important to the public, government officials and policy makers, or the media itself (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). These manipulations are known as the public agenda, policy agenda, and media agenda, respectively (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). The increased level of attention on media coverage allows the media to shift its goal from maintaining or increasing viewer ratings, by appeasing the public agenda, to furthering its own agenda, or that of policy makers, by exposing the population to that information which would drive change and support in areas beneficial to those in control of these resources.

Now, this sounds like there is some sort of conspiracy occurring and that this is a call to arms. However, the point here is to expose readers to take mainstream media information lightly and to dig deeper into this information before solidifying a mindset. Nowadays, rare is the media source that produces unbiased information. This manipulation of information may cause people to overestimate the importance or severity of some issues while underestimating the importance or severity of others. One example of this is the 1980s increase in U.S. public concern of illegal drug use while the reality was that the problem was decreasing (Ewoldsen & Roskos, 2016). So, when investing time to the intake of media information, some time should also be invested toward research and information verification.

References

Ewoldsen, D. R., & Roskos, B. (2016). Applying Social Psychology to the Media. In L. M. Coutts, J. A. Gruman, & F. W. Schneider (Eds.), Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (pp. 208-248). SAGE Publications.

Miller, R. (20171121). Intimate Relationships, 8th Edition. [[VitalSource Bookshelf version]]. Retrieved from vbk://9781260214482

I was talking to a friend last year who has different political views than I do. Although we shared a lot in common when we met 15 years ago, our last conversation had us both believing we were entirely different people. We concluded that our primary news sources had somehow changed us, and when we parted, we both suggested (strongly!) that the other spend more time watching a different channel. I haven’t followed up with him, but I took his advice and have been varying my news sources. However, my opinions haven’t changed.

We were both wrong about the news media creating our opinions, but we were on the right track in that they influence the things we think about – as well as the importance we assign to those topics (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016). When I read different news stories on the same subject, I find the greatest difference is in how the articles are framed. Framing is a method of focusing the reader to a certain part of the story, while pushing other parts deeper into the background (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016). An analogy is an old, framed photo of my wife from high school, where she folded the picture in a way that you see her with her parents – but not her old prom date! So, when competing news stations report on a story like the border, one writer may choose to frame a human rights angle, while another may choose to focus on security – each only providing a frame of the entire picture. Since we tend to easily recall and think about the things we’re frequently exposed to, greater importance is assigned to the issues we read the most (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016). I don’t know about you, but the more important I think an issue is, the stronger my opinion tends to be. So that’s what happened with my friend and me. We’ve always had different opinions, but our judgements on issues (and each other) have become deeper because of the way we are primed by what we read. He may see something good about an issue, while I see something bad – and vice versa. It’s all about perspective, and as long as our sources are reporting truthfully, our differences are likely a natural occurrence.

Are framed news stories honest? As long as the story is factual, I’d have to say yes. However, some people call framing a form of propaganda, where a curtain is pulled over information a reader might value (Spin versus framing: the tragedy of PR, 2008). I understand the author’s viewpoint, but I’m not sure that each news piece has to provide us a book on the subject either. When it comes to forming opinions, it’s up to each of us to ask ourselves questions about the things that aren’t right in front of us. World issues (especially political ones), aren’t as clear cut as some politicians would want you to believe. However, beware of some internet news sources (and many shared on social media) that use what some refer to as “spin” (Conkling, 2018). Framing gives you the part of the story the author wants you to focus on, but spin is written in a way to guide a reader to create a positive or negative opinion about what they’re reading (Framing the Spin, 2017). These articles typically use language that creates an emotional response, speaks positively towards their agenda, and negatively about those that oppose it. In many cases, spin authors aren’t very strict with their “facts” either, so when it comes to information we make salient, savvy news consumers should stay away from these articles.

References

Conkling, G. (2018, August 15). Further thoughts of framing, reframing, and spin. Retrieved from CFM Strategic Communications: https://hannah-smith-qt93.squarespace.com/public-affairs-blog/2018/8/15/further-thoughts-on-framing-reframing-and-spin

Framing the Spin. (2017, August 7). Retrieved from Blah Blah Blah: https://blahblahblah965.wordpress.com/2017/08/07/framing-the-spin/

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psycology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Spin versus framing: the tragedy of PR. (2008, August 31). Retrieved from Science Blogs: https://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2008/08/31/spin-versus-framing-the-traged

It never surprises me how movies are incorrectly displayed to viewers who then draw false perceptions to actual real life scenarios. One of the movies that comes to mind when I think of the judicial system is “The Town” starring Ben Affleck. Based on a true story of bank robbers, they are hunted by the FBI and local Boston Police. There is never a courtroom displayed but the movie ends with the main character evading police and lives in Florida peacefully while leaving a lover with millions stollen from the banks. Sadly, this is a myth and questions would arise as far as how an unemployed former bank manager managed to obtain millions to restore a abandoned ice rink in the city. While a great movie, it is the small details of incorrect information that lead to wrongful assumptions in real scenario cases.

The behavior of the main characters is important to pay attention to as the story line develops. There is often a protagonist who has an issue with another character seeking an end goal, person, or wealth. The movie I referred to earlier is an ideal example of how Hollywood’s judicial system is skewed. Many viewers often think it is possible to evade law as they did in the movie, but one main point is forgotten which is the lack of reality. A movie is created to draw upon emotion rather than facts.

Since emotions are draw upon more-so than factual reality, interviews are also presented in this. Ben is interviewed in the movie and we can from his behavior cues that the FBI and he himself know the truth of his actions against the banks ad armed cars. Police have a great deal of responsibility when interviewing suspects in monitoring these physical traits and also utilizing the Reid technique. “The Reid method is a system of interviewing and interrogation widely used by police departments in the United States. The term “The Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation” is a registered trademark of John E. Reid and Associates, Inc. According to the company’s website, over 500,000 law enforcement and security professionals have attended the company’s interview and interrogation training programs since they were first offered in 1974″(Orlando, 2021).

These staggering statics show the importance of the technique and how law enforcement can utilize these skills to hone in o the truth within suspects. For many of those who watch movies, these forgotten techniques are not forgotten to law enforcement which is also why many criminals who attempt such crimes are caught. “Some critics contend that the Reid Technique is premised on certain assumptions about human behavior that are not supported by empirical evidence, and that the technique may lead to false confessions. The company contends that critics mischaracterize the Reid Technique and that false confessions are caused by interrogators applying inappropriate methods not endorsed by the company” (Orlando, 2021).

References:
1) Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.comLinks to an external site.

2) Orlando, James. (2021). Interrogation Techniques. Retrieved from: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2014/rpt/2014-R-0071.htm

The United States criminal justice system and the population’s perception of the same is influenced by one of the largest fiction-oriented organizations on the planet, Hollywood. Movies about crime, mystery, and law enforcement are some of the most watched genres within the industry. However, these movies are mainly based in fiction and therefore the information and situations depicted are not accurate of the actual way the criminal justice system functions. The investigative process includes but is not limited to interviews, evidence analysis, eyewitness and victim accountability, and properly making an arrest (Day & Marion, 2016). However, in movies, the manner in which these factors are managed is misconstrued and dramaticized.

Movies often follow the life and investigative process of an individual or partnership while in the handling of a difficult case. Situations such as those in Silence of the Lambs, 21 Bridges, The Little Things, Spencer Confidential (just to name a few). In these movies, the protagonist often has some different and highly successful strategy for solving difficult cases; they can read people, they have an eye for detail, they can embody the criminal, etc. One of the most common strategies depicted in these films is the ability to determine when someone is lying or when the truth is being concealed; this can be seen in all previously listed movies. However, the ability to determine when someone is lying is not as simple and as obvious as it sometimes is shown in movies.

Movies often point out the behavior of individuals when being interviewed or when being followed. The protagonist will make decisions based on some type of tell displayed by the suspect which indicates a lie. The problem with this is that tells are not as easy to identify as movies make it seem (Day & Marion, 2016). These movies often focus on behavioral cues such as those taught by the Reid technique to determine if someone is lying (Day & Marion, 2016). The problem with this technique is that most of those behavioral cues have been determined to be poor indicators of deception (Day & Marion, 2016). The effect this has on the population is that the audiences of these movies will see the techniques utilized and believe they are accurate and actionable.

The world currently has a limitless amount of information at the fingertips of anyone with internet access. However, not all of this information is accurate, factual, or real. The criminal justice system is miscontrued to the public through the film industry. So, many individuals may judge or join the criminal justice system based on surface-level information they find and come across, that is incorrect and/or misleading. It is important for all individuals to be aware of this matter and to do extensive research when wanting to action something seen in a movie, because though it may seem very attractive in films, the reality can be much different.

References

Day, D. M., & Marion, S. B. (2016). Applying Social Psychology to the Criminal. In J. A. Gruman, F. W. Schneider, & L. M. Coutts, Applied Social Psychology : Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (pp. 367-405). SAGE Publications.

I remember as a child hearing about the conviction of Roy Krones, a man accused of raping and stabbing a woman to death.  As a child, I felt guilty that I was scared of him because I knew I was only scared of his physical appearance.  Even as a young child I knew it was wrong to have negative feelings about someone’s appearance, let alone assume his guilt based on such.  I felt even worse because I thought of how this man’s physical appearance was perpetuating national headlines dubbing him as the “Snaggletooth Killer.”

Over the course of my life I have seen how people relate physical appearance to one’s personality traits.  Ugly physical characteristics fuel dialogue that the individual must have ugly personality traits.  Krones, who was convicted for the brutal rape and murder of a Tennessee bartender, spent more than eight years behind bars before DNA could prove his innocence.

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) occurs when we overestimate the influence of internal factors and underestimate the influence of external factors when we evaluate others’ behavior (Gruman et al., 2017).  Research regarding FAE and false confessions have been studied by social psychologists for some time.  I applied the Fundamental Attribution Error to Krones from my thought process as a child.

Situational factors (external) are the result of an individual’s behavior.  In the case of rape and murder, there are usually many external and internal factors that contribute to the act.  Public opinion focuses on factors that exacerbate the likelihood of guilt.  In a perfect world, social psychologists could help with jury selection to decrease the likeliness of FAE from occurring.

References

Gruman, J. A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Removing members from the community, especially parents, has a significantly negative impact on society. The chapter 11 course text shared that due to biological influences males are the most likely to be the ones to commit crimes.(Gruman, 2017) Fatherless homes are plaguing society. Research shows that families and children specifically thrive the most as a member of the traditional nuclear family. (Taylor, 2018) The nuclear family includes the mom and the dad. The presence of two good standing parents are most likely to result in a healthy and loving home and community environment. This rate of nuclear families is steadily declining. This is a negative impact of the judicial system and it has a huge impact.

The reasons for these disruptions for healthy environments are the lack of resources and poor living environments are social. (Gruman, 2017) These factors leads to poor mental health, poor physical health, and poor emotional health. (Taylor, 2018) The status of these things all trickle into each other in a holistic manner. These create situations and circumstances that are extreme daily hassles and stressors, (Taylor, 2018) Arresting and removing people from the home and communities for extended periods of time in jail has not proven to be an intervention that has been effective in stopping crime and bettering the community and society.

The judicial system has been successful in providing consequences for crime. These consequences have been detrimental to families and communities. The judicial system has not demonstrated its proven effectiveness in stopping the motivating factors of crime. (Gruman, 2017) Addressing the motivating factors of crime is the best deterrent of crime, in my opinion. The lack of the resources and unsatisfactory living conditions are distracting and consume the cognition of individuals. (Taylor, 2018) These individuals do not have the capacity, time, or energy to focus on the things that make life enjoyable. (Taylor, 2018) They are not able to focus on their health due to the breakdown of family structures, which causes a strain on all stakeholders in society.

Individuals are not able to make meaningful connections due to the breakdowns in the communities because of the removal of its members due to the judicial system. Individuals are overwhelmed with worry of obtaining essential resources. (Taylor, 2018) The worry leads to stress that trickles into health conditions that limit them as well. (Taylor, 2018) These health conditions can be mental, physical, or emotional. The biological and sociological factors of poor health conditions are passed down through generations and cause deficiencies.

These deficiencies are not effectively mitigated and so that these families can thrive and positively contribute to society. The judicial system actually contributes to these strains by removing and not rehabilitating individuals to return to the community healed. These individuals return to the communities with more trauma and it exacerbates all of the negative factors. The judicial system is not intervening and meaningful ways that are impactful and effective at a root level not at the surface level. I believe this to be true because crime has not been remediated, it occurs in cycles. It is actually at root level where we reduce these issues. Reducing these issues has a benefit for everyone.

The majority of crimes are not motivated because of intrinsic reasons. The motivating factors for crimes are effected by external circumstances. (Gruman, 2017) The judicial system takes these parents out of the home. Therapeutic communities is a residential living environment where members can be treated from a holistic perspective to assist in changing their mindsets and behaviors to facilitate healing their root causes and deter the engagement in negative behaviors. (Gruman, 2017) I support the alternative of rebuilding these parents up in a therapeutic community. The principles of therapeutic communities were established by Maxwell Jones in 1953 to provide the framework for therapeutic communities. (Gruman, 2017) This will provide an alternative where offenders can come back and contribute to their home in society in a positive and meaningful way to make things better for everyone. They are currently removed and exposed to more trauma, This leads to the development of more problems, more lack, and more suffering. This is the impact of the justice system on families and communities.

References

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied Social Psychology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc

Taylor, S. E. (2018). Health psychology. 10th edition. New York: McGraw Hill

The transition from elementary school to middle school can be daunting for most kids approaching adolescence. They are nearing an important time in their development where their social groups consist much more of friends than family members. So, it was in my own story, I was born and raised in the country just outside of Carlisle, PA. I remember my small elementary school being completely surrounded by cornfields. Friends at that time were usually in the context of those I did activities with, such as scouts, softball, and dance. Normally, I would spend most of my time around the homestead with my family, exploring the woods outside or playing super smash bros with my siblings. I remember noticing my older brother beginning to come home less and less, and when he did he usually brought friends that I wasn’t allowed to play Halo with. As it became time for me to enter middle school I finally understood why.

I went from a small rural elementary school to a much larger more urban middle school in the middle of town. Carlisle was growing significantly at this time due to cities like Philadelphia and Harrisburg becoming increasingly expensive. Low-income housing units popping up made it possible for people to arrive easily from whatever context they come from.

I remember those first couple of weeks of middle school, all the clicks were settling in, and I seemed to not belong to one of them. Our grade was split into teams, and all of my friends from previous years were all on the opposite side. I remember feeling a sense of urgency to find my group as quickly as possible. Surprising to me, I became friends with a group of skaters and “trouble makers.” I thought they were interesting, and funny, and most of all they took me in. I noticed how my opinions and preferences began to shift, as acting out behaviors and breaking the rules were rewarded socially with respect. The more I gained peer approval, the more instrumental those little behaviors became (Gruman et al, 2017). Using curse words, not paying attention in class, and pushing the limits seemed like small compromises compared to the security of belonging to a certain group. Little did I understand social learning theory, and how reinforcing antisocial groups are towards begetting more antisocial behaviors (Gruman et al, 2017). As seasons went by, I developed a sort of self-efficacy in petty rule breaking. This led me to trying alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and some shoplifting. My friends admired my daringness, and I felt like I belonged for the first time.

Fortunately for me, my antisocial behaviors were limited to my adolescence (Gruman et al, 2017). Just as the antisocial behaviors served my need to belong in one season of life, they began to become a deterrent later on. I eventually wanted greater responsibility like a car and a job. Being accepted became much less important than being independent and self-sustaining. I began losing interest in the shock and awe lifestyle and gravitated towards people who had some goals and aims for the future. The same fate was not so for many of my old peer group. It’s been over ten years since I’ve seen most of them, and thanks to social media I can stay somewhat connected. For some, they experienced run ins with the law, and have had to serve time. For others, they are using substances and living in poverty to this day. I feel grateful knowing that I got out, but I also feel a sense of responsibility for helping those who weren’t as lucky as I was. Life-course persistent groups have many factors stacked against them, they were born into less-than-ideal circumstances (Gruman et al, 2017). Approaching delinquency issues is really about understanding socialization, and why antisocial behaviors are rewarding for individuals in the first place.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN

“I am deeply troubled by the way the criminal system treated me and the difficulty I had in proving my innocence. I am also worried about others. I believe there are other people under sentence of death who like me not guilty” – Walter McMillian

For this blog post, I focused on Brian Stevenson and his success stories within the justice system. In his career he had aided in the court ruling that children, under the age of 18, not being allowed to be given death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. He created a non-profit organization, Equal Justice Initiative, for the poor and misrepresented that helped save 125 men from death row. Because of his work, Brian Stevenson has received multiple awards such as the MacArthur Grant (web).

The case that he is most known for is the Walter McMillan case. Walter McMillian served six years on death row for a murder he did not commit, previously spending 15 months on death row before he was even convicted. The movie, Just Mercy, describes the role Brian Stevenson played and the effects discrimination, wrongful accusations, and on a community. The movie follows the case of Walter while also demonstrating the different reasons a person would receive the death penalty: being an accomplice to an armed robbery, wrong place at the wrong time, etc. Walter’s case, in particular, was an complete travesty of the system. Brian Stevenson met Walter McMillian in 1988, six years after he was wrongfully committed of the murder of Ronda Morrison in downtown Monroeville, Alabama.

Firstly, he was placed on death row prior to his conviction, that was already unheard of and a violation of his rights. Secondly, there was not one piece of evidence that pointed Mr. McMillian to the crime. There were dozens of people, Black, who testified that during the time of the crime, Walter was at a fish fry 11 miles away (web). The only thing pointing at Walter McMillian was the testimony of a white male who claimed that he gave Walter a ride to the dry cleaners (web). One who was already a felon with multiple charges, coerced by the police. Mr. McMillian was finally released as a free man in March of 1993.

As mentioned in the paragraph, one accuser was a convicted felon who was coerced by the police to give a false testimony. Ralph Myers recanted his statement during the second trial of Walter McMillian. It is said that if he gave a false confession, he would be given a life sentence instead of the death penalty (Death is said to be his biggest fear). According to the textbook, a person would be more likely to give a false confession through a technique called minimization. Minimization is the implicit promise of leniency if they confess (Gruman et al., 2017, 300). This is an interrogation tactic that is self-incriminating and very dangerous as seen through cases such as the Exonerated Five case.

Walter McMillian says that he was targeted due to his affair with a white woman and the fact that his son was married to a white women. It is said that the sheriff claimed that:  “I don’t give a damn what you say or what you do. I don’t give a damn what your people say either. I’m going to put twelve people on a jury who are going to find your goddamn black ass guilty.” (McCarthy, 1995) This could be considered interest prejudice, where the jurors would have a particular interest of stake in the outcome of the trial (308), which makes sense as the case only lasted a day and a half. His case would be seen as a “lesson” for the black people, quoting that the sheriff told him so. The pain that he suffered while incarcerated is one that led to early dementia (web). Following this case, Brian Stevenson continued to work at freeing wrongfully convicted felons. Another noticeable case is Anthony Ray Hinton, who was freed in 2016 after spending nearly 30 years on death row for a conspiracy theory (web).

References:

Bryan Stevenson. (2020, February 11). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson/

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: SAGE.

McCarthy, C. (1995, October 10). A matter of death and life. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/10/10/a-matter-of-death-and-life/b7af4803-56aa-4f0f-addd-e048a76a3d19/

Walter McMillian. (2020, January 23). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://eji.org/cases/walter-mcmillian/

When we think of the law, we associate it with order and justice. A while ago when I was still in high school, I was seeking avenues to pursue once I graduated and found myself talking to college lacrosse coaches as well as Navy recruiters. My parents were not that thrilled I was seeking a life away from the normal college choice most graduates decide upon. What made me ultimately enlist over choosing a college with a sports scholarship of lacrosse was the fulfillment earning a title and serving with a team. I feel most personally fulfilled when I am serving others and making sure they are take care of and safe. I enlisted as a master-at-arms which is the U.S. Navy form of military police. I trained with a lot of great service members and after a couple years received an offer to try for SO. This included SEALs, SWCC, and EOD, all of which sounded awesome to a young wanting to be a hardcore guy! I trained for SEALs and during the middle of phase 3 where I had a severe knee injury earning me a ticket home. I returned home and didn’t know where to begin with life and how to reallocate my mind and body to the civilian world. But, I had to begin somewhere and not let this injury label me.

A couple years passed and I was working locally and also managing a business I started from scratch. I also enrolled into college to begin where I had left off from classes offered in the service. I am still taking those classes here at Penn State earning my psychology degree. But, an event occurred close to my heart involving law and order. A fried of mine who I trained with for a couple of years had been arrested on leave in a hit and run accident. He was a black man and a witness said they saw him leave the scene although he just picked his kids up from school. Police noted there were no noticeable damages occurred on his car but still took him into custody based on a witness statement. His children had to witness this and be taken to their mother in a police cruiser. He was detained at the station for 22 hours before being released on a lack of evidence and the witness failing to identify him correctly within the same day as the accident on scene. This turned out to be a case of cross-race effect which is, “…the tendency to more easily recognize members of one’s own race (Links to an external site.). A study was made which examined 271 real court cases. The results from this study showed that witnesses correctly identified 65 % of the defendants which were of the same race as them. On the other hand, 45% of the defendants were identified which belonged to a different race than the witnesses” (World Heritage Encyclopedia, 2021)

When we read our text this past week from class, we are told that many mistakes are enacted upon when interviews are conducted (this case law enforcement) eliminating the true process of law, but rather going off of hindsight to truth. In our mind, many conscious and unconscious factors are processed as well as prejudices that can influence the overall interview. It is also important to note from our text that the manner in which the interview is conducted can sway the interview altogether. This area is imperative because it is where a entire investigation is conducted and if dealing with an adolescent, it can alter an interview from finding the truth or not. If the proper questions are not asked, the one being interviewed can change the projection of the interview. There is another point of questions being too generic or too specific that can deter an interviewee from answering. When such negative questions are consistently given, this can eliminate the chance of true answers being given.

The best way to enact this change is to facilitate the cognitive interview technique. This sort of technique allows the interviewee to provide vivid details from their memory rather than immediate answers from short term memory. When a questionnaire is created, it is often times done to sway the response to mold the intervention provided by the one being interviewed. “The cognitive interview (CI) is a questioning technique used by the police to enhance retrieval of information about a crime scene from the eyewitnesses and victim’s memory” (McLeod, 2019). This was the eyewitness would be more accurate in their recollections of the accident and my friend would not be subjected to faulty interrogations.

Throughout college, I have always been passionate about reforming the criminal justice system. Being an African American, I have been exposed to the flaws in the system and how our judicial system targets African Americans rather than looking out for them. One aspect of the judicial system’s flaws that is one of the main reasons I decided to go to law school and pursue a career as an attorney is the fact that many African Americans are wrongly convicted. “As stated in the reading, the consequences of wrongly accusing an innocent person of a criminal offense can be dire” (Gruman, 2017). African Americans already have a disadvantage in society alone, now with the judicial system not on our side either, it can ruin ones life.

An example stated in the reading speaks about an African American male named Ronald Cotton who served 11 years for a crime he had not committed. He was accused of raping a lady named Jennifer Thompson. Once the victim provided a blood sample for DNA test to be done, this indicated that a man named Bobby Poole was actually guilty for the crime. This demonstrates how people can be assumed to be guilty before innocent. This mindset is mainly used toward African American’s. We often are looked at as the bad guys because of our skin tone which results in racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

In my class, we discussed risk factors for why African American children often get caught in the judicial system and there reoffending rate is so high. Inner city families often don’t have the funds nor the resources to afford after school programs such as sports, Boys and Girls Club, etc. This results in students getting bored and participating in activities that may be illegal. Once an adolescent gets caught and is in the system, this often puts them behind with their education. Once they return to school, they are behind in school and can’t identify with other students due to them either getting held back or the lack of confidence from being behind. This causes them to interact and socialize with the people in the same boat as them, those who do deviant activities and have been in the judicial system. I want to become an attorney to stop this cycle.

To stop this cycle I hope to provide resources for inner city students. Free after school programs is the first thing I hope to address. This is deter students from committing crime. I also hope to be an attorney for those who are low on funds. As an African American, I believe that I will provide comfort to other African Americans so they know people are looking out for them.

Reference

Gruman, J., Schneider, F., and Coutts, L. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4833-6973-0. Pp 133, 135

On December 13, 2018, I was sitting at the dinner table with my boyfriend for his birthday celebration when I got a text from my best friend in the Netherlands, “Hey, did you hear what happened to Lily?”. By the way, I’m changing everyone’s names to protect their identities. I responded, “Hey, no…what’s up?”. She proceeded to tell me that our close friend was just brutally murdered by her roommate. I couldn’t believe what she just told me. I was at a loss for words. My Lily? No. That can’t be, we had just celebrated her 21^st birthday together not long before. I just saw her post a picture on Instagram a few days prior.

At the time of the incident, I had just moved overseas and transferred universities. I learned about the details from our friends and the media because it made worldwide news. I knew Lily from university in the Netherlands and she was a small-town girl from America. Lily was on her way back to the apartment to pack her things but her roommate, Dan was there waiting to talk. Earlier on in the week Dan told Lily he was going to murder a few people so Lily told her friend. When she was going to pack her stuff to go stay with her boyfriend, a fight had broken out between her and her roommate and he violently stabbed her over 25 times. He called his mom who immediately reported the incident to the police. He was arrested while trying to run away. He was only sentenced to six years in prison because he suffers from a combination of disorders. At the time of the incident, he was suffering from psychosis and later said he didn’t recall what happened during trial.

There are several paradigms which help explain criminal behavior including biological, sociological, and social psychological theories (Gruman, Schneider & Coutts, 2016). According to the biological theory, criminal behavior is the result of psychophysiology, biochemistry, neurological functioning, and genetics (Gruman et al., 2016). The roommate, Dan, has autism and depression comorbidity. He also has schizophrenia, hence the psychosis. The comorbidity of autism with mood disorders such as depression is 54 percent (Brian, 2019). The judge sentenced Dan to 6 years in prison with the addition of institutionalized psychiatric treatment because they said he can’t be held entirely accountable for what happened.

The verdict was disappointing, but I also know that Dan probably doesn’t truly remember because he was having an episode. Lily knew of her roommate’s issues and there was some foreshadowing leading up to the event. I’m extremely saddened by what happened and I wish more justice could have been made. At least by giving him a longer sentence and the compulsory psychological treatment, maybe he’d be less likely to commit a similar crime in the future since he can’t remember it.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com. Accessed on 3/2/2021.

King, B. (2019). NEJM Journal Watch: Summaries of and commentary on original medical and scientific articles from key medical journals. Jwatch.org. Retrieved 9 March 2021, from https://www.jwatch.org/na50475/2019/12/16/autism-spectrum-disorder-and-comorbid-mood-and-anxiety.

We often associate the workplace with the employer-employee relationship, and in some instances, we overlook the underlying measures that hold together this bond. There’s definitely something that keeps employees loyal to their bosses, or at the very least cooperative members of the workplace.

French and Raven (1959) discussed the five bases of power and they explained how important it is to acquire as many bases as possible to become effective leaders. What most appealed to me, or should I say stood out to me, was the “reward” base of power. A business expert stated that bonuses are intended to foster goodwill with employees as well as promote positive company culture (Half, 2020).

We often hear many people waiting for the day they hear the word”bonus” from their boss. Obviously, a bonus is a one-time thing, but it holds so much promise and reward for its attainer ( the employee), to the point where the employee is willing to keep his/her job for at least another year. From a psychological standpoint, this is labeled as the ability to influence by providing a pleasant outcome, or the reward base of power. In such a scenario, the employer was not only guaranteed to keep his/her employees for another year, but he/she was also able to ensure that they’re being “productive employees”.

At the same time, the employer also gets to attain power in the workplace through the use of the other four bases of power. Clearly, a boss holds a legitimate status at work and is therefore revered.With the knowledge and expertise that they hold, employers can often exercise power by being the “expert” in the field. An employer that also displays such expertise with respect and credibility is more likely to be influential in the workplace. Finally, if all else fails, there’s always a method for attaining power through the use of punishment or negative consequences.

The takeaway from this is that it’s often useful to employ different methods of power in the workplace. Yet, the use of the reward base of power is a good guarantee for a productive workplace.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest eBook Central.

Half, R. (2020, December 11). A year-end bonus can deliver many returns. Retrieved March 06, 2021, from https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/management-tips/how-to-decide-whether-to-award-a-year-end-bonus-or-not

In my early twenties I worked in a campus ministry out of a local church. I had all the ambition of a missionary, but lacked any sort of expertise or formal training. The experience itself was very much hands-on learning, as I learned to deal with obstacles within the organization as they arise. However, this has to be one of the most strenuous way to learn, trial and error. I’ve found after pursuing my bachelor’s degree in my late twenties that many of the practical theories would have been invaluable to know earlier on. I know that the opposite can also be true, young people leaving universities with all theory and no experience. I suppose either way is tough when learning to work in teams, and in my case, I’ve suffered of dysfunction within a team setting as proof. Therefore, I have a special interest in the dynamics of effective teamwork within an organization.

One important perspective of communication is the psychological perspective, which is when individual’s communication is coming from the same place as their own orientation (Gruman et al, 2017).  When I first learned what a multi-disciplinary team was, I was taking a class on Child Maltreatment and Advocacy. This is a sensitive topic albeit an important one where the stakes are high. In these instances, errors made by professionals are not resulting primarily in financial loss, but in the lives of real people. In the realm of child maltreatment, a poor channel of communication could result in an abused child not receiving help, or the wrong person being persecuted. These are extreme examples of course, but the precedent for emphasizing team work within and between organizations remains.

Teams are made up of individuals with unique training and specification in one area and bringing that expertise into a team setting. Understanding that each member of a diverse team carries certain conceptual filters helps when a variety of important issues are being discussed (Gruman et al, 2017). In the example of child maltreatment multidisciplinary teams, there would be a representative from law enforcement, children and youth, and the district attorney’s office. Each team member would emphasize one facet as significant, and another would not share that same emphasis. While inexperienced teams would experience these different attitudes as conflicting, it is actually a great way to overcome selective perception, which could result in important issues being neglected (Gruman et al, 2017).

Jumping back into my early days of campus ministry, there was no such multidisciplinary perspective. Of course, each member of the group may have had a bent towards serving different social groups like athletes or fraternities, but our skills in terms of working in a group were vague. I remember participating in a leadership training at the time where we went through “the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership.” As a young, overwhelmed leader I failed to take in much about this training except one concept, the law of the lid. The concept is simple, one person cannot be strong in every area. For example, someone may be strong in technology, but not in public speaking. Another may have administrative skills, but fundraising does not interest them at all. The idea is that every person has a “lid” for how much they are capable of doing well before they require the help of others strong in different areas. The theory of social constructionism would emphasize achieving consensus and validation through the interactive experiences of socializing with others (Gruman et al, 2017). This concept stuck out to me, because I have observed early on that no one person by themselves can carry the burden of doing it all. The result may be catastrophic, the risk of burnout is likely, because we all have blind spots.

References

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4833-6973-0

A $1.9 trillion-dollar stimulus relief package is headed to the Senate to be voted on.  Many Americans over the last year have been affected financially by the pandemic.  In September of 2020, Fortune magazine reported that 65,769 businesses had closed permanently (Sraders & Lambert, 2020).  At the onset of the pandemic, 140,104 businesses were temporarily closed (Sraders & Lambert, 2020).  Many Americans have been inflicted with poverty as a result of losing their jobs or businesses.  Unemployment benefits have been utilized by 14.7% of the country (Congressional Research Service, 2021).  Programs aimed at providing financial relief to Americans who fall on hard times has always been a controversial issue.  Before the pandemic, the unemployment rate was 3.5% (Congressional Research Service, 2021).  It’s troubling to imagine 3.5% of the population struggling to make ends meet.

I took a World War II class at Penn State’s world campus two years ago.  It was fascinating to learn beyond what the history books taught in middle school and high school.  The Battle of Britain shed light on the impoverished citizens because both upper- and lower-class individuals were affected as a result of the attack.  At that time in despair, both socioeconomic classes were equally afraid and equally without shelter.  Britain provided a comprehensive welfare system to support everyone in their time of need and it still remains intact today (Wilde, 2019).

The pandemic has exposed the failure of government assistance in time of need for their citizens.  Price inflation, minimum wage, and high cost of education are examples of factors that affect an individual with a low socioeconomic status.  Other examples include occupation, education level, income are other factors examined with the statistics of low SES (socioeconomic status).  The pandemic heightened an existing epidemic in this country, people who can not afford to have their basic needs met.

The Needs Theory is based on a five-tier model hierarchy.  The needs are: 1) physiological (food and clothing), 2) safety (job security), 3) love and belonging needs (friendship), 4) esteem, and 5) self-actualization (McLeod, 2020).  The Needs Theory predicts that basic needs (physiological and safety) must be met before psychological needs (love, belonging, and esteem) can be attained (McLeod, 2020).  Self-fulfillment needs can only be attained once basic and psychological needs are met.  Based on the Needs Theory, 14.7% of the American population do not have their basic needs met.  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in a one-week period in June of 2020 40% of Americans were struggling with mental health or substance abuse due to the pandemic (Czeisler et al., 2020).  The psychological needs (love, belonging, friendship) have been affected in other areas other than mental health.  Friendships and connectedness with our loved ones have suffered due to social distancing guidelines and fear of spreading or contracting the virus.  Although our government has tried to help Americans with their basic needs, it’s not enough.  No one should have to be faced with the decision of paying bills or eating.  Every human being deserves to have their basic needs met.

References

Czeisler, M. E. (2020, 08 14). Mental Health, Substance Use, and Suicidal Ideation During the COVID-19 Pandemic- United States, June 24-30, 2020. Retrieved from Center for Disease Control and Prevention : https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm

Lambert, A. S. (2020, 09 28). Nearly 100,000 establishments that temporarily shut down due to the pandemic are now out of business . Retrieved from Fortune: https://fortune.com/2020/09/28/covid-buisnesses-shut-down-closed/

McLeod, S. (2020, 12 29). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved from Simply Psychology : https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html#gsc.tab=0

Service, C. R. (2021, 01 12). Unemployment Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic: In Brief. Retrieved from FAS.org: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R46554.pdf

Wilde, R. (2019, 09 11). The Creation of Britain’s Welfare State. Retrieved from ThoughtCo.: https://www.thoughtco.com/creation-of-britains-welfare-state-1221967

I have been working at downtown bar since my freshman year of college (I am now a senior). Throughout the years I have learned more and more about how important communication is. According to “Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problem”, communication can be defined as involving “social behavior that is two or more people interacting with each other and transmitting information. During work I discovered that communication about the job itself as well as communication to for personal relationships is equally important for my overall job satisfaction.

When I first started working, I was very quiet and kept to myself. My goal was to go to work, make my money, and leave. I was already super busy with all the courses I was taking so I was not interested in forming any relationships with my coworkers. About a year in when my schedule got lighter, I instantly regretted it. I had almost no friends and I was jealous of how close my coworkers were and how they had a relationship in and out of the workplace. As stated in the reading, communication is the most fundamental topic for social psychologist because it represents the foundation of social life (Gruman, 2016). This resulted in me taking less hours and giving up my shift more because I dreaded going to work.

Once I finally developed a relationship with my coworkers, my job satisfaction increased abundantly. According to the reading, job satisfaction is “a person’s attitude toward his or her overall job as well as toward various aspects of the job”(Gruman, 2016). Although I was always satisfied with other aspects of work such as the hours, the pay, etc. The one issue of not having a relationship with my coworkers effected me to the point where I did not want to work at all.

Every aspect of your work life contributes to your overall job satisfaction. With my situation, I definitely needed a balance in my work life in the sense that I wanted a social life at work as well as other aspects of work. When this wasn’t happening, I did not want to work anymore. Now, I have great relationships with my coworkers and I love going to work. Making money as well as having friends there while you do it is something I valued and I am glad I am finally at the point of being content. Job Satisfaction is important for everyone, people just value different things within job satisfaction such has the pay someone may receive, the hours one works, and the people one works with. It is important for you to find what you value to reach your highest job satisfaction.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4833-6973-0

Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to be an attorney. I have a vivid memory of being in elementary school and telling people my parents were lawyers who put “bad guys” in jail. This was a flat out lie (both of my parents are in the medical field), but I guess I was just projecting. Fast-forward to college and I’m now majoring in political science and plan to attend law school upon graduating. My undergraduate career has been a bit atypical as I’ve had to both work full-time and attend classes. As such, I have worked at various different law firms and have succeeded in climbing my way up as far as I can go without having an actual law degree. I started as a receptionist, then became a legal assistant and am now working as a paralegal to the managing partner of my current firm.

While I have switched between a few different firms, the one I currently work at is definitely the perfect fit. They emphasize a work-life balance, have great benefits and the compensation is more than generous. Being a national firm, they have quite a few resources at their disposal. As an employee, is always comforting to know that if you have a question, someone within the organization will have the answer. My firm has an “open door” policy where no problem is too trivial to be addressed. I believe that it is important for a workplace to possess these qualities as it leads to work motivation for the individuals working there and overall job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction can be defined as a person’s attitude toward his or her overall job as well as toward various aspects of the job; it is a predisposition to respond to one’s work environment in a favorable or unfavorable manner (Gruman et al., 2016). Obviously, to a working individual, job satisfaction is very important. A person typically spends the majority of their time working and it is only natural that they would want to be content with it. There are two ways to typically measure job satisfaction, the global approach and the facet approach. The global approach considers overall job satisfaction and asks the employee general questions. Answers usually are provided on a 5-point rating scale ranging from highly satisfied to highly dissatisfied. When utilizing he facet approach, job satisfaction is considered to be composed of feelings and attitudes about a number of different key aspects or facets of the job. These facets are rated on a standardized scale and then summed to create an overall job satisfaction score. Much of the research on job satisfaction uses the facet approach in its measurement (Gruman et al., 2016).

The managing partner that I work under possesses immense leadership qualities. She is knowledgeable, wise and, most importantly, fair. She constantly urges me to strive for the best and reminds me of my personal growth potential. While at times it has certainly been discouraging to see people my age already graduating from law school and starting their professional legal career, I am grateful for the experience my journey has brought me and know that one day I will sit for the bar and be welcomed back at my firm as a licensed attorney.

References:

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Everyone knows how important communication is, and especially in the work space. I can attest to the damage poor communication can cause a place of business. I used to work in a school where no one knew what was happening. This can be especially dangerous when children are involved. The school did end up in a lot of uncomfortable situations due to lack of communication.

Communication, as defined by our textbook, “involves social behavior that is two or more people interacting with each other and transmitting information” (Gruman, Schnieder, & Coutts, 2017). When in a school setting, there is a lot of communication happening most of the day. There is parent communication, teacher communication, student communication, and administration communication. Most of the time, all of these involve crucial information to a teacher’s day. The problem with this particular place of employment, none of the necessary information made it to the right people or the information made it to the right people but was completely incorrect.

I believe from a psychological perspective this school suffered from conceptual filters. This implies that information exchange becomes distorted because of an individuals’ attitudes or perceptions (Gruman, Schnieder, & Coutts, 2017). These filters can cause individuals to leave out information that they think are less important. The information they leave out, may be important to others. This is what I saw in my work setting. Information was getting lost through all the staff. Due to this, the school did not run appropriately. It appeared that no one knew what was happening, and what they thought was happening was not the whole truth.

In this instance alone, I could see how vital communication is to have a functioning business. The place I worked is still going down hill and are losing business due to the staff. The turnover rate is also very high for this place with communication being one of the biggest complaints. I guess communication really is key.

References

Gruman, J. A., Schnieder, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2017). Applied Social Psychology (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publication Inc.