PSYCH 424 blog

In fact, the performance of gender inequality in the workplace has lasted for a long time. There is a large gap between women and men in terms of job search process, working environment and salary. Despite the efforts of the affirmative action movement and the calls of all social parties for improvement, the overall environment has made the situation better, However, the phenomenon of discrimination and prejudice still exists. The original title of the article in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post on April 24, 2017: the recruitment advertisement of gender discrimination and the fear of maternity leave for female employees. Senior students of the University of Hong Kong went to a securities company in Shanghai for internship. She was surprised to find that among the 30 people working in the investment department, only one female employee under the age of 30. Later, other staff revealed to her that the investment department did not hire women two years ago because women were “of low value” in the financial industry. It often happens that women are filtered out at the recruitment stage. According to a survey conducted by China Zhilian recruitment, 22% of Chinese women encounter gender discrimination in job hunting, compared with 14% of men. One problem faced by employers is that mainland women enjoy a minimum of 98 days of paid maternity leave. Some employers are unwilling to bear the cost of maternity leave, so they explicitly require that it be limited to men or married women.

Therefore, women have been interfered by social discrimination before they enter the job. These previous rigid social cognition has brought them many obstacles. In the era of highly developed Internet, public opinion also points to issues related to women’s discrimination. Some well-known enterprises that have used inappropriate words in recruitment have also issued explanations to the society. In response to the issue of gender discrimination in its recruitment advertisements, Alibaba said that the company would conduct stricter reviews of recruitment advertisements to ensure that they meet public expectations. Even so, in the talent market, women are often blocked because of gender. Research shows that women account for only 19% of angel investors and only 6% of partners in venture capital companies (10% in 1999). This has had predictable consequences: male investors are reluctant to invest in them for reasons that are either ridiculous or dubious. (a male investor told Katherine Tucker, founder of redrover, “I don’t like women’s ideas.” few men should be so straightforward.) even when discrimination is not obvious, they encounter more unspeakable obstacles. The male venture capitalists they work with often seem uncomfortable with women and treat them more like potential conquerors than peers.  The transformation of social concepts takes decades. It is already very good to break the ceiling of opacity (that is, discrimination that can be resolved through litigation or administrative law enforcement). What we need to appeal to is that women can create unlimited value for society today. , The society treats women equally. As the population growth rate decreases and women are required to make more contributions to the population increase, please also give women equal opportunities to make more contributions in the workplace.

Reference

McKinsey & Company. (2021, September 29). Women in the workplace 2021. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved October 1, 2021, from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace.

I have been watching the new television series Y: The Last Man which examines what might happen to society if all male mammals, including humans, were to suddenly drop dead. Among the many interesting and thought provoking consequences the show explores is the impact an event like this would have on society given how many crucial fields women have been actively discouraged from entering, and prevented from advancing in, because of sexism. Some of the impacts in the show include the following: the power and water systems shut down; a nuclear power plant becomes damaged, risking a meltdown; transportation grinds to a halt, causing supply shortages, particularly of food, water, and medicine; lawlessness and looting become rampant; and simple injuries and illnesses become life threatening. While it seems highly unlikely that something like this would happen in real life, the issue the show is addressing, sexism and its role in preventing women from entering male-dominated fields like the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, is very real. It is a problem that I, as a woman, have experienced personally and society needs to do something about it.

Like many other women, I tried to pursue a career in a STEM field, in my case science, and became so discouraged by the sexism that I encountered that I finally just decided that it was not worth it. A person encounters sexism when they are treated differently because of their sex (Gruman et al., 2017, p. 394). There are three different kinds of sexism: hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, and ambivalent sexism (Gruman et al., 2017, p. 395). A person encounters hostile sexism when someone says something disparaging to them or discriminates against them because of their sex or assumes they are unable to do certain things because of their sex (Kuchynka et al., 2018, p. 72). Some examples of hostile sexism I encountered while working on a degree in science include male math and science professors immediately dismissing my comments during class without actually listening to what I was saying, acting surprised when I did well on assignments and tests, and telling me that if I continued to pursue a career in science I would be forced to constantly prove my intelligence. A person encounters benevolent sexism when someone focuses on attributes or skills that are expected of the person’s sex rather than attributes or skills that are relevant to the situation as well as when someone assumes the person needs help or protection because of their sex (Kuchynka et al., 2018, pp. 72-73). An example of benevolent sexism I encountered while earning a degree in science was male science professors complementing me on my cleaning skills rather than relevant skills like my analytical and problem solving abilities. The final type of sexism, ambivalent sexism, is a combination of hostile sexism and benevolent sexism (Gruman et al., 2017, p. 395). An example of ambivalent sexism I encountered in my pursuit of a degree in science was a male science professor assuming I did not know how to tie a slip knot and offering to show me how.

What was particularly disturbing about my experience was how early in my academic career I encountered all this sexism. These experiences occurred while I was attending a community college and taking basic science classes. I figured that if I was going to experience that much push back early on, I could expect it to get progressively worse as I advanced. Despite my love of science, I decided that a career in the sciences was not worth all the hassle. Unfortunately, experiences like mine appear to be the rule rather than the exception and my calculation that things would likely get worse as I progressed was accurate. The lack of women in STEM fields is a widely acknowledged problem and has been determined to be progressively worse at each succeeding level in these fields (O’Brien et al., 2015, p. 668) and research (Moss-Racusin et al., 2018, p. 664) has shown that a major causal factor for this gender disparity is sexism. So we know that sexism is a major factor in discouraging women from entering or staying in the STEM fields, but what can we do about it?

One type of intervention that has been implemented in an attempt to eliminate sexism within the STEM fields is diversity training (Moss-Racusin et al., 2018, p. 653). Diversity training seeks to educate men in the STEM fields about sexism and its impact on women, dispel negative attitudes about women, and encourage men to treat women in the STEM fields with more respect and equanimity (Jackson et al., 2014, p. 420). Research (Moss-Racusin et al., 2018, pp. 653-654) has shown that this kind of intervention has been found to be successful at reducing men’s reported sexist attitudes toward women; however, very little research has been done to assess its practical effects on women’s experiences in the STEM fields. Based on this, more research needs to be conducted to determine the effectiveness of diversity training on the experiences of women in the STEM fields.

A huge gender disparity exists in the STEM fields, with very few women, compared to men, entering and staying in these fields. One major reason for this disparity is the presence of sexist attitudes within the STEM fields that systematically work to discourage women’s entrance into and retention in these fields. While interventions, such as diversity training, that have been developed and implemented to help eliminate sexism within the STEM fields have been shown to be effective at reducing the self-reported sexist attitudes of men in these fields, very little research has been done to assess their impact on the experiences of women in the STEM fields. With more research into this aspect of the effectiveness of diversity training, we can determine whether diversity training is a viable means of addressing this issue.

References

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (3rd ed.). SAGE   Publications, Inc.

Jackson, S.M., Hillard, A.L., & Schneider, T.R. (2014). Using implicit bias training to improve attitudes toward women in STEM. Social Psychology of Education, 17, 419-438. http://doi.org/1 0 . 1 0 0 7 / s 1 1 2 1 8 – 0 1 4 – 9 2 5 9 – 5

Kuchynka, S.L., Salomon, K., Bosson, J.K., El-Hout, M., Kiebel, E., Cooperman, C., & Toomey, R. (2018). Hostile and benevolent sexism and college women’s STEM outcomes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 42(1), 72-87. http://doi.org/10.1177/0361684317741889

Moss-Racusin, C.A., Sanzari, C., Caluori, N., & Rabasco, H. (2018). Gender bias produces gender gaps in STEM engagement. Sex Roles, 79, 651-670. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0902-z

O’Brien, L.T., Garcia, D.M., Adams, G., Villalobos, J.G., Hammer, E., & Gilbert, P. (2015). The threat of sexism in a STEM educational setting: The moderating impacts of ethnicity and legitimacy beliefs on test performance. Social Psychology of Education, 18, 667-684.  http://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-015-9310-1

I remember when I was a senior in high school and I had to move midway through the junior year because of my parent’s split. I went from living in this huge city, Philadelphia, to this itty bitty town where I felt that the people lived under a rock. I am half Palestinian- Jordanian and half Native American so when I left the big city I never paid any mind to what I looked like to others because my life was always in a mixed, diverse area. Of course here and there I had to think about cultural differences within my own family, but never from outsiders. When I moved to New Hampshire with my grandparents I felt like such an outcast and I could feel the tension of all of these white people just staring me down. Like who is this Arab girl in our school. The feeling was so uncomfortable. I went from loving school and waking up super early to see my friends and wanting to learn, to moving and hating the school, even though the curriculum in New Hampshire was better funded. I did not care, I just wanted to feel welcome again. The only people of color I remember seeing were adopted, children. Even they were so set in the white families’ ways that I could see they were self-haters. When I heard a girl speak about leaving the town to study in NYC for college she talked about how she was scared because of people who are different from her. I just kept thinking “ does she know she is black?” It was triggering to hear that because it only showed me truly how the other students around me felt about people of color. 

This short snippet into my Senior year of high school very much helps me touch on the concept of collectivism and power distance. As stated in our chapter “There tends to be a strong relationship across cultures between power distance and individualism/collectivism, with high power distance correlating with collectivism and lower power distance correlating with individualism (Triandis, 1994).’” (Gruman, 491). I want to talk about how I was able to witness both collectivism and power distance. When I lived in Philly as a high school student, and even as a middle school student, many of us were either low income or middle class. Not only that but many of us were very different from one another and had the opportunity to be expressive and 100% authentically ourselves. In my high school in Philadelphia, I didn’t even recognize “Popular” kids. I knew there were some kids who were very well known throughout the school, yet they never referred to themselves as “popular”. When I moved to New Hampshire not only did they separate themselves from minorities, but they also distanced themselves from lower-income or “nerdy” students. I never saw anything as close to the movie “ Mean Girls” in my entire life. I remember thinking “ This actually exists?!” I could not believe my eyes and ears. 

This school reminds me so much of collectivism because there were not many students who had different values and life views than each other. I felt as if every student around me were the same, and if you were one of the students who did not fit into the standard then you were automatically outcasted. According to our textbook power distance is defined as Power distance refers to “the extent to which people in a society accept inequalities based on social status, wealth, power, laws, and/or physical characteristics (Robert, Probst, Martocchio, Drasgow, & Lawler, 2000).” ( Gruman, 490). I bring this up because I can see the difference between my Philly peers and my New Hampshire peers. Nobody cared about what you wore in Philly, or what culture you came from, or how little money you made. I can see in my senior year that power distance was common around me. The wealthy were always having the last say and even considered “popular”. Not only this but if you were not their standard of beauty then you were silenced. 

I believe a large aspect of why the students in New Hampshire had such freedom of singling others out was because this was their normal. The staff and parents around them may also view this behavior as normal, and therefore there is nobody in a power position that is telling these kids “ you can’t do/ say this” They are not used to having others around them uplift or accept people different than them in any way, therefore no one is being corrected. To them they are not wrong so how can they be corrected. This takes me back to the study that was highlighted in chapter 14 where the end states “Often, biases that form the basis of prejudice are developed early in life. To combat them, interventions aimed at reducing or correcting these biases should be put into place as early as they are observed, if not earlier. Perhaps if we spend more time emphasizing the overlap between ethnic groups, we will make it harder for people (especially children) to treat people differently based on race. At the very least, making use of interventions like these would be another step toward fostering an increased tolerance for diversity.” (Gruman, 511). 

All in all, I believe parents, families, teachers, schooling, and/ or program staff need to help students recognize that difference does not mean less than or enemy. Different is good and we will never live in a world where everyone is the same. The intervention I would propose in relation to this issue is to create mandatory classes, or hour credits that touch on educating our children on the different types of people they will come across in life. There are more than 6,000 languages spoken in our world, and many people who live in this box where everyone looks and feels the same about everything would never know. 

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 a woman, I clearly stand for inequality between men and women but what I think many people need to understand is that it’s a choice to be offended and taken back by someone’s comment. Yes, in some serious cases you should not take things lightly but I personally think the best thing women can do is to get going strong playing their sport and not drawing attention to what the media has to say about it. Just do it and accomplish things that men can and stop making a big deal about it make it normal for women to do amazing things. Now, what constitutes women’s rights in sports. Now that we are acknowledging that there are not just two genders can we even call women’s rights women’s rights?

For many years we have struggled to see women have equal rights in sports. The US Congress passed Title IX of the Omnibus Education Act of 1972, for example, mandated equal federal funding opportunities towards male and female students in higher education (38), which encouraged more girls and women to participate in sports (Scheadler, Wagstaff). This gave women the equal rights they deserved. Ever since the 2012 Olympics had an equal amount of women’s sports like men’s sports the number of women playing sports has increased in the US. The NCAA has grown in women’s sports as well but one thing that happened recently in the NCAA is how the men’s basketball teams had this extravagant weight room and the women’s basketball team got a set of dumbells and yoga mats. So this shows you that ethically women are equal to men in sports in some ways they are not given the same special treatment. If I had been on the women’s basketball team I would’ve used that as fuel to kick butt in the NCAA tournament. Going back to what I previously said I believe that equality is just about rules but it’s also how you view the situation. How you react to people feeling that men should be valued more than women will affect how the world sees it. Make it known that yes women are treated differently sometimes but that won’t affect all of the things that they will accomplish in the sport. Sometimes it’s better to accomplish things in silence rather than make noise about the negative things. Now many of you may disagree but that’s okay I still respect and value your thoughts.

When it comes to transgender athletes we should first acknowledge that there are transgender athletes and that is who chose to play a male or female sport are treated with respect. One thing that I think needs to be established is a common rule about this topic. I know that in some states they have recognized transgender athletes but in some states, they have also discriminated against this change. Whatever they identify as is what gender sport they should play. No matter how many people say having a transgender male play a female sport is unfair because if male and female sports are truly equal then this shouldn’t be a problem.

I have given a lot of opinions in this blog post but from what I have read in The Sports Journal it simply talks about the increased about of women in sports throughout the years. From the day that Congress passed Title IX of the Omnibus Education Act of 1972 women’s sports have never stopped growing. The amount of women that have competed in the past Olympics and have won gold is amazing and we will only continue to make history from here on. Yes, women have been treated horribly in the past but we have seen some amazing and powerful women change how we are viewed. We need to remember that these women didn’t take a stand for us to not continue the legacy of kicking butt not only in sports but in our daily lives.

Exposure to women’s sports: Changing attitudes toward female athletes. The Sport Journal. (2018, May 25). Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://thesportjournal.org/article/exposure-to-womens-sports-changing-attitudes-toward-female-athletes/.

Leung and his fellow researchers (2002) used factor analysis to find clusters; five pan-cultural (existing across all cultures) social beliefs emerged from this extensive work. The five are named: social complexity, social cynicism; reward for application; fate control; and spirituality. (Gruman et al., 2017, p 392) The research team seeks social axioms in Hong Kong, including rural and urban areas, asking questions about marriage, interpersonal relationships, politics, health, and environment. I grew up in China but have studied in the US for almost six years already. I have noticed some discrepancies and resemblances between the Western and Eastern views within these five elements. The elements I want to address are social flexibility, the reward for application, and spirituality. 

Social flexibility

I stayed in Michigan for two years to attend high school. American high school students score high on social flexibility since there are no local rules for entering the college by one-time exam score. The entrance to university is not merely about the grades but the overall comprehensive quality which would require the students to participate in activities outside the school setting such as volunteering works, internships, sports competitions, etc. In China, the college entrance examination is relatively fair for a student to attend a decent university due to the large population. The students cannot engage in the social practice activity since they need to spend most of the time studying the school materials. If students are not satisfied with the accepted college, the most common way to alter the situation is retaking the examination after one year. Transferring from one university to another university is nearly not achievable due to the educational system requirement. In the US, the students can move as long as the students prepare all the required materials for applying the transferring application. 

Reward for application

In my perspective, both American students and Chinese students hold the same belief that hard work would assist them in obtaining higher scores. Majority of American high school offers either AP or college courses for students who can learn the higher-level materials. The students who took more AP courses in high school which would assist them in completing the college degree earlier since there are fewer credits they need to earn. It is beneficial for economic savings since many students need to pay their tuition loans by themselves. In addition to the less expensive, studying efficiency would result in less time in academics but possibly exploit the time to start a personal career. In Chinese universities, students are prone to take different English language tests based on their abilities. If students pass the test, it will become one of their strengths when they look for a job since many companies would prefer an employee whose English level is adequate. Both students from these two countries believe a good outcome will appear when they put effort. Another field beside the educational system that holds this belief is quite a lot of entertainment. Both actors or actresses have faith in bearing the palm by being hard-working. The employees also believe that the executive leaders will promote them if they are dedicated to distributing tasks. 

Spirituality 

Especially in areas near Hong Kong in China, the tendency to practice geomancy is popularized among both residents and business people. It is a method for checking if the selected location is suited for living or could bring financial wellness to the company. Individuals will hire the related master to examine furniture placement and how doors or windows are put in the room’s direction. Another trendy object to keep in the house is the status of duke guan, a heroic warrior in the three kingdoms in ancient China. The object serves as a guard to ensure the family’s safety and brings happiness and financial fortune. In the US, spirituality possibly is more associated with religion. I have lived in a host family who would go to the church every Sunday morning. I have watched a newborn being baptized by a priest. The host parents would always pray before we had the meal. The Christian school I went to had the singing chapel tradition, which would ask all the students to sing songs about Christianity. For the rest, the bible courses were offered as one of the required courses. The spirituality element plays a vital role in how people from different countries behave in life and impact decision-making skills. 

I found that embracing and being open-minded to accepting a culture different from oneself is essential for spurring more creative ideas and altering the stable thinking pattern. I was always the student who preferred to listen and acknowledge what the teachers said in the past. Still, I now acquired critical thinking to reflect on what improvements I could attain and view myself more objectively. The new things might be terrifying as all of the scientific innovations occurred in the historical time. Still, it also can be an opportunity for us to discover another side of the world. The end of our life path is death, whereas each individual could choose to do more meaningful things in a limited time.  

Reference:

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

I was on the verge of dropping one or two classes this week, or even dropping out of school, even though I have A’s in three of my classes. I was so overwhelmed and hopeless and did not even know the questions to ask. I am fifty-seven years old career changer pursuing a psychology degree. I transferred from the local community college to finish my studies. I am also a Penn State alum with a Bachelor’s in Finance (1986)- and therein lies the problem.

One of my classes is focusing on a semester long research project that requires the building of your study progressively throughout the semester. This week we were required to find five existing peer-reviewed papers that complimented our research. With great effort and stress, I combed the internet by inserting key words into Google to find relevant work. I finally uncovered five papers that their titles appeared they could help advance my project. Imagine my frustration when I realized I did not have full access to the entire research but had to request for access. I have never done this before. I have no idea how long the acceptance process will take. My paper is due soon and I don’t even have access to the necessary resources to complete the assignment. Finally, I don’t even know the questions to ask to alleviate this problem!

This is how I believe many of our marginalized population feels. They live lives of hopelessness, not because the don’t want to live a life of well-being, but they don’t even know the questions to ask to begin moving forward. The Self Determination Theory of Motivation (Deci 1985) posits that for one to move toward a life of well-being three basic psychological needs must be met-autonomy, relatedness, and competence. We might ask, “Is the individual encouraged, supported, and is the acquisition of necessary skills readily available?” I believe that if we redirected our energy from identifying the diversity issues and turned them toward solving the issues, we would begin to see desired changes toward genuine equality.

My career was on the business development side of wealth management. I spent the last years helping a large Pittsburgh wealth management firm in their inorganic growth. A great deal of my efforts was focused on identifying and recruiting successful financial advisors in the Pittsburgh market. I would estimate that I had a qualified list of approximately five thousand financial advisors. That pool of qualified candidates was composed of approximately 10% females and < 2% racial minorities. Racism in recruiting wasn’t the problem, lack of diversity candidates was the problem! Whether the cog in the diversity pipeline started in high school, university, or career advancement stage I don’t know. I do know that we are not positioning enough diversity candidates to even be on the radar. We need to put down the megaphones and roll up our sleeves. The answer is not found in movements but in tangible direct efforts to ensure the marginalized have the resources, skills, encouragement and will to achieve well-being.

You may be asking how my story ended. Thankfully, I had my weekly therapy session in a timely manner! I shared with my therapist my dilemma and the drastic solution I was considering (quit!). I described my inability to even access the full transcripts of the papers I so laboriously identified. He listened as I described the situation as having to climb Mt Everest solo when I have only previously walked around the community lake. He then walked me through the process of using the access provided by the library system in obtaining those papers. I called the library and they patiently walked me through a tutorial on how to access resources I will need in the future. Immediately I was freed to move forward with the skills and talents I possess. I graduated in 1986. There was no library computer systems, internet, nor cell phones. An email to the professor seemed useless because I didn’t even know what questions. Circumstances provided me with relatedness (my therapist) and competence (the library’s resources) that increased my autonomy (confidence) to move forward with peace of mind and well-being (after several weeks of distress). There are many out there whose circumstances are much dyer than mine. I believe we begin leveling the playing field by finding out their questions and coming beside them with the answers. The problem has been identified, let us become the answers.

Deci, E. L. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum.

On March 21, 2021, U.S. time, thousands of people across the country took to the streets to protest against recent discrimination and violence against Asians. Organized and orderly marches took place in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, and significant cities, with people of all colours. (Kimmy Yam,2021)

According to statistics, there will be 122 anti-Asian hate crimes in California’s 16 most populated cities in 2020, an increase of nearly 150 per cent over the previous year. Brian Levin, a researcher at California State University, said: “Our numbers are solid, and 2020 will be the worst year of this century for ‘anti-Asian hate crimes’. (FACT SHEET- Anti-Asian Hate,2020)
“Why is it 2020?”
“You brought a virus Chinese, get out of America!”
Politicians, including Mr Trump, have described the new virus as “Chinese-American disease and poison”, which is no doubt unrelated to anti-Asian hate speech. At the beginning of the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that replacing the virus with a land name or ethnic group name would cause the effects of stigmatization, which is challenging to eliminate, and it will harm should not be ignored.
Stigmatizing Asians with viruses are all the more disturbing in the deep-rooted “anti-Asian racism” of Europe and the United States.
Racial discrimination is often behind the absurd notion that race is the defining element of human identity, but it also sets the stage for an extension of negative stereotypes. As a result, in the eyes of racists, Asians are “nerds”, and African-Americans are “good-looking lazy.” Such a single adjective does not sum up an ethnic group; This can be based on individual bias against the Asian community. If that perception were not interfered with, racial discrimination would not go away.
We need to support anti-racism policies, such as the assessment I participated in this semester supporting the TEAACH Act. The bill is intended to improve the behavior of prejudiced and racists to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). The TEAACH Act requires M.A. to force AAPI history to be taught in K-12 grades. Let more children receive history education from an early age. This will increase the exposure of the Asian status quo. It may take many years for us to change the attitudes of racists to end racial discrimination and hatred more fundamentally.

Reference:

Kimmy Yam,(2021 March).There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in past year

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/there-were-3-800-anti-asian-racist-incidents-mostly-against-n1261257

Center for Study of Heat. (2020). FACT SHEET- Anti-Asian Hate 2020.

Click to access FACT%20SHEET-%20Anti-Asian%20Hate%202020%20rev%203.21.21.pdf

Gender discrimination and racism are still the most important two kinds of discrimination in today. We have to admit that society is progressing. Through education and social media, we are all learning about both types of discrimination. Fortunately, Psychology and Sociology, the two major courses I studied in university, have objective descriptions of these two kinds of discrimination. This knowledge helps me to look at the existence of discrimination and why it exists from a more objective perspective. I spent a lot of time in the 2021 learning about gender discrimination. In this blog post, I will discuss three factors that contribute to gender discrimination.

1. Gender stereotypes

It is one-sided to judge a person’s ability based on his/her gender, no matter in any era and any cultural background. Gender is not a unit used to define human intelligence or ability. However, over the course of history, people have mistakenly turned gender stereotypes into standards of competence. Even in China today, this phenomenon still exists. People subconsciously think that women should study liberal arts, and men should study science and engineering. Because people always rate science and engineering more complicated than the arts. Although this phenomenon is becoming less common, it is inevitable that large sections of society still take it for granted that men should choose to pursue a science career. At the same time, women are regarded as a minority. In Raewyn Connell’s “Gender”（2009）, Connell states that “Most corporate wealth is in the hands of men, most big institutions are run by men, and most science and technology is control by men”. This phenomenon causes social groups to divide different genders into different fields, and minority groups are regarded as separate rather than mainstream, thus leading to gender discrimination.

2. Definition of gender

Even in modern society, people’s definition of gender is still vague. Mainstream groups in society always define a person’s gender based on biological criteria. The criteria for this definition are incomplete. In Laurel Westbrook’s “Doing Gender, Determining Gender” (2013). Westbrook states that “The Criteria for gender determination vary across social Spaces because of The different active purposes of interactions that should occur in these Settings.”  In modern society, gender is not divided into male and female groups by dualism. Besides, there are many minority groups, such as transgender people. Over the course of history, the criteria for defining gender have shifted from pure biological determinism. Identity and biological factors are the two main factors that determine gender. When people narrowly simplify the definition of gender, it will neglect the diversity related to gender.

3. Childhood education

Education during childhood and adolescence can lead to gender discrimination. Childhood is the period when people establish the most basic values, and the cognition in this period is likely to greatly affect people’s whole life. The influence of childhood comes from the cultural background of family and school, as well as the whole society. To take a simple example, in school, boys are assigned to do heavy work, while girls are responsible for sorting. This division of labor leads children to believe that men should do the heavy manual work while women do the careful work. In Michael A. Messner’s “Barbie Girls Versus Sea Monsters: Children Constructing Gender,”(2000) the author also mentioned the gender stereotypes in childhood. This information about gender education from childhood and adolescence also contributes to the emergence of gender discrimination.

To sum up, we discussed the possible causes of gender discrimination from three aspects: gender stereotypes, vague definitions of gender, and education in childhood. Gender discrimination and racial discrimination, which exist for a long time, are challenging to eliminate in a short time. Gender should not be a factor limiting social equity. It is the existence of people of different genders and races that constitutes the diversity of world civilization.

Wisleidy Plasencia 

Applied Social Psychology

Dr. Anthony Nelson

September 30, 2021

Lesson 6 Blog Entry 

Intergroup relations and diversity are a big topic in today’s society. There are many issues arising based on discrimination, diversity, and intergroup relations. In today’s society it is very common to see an African American man married to a White woman, or vice versa. Even though there is a lot of diversity now compared to back then, where White’s had to be with only White’s and Blacks had to be with only Black’s, we still see discrimination happening amongst our own races. There has been police brutality amongst African Americans that are not justifiable, there has been riots where all races are involved in violence towards one another, and discrimination in general where a person of colored is not wanted somewhere because they are not White. These are things that are coming back after many years, and although it never went away completely, it was very subtle until a couple years back when the police brutality against African Americans began. This spiked a huge uproar in the communities all around our country, which has now led to more discrimination than there ever was. 

Cultural diversity as a whole has grown much more now than it ever has, but that doesn’t mean that there still isn’t discrimination amongst these cultures. Although our communities try to stay together and try to be culturally diverse, there is always something pulling us apart. There is always discrimination that has to appear from somewhere that will cause an uproar in the community, but things aren’t how they were back then. Now, any person can work in any place they desire and can not be dismissed based on the color of their skin. No White man or woman is expected to work with only Whites, just like Blacks aren’t expected to work with only blacks (Gruman, Schneider & Coutts, 2016). This is where our cultural diversity has definitely strengthened. We as a country are more diverse, we are allowed to work with others who aren’t part of our culture and our race. We are allowed to be around one another despite our differences. This allows for us to learn more about each other and our cultures. One of the things that our country relies on is the power distance. 

The power distance is the extent in which a society or a country allows inequality. The United States is very low on this spectrum ( Gruman, Schneider & Coutts, 2016). The United States seems to be more focused on building equality as opposed to hierarchy and that is how it should be. We should be building more equality for our people and our cultural groups of people. No one should be left behind or discriminated against because of their race,culture, or color of their skin. We should be building equality and that is only done by coming together as one big community and helping each other out. We should listen to the power distance that the United States has in place and look beyond that. Coming together will end a lot of the brutalities that are happening around our country. There are so many young souls that have passed due to racial inequality and discrimination and that is not how it should be. 

This should be a lesson learned for everyone in our community. We need to do better. We need to come together as one big group and stop the inequality and the discrimination happening across our cultures. We are culturally diverse, but we aren’t quite where we need to be as a Country. We need to be able to come together to stop the fatalities that are happening between one another, between the different races and cultures. We should fight for our equality and not fight each other about it. Being culturally diverse is beautiful, but not when all we see in our communities are deaths based on racial or cultural discrimination. This needs to end and it needs to end now. Cultural diversity is happening, but the discrimination rates need to lower and come to a complete stop. We need to come together as a whole, for all of our safety. 

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

The biopsychosocial model has many advantages when dealing with mental health issues. This is because the biopsychosocial model uses a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors to explain health. Dealing with mental health issues can be tricky because there is not a one size fits all treatment plan. In today’s society during a worldwide pandemic and after a year long lockdown depression rates have risen at alarming rates. The fear of a deadly virus mixed with isolation has taken a toll on a lot of people. You take those new fears and add them to an already anxious or depressed person who can no longer relieve stress doing things they love like working out and you have tons of new cases of depression all with a multitude of underlying causes. That is exactly the reason why the biopsychosocial model is most effective when dealing with mental issues like depression.

For example, people with depression can highly benefit from a biopsychosocial approach because it views health in a more holistic way than the traditional biomedical model. The biopsychosocial model would look at three main factors when assesing depression. They would look at the biological factors such as a chemical imbalance, or genetics as one causing factor of depression. They would also look at the psychological factors such as the way a person copes when stressed. Lastly, this model would look at the social influences like the type of people you interact with on a daily basis.

Social influences include things like health promotion, prevention, and health literacy. According to Coutts et al. (2017), “Health promotion refers simply to efforts that are made to encourage people to engage in healthy behaviors, such as eating a healthy and balanced diet, exercising regularly, getting enough rest, and refraining from smoking and abusing alcohol.” This social aspect of health would suggest that eating healthy and getting an adequate amount of sleep can help lower stress which could possibly prevent depression. There is also health literacy which can include developing a healthy relationship with ones care provider that would allow for the discussing of mental health issues such as depression. Seeking out close friends and family in times of need and opening up your social circle can also help alleviate the stresses that can cause depression.

Coutts, L., Gruman, J., & Schneider, F. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. (3^rd ed.) Sage Publications.

In fact, our mental health problems are closely related to the operation of our physical functions. Sometimes it may be the mentality that affects health, and sometimes the physical problems cause changes in the psychological environment. Therefore, many times, the two need to be studied together to better solve the problems, such as the formation and diagnosis of bulimia, A long time ago, people didn’t realize the symptom of bulimia, but misdiagnosed it as depression,. In fact, before the diagnosis of eating disorder, many patients with eating disorder were diagnosed with depression, but psychiatrists found that the effect of taking antidepressants alone was very poor, the degree of eating disorder did not match the severity of depressive symptoms, and there was an obvious overpriced concept of fear of fat and body image disorder, It is obviously different from typical depression. So the diagnosis of eating disorder was born. The emotional symptoms of these patients with eating disorders are no longer regarded as the main symptoms, but the behavioral symptoms of eating disorders are regarded as the main symptoms. The most typical behavior of bulimia is to often eat a large part, and it is difficult to stop or resist the urge to eat a lot. After eating, they will feel guilty and sad because of eating behavior, but it does not affect them to continue to eat high calorie food next time, forming a vicious circle again and again. When the body is unable to consume heat and gradually accumulate fat, resulting in hypertension, hyperlipidemia and obesity, they will have anxiety and panic, and even lead to a series of mental diseases such as depression. Therefore, while maintaining their mental health, it is also essential to pay attention to their physical health. Many young people, especially women, now suffer from mild or serious facial anxiety, which will make them choose diet or take various weight loss products to achieve their desired figure, However, these side effects may hurt their liver and even have a higher chance of becoming fat. The resulting depression is not uncommon. It happens that the high incidence of bulimia and anorexia is young women. These mental health problems caused by physical anxiety need to be paid high attention.

Reference

Eating disorders: Why are girls more affected? Child Mind Institute. (2021, August 11). Retrieved September 23, 2021, from https://childmind.org/article/eating-disorders-why-are-girls-more-affected/.

Because of the latest outbreak, many people are choosing to live at home and go out less. This kind of behaviour has changed people’s original way of life. During the pandemic, about 4 in 10 adults in the US have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder (Nirmita Panchal, 2021). This is an anxiety that we are not readily aware of directly at the level of consciousness, but we cannot see the invasive, dissipative fear of the untouchable virus. The virus was previously unknown, and even we have intense death anxiety as a result. In January 2021,11% of adults have had suicidal thoughts in the past 30 days. The suicide rate has been rising for a long time and maybe exacerbated by a pandemic.(Nirmita Panchal, 2021)

However, if we admit that we are afraid of death, it may create a sense of shame and feel too weak. But we may turn this death anxiety into other anxieties and emotions, such as looking bad at close family members, loved ones, or people stuck together at home, or anger at behaviors and events we see online. Or increasing autism and depression, eating and sleeping without the rhythms of the past.

Death anxiety is at the heart of most of our mental disorders or phobias. Death anxiety is often considered one of the most common fears, forming the core of various psychological conditions, such as suspicious disorder, panic attacks, square phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression( Lisa 2014). It can also be a midlife crisis, when we face the panic of halfway through life and suddenly seeing that the rest of our lives will remain the same, or when people retire, as if they’ve been thrown off track, there’s a lot of depression and despair. There may be hidden fears of future death behind these stories, which are often heard in everyday life.

We can’t help but discuss how to intervene in our feelings of anxiety and depression. First, even in isolation, we should rest regularly, not go to bed too early or too late, pay attention to the morning wake-up time. More time at home can make three meals more careful, at home can also be a healthy life, in life gently love themselves. Second, there are many videos or live broadcasts on the Network about doing sports at home. Mental body immunity and so on, such as yoga, patting, singing, psychological drama, meditation, and so on, try to play with a few, you can stay in the room to play and be with the family.

Reference:

Nirmita Panchal , Rabah Kamal , Cynthia Cox  and Rachel Garfield (2021, Feb 10), The implications of COVID-19 for mental heath and substance use.

The Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance Use

Lisa Iverach, Ross G. Menzies, Rachel E. Menzies,
Death anxiety and its role in psychopathology: Reviewing the status of a transdiagnostic construct,Clinical Psychology Review,Volume 34, Issue 7,2014,Pages 580-593,ISSN 0272-7358,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2014.09.002.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735814001354)

In January 2020, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) firstly spread nationwide in China and affected the lives of billions of people. A state of zero new infections was successfully achieved in China before summer 2020. However, clusters of new cases still popped up in 10 provinces with International Chinese students and businessmen working abroad traveling back to the country from summer to winter 2020. The Chinese government took various measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic in this country of more than 1.3 billion people. In this blog, I want to incorporate ideas of health psychology to explain how the Chinese government manage to contain this novel COVID-19 virus.

During the period when the COVID-19 first hit China, the importance of wearing a mask in preventing the spread of virus is hugely stressed in media health coverage. It was explained by public health officials everywhere, which not only appeared on news coverage on TV, but also on newspaper and online social media. The government would even send official text messages to all citizens reminding people to wear a mask when going out. This is the method of persuasion used in media health coverage, which is the specific kind of social influence in which a particular message or appeal is used to change someone’s beliefs and attitudes as mentioned in the text. The government used persuasion to inform people about the importance of masks in preventing the spread of COVID-19 virus.

Furthermore, the government’s emergency response strategy was to implement nucleic acid testing for all residents when there was a known cluster of new cases popping up in a certain area. In an area with new outbreaks, it was believed that testing of close contacts was insufficient. Instead, the government hoped to find all infected individuals and the only way to do this was to test everyone in the city. This may sound crazy. However, in an authoritarian country like China, the process was actually doable and efficient. The first full-city nucleic acid test was conducted in Wuhan. After successfully treating more than 50,000 patients, Wuhan decided to rule out the hidden coronavirus risk in the city. Starting on May 11, 2021, Wuhan completed the nucleic acid testing of nearly 10 million people over 10 days. Three hundred asymptomatic infections were found. After this, Beijing has also implemented large-scale nucleic acid testing on more than 12 million people with 174 people tested positive for asymptomatic infections. This ruling out for unfound cases by implementing nucleic acid testing is prevention, which reduces the probability of infection with COVID-19 virus.

I must start this post by removing any inclination by the reader to lay blame on any of the providers involved in this story. As I hope to articulate, there were so many moving parts in my life that the inability to discover a significant medical/mental health issue should be perfectly understandable. I will be speaking of my 2017 diagnosis of a traumatic brain injury to the frontal lobe, a place in my brain that controls much of my executive functioning. This diagnosis was discovered fifteen years after the accident that created the injury occurred (2002).

In the textbook Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems the authors simply define a false-negative judgment as ‘This error involves not recognizing a bona fide problem exists.’ (Gruman, 2017) There are likely as many reasons surrounding false-negative judgments as there are individuals who have experienced them. This is my story.

In early adulthood it became apparent that I was an active alcoholic that eventually was paired with diagnosis of bipolar one disorder. The manifestations resulting from this co-occurring illness were extreme and dominant and for a decade and a half I lived in a combination of extreme highs and lows, as well as the consequences that came with my choices and behavior. One of those choices was to get behind the wheel in January 2002 after drinking to the point of a blackout. I was involved in a serious head on collision on the interstate while driving in the wrong direction that fortunately did not injure the other party of five though I suffered a significant head injury. It was not my first so it would have been difficult for any provider to look beyond the current diagnoses at that time.  This time the consequences were two years in prison, and I experience no manic episodes during those two years despite being void of any medication. It had me questioning, “If I am bipolar, why wasn’t I symptomatic during incarceration?” Providers started wondering if I hadn’t received a false-positive diagnosis, though that is not the focus of this discussion.

The next dozen years were filled with more heavy drinking, huge career highs and lows, more legal trouble, and a year of homelessness. The ‘episodes’ were getting more frequent, unmanageable, and no combination of medications seemed to help. It became easy to focus on the drinking and the removal of alcohol would result in a functional, productive life.  This led to more AA meetings, rehab stays, and further inexplicable behavior. Just as inexplicably (the grace of God) I took control of my drinking and got sober which in the opinion of everyone would now lead to that ‘functional, productive’ life. I moved back to my hometown, took a managing director’s position in Pittsburgh and I seemed to be living out that ‘normal’ life. After a couple of years of progress, I began to experience significant anxiety that morphed into severe social anxiety. I developed tremors that prevented me from typing and I struggled to speak even at small interoffice meetings. A trip to the local grocery store caused extreme anxiety. I attempted to hide it as well as I could but eventually, I had to see a neurologist. For a year I was passed from one specialist to another until I met with a cognitive neurologist specialist who gave me the diagnosis October 2017. After arranging my care with several rehabilitation specialists, she boldly informed me that ‘even if my faculties return, I cannot go back to my high stress career’. Thankfully, with a combination of physical therapy, psychotherapy, medication, and spiritual growth my faculties and skill sets returned.

One may conclude that a diagnosis of a TBI would be ‘traumatic’. My experience was that it brought a sense of relief. I now could identify the missing piece in my struggles to mental health stability. In fact, it has been a blessing. I don’t focus on ‘what could have been’ but gratitude as to where it has led me. I now have relative control of my life though some more manageable struggles remain. I have a novel full of life experiences and an opportunity to share it with others. I am back at Penn State pursuing a second degree to assist me in making an impact. I have transitioned from self-absorbed to others focused. My life has meaning, and direction and I have no regrets, including living fifteen years under the cloud of a false-negative judgment.

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

The covid-19 pandemic has been ongoing for the past year. This has affected us in many ways as we start to uncover certain things about the covid-19 virus to be really true or false. We have had to adjust to the new covid lifestyles and who knows if we will ever go back to life before covid. Many mental health illnesses could have been developed during this time as we have lost social interaction and the ability to leave our houses. People could have developed anything from anxiety to PTSD. The lack of social interaction caused to have a change in our behavior as the common hello, goodbyes, handshakes, hugs, and high fives were put at a halt.

Many signs of developing a mental illness have occurred throughout this last year. Worsened anxiety, depression, and stress. Many of these symptoms could be severe enough to fall under the category of PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) or severe depression. In June of 2020, the CDC surveyed a handful of adults and asked them about their mental illness symptoms. 31% stated that they have developed anxiety or depression, 13% have stated that they have started or have increased their substance abuse, 26% have stated they have had stress-related symptoms, and 11% of them have stated that they have had thoughts of suicide (CDC). These symptoms are bound to develop when isolated from the outside world. You never know what someone’s home life is like and for the last year they weren’t able to get out. For example, these things could be like domestic violence, poor living conditions, parents with substance abuse issues, or not having enough income to provide food. No matter what the situation was, it is a good chance that you have developed a symptom of a mental health disorder.

People that have already developed a mental illness before the pandemic hit were more likely to contract COVID-19 due to the amount of stress, anxiety, and depression they encountered. During this time it was hard to cope with some of these symptoms as if you normally saw a therapist or went to group therapy you weren’t able to physically attend. You would have had to do it through zoom which meeting through zoom loses the personal and physical help. Some healthy ways that people coped with these symptoms are reading, meditating, exercising, or seeking zoom therapy.

Coming out of the pandemic I think we all felt a little hopeless. A theory that I want to talk about in terms of helping to cope with these mental illnesses is the Hopelessness Theory Approach. This theory focuses on interventions and the implications of hope. HTD was created by the simple question “why do people become depressed?”. As research began they thas discovered that if we change our way of thinking and think more positively we can slowly weed away the depression thoughts. Hopelessness turned into hopefulness. This can be achieved by evaluating their social environment. This should get the person to go back and “relive” positive situations that have happened in their life. Another way is to set goals by setting goals that you can accomplish daily with help you to develop positive achievements. Once goals are being achieved on a day-to-day basis it is also good to start creating positive attributes before attending an event or situation. Positive thinking is not always easy but it is proven to help slowly crush your negative or depressing thoughts. During this rough pandemic year, we all needed a little hope so creating goals each day would have given us that little bit of excitement back in our lives.

Sources:

Gordon, J. (2021, April 9). One year In: COVID-19 and mental health. National Institute of Mental Health. Retrieved September 22, 2021, from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/messages/2021/one-year-in-covid-19-and-mental-health.

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

What are the psychological and social variables that have an effect on the physiological/biological state? What prevention and intervention programs would be adequate and effective for specific demographics? How/What specific influences would be valuable in promoting healthy choices? How should clinicians address and treat disease? Lastly, how can people be persuaded to change their unhealthy habits into healthy ones? Applied social psychology and more specifically, health psychology seek to answer these questions and apply psychological theories and knowledge to promote healthy behaviors. One of the main theories used to help communities and find solutions is the health belief model. (Gruman, 189-203)

The health belief model (HBM) was developed by social psychologists in the 1950’s. It is meant to account for various factors that may be influenced by human cognitions and beliefs. The HBM theorizes that these factors have influence over “health-related behaviors” These factors include: ”general health values, perceived susceptibility to illness, perceptions of illness severity, expectation of treatment success, self-efficacy, perceived barriers and benefits, and cues to action.” (Gruman, 203) 

Components/Factors of HBM:

General health values: The HBM operates under the assumption that most if not all humans have some concern about their health. 

Perceived susceptibility to illness: This is how and to what degree a person perceives a health risk. This depends on their knowledge of the disease and their personal connection to it. 

Perceptions of illness severity: “indicates whether we think the health threat is serious enough to warrant our taking action.“ (Gruman,204)

Expectation of treatment success: ““If we change this particular behavior, how likely is it that doing so will reduce this particular health threat?” …. If we do not think that our actions will make a difference, we probably will not be motivated to change our health behavior.” (Gruman, 204)

Self-efficacy: A human’s belief in themselves and in whether or not they can change their behavior. 

Perceived barriers and benefits: “Cost benefit analysis of changing health behavior…..Humans will weigh the positives of changing health behaviors vs. the perceived obstacles and inconveniences.” (Gruman, 204)

Cues to action: “Triggers, messages” or warnings that are effective in getting people to adopt healthy behaviors. (Gruman, 205)

Many interventions and studies have used the HBM as a framework. One of these studies is, Understanding HIV Testing Behaviors of Minority Adolescents: A Health Behavior Model Analysis. In this study researchers apply the HBM to analyze HIV testing behaviors of minority adolescents and seek to find effective interventions to encourage minority youths to test for HIV. “Adolescents and young adults (13–24 years of age) are the fastest-growing age group of HIV-infected individuals in the United States and HIV disproportionately affects minorities, as compared to whites” (CDC)  This study conducted a focus-group with 41 minority adolescents to assess their beliefs and attitudes towards HIV testing. (Schnall)

Adolescents reported that among the factors influencing their health behaviors, only fifteen percent felt that they were likely to contract the virus in their lifetimes, and many were concerned with the stigma and anxiety associated with getting tested for the virus. Also participants reported there were little to no cues to action and health care providers and/or guardians only seem to promote testing if they were sexually active. They stated that they never received any reminders or advertisements to seek out testing. Researchers concluded that future interventions were needed to make testing more accessible and to increase knowledge about HIV resources. (Schnall)

The HBM is clearly a valuable tool of intervention for reducing and changing unhealthy behaviors. However, as with anything it is not without its shortcomings. Some studies that have followed this theoretical model’s framework have not found “supportive” results and a few psychologists have critiqued the HBM for only “listing factors that affect health behaviors, not explaining direct relationships. Luckily (or perhaps not) the “HBM has the ability to be operationalized in different ways.” (Gruman, 205) More work is definitely needed in this theoretical subfield before it can be applied. 

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

Schnall, R., Rojas, M., & Travers, J. (2015). Understanding HIV testing behaviors of minority adolescents: a health behavior model analysis. The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care : JANAC, 26(3), 246–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2014.08.005

To say that I had crippling social anxiety would be an overstatement. My anxiety was present but not overwhelming. It did, however, drive me into a corner very quickly. An isolated hole that at first was being dug for me. Somewhere along the way though, I started doing the digging. I began to actually relish in the hollow feeling I had and I stopped fighting it for awhile. For a good part of my high-school life I felt a significant amount of fear talking to people. Having never received an actual diagnosis for social anxiety I can’t automatically claim that I had/have it. But after reading this chapter and understanding more about the symptoms of social anxiety I can definitively say I related to a lot of those symptoms. Specifically, I wanted to speak about the self-presentation theory (SPT) created by Leary and Kowalski in 1995 (Gruman 2017).

The theory speaks to two different values, self-presentational motivation and self efficacy. According to Leary and Kowalski, in order for someone to experience debilitating social anxiety they would need to have a high self-presentational motivation and low self-efficacy (Gruman 2017). This would mean that they would aspire, obsessively, to have others perceive them in their desired image yet they do not have the confidence (efficacy) to be able to project that desired image. This, in a way, is very much how I was. While I never obsessed about it I yearned for people to see me the way I wanted to be seen but I could never find the confidence to project that social image.

Looking back on it now I actually realize how inadvertently selfish my thinking was. I was under the impression, in a roundabout way, that everyone was thinking about me. All the time. Everyone. I mean really, I can barely decide what I want for breakfast in my own life let alone think about some strangers life. So why am I expecting them to be thinking about me? These thoughts would swim through my head and I would understand but when crunch time came to it I would freeze. My brain would be going as fast as a racecar and as slow as a snail at the same time trying to think of even just something to add to a conversation. It was exhausting. In this stage of my life my self-presentational motivation was high and I really couldn’t see a light at the end of my tunnel. My efficacy was actually not that low but I was not able to present the true image I wanted to present. It took a good friend to drag me out of that tunnel and into my light, and he wasn’t even really trying to do that.

Obviously, for privacy’s sake, no names will be mentioned but this friend had discovered early in his life that people don’t care what you do and that interactions with strangers were (usually) nothing to fear. This translated into his personality in ways that would come to change my life. He was a huge fan of messing with strangers; having fun with random people on the street. At this time in my life the thought of talking to a stranger sent me into a cold sweat. So, being him, he decided to push the envelope and develop a game where we pretend we’re in a debate and have a stranger we just cornered in a shopping mall settle the debate for us. He would think of the topics on the fly and he would just go. At first, I couldn’t keep up and I embarrassed myself. But, it was at this stage that I realized my “life-changing epiphany”. I was the only one embarrassed. The stranger made no indication that he was weirded out by me (beyond the usual stranger walking up to you weird) and gave no indication that he thought negatively of my image or character. It really was all in my head.

Now, looking at this purely objectively of course he wouldn’t care about me because he doesn’t know me. But to me, at this time, this revelation was the most freeing thing. In fact, those “mock-debates” soon became a game I loved to play. I can’t say that the change was instantaneous, but over the course of time what diminished the most is my negative outcome expectancies response (Gruman 2017). Negative outcome expectancies are, in layman’s terms, scenarios you create of a perceived threat due to being unable to communicate your desired image. Basically, you think something bad is going to happen because of something you either did or did not do. In my case, I would allow my friends to make fun of me because of my perceived fear that if I fought back they would abandon me. These negative outcome expectancies would prevent me from acting the way I wished to be perceived and as a result prevented people from perceiving my image the way I wanted. By gaining experience as a result of those games, I slowly stopped feeling that dread in my gut and I stopped holding back my true self (for the most part). The anxiety is something I feel today and I don’t think I will ever fully be able to escape it. But, as of my life today, conversations with strangers are things I now actively (within reason) pursue.

References:

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

When it comes down to mental health disorders, this can be a pretty big deal as this takes many lives every day. A lot of disorders are not always addressed as they should be, so the only thing we can do is overcome the stigma of mental illness. To start, a disorder I will be covering with be Depression, which I have seen firsthand within my own family along with my closest friends. A loss of a loved one or the degrading comments from one individual onto another can have a potential impact on someone’s life. I have seen those who have suffered severely from depression in my own workplace, especially those who have experienced traumatic events growing up. So initially, some may ask “what is the true definition or how would you simply define Depression?”

Depression is a serious medical or mental health illness that is common, that have a substantial impact on how you think and react to situations negatively (American Psychiatric Association). Depression also “causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease your ability to function at work and at home” (American Psychiatric Association). In conclusion, it takes a lot of your happiness away and sort of brings this heavy dark cloud over you until your able to push that cloud away. Researchers and studies have shown that “depression affects an estimated one in 15 adults in any given year. Ad one in six people will experiences depression at some time in their life. Depression can occur at any time, but on average, first appears during the late teens to mid-20’s” (American Psychiatric Association). In most cases, women are more prone to experiencing depression versus men.

Furthermore, the Biopsychosocial Model works well when it comes to depression. This model is defined by evaluating all “biological, psychological and social factors that might be contributing to the development or maintenance of the disorder. With regard to biological factors, it is known that depressed individuals are often significantly disturbed with regard to endocrine, immune and neurotransmitter system functioning” (MentalHelp.net). There are a lot of factors that come into play here, such as negative thinking, judging others, inability to express one’s emotions, experienced traumatic events, harassment, or abuse, never received social support from family members or those within the given environment, etc. The list can go on and on of many things that can possibly influence or trigger depression to begin. To conclude, “social stressors can trigger a physical cause of depression. Environmental and social causes of depression can also be far more subtle than actual trauma” (MentalHelp.net).

Now this model focuses on more so figuring out how to cure this disease from the inside out rather than just on the surface. This is more so in depth as this focuses on every aspect that may play a part in triggering this disorder. For example, if someone had experienced a traumatic event at a young age, depression could have been triggered and potentially damaged the individual’s mental health. Doing therapy along with being exposed to triggers may help those who experience mental health issues, to be able to recognize, understand, and acknowledge these triggers in order to move on in their lives. Some people say to write down how they feel daily in a general, almost like a gratitude book, expressing how they feel through their day and what they did. Then at the end of the week or the next day, looking through to see what had made an impact on them and what needs to be changed in order for the triggers to go away. Another way to prevent depression or treat it can be art therapy, as this stimulates the brain when the individual is focused on what they are doing. This is also another good thing when trying to control anxiety too. In my personal opinion, I like to draw or color in a coloring book when I’m stressed, this clams me down in more ways then I know, and music too.

Overall, depression can come in various forms and its quite common during specific stages in life. There are also many different therapies or ways we can help treat depression. Everyone finds things that can help them cope, it just takes time in figuring what helps you improve and what doesn’t. While some medications may actually increase depression, so that’s not the best way to necessarily go unless its true needed.

References:

N.A. What is Depression? (2020). American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved September 23, 2021, from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression

N.A. Current Understandings of Major Depression – Biopsychosocial model. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mentalhelp.net/depression/biopsychosocial-model/

My Blog Reply: The effects of short-term temptations in the American Culture: Obesity.

          After I read this post on how Obesity is negatively affecting American society, I can see a lot of connections between the points being made and our readings for the week. This blog post discusses how many people have underlying issues such as stress, and insecurities that lead them to become obese over time. I do agree with the idea that we should all aim to find ways that will prevent a large number of people from continuously having to deal with obesity. I feel like a lot of aspects can tie into a person having obesity. This can include being bullied, different medications, stress, and insecurities as mentioned in the post.

          In our readings in Chapter 8 of Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Applying Social and Practical Problems we touch on biopsychosocial approaches to mental health and there are also a few paragraphs mentioning the Theory of Planned Behavior. I feel as though both of these can somehow tie into the issue of obesity. The chapter states “…according to the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), the way to change people’s behavior is to alter their behavioral intentions. Behavioral intentions are decided on in advance of most behaviors and are the best predictors of what people will do. For people to adopt healthier behaviors, they have to change their behavioral intentions.” ( Gruman, 270). So when I think about obesity and the potential causes I think about stress, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression, and food addictions. The theory of planned behavior would suggest that a person may indulge in food because they are so stressed and that food is their comfort zone. Some people emotionally eat, and some people just love food and it becomes their addiction. Others may be bullied and told they are told to change something about their body. I would say these are all factors that have to do with the prediction that a person may become heavier if they are feeling one of many things such as stress or depression. I have taken medicine before that did the opposite to me and made me almost anorexic. I can only imagine medicines out there that do the opposite to people. If I change my mindset and put a positive thought about a healthier lifestyle and diet in my head I could have a planned behavior of being able to avoid obesity and avoiding stress as much as I can.

         Yet in order for us to change our health, we have to be determined and stay highly positive. As our book writes “Even if a person has a positive attitude about making the targeted behavior change and subjective norms that favor the change, if perceived behavioral control is low, it is unlikely that the behavioral change will be made.” (Gruman, 271). Therefore I would suggest for a person to find a strong social and emotional support system.

       When I think about these contributors like stress, insecurities, social media influences I think about the biopsychosocial approach we learned about. We read “… the biopsychosocial model demands that we also pay attention to psychological and social influences. Consequently, issues such as the particular meanings that patients attach to their illnesses, patients’ motivation to recover (or not), patients’ response styles (whether they stoically minimize symptoms rather than tending to exaggerate symptom reporting), and to what extent patients benefit from support from other people when they are ill are seen as important determinants of how people experience illness (DiMatteo & Martin, 2002).” (Gruman, 255). This model also would explain how social factors play a role in obesity.  

One would be hard pressed to find a topic that creates more divisiveness in our country than climate change. We are presented with a continual feed of stories on hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires, floods, and other disasters that should cause everyone to consider, “what is happening to our planet.” In academia, the facts regarding the negative effects of climate change on the planet are presented as a starting point from which all future research must be conducted. In the textbook for PSYCH 105 How to Think Straight About Psychology author Keith Stanovich bravely discusses the biases found on both sides of popular scientific debate. (Stanovich, 2019) Stanovich highlights mistakes made by both Democrats (Liberals) and Republicans (Conservatives) in their conclusions regarding social, environmental, and biological science. Though he proceeds to outline specific areas of error found with both sides, in climate change he boldly states, “The role of human activity in climate change is established science…” While willing to find scientific holes in many topics considered settled, he puts a period on the climate change debate.  I would suspect the reader of this blog is predicting that I am going to refute this statement with the usual ‘climate change denier’ talking points. That person did not carefully read the title of this blog.

I consider myself one who cares deeply about the health of our planet. My area of focus seems to be directed to causes the benefit the health of our oceans. I am a monthly supporter of 4 Ocean, an organization that is dedicated to the full-time removal of plastics from our oceans, and I ran the Twin Cities Marathon while raising money for The Ocean Conservatory in Washington DC. My lifestyle has evolved into a more minimalist approach, and I am a conscientious caretaker of the environment at a level that most of us likely live (though (confession time) I am a cigar smoker!). As I will touch on later, I despise the laziness and oftentimes disingenuousness of labels, but if asked, I am likely a ‘moderate environmentalist’. I am far from a climate change denier, but I confidently stand as a climate change movement denier.

I will give you the respect by not burying the lead or my argument- If one believes that climate change is the number one threat affecting every human on this planet, they will act and speak in ways quite different than what we are presented by those passionately representing the movement. Outage and confrontation would be replaced by calmness and active listening. Talking points would be replaced be specific articulation. Hypocritical lifestyles would be replaced with authenticity. Labeling would be replaced by attempts to understand. Confirmation bias would be replaced by a sincere presentation of the supportive findings as well as a willingness to address findings that may appear contradictory to climate change science. These are the characteristics of one who is sincerely motivated. I try to instill in my niece and nephew that if you are grounded in the truth and pure motives, there is never a reason to get angry. Anger in a conversation will not usually arise from a foundation of frustration, but fear. Confidence and authenticity in one’s viewpoint removes the propensity for anger. An effective advocate for any cause will be grounded in familiarity, a combination of compassion and passion, and lives out their life in a manner that matches their words. We see very little manifestation of these characteristics in our public advocates today. We simply can’t predict the doom of the world by climate change and expect agreement if we are flying to our conferences in private jets (No. You don’t have to.)  Living in 30,000 sq ft mansions, buying ocean front property, labeling everyone who has a question a ‘denier’, and not even possessing a simple elevator pitch on exactly what the climate change threat is to our planet and livelihood.

In the textbook Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems, the chapter entitled Applying Social Psychology to the Environment we find a section discussing the Strategies for Inducing Pro-Environment Behavior. (Gruman, 2017) The text takes us through three categories of pro-environment behavior that inarguably will benefit the climate- 1) increased recycling 2) reduced driving and 3) reduced home energy use. I will save you the effort of reading the text by assuring you that none of the interventions applied included labeling those who refuse to participate, defacing vehicles with poor fuel consumption, or presenting hyperbole and generalizations with no ability to provide supporting specifics. It was quite refreshing to read a calm and specific presentation of the dilemmas, consequences, and possible solutions found in climate change science. Most importantly I found it persuasive and empowering. Is climate change science any different than other issues of our time? Though one could boldly argue that the costs are much greater, it would be difficult to justify that the handling of the science should subsequently be different.

I believe most individuals that support climate change science are authentically concerned about the future of our planet. I have much less confidence that those people are holding the microphone. To win the war, leaders must step up to the forefront of the movement and behave and speak like a true leader. The message of us versus them is results in ‘them’ building stronger resistance, and that should be the expected behavioral outcome when one is demonized for a different opinion. That is why the climate change movement is hurting the health of our natural environment. If the future livability of our planet is the stakes in the war, then the movement must reevaluate how they go to battle.

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

Stanovich, K. E. (2019). How to Think Straight About Psychology. Hoboken: Pearson.

In this lesson, we realized the interaction and correlation between the environment and our code of action. I think the most enlightening thing should be the impact of man-made architectural environment on people’s psychological state. Just like the Moore building mentioned in Chapter 4, there are not rare cases of man-made buildings deliberately affecting people’s psychology, For example, like the casino design in Macao, China, there is a Venetian Resort in Macao. The casino adopts a fully capped design to make the ceiling look like a normal sky, and there are no clocks and watches in the casino. This man-made design will make tourists unaware of what time it is, morning or night, so as to blur their concept of time, Keep excited to play or gamble. This design will bring matching economic benefits to casino makers and resort merchants. I think it should be similar to a plan to change behavior, although the beneficiaries are merchants, However, it has to be said that many local designs now actually contain a lot of psychological hints, including restaurants or shopping malls. This complementary component is particularly common in life. If we can more consciously explore these characteristics, it will be more profound for us to understand the topic of this class.

Reference：

Keaton, B. (2020, July 21). Casino design: The sneaky tricks that make you spend more. Casino.org Blog. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.casino.org/blog/casino-design-psychology/.