PSYCH 424 blog

In today’s society most everyone has access to a smartphone even children and adolescents. What happens when troubled teens or kids wanting to be seen as popular have access to these devices? Cyberbullying, which according to Coutts, Gruman, and Schneider (2017) is, “carried out in an electronic context through e-mail, text messaging, or social media venues like Facebook. It is distinctive from traditional bullying in that victims can be subjected to an attack almost anywhere and anytime, and without knowing the identity of the perpetrator—making it a particularly insidious type of bullying”. It is also important to note that cyberbullies can even create fake accounts pretending to be someone else in order to bully someone else, this is sometimes called catfishing.

I grew up in the era of smartphones which made accessing social media sites like Facebook and Instagram as easy as touching a button. I have seen firsthand what cyberbullying can do. I have a close friend who was being bullied on Facebook because she was popular, and a lot of other girls disliked her. So a group of anonymous girls made a page where they publicly bashed her and posted pictures of her at parties. This ruined her image and made people start spreading a lot of rumors about her. She did not attend school for a few weeks and had told me she was very depressed when all of this happened. Her mom worked at our high school we went to, and they ended up finding out who was responsible and made them take everything down.

As one can see the effects of cyberbullying can be very damaging. Especially in schools where children and adolescents are supposed to feel safe. Coutts et al. (2017) states that because of cyberbullying, “School is no longer seen as a safe environment in which the emphasis is on academic achievement and on building interpersonal skills and relationships. Students can no longer focus solely on their learning because they also must be very vigilant about who they interact with, where they walk, and who is saying what about them on social media.” This demonstrates the extent to which bullying can damage a child’s ability to do well academically. One thing that can help a child succeed is being in a school with positive classroom climates and teachers who care. This is an environment that is challenging for the student and provides timely response to questions and concerns. Another thing is making assignments clear and making sure all students understand what is expected from them.

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

Social media and technological advances have been advancing in ways that we could have never imagined twenty years ago. From phones being wired and connected to the wall to wireless, intact with GPS, and capable of pretty much anything you can think of. Social media has created a world where there are just as many cons as there are pros. For example, social media has created a world where we no longer have to be lonely. Anyone is able to log on and connect with people in their city or someone half across the world. While social media has helped battle loneliness amongst people, it has also caused us to become less social in REAL life.

We are often hiding behind our screens in order to connect causing a high rise in social anxiety amongst younger people. There have been 750 million users on Facebook which is the largest social media site to date. It was noted that on each day, roughly 375 million users log into the site to connect with other users which is over the ENTIRE population of the United States (U.S. Census, 2011). What I want to contribute to this weeks blog is something I came across on CNBC regarding Facebook and a new development that is being worked on.

The new development is known as ‘Metaverse’ which is what Facebook plans to change their name to. This Metaverse will be a virtual world that every user will be able to access. The development came after COVID-19 took its turn on our world and plans to launch within the next decade. The Metaverse will reach ‘over a billion people and be a host of hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce’ (Rodriguez, 2021). It will also have jobs for millions of creators and developers. If you have ever put on a virtual reality head set of any kind, it will be similar. Instead a world with REAL people, REAL commerce, REAL jobs… but completely virtual.

There will be animated versions of each Facebook user in which they can take part in this virtually real world. There will be headsets similar to the Oculus Quest VR Set which will sell for $299.00 (Rodriguez, 2021). I am excited to see the role this takes on our world, however I truly feel as if maybe we need to take a back seat on virtual reality worlds and focus on the one we live in already. I see how addicting regular VR sets are for my baby cousins, so to add this feature to our adult world… I believe there should be certain provisions in place such as only being able to be on VR for ‘X’ amount of hours and so on.

References

Rodriguez, S. (2021). Facebook changes company name to Meta. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/facebook-changes-company-name-to-meta.html.

U.S. Census. (2011). U.S. & World Population Clocks. Retrieved from http://
www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

This weeks lesson related the legal system and criminal justice to social psychology. From interrogations and investigations to confessions and lineups. Each thing mentioned has a relation to social psychology and shapes their methods or techniques around it. For example, language in interviews was another thing covered in this lesson. What truly interested me was the study done by Loftus and Palmer that related to asking eyewitnesses how fast a car was going (1974).

What interested me about it is that one single word being changed in the question asked made the results drastically different. The study asked a number of eyewitnesses how fast a car driving by was going (1974). They used four different word choices which were “contacted”, “collided”, “hit” and “smashed” (1974). I will not reiterate the results as they were part of all our lesson to read. However, the results ranged by over 6 miles per hour given the word choice that was used.

What this goes to show is that simple word choice can cause these eyewitnesses or participants to be swayed into answering in a way that benefits that chosen word choice. For example, when the word ‘smashed’ was used, it resulted in the highest number out of all the results at 40.5 mph. The word ‘smashed’ indicates intense collision and furthermore high speed, etc. There have been many studies done showing that changing something as simple as one word out of a sentence or question can result in the participants answer most likely leaning toward whatever the leading word or question insinuated toward. This is called misinformation effect (2017).

The reason I decided to bring this up out of our weeks lesson is because I feel like whether we realize it or not, we have all been victim of this effect. Even if we haven’t, we must be aware of the effect in order to stay out of the path of it. You may know exactly how a situation occurred, however something has simple as adding an emotionally charged word such as “smash” may have you question your decision to align it with how the question was shaped. By knowing of the effect, it makes it easier for us as potential future eyewitnesses to point it out and answer true to what you witnessed. From police line ups, to interrogations and investigations—all tactics that the criminal justice partakes in has a touch or more of social psychology intertwined which this lesson make clear.

References

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

Loftus, E.L., & Palmer, J.C. (1974). Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13. 585-589.

We all have experience with bullying. Whether you have personally been bullied or know someone else who has, it is a very hurtful and traumatic thing to deal with. It can take the form of offensive language, purposefully excluding someone, teasing someone, harassing someone and creating emotional distress, or enacting physical violence towards a person. Many kids find it hard to escape from bullying and find moments of peace as bullying can occur not just at school, but online. This can result in a child’s change in behavior, loneliness, low self-esteem, physical and mental illness, or suicidal ideation. But why? Why are children so mean and aggressive towards one another? And what are some ways of reducing this aggression? 

By using psychology we can hopefully intervene and save the next generation from harming each other or themselves. 

There is not just one simple cause for why children tend to be so aggressive and cruel to each other. Studies have found that there are many societal, psychological, environment, intrapersonal, etc. factors that contribute to this issue. 

Studies have found that students/children with psychological issues are more likely to be ostracized by their peers. This in turn, causes anger/aggression in the alienated party towards teachers, faculty and peers. “These students may come to believe that aggres- sion is the only effective way of dealing with feelings of isolation and that their violent actions are justified. They may not see any alternative means of coping effectively with the harmful antisocial behavior that is directed at them.” (Gruman, 246) This continuation of aggression tends to serve as a justification for further alienation. This creates a feedback loop where these alienated children are the  “perpetrators and the victims of school- related aggression” (Gruman, 246)

Researchers also suggest that Bandura’s social learning theory is applicable to bullying and that children may learn aggression in the same way that they “learn from observing [other] behaviors”. (Gruman, 247) For instance, a child’s behavior may be influenced by what they deem to be “typical, expected, or rewarding”. Children’s “expectations about how they ought to behave in the classroom regarding aggressive behavior (injunctive norms) were significantly associated with their aggressive behavior.” (Gruman, 247)

They may also act out in an aggressive manner if they realize that there are no consequences for their actions. This has contributed to the popularity of cyberbullying as anonymity allows them to say and do many things they normally do and without consequence. This also removes the layer of consequences associated with physical crime/harassment. 

To reduce this aggressive behavior, programs need to be implemented that address why, how, and in what social environment the bullying occurs. For instance, if children start to see their peers being punished for being aggressive they will realize that is not acceptable behavior. This implies that there needs to be support and supervision from adults. Because children tend to model the behavior they see, it is important that they are around people that display good behaviors. Other ways to reduce aggressive behavior are “to change this normative behavior by reducing the rewards gained by bullies (and consequently, their motivation to bully), and by teaching children how to provide support to victims”. (Gruman, 248) Finally, schools and other institutions must find ways to encourage community and “cooperation” amongst children which will ultimately decrease conflict and isolation.

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.

Through a well-known experiment, the “Blue eyes-Brown eyes” exercise was organized by Jane Elliott. We can find that discrimination is learned by the day after. People learn to discriminate against others the day later, so those who feel they were born no different from others are forced to “learn to be discriminated against.”

The scariest thing about discrimination is that the self-esteem of the discriminated person who over-corrects themselves and forms a deformity can make people sensitive and loving. Their behavior is difficult to show at ease, which ultimately affects a person’s vision and pattern.

The United States is a predominantly immigrant country, each ethnic and cultural background has its unique charm.

 I think education should be the most fundamental way to reduce discrimination. The less money a low-yielding family has, the worse the child’s education. The richer the middle class/higher class, the more emphasis is placed on higher education, and the more money their children will earn when they grow up. It would also lead to a vicious circle of polarization of social wealth, allowing the poor to make money from labor. Even with the same skin color, polarization can lead to social unrest. Because of poverty and discrimination among many blacks, the problem has risen to the racial level. And the pain is even more acute.

Therefore, there is a need to improve public education so that everyone has as much education as possible, rather than poverty being born to lose out on the starting line. This was difficult to achieve because educational resources, significantly higher education, were scarce. But now that science and technology are advanced, the problem can be alleviated by technical means. For example, many online courses are free to encourage children to learn more.

Reference:

Stewart, T. L., LaDuke, J. R., Bracht, C., Sweet, B. A. M., & Gamarel, K. E. (2003). Do the “Eyes” Have It? A Program Evaluation of Jane Elliott’s “Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes” Diversity Training Exercise. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(9), 1898–1921. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb02086.x

When I first entered the university, my first chosen major was art education since I was good at making artworks. However, I found that teaching might not be the best choice, and I switched to fine art. At the same time, I took PSYCH 100 as my general education requirement course, which attracted me even though I got a C. I added psychology as my minor during my sophomore year. Eventually, I changed my little in psychology to a major in my junior year because I have decided to pursue a different degree in psychology. Even though completing both art and psychology degrees adds to my pressure for performing well in academics. I was happy with how I found something I was interested in.

I grew up in an environment where external rewards seem to be the final destination for me to reach. In my previous studying experience, there will be relatively equal value exchange for the input and output. I hardly think about if I learned something from the process but rather how the outcomes will be. I was in the stage of identified regulation, defined as individuals engaging in activities to help them achieve goals that have become important to them, not because of intrinsic interest. (Gruman, 2017, p. 231) From the first two years in the university, I know that having a high GPA is essential for maintaining academic performance. Still, I barely think about the reason behind the GPA. For instance, I tend to read the relevant small part that I could use in the discussion instead of reading for the whole piece.

My idea has altered since I started to consider pursuing psychology as my career. I do not necessarily consider the reading, writing, or mathematical assignments a burden but a way to build up my knowledge about this major. A high GPA stands for high academic achievement and the marks of improving learning skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, etc. The summer research program reinforced my idea of motivating myself spontaneously; I found the few top students who scored high in the session tend to have their way of comprehension towards the psychological subjects based on their fund of knowledge. The lack of deep understanding of the field caused me to spend more time studying psychology since I see there are many things that I can improve. The top students maintain the integrated regulation in which they perfectly combine the internal but external information to a coherent set of values, goals, and priories. (Gruman, 2017, p. 231) The upward social comparison could be applied in this situation where we are motivated to better our performance and help us set higher goals by providing information about what we are capable of achieving. (Gruman, 2017, p. 235).

Since my cognitive intentions and attitudes towards studying have altered, my behaviors were positively impacted as well. I used to have procrastination where I tended to delay my work till the last minute. I realized that it put me in a worse spot than I need to handle the intense stress to work in a limited time which can not assist me in providing good quality work. The textbook depicted a vignette about a girl named Susan who had difficulties with math tests. I had a similar experience with her that I tend to use both procrastination and self-handicapping when I find an “appropriate excuse” to maintain a good self-image. However, my grades were low due to both of the reasons. I decided to distribute the work every day before the deadline, which provided me with more efficient time to devote more towards my assignments. Instead of finding an excuse for my effortless move, I choose to take every quiz, test, or exam seriously with all my effort. My GPA has improved a lot after I set a plan for my daily studying routine.

In my perspective, it is essential for us to be intrinsically motivated to perform something not because interest is the best teacher but helps us figure out why we are doing certain things. Intrinsic motivation tends to be more potent than stimulation from the outside since we know what we want. The negative impact of conformity will be reduced. For instance, we might see many people pursue higher degrees and choose to do so due to the satisfaction of vanity or fear of being in solitude. However, it might be better to see if there is a program in the higher degree that we would be interested in and think we will learn in-depth. It is a process that might take us time to learn and absorb but will benefit us long-term.

Reference:

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

In the media context, sexual content refers to any material showing sexual behavior. The sexual behavior here may be implicit sexual conduct, such as flirting; it may be explicit or include sexual language in all or most of its content. In the modern world, sexual content is the largest factor in many content rating systems. The content is most common in the users of television programs, violent video games, and films. The use of the internet in the modern world has greatly contributed to people’s exposure to sexual content. However, the degree of the effect is unknown. The long exposure may also lead to addiction to the sexual content interfering with the daily lives of these people. Social psychology should be applied to address the effects of exposure to these sexual content and other sexual, violent materials in media since the problem is also a social issue.

The first recommendation especially for parents to help in reducing the effect of sexual content on media on their children is proper communication between parents and children. Communication, sexuality, and sexual health should begin at earlier stages of life. The communication should be kept constant and continue as the minor develops. The sexual content in the media can be used as a starting point for parents to start a conversation with their children about sexuality and sexual health (Ward et al., 2019). Parents play an important role in being sources of sexual information which helps correct misinformation that is displayed in the media. The communication between parents and their children should start at early stages with appropriate materials that can help them. As depicted in the course material, communication and pre-briefing groups lead to decreased rape cases among adolescents. Communication between parents and their children is a way of informing adolescents, especially boys, that they should not be violent with their opposite gender; rather, they should see them as their sisters.

Another way of mitigating the effects of sexual content on media is monitoring consumption of the content. For example, parents need to monitor and mediate the consumption of television by their children. Parents must know what their children are watching on their television and give guidance on the best content their children should watch, a content that is best suited for their children. Parents monitoring their children’s media content to consume involves the approval of the program and its characters that the child may be exposed to in the media. The monitoring also involves an intense discussion of what the program entails and the potential impact it may have on its consumers, especially minor individuals. Most parents use rules to mitigate the media consumption of their children. Using the rules, children should understand the nonproprietary content and discuss the sexual content exposed to children (Gruman et al., 2017). The parents should also be careful of their media consumption as the family characteristics are leading to viewing the patterns as their children grow.

The last intervention is media literacy to educate the children on the role of media in individual life. Children may not have the capacity to understand and distinguish the media happening from reality. The children may believe that the characters on the media are real and that the situations they encounter and their responses are real. However, as they age, they develop the ability to understand, but they may develop problems in their overall health, relationships, and sexual lives before they get this ability. Young people may lack the ability to analyze the messages and information critically they receive from media sources. For these children to improve their ability to understand media information, parents must play a major role in developing media literacy skills.

References

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

Ward, L. M., Moorman, J. D., & Grower, P. (2019). Entertainment media’s role in the sexual socialization of Western youth: A review of research from 2000-2017.

In this week’s lesson, we talked about stereotype, discrimination, and prejudice, then I did some extension research, and I found an article called “What’s Going on With Our Black Girls?’ Experts Warn of Rising Suicide Rates.” by Christina Caron. This article caught my eye because it specifically talks about suicide rates with black girls. I used to be a teacher in a diverse school where the majority of girls I teach are black. Caron revealed the statistic that, “…black children under 13 are dying by suicide at nearly twice the rate of white children the same age.” (Caron, 2021). As an educator, this is alarming. During the school year teachers spend the same amount of time with their students as they do at home, if not more. We have a responsibility to make sure these students feel wanted, welcomed, and loved in life.

LaVome Robinson, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago, stated that, “The experiences of the African American child are like none other in the United States,” and “We live in a society that marginalizes us — more so probably than any other group — and has historically for years.” (2021). These children are often judged and scrutinized simply because of the color of their skin or the texture of their hair. Imagine the affect that has on the student’s mental health.

Having to cope with this while in the classroom can have its problems. Students may be disconnected from their schoolwork and responsibilities. They may feel alone and not want to play or interact with other students. I think teachers need to be aware of this and make sure they are an ally for students of all races. Teachers need to make black culture something positive and celebrated in the classroom, as well as other cultures. Students will feel welcomed, appreciated and not alone.

We encounter stereotyping all the time. Girls are stereotyped; boys are stereotyped; teachers, artists, mothers, fathers, lifeguards, the elderly, and so many more are stereotyped. As I entered college, I realize there’re certain stereotypes could be labeled on a person for their whole life. In fact, most of the reasons for the emergence of fixed thinking stereotypes are the so-called, without proving opinions through practice, purely judging a series of things through their own non-objective judgment. Everyone will be labeled, but human character is not completely unchanged, some experiences, some processes can produce different personality and identity. In conclusion, dealing with stereotypes is about understanding, accepting, and then making a judgment, rather than making a statement that doesn’t go too far.

References:

Caron, C. (2021, September 10). ‘What’S going on with our black girls?’ experts warn of rising suicide rates. The New York Times. Retrieved September 11, 2021, from https:// www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/well/mind/suicide-rates-black-girls.html.

With the popularization and promotion of psychology, people pay more and more attention to their disciplines and mental health problems, especially in the education industry. The society pays more and more attention to students’ mental health problems, but in fact, relatively speaking, teachers’ mental health is also a problem that can not be ignored. As an existence closely related to students, teachers themselves have an irreplaceable impact on students’ mental health. However, as a high-pressure occupation, teachers have no small chance of psychological problems.

Previous studies have shown that a considerable number of teachers feel emotional exhaustion in their careers。 Nearly 5% – 20% of American teachers will form occupational burnout at a certain period of their careers (blase, 1986; Huston, 1989). Both emotional exhaustion and job burnout are mental health problems caused by teachers’ occupation. Specific performance in the following aspects: first, resentment. That is, they do not love their own work and lack enthusiasm for teaching. The second is physiological psychological symptoms. Such as depression, anxiety, and various somatic symptoms accompanied by psychological and behavioral problems, such as insomnia, headache, loss of appetite, sore throat, waist pain, poor breathing, tachycardia and so on. Third, lack of love and patience. Because of poor grades, they complain that students don’t study well, corporal punishment, beating and scolding students or verbal humiliation, praise the problems of college students, and deal with problems simply and rudely. Fourth, job burnout. Its main characteristics are withdrawal from education and teaching, irresponsibility, emotional and physical exhaustion, easy to anger, anxiety, sadness and low self-esteem. Manifested as emotional exhaustion, such as fatigue, irritability, irritability, allergy and tension; Depersonalization, such as negative, indifferent and lack of emotional response to students and teaching work; Personal sense of achievement is reduced, and it is difficult to experience positive emotions from work.

Many studies on Teachers’ psychology show that teachers’ mental health is closely related to psychological stress. Indeed, psychological stress is a reaction of teachers to negative emotions in education and teaching activities. This reaction is often accompanied by potential pathological physiological and biochemical changes caused by teachers’ occupation (such as accelerated heart rate and release of adrenocorticotropic hormone into the blood), resulting in a series of psychological and physiological symptoms. On the other hand, teachers’ pressure will cause frustration. Anxiety from work is a potential threat to teachers’ good physical and mental state. The pressure experienced by teachers is much higher than that of people in other occupations, mainly including time needs, office affairs, difficulties in communicating with students, improper control and incentive of students, too many students in class, economic pressure, lack of educational support and so on.

Therefore, when we pay attention to the mental health problems of children, what we can’t ignore is the psychological state of the teachers who lead them in the right direction. Teachers are also human beings. They will also have all kinds of troubles and can’t be too perfect.

Evers, W. J., Brouwers, A., & Tomic, W. (2002). Burnout and self-efficacy: A study on teachers’ beliefs when implementing an innovative educational system in the Netherlands. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 72(2), 227–243. https://doi.org/10.1348/000709902158865

As a child, math was always a challenging subject for me. It was something that didn’t really come naturally and from a very early age I knew it was my weakest subject. I can specifically remember a multiplication test in second grade in which I just had zero clue what to write down. Just thinking about it now brings me back to the moment and I’m filled with the same embarrassment and confusion. These memories can be traced back to elementary school, a time when I was setting the framework for the rest of my schooling career. The influence math had on me stemmed from those moments and has since stayed with me for the rest of my life. Since I viewed myself as someone who was just bad at math, it was hard to be motivated to try and improve. My mother would constantly tell me she was bad at math too and most of the time I figured that if an adult wasn’t good at math, maybe I didn’t need to be. Meanwhile my engineer father would become frustrated when I didn’t understand something he was trying to explain, further emphasizing my lack of self confidence with the subject. My academic self concept, the feelings and beliefs I had regarding my academic ability (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016), in terms of mathematics were about as negative as they could be.

This attitude continued into middle and high school as I would dread math class each day. For one brief year, I elected to be put into the lower level math class. Most of the students in the class were selected due to teacher recommendations but I had asked to be put into the class in hopes I wouldn’t feel like such a failure each time I try to complete an activity. The year was the best year I ever had in a math class. I was one of the top students in the course, I participated and actually felt confident in my abilities. I knew how to answer the questions and suddenly it felt like everything was clicking. The better I did, the more motivated I became to continue studying and strengthen my skills. All of this correlates to the large amount of literature linking motivation and achievement (Gambrell et al., 1996). When I began to feel successful my entire attitude changed. Even when a new concept was difficult, I approached it like a challenge instead of an obstacle. I adopted a growth mindset instead of remaining in my fixed one and set higher goals for myself, actually believing I could achieve them.

Unfortunately, I made the decision to move back into the higher level math class the following year. While it was positive that the other class allowed me to build up my confidence, it also made me feel as though I didn’t belong in that class. In hindsight, I realize I was likely doing so well because it was the better environment for me, not because I didn’t belong. It didn’t take long for me to slip back into my own ways once I went back into the other classes. As I got older, I found myself procrastinating homework and studying. While many students report procrastinating assignments for some period of time (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016), I used it as a coping mechanism. I was afraid of failing or feeling dumb, so I’d put off the work in order to not feel that way. I no longer believed I had the capabilities to complete the work and lacked intrinsic motivation to try and improve. Teachers would post test grades on a bulletin board next to your student ID to keep scores anonymous. While you didn’t know which grade belong each person, seeing the list allowed you to compare yourself to your peers and it’s hard to realize everyone was doing much better than me. I would also self-handicap myself by creating barriers to interfere with my academic performance (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2016). I recall my eighth grade math teacher trying to schedule time to meet with me and discuss my performance, but I would constantly avoid her. I didn’t want to face the reality of my situation and also knew that if she did start helping me and I continued to fail, I’d have nothing left to blame it on. This way I could continue to not do well but still protect my self confidence and simply blame it on my lack of studying or support.

It wasn’t until college that I had another brief moment of feeling better about my math abilities. I was required to take statistics and actually found it was something I was quite good at. I had always done well with memorizing formulas or rules, but couldn’t always recall how they were supposed to be used. Luckily, a lot of statistics was remembering information and learning to interpret it, which was something that came naturally to me. My professor also made the class engaging and fun to attend. He was a positive guy who was incredibly knowledgable and passionate about his field, so much so it seemed to rub off on his students. We were motivated to learn and felt safe to take risks and practice new skills because he set up the environment to do so. He encouraged students to find multiple ways to solve a problem, something that I hadn’t experienced before, which allowed me to slowly bring my confidence back knowing I could get the right answer in whatever way I saw fit. I wasn’t confined to a specific strategy and even though I may not have used the most efficient method each time, I still made my way to the correct response.

Math is still a subject I feel nervous around today. As an adult I obviously find myself in less situations that require complicated math skills but still use basic skills on a daily basis. It’s something i’ve come to accept, but I wish someone had intervened early to help change my attitude from a younger age. If I had been exposed to an environment that encouraged things like choice and autonomy, it may have drastically changed my academic experience for the better.

References:

Gambrell, L. B., Palmer, B. M., Codling, R. M., & Mazzoni, S. A. (1996). Assessing motivation to read. The Reading Teacher, 49(7), 518–533. https://doi.org/10.1598/rt.49.7.2 

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

All throughout elementary, middle, and high school, we learn math, reading, writing, speech, health, science, and history but what do we learn about our mental health. Mental health has been a hot topic recently and I believe it’s because it seems to be new to us. As we know every generation grew up differently but the same school subjects till seem to stay the same.

20% of adolescents have a mental disorder but would they be able to identify the symptoms (Schwarz, 2009). Most kids will end up having a depressive episode once before they hit adulthood. So what can we do to help prepare them for the anxiety, stress, unexplainable feelings and emotions, and depression we can give them an insight on ways to deal with it early on. Adolescents’ lives can be very stressful as they are trying to understand the physical and emotional changes they are going through. As well as trying to fit in with their peers. Not to mention I believe that at that age it is very difficult to communicate with your parents.

Teachers have such as difficult job and boy many of them are amazing at it but I believe that it could make their job easier behavioral wise if students were educated on their mental health. A class on mental health should be informative but fun at the same time. We should normalize talking about how we’re feeling and what’s going on in our brains because when we don’t it can cause us to act out. If we could put a little bit of psychology in daily lessons as they get older they will have a better understanding of how to deal with their mental health. Children are the future and I believe that we should prepare them for life beyond basic school subjects.

School districts should do a better job of providing programs, classes, or even after-school activities on dealing with mental health. Once we can normalize talking about these situations I believe that children will see how it is okay to feel different emotions sometimes and that they are normal for feeling them. We should also make children aware of signs of depression as we could possibly lower teen suicide rates if we can educate them and persuade them to seek help.

Post author Susan Wile Schwarz, Schwarz, S. W., Project  Improving the Odds for Adolescents; & Publication Type  Fact Sheet. (n.d.). Adolescent mental health in the United States: Facts for policymakers. NCCP. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://www.nccp.org/publication/adolescent-mental-health-in-the-united-states-facts-for-policymakers/.

    The relationship between social software and personal emotion has been discussed for several years, but the correlation has not been clearly proved. This year, a study at the University of Pennsylvania found for the first time that the use of social media, such as Facebook, twitter and INS, can affect people’s health and increase people’s depression and loneliness. This research is done in a different way, because the new IOS system of the iPhone has a new function, that is, “screen usage time”. This allows researchers to collect active usage data of users’ social platforms from users’ iPhones (excluding the background running of apps). 143 undergraduate students of Penn University will complete a questionnaire (including 7 scales) on their emotional and physical and mental health at the beginning of the experiment. Then they were told that they needed to send screenshots of screen usage time to the researchers every night for the next four weeks. A week later, the subjects received a second emotion assessment questionnaire. At the same time, the subjects got their grouping information. They were randomly divided into the control group (their social app usage habits remained unchanged) and the experimental group (they could only play on Facebook, INS, and snapchat for 10 minutes a day). In the next three weeks, they will receive the evaluation questionnaire again every week, and they need to send the screen use time to the experimenters every night for data collection. The results showed that reducing their time using social apps compared with normal (about 30 minutes less per day according to the research data) would significantly improve the subjects’ mental health and reduce their depression and loneliness. It was even worse for those who had depressive symptoms at the beginning of the experiment. This result is very black humor. Why do you spend less time using social apps and feel less lonely? Isn’t the core function of social app in vain. In fact, it is not difficult to understand this conclusion if you study deeply, because today’s social apps, especially the information flow of INS, are full of comparison content. When users see other people’s lives through social apps, it is easy to arbitrarily conclude that others live better than themselves.

    The prosperity of social media is one of the basic manifestations of social and economic prosperity and development, but it is only a product and a tool after all. How to make good use of it is our most fundamental goal. The birth of products is driven by demand. In the past, cars and horses were very slow, and it may take half a year for a letter to go back and forth, which made the ancients attach importance to emotion, righteousness and parting sad. However, with the rapid development of science and technology in modern society, the barriers of time and space have been broken through again and again. The rapid development of 4G and 5g has shortened our distance on the cloud. The satisfaction of instant messaging also reduces our social cost. At the same time, psychological defense is constantly strengthened, and trust between people is more difficult to obtain.

Reference

It is no secret that we live in a world that is a lot different than it was just 2 years ago. The COVID-19 virus has plagued us with more than just being sick. Just in 2020 we were hit with mask mandates that made it impossible to get in anywhere unless you were wearing a mask. There was also the curfews and stay at home orders. Now some of us are faced with getting vaccinated or losing our jobs. All of these issues have been getting a lot of media coverage. What we see in the media has the power to shape the way we view the world and what we think is important. How and why the issue of COVID-19 became so important is a question many of us have asked.

Agenda setting is the idea that the media has the power to influence what problems we think are important. So, as COVID-19 cases and casualties rose so did the concern for public safety. When it comes to what is covered in the media there are 3 entities that are involved. Coutts et al. (2017) state, “The public agenda involves the issues that the public thinks are important. The policy agenda involves the issues that government officials and policy makers think are important. The media agenda involves the issues that the media are covering extensively.” It is more common for the media agenda to impact the public agenda and then the policy agenda but in some cases it can be the other way around. It is the presidents jobs to protect all citizens even from deadly new viruses like COVID-19. In the case of COVID-19 the policy agenda influenced the media agenda which then influenced the public agenda. The media has shaped the way that we think about COVID-19, and for good reason.

COVID-19 has taken over our news stations and T.V. shows. For example, the show Greys Anatomy is now centered around the pandemic .We see the doctors covered in personal protective equipment being anxious about how many beds they have available and how their patients keep dying from COVID-19. With all of the media coverage around COVID-19 there is no doubt that it has in some way shape or form effected the way we think about the virus. According to Coutts et al. (2017), “… TV cultivates heavy viewers’ social reality. Research has consistently found that TV influences heavy viewers’ perceptions of the world”. This demonstrates how so much fear has been instilled in us about COVID-19. This is because of the cultivation theory. This theory is centered around the effects of watching TV for long periods of time. The media has been saturated with death rates and rising new cases, that it has indeed scared many of us.

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

The emerging social media in the information technology age is a cross-product of micro-learning and digital learning. Social media differs from traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, books, and so on. Social media includes such information resources and gives users the interactive right to share, comment, communicate, forward, like, etc.
The impact of social media addiction on people’s physical and mental health has always been a hot topic in digital technology. Numerous studies have shown a possible link between the rise in depression, anxiety, sleep, diet, and social media use.
A 2015 study by the University of Missouri found that frequent use of Facebook can lead to depression. Professor Margaret Duffy points out that “people may use Facebook tweets to measure how well a friend is doing and how happy others are in love – these can lead to jealousy and thus stimulate depression.”
All in all, I think social media is a double-edged sword from professional development and socialization perspective.
There are two purposes for using social media. One can socialize to meet the requirements of people’s social contacts, and the other can fulfill people’s entertainment and entertainment functions of the press.
The extent to which social media affects people is to see how much time people spend using it. After all, people use social media primarily for fun and relaxation, so it’s easy to indulge as if they’re browsing social media in a rampant way, with no specific purpose, and spend a lot of time affecting their daily lives and health.

Reference:

Nathan Hurst (2015) If Facebook Use Causes Envy Depression Could Follow

https://munewsarchives.missouri.edu/news-releases/2015/0203-if-facebook-use-causes-envy-depression-could-follow/

As technology has advanced so have social media platforms and the standards that they hold. The filters, the face tuning, the jealousy, and the comparing to others are all things that impact our mental health in many ways that we don’t realize. Do you think about it how many times a day do you pick up your phone at the sound of a notification going off? Most of the time when we can we pick it up right away.

Social media plays a part in our self-esteem. The edited pictures we see make us wonder why we don’t look like that. It can cause people to obtain an eating disorder because they feel they need to lose weight. This worrying about the way we look can cause depression as we become sad or upset that we don’t look like people posted on the internet as well as how the things that they have. This can also cause jealousy and anger which can worsen depression. On average 69% of adults and 81% of teenagers use some sort of social media (Pew Research Center 2021).

Many teenagers spend day and night on some sort of social media whether it be Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, or tik tok. All of these media sites cause a strain on our brains. Teenagers are still developing and their minds are still impressionable. So when they see things on the internet they tend to want to act in that manner. It can cause unwanted behavior, a change in appearance, or an emotional change. For example, if you see looks of criminal behavior or fighting on social media it can cause someone to want to do the same whether it be to feel like they belong or for likes. Wanting to do things because people want to feel like they belong is a big factor as well. Teenagers will post or do things on social media that others do to feel like they have a sense of community with others.

Cyberbullying is a BIG one as many people nowadays hide behind a computer screen. There are many adults and teenagers that target others. This can cause anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide. When being cyberbullied it is definitely hard to do because most of the time you don’t know who it is or why they are doing it. People that bully others behind a screen are usually dealing with something themselves so they hurt others because they want them to feel the same pain but as we know it is much better to seek help when feeling this way rather than having it project into angry on others. Cyberbullying is one of the biggest causes of depression as technology advances it makes it easier and easier for someone to hide behind a screen and say hurtful words or post embarrassing pictures on the internet.

All teenagers ever want is to feel like they belong. Social media gives them that feeling but with negative impacts. It can cause one to feel like they aren’t enough or they need to change something about themselves to be like others. These feelings of needing to compare yourself to others are what leads your brain to think that you aren’t enough which causes mental and eating disorders.

The social dilemma: Social media and your mental health. Here’s How Social Media Affects Your Mental Health | McLean Hospital. (2021, February 9). Retrieved October 21, 2021, from https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health.

The textbook Applied Social mentioned how we learn to imitate violence through the media based on the social cognitive theory. The idea has four sequential processes: attention, symbolic process, production process, and motivational process. (Gruman, 2017, p. 164) As the media spread important news about celebrity life, an increasing number of teenagers tend to blindly worship stars because of how media portray a famous person. The social cognitive theory could also be applied in how teenagers imitate celebrities through social media with four defined steps.

The first process is attention; individuals tend to be attracted by the novel, gripping, unusual behaviors. Social media as Instagram, where most celebrities post about their fabulous lives, includes the wealth they maintain, lifestyle, and interpersonal relationships. The photos they posted always seem perfect without flaws. The platform offers the opportunity for everyone to follow the person that they are interested in. Most of the celebrity’s Instagram page is valid to view without requesting, beginning vicarious learning. Teenagers are still developing mental maturity; some might follow someone as a model with their immediate interest.

The symbolic process is the second process, defined as remembering the modeled behavior, which includes mentally rehearsing the behavior. (Gruman, 2017, p. 164) After the teenagers are attracted to single or multiple celebrities, it increases the likelihood that their behavior might impact their daily lives since they pay more attention to their posts. Especially during adolescence, teenagers are emotional due to both the hormone’s alter and environmental stimulus. The interaction between the fans and celebrities is through the comment section, where the fans might feel they are realistically related to their favorite star. The more time that one spends more on reading, watching, even buying their advertising products, their affection will be more at the same time. According to the journal “intimate relationships and attitude toward celebrities” (McCutcheon, Gillen, etc., 2016), it indicates that excessive celebrity admiration is associated with a combination of previous poor quality intimate relationships that tend to resolve personal relationships by arguing rather than compromising. The ones who are obsessed with celebrities tend to be cognitively inflexible. Some of the stars do not build a decent public impression with their unhealthy lifestyle as consumption of illegal drugs, excessive drinking, chaotic private life, etc., set negative examples for the teenagers to learn.

After the long-term observation, the teenagers are gradually mastering performing the particular behavior known as the behavioral production process. Many girls have anxiety when they look at the photos that the celebrity post online, which they would be dissatisfied with their look. During adolescence, teenagers put the peer view as their priority, leading them to regard their physical appearance as a priority. Teens are likely to starve themselves to “keep in shape,” resulting in eating disorders. The trendy for celebrities to promote the idea that eating disorder is not as severe as it thought; it negatively impacts how teens deal with their bodies. Normalized substance use is also an issue in the entertainment industry. The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that teenagers who listen to songs that include marijuana as part of the lyrics will likely consume more drugs than the teens who attend less or do not listen.

The last process in Bandura’s model tends to emphasize the motivational process. It explains that the reward behind might be their reason for performing particular behavior. Teenage girls who work on losing weight desire to look better; it comes with peer approval and affections from the opposite or the same sex. The celebrity’s life also becomes part of the motivation since their life seems unrealistic well; some teens might fantasize about their life of becoming a celebrity as well. The materialistic value will be implicated strengthen inside the teen’s mind which they appear dissatisfied with their life. Some teens in school would overly expand their social life to gain fame by imitating their favorite star.

In conclusion, obsession with the celebrity might sometimes reflect self-dissatisfaction, placing one’s hope on the idealized figure. Honestly, we need to define ourselves rather than let anyone else label us. Finding oneself is not easy since we have a lot of temptations and interference from outside. People always say be yourself, but what does that mean? Let us ask ourselves what kind of person we want to be and then put effort into it. One psychology approach is humanism which focuses on self-growth, indicating the difference between our authentic self and ideal self. It is ok to follow the celebrity ones but learn what is good about them instead of accepting them all at once. It is a similar idea with appropriate hearing what others say about oneself for both the positive and negative sides since the person in control of life is always ourselves.

Reference:

Primack, B. A., Douglas, E. L., & Kraemer, K. L. (2010). Exposure to cannabis in popular music and cannabis use among adolescents. Addiction (Abingdon, England), 105(3), 515–523. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02801.x

McCutcheon, L. E., Gillen, M. M., Browne, B. L., Murtagh, M. P., & Collisson, B. (2016). Intimate relationships and attitudes toward celebrities. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships, 10(1), 77–89. https://doi.org/10.5964/ijpr.v10i1.208

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

Growing up in “just outside of Philly” my hometown did not offer much in the way of violent news stories. There were only ever a handful of moments growing up that I recall hearing about locally that involved serous criminal violence. A local store break in, stolen cars, and things that usually resulted in an arrest and damage to property. Yet being so close to Philadelphia, nightly news covered the major stories of the city. My parents always turned on the news after watching sitcoms, and I usually did not pay too much attention or went off to sleep for the night.

When I did pay attention to the nightly news coverage of the city, there was a pretty consistent theme. It seems like almost every night in the area someone died tragically in a car accident, a house fire, or a murder. Sometimes it was a combination of two or even all three occurring in the same night. Hearing these tragic stories being told day in and day out, they began to feel very commonplace. Even at a younger age that just became the news. It was a few small feel-good segments and sports highlights, all spaced around the big horrific incident of the day. We had become so accustomed to the violence in the news that the fact that it was real life, with real events and real people, it lost a lot of the emotional impact it would otherwise have. This desensitization to violence, crime, and tragedy happened so easily that when it became time to turn on the news, we would guess what story the night would include; a fire, a murder, a car crash, or some combination of the choices.

Guessing at tragic events for the evening is a clearly horrible thing. The steady stream of death in the Philadelphia news provided us with little other way of dealing with it other than to try and make a game out of it. While it functioned as a way to cope with all the awful news, in reality the news no longer made me feel that awful. Studies show that around a quarter of children in the fourth to sixth grades spontaneously reported during interviews that the local news was scary (Smith & Wilson, 2002). So this would mean that the other roughly 75% of children did not indicate being scared by local news. Of course local news differs depending on location, and as I mentioned my local neighborhood news hardly had any major stories if any that were violent. When hearing news of the city, which I was far enough away from, I was simply desensitized to all the violence.

Desensitization leads to people not acting more violent, but being less likely to act nonviolent. Seeing all of the violence in the news did not make feel the need to go out and commit crime, but rather I became more accepting of the fact that crime and violence is a part of society. Instead of reacting with fear or sadness over these stories, I began to feel less emotional about the news entirely. While I am aware now of what was happening as a child hearing all of these events, it definitely still has an impact on me today. I tend to overestimate the crime in Philadelphia as I associate all of those news stories with the entire city. Even now as I do not turn on the nightly news, hearing a story or reading about something violent in the paper does not come as a shock. If anything, it has a strange sense of familiarity. Hopefully there comes a time where I associate the nighttime news with happy stories, but for now it is still my least favorite guessing game.

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.

Stacy L. Smith, Amy I. Nathanson, Barbara J. Wilson, Prime-Time Television: Assessing Violence During the Most Popular Viewing Hours, Journal of Communication, Volume 52, Issue 1, January 2002, Pages 84–111, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02534.x

Social media is not only changing the patterns in journalism but also how people consume news from journalists. Unlike the ancient days when people would sit at home and wait to catch the early morning or late-night news, nowadays people get breaking news one click away from top social sites. Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram, among other social apps, fill with top news as soon as the events occur. As such, the journalist does not have the ample time they did have, traditionally, to edit, verify, and modify news to give out only the very accurate accounts of events. This literature reviews how social media is giving rise to fake news in whereby users modify areas they move across platforms. Lack of news verification also gives room to spread false information which undermines the existence of peaceful coexistence in the society.

Social media is a trap for the modern man. Global interactions through social media start with a simple step of one-to-one interactions with friends and close acquaintances before moving to small groups-probably peers from social institutions like schools, churches, or colleagues- then to strangers who became online friends, an entire community, and lastly, to the entire world. This long-chain collection of acquaintances can influence an individual’s lifestyle, language, and social skills in more ways than those imaginable. The buzzing activities over the social platforms give rise to the new concern; the power of language. In the modern world, the media is less organized through centralized decision making and even more by a complex cascade process whereby news materials spread like wildfire in the social networks (Törnberg, 2018).

Similarly, according to Christakis & Fowler (2009), social networks can have properties and functions that are mot controlled or perceived by the individual who is using them. Such characteristics can be comprehended only by studying the whole group and its structure but not through evaluating isolation people. Regarding the fact that social media has a personal life, it is prudent to suggest that social networks have emergent properties which new attributes of a whole new network which arises from the interaction and interconnection of the parts. The modern era of civilization is such a polarized time, and social media is a factor that promotes polarity or worsens the situation. Language is power, and words can be so powerful. There is a major bottleneck with the use of social media, the power of language, and how the two factors influence how we hear and perceive the news. The threat is that there are no absolute means of moderating news content as they fly across social media.

The general connectedness of social networks bears with it a radical implication for the way people understand the individual condition (Christakis, & Fowler, 2009). Symbols of language in social media relate directly to peace or conflict. With the roles of the media in framing, emphasizing, modifying, and, or, leaving out information as they deem fit, world news reaches the various audience with differing intents and insinuation. A social community can polarize and radicalize its users against another community which they deem as threats through the use of language to distort news and to sow seeds of enmity. Sadly, there would not be any measures to validate such distorted news or to restore the credibility of the original unbiased and genuine news outlets such as the media company.

In conclusion, social media news reception deviates from the intended communications from journalists due to the existence of news brokers who modify messages to suit their interests. Not only is news modification that bad, but they are also avenues for distorting social values and planting seeds of discord. Humans should use social media responsibly by giving out correct accounts of events without selfish modifications that have the potential to disrupt world peace. Lack of news verification also gives room to rumour spreads which undermine peace coexistence among societies.

Reference

Törnberg, P. (2018). Echo chambers and viral misinformation: Modeling fake news as complex contagion. PLoS One, 13(9), e0203958. American Journal of Sociology 

Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. H. (2009). Connected: The surprising power of our social  networks and how they shape our lives. Little, Brown Spark.

Wisleidy Plasencia

Psych 424

Dr. Anthony Nelson

October 21, 2021

Do Not Disturb

Communication through cell phones has been a really big thing for our society. Through cell phones we can get a hold of many people across cities, states and even countries. Technology keeps evolving day by day and cell phone use goes up nearly every single day. Although cell phones have made our lives easier, by being able to communicate with family members, loved ones, and others way easier than before, it has also caused a lot of distraught. Due to cell phone use there have been many car accidents that have occurred. Nearly 1.6 million accidents a year are due to the use of cell phones while driving (Texting & Driving, 2021). This is an insane number, and people do not really understand the importance of putting your phone on, do not disturb while driving, or using your phone to send the “I am driving” message to others while you are driving. 

Cell phones are evolving day and day and there are new features that one can use in order to avoid texting while driving or even picking up a phone call. Even cars are evolving and adding the pick up button to the steering wheel, making it easier to pick up a phone call while driving to avoid looking down at your phone to pick up a call. That second that you look down to pick up a call can lead to serious injuries and fatal deaths and accidents. There is an option on cell phones now on where you can put your phone on “Do not disturb” or you can even put your phone to send a message that says “ I am driving, I will respond later” so that the person who is trying to get in touch with you can wait for you to stop driving in order for them to respond (Reagan & Cicchino, 2020). These features are very important in our emerging technology use daily. 

Many people do not understand the severity of using cell phones while driving, but using cell phones while driving has caused many accidents and fatal deaths. Looking down at your phone for nearly just one second can cause someone else’s life and many states are banning even having your phone in your hand while driving (Reagan & Cicchino, 2020). This is a really good idea because even though some may not be using their phones, they will still have it in their hands holding it and that can also cause them to be distracted. They are holding their phone with their hands which means that one of their hands is occupied and can not operate the steering wheel, causing this to be a distraction to the driver as well. 

One thing that I wish would occur now as technology is evolving, is for there to be cell phone blockers as soon as you get into your car. Your cell phone should detect that you are in your car and are driving which will lock your phone and you will not be able to use it until your car is in park. This will stop the amount of fatal accidents a year due to cell phone use. If your phone is blocked immediately after you start driving then there will be no way for you to use your phone except for emergency calls to 911. This will definitely eliminate the amount of fatal accidents that occur and will help people to stop using their phones while driving even if it is just to pick up a phone call while driving. Phone calls can also be distracting, which is why these cell phone blockers would be wonderful to our society today. Think of the other lives you are putting at risk when using your cell phones. Put them away and concentrate on driving. 

Reference 

Reagan, I. J., & Cicchino, J. B. (2020). Do not disturb while Driving—Use of cellphone blockers among adult drivers. Safety Science, 128, 26. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104753

Texting and driving accident statistics – distracted driving. edgarsnyder.com. (2019, August 8). Retrieved October 21, 2021, from https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics.html#:~:text=General%20Cell%20Phone%20Statistics,1.6%20million%20crashes%20each%20year.

         Media has a huge impact on everything from culture, religion, crime, politics, trends, music, cooking, and even job opportunities. Some may say that this is a good thing and others may say it’s not. I personally believe that it has its pros and its cons. For instance, it can be good because of movements such as black lives matter and me too. The media is very helpful in highlighting very important issues. On the other hand, many news outlets will become biased towards other races or religions. I say this because there have been numerous crimes that white people have committed that if a person of color were to have committed their penalty would be a lot more severe. Take the cop who murdered George Floyd for example, according to CNBC they wrote: “A judge sentenced former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin on Friday to 22-and-a-half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd.” If you ask me he deserved life in prison, I even feel as though stereotypes that are not always true are exaggerated.

    The other day I was at work and I was telling my co-worker that I am married to a Jordanian man. I am half Jordanian myself, so it was not very much of a culture shock when I married him, but her immediate response was “ Oh my god Jordan, I heard it is so strict there.” I said, funny where did you hear that and she told me about the show “ 90 Day Fiance” from the TLC network. I knew exactly which couple she was referring to. I told her that of course a Muslim country would be shocked to see a woman flaunting around in lingerie because that is very much against Islamic standards, but Jordan is not strict. If we compare the country to Western countries like the U.S one may think it is strict because of how unusual it is to dress in a revealing way, but when you compare Jordan to the rest of the Middle East, you will say it is a safe space for a lot of refugees. That is something the media fails to show. A Jordanian or any Middle Eastern in fact would agree because the bordering countries ( Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine) are constantly in danger, and Jordan is where you will find safety. 

       I bring this point up because I feel the situation relates a lot to social psychology in relation to media and communication. This reminds me of what I read about in our chapter about the concept of framing. Our textbook states “Framing refers to how the story is presented or its angle (Iyengar, 1991). Assume that a reporter is going to write a story about the latest war in Iraq. The reporter could focus on the issues that led up to the war…The reporter might instead focus on President George W. Bush’s motivations for wanting to go to war with Iraq, including Iraq’s oil reserves and the attempt by Iraqis to assassinate the president’s father. The reporter might choose to use a human interest angle and focus on one of the U.S. soldiers who fought in Iraq, or on an Iraqi family’s experiences during the war.” (Gruman, 245).  I feel as though not only in the News media but also popular shows use framing to keep the audience’s attention. As my mom told me “ nobody will watch 90 Day Fiance if every couple was civil and nice.” I do love that show though, ironically. 

        Towards the end of chapter 7 in Gruman Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and addressing social and Practical Problems. It states  “The research on political news coverage suggests that the media can have very subtle psychological effects. The media can influence what people think are the important issues facing the country. How a story is framed can influence people’s interpretation of an issue. Heavy coverage of an issue will influence how people judge the job that the president is doing. In addition, the media can create cynicism toward political leaders and institutions.” (248). I believe this not only relates to Jordan and the Middle East, but also people of color in general, and other religions and societies outside of what we are accustomed to. Many people would have different perceptions, and opinions if media was not a strong factor in our everyday lives. All in all, the media has its positive sides too. 

Dan Mangan. (2021, June 27). Ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for George Floyd Murder. CNBC. Retrieved October 21, 2021, from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/25/derek-chauvin-sentencing-for-murder-of-george-floyd.html.

 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.

As we all know the judicial system is seriously flawed. One of the downfalls is the tactics used to interrogate potential suspects. The interrogation process is an unfair part of the investigative interview where suspects are lied to and questioned for hours on end. Being interrogated like this can cause people to believe and confess to a crime that they that they did not actually commit. False confessions can influence eyewitness statements and all other types of evidence. These are just a few examples of how truly flawed the judicial system can be.

A Commonly used in investigative interviews/interrogations is the Reid technique. According to Coutts, Gruman, and Schneider (2017) the Reid technique uses harsh strategies, “tactics include repeated accusations and statements of the certainty of the suspect’s guilt; not letting the suspect speak and repeatedly shutting down his or her denials; telling the suspect that there is irrefutable evidence against him or her (even if that evidence does not exist); minimization and justifications for the commission of the crime; and providing the suspect with a theme describing why and how he committed the crime.” As demonstrated being interrogated in this way can really mess with a persons mental headspace. They may actually start to believe that they committed the crime that they are being accused of. If they confess and then realize they made the wrong decision, they can sue for being wrongfully convicted which would cost the system a lot of money.

False confessions have the power to set the stage for the whole investigation. This is because false confessions lead police officers, witnesses, and jurors to believe that the suspect who confessed is the true offender. This taints their view of the offender and they are more likely to believe or see things they did not. This is why eyewitness testimonies are also very, very flawed. Eyewitness errors contribute to the imprisonment of many innocent people. Coutts et. al (2017) states, “In addition to the influence that confession evidence has on police officers and courtroom decision-makers, the damaging effect of a false confession is compounded by the corruptive effect it can have on other pieces of evidence. For example, recent research has demonstrated that eyewitnesses are more likely to misidentify an innocent suspect from a lineup when they are told that this suspect has confessed to the crime”. This brings to light how important eyewitness testimonies can be when used to convict someone.

As one can see the Reid technique and many others like it can cause huge problems in the investigation process. This is because investigative interviews are a very crucial part to an investigation. Using the Reid technique can lead to false testimonies, false confessions, and false eyewitness statements. This means that an innocent person can be wrongfully convicted while the actual criminal is still free to commit more crimes.

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

Sometimes parents do some stupid things that cause their kids psychological harm even if that was never their intention. In my case, it was my dad who unintentionally caused me psychological harm. He is a scifi/fantasy buff and when we were little, he had my older brother and me watch some movies with him from these genres that there were definitely not age-appropriate. His intention was to share a passion of his with us but he failed to consider our ages and the effect these films might have on our young minds. As a little girl I learned about some frightening dangers from these films, both imagined and real. While I eventually overcame my fears of the imagined ones, the real ones have continued to haunt me.

I saw the movie Return of the Living Dead (1985) for the first time with my dad and brother when I was seven years old. If you are not familiar with this film the premise is that two workers at a medical supply warehouse accidentally open a secret military canister, releasing a gas that causes dead people to come back to life, specifically all the dead people in the cemetery next door. Even worse, these “living” dead are cannibalistic and start attacking and trying to eat any living beings they find. This is a terrifying movie to watch as an adult, so you can only imagine how seeing this at such a young age affected me. I had nightmares for years. I got panic attacks just seeing cemeteries, let alone going into one. When my maternal grandfather died when I was nine and we went to the cemetery for his burial, I was petrified with fear thinking that the dead people might crawl out of their graves at any moment and try to kill us.

While I did eventually overcome my fear of dead people and cemeteries, the effects this film had on me are not uncommon for people who were exposed to this kind of media as young children. According to psychological research (Gruman et al., 2017, p. 169), 25% of people who see horror movies at a young age (under 11 years old) are affected for years, experiencing nightmares and being terrified of locations associated with the films. The reason why these kinds of movies can have such a lasting impact on people who see them as young children is that it is harder for younger kids to distinguish fantasy from reality (Gruman et al., 2017, p. 169). I know my dad did not intend for me to have horrible nightmares for years and be deathly afraid of cemeteries, but he really should have known better. Unfortunately, zombies were not the only frightening thing he exposed me to at a young age. The movies he showed my brother and me also contained a great deal of sexism.

Some of the movies my dad showed us when we were little that contained blatant sexism included Soylent Green (1973), Lifeforce (1985), and A Boy and His Dog (1975). In Soylent Green, a movie about a post-apocalyptic future in which food is scarce and the powers at be resort to turning the poor into food, women are referred to as furniture, there for any man to use as he pleases. In Lifeforce, a movie about energy vampires from space who suck people dry, turning them into desiccated zombies, the main female vampire spends the entire movie walking around naked. And A Boy and His Dog, a film about a post-apocalyptic future in which a young man and his telepathic dog wander the wastelands searching for women to rape, the titular characters kill and eat the main female character at the end of the movie. You can only imagine what effect these movies had on my young mind. I learned that to be female was to be inferior, to be an object rather than a person. I learned that I could expect males to see me and treat me as something they could use and abuse as they pleased with impunity. So I tried desperately not to be that thing, eschewing anything associated with femaleness and therefore weakness.

While I eventually came to reclaim and embrace being female and reject these sexist messages I learned as a child, they profoundly shaped my perceptions, beliefs, and expectations about men. I distrusted men and came to believe that they were all sexists who would only see me as an inferior object to use and abuse and, unfortunately, many of my experiences with men have reinforced rather than refuted this. Maybe in some ways it was good that I was prepared from an early age to face the reality of sexism in society but it also made me feel really anxious and depressed as a kid. Regardless, my experience of having my world view deeply influenced by the movies I saw as a child is not unique. Psychologists (Gruman et al., 2017, pp. 169-170) have found so much evidence about the capacity of media to shape our perceptions, beliefs, and expectations of the world, ourselves, and other people—for good or ill—that psychologists have actually created a theory to describe it: Cultivation Theory.

Media, such as movies, can have profound and long-lasting effects on young children, potentially causing them to experience excessive, enduring fear as well as negatively shaping their perceptions, beliefs, and expectations about the world, themselves, and other people. Given how powerfully media can affect children, it is extremely important for parents to be mindful about what kinds of media they allow their children to be exposed to as well as to consider what messages that media might be teaching them.

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.

Teenagers have less profound understanding of society than adults, Moreover, based on their social environment, they are often not allowed to commit crimes, but driven by their peers. Because there are countless accidents caused by the blurring of the boundaries of safe, danger and trauma zone, I think there is no problem to properly understand the illegal acts before they are unable to have a clear understanding of the society. However, it is not difficult for the judicial system to be hasty, so I can only make some suggestions in a relatively general way. For example, China has a set of laws on the protection of minors, which clearly limits the age, namely 12, 14, 16 and 18, in which the laws and regulations at all ages will be adjusted accordingly, I think the most important consideration should be the mentality and maturity of the parties in addition to their age. Although these concepts are difficult to be accurate, it is more reasonable to confirm the mental level of the parties through procedural investigation, and these factors can also be seen in their family environment and social situation, This makes it difficult to make any major critical mistakes. Young people is not mature and perfect enough to bear the relatively harsh criminal law. Therefore, appropriate mitigation determination is also in line with common sense.

Adolescents is still in the process of exploring and establishing. Just like the adolescents themselves, their future has many possibilities. Therefore, the attitude and belief in dealing with problems are still possible to guide, except for a small one. Some people who persist in committing crimes throughout their lives may be due to the original environment or some biological defects that cannot be improved through external channels, and sometimes the crimes caused by extreme environments are not a minority, by confirming the parties You can also understand whether the sentence should be a normal sentence or a reduced sentence. The criminal behavior that violates the person’s personality is likely to be an unintentional action caused by adolescent hormones.

It is difficult for the law to deny the youth’s personality and conduct through some accidental events, which is also unreasonable, because the youth described by the author still has unlimited future and possibilities, There are very few cases in which violent crimes can last a lifetime, and the crimes committed in adolescence are likely to change the person’s mind and put him on the right path. In this case, the criminal acts that are extremely inconsistent with his personal character can be understood, It is not a bad thing to promote teenagers to have a better personality through appropriate punishment. Therefore, I agree with the author that no one should be a criminal when he is born, and everyone should be given the opportunity to reform.

Reference

Evaluation of youth in the juvenile justice system. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1393&context=mhlp_facpub&httpsredir=1&referer=.

The criminal justice system is critical to any society. The criminal justice system seeks to impose penalties on offenders according to the applicable laws (Maculan & Gil Gil, 2020). In other words, it is through it that offenders are identified and prosecuted. Individuals can either be pronounced guilty or innocent. The process is a rigorous one to ensure that innocent parties are not convicted while at the same time not freeing guilty individuals. This can be a delicate balance since it is not always easy to conclude. There is always a need to obtain credible information from different sources to enable the jury to decide. Social psychology entails analyzing human behavior and can provide a significant source of information to facilitate fairness in the criminal justice system (Stangor, Jhangiani & Tarry, 2014). Social psychology is needed to explain how personal characteristics can influence the decision of the jury or the judge.

An understanding of criminal behavior involves applying social psychology in the criminal justice system. Social psychologists can answer fundamental questions that can assist in the investigation (Gruman et al., 2017). For instance, they could determine the situational factors that might have influenced the crime. Through social psychology, one can determine how the personal characteristics of the parties involved can influence the decisions made by the jury. Despite the need for juries to remain objective, interactions of social psychology can be observed in the decision-making process.

The jury decision-making is affected by the interactions of the jury with society. Jury verdicts are given much weight because the community members render them as opposed to the decisions made by a single judge. Jury members must always remain impartial and stay free from any preconceived biases that may make it challenging to render a fair decision (Williams, 2018). Despite jurors seeking to remain neutral, social psychology demonstrates that the nature of the case could affect their impartiality. In particular, certain crimes like murder and sexual abuse increase the likelihood of the offender being held guilty even when it was imprudent to do it. In such cases, generic prejudice may interfere with the decisions of the jurors. For instance, racist views would interfere with the unbiased evaluation of the matter at hand and subject the offender to unfair treatment (Gruman et al., 2017). The jurors develop a form of bias against the offender; hence they lean more on the nature of the crime committed than the facts of the matter.

Conclusively, it is critical to appreciate that biases may occur, especially where the case involves murder or sexual abuse. Juries may not exercise their mental independence and consider the applicable law. They may instead be biased against the individual and make decisions that are detrimental to the offender. The criminal justice system is a rigorous system to ensure that innocent parties are not convicted. Despite the thorough process of selecting the jury, social psychology asserts that the jury decision-making process may be affected by the panel’s interactions with themselves and the offenders. It is crucial to appreciate that such biases may work against offenders, who receive longer sentences.

References

Maculan, E., & Gil Gil, A. (2020). The Rationale and Purposes of Criminal Law and Punishment    in Transitional Contexts. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 40(1), 132-157.

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

Stangor, C., Jhangiani, R., & Tarry, H. (2014). Principles of social psychology. BCcampus.

Williams Jr, S. P. (2018). Double-blind justice: A scientific solution to criminal bias in the        courtroom. Ind. JL & Soc. Equal., 6, 48.

The process of obtaining a viable testimony has to be a tedious task. The fact that the future of another individual lies in the hands of someone else’s memory is a frightening thing, if you think about it. Not everyone has a really great memory and several factors can play into someone giving a false confession.

A false confession is an involuntary statement of guilt made under duress, or as the result of coercion. Jurors, judges, and prosecutors must be willing to accept that fact that under the right circumstances just about anyone naïve to the criminal justice system can be victimized into a false confession.

Power of the situation is never more apparent than during a false confession. It highlights the powerful effect of the social context on eliciting false confessions. (Gruman, 2016) Is the environment for the confession a cold dingy, dimly-lit room with a table and two chairs? What environment are you having your witness talk in? I hate to sound to modern but what is the vibe in the room? Are emotions high, are people yelling, acting off-putting or are people being transparent and warm?

Police and law enforcement use the Reid Technique, which consists of a set of highly confrontational and aggressive suspect interrogation tactics (Gruman, 2016) The Reid technique has been criticized in the past and thought to be psychologically manipulating people through trickery and deceit, which may lead to false confessions. One problem with tricks and deceit is that both guilty and innocent suspects become more willing to confess. There is no strategy known that will motivate only guilty suspects to talk.

To combat false confessions and wrongful convictions, innocent defendants must turn to social scientists and expert witnesses to present evidence on the dynamics of false confessions. I feel like I would be hiring every doctor of anything to combat a confession I sat 16 hours for, I would have absolutely have had to start becoming delirious and admitting to things I didn’t do.

Applied Social Psychology : Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Jamie A. Gruman, Frank W. Schneider, and Larry M. Coutts. SAGE Publications. 2016.

When we think about criminal behavior often times we think about why would someone does such a thing. There can be many different reasons as to why someone commits criminal behavior. Some of the “why’s” are biological, psychological, and environmental. All of these things can majorly affect how one thinks, feels, and acts. In this blog, I will talk about your brain’s chemical makeup, childhood experiences, and abusive households. All things that we should look at when studying criminal behavior. However, none of these factors are valid reasons for criminal behavior.

In 2018, the FBI reported an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes and about 7 million property crimes (Walden University). The chemical makeup in our brains is something we can’t choose. There are many people that would say oh they are just born that way and in some cases that’s true. You can’t choose the way your brain functions and your thoughts what you can control though is your actions. Some things that are affected by your brain’s chemical makeup are autonomic arousal, neurobiology, and neuroendocrine functioning (Walden University). Your brain’s chemical makeup seems to be a factor of criminal behavior that many people forget about. Now by all means I am not saying that this justifies their actions because it does not it is just something that we should look into more. I would love to see someone study a criminal’s brain.

Your childhood experiences can also be something that affects criminal behavior. Just like we don’t choose our chemical makeup we can not choose our parents or how we are raised. There are some children that live in abusive households where they don’t know if they are going to go a day without being emotionally, physically, or sexually abused. This can cause children to act out and turn to violent crimes. It can also cause them to turn to alcohol and drugs to cope with the abuse they have encountered. This affects their brains, it affects their thoughts and feelings. It will also cause them to irrationally think. A high-crime neighborhood usually comes into play here as well. When children are around violent crime and substance abuse 9 times out of 10 they are going to grow up to do the same.

Why people commit violent crimes is always something that has interested me because not everyone is the same so they will all have a different “why”. There will be many people that don’t want to bring up chemical brain makeup because we want to believe that people can control their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. I believe that is something important to think about when studying criminal behavior. The social environment is also very important because I child can only follow the adults that they’ve grown up around as well as the environment that they know.

Walden University. (2021, March 25). What-influences-criminal-behavior. Walden University. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://www.waldenu.edu/online-bachelors-programs/bs-in-criminal-justice/resource/what-influences-criminal-behavior.

What is the jury? For me, a student who did not live in the United States, jury was very foreign. In my opinion, whether a person commits a crime or not is a matter for the courts, judges and police to decide, and has nothing to do with normal people. Even though we are free to make judgments about the case, the final outcome is certainly none of our business. However, the exists of jury reversed my thinking.

“A jury of ‘one’s peers’ is composed of individuals from the community-at-large who are selected at random from voter Registration and Enumeration lists and are plaintiff to appear for jury duty.”

(Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2017, p.306).

The literal definition does not help me better understand what a jury is, and I lack the opportunity to contact a jury . On an occasion, I watched the film “12 Angry Men”. This excellent film has been remade in many countries, and the first time I saw it was the Chinese version. After watching this version of the movie, I immediately found the original movie to watch again. This movie produced in the 1950s made me understand what the jury is in a real sense for the first time, and also made me know the necessity and rationality of the existence of the jury.

12 Angry Men takes place in a scene in which twelve jurors are in a lounge deciding whether to commit a murder. The accused of murder was an 18-year-old child, and the deceased was his father. The 12 members of the jury must decide whether or not the child is guilty of murder. If true, the child will be sent to the electric chair and executed. If not, the reason must be based on “reasonable doubt” arising from the reasoning, questioning, evidence, testimony or procedure of the entire trial. Due to the abundance of witnesses and physical evidence, 11 of the 12 were absolutely sure of the boy’s guilt at first. Only Juror No. 8 found something unreasonable about the case. At the end of the movie, all 12 people decide that the child is not guilty.

I won’t go into too much detail about the movie on this blog, because it can’t be summed up in a few hundred words. But it is this process full of controversy that makes people really see the significance of the existence of the jury. At the beginning of the film, I also thought juror No.8 was wasting everyone’s time by deliberately presenting the opposite view. How can you change the outcome of this child’s crime, based on given the amount of evidence. But as every piece of evidence goes back and forth in the movie, every juror except No. 8 changes their mind along the way—from guilty to not guilty. Well, it’s not the outcome of the case that matters, it’s how we got there. Juror No.8 put forward one hypothesis after another, questioning one prosecution evidence after another. Every time he makes a hypothesis, someone is sure to contradict him. But when he proves that his hypothesis is reasonable and the other side can’t find anything to refute it, the other side will abandon the previous guilty verdict in favor of acquittal.

In fact, it’s easy to overwhelm someone with words, but it’s hard to argue with them and come to constructive conclusions. The reason why the 12 angry men in the movie are angry is because everyone is fighting against their own prejudices and narrowness. Of course, what makes this debate so fascinating is that everyone has their own ideas and what they are defending. The thing hidden behind the scenario is the unique democratic system culture of the United States, as well as the character of citizens in this cultural background.

“Because jury verdicts are rendered by members of the community, their legal decisions about guilt or innocence are assumed to have greater legitimacy and public acceptance than decisions by a single judge. The jury also serves as the conscience of the community because it is drawn precisely from the community in which the crime was committed.”

(Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2017, p.307).

It is the special nature of juries that makes the above statement reasonable. The reason why jury decisions are more reasonable and acceptable to the public is that the jury synthesizes a large amount of information. The information comes from different races, ethnicities, genders, social status, cultural backgrounds. This information makes a case “outcome” more plausible. How can a justice system more fair for everyone? That is certainly one answer.

Reference

Gruman, J.A., Schneider, F.W., and Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

United Artists Corp. (1957). 12 Angry men. United States.

Wisleidy Plasencia 

Psych 424

Dr. Anthony Nelson

October 14, 2021

Misinformation 

Misinformation occurs a lot during interrogation and investigations. Misinformation effect is something that is referred to as people recalling a memory that is modified because of the leading information that they received (Loftus & Palmer, 1974). When people are told to give their description of an event that happened, a person who is on the run, or anything that has to do with crimes, people tend to give information based on how the person asks a question. The language that the interrogator uses while interrogating a person is very important because this is what can lead to misinformation and the misinformation effect. There have been many studies that have been done that explain the misinformation effect with the language aspect included in it. 

An incident happened in Southern California with Brenda J and her friend where they were confronted by two men who demanded their car keys. When they were interrogated by the police about what these men looked like, Brenda reported that the guy had a tattoo on his neck and the friends reported that the guy had a tattoo on his head/face. Due to the fact that the two friends were allowed to speak to one another after the interrogation, both friends described what the guys looked like and they both agreed that the tattoos were on the head/face (Eisen, Gabbert, Ying & Williams, 2017). With this incident we can see how misleading information comes about as these two women then sat together to put their thoughts together to come up with a full story on what these men looked like. Due to this incident, there was a study that was conducted to see how this misinformation happened. 

This study included participants watching a video of men who were carjacking and then asking them multiple choice questions about what these men looked like. The people chose the answers where it said “ the men had tattoos” “were taller” and such answers because this is what “they remember” because it is what stands out to them more, rather than saying that the person had no tattoos and were shorter. Because the participants were given multiple choice questions to choose an answer from, from what the men looked like, the participants decided to choose what was more memorable for them, which is the most obvious answers even though they weren’t correct (Eisen, Gabbert, Ying & Williams, 2017). This is exactly how misinformation tends to happen especially when there is a line-up with people and there are witnesses who have to choose from a line of people. They will choose the one who they feel looks like they committed the crime, not because they actually know that is what that person looked like. 

Misinformation is a big deal in the criminal justice system because it happens so often. The language and method that an interrogator uses as well contributes to the process of the misinformation effect. If the interrogator uses language that makes the witness assume the person was taller or had tattoos or a different skin color, this is the information that the witness will give, instead of remembering what actually happened or what the person actually looked like. This is how misinformation happens and this needs to be looked at more carefully during interrogation and investigation processes, so that there is no misinformation throughout the process. 

Reference 

Loftus, E.L., & Palmer, J.C. (1974). Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13. 585-589.

Eisen, M. L., Gabbert, F., Ying, R., & Williams, J. (2017). “I think he had a tattoo on his neck”: How co-witness discussions about a perpetrator’s description can affect eyewitness identification decisions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(3), 274–282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.01.009

Rehabilitation is one of the top concerns a lot of viewers may have when it comes to the criminal justice system. In my previous criminal justice courses, this was always a concern because of the fact of mental health is not thoroughly discussed in today’s society. We all know that mental health is important, therefore when it comes to the care of inmates in prisons and jails, their mental health still matters too if they are suffering from underlying disorders that we are unaware of.

When it comes to discussing the topic of rehabilitation in the criminal justice system, there have been a list of factors as to why offenders end up in jails or prisons to begin with. In order to give any sort of rehabilitation to offenders, it’s by first seeing where the root of the problem initially is. “The first commonly identified theme was staff participants perception that trauma is a significant risk factor for women entering the criminal justice system” (Belknap, Lynch and DeHart, 2016). To also add, another factor that has been found in previous studies, concluding “many women in hail are from families with multiple generations of criminal offending and incarceration” (Belknap, Lynch and DeHart, 2016). This can also come from a lack of education background, the environment they grew up in as a child, any early on violence they experienced as a child, etc. There has been a lot of challenges that women are faced with when they are in these environments, as they are already harsh to be in to begin with.

In order to have proper rehabilitation services for all inmates, whether male or female, the jail management and how they run everything is a concern. This is by having staff who truly care and want to help individuals be reconnected with society, but also the fact of possibly separating those who have committed violent crimes, away from the ones who did not commit as such serious crimes in order to slim it down to focus on the ones who may need help. By slimming these groups down, they may be able to pull those who are easily triggered by certain things, thoughts, actions, etc. away in order to give them the help they need. However, a negative factor could be the funds and the amount of workers in order to have this go into effect. “the next common theme to emerge from the staff interviews was the idea that offenders; experiences of trauma, SMI, and offending are complicated and result in complex treatment needs and challenging behavioral situations to manage” (Belknap, Lynch and DeHart, 2016).

In conclusion, “several staff members observed that women in jail are far more likely and willing to want to talk about their problems, including traumas and SMI, than their male counterparts” while also including “most of these reports identified jailed women as being ore relational and more open than jailed men, and most of the staff reported this gender difference as one that made it easier to identify and treat women’s needs relative to the men in jail” (Belknap, Lynch and DeHart, 2016). Not only that, but once women are approved for rehabilitation services and are released back into society, there is a lack of housing and other resources along with support that becomes limited. “Women need access to information about where they can go and what options they have. They may not have access to internet or libraries. Women would benefit from reentry programs to help them get into shelters, get medication and drug treatment before they leave” (Belknap, Lynch and DeHart, 2016).

Reference:

Belknap, J., Lynch, S., & DeHart, D. (2016). Jail Staff Members’ Views on Jailed Women’s Mental Health, Trauma, Offending, Rehabilitation, and Reentry. The Prison Journal, 96(1), 79–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885515605485

At some point or another we have all been apart of some kind of team. A sports team, work team, community team basically any kind of group of people who come together to accomplish a common goal. The dynamics of the team can really affect how well the team can work together to achieve this common goal but what is more a mystery is how the team comes together in the first place.

According to Tuckman’s (1965) developmental stages the establishing of a team happens in a specified way. The first stage is called forming. It is exactly what is sounds like the “forming” of the team. Have you ever walked into a new class and the teacher makes you stand up go around the room and ask everyone their favorite hobby as an ice breaker? This is what it can feel like during the formation of a team. During the forming stage members of the team have yet to know and trust one another and there is a bit of awkwardness. Conversations are superficial and you may notice everyone is on their best behaviors. It is during this stage that leaders may shine through.

Next is the storming stage. Again the name as it implies may be a little stormy with issues arising between teammates. During this stage team members become more aquainted with one another and roles about who should do what or play what position are assessed.  After we have the norming stage where everything starts to feel “normal”. Everyone knows their role on the team. Those who realize the team is not for them start to filter out and the team becomes solidified.

Now for the fun part. The performing stage comes second to last and it is during this phase that the team can start operating with its full potential. By this stage all team conflict has been resolved and the teams main focus is to accomplish its goal. The last stage is the adjourning stage where everything comes to an end. The goals have been met and the team is no longer needed for its purpose.

Nelson, A. (2021). Lesson 7: Organizational Life AND Teams. https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2132894/modules/items/32758445

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

In the textbook Applied Social Psychology, Andres and Bonta established the General personality and social psychological model of criminal behavior in 2016 to indicate the risk factors contributing to one’s criminal behaviors. (Gruman, 2017 p.292) The list factors are arranged in the impact from early childhood to the transitional adolescents and eventually to adulthood. For instance, Individuals in the teenager’s period will likely follow their peers’ behaviors and adopt their values and beliefs. It reminds me of the concept that I have learned from the abnormal psychology courses about serial killers, which also fits the idea of antisocial. The risk factors contribute from multiple perspectives as a combination of biological, social, and psychological factors could be associated with serial killer’s findings from the FBI. 

The FBI used to conclude the serial killers in a 2008 report. depict the characteristics of a serial killer. (FBI, 2008 as cited in Sue et al., 2016) All the descriptions are pretty distinguished from what we would usually perceive as a serial killer. FBI identified that most serial killers are not social misfits or noticeably strange. As the General personality and social psychological model of criminal behavior claimed, one of the risk factors for conducting crime is the association with pro-criminal peers and isolation from noncriminal associates. A serial killer might be involved in an antisocial group that promotes them to engage in criminal behavior. The social learning theory, which Badndura in1977 established, could interpret the process of how the individuals might commit a crime by observing to imitate the behavior to receive positive feedbacks and external rewards as consequences. During the interaction with the antisocial group to perform a particular task, the serial killer learns to hide their real identity and communicate like an average person who breaks the stereotype that social media has presented. 

Another conclusion from the FBI about a serial killer is that the motivations are wide-ranging and may include sexual fantasies, anger, thrill, financial gain, or attention. According to Andrew and Bonta, hostile parenting and family experience increase individuals’ possibility to be an offender. Hostile parenting incorporates the child’s insufficient care and concerns, which leads the individuals to seek attention inappropriately when they are adults. The family’s economic status was low will also show the individuals to gain wealth by illegal means. Another risk factor that Andrew and Bonta mentioned is abusing drugs and alcohol; this will explain serial killer’s motivation of anger or thrill because the overusing of toxic substances will trigger unstable emotions. 

FBI also discovered that serial killers are rarely insane, although they typically have personality disorders (including antisocial personality disorder). Their intelligence ranges from below to above average. The General personality and social psychological model of criminal behavior pointed out that the risk factor of low school levels or vocational achievement fits partly of the description for those whose intelligence level might not be as high. In general, the formation of risk factors could gradually aggrandize the possibility of conducting the crime. In contrast, appropriate inhibition at the early onset of antisocial behavior will be helpful to prevent further actions. The individuals will be able to go back on the right track of their life with positive changes in attitudes, values, and beliefs and carry out the change actions both in their leisure and work or study time. Along with a healthier lifestyle and proper norms, individuals will be less likely to commit a crime, which will benefit our society with more peace and happiness. 

Reference:

FBI. (2008, July 31). Serial murder – july 2008. FBI. Retrieved October 13, 2021, from https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publications-serial-murder-serial-murder-july-2008-pdf/view.

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

Xunzi said, “harmony is one, one is multi force, multi force is strong, and strong is superior to things”. It can be seen that cohesion is very important to the success of the team, but in reality, members of a team will have differences or even quarrels because of different ways of doing things. The occurrence of such things is not conducive to team cooperation and affects the completion of work tasks. Therefore, this is something that team managers do not want to see. In order to avoid the occurrence of similar situations, psychologists have found an interesting psychological effect after years of in-depth research: when the team is threatened by hostile forces, the members of the team tend to agree with each other and ignore their differences for the time being. The emergence of foreign hostile forces has stimulated the internal needs of members to participate in resistance. In order to maintain a high sense of consistency, we must seek the internal support of the team. Therefore, internal contradictions such as national civil war, social unrest and intra organizational disputes can often be temporarily quelled after the emergence of a common enemy. On the contrary, without the threat of external forces, individual members are easy to turn their attention and hostility to another member within the team. It can be seen that the common enemy is the most efficient psychological strategy to make the cooperative contract between team members. As a manager, you can artificially create an external hostile force, or you can often let your team participate in professional competitions. A common enemy can quickly gather the strength among team members and make them unite with the outside world.

As large as the team, as small as the individual. This phenomenon also exists in individuals. A person’s psychology is like a team. If a person is not threatened by foreign hostile forces, it is easy to think wildly, self-contradictory and cause mental illness. The solution is to set a clear external goal for yourself, and make yourself busy for this goal, so that the inner chaos and restlessness will be calmed down, and you won’t be thinking about it. Therefore, using the psychological strategies of hostile foreign forces can improve the cohesion between team members, so that work efficiency is improved.

Reference

MAPS, L. F.-B. (n.d.). Leanne Faraday-brash maps, Gina McCredie FAPS and Pauline Willis Maps. APS. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://psychology.org.au/for-members/publications/inpsych/2019/october/the-science-and-art-of-terrific-teams.

In today’s society, with the advent of the era of knowledge economy, all kinds of knowledge and technology are constantly bringing forth new ideas, competition is becoming increasingly intense, and social needs are becoming more and more diverse, which makes the situation and environment that people face in their work and study extremely complicated. In many cases, it is difficult to deal with all kinds of complex problems and take practical and efficient actions only by personal ability. All of these require people to form groups, and require greater interdependence, interconnectedness, and cooperation among organization members; Build collaborative teams to solve complex problems and coordinate necessary actions; Develop team strain capacity and continuous innovation ability, relying on the power of team cooperation to create miracles.

Communication among team members is essential to forming a cooperative team. Any form of cooperation is based on communication between members. If a team is not communicating, it is certainly not a good team. In a group or group, uncertainty and complexity are common characteristics of small groups, and communication is the driving force to move the group towards its goals. (Beebe & Masterson, 2014, pg.42). In the sociological category, due to the complexity of groups, a single theory cannot completely summarize all variables. In order to help us better understand these phenomena and concepts, there are five broad theoretical perspectives (Beebe & Masterson, 2014, pg.49) :

• Systems theory: The small group is an open system of interdependent elements, employing input variables and process variables to yield output.
• Social exchange theory: SGroups remain attractive to their members so long as the rewards of group membership exceed the costs.
• Symbolic convergence theory: Group members develop a group consciousness and identity through the sharing of fantasies or stories, which are often chained together and have a common theme.
• Structuration theory: People use rules and re- sources to structure social interactions.
• Functional theory: Communication in groups functions to promote sound reasoning, prevent errors, and build productive relationships among members.

Aside from these five theories, another concept that is more relevant to our lives is “virtual groups”. Virtual groups are one of the most frequent forms in our lives. By definition, a virtual group is a group of three or more people who communicate synchronously or asynchronously across regions through technology. For example, our current online courses are a form of virtual group. Professors and students live in different regions and time zones, forming a kind of team through the Internet. In this team, we may break up into different groups and work together. Communication and collaboration in virtual groups can take the form of synchronous and asynchronous messages(Beebe & Masterson, 2014, pg.23):

• Synchronous messages are those that occur instantly and simultaneously—there is no time delay between when you send a message and the other person receives it.
• Asynchronous message is a message that is not read, heard, or seen at the same time you send the message; there is a time delay between when you send and receive a message.

In virtual groups, the more synchronous messages occur, the higher the interactivity within the group. For example, when you’re working with team members, a video conference can be far more interactive than a message on your discussion board. This synchronous interaction will help us to achieve better teamwork and reduce the incidence of “social loafing”.

This is the knowledge and theory of teamwork that I want to share through this blog. In fact, there are far more theories out there than I’ve outlined in this blog. What I want to express is that in today’s rapidly developing times, we can no longer refuse to cooperate with others. Learning how to build a team, or join a team, is a “skill” that we have to learn.

Reference：

Beebe, S. A., & Masterson, J. T. (2014). Communicating in small groups: Principles and practices. Pearson.

The concept of “team” refers to a formal group of individuals who collaborate to achieve a goal. We can say as small as a family, as large as a country, the whole world. Even the universe we are still exploring today cannot leave from “team” and “teamwork.”
The team’s popularity benefits from the potential rewards – higher quality based on the team and faster problem-solving. L.Michelle (2021) has mentioned in an article that team trust is the foundation of a team. “If managers can build a solid foundation of trust within the team, the management costs of managers will be significantly reduced.” I also found that in a group that focuses on collaboration and communication, people feel more comfortable working, and the result is usually high productivity and efficiency.
Last semester I had a PSYCH484 course that focused on being more effective in all aspects of the team. I’m impressed that we have group work every week, and some projects require collaboration between groups and groups. I realized that team communication is the foundation of teamwork. To work better together, it is essential to ensure that our team communicates efficiently. The communication process is a progressive process of understanding, analysis, and expression, and anyone link of the problem may lead to poor communication.
When I understand, I use my thinking, but when I express, I have to learn to consider each other’s thinking habits; expression is a process of absorption and re-creation.
For example, when we communicate the project’s needs, team members will be used to say some professional words, feel colloquial, or with some very grounded and easy-to-understand metaphors that are not professional. Or maybe 5min didn’t focus on the content has not yet concluded. Directly to the communication of the object of enthusiasm smothered in the cradle. These are not the easiest to understand the expression.
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough,” which is Einstein’s early conclusion. That is to say, and the stunt is not very good, repeated sloppy maybe their own did not understand, speak who can understand is good. The famous Feynman technique says the same thing: determine if you’ve mastered a knowledge point, and see if you can explain it to a 10-year-old and make him understand.

Bennett, L. M., & Gadlin, H. (2012). Collaboration and team science: from theory to practice. Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research, 60(5), 768–775. https://doi.org/10.2310/JIM.0b013e318250871d

Wisleidy Plasencia 

Applied Social Psychology

Dr. Anthony Nelson

October 7, 2021

Organizational life and Teams 

Teams are a big part of us, whether it is sports teams, work teams, or even school project teams. Whether they are big or small groups or teams, people tend to enjoy most of these teams that they are a part of. One of the biggest issues that I’ve seen with teams has definitely been team building, and structure. A lot of sports teams lack these qualities due to wanting to compete against each other instead of building their team stronger to work together as a whole. Team building is meant to develop stronger relationships and build their strengths and weaknesses by working together instead of competing against one another. One way that they can work on these qualities is by using Tuckman’s notion of developmental stages, which helps teams build their confidence and strengths together as a whole.

No matter what type of team one is referring to, they work better when all parties of the groups are trying to work together and trying to enhance each other’s accomplishments and reaching their goals. When using Tuckman’s notion of developmental stages, a team can benefit from it by being able to use steps in order to build their relationships in the team or group that they are part of. The stages of Tuckman’s notion of developmental stages include: forming, storming, norming, performing, and termination (Stein, 2021).  With each of these stages teams can build their relationships and work on becoming the best team there is. Starting off with the forming stage, this is where the team meets one another. They are introduced to one another and this is where the relationships begin. Although some teammates may know each other and some may not know each other, this is naturally the time to introduce one another and get to know one another (Stein, 2021). This stage will allow teams to start to build those relationships that are needed in order for their team to work out in the end. 

The second stage that sports teams should use in order to work together is the storming stage. In this stage this is where the team starts to develop ideas for their team or group and developing these ideas can cause issues between one another. In this stage, feelings and behaviors start to lash out and be seen by the other group members (Stein, 2021). These feelings and behaviors are to be dismissed before this developmental stage is over in order for the team to execute at their best ability. Many sports teams stay at this stage and never get past this stage as they all start arguing and never agree with one another’s choices for the team. Sports teams need to learn how to dismiss these behaviors and feelings in order for them to move onto the next developmental stage which is the norming stage. In the Norming stage the team begins to resolve these issues that they have in order for them to strive for a better outcome with their team (Stein, 2021). The members of the team will start to act accordingly and start to resolve the issues that were previously formed amongst the team. They start to see how these problems are causing their team to divide and separate instead of bringing them together to win the big match that they have coming up or pass the project that they have together. In order for the teams to get past these dilemmas, they need to be willing to resolve these issues within the Norming stage to go onto to the next stage which is the performing stage. 

The performing stage is the stage in which all participants are participating in the way that they all should and in a timely manner. They all start to resolve their issues and they start to realize that the problems and issues that they have are no better than losing with their team, instead they focus on the main focus which is on winning ! The team begins to have a better attitude towards each other and they start to respect each other better than when they started (Stein, 2021). They start to show each other mutual respect as well as having better behaviors, feelings, and roles towards one another. This then leads to the last stage which is termination. A lot of teams, especially when it is a sports team, tend to mourn this last stage. This is when the team ends and all of the team members go their separate ways. More often this happens in smaller teams such as project teams for school and not for sports teams, as sports teams tend to build relationships and stay close friends after their season is over (Stein, 2021). When the team does go their separate ways most team members mourn this loss of a friend or team member. 

Tuckman’s notion of developmental stages will definitely help all types of teams come together as a whole to work better and strive for the best. Most teams get stuck at the storming stage and never get past this stage, which leads to conflicts between all of the team members. Using Tuckman’s notion of developmental stages will help resolve these issues between these teams and organizational teams to work better as a whole. 

Stein, J. (2021). Using the stages of Team Development. Using the Stages of Team Development | MIT Human Resources. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://hr.mit.edu/learning-topics/teams/articles/stages-development. 

The textbook Social Applied Psychology encompasses a recent review of literature on virtual teams. Gilson, Maynard, Jones Young, Vartiainen, and Hakonen (2014) suggested that virtual teams create delays in information exchange, more misunderstanding, and less information seeking. (Gruman et al., p. 283, 2017) I found my online team experience was related to the research finding and simultaneously reminded me of working as a face-to-face group. The primitive three distinguished facets of online virtue team in contrast with the in-person team I intend to address are communication, the efficiency of work, and interpersonal relationship. 

The in-person team could be deemed a direct way to communicate without utilizing any medium to exchange information. Communicating with the corresponding team members might be more suitable with a prompt response. During transferring messages, they are more susceptible to comprehending the concept that the sender is trying to convey and nonverbal communication. It refers to all information obtained by a sender, apart from the words themselves, that plays a role in the transmission of meaning. (Gruman et al., p.275, 2017) Nonverbal behavior indicates vital signals such as attitude, emotions, and possibly disposition. I attended a summer program with accomplishing research online with assigned group members. The faculty in the program was spending more time explaining the course content since some students were having a hard time comprehending the materials. Our one lecture will usually extend 20 minutes to answer the students’ questions or express their ideas about the course. One of the reasons the system will slow down is the unstable internet; it affects both the teachers and students on regular teaching. One of the students did not present their final project within the required limited time due to internet issues. 

Work efficacy would also be impacted from working as an online group compared with the face-to-face group. I remembered that the art course formed 3 to 4 students to work on a vast canvas. We worked at a fast pace with relatively fairish quality painting under the supervision and assistance of the art professors. The professor would usually take a look a couple of times to check our progress on the work. Suppose we are unsure about how to apply specific skills on the canvas. In that case, the professor could demonstrate in front of us, which increases our productivity based on the problem solved. After one assigned project was done; there was a critique section for students to comment on each work; the exhibition in public would motivate the group from dedicating themselves to creating art owing to receiving positive feedback. Students will usually put on the results the wall, which possibly stresses the group members to accomplish each person’s part to the greatest extent. My online group experience with working towards a collective goal was less satisfying than the in-person group. The delayed communication discouraged group members from fulfilling the task early before the due time, which does not provide extra time for group members to evaluate and modify together. It decreased the quality of the assignment, which negatively impacted everyone’s grades. Another issue with the online virtue team was that the role was not clarified in the beginning. It leads to a problem that two different members wrote repetitive points at the same time. 

For the interpersonal relationship, the online virtue team provides both benefits but also disadvantages. The individual might feel less stressed since the online meeting will only show part of us instead of the full image. At the same time, the non-uncontrollable factors reduce, such as going into a new environment, being unsure about where to sit, and how to start the conversation. Nonetheless, the lack of social interaction still exists; the online virtue team did not have many opportunities to get along with each other compared with the in-person group. In a real-life setting, the students could choose to sit next to one another and start a conversation. The online environment limits the communication among students since the professors will possibly spend most of their time teaching the course materials. Even the zoom has the breakout room function; the professor’s time distributed to the group discussion is restricted. 

In general, working with the online virtue team is more challenging than the in-person team. For this reason, we gain more experience with dealing with difficulties in this time by choosing an alternative way. The attribution theory stated that if we tend to attribute positively, even though the outcome is the same, we might feel more motivated to improve later in life. It takes effort to build teamwork regardless of it is a virtue or in person. As long as we learn lessons from it, it is worthy. 

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

Most organizations have a leader who directs the mission and vision of the members. The members give their trust to the leaders, and in turn, it provides the leader the power to motivate everyone to work towards a single goal. Organizations truly need a leader. However, we should also ask, what makes a leader a leader?

In a social group, where each member exerts an effort in achieving a goal. It requires interpersonal communication that encourages the formation of trust in the aspirations of the chosen leader (Gruman et al., 2017). For example, a ship suddenly encounters big waves in the middle of the ocean due to an unpredictable underwater disturbance. The crew members will immediately report, meet with the captain, and discuss their course of action to prevent the ship from sinking. The captain shall decide on what to do next based on their consensus, and every crew follows his directives as accurately as possible. This is the secret in conquering the enormous ocean waves that could have engulfed every ship that has passed such natural disasters.

After we have understood the definition of leadership, we shall now try to dissect the reasons that make a leader a leader: his communication skills. One of the essential skills of a leader is excellent interpersonal communication, both verbally and non-verbally. In addition, a leader is a leader if he can influence the members through his voice. This is the bread and butter of the organization as conflicts may not happen, or these can be resolved quickly through proper conversations, leading to the group’s success.

We should understand that there must always be two-way communication. Meaning, there is a message, sender, channel, and receiver. After receiving the message, the recipient shall respond to the other side and become the second sender. Therefore, any interruptions in this model’s elements shall result from poor communication, leading to conflicts (Gruman et al., 2017).

Communication is not just about sending a message but also about conveying a strong or impactful message, and this can be done through several strategies. First, the leader can amplify values by illustrating their philosophies consistent with that of their members (Gruman et al., 2017). It shows that the leader values the members’ values, and his actions are not just for personal gain.

Second, the leaders can utilize rhetorical devices in explaining a complex concept. Examples of this are similes, metaphors, analogies, and stories that clarify the situation (Gruman et al., 2017). Through this strategy, the members could easily place themselves on a different shoe, giving importance to other aspects that were blinded on their side initially.

Lastly, the leaders can mention several known people who side with their opinion. The audience often wants to know who has the same opinion and tends to mimic or agree with the opinion of many. Therefore, this technique makes the leader influential. However, one must be careful in using this and understand the appropriate circumstances, for it may be the root of biases.

These are just some techniques that a leader could use to become a true leader who his members can hear. A leader cannot be followed when the members are deaf from what they should hear. Members cannot decide with the leader without seeing the light in a dark situation. Therefore, in asking what makes a leader, the answer is his persuasive communication skills.

Reference:

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

Whether or not a person enjoys and finds fulfillment in their job is a determinant in how they ultimately perform on their job. In my case, I hated my job. I counted the minutes until I could punch-out on the time clock. Everyday, I would walk into work with a smile on my face and everyday it would fighting back tears. Because I didn’t like my job, I provided them with the absolute bare minimum. But why/how did this happen? 

By applying the factors of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction we can understand what went wrong:

The determinants of job satisfaction involve: job characteristics, social/organizational factors, and personal dispositions. 

• Job Characteristics: “refers to the content and nature of job tasks themselves.” (Gruman, 263)
• Social/Organizational factors: “employees develop their levels of job satisfaction based on the information available to them, including the immediate social environment” (coworkers attitudes, etc.) (Gruman, 265)
• Personal Dispositions: suggests that there is a correlation between personality traits and job satisfaction.

Ex:  “positive affectivity (the tendency to experience enthusiasm, confidence, cheerful-ness, etc.), and negative affectivity (the tendency to experience anxiety, hostility, anger, etc.)” (Gruman, 266)

The consequences of job satisfaction include: worker withdrawal behaviors and job performance.

• Withdrawal Behaviors: a worker’s withdrawal, avoidance, and/or absence from work (may lead to quitting) (Gruman, 267)
• Job Performance: being a heavily involved, high-performing, pleasant worker “(e.g., not wasting organizational resources; involving oneself in the life of the organization, such as going to meetings and keeping abreast of the larger issues affecting the organization); and tolerating the inevitable inconveniences, etc.)” (Gruman, 269)

Background information: At the time, I was a 22-year old Black woman college student. I was working as a receptionist for a luxury jewelry store. All of my coworkers were at least 15 years older than me and non-Black. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was the outlier. 

The autonomy at my job was decent. Some managers trusted my decision making, while some were micro-managers and questioned/watched my every move. The actual work itself was monotonous (however, people were constantly taking advantage of the new girl and assigning roles to me that were not my responsibility/that they didn’t want to do). The communication was absolutely awful. One person would tell me to do one thing and the other would say that was wrong. I was constantly confused and belittled because there were no clear guidelines about anything. Financial rewards were mediocre at best. The pay was okay, but there were barely any benefits.

The workload of my assigned job was manageable, but I was constantly being bombarded with duties that I was never hired for or told about until the day of. I was always exhausted and stressed. Work demands were awful, I was told there was this assumption that I was everyone’s personal assistant. The owners even had me fill in for the job of another person who had quit because they were too cheap to hire anyone else (so I was doing two jobs). My supervisors and coworkers were awful. I received barely any training and was constantly put in uncomfortable situations. The owners were exploitative, emotionally abusive, and simply rude, so the staff followed suit. That was the workplace culture that everyone seemed to accept and perpetuate. And because it was a smaller business, there was no human resources department. I experienced almost daily sexual harassment, racism, etc. and when I spoke up about it nothing changed. Potential for promotion, growth, and development was great. Almost everyone that worked that had started from the ground up, but why would I want to stay in such a toxic environment?​​ The entire staff constantly told me how much they need a receptionist and valued, yet, they clearly didn’t. I could feel my mental and physical health deteriorating. I started to resent them and that company. 

To add insult to injury, I was somewhat shunned for feeling this way. Except, I could tell my coworkers were miserable too. They would always make negative comments about our bosses and the workload. They were just willing to tolerate it and I wasn’t. I knew I was not exaggerating or being crazy. Their attitudes and behaviors regarding our place of work informed mine to some degree. While I was confident in my abilities, I was already a rebellious person, with generalized anxiety and depression. I could not tolerate these issues for very long. 

The more unhappy I became, the more I withdrew. I no longer wanted to go to their stupid company cookouts and I would wait to take my lunch breaks when nobody was in the kitchen. I had no interest in sharing my personal life with them. I did not feel supported in any way. So I did not care to support them any more than I was required to. I did not volunteer for any extra work and I refused to stay late. I no longer performed my job with a smile. They were so annoyed with me. They started to feel like I was not working hard enough or making enough of an effort to be apart of their “family”.

Eventually, I quit. This should come as no shock since all research suggests that keeping workers happy is in an organization’s best interest. They expected so much out of me, but never stopped and asked how they could do and be better?​​ The organization is nothing without the worker. The best organizations to be a part of will always be the ones that understand and embrace the value of the worker. 

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.

Lumen Learning. (n.d.). Job Satisfaction | Introduction to Psychology. Lumen. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-psychology/chapter/introduction-the-social-dimension-of-work/

When it comes to group projects, a lot of people may truly enjoy them because it can be a lot of work that is lifted off of them, but also the downfall of having people not participate in getting the work done. There has been shown that there are a lot of benefits but also problems that can come into play when working in groups or teams.

To begin, the true definition of a group project is “a graded assignment requiring students to work collaboratively across multiple class periods and involving some time outside the normal class meeting” (Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008). These teams that are created can be shown to improve trustworthiness and social skills while connecting with others that they might not normally connect with or know on a personal level. When I was in high school, a lot of the time I would pair up into groups with people I knew because one it would make the class time go by faster, but I also knew who the people were, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. In some of the other classes I had, the teachers knew that everyone was friends with everyone in the class so they would purposely try to put me in a group with people I didn’t know or talk to in class as much, so we always weren’t with our friends or the same group for every given assignment.  On the other hand, communication wasn’t an issue considering I was in a group with people I knew but if the teacher placed me in a group, I was unfamiliar with, then I wasn’t as talkative as I should have been.

Communication itself is an important factor when it comes to working in a group setting or in a team for any sort of project. I have seen this when it came to high school projects, college projects, projects in my job, etc. Communication is pretty much our number one thing that is needed in order for proper actions to be put into place and for us to achieve the outcome we are desiring. “In this framework, messages between teammates are part of a larger process that contributes to the development and functioning of a team mental model – the sharing and manipulation of information among team members to achieve a shared goal” (Gruman, et al., 2017). Social perception also plays a part as a lot of the information we may receive about the people we may know in our teams may help us understand everyone more and other views that may surround us. In order to properly define social perception, its identified as “the process of selecting and interpreting information about how we view others and ourselves” while also including “our behavior is often based on our perception of what reality is rather than on reality itself” (Gruman, et al., 2017).

Furthermore, studies have shown that by exposing students to lots of team projects to the “real-world work environment, group projects promise to fulfill several other learning objectives: (a) foster high level learning outcomes as outlined in Bloom’s taxonomy, (b) enhance student learning by creating more opportunities for critical thinking and responding to critical feedback of peers, (c) promote student learning and achievement, and (d) increase student retention” (Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008). This study also has shown “that group projects can enhance a student’s self esteem and sense of accomplishment through cooperative learning” (Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008). Let alone, some people in group settings may focus on the outcomes of what can happen with these projects rather than focusing in the present moment on the process of the group work that’s being done. Another term is used to define those who contribute less to the group work and can change the whole group dynamic, which is called social loafers. Social loafers also “have the tendency to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are held individually accountable” (Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008).

In conclusion, this study had found that social loafing “creates an impression of inequity among group members. It leads to dissatisfaction among students about their group member’s contributions. This dissatisfaction also has a direct impact on students’ perceptions of the fairness of their project grade” (Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008). As I mentioned previously in the beginning about me picking my own groups based on knowing my friends in my classes, studies have shown to prove that “groups that self-selected their members should have lower incidence of social loafing and greater satisfaction with their project grades” (Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008). While looking at both sides of the scope, those who self-selected their own groups for projects tended to have better outcomes then those who were put into a group with those who they didn’t know, and could also have an encounter with a social loafer that could change the team dynamic.

References:

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

Aggarwal, P., & O’Brien, C. L. (2008). Social Loafing on Group Projects: Structural Antecedents and Effect on Student Satisfaction. Journal of Marketing Education, 30(3), 255–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/0273475308322283

Days ago, a friend of mine and I decided to go to see a movie together. I was in a good mood because I had not watched a new movie in a movie theater for months. We met up at the movie theatre. While I went to buy the tickets at the box office, he waited for me in the lobby. I went back to look for him after I got the tickets. He was staring at a poster on the wall.

“Hey, that’s the movie we are about to watch!” I said.

“Yeah. I was looking at the names of executive producers of the movie. The names seem to be all woman names. Can you believe that all three of the executive producers are women?”

I have to say, I was offended by that statement. Is he saying that a woman is not be capable of being an executive producer?

“Why can’t there be female executive producers? That’s very sexist of you.”

“Wow. Don’t be so serious. I was just saying that normally there are more male producers. It’s just so rare that all three executive producers are female.” He tried to explain.

“The statement you made sounds like it’s surprising for women to be executive producers, like male executive producers are the norm. Would you even be surprised if all three of the executive producers are male? Would you even bring up this topic? You just assume that men are supposed to be capable of this job, not women, and……”

“OK. I’m sorry. Let’s stop the argument. The movie was about to start.” He was a little bit embarrassed and tried to stop me from the argument.

Sexism refers to any bias against an individual or a group of individuals based on the individual’s or group member’s sex. As a Chinese, I realize that our society does not take sexism so seriously. People still live by certain gender stereotypes like men should be successful, assertive and rational while women should be caring, gentle and emotional. I truly hope that children would receive more education on gender equality from an earlier age and that the society as a whole take everyday sexism more seriously.

Reference

Gruman, Applied Social Psychology Understanding and Addressing Societal Problems