Chapter 15 first impression

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

When looking through the website about a week to change direction by Michelle Obama, I found it to be a good way to be active with issues that are present in our lives. Mental Health is a big topic in society now a days and I think bringing light to it and even helping educate people with have many benefits. Some of its strengths is that it draws attention to people in different ways, there are week long sessions, day sessions, 5k races, videos, etc. I think the more options they have, the more they will be able to help spread awareness.

Some weaknesses of it might be that there will be some sections where it won’t be as effective. I find that most of the times when you force teenage students around our age to do something, they tend to do the complete opposite. When something is not forced however, you will likely get more people to participate or find interest in learning new things, rather than doing it to say you did it. I think if Etown was able to do this, we should have it open to everyone to participate and to have some form of interactive piece such as a 5k, etc. A lot of students here like to get involved and stay active in the community at school, but when tasks are brought upon us that are required, I also find that to be a trend that is the least interesting to students.

Media Production Project

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

When you get ready to go out to eat with someone, the first thing that pops into your head is the first impression you want to make on that person. You don’t want someone to judge you, or think that you talk too much, eat too fast, etc. Yet if you have a diet restriction, does that change the atmosphere? Would you feel more pressured if you were the one with the restriction? Lots of people would say they feel a certain way when having to present themselves as different in today’s society, especially when meeting someone new. This is even more stressful when people are going to eat with someone they just met for the first time. This pressure is best explained as consumption stereotypes. For example, this is where someone will judge someone else based off what they order or eat, depending on how picky they are, etc. A study was conducted by psychology students from Western Connecticut State University and University of Toledo who also wondered this. These students came together to present the question of whether people that a dietary restriction have such as gluten, would face conflict when it comes to dating or choosing a dating partner.

To conduct the study, students hung up flyers and sent out emails with incentives to obtain the test objectives. These students wanted the test to be random, to show the effects it could have on anyone, not one targeted group. There were two rounds of this study done, both producing the same results. The first study was a series of open-ended questions about gluten free individuals and their thoughts about dating someone who would have a gluten free diet restriction. This study showed both positive and negative results. A part of the research showed that if you’re gluten-free, you’re more likely to be following a healthy diet, but unfortunately also to be picky, high-maintenance, difficult to please, demanding, concerned about your appearance, and entitled. Gluten-free individuals were perceived as complaining, critical and judgmental, and controlling and dominant

Think about this; if a boy and girl both had a dietary restriction, who do you think would be more likely to be a picky partner? Would this change your mind on your feelings towards them? The second study was conducted to simulate it as if it was realistic dating. Students were then given certain scenarios, as if they were looking at a profile of someone with a dietary restriction. The reactions to those profiles were recorded and analyzed. Just like the first study, they were asked to reflect on the profile based off a list of traits to describe them. Regarding gender perceptions, gluten-free individuals were more feminine and less masculine than others (Whitbourne 2019). The results led to show that there is a balance between if people do think one would be considered picky or not, leaving room for further research.

Reflection

When writing my own scholarly article, determining what to include was one of the easier things to do. You wanted to include information that allowed the reader to understand what was going on in the study, so the more information the better off they are of being able to understand. Yet determining what was relevant was also crucial as you do not want to add information that is not needed. Starting the article was one of my struggles when writing as you want to hook the reader and give them more of a reason to want to read more. Another struggle was trying not to be repetitive from the first article. It is hard when you already have a summarized article that was published and already looked over. Everyone is human, so out of habit they will want to look at that one to help guide for this one. You want to find a balance of information that is relevant but concise.

When reading the research, I used the five questions as a base line for what should be included in my article. You want all aspects to be answered for the study to be reliable and easy to understand. Some similarities with my summary and the article are that they both started off situational, where the reader was put into a situation and asked their opinion on the information provided. Yet the pop culture article is more like a story and my article focuses more on questioning your own personal opinions. One difference I found present between the two articles that helped me when writing my summary was the lack of explanation of the effect of gender roles on the outcome of the study. It mentions gender roles in a sentence or two towards the end of the article, yet it is only mentioned briefly, assuming the reader would already know.

When writing each of the different pieces, I was able to observe the level of detail that goes into each. For a pop culture, you want to appeal more to an audience, stating factual information but keeping the tone of the writing easier to understand. The scholarly article is more study- based. It goes more into depth about the study, how it was performed, and the data that was obtained by it. The scholarly article reflected to be more of a scientific paper rather than an article to put in the media. The media production is similar to the pop culture as it is more summary based and not as detailed as the study. For example, the article was broad in the sense that it did not show statistical data that could support the findings. In the study, the open-ended response questions were analyzed, and percentages were given to explain the most common answers that were given.

sources

Aloni, Maya, Geers Andrew L., Coleman Mykelle, Milano Karissa. “Too picky for my taste? The effect of the gluten-free dietary restriction on impressions of romantic partners.” Appetite. Elsevier, 15 September 2018.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201901/is-picky-eater-also-picky-partner

https://www.elsevier.com/locate/appet

Chapter 9 first impression

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

Throughout my school career I have met a lot of educators who have made an impact on my education. From professors I just met five months ago, to teachers I had even when I was in the 8th grade. Educators are a huge asset to the school system and their role cannot be matched.

There are some teachers that you just connect with. You talk to them outside of class, you see them in the hall and go over and ask how their day was, small things like that. One teacher I had when I was a freshman made an impact on me. Her name was Mrs. Pugh and it was her first year teaching when I was a freshman, so we both were new to the high school. She was my American government teacher, and while I didn’t like any form of history classes at all (never have, never will), she made the hour and a half worth it. She made classes interesting and fun, while still being able to understand the context. One thing that I would suggest the school system changing is to stop putting as much restrictions on everything. A lot of teachers have to take some of the “fun” ways to learn away so that students have to learn to understand it themselves.

Mrs. Pugh became my advisor for our class when I was a senior so I was able to connect with her even more now as we always met to talk about prom and graduation, etc. One thing that was always “looked down on” was interaction with students outside of school or schooling events. I believe that if someone was old enough, like I was for instance, then the interaction would be ok. I was a senior in high school, so I was 18 years old. I don’t understand why if someone wants to be face book friends with someone for instance, how that’s a problem.

Despite those little problems, Mrs. Pugh was someone I could go to for advice on schoolwork, ask how her day was for just small conversations, or even just to tell her about my lacrosse game I had the previous night. Teachers impacts on students are a big role when it comes to not only knowing how smart you are or how confident you may be, but also knowing they are also human, and one of your new friends.

chapter 11 first impression: stress

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

As any other normal college student, I find myself getting stressed maybe once or twice a week… every week. When I find myself in a stressful situation, one thing I like to do is isolate myself from everyone else and sit down with my planner and figure out what I am going to do from there. Another strategy I like to do is to talk to an outsider such as a parent or a friend and explain my situation and see what their opinions are. And lastly, sometimes when I’m stressed, I tend to watch my favorite show and pretend nothings wrong at least for the hour that its on.

These habits aren’t the worst, but they are probably not the best either. I know isolating myself probably would be the best out of the three of them. Sometimes outside opinions tend to sway you in a direction you might not want to go in and then you find yourself doing things because others want you to. And I know for a fact, pretending like the stress isn’t there and running away from it to watch tv definitely isn’t my best tactic.

Some other activities I could incorporate into my stress habits would be to be better at planning things out and not waiting until the last minute which causes the most stress. Even taking it one day at a time could show to help be more relaxed and focus more on the smaller victories.

Chapter 13 Impression Post

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

I personally feel some of the tests depicted my personality, while other ones did not. For the Metrics quiz, the big 5 personality test, and the second test (Personality test center), I feel it depicted correct results to my personality. The color quiz I feel did not. I didn’t find it as reliable as they were picking my lifestyle out from a group of color.

In the Color quiz, I didn’t quite see how picking colors will allow me to be judged on my personality. The results said I tend to blame others for my shortcomings, which I don’t find to believe true. If anything, I tend to be more hard on myself when I don’t do something correctly, rather than put the blame on someone. It also stated that one of my problems was I feel “held back” which I find also not true, as I have always been one up for a challenge and always push to be on top.

The Metrics quiz showed I was 47% extravert, 25% sensing, 16% feeling, and 38% judging. The personality test center classified me as a supervisor. It stated points that sounded like me such as favoring structure and schedules, making sure there are established plans and procedures, and that time frames are kept. The big 5 personality test also showed good aspects as well such as being open to experience, friendly and optimistic, and outgoing and social. I find all of these characteristics to be most like me, and I found the tests creditable for the most part. The personality test center asked if I would fill out more surveys when I wanted the results, so that made me question a little bit, but for the most part, they produced correct results.

Chapter 10 Impression post

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

I chose to take the quiz to see how well I could read facial expressions. I clearly cannot as I received a score of 10/20. I often found myself looking at the photo and saying “that is none of the ones here” and played the close your eyes and guess game.

I don’t find the quiz to be very creditable. It was on some website that an ad to subscribe kept popping up, which led me to think they want more people to be tricked into subscribing because they believed the computer diagnosed them with being able to read someone based off 20 pictures. I did find the quiz to be interesting as it explained the answers and why they were correct, and I found some of the reasonings to be surprising.

I could obviously pick out the easy ones like happiness, sad, or anger. One I struggled with was love for instance. Everyone expresses love differently, and before the quiz I didn’t think there were certain facial expressions that showed love, but apparently there are. One that also stumped me was a person who was staring straight and sticking her tongue out. I remember looking at the choices and questioning why something like “being silly” wasn’t on there.

I could use this for my life as it helped me think about how everyone expresses things different, and you can’t assume someone is feeling a certain way based off a face they made one time.

Chapter 3: Sleep

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

I would say my sleep habits vary. Being a college athlete has taken a toll on my sleeping patterns. With traveling away to games and not getting back until late at night, and having to find the time to do small things you need to get done and get adequate sleep for your classes the next day makes things hard. I used to be real enforcer of the 8 hour rule. I was convinced that if I got at least 8 hours or close to that, then I would get a good amount of sleep to function the next day. I know we have been told otherwise, but I do believe that 8 hours is a decent amount of time to have at the least.

Everyone is different in class schedules at school, so the time that people need to be up in the morning will vary. People also have different personal lives. Some people like to get up and get dressed nice in the morning and have a sit down breakfast before their 8 am class. I am the person who will roll out of bed at 12 for my 12:30 class.

I find that I can improve my sleep habits with minimizing the amount of time during the day that I am laying around doing nothing and I can start to do more that way I am not cramming it in at night. I also like to watch tv at night and do my homework after, and another option would be to do the work and then watch tv before bed.

Chapter 8 Impression post: Memory

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

When I study for a test, I tend to start to study a week ahead of time. This gives me enough time to study all the material that is going to be on the test. This also allots time incase I have any questions about something I am confused about, it allows me to get the answer and grasp that concept before the exam. Yet this isn’t always as easy as it seems.

Sometimes I don’t get the chance to study every day of that week because I have a bad habit of being lazy. I have busy days and I get down to the end of them and get into the “ill do more tomorrow” mood. Yet this is a snowball effect and I don’t do more the next day. I do tend to fall into the typical college student image of cramming the night before. This isn’t my best trait, but what’s even worse is I have this “if I don’t know it by midnight then I don’t know it” mentality as well. But don’t get me wrong, I do study and I do put the time in that is needed.

I always get nervous for the first exams of the semester for the classes I am taking. I fear the unknown. so not knowing the style of the test makes me more nervous. For this first exam I first went over all of the power points that he displayed in class. I then went and compared them to my notes from the text book reading on those same chapters. I also went over the study guide that was given to us and used that also to review and compare my notes with.

Some things I would probably do different for next exam is to ask more questions about concepts I get confused about. For instance, I didn’t grasp some of the conditioning concepts and I tried to work it through myself, but you can only do so much without asking for help.

Development post; Chapter 4

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

Parenting styles are all different. Some parents are convinced that their kids don’t need to be watched like a hawk because they would never “do something like that”. While some other parents refuse to let their kids turn out bad mannered, so they feel the need to watch their every move and make sure they are meeting their standards. In reality, every child is different and they react and behave in different ways. So technically, there is not one specific way to parent your kids.

I believe though, that there are certain do’s and don’ts to parenting your child to best prepare them to grow up in today’ s society. Parenting should be a combination of some different aspects of each parenting style. You should have some aspects of helicopter parents as you want to have some form of authority over your child. You don’t want them thinking that they can go around doing and acting however they want. However, you don’t want to hover too much, as your child will not appreciate that and feel like they have to sneak around behind your back.

Tiger moms are another piece to the puzzle. You want to push your kid to be the best that they can be. You want to teach them to be ambitious and want to have motivation to push forward and strive to succeed. But you also don’t want to be the parent that pushes their kid to do something because that is what THEY want them to do. Every child is different, so if they have a hard time with something, or need more time, this is when the parent needs to step back and take some of that pressure off.

Jelly fish parents should be the smallest piece of the puzzle. You want to be lenient because like stated earlier, you don’t want to be too strict and not let them feel like they have someone to go to. Being too lenient though, will also have the same concepts as before where they do anything they want and have a hard time when they grow up and someone tells them no.

Having a system that is like a puzzle, one big idea with small pieces will work when parenting your child. Everyone is different, so the parenting styles should be different as well.