Author Archives: manamipsy

spotlight post3: How to resist peer pressure

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

Some people suffer from peer pressure which people feel to have to follow majority regardless of whether they do right things or not. It is difficult to resist peer pressure. People have a fear that may be excluded There are some methods to deal with peer pressure.

adolescents and young adults

According to the article, How to Resist Peer Pressure, Paul Chernyak says they can help adolescents and young adults to resist peer pressure to choose healthy options, to select good friends and to identify yourself. It is difficult to reject a friend’s recommendation such as alcohol and drugs. It is because people prefer conformity in a group. There is the result in the experiment of Solomon Asch people tend to answer same with the other although the other’s answer is obviously wrong. The experiment also showed that people answer differently when they are not in a group. In this case, it will be an effective way to respect individual decision to ask friends to have time to think of their demands, find an excuse such as over-protect of parents, give friends better or another idea. Because, if people can contact with one of their group’s members individually instead of making a decision in a group, it would be much easier. In addition, proposing a better idea will be helpful to enjoy to have friendship in a group. For example, you can bring a non-alcohol beverage to a party if you do not want to drink. Moreover, it is important to question whether your friends influence positively. Firstly, it is never good to hang out with friends who make you feel bad because it is stressful. People will be happier by having a new friend who gives you positive influences. For example, the author says social roles such as joining group activities in school help people to avoid to get in trouble. Besides these, it is important to identify your values, goals and what you like to be. Life decisions based on personality and goals to accomplish may be beneficial excuse to resist negative peer pressure. Everyone has differences. People need to know their what they feel comfortable to do and have a right to say no to avoid from other’s judgment such as stereotype and prejudice.

Workers

In the article, Three Tips for Resisting Peer Pressure at Work, Ryan W. Hirsch suggests that suggesting opinions directly, preventing social loafing and being consistent can be good strategies to deal with peer pressure at a workplace. In detail, the author recommends readers to indicate what you think directly. For example, people should suggest disliking sushi when coworkers ask you to go dinner instead of using different reasons so that you can prevent next invitation to go to sushi restaurants. Next, people should not break a role in terms of works just because others break a role. Social loafing is that people are likely to lose responsibility and motivations to complete given tasks in the group. Social loafing at a workplace may create unfair treatment and negative consequences. Therefore, workers need to

set a clear goal and think of themselves as individuals in the group. Consistent communication is also helpful to make a decision without peer pressures.

Female athletes

Lindy Wilson, the author of the article, Female Athletes and Peer Pressure, says female athletes are more likely to lose a chance to succeed and keep harmony in girl’s group not to be excluded and have to support physical handicap by other strengths. Especially, female athletes sometimes are required to choose either their happiness in group or own success. There are five processes to resist peer pressure: awareness, the simple question, gather support, own in every day and inner armor in the article. Firstly, being aware of your social role which is changing frequently and putting yourself in comfortable places can be helpful. If you can be in a smaller group, it would be easier to say your idea to get conformity without normative influence which people do not want to break a harmony. Finding another supporter will help you in several situations to achieve a highly future goal. It can change entire group’s motivation to focus on own task because people tend to be active when they have a clear goal and specific roles. The others may get inspired from you and the group identification can increase.

#Spotlight #Social

 

Citation:

Chernyak, P. (2018, March). How to Resist Peer Pressure. Retrieved from https://www.wikihow.com/Resist-Peer-Pressure

Hirsch, W. R. (2014, October 17). Three Tips for Resisting Peer Pressure at Work. Retrieved from https://thecpt.org/2014/10/17/three-tips-for-resisting-peer-pressure-at-work/

Wilson, L. (n.d.). Female athletes and peer pressure. Retrieved from https://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/blog/female-athletes-and-peer-pressure

 

Media Production

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

Summary

A journal of Behavioral Decision Making published by the University of Michigan suggests that 5 to 10-year-old children have the same habits of saving/spending money called “tightwads” and “spendthrifts” as well as the adults do. Firstly, they predicted that children’s tendency of consuming can be measured based on their feeling whether they like to spend money or not. In addition, it was expected that children’s skill of decision making to shop can be educated and improved by understanding when and how children have stable consuming reactions.

In the study if children’s consuming behavior, 225 children at age of 5 through 10-year-old were assigned with almost equal number of boys and girls. Children under age 5 were assumed to lack the ability to explain their feelings accurately. One of participants’ parents also took a questionnaire about the spending/saving tendencies of their children.

There were five tasks for each child participant who assigned randomly. The first task called “ST-TW scales” showed a child two toy characters that said things “I feel mostly good when I spend money” and “I feel mostly bad when I spend money” twelve times. The child was told to choose the one that is more like his/her feelings. In addition, the researchers conducted two tasks to measure inhibitory control and financial understanding using their prior understanding of math. In “Sensitive to opportunity costs”, they asked children to pick from two options: did they want to save money for a new toy as the birthday gift or buy a candy? These four tasks were given participants in random order. Final tasks called “Observed money saving/spending behavior” was conducted to observe whether the child spent a given dollar for the bag of toys or take it home or not.

In the results, researchers found only 5-year-old children have tendencies of money-related behaviors based on their feelings as well as adults do. It was also clear that parents spending/saving habits relate to children’s habits according to ST-TW scales. Besides this, 51 percent of children who decided to spend a dollar for their toy bags had high score of ST-TW scale, which shows they are likely to be spendthrifts from their desire. The researchers also indicate that some children spend money without feeling of pain beyond desire what they want in their journal.

In addition, there were several limitations. For example, although first task’s pictures had emotional words such as happy and boring regarding spending habits, they should have focused on impulsive or careless consuming. Moreover, the research cannot be generalized because they have only 200 results whose participants were mostly white due to the location where the research conducted from the limitations in the journal.

In conclusion, people have spending/saving habits since they were only 5-year-olds. The result may help to design the financial education to children by focusing on how emotions influence on their consuming behaviors.

Citations:

Lisa, W. (2018, September 3). A Spendthrift 5-Year-Old? Researchers Say Yes. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-spendthrift-5-year-old-researchers-say-yes- 1536026460?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=9

Craig, E.S. Susan, A. G. Scotto, I. R. (2017, December 28). Spendthrifts and Tightwads in Childhood: Feelings about Spending Predict Children’s Financial Decision Making. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/bdm.2071?mod=article_inline

 

 

Reflection

In this media production assignment, I focused on five critical questions to choose what is important contents. It was not difficult to figure out whether original research journal tells readers answers of questions accurately thanks to the previous assignment: scholar research critique. I suggested what the study found and how it is measured at first because the result that little kids have similar consuming responses to adults especially their parents have is beneficial to improve financial education. I empathized the associations between “ST-TW scale” and “Observation money spending/saving behavior” because it was the most useful result to support researcher’s prediction as well as the news article, “A Spendthrift 5-Year-Old? Researchers Say Yes,” by Lisa Ward.

I also did not include the detail information of other tasks because they did not have beneficial results and the correlation with the children spending/saving tendencies based on their emotions directly. I added information about participants and limitations of the experiment which news article does not mention by following to some critical questions: how do they selected and assigned participants and are the conclusions generalized to the right populations. It is important to explain why under 5-year-old children were not be assigned and there was no diversity of participants to be generalized. I learned people cannot know what research found in detail sometimes by just reading news articles, although they can catch the brief concept of the research and what was the result. In addition, it was not easy to answer all critical questions clearly and catch attention of readers. It was good to know that even original research journal has a lack of information to answer questions.

 

Johari window post

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

Johari window is an idea of how people hide their personality in conversation and technique that helps people to understand their relationship. It consists of 4 windows: open self, blind self, hidden self, and unknown self.

I chose “caring”, “cheerful”, “friendly”, “happy”, and “kind” from the lists of personal characteristics through the website kevan.org which creates own Johari window. I chose them because I think they are my strengths and my favorite personality. I guessed that my self-description is similar to what my friends select because I am not good at faking myself in front of my friends. In addition, I always try to behave like what I want to such as friendly and out kind, and I became like that naturally. From the result, my friends selected “brave”, “helpful”, “organized”, “sensible” and “warm” in addition to my selections. It better resulted than I expected because they also match with what I ‘m trying to be like. It is important to try new things always (brave) and to organized to achieve my goal. It is completely the same things with what I was told by my mother. I felt my personality is changing depends on what I’m doing. This is a good measurement of personality in terms of validity because it has enough number of options to choose and suggests accurate and detail results. On the other hand, people who are asked to choose a person’s personality tend to be his/her friends. Therefore, the result tends to be only positive. The list also has more positive characteristics than negative ones. It may be difficult to point out what is bad aspects of the person. In fact, I felt happy about my result and suspicious if my friends were not honest. Anyways, it was a good opportunity to like myself more than before by realizing people think of my personality similar to what I want to be like.

 

#BonusPosts #Personality

Spotlight post 2: stress management

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

Student

According to the article, “Top 10 School Stress Relievers for Students”, by Elizabeth Scott, suggests 10 effective methods to reduce stress of students and succeed in school. Students are feeling overwhelmed and depressed because of schoolwork and activities in school. The pressure that caused by the expectation of academic achievement which influences students’ future. First advice to reduce stress is taking a nap. Students tend to be a lack of sleep before the due date of assignments and exams. They also become less productive and unable to focus on studying well without enough sleep. Therefore, the author recommends taking a nap to busy students. This strategy is considered as adaptive strategies which reduce stress simply. This is also an effective strategy as problem-focused on coping which people attempt to reduce the cause of stress directly. Because if students took a nap, they would be able to be more productive to study and would not be sleepy. However, it depends on individuals because some students may feel more stress and tiredness if they used an important time to take a nap instead of studying. It may be more beneficial for some students to sleep early and have good sleep every night than taking a nap in terms of health. In addition, getting exercise regularly also helps students’ busy school life. Exercise is not only good for the health but also good to low the blood pressure reactions to stress. However, some people feel stress to do exercise even though it is a beneficial idea. This is the one of stress cause called approach-avoidance conflict. Therefore, doing exercise not always work well to release stress.

 

Parents

Parents face stressful situations by working, doing a household and raising a child. Especially, it is difficult to raise a child without managing their stress. There are four stress coping strategies in the article, “4 Tips for Managing Parenting Stress”, by Erlanger A. Turner. Specifically, asking help to professional and having social support are effective ways to reduce stress. Firstly, the author says psychologists help them not only to find the best way to deal with life’s difficulties but also to give advice on parenting from a professional perspective. Self-disclosure that parents reveal their stressful problems to the others is helpful. In this case, parents do not need to think about who they should disclose because psychologists are trustful not to make troubles. Secondly, having social support such as friends and family bonds is important. If parents feel overwhelmed, they would be able to rely on their friends or family to take care of children. They also can make own time to do what they want to do for fun.

 

Teacher

A teacher is one of the stressful jobs. According to the article, 9 Stress Management Strategies Every Teacher Needs to Know”, Chris Mumford insists unique stress coping strategies such as breath deeply, thinking of stress positively and forcing yourself to be grateful. It is a part of mindfulness meditation which is a practice to provide people with relaxation to breathe deeply. It works when teachers feel emotional stress in the class. Next, people think stress is negative. However, it would give a positive impact on their body such as increasing the heart rate from the article. It is also said that stress can be reduced if people do not view stress as harmful. In my opinion, it depends on individuals whether people can think the stress helps to achieve the challenges they are facing, although there is research to support the idea. The other strategy which forces themselves to be grateful is emotion-focused coping strategies. This is focusing on the control of feelings. If people can think that grateful everything including the cause of stress, it would be easy to move on and make their life better. I think it is a similar idea to the internal locus of control which the perception that people can control their fate.

 

There are several options to cope with stress. If people could find a suitable one, they would succeed to live in stressful situations.

Citations:

Scott, E. (2018, June 11). Top 10 School Stress Relievers for Students. Retrieved fromhttps://www.verywellmind.com/top-school-stress-relievers-for-students-3145179

Turner, A. E. (2013, Jun 24). 4 Tips for Managing Parenting Stress. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-race-good-health/201306/4-tips-managing-parenting-stress

Mumford, C. (n.d.). 9 Stress Management Strategies Every Teacher Needs to Know. Retrieved from https://www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/9-stress-management-strategies-every-teacher-needs-know

#Spotlight #Stress

Ch 10 First Impression: Emotion

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

I heard that the communication consists of 80 percent non-verbal communication such as facial expression and gesture before. It is said that Japanese is one of the most difficult language. Our communications and the way to express feeling is difficult to understand. Because Japan has high-context culture which people communicate in ways that are implicit and used a lot of non-verbal communication. I thought I am good at recognizing facial expressions because I grew up in such high-context culture. In fact, I tend to catch the hidden message from people’s non-verbal communication and I often try to understand what people around me think in each situation without words. I think this is typical communication style and a kind of manner in Japan. However, I was disappointed about the result of the test, “Test Your Emotional Intelligence.” I got 13 out of 20 points although I expected 100 percent correct. I am also realized that I might misunderstand the actual feeling of friends and family due to my individual perspective. To be honest, this test is a half-credible and a half incredible. Because, I could not be satisfied with some answers of incorrect. For example, the facial expressions that woman looks down and points under her eye should mean sadness. However, the correct answer is embarrassment because she is touching her face. For me, pointing under the eyes describes tears and I do the same thing when I feel sad. Therefore, it may have a cultural difference between America and Japan regarding the facial expression. It was hardest for me to tell the differences between sadness, disgust and embarrassment. They all look sad for me sometimes. The easiest facial expression was happiness and surprise. They are simple and I see these facial expressions always in daily life. I will trust my experiences in Japan to read facial expressions as well as before I took the test. However, asking with the words is also important.

#emotion

Ch2 Stress First Impression

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

There are many causes to receive in college life. Japanese university students and American college students may have a different stress because of the different lifestyle. When I was in Japan, I got stress because of not only school work but also part-time jobs, getting some licenses to prepare for job hunting, club activities, friends’ relations and commuting. I had to wake up at 6am in the morning to go to the university which is about 2 hours away by train and come back home at 10 pm because of a part-time job. Then I did homework after that. I received stress because I was just too busy to complete so many things. My biggest cause which makes me feel stress was getting a bad grade in a class and losing the opportunity to go study abroad. I chose the part-time job which I can enjoy to work to release stress first. I reduce a stressful environment such as working with the mean boss as less as possible. Fortunately, my co-workers were so nice and the working environment was suitable and beneficial for me. Second, I talk to my friends and mom about my concern to release stress. I sometimes make fun of my concern when I talk to not be serious conversations. Speaking out my stress and giving some encouragements are the best way to relax. It would be important to be positive if I can forgive myself when I make a mistake or feel the things not go well. Beside this, I do not forget to be happy by making smile even though I am not happy. I also treat myself to something nice such as eating good food and buying something. It gives me satisfaction and hopes to let me work hard again. It is difficult to deal with stress but if people could find own way to release stress, they would get over it and move on next or continue to focus on their stuff.

#Stress

Spotlight Post #1 Divorce

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

People may believe that divorce is harmful to children and influences on children’s future. Although the understanding of divorce is increasing, there is still the tendency that children without separation from parents are happier than children with experiences of parent’s divorce. There are two sides of arguments about the effects of divorce on children. One side of the arguments is supporting that divorce influence on children’s behavior, mental issues, and academic ability. On the other side, there are two arguments say that divorce is not bad for children because they will be able to deal with the situation children face.

According to the article titled “The Psychological Effects of Divorce on Children”, Amy Morin explains there are emotional difficulties which children might struggle after their parents divorced. She says 48 percent of children in the USA and UK experienced parent’s divorce by age 16 and live with single-parent. Even though these children seem to get over the tough time, some of them continue to have difficulties in changes. For example, children may be confused when they must go between two hoses and worry about losing love from their parents someday. They also may blame on themselves about their parent’s divorce and feel anger to change situations and lifestyle such as a new hose and school. It is not easy to adjust to the new lifestyle. If children had a step-parents and step-siblings, they would receive a stress. In addition, children likely to have a mental issue and behavior problem caused by a parent’s divorce. Especially, adolescents with parent’s divorce may take a risk in terms of sexual activities, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. The author also suggests that people with parent’s divorce may tend to divorce when they had a family. There are several negative effects on children because of parent’s divorce.

Mitchell Kalpakgian also discusses negative effects on children regarding education in his article. First, parent’s conflict at home reduces academic achievement by interrupting their concentration on the study caused by their emotional insecurity and instability like anxiety and anger. They do not have an environment where is quiet and they can be relaxed to study in the house with conflicts. Second, children tend to not to join school activity including the study because sadness from divorce deprives energy, excitement, and enthusiasm from children. Third, he insists that children with parent’s divorce tend to lose motivation of attendance and school because they may not be able to get a clear sense of expectation from two parent’s same ideas values of education by adjusting two different families. They may have an attitude of nothing matters like “Who Cares?”. It is important to care children’s emotional changes caused by parent’s divorce to support their academic achievement.

The article titled “Is Divorce Bad for Children?”, by Hal Arkowitz and Scotto O. Lilienfeld, suggests that children recover rapidly after their parent’s divorce especially emotional negative effects. According to the examination at Pennsylvania State University in the article says that there are only small differences between children of divorced parents and children without the experience of parent’s divorce regarding “academic achievement, emotional and behavior problems, delinquency, self-concept, and social relationships.” (Hal, A and Scotto O. L, P3). Besides this, children’s anxiety or the stress of divorce can be reduced by love and stability from parents. The authors also claim that the rate of social, physical and emotional issues of children with divorced parents is only 15 percent higher than the one of children with both of parents. There is even a possibility this difference is caused by other issues such as poor parenting. In addition, it is important for children that parents give warm and love to their after they divorced and support their children emotionally and socially. Children’s personality and characteristic also influence to recover well.

Victoria Clayton supports the idea that divorce is not only bad for children and children will do well. Especially, even if parents divorced, they are still parents who love their children, and should work together as “co-parents.” It gives good consequences for both parents and children to decide separations because parents will be able to appreciate and respect each other by separating, and children still do well thanks to parent’s strong corporation.

I agree with the idea that children can get over parent’s divorce even though they are hurt emotionally. Because they will be able to receive love from both of parents in a little different way from the others. They can do well depends on how divorced parents corporate each other and how they raise their children. My parents have separated since I was in elemental school, and they divorced. I found out the differences from my friends with both parents. However, I have never felt jealousy to them because I am satisfied with their decision and love from them. I could do well because they did well. Even if it depends on children’s characteristic whether they will recover soon, parents could help them.

References

Morin A. (August 24,2018). The Psychological Effects of Divorce on Children. Retrieved from https://www.verywellfamily.com/psychological-effects-of-divorce-on-kids-4140170

Kalpakgian M. (February,20,2015). Divorce’s Effect on a Child’s Education. Retrieved from http://truthandcharityforum.org/divorces-effect-on-a-childs-education/

Arkowitz H, Lilienfeld S O. (March,1,2013)Is Divorce Bad for Children? Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-divorce-bad-for-children/

Clayton V. (12,11,2007). Divorce doesn’t have to destroy the kids. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21474430/ns/health-childrens_health/t/divorce-doesnt-have-destroy-kids/#.W7q21S_jZ-U

#spotlight #Development

 

Chapter 3 First Impression: Drug

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

Recently, drugs such as marijuana are accepted to use legally in some states. I felt that using drugs in daily in the USA is less strict than doing in Japan when I came here. For first impression prompts of chapter 3, I chose option 1 which is about the use of marijuana.

The news that Canada allowed to use marijuana recreationally made me surprised because using drugs including marijuana is prohibited and people do not use them usually in Japan.

There are two types of usages of marijuana: the medical use and recreational use. The advantage of the medical use is to help people with disabilities and illness such as cancer and Alzheimer. Medical marijuana also helps to heal pains, and increase an appetite and sleeps. On the other hand, its disadvantage is people may be addicted. It also decreases the ability to memorize and think, and have the similar effect to alcohol.

The advantage of the recreational use is it makes people active and happy which is called “High”. People may be able to focus on their stuff such as studying. I am not sure if it actually effects on people’s activity positively because I have never used it before. Compared with them, people tend to be addicted to using marijuana because it may be easier to be high with less the side effect than drinking an alcoholic beverage. (depend on the types of marijuana).

In my opinion, only medical marijuana should be legal because there are people who actually need it with medical proposes. In addition, it is said that the danger of addiction is lower than its caffeine and alcohol to cover the disadvantage of medical marijuana. However, recreational use of marijuana is unnecessary. People should be satisfied with alcohol to get effects to be happy and active. The side effects can work to limit their amount of drinking. It also has the possibility of causing different problems such as driving accidents because of marijuana.

#Drugs

Chapter 8 First Impression: Memory

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

There are two types of memory which are easy to forget like daily memories and is retained in your mind strongly. I chose Option 2 which is about the memory people can recall almost perfectly. When I chose this topic, I came up with almost all memories with what I felt at that time when the Tohoku earthquake (3.11 earthquake) happened in Japan 7 years ago. Do you remember this huge earthquake? Japan lost many people’s life even though people are trained how to evacuate to the nearest designated place since we are children, and Japan has a high technology to predict earthquake from past earthquake experiences. Because this was the first time that people are realized the danger of Tsunami. People in other countries may not remember about it while it was broadcasted in the world. I was so surprised and could not recognize that it’s happening in reality when I was watching TV news at home after school. It was when I was in middle school.

I was scared and called my mother (she was working) because I tried to change channels, however, all TV stations broadcasted news about Tsunami. It is kind of weird that I remember almost everything what I saw, what I was doing, and what I felt even though I live in the place where is far from Tohoku area, and this earthquake does not relate to me directly.

In my opinion, the reason why some memories are so much stronger than others is a strong key event and its background such as emotions help each other to recall memories. For example, Tohoku earthquake which is a key event reminds me of my life at that time. And also, my feeling of fear and surprise help me to recall about earthquake clearly.

I would ask a few questions to participants to make sure the relations between a strong key event and its background. For instants, the questions required them to write the specific events with short words, and emotions. After that, I also ask how the emotions recall more information about their events.

#memory

Ch7 First Impression: Learning

--Original published at Manami PSY105blog

There has been a controversial issue of violence in a video game makes a child violent for over 20 years. Does actually violence effect on children’s behavior?

First, the most common reason why people play a video game may be releasing stress and just having a fun in their leisure time. Also, I read an article before, it says that playing a game is the only way to attack and kill people legally for some people who have stress about relations in daily life. Nowadays, the visual quality of the game is better to get popularity more. In other words, it is getting real and gross visually as video game industry’s strategy to make money.

I have ideas to both agree and disagree with the calls that video games have to be prohibited permanently.

For supporting the calls, it is understandable what the graphics and guns game is increasing is becoming a big issue with criticism of video game industry. Because first-person shooter and graphical development of violent games help children to imagine a real situation in which children actually kill someone or people actually are killed by their hand. They gradually get to use to seeing it. Some children may have an interest in what is going to happen in real life. Also, they may think that they can get the same excitement and release stress like the game in real situations too. In my opinion, that is the common case and steps to make a child criminal.

However, it is said that a violent video game is not a direct cause that children become more violent. The environment in which children can reach guns daily must be the biggest issue. In fact, the age limitation of playing violent games in the USA is higher than the one in Japan. These two countries differences whether having guns are legally and socially accepted or not. The US government can make safe environment prevent that sad incident are happened by children without any damages on the video game industry. Besides this, it is difficult to be clear the correlations between violent video games and children’s violent behavior because children who behave violently tend to have a mental issue from their experiences or difficulties to learn social moral. Children gradually learn moral and abilities which they can recognize the differences between good and bad behaviors especially based on social acceptance like law when they are growing up. If they have the appropriate education and grow up normally, they would not be criminals.

I think ideas of disagreement is stronger for now.

#learning