Monthly Archives: March 2018

First Impression Post #7

--Original published at KatiesPerspectives

It’s no surprise that college students are ordinarily stressed in one way or another most of the time. According to the 2015 National College Health Assessment, 30% of students reported that stress has negatively affected their academic performance within the past year, and 85% had felt overwhelmed by everything they had to do at some point within the past year. So how does one cope with this? Personally, I find that college stress can be much different than life stress in that, no matter how stressed you are, you still have to submit that assignment by midnight, or that paper by 7 a.m. There are many things a college student (such as myself) can incorporate into their lives that (1) don’t take up too much time, and (2) can help reduce the stresses of their hectic lives.

I find that when I am stressed about a paper or a project that is due, I still try to force myself to work for hours on end without breaks just so I can “get it over with,” and “move on” from it. This leads to actually wasting time sitting in one place and getting nowhere with the assignment. Instead of relentlessly hitting this roadblock, I could use this time to go for a walk or go get a coffee and think about something else for awhile. Giving my brain a break from the assignment that I’m not making a dent in could be greatly beneficial to my (and my assignment’s) overall well being in the end.

Something else that I find adds to my stress, is trying to make time for assignments when I’m suppose to be doing something else (i.e., sleeping). I think I forget the importance of sleep and use it as a cushion for extra time if I need it in order to work on an assignment. In class, we learned that without sleep, it is almost impossible to preform well on an assignment or a test the day after. REM sleep and getting enough of it every night is something that must be made of upmost importance to every college student and should not be compromised for the sake of an assignment. This is another thing that I should be more mindful of for the rest of the semester.

Overall, I think a combination of my time management strategies and my prioritization have a lot to do with how I stay on top of everything I have to get done for school. Everything I’m doing now to decompress and manage my assignments seems to be working, and I think I’m in a good position at this point in the semester.

 

Stress in college: Experts provide tips to cope

Johari Window: Bonus Post

--Original published at Collin's Blog

Last week I did a Johari Window project, where I chose a few personality traits to describe myself and then asked 10 other people to give me personality traits based on their thoughts. The process was neat, and I was able to see what my actual personalities are rather than what I think of myself. My self-description of myself was pretty similar to what others selected. Except for a few new and different traits there was a lot of common traits that were picked. However, I think this was probably not a valid measure of our personality since there would be a lot of bias during the project. My friends would be bias in my favor (at least I would hope) and would have good things to say about me. A better way to measure my personality would be to have people who do not know me, observe me for a few days or a week and then comment on what personalities I have. In this process, I did not learn too much. Most of the personality traits used by my friends were either used by me, or I had already known this about myself. It was an interesting project, but it could have been more valid if there were less bias involved.

 

“http://kevan.org/johari”><b>Interactive Johari Window</b></a> on 23.3.2018, using data from 11 respondents.<br> You can <a href=”http://kevan.org/johari“>make your own Johari Window</a>, or <a href=”http://kevan.org/johari?view=Collins personality traits”>view Collins personality traits’s full data</a>. </div>

First Impression Post Week 11: Option 2

--Original published at Collin's Blog

For my blog post this week I chose to watch the TED talk “Making Stress your Friend” by Kelly McGonigal. I thought it could be a useful and healthy lifestyle tip to use especially for college students. While normally the general census on stress is to avoid it at all cost, McGonigal says instead of avoiding stress we should be welcoming and using it to motivate us. People who experience stress, but express it as being unharmful to their health experience less health problems and more success than the people who believe stress is harmful to them. Welcoming stress, showed that your body was energizing itself to prepare for challenges. Your pounding heart and rapid breath are elements meant to provide more energy to the body.
Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist. Before understanding the biological effects of stress, she would tell her patients to try to avoid stress, and that it was bad for their health. When she learned about how understanding stress can be healthier than avoiding it, she immediately began training her patients to understand stress and welcome stress into their lives to help them through challenges. I believe Kelly McGonigal is credible in her research since she has a profession that revolves around understanding how your mental psychology can affect your overall health.
I would like to implement this skill into my life. It could help during exam days, presentations and future interviews. Simply telling my self that stress and anxiety can be good for me, could help me live a healthier life.

First impression post week 11

--Original published at Max'sPHY105blog

Stress, what many people consider to be the source of their problems in life. Many people define stress when there is a whole lot of it present, but stress in not completely problematic. Stress is needed to accomplish higher achievements, especially in college. Yet at the same time, too much stress is problematic. For this week’s first impression post, I will be commenting on option 1, the prompt about accessing my own stress management strategies. Stress is a topic that I learned more about in by First Year Seminar class. The speaker talked about how different levels of stress affect a person. When a person has little or no stress in his or her life, that person is usually laid back and does not accomplish anything. When a person has moderate stress in his or her life, that person is hard working and achieves more in life. When a person has to much stress in his or her life, that person works without being productive. So stress is needed to succeed in college, but too much stress decreases academic performance. When I think about it, the only get stressed in college when I hear of a whole lot of assignments coming up at one time. This is especially true on the first day of classes when I hear of everything that I will be doing in my classes over the course of the semester.  I ask myself if I am able to do these things. When I get stressed like this, I take things one step at a time. Instead of thinking about getting everything done at once, I ask myself, “What is a priority right now?” Once I have answered this question, I know where to start in my tasks, and if I finish it early, I move on to something else and I always promise give myself some downtime at the end of the day. This thought in mind reduces my stress and inspires me to keep working hard and do my best. I think this stress management strategy works great. I find that it helps me stay focused on my work without getting stressed out over things happening in other courses. I am always inspired knowing that I will have downtime at the end of the day. If I were to incorporate other stress management activities in my life, I might try spending more time with other people. I rarely do this, but I see that every time I do it, it puts stressful things behind me and lets me focus on something else that is not stressful. Simply talking about different things in life is helpful in reducing stress.

Johari Window Bonus Blog Prompt

Hand writing on a notebook

As part of our exploration of personality, each of you completed an online Johari Window. This process helps you learn how similar your self-perceptions are to how others see you. For this bonus blog post, I want you to discuss what that process was like for you, how similar your self-description was to what others selected, how valid of a measure of personality do you think this is, and what, if anything, you learned about yourself in this process. Include a link to your Johari window in your post. This bonus post is due Tuesday, 3/27, at 8pm and is worth 1.5 points of extra credit. The post must be at least 250 words long to receive credit. Be sure to use the tags “Bonus Posts” and “Personality.” I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

Week 11 First Impression Prompts – Stress

Hand writing on a notebook

Here are the two prompts for this week. Regardless of which prompt you choose, please use the tag “Stress.” The first impression posts will be due by the beginning of class on Monday, 3/26. The refinement posts will be due at 5pm on Monday, 4/2.

Option 1:

Stress permeates American society, and college is a very stressful environment for everyone involved. Stress management is a critical component of academic success in college. Describe your current stress management strategies, assess how well they work, and discuss what other stress management activities you could realistically incorporate into your routine to help you deal with stress more effectively.

Option 2:

Stress is something all too common in college students’ lives, but what if you could change your relationship with stress? Kelly McGonigal discusses doing just that in her TED talk “Making Stress Your Friend.” Watch the video, share your reactions, comment on the speaker’s credibility, discuss how reasonable you find its message to be, and discuss how you could implement some of the ideas into your life.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

Personality

--Original published at Emily Garvin's Psych Blog

For this week’s first impression post, I took different personality tests to see if they described my personality and evaluated them to see if they are credible.

  1. Humanmetrics Typology Test:

On this test my personality type was ESFJ: Extravert (50%), Sensing (19%), Feeling (16%), Judging (9%). This is an accurate representation of my personality.  I consider myself an extravert. I love being around people and tend to be very outgoing once I am used to my environment. I understand why my sensing scored higher than my intuition because I like to make conclusions based on my experiences in my environment. It also makes sense that my feeling scored higher than thinking because again I like to asses the situation before I act and I like to think that I am a more empathetic person than I am logical or analytical. Lastly, I agree that my judging is higher than perceiving because

  1. Personality Test:

For this test also I received the type ESFJ. I think this accurately describes my perception of my personality. I thought it was interesting how I got the same type for this test and the humanistic test. Each test describes occupations. Both gave careers that are similar to occupational therapy which is what I plan to practice in the future. I think that this personality test is also credible. It allows others to gage their strengths and weaknesses and then relates them to everyday life.

  1. Big 5 Personality Test:

For this test I received the following scores for the 5 major factors that make up a persons personality: Extroversion (58), Emotional stability (70), Agreeableness (80), Conscientiousness (31), Intellect/Imagination (23). Since I scored higher on extroverted that means I am friendly and optimistic which is accurate. Since I scored lower on the intellect section I tend to be more traditional which is also correct. This test seems to be credible because it gives examples to each factor and descriptions what each factor means.

  1. Color Quiz:

This quiz seemed silly to me because it seemed odd how colors can tell so much about a person’s personality. I did not see the correlation between picking colors and determining a personality type and factors that go along with it. I don’t think that this test was a credible, accurate portrayal of my personality.

 

First Impressions – Personality

--Original published at Hope's PSY105 Blog

The first personality test, the Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test, compared Introversion v. Extroversion, Sensing v. Intuition, Feeling v. Thinking, and Perceiving v. Judging.  My type was ISFP, meaning I am more introverted, sensing, feeling, and perceiving.  What I like about this personality test is that they have a description of the ISFP type and they have different careers that they might suggest for a certain type of person.  In my case, some of the careers were interior design, customer service specialist, nursing, or early childhood education.  Considering I am an education major, I found this to be quite an accurate description of my personality.

The Personality Test Center was slightly different, in which I was scored with an ESFP.  The descriptions of these personalities include a title, mine being “Entertainer”, and a short, fun description of each.  It also tells you the percentage of the population that each type is.  About 13% of people have the ESFP personality.  I liked this test better because instead of giving you a range of options that you could kind of swing back and forth between, like a “YES” and “yes”, it gave you two options that were different enough that you could easily tell the difference between.

The Big Five Personality Test has five factors rather than four.  It gives you your raw score and the percentile you scored in.  I do feel as though the results are a bit difficult to read and understand.  I feel they are accurate, but it takes a bit to understand them and understand what they mean.  I believe this test is fairly credible.

The Color Quiz was my least favorite of the four personality tests.  There isn’t necessarily a feeling when looking at colors, at least not for me, so when I took this test I just felt like I was just clicking the colors to make them go away.  Although the results seemed fairly accurate as to “my stress sources” and “my desired objectives”, I do not think this is a credible source for a personality test.

First Impression Post #9 (Week 10):

--Original published at Sierra's College Blog

For this week’s first impression post, I am discussing the different personality tests including the Jung Typology Test, the IPIP Big Five Factor Markers, and the Color Test. These free online psychological tests help people learn more about themselves in a quick and easy process. All of these tests ask the user prompted questions to answer or options to click.

For the first test, I have taken the Jung Typology Test. This test is free, and it is based on Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers’ personality type theories. The test ask certain questions, and the user responds with “YES, yes, uncertain, no, or NO.” I receive results suggesting my type is ISTJ. This concludes I am an introvert, who senses, thinks, and judges. I believe this tests accurately describes me in the last three characteristics; however, the first one confuses me. The results show I have no preference to being an introvert or extrovert, even though the test concludes I am in fact an introvert. With this in mind, I believe this test is credible because it is based off of a personality theory. Many companies and schools use this test for their employers or students as well. This test allows the users to see their results, and the percentages which go along each characteristic. I believe the test is beneficial because it gives careers and occupations, which are most suitable for each personality type. Lastly, I find it interesting to see how the test also shows famous personalities related to oneself, and compatibility for long-term partners.

For the second test, the Jungian Personality Test is used again. This test consists of multiple choice questions with two possible answers. The questions are very similar to the ones in the first test I have taken. Even though the two tests are based off the same theory, I receive an ESTJ as my result. This is interesting because on the last test I have received an ISTJ. I have the same last three characteristics; however, this test says I am more extroverted. I believe this test is credible because it is based on the same theory as the first example. There are multiple questions, which take in a wide scope of considerations; however, I find only two possible answers creates a dilemma for some users. Lastly, I like how this test explains who you are and the percent of the total population which matches your results. For example, I am an administrator who is responsible, loyal, orderly, realistic, and loves traditions. This definitely describes who I see myself in my personality.

For the third test, I have taken the IPI Five Factor Marker Test. The results from this test show I am an extrovert, not emotionally stable, agreeable, conscientious, and not imaginative. This is an accurate description of myself; however, I am surprised with the fact it says I am not emotionally stable and am agreeable. I usually feel stable, but I believe it is harder to be agreeable with others. I am not surprised I am conscientious and less imaginative because I am always worried about what is going to happen and like to stick with factual information. I believe this test is credible because the beginning states the introduction, procedure, participation, sources, and references for the test, which has been developed by Goldberg. The test comes from a statistical study to personality pieces, uses factor analysis, and is completed with samples from all over the world. Researchers believe five characteristics are showcased for a user based on questions. These questions are then ranked on a scale of one to five on how well the user agrees or disagrees to the statements.

For the last test, the Color Quiz is used to determine one’s personality traits. For this quiz, eight colors are displayed, and the user picks which ones appear most attractive until all the colors are gone. This repeats two times, and then results are given. The test reveals I am emotional, artistic, wants freedom to pursue opportunities, flexible, laid back, afraid to form deep relationships, conceited, easily offended, energetic, independent, and enjoys making plans. After viewing my results at first, I honestly started to laugh at some of them. I believe some of the options are extremely wrong including the artistic, emotional, laid back, conceited, and the fear of relationships characteristics. I even asked some close friends, and they agreed those characteristics do not describe me personally. With this in mind, I do not believe this test is credible. There is no author or description of how the results are formed. There are spelling and grammatical errors in the results as well, which indicates poor revision of the test. Lastly, I did not see any scientific research or evidence suggesting this quiz is credible.

Even though all the personality tests are useable and sometimes accurate, I find it difficult to see how a computer can generate what your personality is by asking a limited amount of questions, I like to believe people are more complex, deep, and intricate in their own personal lives. I believe the psychological tests try to explain your personalities; however, it is not precise or accurate for all people.

Personality – The Original Personal Property

--Original published at The Core Techs

I took four personality tests to try and determine what kind of personality I have. The first two tests were focused on the Extraversion vs Introversion, Intuition vs. Sensing, Feeling vs. Thinking, and Judging vs. Perceiving. Ironically, for both tests, I received the same exact results of ENFJ. Apparently, I choose to be significantly more extroverted than introverted. I also have a slight preference for intuition over sensing and a moderate preference for feeling over thinking. Lastly, I have a slight preference for judging over perceiving. Ultimately, these tests say that I am someone who connects well with people, and because of that, I can communicate, relay messages, and convince people easily. I believe in myself and my dreams, but I also see myself as someone who assists others. I tend to look forward and see a bigger picture. I am good at handling things and taking on responsibilities. Relationships are very important to me. I tend to have a strong appreciation for people, and I often put others before myself. Sometimes, I take more than I can bear, but I do everything for the love of other people.

These test results describe me extremely accurately. I tend to care a lot about people and I would do anything for them, even if it puts me at risk. I do have a lot of dreams for the future, and I long to see the world. I value relationships and try to be a leader in most situations. I have taken this test in the past twice now, and still, I end up with the same exact results of ENFJ. I would say that because of that, the tests structured like that are very accurate and trustworthy.

The other tests I took were different. The third test was one telling me about what was my strongest area of interest and how significantly it influenced me. It was similar to the other tests but structured differently. It said the same things in unique ways. Apparently, I am very extroverted, meaning that I am drawn towards people, and I love to develop relationships. I would say that this is extremely accurate as I take a high interest in others and I hate to be alone. The third test made sense, but it was a lot harder to understand than the first and second tests. Although this is true, I think it was still very accurate. The final test was a color test. The first round, it told me to simply choose colors. It did not give any further instruction. Then, it made me wait 100 seconds or so until I was to conduct the same operation again, but this time I was to choose colors in the order that they made me the happiest. I am pretty sure I chose the same exact colors in the same exact order. I do not know how trustworthy this test was because that was all there was to it. Even still, the analysis was very interesting. It told me that I am someone who is typically very concerned with the future. I also am often stressed when things get in my way, whether it be relationships or responsibilities. I tend to be harder on myself than need be, I get stressed easily, and I get stressed more often than I should. I do get stressed a lot, but I do not necessarily think of it being more often than I should. Who knows though, maybe I am more stressed than the average person, I just handle it better. I would not say that these results are the most important to me, but they are not inaccurate. I am nervous about the future, and certain things such as relationships do scare me when I think about the outcomes.

Overall, taking these personality tests was very fun. Although I have taken them before, it is interesting to see how I remain consistent over time. These personality tests are very helpful as they help me learn more about myself. The more I learn about myself, the more appreciative and accepting I become. Sometimes the features I think are negative for me I actually find are there for an important reason. I also realize that where I may lack in something, I am stronger in something else. Diving into the realm of personalities is a fascinating trip because there are so many unique sights to see.

Here are the tests in case you are interested in taking them!

  1. http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
  2. http://www.personalitytest.net/cgi-bin/q.pl
  3. http://personality-testing.info/tests/BIG5.php
  4. http://colorquiz.com/

What were your results, Core Techs?

-B

IMG_0847

*Art from my 2016 AP portfolio