Spotlight 3: Social

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

Peer pressure is a growing problem in our society today with the growth of social media use. Children and adults alike are forced to think that doing what other people are doing, even if it is dangerous, will benefit them in some way. Although escaping the influence from the people in one’s peer group may seem difficult, there are always sources that provide helpful tips in dealing with it. The first website I looked at was aimed at kids. It gave different tips on how to resist peer pressure. A couple of the tops included ask “what could we do instead?” and walk away. I think these are great tips for children. Being able to redirect the situation is a great skill for young people and allows them to take control of a situation they might not have If this strategy does not work out, the next strategy could include simply walking away. Walking away takes yourself out of the negative situation and is a great life choice.

The next website I visited included tips for female athletes to resist peer pressure. The site gave 5 stops to resisting peer pressure. These steps were:

Step one: awareness

Step two: the simple question

Step three: gather support

Step four: own it every day

Step five: inner amour

Each step entailed different key ideas to resisting peer pressure. Step one focused on the feelings of the athlete. It emphasizes being aware of how on Is feeling and how much they care. Step two requires the athlete to ask the simple questions. These questions include “is this in my best interest?” Or “whose happiness do I care about?” The third step encourages the athlete t find teammates or other female athletes to surround herself with, who have the same interests and goals that she has. This reminds the athlete that she does not have to do anything she does not want to in order to gain friends because she already has her supportive group. The fourth step teaches the athlete to be confident. Even if the athlete is unsure, faking it in front of others who want to force her to do something wrong will ward off these types of people. Finally, if the athlete takes time to reflect on herself daily, as the fifth step suggests, she will no longer second guess herself. Understanding that she is powerful and smart will help her live out her dreams.

The final website I chose gives advice to parents about how to help their children deal with the peer pressure they face at school. This website is important because how individuals deal with peer pressure is usually dependent on what boundaries parents have set up for them, and how they have been raised to handle situations that seem difficult. The first step parents must take to help is simply talking with their student. It is important for parents to remember that when giving a child advice, they must make themselves approachable. They should not want to scare their child but remind them that they are their best friends who look out for their child. Once they create that bridge of communication, the child can open up to them about problems they may face with peer pressure. The second step says for the parent to make a plan with the child. Many children give into peer pressure because they see no other way of getting out of it. By teaching their child something like texting them in code, the parents have given the child the confidence to get out of tough situations. The third step is applying your own positive pressure. Children need encouragement from their parents daily in order to make the right decisions. The fourth step is giving the child information he or she needs. Children do not know everything, so it is important for parents to teach the children about the dangers of the world. It is not to scare them, but educating the child is better than leaving them in the dark because the parents are too afraid to expose them. The next step is setting rules. It may seem hard to set harsh rules, but it is crucial for kids to know their boundaries. Showing that you are confident in your child to make right decisions encourages them to continue making those good decisions. Finally, opening up with your children about struggles you have faced will help the child know that it is possible to make good decisions and be happy.

Kids – https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/5-steps-resist-peer-pressure/

Female athletes- https://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/blog/female-athletes-and-peer-pressure

Parents handling children – https://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/peer-pressure/

Psychology in the Media

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

Media Article

Feeling out of the loop is a feeling people of this generation know far too well. Why do we feel the need to know everything about people that are “famous?” What makes them famous in the first place? Why is this feeling considered to have the same psychological effects of partial ostracism? Questions like these and more are addresses in the studies examined in ““Who’s That?”: The Negative Consequences of Being Out of the Loop on Pop Culture.” by three different psychologists. The psychologists looked at how the feeling of being out of the loop was mediated by the relationship between familiarity of musicians, celebrities, logos, and other pop culture stimuli and need satisfaction as well as negative moods.

Each study conducted asked undergrad students, who were required for a course or extra credit, to view different photographs of pop culture stimuli. The first experiment focused on musicians. The participants were informed that most people knew who this musician was and then they were asked to identify them. Following the viewing, participants were asked to rate how out of the loop they felt as well as need for satisfaction. The results showed that viewing musicians that were said to be very famous, and not knowing who they were, lead to a greater feeling of being out of the loop as well as less need satisfaction and increased negative mood. The second study confirmed the results of the first using a greater number of students. The same steps were taken to collect data.

The third experiment used the same type of participants but used pop culture logos instead. The same results were found when participants were unfamiliar with the logos that were said to be recognized by many. The final experiment was not exactly the same as the first three. Instead of being shown a picture, participants were asked to take a quiz to show their interests and preferences on certain pup culture subjects. While some took quizzes about more familiar pop culture subjects, other took a quiz on pop culture subjects many do not know about. It was found that the people taken the more unfamiliar quiz reported results of lower need satisfaction and a more negative mood.

Following the study, it was found that being unfamiliar with elements of pop culture leads participants to feel more out of the loop, lower need satisfaction, as well as a more negative mood for college aged people. It was concluded being out of the loop is also a form of partial ostracism and it effects humans’ basics need satisfaction and mood. The results of this study suggest being out of the loop, in concerns to pop culture, may be worse compared to other information.

Pop-culture article : https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/05/01/even-those-participants-who-claimed-pop-culture-is-unimportant-suffered-psychological-ill-effects-from-feeling-out-of-the-loop/

Scholarly article : http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-32098-001

Reflection

I found writing a new article to be very challenging. Honestly, starting the summary was quite difficult for me. I knew that I had to writing something that would catch an audience’s attention and I am honestly not sure if I even did that. Information such as the actually data had to be left out. I chose to do this because I thought that an audience wouldn’t really care about the numbers but not the overall concepts of the study. Throughout the entire psychology in the media project, I have gained a new perspective of journalists over each different assignment. To being, after reading the initial article in the pop culture article assignment, I felt that the journalist job was probably pretty easy. You just have to write a summary of an article and make it interesting how hard could it really be. Following the scholarly article critique, I thought simply the journalist that wrote my pop culture article was just not very good. They left out a bunch of information I thought would be necessary as well as assumed some things that were not stated in the scholarly article. Finally, after writing my own article, I realize just how difficult it is. Between not knowing what information may be important and not wanting to be redundant when the study repeated itself many times, I found that I had a great deal of trouble. My perspective of journalists has changed for the better. I have a new-found respect for what they do.

Citation

Iannone, N. E., Kelly, J. R., & Williams, K. D. (2018). “Who’s that?”: The negative consequences of being out of the loop on pop culture. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(2), 113-129.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000120

Witkowski, Tomasz. “Even Those Participants Who Claimed Pop Culture Is Unimportant Suffered Psychological Ill Effects from Feeling out of the Loop.” Research Digest, 1 May 2018, digest.bps.org.uk/2018/05/01/even-those-participants-who-claimed-pop-culture-is-unimportant-suffered-psychological-ill-effects-from-feeling-out-of-the-loop/.

Bonus Impression: Motivation

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

I chose to come to Elizabethtown for many different reasons. Most of those reasons do not hold true today and because of that I am transferring. To begin, one of the biggest reasons I chose Elizabethtown is because of sports. I committed to play lacrosse the summer going into my senior year and around November I also committed to play field hockey. That was absolutely not the only reason I chose E-town but that was a big factor. Once I got here I realized that I do not want to play lacrosse anymore, for many different reasons. I absolutely loved the field hockey team, but lacrosse was not the right fit for me. Another reason I chose E-town was because of their five-year special education master’s program. At the time of my commitment, I had decided that I wanted to do special education. Later in the year I came to the realization that special education was not the track for me and became undecided at that point. Another reason I thought that Elizabethtown was for me, was the size. My oldest brother went to a school with similar size and I thought it was the perfect place for me. After starting here at E-town in the fall, I soon came to realize that I had made a mistake in my extremely narrowed college process and believe it was best for me to begin looking other places. Although transferring has caused some stress, I also believe that it has fueled my motivation to do well in my classes. Because other schools are now looking at my grades they need to be the best they can be. At my next school, my motivation to succeed is going to have to come from myself. A way I know I can stay motivated to do well is to think about how I would let my parents down if I did not. For my entire life there has been an emphasis on doing well in school and I must continue that through college. Many different factors will play a part in maintaining motivation until graduation. Sometimes I may lose all motivation, but I know I just have to tell myself to keep going and that the work will be over soon. Overall, although I may struggle with motivation sometimes, I always end up getting everything done.

Spotlight 2: Stress Management

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

Website number one was aimed at how teens could attempt to relieve stress. Most of the ways this article states you can relieve stress can help but there is one suggestion that seems out of the teens countol. This suggestion is allow plenty of time. Some teens schedules are out of their control and therefore this is not an option for them. Other suggestions such as exercising and asking for help are great suggestions. If the teen were to use exercising as a coping strategy, the exercise must be regular and aerobic. Too much will cause harm, while not enough wont help with relief. Asking for help is another great strategy. This strategy is a form of self disclosure but depends on who you disclose to because if information is put into the wrong hands, it may cause harm. Overall, this site focused on stress relief for teens is a good source.

http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/stress/7stresstips.html

Website number two was aimed at how the general public could attempt to relieve stress. The strategies mentioned in this article can be taken as good coping strategies but are not directly good. The suggestion of meditation is a great strategie to use to relieve stress. This can be used to create mindfulness-based stress reduction. This strategy is typically used by Buddhist and focuses on observing oneself. The suggestion to tune into your body could also be considered a mindfulness-based stress reduction also. Getting in touch with oneself is a great coping strategy for stress. Another great strategy that was also mentioned in Website number one was reach out and talk to someone. To repeat myself, reaching out to someone is a form of self disclosure and is a great coping strategy. This strategie can also be considered an emotion-focused coping method that typically focuses on feelings resulting directly from the stressor itself. Other strategies presented within this article may not work as well. The idea to simply be grateful may not accomplish much. While it is a good idea to be grateful for what you have, it does not take away from the stress you may be experiencing. Overall, this website has some good ideas about how to cope with stress but some may not help at all.

https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/blissing-out-10-relaxation-techniques-reduce-stress-spot#1

The third and final website I visited to assess coping strategies was one aimed at athletes specifically. This website used the acronym P.E.R.F.E.C.T.. Some good suggestions within this site was talk it out. Overall, this can be a great strategy for many people. Another suggestion that was mentioned was reverse engineer. This strategy suggests to recall a time when you performed at your best and you were confident and felt good about how you were playing. While doing this, the author suggests to try to remember what played into you doing so well. Was it your lucky shirt or a certain phrase? This may tap into the idea that if you smile you will start to feel better. Although it may not be fool proof, it may help somewhat. Overall, because these suggestions are athlete based, they will not apply to everyone but most of these could be pretty useful.

https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/perfect-method-reduces-athlete-stress

Chapter 13: Personality

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

Overall, some of the personality tests matched what i believe my personality while others did not. While taking the Jung Typology Test, the results stated that I was neither introvert nor extrovert, while also perferring sensing over intuition, judging over perceiving, and feeling over thinking. I believe this test may be accurate. While I may come off as extrovert to most, I personally believe I am an introvert therefore, the statement that I do not lean toward either is accurate in my opinion. The next test called the type theory test painted my personality as one that was very sociable who excels in service occupation involving personal contact. The reason I disagree with this statement is because I do not think I excel with personal contact. The third test stated that I was an extrovert and agreeable. I agree with the agreeable result but not as much the extrovert part. The final quiz I took was the color quiz. This quiz did not give a as clear as a personality type but stated multiple different things that I would agree with. One statement that I completely agree with is that I like things to go my own way. The issue with most of these quizzes is that I could potentially be either extrovert or introvert. I am either very extrovert or very introvert. There is usually no in between. Overall, I believe that these quizzes could potentially be accurate, but because I believe I can be very many different characteristics and personality traits, I cannot accurately assess it.

Chapter 9: Intelligence (option1)

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

I truly believe that there are many factors that go into intelligence. One of them being the environment. I was gifted with the opportunity to be in one of the top public schools in Pennsylvania and a ranked school district in the nation. My high school focused on the interactions with students and did everything they could to help students succeed. Because of this, throughout my school career I have also done my best to make some sort of connection with my teachers. Something school systems could do is push for this interaction between teachers and students. I honestly believe that because of the relationship I had with my teachers, overall, I did better in school. This may be due to the fact that I enjoyed coming to class more because of my teacher or may be because I had the opportunity for one on one sessions. I think many students would benefit from one on one sessions.

Another example of something the school system could do to promote learning is implement a more interactive style of learning. I know personally getting involved in my class room has aided me when needed to recall information. Being lectured for a full class period is boring and usually turns students’ brains off by the end. Interactive learning also gives students the ability to practice their social skills which is also very important. I believe that there are many other things the school system could do to improve students; performance in the classroom, and of course everyone is different, but these changes would absolutely help a student like me.

Chapter 10: Emotion

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

While taking the Berkeley “Test Your Emotional Intelligence” quiz I scored a fourteen our of twenty. Honestly, I do believe that my score reflects how well I can read emotions. The emotions that I struggled with were the more negative emotions. For example, I got fear, contempt, pain, compassion, and sadness wrong. A lot of these emotions look like each other. For the most part, I thought a lot of emotions were sadness. This may be because I express my emotions differently. This is where the test may start to lack credibility. Due to the fact that everyone expresses their emotions differently, the test may look like one person’s emotions but not another’s. Who is to say that one look conveys a specific emotion while the other one doesn’t. The easiest emotions I could tell apart were the positive emotions. Some of these emotions include happy and pride. I am not exactly sure why the more positive emotions are easier than the negative emotions. It is possible that because positive emotions are more direct and certain, it is easier to read them off of someone’s face. I could absolutely use this information in my everyday life. Realizing that people show emotions different allows me to maybe not judge one as quickly. I am not sure what is going on inside of a person and judging them based on their facial expression can sometimes lead to false ideas about what is going on. Just because someone looks angry does not mean they are mad. It may just be the persons resting face. Overall, the quiz was very informing and I learned that not everyone has the same looking emotions.

Chapter 11: Stress

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

Stress is a very prominent emotion felt in almost all college students. Being a freshman, I can absolutely attest to that. Due to the fact that I can in undecided and I also currently play two sports I feel my stress levels may be higher compared to others with less responsibility. With the stress of having to perform every day in my sport, having to find the correct path for me to take and ultimately decide on a major, as well as take on the increased amounts of work compared to high school, I have encountered much more stress than I ever have before. Currently, I know my stress management activities are not great at all. Currently, when I am stressed, I will most like put off whatever is causing the stress and do my best not to think about it. This means I will sleep, or go get food, or simply just play on my phone for hours before I feel that I just need to get the stressful thing out of the way. As I am sure you can imagine this helps nothing and ends up causing more stress than I began with.

There are many different things I think I can do to properly manage my stress. The biggest thing would most likely plan out my school work and work ahead. Procrastinating and doing my best to not think about all the assignments and studying I have to do only adds to my stress. I think if I make a schedule and follow it properly, I can relieve some of the stress. I am sure there are many other strategies to help me deal with stress, maybe I should look some up sometime.

Chapter 3 Impression: Sleep

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

My sleep habit personally is absolutely terrible. Typically, I either waking up at 9:15 or 10:45. I am very thankful I do not have any 8 AM’s. After my classes for the day, a very bad habit of mine is I take a nap, almost every single day. This has put me into a very bad cycle. Due to the fact that I am just so tired I honestly feel like I have to. After my nap, I go to practice of my game. This takes up a very large part of my day. Practice takes up about 3 hours (when I leave my room to when I get back), while games take up even more time depending on if it is home or away. Finally, after I am finally done, I go back to my dorm and do homework. Because of my nap during the day and my sports, I usually will not start homework until about nine or ten. This really does not help my sleep or my stress levels. Due to the late homework start, I will not go to bed until 12-2, depending on how much I have. I know for a fact that my sleep schedule is completely off and not healthy at all. Typically, I think the realistic goal for amount of sleep per night is eight hours for a college student. Although I may be getting almost that every night, I still do not feel awake or rested when I wake up in the morning. In order to improve my sleep schedule, I know that I need to stop taking naps during the day. One way I could accomplish this goal is to go to the library instead of going back to my dorm. I truly think this would fix all of the problems I have because I would be finish my homework during the day as well as be able to go to sleep much earlier.

SpotLight #1: Development

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

Divorce or, the legal dissolution of a marriage, is primarily seen as negative when it comes to children and the effects on them. As divorce becomes more and more prevalent in the United States, the number of children affected by this has increased greatly. There are a number of people who believe all the effects on children are negative and the child will greatly be harmed when going through a divorce. Others, however, believe a child may escape, harm free, or maybe even with some life skills, those without divorced parents, may not have.

Negatively, both authors, Sam Bone and Jayna Solinger, believe a child’s time spent with each parent is greatly affected by divorce. Jayna Solinger, in “The Negative Effects of Divorce on Children”, uses facts and statistics, that are cited at the end of her writing, to support her argument about the negative effects in order to appeal to the ethos of the audience and prove its credibility. Sam Bone, author of “3 Negative Effects Divorce Can Have on Children” creates a sense of credibility through his profession of being a lawyer in the area of divorce. Both authors use statistics and evidence-based facts to support their claims. Although some may believe divorce can be nothing but harmful, other have shown that divorce is not always a bad thing.

The aspects of divorce that were negative were definitely harder to find making the articles that were found, not as credible as those of the negative side. Aside from this, Grant W. Mohi uses surveys and interviews to assess the impact of divorce on a young adults ability to form and maintain romantic relationships in “Positive Outcomes of Divorce: A Multi-Method Study on the Effects of Parental Divorce on Children.” This is a good way to asses and collect information and supplies good support for the claims made within the writing. Shawn Leamon’s, “Potential Positive Effects of Divorce on Children (It may not all be bad news…)” however does not have the support or evidence within his writing. Leamon’s credibility shows throw in his credentials of having an MBA and being the host of a #1 podcast. Although this may create a sense of ethos for the audience, statements made such as “children learn self-worth,” are not backed but by actual evidence, rather simple statements. Based on the information found, I believe there is a greater negative affect on children, rather than positive.

Through the research I conducted, I struggled when it came to find the information about what may not be so bad about divorce. I could not find factual studies that were backed up by support and experiments or a writing that was credible. The lack of credibility for a writing, lacks ethos, therefore making the writing feel as though it is not reliable. This was not true about the negative effects however. Each article I found had good hard evidence and explained a solid study within. Because of this reason I have to side with the negative effects of divorce on children.

Bone, Sam. “3 Negative Effects Divorce Can Have on Children.” Divorce Magazine, 8 Dec. 2017, www.divorcemag.com/articles/3-negative-effects-divorce-can-have-on-children/.

Leamon, Shawn. “Potential Positive Effects of Divorce on Children (It May Not All Be Bad News…).” Divorce and Your Money, Divorce and Your Money, 26 Nov. 2017, divorceandyourmoney.com/blogs/positive-effects-of-divorce-on-children/.

Mohi, Grant W. “Positive Outcomes of Divorce: A Multi-Method Study on the Effects of Parental Divorce on Children .” URJ, 22 Sept. 2015, urj.ucf.edu/docs/mohi.pdf .

Solinger, Jayna. “The Effects of Divorce on Children.” ISU Public Homepage Server, http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rhetoric/105H16/cova/jlscova.html.