Tag Archives: Fall 2017

First Impression Post 12

--Original published at Casey's Blog Site

Option 1

Out of curiosity for both tests I decided to take the self-esteem test and the alcohol test, and one or two others just to see what the results would be. At first when I saw the titles of the 7 different tests I was somewhat confused in thinking that these tests were going to be more generalized and not so specific. For example I had never really sat down and  thought about whether or not mental illnesses were dangerous or if I favored medication over talk therapy. I suppose this is because I never had to deal with either in my life. So at first selecting a test to complete put the thought in my head of completing option 2 since none of the titles really applied to me. But I completed the alcohol test “Do you implicitly think alcohol is irresistible.” Frankly I don’t remember exactly the result word for word but I do know it basically said I believe it can be resistible. In going through the test though I thought the way that it was done was strange. All it had me do was press ‘i’ key or ‘e’ key depending if I remembered if the word that flashed on the screen was in the group of words that they had shown before the test started. To me it felt more like a memory test than a test to see if I thought alcohol was irresistible. After the flashing words it asked several other questions of what I thought of alcohol which is when I got the feeling that the test had actually started, but then there were at most only 5 questions that it had asked me so it didn’t seem like a very reliable result that was given. This made me skeptical to take another test, inevitably though I took the self-esteem one and to my surprise the result I had gotten was not what I was expecting. And although it was a different topic as well the test had the same process as the alcohol test, gave you a group of words to memorize then flashed words and asked if it was in the group, afterwards asked 5 questions and gave my result. So all in all I feel as though the tests are somewhat misleading or don’t give an accurate result on what is outside my conscious awareness and therefore not real useful for college students.


First Impression – Social Psychology

--Original published at Caitlin's corner

This is a very interesting experiment to me because most people would definitely think the people receiving $20 would do a better job, but in actuality, the people who received only $1, did a much better job of talking to the next person and actually started to believe it wasn’t boring,, In reality, it was very tedious and boring work. There have definitely been times where I’ve experienced this. Sometimes when my neighbors whom I babysitter for regularly ask me to do them a favor or something small for no compensation I end up doing a much better job of completing the task than if they said they’d pay me. I find that when I know I’m getting paid, I will start off really well and strong, but eventually I will get sloppy or lazy and just not care as much because I know I’m going to get paid no matter what. But if I’m not being compensated I see if more of an act of kindness I guess, so I really want to impress them and do them a favor. For me, money can make me really greedy and I know it, so I’d much rather do someone a favor and just be happy because of that. I’m not really sure why I’m like this, but my life is very volunteer and community service oriented since I’m involved in girl scouts, rainbow girls and other masonic groups, relay for life, etc. I really do try to focus my efforts on doing things out of the kindness of my heart rather than for compensation. Although, I will say that can get tricky because eventually, people can start to use you for your kindness and willingness to help. That has also happened to me in the past, but I ended up saying something and they knew it, so they fixed it. Sometimes people just want to see how far they can get I guess and how many buttons they can press before they have to face reality or until you stand up for yourself. I also see this phenomenon when I go back home and my parents tell me to do chores, so I hate doing them, but if they let me do it on my own time and because I want to clean and make the house look nice, then I’m more than happy to do it. Maybe that’s just me, or maybe it isn’t, but either way this is a very interesting topic.


My Johari Window

--Original published at Caitlin's corner

When taking the Johari Window personality test, I was definitely intrigued by my results. When choosing the traits I would describe myself with, I really wanted to pick more than six. If I could’ve I would have picked somewhere around 10-12. I only say this because almost all of the things in my blind-spot category, I basically knew and I would’ve picked if I had more than six words. I agreed with all of them and didn’t see anything out of place honestly. I think it was more of a good indicator of who I am than just my personality. I think it shows a lot about us in not so obvious ways. For example, I didn’t have anything in my facade box. I always try to be very straight forward and honest and I don’t think I have a “front” anyways, so that seemed fitting. A lot of people I know have said I’m an open book, and I agree. Another thing that’s telling of me is that people answered introverted and extroverted. When I’ve taken personality tests in the past I’ve gotten INFJ or ENTP various times depending on the test, so truly I do identify with being an ambivert more than anything else. I was also intrigued by how people who know me in all sorts of different capacities answered differently. Everyone in my immediate family said I was independent or mature, all of my friends said complex and organized, and 70% of people said I was caring. I’ve always known I was a caring and understanding individual and it definitely shows in my passions and in my work. After recently attending an info session on careers in mental health, I’d love to explore careers in adoption and child protective services, and I choose those because they are hard to do, but take extreme amounts of love, understanding, and compassion for everyone. I truly just want to impact a child’s life in a positive way and make human connections along the way. Overall, this test it definitely worth your time and can give you good insight to yourself.

My test: http://kevan.org/johari?view=caitlin+gresham

 


Week 12 First Impression

--Original published at Lynsey Wissler's Blog

Week 12 First Impression

Option 2-Cognitive Dissonance

Lynsey Wissler

A time in my life when I experienced a change in beliefs due to cognitive dissonance was in school. I did not necessarily change my entire belief system but I changed my behavior to suit the environment. I did this because of something that I temporarily believed to be true. In middle school and even some in high school, I knew what I believed. I had a strong sense of God in my family and was raised in a very Christian home. However, in the craziness of middle school and trying to fit in, having a strong faith was not always the most popular thing. I thought that people would not like me if they knew what I believed and if I did not act like everyone else. Although I did not change what I believed,  I definitely did not act as though I believed it and I certainly did not talk about it. I pretended faith was not a strong part of my life and changed my behavior to act like that was true. I believed that if no one knew my true beliefs I would have more friends. As I got older and realized that my faith was who I am I became more confident and decided that it did not matter. I also realized that the people I was with did not care about my religious beliefs and in fact liked me because of it. I did not experience a full change in beliefs but for a short period of time, I believed that having a strong faith was not okay and that you should hide it. That idea led to my behavior change. Now that I am older I realized that what you believe is who you are and I think that that also would be a change in my beliefs due to cognitive dissonance.

I think that not necessarily promoting cognitive dissonance but having the opportunity for it is a good idea. Allowing people to know that change is good and opinion change is also good is something that could really benefit us as a society. If people would open their minds to change there would be less hate and feuds in this world today. Avoiding cognitive dissonance I think would be like hiding something and burying it under the rug just because you already have an opinion on it. Exposing yourself to other situations and learning new things to change and “update” your opinions is how we grow and discover who we are.


Week 12 First Impression: Option 1

--Original published at Site Title

IAT tests can show bias that you are not aware of. I chose to take 2 of the online today and they were actually pretty cool. They were given to me at random and both ended up being about differences between men and women. The first was about the association between men and women, and sport and dance. Results showed that I have a strong automatic association of men with sports and women with dance. While consciously, I don’t really believe that sports are for boys and dance is for girls, I can see where the association comes from. I play sports with all boys, the sports I watch are all boys and even sports video games are all boys. I believe that is probably the basis for that association. The second test was about the association between men and women and leading and supporting. This time the test showed a slight automatic association of men with leading and women with supporting. This one made more sense to me than the first. When I saw the results, I thought of how I handle conflicts that come up. If something happened and I needed comfort or emotional support, I would go to my mom or a girlfriend. If I needed a solution or something fixed, I was going straight to my dad. I never really gave it too much thought but after taking that test, all of that made sense. I can see this being used for a lot of things. For college students, it could be used in making a decision to pick a major or minor. Maybe the student has an unconscious preference to one or the other that the test can show. It could have the same use in your career when it comes to picking jobs. If you ever become a boss you could use it to find certain unconscious biases of people in the workplace. For example, the test could be used to see if people have negative biases towards their bosses/managers. You could use that information to make the workplace a little more comfortable.


Bonus Blog Prompt – Johari Window

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 Saturday, 11/18, at 8pm and is worth 1.5 points of extra 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 12 First Impression

--Original published at Site Title

Cognitive dissonance has been a prominent feeling in communication since its early development. Everyone has the privilege of free thought, yet there is a frequent need in modern civilization to say the things we need to say in order to gain something. While this may not always mean downright lying, it can still bring an inauthentic result.

An example of cognitive dissonance in my own life is actually what was a long-term experience in my life and education growing up. I grew up in the Catholic Church and never shared the same beliefs with the people around me. However, my entire social environment (my school, my church community, and my family) was Roman Catholic. I essentially had no non-Catholic social outlet until the ninth grade, therefore I had to convince my environment that I shared the same beliefs. This led me to experience cognitive dissonance daily, as my responses to questions even in class often needed to acknowledge the existence and role of God. If I did not incorporate religion into the way I communicated, there was a major social risk. Therefore, cognitive dissonance became a constant in my upbringing.

I personally think that cognitive dissonance is ultimately a positive thing, since it leads to a better sense of control when we speak. If we were not to feel that discomfort, we may end up saying something that could compromise whatever gain there would be from giving the needed response, regardless of whether or not that answer feels true to ourselves. I wouldn’t go as far as to say we should promote cognitive dissonance, but I would say we should promote strategic communication, as there are many benefits from it in our careers. Cognitive dissonance is not as deliberate as strategic communication or decision making, as that state of discomfort occurs on its own. Though we are rarely conscious of it, cognitive dissonance serves a great purpose.

 


The Implicit Association Test

--Original published at Sarah's Insight

This week, I chose to take two Implicit Association Tests (IATs) and talk about my experience with them and how I feel about my results.

I chose to take the sexuality and Race IATs. At first, I was asked a bunch of demographic questions like my race, ethnicity, sexuality, birthday, and level of education. Once I answered all 13 questions (which were not required), the tests began. I started with the sexuality test. At first I was shown a list of good words, bad words, “straight people” (a man and a woman), and “gay people” (either two men or two girls). Then, I was required to go through 7 series of words and images and sort them into the correct category as fast as possible. The E button was pressed when i saw something good, the I button was pressed when I saw something bad. As the test went on, I had to sort specific things into specific categories. I did mess up a few times trying to go as fast as I could. The Race Test was the same procedure, except slightly harder when show photos of black and white people. The pictures where gray so it was difficult for me to decipher which race was which.

My results were not shocking. When taking the tests it was easy to tell which way my results would go when I messed up. These tests could be useful for students my age who are confused and not sure how they feel, but I do not think that they are totally reliable because of how fast you have to select your choices and because they make it confusing by switching which button means what category.


Week 12 First Impression Prompts – Social Psychology

Hand writing on a notebook

Here are the two prompts for this week. Regardless of which prompt you choose, please use the tag “Social.” The first impression posts will be due by the beginning of class on Friday, 11/17. The refinement posts will be due at noon on Sunday, 11/26.

Option 1:

The Implicit Association Test (which can be accessed through this link) is a tool to identify biases which may be outside your conscious awareness. The results of this test cannot determine whether or not you are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., but they are useful to help you understand yourself and how you interact with others. For this post, you must take two separate IAT tests from the link above. You do not need to share your results if you don’t want to, but you need to talk about the experience of taking the test and getting the results, comment on whether or not the results were surprising, and discuss how this test can be useful for college students or your future career.

Option 2:

Would you enjoy a task more if I gave you $1 to do it or $20 to do it? Many of you will probably say you’d rather have the $20, but research suggests you will probably enjoy it more if I only give you a single dollar. Watch this footage to see:

Describe a time in your life when you think you experienced a change in beliefs due to cognitive dissonance, and argue whether you think this is a good thing we should promote and utilize or a bad thing we should try to avoid.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

Spotlight Blog 2

--Original published at Site Title

There are numerous arguments revolving around school and the best way for kids to learn. It’s no secret that kids will struggle to some extent no matter what but looking into ways to make it less stressful and difficult is what people have been looking into. I found several articles stating many different pros and cons to one idea: year-round schooling. It was difficult to find an article that was just about all the bad things or just about the good things. It seemed as though there were an equal amount of pros as there were cons.

As far as cons go, I found an article that only had 3 reasons as to why year- round schooling is a bad thing. The first one being fairly simple and practical in that schools would end up having to pay more money than they already do to keep the air conditioning running. The second being that children’s schedules would be messed up and it wouldn’t allow them to have any down time. The article says that some experts believe that summer months allow for greater and healthier development for children. The last one building off the fact that the schedules would be messed up. It would cause extra stress to parents trying to find babysitters who would work three weeks at a time. On top of that, if they have kids at different ages and in different levels of education, then they have to deal with trying to get each one to school at different times.

The second article I found about the cons is very short yet concise. The points made in this one are similar to the previous but there’s one section in this article about kids and summer jobs. Older kids who have jobs over the summer will basically be unemployed since places will not want to hire them for only a few weeks at a time. And this author simply believes that students work hard enough as it is for eight months straight and that they deserve to have a few months rest.

On the other side of things, I found an article that contained 10 reasons why this type of schooling would be very beneficial. To sum up the most important ones of the article, this system would solve overcrowding, it would most benefit low-income families, and it would cut down on “brain drain.” As far as overcrowding goes, the article claims that schools will use something called the “multi-track system.” This will split the kids up into different groups and they will all rotate between being on vacation and being in school. For low-income families, it will keep the kids who are more likely to get into trouble in a safe environment as well as help them keep up with their learning and work. Finally, the brain drain aspect has to do with how children’s brains aren’t learning new things in the summer and when they come  back to school they essentially have lost everything they learned and have to be retaught.

The second positive article I found had three simple reasons to support the change to year-round schooling. The first one being that kids would actually remember what they learned and wouldn’t have to go through the “brain drain” that was talked about in the first article. The second being that it would bridge the achievement gap between minorities and white, economically advantaged students. Dropout rates would decrease and these minorities would be able to learn English much more quickly and easily. The last reason is that students will simply just like school more. Having periodic long breaks will stop them from getting as stressed out with all the work.

After reading these different articles and getting different perspectives, I believe that year-round schooling would be much more beneficial than the school system in place now. It’s all about the students and their learning and if this would make things easier for them, then I think it wouldn’t hurt to try it out.

Sources:

21803, et al. “3 Reasons Not to Adopt Year-Round Schooling.” The Edvocate, 16 Apr. 2017, http://www.theedadvocate.org/3-reasons-not-to-adopt-year-round-schooling/.

Sines, Julia. “ From Our Archives: Year-Round School Bad Idea for Students.” The Pantagraph, 17 Oct. 2009, http://www.pantagraph.com/news/opinion/mailbag/from-our-archives-year-round-school-bad-idea-for-students/article_356f1b3a-baa2-11de-ade3-001cc4c03286.html.

“Reasons Why Year Round School Is A Good Idea.” Screenflex Portable Room Dividers, 21 Apr. 2017, http://www.screenflex.com/reasons-why-year-round-school-is-a-good-idea/.

21803, et al. “Top 3 Reasons the US Should Switch to Year-Round Schooling.” The Edvocate, 13 Aug. 2016, http://www.theedadvocate.org/top-3-reasons-the-us-should-switch-to-year-round-schooling/.