Tag Archives: Fall 2018

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.

Thanksgiving First Impression

--Original published at jennacampanellipsych

Elizabethtown college was not my first choice, but for some reason I felt drawn to it. Also it is great for my major- education. A lot of my motivation comes back to my major and my future. Whenever I do not feel like studying or doing homework, I think about being a teacher after I graduate and it gives me so much motivation. All of this hard work will not be for nothing, I am working toward my degree so I can do what I love for the rest of my life. Another motivation is knowing my parents are paying for this education, so I need to do well at Elizabethtown. It is very hard sometimes to stay motivated, but usually when I think of these things I feel more motivated and energized. To stay motivated while doing specific assignments, I usually tell myself if I finish a certain amount I can take a break like use my phone or eat something. 

An intervention for myself to maintain motivation is rewarding myself for getting a good grade by doing something I like to do. But most of my motivation has to be from myself, from the reasons I stated before. I have to keep a positive attitude and try not to get down on myself. This is a problem I have now, I am hard on myself and stress myself out very much, but then I still procrastinate. After reminding myself of my goals and why I am doing this work, I usually get motivated again. 

First Impression Prompt: Thanksgiving Break

--Original published at Taylor'sEtownCollegeBlog

Option 2: I originally chose to come to Elizabethtown because of the people.  Everyone on this campus was warm and kind when I arrived and I ultimately felt like I fit in.  I also chose this school because it had a very good program for my major.  Being an Occupational Therapy major, there were not many colleges that offered a 5 year masters program.  On top of the fact that they offered a 5 year masters program, they are one the best in the state.  They have one of the highest board passage rates of the schools that I was looking at and that also helped me to decide on Elizabethtown.

 

Throughout my education, I have not had a hard time motivating myself to complete my work, however, being act college there has been a slight challenge now that I do not have anyone telling me to do my homework.  I have motivated myself to do my work by giving myself goals.  These goals include getting a paper done by a certain time during the day so the rest of the day I can relax.  Other ways I motivate myself is by saying once you get your work done, you can watch Netflix or go to a club meeting or hang out with friends.  These tactics seem to work the best for me because I overall enjoy spending time with others and that is a treat for me.  I also have been motivated by my roommate because when she knows I am not feeling motivated or I am stressed, she leaves me little sticky notes with words of encouragement and positivity.

 

These are the ways that I have motivated myself to stay on top of my work and why I have chosen to come to Elizabethtown to study.

~Taylor

Thanksgiving Break Bonus First Impression Prompts – Motivation

Hand writing on a notebook

Here are the prompts for the bonus post for this week. It comes from Chapter 10. Whichever post you use, make sure to use the tag “Motivation.” The first impression post is due at 12:30pm on Friday, 10/23, and the refinement post is due Sunday at noon. These posts will be treated like any other blog posts; they are NOT extra credit. If you’re behind on posts, however, this is a great chance to catch up.

Option 1

America is currently facing an obesity epidemic that some experts have labeled the biggest public health threat we have today. We have all heard the recommendations to eat healthier and get regular exercise. Some people, however, are taking the message of healthy eating too far. A new mental health disorder called orthorexia nervosa has been proposed, in which eating healthy food becomes an obsession. One set of proposed criteria are available here. Look over the criteria and comment on whether or not you think this is a good way to define the boundary between eating healthy and having a mental disorder.

Option 2

Motivation is not a stable force, but often waxes and wanes. Throughout your time at Elizabethtown College, your motivation for school will undoubtedly be higher at some times and lower at others. I want you to discuss why you chose to come to Elizabethtown College originally and what you do to motivate yourself to do well in your classes currently. I also want you to plan an intervention for yourself for how you can maintain motivation to succeed until graduation.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

The Harm of Selfies

--Original published at Makayla Hockenbrock

Can posting selfies cause the social media user harm? That is the question researchers set to find out with a study conducted by York University in Toronto, Canada.  Two hypotheses were proposed, one being by updating a personal social media profile with a selfie would cause a lower mood and amplified body concerns compared to a control group.  The second hypothesis was if the user could retouch their selfie, they would have a better mood and better body image compared to the ones who were not allowed to retouch their selfies.

Participants were selected by an online system, which allotted 113 undergraduate psychology students from York University. They had to have a live social media account on Facebook or Instagram, had to be female, and had to be between the ages of 16 and 29 years of age. The experiment session took about an hour. During the experiment, the participants used an iPad camera, an editing app, and the internet to access their social media account. Visual analogue scales were used to measure the mood and body image of the participants before the actual experiment was performed. This was also performed after the experiment, so the numbers could be compared to one another.

After being tested individually behind closed doors, the participants were randomly assigned to an experiment group. The groups consisted of an Untouched Selfie, a Retouched Selfie, and a Control group. In the Untouched Selfie group, the women were asked to use the iPad and take one selfie and post it to their social media platform. This group had five minutes to complete the task. The Retouched Selfie group was asked to take as many selfies as they wanted and were also allowed to use the editing app on the iPad to make any changes they wanted before posting their selfie. They had as much time as they needed to complete the task. The Control group also had an iPad but instead of taking a selfie, they were asked to read an article regarding social media and then answer questions about the article. The Control group was not allowed to get on Facebook or Instagram while on the iPad. Again, this group only had five minutes to complete the task. After everything was completed, the participants finished another scales test and were asked to complete the test based on how they felt at that moment in time. Once everything for the experiment was completed, the women were then debriefed.

The results found the participants who were not allowed to touch up their selfies felt more anxious than the participants who did not post a selfie. The women who could touch up their selfies were found to be more anxious than the ones in the control group and had the same amount of anxiousness as the women in the untouched group. Regarding attractiveness, the women who could retouch their selfies felt less attractive once they posted their selfie online. The women who could touch up their selfies felt more confident in themselves after they posted their selfie compared to the women who could not modify their picture. Those same women did not feel any more confident however, than the women who did not post a selfie at all. This study found changing and editing selfies does not improve the mood or self-image of the person in the picture. There was no evidence found to conclude posting a selfie which has been touched up made women feel better. In contrast, in some cases it made the women feel worse.

These findings are important for the social media users, specifically young women who post selfies. It is important for them to remember that posting a selfie, and seeing who comments, what they comment, and how many likes the selfie gets, does not determine how beautiful and unique that individual woman truly is.

References

“Selfie” harm: Effects on mood and body image in young women. (2018, August 24). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144517305326

The Unexpected Psychological Cost of Sharing Selfies. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beauty-sick/201809/selfie-posting-may-do-more-harm-good

Reflection

When writing this summary based off the original article, it was hard to not say exactly what the article said, as well as, the pop culture article, but still get the main points across. Putting myself in a journalist’s perspective was not easy for me and I now have a new respect for them and what they do every day. I tried to include all the important information from the article, however, it was very difficult to decide what information to leave out. I decided to leave out how the participants were broken down ethnically and their BMI’s because it was difficult for me to understand, so I assumed it would be hard for the public reading my paper to understand. I chose to answer all five of the critical questions whereas the pop culture article I found only addressed three out of the five.

When I critiqued the previous journalistic papers, I looked for the five critical questions and denoted the credibility of the article if all five were not present. I now know that an article can still be credible, even if all five are not discussed. I tried to keep all five questions in mind when writing my entry. Journalist seem to write with an engaging style that keeps the reader interested all the way to the end. I also can now understand why journalist choose to leave some information out and change some wording of the information provided, so that the reader does not think less of themselves because they do not understand what is being discussed.

Chapter 12 First Impression

--Original published at LivsCollegeBlog

For this blog post, I chose to go with option one and take two different Implicit Association Tests (IATs). The first IAT I took was the “Age IAT.” During this test, I answered some demographic questions and other questions about my political and religious beliefs. These questions had no affect on my results. The main part of the test was categorizing words associated with “Bad” and “Good” and pictures of “Old” and “Young” people. This was what determined my results. I was supposed to press the “E” on my keyboard for a certain category and the “I” on my keyboard for the other category. They sometimes switched up which categories went with which key. My results said that I have the automatic preference of Young People to Old People. This was surprising to me because I consciously thought that I didn’t have a preference at all. I thought I preferred young people just the same as I preferred old people.

The second IAT test I took was the “Weight IAT.” During this test, I answered the same demographic questions as the first test I took. Again, these questions had no affect on my results. The main part of this test was similar to that of the first test. I categorized certain words associated with “Bad” and “Good” and also categorized silhouettes of people associate with “Fat” and “Thin.” This categorization process was what determined my results. Like the first test, I also used the “E” and “I” keys on my keyboard to categorize the words and silhouettes. My results said that I have a slight automatic preference for Thin people over Fat people. This was surprising to me for the same reason as the first test. I didn’t think I had a preference at all.

Both tests were intriguing and interesting to take. IATs can help college students become more aware of how they subconsciously prefer people. This helps them make sure they don’t come out as rude when talking to someone they subconsciously don’t prefer. Even though they might think they don’t mind the person, they will display cues that they dislike the person without realizing it.

Chapter 12 First Impression Post

--Original published at Wolfman Productions

When thinking about the people I talk to on a daily basis, it’s mostly people of non-hispanic backgrounds. This isn’t because I don’t like them, it’s the matter of not having any in a close proximity to actually get to know and strike up a casual conversation.

The results kinda surprised me because I thought of myself as someone who can talk to about anyone no matter the place of origin. Granted the tests couldn’t be exactly accurate because I was rushing to complete them seeing they were the same tasks and I was losing patience and drive to complete the test. If I took my time with each of these I maybe would get a different result, but that will all depend if the tasks will change or stay the exact same.

I know I can go and talk to anyone as long as I find a mutual topic we both can discuss. Maybe I should take the time and go find someone new to talk to that may have a different outlook on the topics we have in common. Until then I’ll always be on the lookout for someone new to talk to.

First Impression Prompt: Chapter 12

--Original published at Taylor'sEtownCollegeBlog

I chose option one.  This was interesting because I took the IAP tests.  I took the gender-science test and the race test.  While taking these tests you are required to look at different words or pictures that flash rapidly on the screen.  You are assigned a topic for two keys on the keyboard and must click that key if the word or image that pops up fits into that category.  This was very challenging because you are told to do this as rapidly as you can.  Because I was trying to do it so rapidly, I often made slight mistakes when it came to remembering which key was for which category.

 

I expected to receive different results than what I did, however, the results that I did receive were not that far off of how I expected I would do.  For example, in the race test, it said I had a moderate automatic response to African American and good compared to European American and good.  I expected these two responses to be equal.  What this really means is that I associated good words and thoughts more often with African American images than with European American images.  This was surprising because I never thought I would favor one race over the other at any point in time.  The results I got for gender-science was that I had a moderate automatic association for males with science over females with science.  This was not that surprising because I generally associate males with science more that I would with liberal arts.  I usually view females as being more liberal arts based.

 

These tests are beneficial for colleges and employment because it gives a insight to how people might respond to certain genders or races, depending on the situation that they are in.  This also allows for the college and employment an opportunity to provide workshops and resources to cut back on these stigmas.

~Taylor

Chapter 12 First Impression

--Original published at David's Blog

For this weeks first Impression post I decided to go with option two. This option had us go through and watch a video on cognitive dissonance. It was very interesting to see the way the subjects in the experiment acted towards the test. The person given twenty dollars to lie about the test told researchers afterward he didn’t like the test himself. But the person that was given only one dollar to lie about the test came back to researchers and said she actually enjoyed the test and would participate in more test. To my knowledge this has never happened to me. No mater what incentive I am given for something later on I won’t lie about my actual thoughts on it. I believe if I was pa]laced in that experiment and was given the one dollar incentive I would still say the test was dull and boring. I think this has the possibility to be a good thing. When people are motivated for less money certain things can coast less. A good example would be that researchers could save money on paying for test subjects if they need to. A downside to this is that people will lie about there actual experience with something. This is extremely important in research. If you test subjects are lying about how they feel about n experiment, you can’t get an accurate end statement.At that point your research will be pointless and will have no meaning. This is a very intreating concept to know of, I still find it hard to believe people will say they enjoy something more for less money.

Ch. 12 First Impression: Option 2

--Original published at Gracie's Blog

I chose to write about the first option for chapter 12 and took two different Implicit Association Tests. First I took the Age Implicit Association Test, where I had to sort pictures and words into certain groups as fast as I could. There were also just a few questions asked about my opinions and beliefs. The test said it was ten minutes long, and at the end of the test I would receive a result along with a definition of what it means. The test started with asking questions about my age and my thoughts on old people versus young people and which I prefer. The questions also asked me what ages I thought a person changes from child to young adult, young adult to adult, and so on. The next part of the test involved looking at pictures and words while pressing the “E” or “I” keys. The first few rounds were looking at a series of pictures representing old people and negative words, and pictures of young people and positive words. I had to press “E” for old people pictures and negative words, and the “I” key for young face pictures and positive words. As the test progressed the keys switched roles and represented the opposite picture or term than before. During this test I felt as if I was taking a concussion test because it was measuring my accuracy along with my speed of hitting the keys. My result after the age test said that I have a slight automatic preference for young people over old people. These results were given because I was quicker responding to “young” people corresponding with “good”.
The next test I took referred to gender-career and also focused on pictures associating with words. The questions at the beginning of the test are mainly for adults because it refers to annual income and employment questions, which was hard to answer because I am still a student. The test continued with seven parts, each section had letter keys “E” and “I” the corresponded to different topics. The first section were comparing “family” words, which I had to press the “E” key when family words appeared and “Job” words required me pressing the “I” key. The next section was comparing the words “male” and “female” names. The next section involved words in the male and family category and when the words popped up I had to press the “E” key. When seeing words in a female and career category press the “I” key. As the test progressed the roles of the keys were opposite. My results showed that I moderately associate females with family and males with career. I received those results because I was faster with hitting the keys when males were associated with career than when female was associated with career. I never thought about whether males or females represent one category than the other.
I think IATs are helpful and interesting to help people realize what they may prefer without ever thinking about it. For college students or when in the career field, taking an IAT can give you the results you need to find what they actually prefer and where or who they may want to work.