Blog Entry #6

Personally, I believe that indirect aggression occurs more than direct aggression.  Maybe this is because I am not really exposed to people physically hurting others in their presence.  I believe that because the internet is offering so many social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and even Blogger, more and more people are able to be aggressive to others when the target is not present.  People feel more comfortable hurting others when they can become anonymous or they are not face to face.  I also believe that aggressive behavior is starting at a younger age.  Children are exposed to violent acts on TV shows, advertisements, and movies.  By being exposed to these acts of aggression, they are learning aggressive behavior.  They may begin to perform them and think that it is okay.  This is called the social learning theory.  Aggression can also lead to topics talked about in chapter thirteen.  There is a lot of aggression involved in prejudice and discrimination.  The negative attitudes and actions toward a group of people can lead to harmful behavior and pain to others.  Stereotypes are also another big source of anger.  Yes, they may just be a generalization about a group of people, but they are usually negative.  Being from New York, and going to school in Virginia, I am categorized into many stereotypes and a lot of them do not fit who I am.  I am also an only child, people believe that all only children are spoiled or they are brats.  Once again, I do not fit those categories.  Everyone experiences stereotypes and is guilty of practicing them.  I can say myself that I have stereotyped people before.  It is not fair to assign traits to members of a group regardless of whether you know them or not.        

Blog Entry #5

    When I came to James Madison University, I did not know my roommate, nor my hall mates.  They were going to be the people that I socialized with for at least the first few weeks at school so I needed to get to know them.  As each day went by, especially during FROG week, we started to interact more and more.  We went to the gym together, ate meals together, went out together, and walked around campus together.  You could probably see that we were Freshman from a mile away-we always traveled in a large group.  Well, those same people who I lived with Freshman year, those people that I did not know before coming into college, are currently my best friends and roommates.  Being a junior, I have been friends with them for three years and our friendship just keeps getting stronger.  This is an example of the propinquity effect.  The more we interacted with each other, the more likely we became friends and are still friends.
    Over the summer, I lifeguard at a camp for kids with disabilities such as downs syndrome, autism, and ADD.  These kids not only become friends, but throughout the summer, they become like family.  You learn how they take each day and live it to the fullest.  They are truly the happiest people on the planet.  Over the summer, I develop this sense of altruism for them.  Because they are so inspirational and positive, even when they are severely disabled, it makes me want to help them as much as I can no matter what.  Sometimes I will go out of my way to do something for one of them or help them even if it is difficult for myself or creates a sense of uneasiness.  I develop a desire to make their life easier because they have such struggles on a daily basis.
    Lastly, when it comes to doing people favors such as giving them a ride somewhere or picking something up for them if they don't have time, depending on who it is, I sometimes expect that they would do the same thing back for me.  For example, I picked my roommate up at the library around 12:30 am the other day because she did not have a car.  It was a Tuesday and I had class early the next day but I felt bad that she would have had to wait for the bus.  I was tired but I knew that by me going out of my way to pick her up late at night showed that I was there for her and that she would hopefully do the same thing for me.  When she got in the car she did say "I owe you."  This is an example of norm of reciprocity.  Another common example is when you give a gift or receive a gift.  It is expected to give/receive one back.

Blog Entry #4

    I recently completed an assignment for a class that involved group (three or more people, my group had 5) work.  There was one question that I was unsure of.  I had had decided on an answer but it came to my attention that everyone else in the group had chose a different answer.  Because I had been unsure from the beginning, and the group said they were  pretty positive about their choice, I decided to change my answer to what they thought.  Well, in the long run, my original answer ended up being the correct choice.  Because I thought that my fellow group members had the right "information" to answer the question, I committed the act of informational social influencing.  I believed that my group had a more correct explanation and answer than I did for myself.
    In my psychology research methods class, we have a group project that involves writing a paper.  The professor stated that after we handed in our papers, she was going to ask each individual member a few questions about the project.  She wanted to make sure that everyone participated equally in the project and no one "social loafed"or relied on the other members of the group and still get credit.
    On the other hand, this past week when I was walking back from class, I decided to test a social norm.  Usually when you walk, you only walk at the same pace as others next to you if you know them.  Well I decided to walk next to a girl who I did not know, for the length of the block.  She kept trying to slow down or speed up but I would do whatever she did.  I could sense that she was getting a little uncomfortable so I decided to ease off a bit.  The behavior that I was practicing was not acceptable for our culture.  I was violating social norms.  Another example, but not as extreme, is when I eat at a Japanese restaurant.  I am not good at eating with chopsticks AT ALL.  It would take me all day to finish my meal.  Well, this involves me asking for a fork and knife to eat my sushi.  They do not have them as part of the place setting because it is not part of their culture to eat with the same utensils as we do.  Usually, the waiters and waitresses don't give me a hard time but they do see it as being a bit weird.  Sometimes I do feel uncomfortable because I feel like I am violating their norm.  In the end, they must experience people asking for utensils quite often, but I still feel a bit weird asking for them.  
       

Blog Entry #3

     Every time I ride a bike, I experience cognitive dissonance.  I don't ride one very often, but when I do, I don't wear a helmut.  Yes, it is the right thing to do and I do know that it could prevent me from serious injury if an accident were to occur.  BUT, O never wear helmut because it "looks stupid."  That is honestly why I don't.  In the long run, who cares if it looks stupid.  Even though I truly know it is the right thing to do, I don't and I always experience that "feeling of discomfort" because my beliefs are not matching up with my actions.
     I also have a serious shopping addiction.  When I am at home or at school, I will usually go shopping at least once or twice a week and 90% of the time, buy something.  Now, I do work a lot during the summer so I have money that I could spend but I know that I should really be saving it.  Every time I buy something, I experience cognitive dissonance and try to justify my behavior.  I take part in internal justification, trying to convince myself, "oh, it was on sale, its okay that you bought it."  Most of the time the justification of my behavior and actions works, but sometimes I end up returning it.
     The other day I experienced the "c" part f the ABC's of attitudes.  I was drinking "0 calorie" gatorade and I told my roommate that I didn't understand how there is 0 calories in it, its sweet.  She said there actually isn't (being the kinesiology major and in nutrition class) she proceeded to tell me how there really are calories.  My attitude towards the drink turned from positive to negative.  I just did not want to drink it or buy it anymore.  During this scenario, I was experiencing a cognitive attitude, how I thought about the gatorade completely changed throughout the conversation.    

Blog Entry #2

    As I have gone through high school and off to college, I have gained a greater self-concept about myself.  I have learned that I am an independent person but enjoys being around people.  I have become self-aware that I am a very determined individual who will work hard to achieve what I want to achieve.  I still have learning that I have to do about myself, once I graduate college and start working in the "real world."  I believe that my self-concept may never be complete.  Throughout my life I am going to learn more and more about myself through others and simply through introspection.  Examining my thoughts and feelings as I continue to go through life will give me insight into the type of person I am.      
    As a psychology major, we all know that you have to participate in research studies for various classes.  I had to participate in some for gpsyc, sensation and perception, and research methods.  When you participate in them, (the "tasks") the researcher is not "grading" you on how well you are completing the task, they just need the data for their experiment.  Participating in these studies for class credit, regardless of how well you do, is an example of task-contingent rewards.  On the other hand, I used to run cross country in high school and we would race every week.  If you ran well, and came in the top 10% of the race, you would receive a medal.  This is an example of performance-contingent reward.  Run well-->receive medal.  I believe that both of these types of rewards are a successful way to have others complete tasks, one is usually more appropriate in situations than the other.
     
   

Blog Entry 1

    Its the summer before my freshman year of college and I have just received an email about who my roommate was going to be.  I decided to do random assignment.  So I got her name, and did what every other freshman does, look them up on Facebook.  I have to admit, that I am very quick to judge someone, which is not such a great thing.  I start to explore her page and gain some basic information.  I started with the music, not too bad, but some country which I am NOT a fan of.  Next I move on down to books.  Harry Potter, Shakespeare, and books that I had to read for school, not for pleasure in the least bit.  Then came the movies, once again not too bad, just a few that I thought were a little weird.  The last category was TV.  The list was never ending.  Now I don't watch a lot of TV, I have my few shows that I watch but definitely not multiple ones every night.  There were a lot of crime shows along with various teen soap operas.  Now out of a list of probably twenty shows, we did not have one in common.  Great.  After looking through her interests, I automatically thought of the words geeky and boring.  I know, very mean of me, but its what came to mind.  Then came the hometown, pretty much "Amish Country."    The last thing  that I looked at were her pictures.  There seemed to be a lot of pictures of her in costumes or on stage.  Now here I used the representative heuristic, the way she was dressed triggered "theatre geek."  There is nothing wrong with that at all, I was just never really friends with any of them in high school and her pictures seemed to fit my perception.

    So after viewing what I could on her profile, I did start to freak out a bit.  Yes, I was forming judgements and being VERY stereotypical, based on the little information that was available.  We became friends on Facebook, and started to exchange further information.  August came, and it was time to move in, time to meet my roommate.  Now I was expecting a very nice girl who was a little geeky/weird, we did not have much in common, and liked to watch A LOT of television and movies.  Freshman year came, and went, and I tried to connect with her and develop interests that we had in common, but it was not working out.

    My Freshman year roommate experience was an example of the confirmation bias.  She was a very nice, intelligent girl, but we barely had anything to share with eachother.  I could have maybe tried a bit harder to form a stronger relationship and pay less attention to actions that were supporting the original judgements I had made, but the more I got to know her, I came across evidence that was confirming my belief; My belief that I had formed when I looked her up on Facebook and of the first few times we met.  What I wrote may seem a little mean, but I was just telling it how it was when it was going through my mind.  She is a nice girl, but things just didn't work out.