Artifact 5
Module eight’s artifact dealt with ethnic and racial stereotypes. I gave two adjectives I thought were associated for each listed group. Then I compared my list with the results from Katz and Braly (1933) and Gilbert (1951). Overall the adjectives I gave seemed to be more positive. I think that positive trend can also be reflected in society. While, we still have a long way to go when it comes to racial injustice and stereotypes, I do think that society has been more inclusive. With the black lives matter movement, there was a lot of backlash and it highlighted the systemic problems we still have in society but it also brought together so many people who showed their support across the world.
My visual for this artifact was creating my own word bank of adjectives that I think belong to my ethnic background.
Artifact 4
I thought module eleven’s artifact was interesting. I wrote down the initials of people I knew and said whether I thought they were happy or not and if they were selfish or unselfish. I thought this also related to our assignment of doing something nice for others for five days. Many of the people I thought were happy I also thought they were unselfish. Happiness can be achieved by doing nice things for others, just as I learned in assignment five. This may be why many people perceive happiness and being unselfish as related.
My results also showed this correlation between happiness and being unselfish. Another interesting finding I noted was that none of the people I knew were thought to be unhappy and unselfish. As social beings, I think it is natural to want to do nice things for others.
Artifact 3
Module nine’s artifact dealt with attraction. I thought this artifact was fun to do. I went onto various dating sites and looked through profiles from men and women to see what they were looking for in a partner. Through this assignment I learned that a lot of the trends matched up with Hayes (1995) findings as well. Many of the women were looking for men who were stable and caring and many of the men were looking for younger more attractive women.
These were the top three characteristics for men and women in their dating profiles. There were many men looking for attractive women who wanted have a good time. There were also many women looking for deeper relationships with men who were caring and ambitious.
Artifact 2
Module seven’s artifact was my second favorite. This artifact included an attitude vs behavior survey. First I completed the attitude survey which asked me to agree or disagree with various statements about social issues or statements like” wearing seatbelts reduces chances of serious injury”. Then I answered yes or no if I partake in those behaviors. The concept of the artifact was cognitive dissonance. After completing both surveys I analyzed my answers and realized that some of my behaviors do not match up with my answers to the first question. I thought this assignment was engaging and showed me behaviors that I didn’t realize I had rationalized NOT doing.
I chose this image because it illustrates why we may rationalize behavior that does not match up with our thoughts or what we believe to be true. I understand working out is beneficial for overall health, but I constantly tell myself I am too busy or do not have the time to workout when in reality I am just too lazy.
Artifact 1
Module four’s artifact was my favorite one. This artifact consisted of watching a video about news reports and analyzing the influence of the news on peoples perceptions about the topic. The overall concept dealt with heuristic. A primary source of information for many people comes from the news. I used to think of news channels as being objective and informative of current events. As I grew older I learned that many news stations were biased and pushed a certain view on a variety of topics. Through this assignment I learned how the news influences our thoughts about people and current events. After watching the video I realized that the news reports on information so quickly and rarely follows up on many topics. When it comes to heuristic’s, people see violence reported on the news all the time. This can lead to people thinking that violence is at every corner being it is always talked about on the news. There were elderly people interviewed in the video who rarely left their community due to fear. I thought this artifact was very eye opening and drove home the idea of heuristic. Instead of assuming something to be true, always do your research. Not everything is fact simply because it is talked about on the news.
I chose this image because prior to this, the video was discussing asbestos and the news report on asbestos in schools. People were panicked and children were afraid. The video mentioned that the states attempt to remove asbestos cause more risk for children than if they hadn’t removed it. Once testing was done there was no evidence of increased risk of cancer in the area but the news had already moved onto apples and how some apples were dangerous and schools were removing apples and apple products from site. The news moves so fast that any information found after the initial reporting is rarely given because there is a new danger to be reported.