You will be prompted, weekly, for various items to archive. Please refer to the Google Docs document in the e-Portfolio folder in Bb, which will provide tips on how to store and organize these artifacts. By the time this component of your eP is due, you will have a rich repository from which to draw. You will choose the top five artifacts that you believe best represent your learning experience in this course. Each item should contain a representative picture and a summary for why it was selected, including why it is representative of your learning experience.
Artifact #5
“Self- and Other-Enhancement in Everyday Life”
Meeting your future in-laws for the first time. Self-enhancement: dressing nice or putting adding effort into your physical appearance Other-enhancement: bringing a gift like flowers or a dish if we’re eating
Going on an interview for an internship. Self-enhancement: researching a mentor’s or company’s work or background Other-enhancement: using said knowledge to appeal during the interview
Going on an interview for graduate school. Self-enhancement: preparing my hobbies, interests, and accomplishments ahead of time Other-enhancement: alter the information into that which fits the preferred criteria
Meeting your new boss for the first time. Self-enhancement: punctuality is always key Other-enhancement: complimenting or flattering them
Meeting the classmates who will be working with you on a group project. Self-enhancement: understanding the project requirements and thinking ahead of time what your strengths and weaknesses are or what you can contribute to the group Other-enhancement: agree with your members or conforming your opinion to fit better with the group
Meeting a professor for the first time. Self-enhancement: promoting your interest in the class Other-enhancement: indulging in their background, prior experience, or interests
I chose to include this artifact in my top five but also as my least favorite because it was actually rather challenging. For me, most of these situations were things I have never experienced before and I had to reflect on what I could do in order to promote my self-image. In the same way, I talked about the need to indulge in self-promotion in Assignment Takeaway 2, I felt like this was also another activity which made me reflect on what strengths I could bring to the table. More specifically, it highlighted the various and more serious contexts or environments. In such situations, self-promotion is actually necessary and can be a positive thing as it plays a major role in how others perceive you or their first impression of you.
The visual I included is of an interview checklist I made on Canva. While it is quite vague, I feel like it makes this checklist more applicable to any kind of professional setting or first impression. I based it off of what I would want to make sure I do before some of the situations in this archive.
Artifact #4
I feel like there are inconsistencies between what I expect from myself and how I actually behave. I desire to be someone who is well prepared and environmentally conscious. While I put it into practice most of the time, I cannot say that I commit to those behaviors 100% of the time. In order to restore the balance and eliminate the inconsistency, there needs to be consistency and commitment. Increased efforts to reduce the dissonance is due to discomfort. When there is inconsistency, it leads to a heightened desire to alter such attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Sometimes hiding or rationalizing such behaviors is a way to reduce the dissonance. An example of this would be complying to certain responsibilities at work. We are required to sell credit cards for the company when a customer is checking out at the register, we always have to ask them if they are interested. I personally feel like it is unnecessary and impractical to sign up as the interest rate is very high even if a reward is given after spending a certain amount. Regardless of my opinion on the credit card, it is part of my job and I continue to praise it in order to advertise it to the customers and meet our daily goals.
Similarly to Artifact #5, I chose to include this in my top five artifacts as it gave me a chance to challenge myself and reflect on my inconsistencies. It was an opportunity to acknowledge certain discrepancies and dissonance between my attitudes and behavior. It is a constant cycle of expectation and reality misaligning. In order to decrease the dissonance, some sort of change needs to occur. The change can be in the form of altering either your attitude or behavior to better support the other. By justifying or rationalizing our perspective, we stray further away from how we truly feel or act. The visual I chose for this artifact is a quote that I liked involving cognitive dissonance.
https://jitha.me/cognitive-dissonance/
Artifact #3
The pairing with the greatest tally was the people who were unhappy and unselfish. I actually believe that selfishness and happiness go together. Once you stop worrying about making others happy and satisfying their wants or needs, a weight will be lifted and happiness is gained. Selfishness can be a good thing in understanding your own self-worth. I feel like being unselfish means to put others’ happiness before your own. In doing that you can get easily caught up in getting the approval from other people that you forget about yourself. It happens to me all the time. I often seek validation from my friends or family and completely lose my intentions and goals in life, my identity. Selfishness is not necessarily negative. Being there for yourself and prioritizing your own needs is a must. The two people that I know who fall under the happy and unselfish category are younger or more focused on the present. Both of these individuals choose to not validate their self-worth on pleasing others but also have the ability to prioritize people’s needs over their own.
I included this artifact because my opinion was against what the typical results were based on the prompt. When people are happy, they are more optimistic and what can be called being selfish is not viewed in a negative connotation. On the other hand, when being unhappy, it is easy to attribute our current mood to external factors and compile reasons as to why the world is a pessimistic place. The one person who I believed to be both happy and selfish supports the claim that happiness and selfishness rarely go together which in turn failed to support my opinion. The visual for this artifact is just a chart of the ten people who I chose to use and perceive them as one of the four combinations of happiness or unhappiness and selfishness or unselfishness.
| happy | unhappy | |
| selfish | 1 | 3 |
| unselfish | 2 | 5 |
Artifact #2
I believe items 6, 9, and 23 indicate the most aggression as I personally feel like it’s unnecessary and violent. Especially item number 6, I don’t believe in physically fighting one another or harming people physically and view it as an act of aggression.
As for harming nonliving things, I also feel like it’s unnecessary to be aggressive to things which cannot defend themselves. Non Living things cannot think or act for themselves and being aggressive towards mere objects will only bring satisfaction temporarily.
Item 20 is listed under the category of “duty or job responsibility” which I don’t necessarily agree with. I understand the idea of an occupation or a responsibility that involves violence but unless a career is based on protection, I don’t think a boxer’s job fits under this category. I do view this item as aggression because I don’t understand how a person could choose violence as a career.
The next item, six, is listed as survival. Yes, humans have to eat, but I would like to think that we have reached a certain point in society where we no longer need to fight for our food. With that being said, there are still developing areas that constantly struggle to eat. In that situation, you still don’t find many people resorting to violence over a lack of food. I can understand animals showing food aggression as they have to hunt and find their own food in nature.
Lastly, items 16 and 17 are very controversial for me. It definitely shows the inconsistency with my attitudes and behaviors towards animals. I view these as acts of aggression because I could never visualize or imagine myself ever being able to kill an animal from the farm to the table. However, this is where the dissonance comes into play, I do continue to eat animals knowing that there is somebody out there doing the dirty work in order for me to safely consume them.
I ranked this artifact second because I thought the topic surrounding aggression and its various types was interesting. It also brought up another concept of this course, inconsistency. There was inconsistency between what I perceived to be aggression and how I actually behave towards animals. Although I defined some of the items related to animals as aggression, it can be attributed to the development of the culture surrounding a certain type of aggression. Like unspoken rules, what aggression looks like is sometimes different depending on the culture. For some people, eating animals can be an honor. For others, it is disrespectful to display any sort of violence or aggression towards certain animals. The visual I included is related to item 20 on this artifact which references a boxer beating up his opponent.
https://www.successconsciousness.com/blog/personal-development/why-people-are-aggressive-10-reasons/
Artifact #1
Similarity | Opposite |
| Easier to build connections based on similarities | Opposite is balance |
| Bond with those that have the same interests as them. However, there must be a small difference. Also, looks and attractions aren’t based on similarities and differences, even though looks are usually the first thing that attracts us. | I think it’s easy to bump heads when people act the same |
| There are things to do together without worrying if the other person enjoys | Expansion of ideas in the mind cause simulation |
| A lot of people want someone who completes them but most of all attraction comes from understanding there’s strength in having a little of both. | It’s like yin and yang. I can’t even explain it |
| When there’s something in common, it’s just easier to find something to talk about and agree | I can make an argument for why opposites attract. My girl and I have been together for 4 years and we are more opposite than similar. By being opposite to each other we have found equilibrium. I’m an introvert and she’s an extrovert. She’s brought me out of my shell while I’ve shown her how nice calm and quiet can be. Sometimes opposites compliment each other. |
| It’s more attractive when you know they share similar beliefs and morals as you | I don’t know about complete opposite (it’s important to have some common ground) but I feel like dating someone just like me would get boring. I mean, I’m a track athlete but that doesn’t mean I only want to go out with runners. I like to try new things so I just find people who would encourage me to do something new more interesting and therefore more attractive |
| It’s easier for me to find common interests and talk or bond with them. Also, I don’t want to be with someone who is against things I do and will put me down for it. | people are often taught that we are supposed to search for our “other half” and this leads people to be attracted to a complimentary opposite. Although we look for a likeness as comfort in a partner, I think that opposites attract in the sense we want someone who makes up for the parts of us we are not. part of it is trying to make a whole but also seeing the opposite of yourself in a partner makes people feel like things are more interesting, challenging, intriguing. kind of like someone to balance you out i feel like i’m personally attracted to people who are very different or very similar to me and then usually it’s like balance decides if it lasts |
| I think most people surround themselves with others who are similar to them. | Opposites, it attracts me because it gives me the opportunity to open my mind and learn |
| Enjoying similar interests with your partner will help strengthen and develop your relationship. | Mainly for balance. I’m more extroverted and I look for a calmer, shyer guy |
| I’m going to have a much easier time talking to somebody who is like me | Relationships need balance, i think it brings people closer to each other when what one person lacks, the other can help |
| It’s attractive to have things in common with people. | I think it depends on the circumstance. But I believe that similarities have to exist to form some kind of attraction. There has to be some kind of mutualism there for two people to be attracted to one another. Opposites attract but I couldn’t see two polar opposites even interacting, there has to be some kind of preexisting similarities that are shared. Yeah I feel like it’s not about similarities but balance. Traits that counteract a weakness of your partner like a know it all and a curious person, a decisive person per an indecisive one, and so forth. |
| I want to make sure we have stuff in common, things we can enjoy together. | I think opposites bc it’s nice to have conversations with people where you get to see into a different lifestyle, but at the same time it’s nice to be around people that like the same music, sports, etc. |
| I just feel like you’re more intrigued. You want to know what’s going on in their heads. What they’re thinking, how they process information, basis of decisions. You just kind of get consumed into the idea of understanding a person. If that makes sense |
I posted a question on my Instagram story asking my followers whether they believed that similarity led to attraction or opposites attract. The picture shows the total number of people who saw my story and also includes the number who voted for either side. I asked the people who voted for either side to elaborate on their perspective and created a table full of their responses. I personally think both can lead to attraction but 100% of either is beneficial. Attracting someone who shares many similarities with you can lead to a better flowing connection but can also lead to a loss of identity. When you are so immersed in your similarities, it can be easy to forget who you truly are without them. On the flip side, opposites can attract you to people who can open your eyes to a new world of various perspectives, but those differences can also be the reason as to why the connection breaks.
My biggest takeaway from this is that having too much of either isn’t going to do any good, there needs to be a balance. A meeting point in which either being very similar can attract or being polar opposites but sharing at least one commonality attracts two people. As there is scientific evidence supporting both sides, I feel like what resonates with me the most is yes opposites may attract but similarities connect. Rather than embracing the differences, some may find it daunting and difficult to do so thus pushing away people who they feel may be too opposite. I am choosing this as my first and favorite artifact because of the interaction I had with people and the ability to gather their opinions. It was actually quite interesting to see the differences between not only the number of people who supported the idea that similarity leads to attraction but also their responses as to why they feel that way.
The picture I chose was a screenshot of the amount of people who viewed my Instagram story and it also includes the number of votes for each side.
