Over the course of the few months, I have made an effort to develop my skills in “Word Press”as well as the Cross Cultural course in numerous different ways. My attitude towards this course stayed the same however, I truly have matured as an individual and my experience of working with Word Press. The young ladies in the e portfolio help program, contributed a lot to my skills related to this course. I was so frustrated with this “Word Press” in the beginning. I am also better at seeing the bigger picture and how my role relates to the overall goals of the Cross-Cultural course. In the beginning I just thought this would be adjusting to another psychology class but at the end of the day I truly had to learn how to navigate through what I was not familiar with and learn something new. I may have to use this again in life. This course definitely made me more acquainted with the influence of culture and psychology throughout the world. Also, understanding more about diversity and improve my critical thinking skills. I should have definitely study much harder for test #2 this will haunt me in my final grade. Should have given “Word Press” a better go in the beginning. I have to admit learning Word Press is very useful when you start building a website you’ll definitely will have a goal in mind, organizing out a Word Press website, creating pages, blogs and posts, and learning to maximize search engine optimization, all demand organization. Learning how to blog (which I had no interest in) with WordPress gives  you a powerful way to improve and practice communication. Word Press has improved my research habits as well as data analysis and technical knowledge.

I can relate to my Industrial / Organizational Psychology to Cross-Cultural Psychology course to the section of Moral Reasoning and Morals at work… this is when your moral principles and ethics provide guidelines for people behavior with regard to what is appropriate and what is not… this holds the same weight in I/O Psychology when it comes to having moral reasoning in the workplace… to improve the condition of individuals in the workplace organizations, and society necessarily brings out sometimes, contested values choices concerning what create improvement… I can also compare my Cross-Cultural section of “Locus of Control” we discussed the same theory in my Health Psychology course Cross-Cultural definition is the differences in how much control one believes to have over one’s own behavior and relationship with environment and others… in Health Psychology the definition is a generalized expectancy about the causation of reinforcements or outcomes, with one end of the unidimensional continuum labelled internal, and its opposite, external … however, the 2 descriptions of “locus of control” are the same Internal-External Control… the last comparison will be I/O Psychology and Cross-Cultural in the sections of Cognition … in I/O Psychology Cognition is an attempt to better understand the judgments in the appraisal of job performance… this includes areas of training and development, conventional approaches to the analysis, design, and evaluation of interventions are being augmented, and in some cases openly challenged, by the application of cognitive constructs, theories, and principles… this is in principle in the workplace…these studies I believe are a little more accurate when it comes to cognition studies…in Cross-Cultural …Cognition is norms, opinions, beliefs, values, and worldviews are cognitive products that are defined as culture… very different in some of the approaches but in theory such the same …

growing up in Detroit is how I am going to relate myself to these three concepts for autonomy, competence, and relatedness academically…as a child, you had to have some of the concepts grounded into your life … going back and forth to and from school my parents were autonomously governing my every step of the way… they taught me how to go through the tough streets of Detroit …how to handle myself during challenging situations how to keep things in their proper perspective and doing these things the right way and not getting into trouble…my survival had a religious base, mix in with street intelligence with a strong sense of education …this is how I survived my own cultural differences… I found it is in my interest to learn how to survive with some autonomy and have very strong values in my travels to school …competence which is a skill a person has in interpersonal relationships with the ability to handle different situations… this is some of the first things my older brothers taught me, my first days going to Grant Elementary School in Detroit … not only handling that our parents made sure we did our homework and studied…. they were very involved with our education in the 1970’s … this always brought some type of attention to me (from other students) during my school years…so you definitely had to handle different situations at school…I had to handle not only the situation of bringing home good grades but be tough enough to handle some the bad elements at school…in my opinion things went very well for me !!…finally, relatedness one thing I always saw my mother do when she visited my school was to reach out to others… not only did she constantly invite my teachers to church … she invited other students as well … well, to be honest, she invited everybody …this type of behavior I noticed from my mother I saw myself involved not only in sports but the Chess club, On sets team, and finally band … yes, I played the clarinet… still, do … this has given me a great love for jazz… this interaction has made me a better communicator at school and out of school as a youngster …

1. I am a talker
2. I am very caring
3. I am firm
4. I am very resilient
5. I am traditional
6. I am honorable
7. I am hardworking
8. I am honest
9. I am loving
10. I am trusting

independent construal of self is associated with numbers 2,3,4,7

interdependent construal of self is associated with numbers 1,5,6,8,9,10

it is very clear I am close to being interdependent construal type person, I have classified 6 out my list to be “interdependent construal”.  Looking at the English proverbs this reminds of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Strong people don’t give up when they come across challenges. they just work harder… “No man is an island.” You can’t live completely independently…everyone needs help from other people… you must trust someone… “The early bird catches the worm.” this speaks for itself… “There’s no time like the present.” if you need to do something, don’t wait until later. do it now. These are some of the proverbs that I feel that are closely related to me and interdependent construal.

Looking back at what I went through and seeing others go through some things … being resilient is my strongest attribute … with this brings honesty …I have found I must be honest with myself always … this brings honesty with other however, you must have a caring, loving heart with this honesty …

I am so upset I study very hard for this test … I truly think I could have done better on this exam … I think I should have reread the whole Chapters again … all the study questions or topics were not on the test but a lot of the chapter questions were… I am truly upset with myself and my effort … most of the time I prepare for a test, I read my notes or textbooks. As I read along, I truly feel that I know the material… Understanding what I am reading, does NOT mean that you know it well enough to remember it for a test when the book isn’t there to help you…

One of the things that I noticed was there were many of the same ideas of cross-cultural research, the subject matter was the same, however, the idea’s and direction of research was very different in nature… This was a fun read for me… This was eye opening on how many humanistic type researches these young adults wanted to … reading this discussion board was eye-opening to the new research ideas that could help society as a whole… one thing I do like is a new way of making things better…

The fellowship between men and young adults is looking for the fellowship of “friendly loving people”. Working with juveniles who are in legal trouble or just being released for prison means so much to what career I want to pursue is why fellowship is vital for juveniles. My hearts go out to juveniles not only most juveniles come from broken homes. They include a lack of resources to provide adequate juvenile defense, a patchwork of disparate juvenile justice systems and local laws throughout the United States, and, in many courtrooms, a rushed, assembly-line style “like the auto lines’ of juvenile justice. The main reason for the career choice is, I was a victim of 2 juveniles in 2009. I will never forget my thinking during the sentencing period. These young men of the ages of 14 and 16, never had the opportunity of having a productive life, no one was there to prevent them from making bad choices in life. “The idea that a kid can be in front of a judge and could be locked up with no lawyer there to defend him. I think most people are shocked by that notion,” and this was exactly my thinking. These kids need more fellowship with men who are willing to spend time with the ones, who we all know need it. One of the main reason of earning a degree is to show our youth, you can overcome all obstacles is possible, you do not have to commit crimes to earn money. My parents are very supportive of going to school and my career choice, even at a “beautiful” age of 48. Just the encouragement of saying you can do this, especially in an embarrassing time of re-evaluating your life.  

I truly look forward to any class that would improve my critical thinking. Looking through the course outline I noticed one key thing that really caught my eye besides, “if there is a power outage on a given day/time, I need to make sure I take the exam earlier and you will not extend any time for the exam” hopefully I will not have this problem… Lol . Under the heading “Course Objectives” it stated to have an understanding of cultural diversity and the impact of culture on human life. I expect to learn some new ways of looking at culture and to educate me more on diversity, which I feel is a key element needed in today’s society. I plan to get very familiar with the definitions of the topics, sometimes we tend to assume we know the meaning of the topics and it is not the case. It was very interesting on how the book compared 1904 to our current time, I must have read that several times. This truly showed us how the world has changed and will continue to change. The 1st Chapter tells us about the difference between “Society” and“Culture” this was a very interesting portion of the 1st Chapter. I look forward to putting a great effort to learn and have fun on my very first online class…