ATA5 – Synopses of Assignment 5

Assignment 5 Reflection: The quote above represents a belief of mine that when doing a good deed, it’s the intent, not the attention you get that truly matters. Your deed should focus on the recipient(s), not whether or not you get praised. In my assignment summary I expressed concerns with people doing good deeds just to get noticed. My concerns arise when a person doesn’t get a particular reaction they were looking for. Will that lessen acts of kindness they do going forward because they weren’t satisfied how a particular recipient responded? For example, imagine going out of your way to do something nice for someone, and for one reason or another you don’t receive a “Thank you” or appreciation of any kind. That reaction (or non-reaction) are likely to affect your association with doing good deeds going forward.

Assignment 5’s purpose was to complete five random acts of kindness for people during a week period. After conducting the acts of kindess, I wrote a summary of each of my good deed’s, the outcome, and how people reacted. Although I completed a couple of deeds that were noticed by someone (either the recipient and/or observers), I did a couple of deeds that went unnoticed by everyone except for me, which is how I typically try to make a difference.

For one act of kindness I paid for a person’s restaurant tab without them being aware; for this particular deed, there was an observer (my mom) who saw the deed. There’s a lot more to that particular deed that is included in the assignment, but for the sake of keeping the synopsis short, I will leave it out. 🙂 The person not knowing who paid the tab is irrelevant (i.e. I didn’t want/need any attention for the act). What mattered was the potential impact I had on the person (in one way or another) for such a simple act. In my opinion, acts that go unnoticed are usually the ones that can have the biggest impact on people.

ATA4 – Synopses of Assignment 4

Assignment 4 Reflection: The John Lennon quote above was chosen for many reasons, but I’ll let you in on a couple… For one, I agree that you must love yourself first before you can open your ability to love others; this is something that took me many years to realize. Also, once you open yourself to love, you realize there is so much love to give in other areas, and to other people; not just to a specific individual. So… embrace love when it comes, don’t push it away.

The purpose of Assignment 4 was to take a Styles of Love Questionnaire, and compare the results to the averages of a survey. The love styles surveyed were: Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania, and Agape. Overall, I learned what styles of love were most prevalent in my previous relationship. In general, I found my love styles were significantly different than the averages, except for the Pragma love style which was the exact average. I also learned how relationship dynamics could affect certain love styles, in my case, Mania. Also, I think my maturity (or perceived maturity), and life experiences had a significant effect on all the love styles; I think those factors affected my Ludus score most (I displayed low Ludus love).

It was difficult to reflect on some things in the assignment because it’s clear how much this particular relationship meant to me. After the assignment I reflected on things even further, which is what I do with most everything. Thankfully, those reflections aren’t a requirement for this synopses…. 🙂 That being said, the relationship has made me the person I am today, so I am thankful for having experienced it. Allowing myself to love, making myself vulnerable, and opening myself up, has had a significant effect on my life.

ATA3 – Synopses of Assignment 3

Assignment 3 Reflection: The image above was chosen to represent when you are dealing with individuals, always be prepared for the “unexpected.” As nice as it would be to know how an individual will react to a certain situation, there are many factors outside of the specific situation that can have a significant impact on how an individual responds. Also, as referenced in the assignment, I believe it would be bad to base judgement on an individual based on one specific instance; in this case, the assignment was a synopsis Michael Richards’ stand-up tirade to try and determine if his rant was racist. Although his tirade was definitely racist in tone, it is almost impossible to determine if Michael Richards’ is indeed a racist going off a 2-minute video clip.

We have all made mistakes, we have all said hurtful things, it’s about maturing and growing as a person to lessen the occurrences. That being said, if you are a person that continues to act in a certain manner and you decide to not change, then a “label” can be placed on you; however, at the end of the day, it is always up to you to change that “label” with your actions. I have said and done things that have been hurtful, and that I regret; however, as I keep growing as a person I keep striving to prevent the negative occurrences.

ATA2 – Synopses of Assignment 2

Assignment 2 Reflection: The image above was chosen for two main reasons: (1) to represent my belief that self-portraits can be quite misleading to other viewers and (2) to represent how difficult self-analysis can be. The assignment ‘s intent was to look at photos of myself and decide if they represented me well. For someone who does not take many photos, I am not sure the assignment did justice in showing the type of person I really am; however, it was good to reflect on a few photos, and situations that I experienced. I do think the assignment did a good job of reminding me of how people change over time. For example, I’ve recently become a hockey fan. Go Caps! There were some photos that explain me a little bit but there is a lot left out (in my opinion).

I would be curious to see the assignment flipped (change in perspective). For example, I’d be curious to know what a friend/family member thought of the same photos I self-analyzed, and see what they came up with. I think there could be some biases or maybe even some stereotypes involved. To expand this further, you could ask random people to “analyze” the photos. I could only imagine the responses….

ATA1 – Synopses of Assignment 1

Assignment 1 Reflection: The image above was chosen to represent heuristics in a somewhat comedic fashion. In my opinion, heuristics can often be thought of the “That was easy” choice. Because heuristics are often used to help the brain not become overloaded, you often make decisions/judgments without looking at all the information you have available to you. In some cases this is required; however, I believe most use heuristics too often. The assignment was used to define and provide examples of the following heuristics: representativeness, availability, anchoring & adjustment, and status quo heuristics.

The assignment allowed me to think critically about how different heuristics can play a role in every day situations. It was interesting to come up with hypothetical real-world examples. While thinking about the real-world examples, I thought of specific situations in my past where heuristics likely played a role in my decisions/judgments. I also considered situations where I was with others and heuristics likely played a role in their decision/judgment. Talk about eye-opening! I actually have a real-world example that just happened to me. I recently purchased a house, and the anchoring & adjustment heuristic was in play; I actually paid full price! However, I’d like to note that I considered a lot more information before deciding on offering full price. For example, after carefully considering: all the comps in the neighborhood (with actual selling price), the houses conditions, the location, long-term goals/aspirations, etc. I wanted the house, and was willing to pay a premium. So was the anchor the selling price, or was the anchor set when I walked in the house, and it “felt like home”? I think that’s a complex discussion, maybe we can save it for another time. 🙂

I hope to be able to apply the lessons learned in this assignment to become more self-aware, and when possible, not allow specific heuristics to always play a role in my decisions/judgments. Having the information, and understanding how heuristics come-about and affect decisions/judgments is very useful information for bettering myself.