Blog 10
Looking back at what I wrote, I could tell that I was nervous to take this class again. A few years ago, psychology was my major as I planned on doing something with it, but plans changed and I did not know if I would still be interested in these topics. Overall, I felt like writing these blogs out really kept me engaged with this subject and I followed through better with my plans because of it. One of the skills that I’ll definitely take from this course is blogging and just writing my thoughts down more. Not only can I reflect better because of what I have learned from this class, but I can continue to grow and learn when I look back on them.
The visual representation was my plan vs my reality and it honestly feels like my reality is working better than both. For my new visual representation I’m choosing stock brokers holding up a stock chart line that was trending downward at first because of COVID. It reflected my life and the success in this class is a reflection of the general upward trend I feel like I have in my life.
Blog 9
I learned a lot about how humans interact with each other on a different level through this class. It explained a lot about the world that I wasn’t aware of before but I had a feeling was happening. For example, when writing blog 6, I never noticed how much dismemberment of the female body was used to sell things. It was honestly gross now that I have a daughter of my own. The second thing I learned was how hurtful that Kramer situation really was to some people and how my perception has changed so much since I remember watching that incident when I was younger. The third thing I learned in this class was how much we rely on heuristics and why being aware of them is so invaluable.
One concept I learned in this class that is applicable in my other classes were the general way we use prejudice and stereotypes to judge people and how negative ones can unfairly sway our opinion when we shouldn’t. For example, in my Psychology 323: Psychology of adulthood and Aging, we learned how prejudice towards older people are just as hurtful as ones based on race, the main difference is that agism is probably a stereotype everyone may eventually experience.
The Visual image I chose is from a tv show showing a man connecting the dots and realizing that everything is connected. That’s how I feel being in this course seeing how one social interaction can impact so many other psychological and social situations.
Blog 8
After reading the article I agree with their findings based on my own personal experiences. I found the saying, “women pair wisely while men pair widely”, because I have never heard that before and I find it also to be true. Throughout my time on Earth, I’ve found that all heterosexual relationships are mostly the same, in how they came together, to how they fall apart. For example, the article talks about lying prior to consummation. I found this to be the most consistent thing from when I was a teen to now as a 30-year-old single man. It’s understandable because people want to make their best first impression, but I think it can also lead to bad habits in the future.
The visual representation I’m choosing are the common ways I think men and women lie to raise their chances of mating. For women, I’m choosing make up because it can help a woman appear more attractive to a man, but a good make up artist can completely change how a person looks. For men, I’m choosing plastic surgery, because like make up, it also “lies” about a man’s appearance to gain possible partners.
Blog 7
Emotional intelligence, also known as EQ, is just as important for a person to be competent with, as IQ is. The higher the EQ for a person, the better they are at recognizing and responding the best way to others emotional cues. Part of EQ is the ability to self-regulate oneself. For example, being able to stop and think through a situation rationally, rather than responding immediately and emotionally. Personally, I’ve taken anger management classes in the navy so self-regulation is something I’ve had to tackle and improve upon myself. It was something I never noticed until I was told about it, so it has been a learning process. For example, the instructors of the class I took mentioned the same type of techniques that the video showed such as breathing. It has been effective I think, but it takes work. 
https://www.ihhp.com/free-eq-quiz-old/excellent-eq/
The online EQ test I took told me I had excellent EQ. I agree now that I’ve been able to work on myself, but there’s still so much to improve upon.
Blog 6
I’m shocked after watching this video. I knew ads for women were misleading and dangerous to their mental development while they are in their teens, but I did not know it was this bad. I also did not realize it was going on for this long. The most shocking ads that I never really paid attention to, but was definitely influenced by was the dismemberment ads. I mean, they were always obvious in what they were trying to sell, but I did not know that they would insult women’s bodies consistently to trick them into buying their products. It was an extremely eye opening video and as a father to a 5 year old girl, I feel that it’s my responsibility to be much more aware of these things. For my visual representation I chose 5 ads that use women’s bodies as an object to help sell the product, even when the woman has nothing to do with the product. The drummond ad for example has a naked woman draped with a sweater in an ad selling cartigans and sweaters. It’s a good example of what it means to say women are objectified in ads.
Blog 5
When a source directs any type of message to an audience, it’s called persuasion. Researchers obtained interesting information about this topic that I’ll try to explain through ad. In attempting to persuade someone in ads, one of the things an audience looks for is credibility. The audience wants to know that the person selling the ad or in the ad is a credible source and know what they’re talking about. In this example professional NFL player and MLB player, an extremely difficult and rare feat in sports to accomplish, Bo Jackson is selling Nike Cross Training shoes. Sneakers and trainers in the 80s were still in their infancy so when Nike came out with a shoe that could be worn in the working out in gym or outdoors playing sports, they hired Bo Jackson to sell them. This ad shows one of the top American athletes of all time showing how muscular he looks and showing off both sports that he was very popular in. This ad is credible because Jackson had all the accolades and qualifiers to show the audience that what Nike was selling would be worth it.
Conversely, an ad that shows when persuasion in an ad is not credible is in a Ciroc Vodka ad showing rapper and entrepreneur, P. Diddy.This ad isn’t credible because there was never a time in Diddy’s career other then when he started showing up on these ads and promoting this product, that he showed up on any type of vodka. Also, Ciroc was also a newer vodka when Diddy did this ad so the audience may might not know what to expect from this brand.
Finally I wanted to show how attraction can be used in persuasive ads with this cologne ad. This shows a man on a boat in his swimming trunks next to a bottle of Dolce and Gabbana’s cologne. This shows attraction because it’s using a fit topless man next to a bottle. They’re trying to say that the perfume smells like a man that just jumped out of the water. Personally speaking, I’m attracted to the idea of smelling like I just got out of the water and back on my yacht, while my girlfriend may see the ad and see just see the man. She might not know what I want to smell like, but she might have a preference of man she wants me to smell like, so this ad would be relevant to her when it comes to attraction.
Blog 4
My process for learning in this class is to read the chapters and do the modules. I chose not to write notes but instead highlight them and save them in a file for remembering later. It was mostly key words or experiments that helped explain a concept. I reviewed the sheet the week prior and the day before I took the test to make sure I understood everything I needed to. I got a satisfactory score for my effort, but I could do better. I think I’ll write notes to go along with what I’m learning for the next exam, but I’m not trying to overload my brain or waste time since I’m balancing a full work and parenting schedule with everything. I’ve learned it’s difficult and I wish I could stop most of the time, but I also know it’s not going to last forever and what I’m doing seems to be working fine so far.
Blog 3
I think that our taste in music and and how they affect our relationships if we associate feelings to those certain songs. For example I can’t listen to “I will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston because a dentist was removing my wisdom teeth while listening to that song in boot camp. I just remember how horrifying it felt as he cracked each tooth with pliers, meanwhile Whitney Houston was singing her song. I think this is how it is with songs and our relationships too. When we hear a certain song and have a certain feeling associated with that song, we want to attach that song to that feeling. That feeling should have a moment included, and if someone special is in that moment, then I think they automatically get associated with those songs. My best friend for example listens to the same type of songs his parents listened too. They loved listening to soul music so when I hear, “Today was a good day” by Ice Cube, I think of him because of the soul sample it uses on its best. Another song that I associate with people is “I don’t F**k with You” by Big Sean. It’s a song about his ex girlfriends, but I associate it with my ex-wife because of the feelings that conjure inside me when I think of her. Another song I Would be, “We don’t talk about Bruno” from the Disney movie Encanto. This song reminds me of my daughter because I took her to see it on thanksgiving and now it’s her favorite movie. My 4th song would be for my co-workers in the Navy with “in the navy” by The village people. I always thought it was a funny song and I like the juxtaposition of how silly the song is compared to how miserable being in the navy could be. My 5th-10th songs could all be classical oldies songs from the 60s-80s that remind me of my family. From Elvis with my grandma, Joni Hendrix with my uncle, the bee-gees with my aunt, Fleetwood Mac with my mom, and Eric Clapton for my dad. There’s not a song specifically that I hear when I think about my family, but when the artists songs come on, I immediately think of them
Blog 2
I’ve been attempting to finish school since 2009. I’ve changed my major countless times and have failed more than I’ve succeeded. I enter this school year in spring to finish all my schooling once and for all, over the course of the next couple of years. Since 2009 I’ve learned “life lessons” that taught me what college was trying to years ago. With everything I’ve accomplished outside of academics, I’m more confident in attending and finishing more than I ever have. I’ve faced real life situations that could have ended in death, death of others, or a lifetime of punishment if I was careless and didn’t take my job seriously. I’m using these past experiences to guide how I can mentally prepare myself to juggle school and life. The largest contributor to my confidence in learning now is that I know there’s no more “coming back to finish”. In my eyes, this is it for me. My daughter is only getting older so I have to keep shifting time towards her and how to manage dealing with that situation. My results gave me a score of 3.8, which isn’t surprising to me. I’m confident because I have no other choice. If I want to accomplish my goal then I have to not only believe my self-efficacy is high, but I have to perform and meet those expectations every day.
The pictures I’m choosing to show are my GSE results and my signing day from 2009 when I went to a college in North Carolina to play football.
Blog 1
The course objectives are mainly based on understanding the mechanics of how humans socially interact with each other using psychology and science. This is helpful to me not only in the present as I maneuver through my 30s in the work force, but in my future as my child grows up I can help her better understand some of the nuance that social psychology will teach me.
To ensure my success in this course I want to implement everything I’ve read and learned, in to my own personal life. For example due to learning about planning fallacy, I know the best way I can pass this class is to be at least a week ahead of the work. In my past I thought I could handle more with the same amount of time but it ended up being a bad situation for me. Now that I’m aware we socially have this fallacy, I can better adjust my work and personal life to fit in my school work.
I expect this course to give me the basics of how and why people act the way they do in social situations. I’ll be able to use this as an advantage whether it’s trying to “feel someone out” that I’m not familiar with or if I’m trying to evaluate someone based on the situation their in for certain situations, such as work.
I’m hoping to gain confidence in my own social situations through being more aware of what everyone else is doing and why.
This comic is a perfect representation of how I usually see life. I was never aware that I always under-planned and overestimated my skills. Maybe due to availability heuristics that I’m stuck in this way of thinking whenever I receive these assignments, but now that I’m more aware I can over plan and over estimate. This hopefully will not only lead to more success, but way less stress and feelings of incompetency.