Blog 10: Reflection

The image above is a picture of me eating a spicy chicken that I thought

I could handle, but it was more spicy than I thought it would be. It is

synonymous to how I felt about this class. I knew that taking an online

course would be a challenge, but I had no idea it would really test my time

management skills. I took the class thinking that my time management

skills were above excellent. I remembered doing a full time job and

having full time school in TCC and being able to ace all my classes,

including an online class. I was able to remember that I had an online

class.

However, what surprises me is that much of my challenge with this class

had to do with remembering that I was taking it. What I realized is that the

university experience is much more rigorous than community college… More

classes than before required more essays and other writing assignments…

I loved reading the chapters when I remembered to complete my assignments.

The topics were always interesting and they challenged me to open my mind

to the ways other cultures think. I believe my cultural lenses have expanded

and are able to observe more than they were able to before. If my grade

in this class is not as good as I wanted, I will be okay. What I find most

important is what I was able to learn about the world and myself. If I were to

take the class again, I would save all the due dates on my phone to help me

remember them. I would also try to see my professor more often to help

explain some ideas I did not understand.

What I will take most from this class is the blogs. They have been an

excellent and fun way for me to reflect on my learning! I appreciate this

new way of learning! It has inspired me to keep a journal to reflect on

my improvements, failures and neutral experiences!

Blog 8: Emotional Perception

The two images above are comparisons of an American cartoon

(Adventure Time) and a Japanese cartoon (Clannad), known as anime.

“Emotion Perception Across Cultures” discusses the importance of

communication through facial expressions and how different cultures

will interpret emotions more clearly through different parts of our face.

For example, a study done in the 1970’s concluded through its research

that “East Asian participants focused on… the eyes and gaze direction,”

while “Western Caucasian participants expected signals of the…

eyebrows and mouth region.” (Psychology Today, 2016)

From my personal experience, I find this research surprising as I think

Americans make more eye contact than Filipinos do. Filipinos also use

their lips to communicate. For example, as a Filipino, I use my lips to

point at objects. Of course, this observation is limited to my own

knowledge of a specific East Asian culture. I am sure it is different with

different East Asian culture!

The pictures above definitely resonate with the above descriptions. The

Japanese characters have bigger, more detailed eyes. The American

characters’ emotions can be read more prominently through their

mouths! The approaches mentioned before can definitely be applied

with these cartoon characters!

The display rules for my culture are similar to what was explained in the

study that involved watching stressful films alone and with a researcher.

The Japanese participants were likely to “conceal negative emotions in

social settings.” It was important for me to stay calm and collected

growing up, neither seeming too happy or sad. If I laughed too much,

my mom told me I would seem too flirtatious. If I was too sad, I would

be too much of a killjoy. I needed to be quiet and pragmatic.

Growing up, I was always jealous of all the American girls who didn’t

need to hide their emotions. Currently, I am quite the bubbly,

emotional mess I am proud to display. I wonder if this makes me

more American.

In any case, this article was a very eye-opening read!

Blog 6: Self-Determination Theory

Self-determination theory is this idea that all
cultures require autonomy, competence and
relatedness to meet their basic psychological needs.
The way in which I meet these needs are quite 
simple: I express myself through fashion, make-up, 
and humor. The image above comes from my 
Instagram, in which I had posted "It was a nice
bathroom. Thank you @daveandbusters." I did so to
be funny. I also thought my make-up was quite
exceptional that day. 
I look forward to every day that I work and go to
school because they are new days to put on make-up,
show off my style and make people laugh. These 
actions help keep me feeling autonomous, or, in 
other words, "getting that bread." I keep myself
feeling competent through my humor. It helps me
build relationships and, even if I don't do so
well, at least I can make myself smile. My fashion,
make-up and humor also help me relate to others.
I seldom fail to pass a day without someone asking 
me about my fashion or makeup choices. I have a 
strong sense of individuality and thrive in 
conversation and how it makes me more knowledgeable.
It is easy for me to keep myself entertained, and
I hope I can also do the same for others, even if
it is mostly for me. Wink, wink.

Blog 5: The Independent Me

I asked myself "Who am I?" and came up
with the following thoughts: I am Filipino,
21 years old, single and a broke college 
student. To describe myself in adjectives, 
I am awkward, funny, hardworking, positive,
and mindfully strong. I was asked to analyze
whether my responses could be categorized as
an independent construal or an 
interdependent construal, and have 
concluded that all of them are independent. 
I describe myself without linking myself
to anybody else. In fact, after being asked 
to categorize these statements, I felt
rather guilty for not saying something like
I am a daughter or I am friendly and helpful
to my peers. With that in mind, I suppose I
am more independent than interdependent.

A famous quote that first comes to mind
that can be used to describe the
independent construal of self is "Be you,
do you." I grew up having low self 
esteem and remembered watching these
Youtube workout videos by Cassey Ho that 
supported the idea of self confidence
and doing things for oneself. This was
one of her quotes that has fixated itself
in mind and continues to inspire me today.
A lot of my low self esteem came from
not feeling like I was a good enough 
student, daughter, or friend. So, now I
try to focus on being good enough for
myself before I can even think about 
being good enough for others.

The image above is a picture of me
taking a selfie. I like to take 
pictures of myself for me. I liked
my outfit that day and like to save 
a collection of my own pictures to 
show how my style has grown. I also
went shopping alone that day, 
treating myself with new makeup. 

Blog 4: Test 1 Results Review

Tests are intimidating, but a 
good way to measure how much a 
student has learned and retained. 
Firstly, I have noticed that this 
class does review a lot of the 
terms and ideas I had learned 
from my previous sociology, 
psychology and anthropology 
classes. If those terms and 
the ideas had shown up on the 
test, I could answer them 
fairly easily. On the other 
hand, if I had just learned 
a term or idea, I tended to 
get those answers wrong. 

I had not studied for this 
test as rigorously as I
could have. I reviewed all
my notes one time right before
the test and had not looked at
the review once. After 
reviewing my test results, I
realized that I should focus 
on studying what I had not
learned before. I should
also look at the test review 
provided. I chose the image above
to visualize how I felt about 
receiving an 80%. For not
studying as well as I should have,
I feel as if it is still a good
grade. However, I did not do my
best. By using the test strategies
I had mentioned, I should do
better next time.

 

Blog 3: My NEO test results

“NEO Test Results”

This shows the scores I had added up to after completing my NEO test.

After taking this test, I have 
gained more insight on the way I
approach situations. Here are what
my results have concluded:

My neuroticism is shown to be high.
This means that I react in a way that 
is emotionally driven. I can see this
as true, as it is easy for me to cry.
For example, when I get into an 
argument with a close friend, I 
initially respond by crying or saying
things I do not mean, completely
saturated by my feelings in the 
moment.
My extraversion dimension is high 
and I agree with it. I make time to 
spend with my friends as much as
possible, and am willing to make new
friends.

My openness dimension is low and this 
is true to an extent. I am open to new
ideas, but am generally stuck in my own 
ways. For example, I used to always cook 
my eggs sunny side up. However, my 
friend had showed me how to cook eggs
scrambled, and I was open to learning how
to cook my eggs a different way. Now I 
cook my eggs both ways.

My agreeableness dimension score was 
surprisingly low, as I like to think that
I am "compassionate" and "tend to avoid 
conflict." Although, it is true that I
like to get into competition. I believe
competition forces an individual to do
better and to do so efficiently.
However, I only believe in it to an
extent. There is a healthy way to 
approach it, and I believe that working
to cooperate is a better value.

Lastly, my conscientiousness 
dimension score was very low. This was not 
a surprise to me. I like to do things 
spontaneously, like make boba tea plans
last minute. Although, I have found
this method very inefficient, especially
now that I am back in school and must 
schedule my time accordingly. 

Blog 2: Self-Efficacy… do I have it?

“Chinese Class Flashback”

I chose this image because I remembered taking this class and being very excited to meet this challenge of learning one of the most complex languages. I have taken two semesters of it and thoroughly enjoyed the journey. With my self efficacy, I passed the class with an A and built a good relationship with a professor who has always believed in his students’ ability to learn!

Self-efficacy... Whoa, well, what is that? Well,
it refers to the belief that a person can achieve
their goals through their own abilities. It's an 
important trait to have because much of our ability
to learn stems from this individual confidence! If 
you don't believe in you... who will? And, if you
were raised that way, not even your parents will
always be there to tell you they believe in you.
Your relationship with yourself is something you
will always have to fall back on.

I would like to consider myself a very hard-working
student that would do ANYTHING to accomplish
something the right way. Even in new jobs, I find 
myself wanting to be the best worker. I'm very 
ambitious, but, at the same time, I humble myself 
to those around me. I realize I am not the best
at everything and am willing to learn from those
who know better. 

With these traits in mind, I like to think I have
enough confidence in myself as a student. However,
one of my biggest challenges is having the 
confidence to apply this knowledge. This includes
speaking in class or discussing with a friend a 
topic I learned in class with the fear that I am
actually getting it all wrong... I could 
increase my confidence by acknowledging how hard 
I work. I have worked a full time job and gone to
school full time before, still ending the semester
with my name on the dean's list. It's time to
believe in myself more, and I must learn to apply 
myself and my learning to the world.

After taking the self-efficacy test, I came up with
these results:

Believe in your ability: 77.5

Ability can grow with effort: 88

Overall: 81.5

These scores surely reflect what I had stated 
earlier! My belief in my ability is lower than
belief that ability can grow with effort. 
However, these scores are still high enough for 
me to further believe that I am a great student 
with great abilities. Again, it is that confidence 
in myself that I need to work on. After that, I 
should be set!

In conclusion, yes, we all have self-efficacy. 
How much we have is really what we need to ask 
ourselves. Thank you for listening to my
Ted talk.

Blog 1: Course Objectives and it’s Application

It is the first day of September, and I am
ready to start off this month right by 
attempting to understand how to use WordPress 
and how to approach my study of cross
cultural psychology. 

After reading the course objectives for this 
PSYC 420 class, I understand that my approach 
should be open-minded in order to learn to 
examine the influence of culture and psychology 
in the world, understand cultural diversity and 
its impact on life, interact with people of 
other cultures and develop skills to apply 
them to research.

With an open mind, one can learn. Culture is 
one of those subjects in which one must be 
unprejudiced to a whole way of life and beliefs.

I remember in one of my classes, my teacher 
was playing a song that was sung in a different 
language about a god. And, unfortunately, I 
saw one of my classmates chuckle when the English 
subtitle read that the god had eight eyes and 
eight legs. 

To my classmate, it might have been strange to 
hear about a god with such features. However, to 
the peoples of that country, the chuckle could 
have been taken as disrespect.

I mention this story, but do recognize that we 
all have a level of an ethnocentric nature to us. 
It is inevitable, as we have all been raised to 
believe and understand things a certain way.

I believe understanding the psychology between 
different cultures will help reduce my bias and 
levels of ethnocentric thought. As G.I. Joe said, 
"Knowing is half the battle," and this should be 
through the application of understanding other 
cultures.

In order to succeed in this course, I understand 
that I must read the book to learn and participate 
on WordPress to apply my knowledge. An online 
class is definitely going to be a challenge, but 
I believe in my ability to manage my time and 
focus.

Image: I chose this image because I believe that 
taking good notes is a great way to understand a
class that deals with new terminology and 
complex ideas.The notes that I took in this photo
were of Chapter 1 from the book, which I followed
with a reading of the module to go with the book
notes.