Blog #10: Reflection

Why a Record-Breaking Increase in Small-Business Starts Matters for You | Inc.com
Photo credit:https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/businessman-inflating-bar-graph-with-tire-royalty-free-illustration/1264127477?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=iptcurl I chose this image to represent the amount of growth I have gained from taking this course in accordance with my learning.

When comparing my goals at the beginning of this course to now, I feel like I got a deeper understanding of how much culture can effect a person in their beliefs and mental health and how much of a difference culture can cause. I do not think my attitude towards cross-cultural psychology changed much for better or worse as it matched what I had expected to gain. If I were to take this course again, I would probably take the course in person instead of online to see if there could’ve been a different way of interpreting the information learned. One skill I gained from taking this course is genuinely just tolerance, I always made snap judgements and so having a deeper understanding of how much culture effects a person, it helps in my own social interactions.

Blog #9:What I Have Learned

Active self-reflection promotes meaningful learning - ReachingHigherNH
Photo Credit: https://reachinghighernh.org/2017/04/14/active-self-reflection-promotes-meaningful-learning/ I chose this image as I felt that in my reflection process that my ideas of this class grew my understanding of what I have actually learned.

In this class I have learned many things about my culture and how different it actually is compared to other cultures. I never had realized how different language is true communication. The biggest thing I learned a lot more about myself and how much my identity is reflected in my culture. When comparing blog #5 to artifact #4, a lot of what I view of myself comes from my trauma and I feel that definitely shaped my identity now. While learning about culture, self, and identity, I also learned in my philosophy of technology and innovation about our online identity made by an AI and how it can be so different then our actual self. This class did a lot for my own personal growth, and it will be interesting as I continue my education where my knowledge from this class will come in handy.

Blog #8: Emotion

Emoji use across countries & languages – Cyberpsychology
Photo Credit: https://cyberpsychologydotblog.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/emoji-use-across-countries-language-differences/ Emojis Across the World: Even with the same emojis, across the world we use them differently, some more often than not.

I feel like the best example I can give of seeing how emotion is expressed differently is while I worked at Busch Gardens. Busch Gardens hires a lot of people from different countries and the girls I worked with were from the Philippines. Compared to myself and others, they were extremely expressive, way more than what I was used to. The girls made large hand expressions and facial features, once again very different than what I was used to. I had asked briefly why as they expressed that they were also very touchy before hand, and they just said it was normal for them in every day life. I believe by understanding their culture, although I initially found it rude as I am not used to a lot of expression, I found it a lot easier to understand and accept.

Blog #7: Culture in Fairytales

The Disney Princesses Reimagined As Modern Day Career Women | Simple. Thrifty. Living.
Photo Credit:https://www.simplethriftyliving.com/disney-princesses-reimagined-modern-day-career-women/
Modern Day Princess: I chose this image as it reimagines the princesses in a more inclusive light to todays culture.

I feel that fairy tales, when they were written, definitely reflected the culture in the time period but that isn’t to say that modern day reimagined fairy tales stick to the originals culture. I feel as more movies are made based on the fairy tales, we see a lot of our culture and values in them, which can be seen in recent Disney princess movies such as Frozen compared to Cinderella. I feel that the movie and books that moved me as a kid was The Hunger Games and I wanted to be just like Katniss Everdeen. A symbol of change in a society where my gender is usually kept down.

Blog #6: Self Determination Theory

My schedule: By having a schedule, it helps me control my life academically.

The self determination theory states that humans have three basic needs, autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and for this assignment I have to identify how I meet these needs academically. For autonomy, I create schedules so that I can balance school work to my everyday life, keeping my life on course. For competence, I make sure I balance my school work throughout the week so that way I can effectively deal with the work load. Finally, I have failed with relatedness since covid-19 happened and really the only connection I have to academic relationships is based on discussion boards I have to do for class. I think once I am able to go back to school in person, I want to join a club so I can connect to others in my academic career.

Blog #5: I am…Myself

12 Illustrations That Are All Too Real For Introverts | HuffPost Life
Photo Credit:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/introvert-illustrations_n_56041882e4b00310edfa44bd Often Alone, Rarely lonely: I chose this image as I feel like it explains me best, I like having time to myself even when it is labelled selfish.

My “I am…” statements were 50/50 when it came to whether or not they were independent or interdependent constructs of myself, yet most of what I view of myself is independent to what most people say. The statements I believed to be independent constructs of myself were that I would rather be home, reading a book, or studying psychology (a topic I would describe as my special interest). Home is a place where I can be messy and be with people I trust as I often feel anxious when not around those I trust. Now the statements I believed to be interdependent constructs of myself were that I am protective of those I care about, respectful of those around me, that I am selfish of my alone time, and that I am family orientated. That I am shy in unfamiliar places and I feel that opinion of myself comes from what I have heard from others. I think it was easier for me to identify what I view as independent because I don’t necessarily know exactly where most of my own opinions of myself come from except for the statements that involve others.

Blog #4:Exam One Review

On the first exam, out of 50 questions, I got 6 wrong. I do not personally agree that reviewing the exam helped me much as all they tell me is what I got wrong, not the correct answers to what I got wrong. Although that may be so that I go and find the answers myself back in my notes, it still aggravates me slightly. I think for my next exam, rather than just reading my notes over again, I will go ahead and make flashcards and actually use the review sheet before the test.

Blog #3:NEO Personality Test

Personality Word Cloud: I chose these words as they are how I see myself.

My NEO personality test showed that I have an high openness, high conscientiousness, low extraversion, high agreeableness, and high neuroticism. I believe it is consistent up until agreeableness as I don’t see myself as agreeable as I am not a people person, shown in my low level of extraversion. I am someone who once I get to know someone I am very open about my life, but I struggle to make friends as I am an intense person with my emotions. All in all, I enjoyed taking the test as it was very insightful.

Blog #2:Educational Values

My First Degree: I chose this image as it reflects my desire to learn more and the urge to do more.

I am the first person in my family to attend college and I have already received my associates degree when I was 19. At first I didn’t start going for my degree with the intention of using my degree to help others. My parents gave me two options when I finished high school when I was 17, either get a job and pay rent or go to college. I had already known I wanted to study psychology as I wanted to understand more about the mental disorders I have since I was in my early teens and once I started I knew I wanted to keep going as I knew I could help others later on as a career.

Blog #1:Course Syllabus Reflection 

Notes of New Knowledge: I chose this image as I feel it reflects the idea that I cannot just take my own culture as the only culture worth understanding. 

What I expected to get out of this course is knowledge of how different cultural beliefs effect other people and to be better at interacting with others based off of that information. I believe that cross-cultural psychology achieves just that by preparing me to understand cultural diversity and in the long run will make me a better person as the course goes along. The strategies I have taken so that I will succeed in this course, bettering my knowledge, is taking notes and making note cards to go with them to reflect on what I learn. At the end of the course, I am hoping to gain an appreciation for cultures outside of my own, helping me help others in the future.