I chose this image because I feel like the picture above speaks social psychology. Social psych is the study of individual or group behavior is impacted by the presence or behavior of others. This picture has multiple different individuals with multiple different interest.

My short term expectation within this class is to be successful and learn new things that I can apply to my everyday life. I hope to learn more about the meat and potatoes of human interaction. The different aspects and types of psychology have always been intriguing to me, especially since i’ve been taking psychology classes since my senior year in high school. When you really learn more into psychology, psych terms, and research studies its really fascinating how much it can tie in to your life, and how many times you encounter something relating to psychology.

My long term goals as of right now are to get my degree, and eventually someday open up my own counseling office. Life hasn’t always been a walk in the park. I really think everything i’ve been through plus the information I gain from this course could help me achieve my long term goals, and really help other people through their challenges. All in all I hope this course allows me to learn myself more, and be a help to others.

Everyone has habits their not to fond of. My biggest self conflict is my procrastination. I have a habit of pushing off things to the very last second. While I think I get some of my best work done under the pressure of trying to beat the clock, I know waiting till the last minute isn’t whats best for my success. I plan to keep better track of all my assignments and work so I can plan and schedule time to do all my assessments on time within a reasonable amount of time from the due date.

Overall, my top goal is to be my best successful self. That goal applies to in this course and outside of my academics.

Blog 2

I like to label myself as an ambitious student. I like this label to describe myself because, life as a student does get rough. Theres a lot of long nights, quizzes, projects, and so much more that goes into being a student. I am human though, so yes sometimes I may arrive a few minutes late, I may miss a due date or two, but all in all I try my best and give my all.

Confidence plays a key role in success and achieving goals. My confidence as a student always has room to increase. I feel its always a matter of under estimating what myself and what i’m capable of doing achieving as a student. Going forward I try my hardest to put in more studying time so i’m not second guessing or under estimate myself as much.

My self efficiency score was a 3.7. I feel this is relatively correct. Anything I set out to do I usually accomplish either it be extra-curricular or academically.

Blog 3

For me music is a part of my everyday life. I wake up listening to music, go through my day playing music, and typically end my day with some type of music aspect. Me and majority of my peers are into the same style and genres. Music is such a huge aspect to everyone, In my opinion I feel as if you can bond over music and connect to others.

My six list playlist would consist of the following:

Never would’ve made it by Marvin Sapp

Unfortunately my great grandmother passed away when I was five years old. At that age I didn’t really understand the concept of death but I understood that I would never be able to see my grandmother again. One of the many somber song choices was this one. Since then i’ve always associated this song with the presence of my grandmother.

Mamas Hand – Queen Naija

I do not have any children, however my mom did wait nearly 12 years to have another child after me. I look at my younger sister as my own child. Being that our age gap is so significant she does look at me for a lot of things, and as a role model figure.

W.A.Y.S – Jhené Aiko

I typically associate this song with happiness and letting negativity roll off your back. The acronym stands for “why aren’t you smiling.” this song just lets me know I always have a reason to smile even when things aren’t going the way I would prefer them to.

Momma – Yo gotti

Being that I listen to music so much I have songs that motivate me. It really represents how I have motivation to keep going and how whatever your going through doesn’t define you.

The Bigger Picture – Lil Baby

This is another one of my more motivational songs. Being black in these most recent time periods and seeing all these different acts of oppression whether you been through it or not is definitely something that could stem a lot of different emotions. I feel this artist really spoke on a lot of things we face in reality and expressed it really well in his lyrics.

Jhené Aiko – While We’re Young

Being such an over thinker about every little decision, this song encourages me to just live life in the moment. Especially being that i’m young and have time to make trivial mistakes.

Blog 4

Something i’ve always had troubles with is studying. All through high school I’ve always struggles with my studying habits. From not making time to study, not knowing how, or being too distracted to focus on studying, me and studying never really mixed. I vowed to myself to have better studying habits. I started keeping better organization of all my assignments and due dates to keep track of everything I need to accomplish. Secondly, I make sure to prioritize and set aside time dedicated to studying, no cell phone, or any distractions. This test review really helped me understand what I missed and how I got the incorrect answer. Overall, This really did help and I plan to use this test review strategy in the future.

Blog 5

Persuasion is such a huge aspect of daily life. Everyday we face many things trying to persuade you There are many different things you see or experience on a daily basis that try to influence your way of thinking or living. Ads are a common way to get to your audience and make people question what they already know. There are three different types of ads, image A represents a credible source, image B represents whats called an attractive source, and image C represents a not credible source.

Image A is a ad promoting health, and healthcare. This picture represents a credible source because this ad is produced by health care workers. They have the background experience, and the knowledge to have an impact on people. Another key component that makes this ad credible is the use of numbers, they state they have 200 specialties in their facility. This means they have experience in all different fields and can be listed as credible.

Image B is what is known as a attractive source. This image is just a screen shot of an actual Cardi B Pepsi commercial. When brands use celebrities and people with a good reputation, it encourages supporters of the celebrity to use a product or influence their way of thinking. In my opinion using attractive sources is a very smart idea. If I see my favorite celebrity is promoting something that increases my chances of buying the product. Especially being that social media is such a huge influence, attractive sources are way more appealing now.

Lastly, image C is an ad promoting the use of filter cigarettes. Most people know cigarettes aren’t the best option for a healthy life. This ad is from a dentists point of view saying he recommends this certain brand because they are filtered. A lot of things point this ad to being not credible. Usually dentist don’t encourage their patients to smoke being its detrimental to their health. He also doesn’t use any facts or reviews to prove that viceroys is the better choice.

Blog 6

This Ted Talk consisted mainly of me being intrigued and opened to a new perspective, before the ted talk i’ve only noticed how women of color are not liked by the modeling community and if they are of color they’re changed to fit certain beauty standards. For years the modeling world only consisted of white women. That are usually skinny and petite, blonde hair, and blue or green eyes.

Then when the modeling world started accepting women of color or any other race, they’re usually very light in color and still very petite in size. Their hair usually always bone straight, never in the natural state, to match and accommodate the usual caucasian female. What this video has revealed to me is how heavily sexualized females are from all age ranges. When men are being sexualized or put half naked it doesn’t compare to the amount of views and controversy when a woman is.

When men are partially naked ,for example the ad shown at 7:30, the reason behind it was for the attention of women to buy that product. In this case only the attraction of women mattered. Men didn’t look at them selves and get upset because they don’t match beauty standards. The ad went viral not for the product but because of such exposure and shock that they would have when viewing a barely covered man on a public ad.

Whereas, when women are naked with just a nipple covering it doesn’t go viral because it’s so normalized to see naked females and females being sexualized. When ads of women are published it attracts both men and women to view it due to companies sexualizing women’s bodies to the point that men want to see the body and product whereas women see how their body aren’t “perfect” like the models.

Blog 7

Self regulation is the ability to limited capacity to engage our willpower and control our own thinking and emotions. Whereas emotional intelligence or EQ is the ability to understand and manage your emotions in positive ways to release stress. The relationship between these two are significant, the ability of self regulation can help you improve your emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence can vary person to person. To me EQ means how well you can identify your emotions, and how you can manage the outcome of your emotions. I’ve never been one to express my emotions openly. One of the ways I display EQ when I have a lot going on, or I feel my social battery depleting, I tend to count to ten a few times and take deep controlled breaths. I also tend to think about my reactions to certain situations at the end of things.

As you can see from my results I have some areas to improve. A few things I know personally need to work on are, responding instead of reacting to people and I also need to observe how I react to people. I assume me being slightly impulsive has something to do with my reactions to others.

Overall, This was an interesting exercise, especially seeing where I could improve. It was also seeing areas where my score is pretty high.

Blog 8

This reading gave me a lot of insight on issues that stem from sexual relations within marriages. When people think about problems resulting from sex, they typically think STD’s, STI’s, and pregnancy. They don’t really wonder about the mental obstacles and hidden truths behind it. People also don’t realize the seriousness of jealousy.

In relationships emotions are at high stakes especially in married couples. Marriage signifies a union between two individuals. Marriages also tend to cause sexual conflicts. Men have a higher rate of faking their affection to attract females or to keep them, when in reality a lot of woman prefer to not be deceived in hopes of getting sex.

Women tend to be the barrier of emotions in a heterosexual relationship. We tend to be over thinker’s and sometimes even make assumptions. I’ve seen first hand how a women’s emotions and attitudes can sometimes be the deal breaker in a relationship.

Blog 9

Ive learned a handful of things in this class it’s difficult to narrow it down to just three. If I had to only choose three I would choose the importance of emotional intelligence, heuristics, and the influence of persuasion. I choose emotional intelligence because I feel its something everyone overlooks. Emotional intelligence is very important, knowing how and when to react in certain situations is a huge part of social interactions.

Im actually shocked at myself for choosing heuristics, because starting out i didn’t really understand them. After some more reading and looking into different examples it wasn’t hard to understand at all. Heuristics are a huge part of everyday life and everyday interaction. Especially when it comes to solving problems and making decisions.

Lastly I chose persuasion. Persuasion isn’t just narrowed down to social psychology. Persuasion is used in writing, commercials, movies, and so much more. Such as your favorite sneaker brand may give your favorite super star an endorsement to get more publicity and more sales.

Blog 10

Analyzing myself in the beginning of this course and now I feel as if i’ve grew as an individual and as a student. In the beginning I was only taking this course because I needed a psych elective. I didn’t expect this course to interest me as much it did. My expectations for this course were low being that I was just taking the course for a credit. My attitude towards the class has shifted in a positive way. This class has taught me a great amount about human interaction with others and relationships between people. Being a psychology major taking multiple psych classes a lot of this content goes hand in hand with a few of my other classes. I gained many new skills and habits from this class , one I say i’ll carry with me forever is the post test taking review thats talked about in blog 4. This strategy is great for everyday life not just test and quizzes. It’s a great way to reevaluate and analyze situations. Overall i’m glad I took this course and glad I put in the effort to achieve the course objectives.