ATA5:
Assignment five was all about random acts of kindness. We were to take the week and do five kind acts for strangers. We were then described and discuss those actions, including what prompted us to do the act of kindness, the other party’s reaction, as well as our own inner thoughts about it. I can connect this assignment to everything I learned about empathy last semester in my introductory human services classes. I think that often when I am inclined to be kind to someone, it’s because I’m empathetic to them as a person. Without knowing a thing about the person I let in front of me at the grocery store, they may have been in a hurry, and even if they weren’t, I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to be stuck behind someone with a ton of things when all you’re trying to get is some diapers or some cough medicine for your child. Was that this person’s scenario? I don’t know, but it cost me nothing to let them go ahead so I did. I learned that my self-esteem rises with the more acts of kindness I do.
This assignment was personally relevant for me because I am always looking for ways to be kind to others. It makes me feel good, it makes them feel good, so honestly, it’s a win-win situation for me. With everything awful that’s going on in the world, kindness is something we desperately need. I want to be part of that movement.
ATA4:
Assignment 4 was to take a ‘Styles of Love’ questionnaire and then compare our scores to the average for our gender in 5 different categories. We were then to discuss whether we agreed with our scores and state why or why not. I learned a lot about myself from this assignment, but the most important take away in my opinion would be to look for and understand a deeper meaning behind some of my surface behaviors or actions. For example, in the category of Mania, I never really connected physical reactions to fighting with my partner to feelings of insecurity in our relationship but reflecting on those moments made me realize that’s exactly what it was. We’ve since then learned better communication skills and feelings like these are almost nonexistent but do still creep in from time to time.
In reflecting on this assignment, I think back to my Interpersonal Communications class last semester, because I feel most of these categories are at least somewhat related to communication. Communication is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of any relationship. As I mentioned in my original assignment, I think the work my partner and I have put into our communication with each other has helped us become nonmanipulative and it has also helped with the Mania aspect I was experiencing. Now if I face uncertainty, I am comfortable discussing that with my partner, where we can work on a resolution instead of me just remaining uncertain. I’ve included a picture of me and my partner, from when we got engaged several years ago. We have worked on ourselves and our relationship and have come a long way with communication and love. Without him, my results to this assignment could have very well been different. He is a part of who I am.
ATA3: (This was the one I opted out of)
ATA2:
I really enjoyed this assignment which was to look at a group of photos representative to who I am as a person and self-analyze. I was happy to look back on my life and the people who have influenced me. I’m not sure if it was the concrete evidence in front of me, or actually taking the time to reflect on it, but it was the first time I’d felt gratitude that strong in a while. Practicing gratitude had been suggested to me as part of my recovery from alcoholism, and it always felt kind of forced and silly for me, but this activity made me realize why people do it. My heart felt so full after reflecting on these important moments in my life, and I’m grateful for that.
I took an interpersonal relations class last semester, and one of the studies we read about involved how people presented and viewed themselves on social media. The concept of the study was that people tend to put their best photos on social media, therefore, when people viewed their own social media account, their self-esteem rose, because they were viewing the best versions of themselves. I felt the effects of this while doing this assignment and it made me understand why people will often reminisce with old photos of good times. I love that I can look at those pictures and recall the happy feelings I had surrounding those moments.
ATA1:
From the first assignment, I learned that the shortcuts our brains take to quickly process information are called heuristics. The four types we discussed were representativeness, status quo, availability, and anchoring and adjustment. I learned that heuristics can be helpful in aiding us to make quick decisions while sorting through a lot of cognitive data. I think heuristics are closely related to biases, because often, your brain is making a biased decision based on a lack of information. My introduction to human services class last semester touched a little on biases, and how important it is in the profession to make sure we are aware of our own biases and how they might be damaging to our clients. It is important to keep biases in check, and I am always self-assessing to do so. I think just like biases, people need to check their heuristics as well, to make sure they have accurate information for important issues.
This assignment applied to my life in many ways. The example that stuck out the most from the textbook was the example of eating less when there’s less food on your plate. It makes me think back to my childhood, when my mother was in the throes of another diet. She would make everyone’s dinner on a regular plate, but she would make hers on a small plate. She told me it was to trick her brain into thinking she had eaten a whole plate of food when she had actually eaten less than she might have otherwise. I would say that it worked better than Slim-fast. I also use all of these heuristics one way or another, consciously or subconsciously. Shopping is the best example, because I end up using one or multiple heuristics to decide on the best item. I certainly don’t have time to research ketchup brands, so I go with Heinz because that’s what I grew up with (status quo) and I just saw a commercial for it (availability), it has a decent price compared to the other brands (anchoring and adjustment) and there’s something about that familiar label that just says “ketchup” (representativeness).
I chose this picture from an old episode of the Simpsons because it goes along with my ketchup metaphor above.
