You will be prompted, weekly, for various items to archive. Please refer to the Google Docs document in the e-Portfolio folder in Bb, which will provide tips on how to store and organize these artifacts. By the time this component of your eP is due, you will have a rich repository from which to draw. You will choose the top five artifacts that you believe best represent your learning experience in this course. Each item should contain a representative picture and a summary for why it was selected, including why it is representative of your learning experience.
Artifact 3
The artifact that most engaged me was the Module 12 archive on Chapter 10 of the textbook. This artifact studied aggression. I liked this archived item the most because to me, aggression is an interesting subject and I enjoyed reading about it in the textbook. I also enjoyed evaluating my personal interpretations of hypothetical events that the survey brought forth. It allowed me to learn more about myself.
From the activity I learned more about types of aggression. These included “harm to living versus nonliving things, accident versus intention, actual damage versus no physical damage, self-defense, duty or job-responsibility, instinctual behavior, survival, acts involving animals other than humans, covert acts, inaction, self-injury, and killing for sport.”
This artifact expanded my knowledge on the associated topic because I further enhanced my knowledge on theories of aggression. For example, how the drive theories of aggression propose that external conditions, especially ones that create frustration-arouse a strong motive to harm others. Another thing I found fascinating was the frustration aggression hypothesis. Which basically states that anything that prevents us from reaching our goals and causes frustration leads to the arousal of a drive whose primary goal is to harm things.
I chose this visual image because it represents aggression to me. It is relevant to what I wrote because it sums up in a facial expression what aggression looks like on a human face.
http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/antisocial-behavior/ aggression
Artifact 2
The artifact that most engaged me was the artifact from module 7. This artifact engaged me because I enjoyed learning about cognitive dissonance and taking the assessments. The assessments allowed me to think more deeply about my life, my behaviors, and my interactions with others. I learned where in my life it would be possible for me to experience dissonance and that throughout the survey, I did not feel dissonance.
The activity expanded my knowledge of myself and how cognitive dissonance can occur. It did this by providing two types of assessments. Attitude assessments and behavioral assessments. Attitude assessments provided statements like “wearing a seatbelt significantly reduces the chance of suffering a serious injury in a car accident.” And “recycling is a great way to protect the environment.” Then after scoring our answers to those, the assessment attempts to create dissonance by measuring our behavior. Putting our money where our mouth is so to speak. It did this by providing questions like “I regularly use a seatbelt to prevent my chances of suffering major injuries.” And “I habitually recycle to protect the environment.”
The reason I made this diagram is because I feel it represents the circuit I talked about. If one of these things is blocked or does not flow with the others, then dissonance occurs. I believe we often feel the need to reduce the inconsistency and restore balance between attitudes and behavior because life is like a circuit. Actions, attitudes, beliefs, and the self all operate most efficiently when the circuit is consistent and nothing encounters resistance. An opposing belief that is not congruent with an action acts like a disruptor in this circuit. Any of these four things not agreeing with each other results in a broken circuit aka dissonance. To restore balance, people will alter any of these things to try to get the circuit flowing freely again.
Artifact 1
This video brought this concept to life by providing so many examples of things people perceive to be riskier than they are just because the media portrays them frequently.
The artifact that most engaged me was the artifact from module 4 based on chapter 2 of our textbook. The reason I liked this artifact most was because I am interested in learning about mental heuristics. Especially the availability heuristic and how it presents itself in my day to day life.
What I learned from the activity was that crime isn’t exploding even though after watching the news it may feel like it is. America gets its statistics from the FBI and surveys. Additionally, Justice Department numbers do not show that crime is going up. The crime numbers usually go up because the population goes up as well. Although the media usually never mentions that. Surveys showed that the oldest in the population are the most fearful. One man said “they have become hostages in their own home”, referring to the elderly.
The host explains one reason behind the fear is familiarity. Dioxin in the soils, apples banned, Perrier with benzene in it, chicken contaminated with pesticides, flying planes with inadequate maintenance, caffeine being bad for you. These are all some of the overhyped fears that outline the prevalence of the availability heuristic. Stairs kill more people in one year than contaminated Tylenol does. Yet, the video explains that much more money is spent on sealing Tylenol caps to eliminate a perceived risk.
The role the media plays in representative and availability heuristics is that they capitalize on fear for viewers. They show things that may appear to be something, but are not necessarily attributed to it. For the same reason people rubber-neck when passing car crashes, viewers want to look when viewing “life crashes”. If the news was always boring, no one would watch it, ratings would go down, and the show would get cancelled.
When discussing the lead in Aspen, one doctor said “sometimes we have to protect ourselves from the government.” The mayor of Aspen said the citizens were hostages of the EPA. I worry that our government of today is doing what this video said not to do. Forcing vaccinations. Just as one mother in the video said, “why is the government having more control over my kids than I do?”. Is coronavirus overhyped? There is a great chance that it might be.
The activity expanded my knowledge on the associated topic by allowing me to go more in depth into all of the heuristics, and really nail down what each of them means. It further showed me how the representativeness heuristic judges by resemblance. The availability heuristic shows how if you can recall many instances, they must happen more often than others, yet this is not true. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic shows how where you begin on an estimate makes a difference. Lastly, the status quo heuristic , which outlines how people tend to like the current way things are as opposed to something new and different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmiFShBQDIs
A reference as to why I chose my visual image was because this image should represent a catharsis after watching the video and learning about heuristics. Also, provide stress relief in knowing that things are not as bad as they seem. It indicates the differences in which the same people with the same data can be presented with two different images. It indicates how one thing can be perceived 2 different ways. This photo illustrates both the availability heuristic and the representativeness heuristic.
Works Cited
YouTube. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmiFShB
QDIs