BLOG 10

I think I can honestly say that I did not do very well this semester, I’m well aware of that. I could give a myriad of excuses for this, but it really all comes down to poor mental health and filling my plate to the brim and not being prepared to eat it all. Though I don’t feel I achieved the level of academic success, nor did I learn nearly as much as I was hoping I might, I do believe that this semesters failures have taught me some invaluable lessons about myself, my capabilities, and my priorities.

Though I feel I’ve achieved a basic level of understanding in regard to the learning objective, I can’t say that I met any of my own goals and expectations that I originally set out for myself after doing blog 1. I had a rough time of this semester and I’m certain it will be reflected in my grades… however, I’ve already extended my textbook rentals for another semester because I know that I didn’t give any of my courses my all, nor did I give them the attention I should have and I intend to work on my own to go through the information again and process it in the way that I should have the first time around.

I feel as though I have learned more about this subject than I knew previously and that that has shaped me as a person, but I can’t say that my attitudes about the subject have changed. I would, however, put more actual focus and energy into the subject matter if I had a chance to re-do this semester. Though I know that grades are just arbitrary benchmarks that can be obtained by doing the work, but not necessarily by knowing the information (and I’m sure my grades will be disappointing reflects of the work that I did), I’m not concerned about that because what matters to me is that I know the information. I’m not okay with skating by the way I have, and so if I had to re-do things, I would prioritize actually trying to truly learn and synthesize the information. I understand the reasons I failed to do so this semester, personal and academic, and have already begun to take steps to remedy those issues before next semester begins.

This semester taught me more about why I’m here and why I’m doing this and why this is important than it taught me about actual psychology, and that is my fault, but I feel like those were lessons I needed to learn; and the problems I encountered that led to me learning those lessons were things I needed to learn how to come back from. I’m glad to say that I have.

BLOG 8

From my own personal experience and observations, generally, men tend to upset women by being not enough in certain ways and women tend to upset men by being too much in certain ways. (Keep in mind that this is a VERY generalized STEREOTYPE and in no way represents every situation or person.) From my personal experience, past partners and my current partner have been upsetting to me in their lack of emotional understanding and interest; also, the tendency toward only providing quality time whenever was convenient for them. On the other hand, however, women can be equally upsetting in their intense emotional and temporal needs. Though I don’t agree that I women should be forced to settle for less than what she needs, I also don’t agree that a man should be forced to give more than he can to appease a woman. I’m also not ignorant to the fact that these roles can be reversed; I’ve also seen many men ask more of their emotionally distance female partners than that female could give. Another point of contention lies in opposite gender friends and trust; often both parties are guilty of having questionable friendships with those of the opposite sex, which in turn creates jealousy and tension in the relationship. I also can’t say that I’ve seen more instances of male cheating than female; though, I will say that male cheating is often sexual then emotional, whereas female cheating is often emotional then sexual.

 

BLOG 7

Emotional intelligence is the foundation for self-regulation; if you cannot recognize what certain emotions feel like, where they come from, how to differentiate them from one another, and what to do to remedy them (if need be), there is no way that you can actually act on remedying them or controlling how they present behaviorally. To me, emotional intelligence has been an essential personality trait my entire life because I’ve been through a lifetime of traumas, bad living situations, and confusing emotional reactions (or, at times, severe lack of any emotion at all as a coping mechanism). I knew very early on that learning to recognize and react to my emotions almost immediately was so important to my survival; however, I learned a bit later on that learning how to express those emotions both behaviorally and verbal was key recovering from my childhood and ensuring that the dysfunctions I received from that childhood did not continue to sabotage my life into my adulthood. I also had to learn this because I knew I needed better coping mechanisms to handle the sheer amount of emotion I presented because coping by shutting down altogether only led to more issues than solved. I practice emotional intelligence everyday because I’m still in recovery from my lifetime of being on an extreme emotional roller coaster; I try to ensure that I feel my emotions to their fullest, understand them, address them, communicate them, and deal with them accordingly.

BLOG 6

My overall reaction to the video was that it was very impressive and bold and that it was probably something that helped spur the movement that has created a lot of change in how things are advertised today. I still believe that women are overly sexualized in media and advertisements, but possibly less so than before; I also believe that there has been far more representation of different shapes, sizes, and colors in advertisements with women in them. However, I agree that these advertisements often present an idealized version of women and often the advertisements are for things that support a stereotype of what a woman is supposed to do, wear, and look like.

This ad stuck out to me because of the sheer amount of skin that is shown in the garment and the fact that it is supposed to be worn alone; also, the bandwagon technique of advertising in the comment, they made the item seem like it was some super complimented and sought after item to lead the reader to believe that those traits will be attributed to them if they wear this garment. Why can’t women just have normal clothes without all the straps and excess skin? If that is what makes you feel confident, I won’t judge, but I’d like to see ads for things other than this.

This advertisement stuck out to me because it shows this tool that is geared toward women who have blackheads (nearly all of them!) and perpetuates this idea that women are supposed to have flawless skin completely free of blackheads. You never see ads for “blackhead vacuum cleaners” or pore strips for men because they aren’t expected to meet this unrealistic expectation of flawless skin. Also, the outrageous sale that is advertised here probably enticed lots of people to purchase this product, whose video advertised unrealistic results, because it was supposedly on an amazing short-term sale (even though its probably always on sale and doesn’t work).

This advertisement stuck out to me because, again, it was on the subject of female beauty. False lashes, magnetic ones specifically: because a woman is only pretty if she adorns her eyes with plastic to make her eyelashes look impossibly long. Also, the curled hair and low-cut dress that also barely covers her butt to go with the lashes, because that’s what you wear to get wine with girlfriend in the middle of the day! No girl I know typically dresses up to hang out with a girlfriend unless they’re treating themselves to something fancy, but never to go to a bar in the middle of the day. It’s unrealistic and paint a picture of women as these always (idealistically) gorgeous social creatures, which is rarely ever the case.

Ah, yes, the classic “super fit girl modeling fitness clothing” faux pas. I, personally, don’t have an issue with this one because she probably got fit by putting in a ton of work to get there and, also, workout clothes aren’t only for people who need to get fit, but not to be worn once she gets there. However, a lot of people have taken offense to this type of model being used for this type of ad. My biggest issue here is the fact that “with pockets” is a HUGE selling point for most women to the point that it needs to be advertised simply because women’s clothing never has pockets! Why can we not have pockets?! I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t want pockets! Women aren’t just there to look pretty, we have actually things that we do and sometimes we need pockets and would gladly sacrifice a bit of skin tight fabric for them!

This last ad was astounding to me because it’s a product for women, but they chose a video montage of a woman acting sensually in a bathtub to promote it. I get why sexualizing women in advertisements for men’s products works, not that I agree with it, but I get it; how does sexualizing women in a product for women make your sales any better? Also, can we just stop over-sexualizing women, please? No women sits in a bubble bath alone with romantic lighting and sensually touches her face, not one! (I mean, unless you’re into that, then I apologize for generalizing, but for the most part, women don’t have time for all that!)

BLOG 5

I find this ad to be credible because it is a well known service that I have been repeatedly exposed to and have heard positive endorsements of from both people in my immediate circles and from influencers that I follow on the internet. Therefore, I’d have to say that the service has been confirmed as trustworthy by multiple sources and they clearly have enough business coming in to afford so much advertising (considering how often I see it); one can only assume that that money has come from repeat business from loyal customers.

I find this to be a non-credible ad because this is a brand I have never seen before, though it’s an idea that I have seen over and over again from random brands, and it has a very small following, thus very few reviews, which does not indicate, to me, trustworthiness. Also, the third most popular reaction on the post being an angry face does not indicate good things to me. So, the idea that I would purchase a stolen idea product from a company with few reviews, no true followers, and a name I have never seen before is a stretch.

This ad is attractive because, like the first, I see it all the time and it advertises good looking products at to-good-to-be-true prices. This would be attractive to anyone. Though, as most to-good-to-be-true things turn out to be, I have fallen for this ad (another testament to its attractiveness) and it did not deliver the same quality of products that the pictures led me to believe. However, I have seen many endorsements for this company via influencers online, YouTube especially, and they all agree that it is trustworthy in the fact that you will receive your items, but that you should shop with care because, again, the items often do not come as expected. So, the combination of exposure, endorsements, having gotten me to buy, and the amazing claims is makes make it a very attractive ad.

BLOG 4

This process really clarified for me the errors I had made in knowledge processing, study, and test-taking. By reviewing the questions that I got wrong and finding the answers, initially, in my notes to see if I even took down the information (in which case the error would be in studying because I didn’t not review the material well enough); if it was not in my notes (then the error would be in knowledge process because I did not think enough of it to write it down) then I went to the textbook to find the answers and added it to my notes. If I reviewed the question and recalled the information from the textbook and found it in my notes, the error was obviously in my test-taking; having taken several exams in the same day (which was not a good idea on my part), my brain was not at its full-potential. Other errors could also stem from having been studying for several exams within interconnected sub-fields of psychology causing confusion in separating the subject matter or terms and definition or ideologies, etc.

I think, from now on, I should designate a day for each exam so that I can end the culmination of my studying for all classes with a day exclusively for a final review of the materials contained within the exam I will be taking that day, only for that specific class.

BLOG 2

I believe that I am a pretty productive student, all things considered. I’ve always enjoyed learning, I’m aware of how I learn best, I’m working on better time management, and I try to actually digest the information that is given to me in each class. I would say that, overall, I’m a good student. As far as how I learn, I know that I work much better on my own when I have a handful of different explanations of the materials that I can weave together to make it more palatable to my sense of understanding on the subject.

I would say that my level of confidence as a student has wavered a lot! In elementary school I was overly confident about everything because I excelled; in middle school I began to hit disheartening road blocks in math; in high school I continued to fall behind in math and encountered my act nemesis, chemistry, for the first time. However, when I got into college, I was met with a different kind of learning, and an entirely different life really. I found that I struggled with lectures because the majority of them weren’t relevant to the information that I needed to learn and I felt that attending lectures that didn’t explain  much and then spending extra time teaching it to myself was highly inefficient. So, to remedy, I tried online classes to cut out the middle man and I found that this worked wonders for me! However, I still had very low confidence about any potential majors and career paths so it affected my classwork heavily; another factor was the fact that general education is tedious and I wasn’t interested in any of those classes. Since changing to online courses and completing all of my general education (and actually nailing down a major), my confidence has increased, but it could still use some work.

I think my self-efficacy results reflect all of that. I value my ability to learning and my confidence on the subject is steadily increasing. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the results. I think something that helped my confidence was coming back to college after taking a year off to take care of my mother through her illness. I wasn’t sure whether or not I would actually be able to finish college during that time and finally completing my Associates and getting myself set to attend ODU was a large accomplishment that propelled my confidence forward by a lot. I’m not certain my results would have looking nearly that good had I taken this a year ago. I feel I’ve come a long way.

BLOG 1

The course objectives, to me, all center around the same idea of understanding and connecting with people by exploring the current pool of research-based knowledge on how people understand and connect with each other. Unless you live completely isolated up on a mountain somewhere, there is absolutely no way that the information provided within this course could not be relevant to you because we are all social beings to some extent. However, for me personally, I believe that objectives 2, 3, and 5- understanding perception, attitudes, and relationships- are the most relevant to me due to the fact that they are all applicable to any social interaction and that objective 1- research- is not within my field of interests. As for objective 4- discrimination, I wouldn’t so much say that it is not applicable to me because discrimination is a real and prevalent issue, but I would say that it is separate from 2, 3, and 5 because it does not apply to all social interactions that I may have; I would say that it is relevant, but not 100% of the time.

However, as far as relevance to my future career, objective 4 is central to my goals seeing as I intend to pursue a career in the mental health field as it pertains to the elderly- a group that is often discriminated against and forgotten by most of society. Therefore, through this class I hope to gain knowledge that is applicable to not only my daily social interactions, but also to the understanding and combatting of ageism and discrimination of the elderly. I should also note that, just because objective 1 isn’t in my immediate interests, I do recognize the importance of having a solid understanding of the way that research is analyzed and executed because it will be important to me in exploring the research of others and if I ever find myself conducting my own research in the distant future.

In order to complete these objective to the best of my ability, I have set up a durable binder with tab dividers for each section within the course so that I have a sturdy place to organize all of my notes and relevant course materials to aid myself not only in my studies for this course but for future reference in my studies through my final degree and onward into my career. I have a note-taking and reviewing system that works well to aid me in digesting the information now, but as time goes on it is only natural to forget things; by creating my own reference materials, I am setting myself up to be able to continue to review and expand on my knowledge as a life-long learner.