Archives: November 2016

Reflection Journal #11

This is it! The final blog entry. I cannot believe that this is the last one. It is a bittersweet feeling. I have enjoyed the concepts that have been taught in this class, as some of the topics that were discussed have really given me a broader perspective on group dynamics and leadership. Here’s my top three concepts that will be useful in my future career in business, were enjoyable to learn about, and were really intriguing.

  1. Prisoner’s Dilemma Game
    • This social interaction concept between two or more individuals was really interesting to learn and discuss about. The concept is used in not only psychology, but economics and politics as well; it is very versatile in its conceptual use. In the example below, it is obvious that it would be of the best interest for both participants to cooperate, as this equally gives them the least amount of time they would have to serve in jail. However, due to our selfish tendencies we have as humans, it would be of better interest for one of the prisoners to confess and the other to stay silent, and then one of the prisoners go free. This great example of game theory was perfectly executed in the game we viewed in class, Golden Balls, where one of the participants backed the other in a corner and came outright with his stance, no matter what the other had thought. This would be useful to me if I ever decided to commit a crime and have a partner during this crime. It would also be useful if I have a career in economics or politics. This concept is just a part of the conflict chapter that I thought was very interesting, as it requires a lot of cooperation and mutual trust.
    • prisoners-dilemma-graph
  2. Bystander Effect
    • The rape and murder of Kitty Genovese was the perfect, and rather morbid, example of the bystander effect. While this woman was being attacked and raped in her own home and there were witnesses around, most bystanders took no action. Instead, they thought someone else would take action, as they did not want to get involved. While this attack went on for many hours, not a single soul out of the 38 witnesses said a thing. Because the witnesses thought that there were others that were capable of helping in the situation, they did not act. If it had just been a lone bystander, he or she would have been more likely to help as a single person feels like they had a duty to act accordingly. I’ve even seen this countless times before. The situation wasn’t as brutal as the Kitty Genovese case, but it was when a student was asking for help on their homework and no one helped that student due to the feeling that someone else might help them. This is just another example of this effect. Social influence at its finest. Another time that I have seen through this was when I witnessed a carjacking at Phipps Plaza near Lenox Mall. There were plenty of witnesses to the carjacking, but no one called the police due to the fact that the assailant had a lethal weapon. It isn’t necessarily something that can contribute to my success in the business world, but it is still a useful concept to touch on.
    • bystandereffect
  3. Babble Effect
    • I feel like this one pertains to me the most. As an avid talker, I can relate to this one hundred percent. This is the tendency for individuals who talk more have a higher chance to emerge as leaders in a group setting as opposed to those who do not talk as much. I have seen this firsthand in my classes that have group projects, particularly last semester in my Honors Principles of Microeconomics class. We had a group project report on a business that had to be a minimum of 20 pages. At the beginning of the semester, I was nominated as our group’s project leader due to my copious amount of ideas I spewed out at our first group meeting. This led to me doing the majority of the work as far as drafting and editing goes. That class taught me that quantity matters more than quality through my immense amount of discussion and the fact that I drafter 15 of the 20 pages single-handedly. This would be the most useful moving forward as I now know that I can always talk a lot and move up in leadership capability within a group. This would be great during the brainstorming stage on a marketing or business team, as the more you talk, the more you contribute, according to the babble effect.
    • perfect-world-clip-art-communications-zra3oe-clipart

All of these psychological theories and effects I have learned throughout this course on group dynamics has changed my perspective, as the theories discussed were intriguing, interesting, and outright fun to learn about. Some of the theories will also be useful in my prospective future career and leadership position in the business world.

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Reflection Journal #10

Conflict is everywhere. Conflict is inevitable. To approach conflict that might arise from any given situation, I tend to be individualistic about the process. By that, I mean that I am pro-self and only concerned about my own outcomes, unless it is conflict with someone with whom I love or am related to. Even though this may seem selfish, it is who I am. In other situations, however, I am more altruistic in a sense that I want to help others who are in need. For example, if I got into an argument with someone who really relied on me and needed my help, I would still help them out regardless of my emotions or feelings towards them because I want to help others succeed.

To negotiate and handle conflict, I come by a hard bargain. I would take extreme positions and make tiny adjustments here and there to compromise with another. This will ensure that I would still benefit from whatever the conflict might entail, even if I have to make slight changes to my stance. The book describes that these type of people are ‘take it or leave it’ or ‘this is my final offer’ type people, and I can resonate directly to that. This is basically a technique that directly relates to entrapment, kind of like the man on the Golden Balls episode, who came right out and stated his stance and thoughts without hesitation, even though he received backlash from others. Even though I do drive a hard bargain, it is still a compromising position on conflict instead of a fighter. I do tend to get heated sometimes and can shift my stance from compromising to fighting, but only in extreme circumstances in which I am passionate about. It’s my way or the highway.

Image result for my way or the highway

I know this may seem selfish, but I have certain reasoning on why I am this way. Throughout my experiences in group settings, I usually sit through and listen to everyone’s stances on an issue before rendering a final thought myself. Most may not know it, but I do take others’ thoughts into consideration instead of just thinking of ways to counter-argue. In my thought process, once I think all these things through, I render a stance that has qualities of everyone’s positions even if the stance is different from others, unless they are just outright silly and irrelevant. It may seem I am playing devil’s advocate by doing this, but I am doing it for the good of the group. Offering a realist and pessimist view on things will ensure that we keep things real and not aim for ideal standards that are not plausible. For example, the Disney trip that our cohort tried to plan was something that was ideal, but not in reach with our cohort’s current state. At the meetings, I would keep things real and mention things that some didn’t want to hear, like the plausibility of us actually learning anything at Disney, or the fact that we would spend most of our time driving and not learning leadership skills. With these things in mind, it offered our cohort issues that we easily skimmed over, due to the fact that we aimed so high for something that was so expensive. I promise, when I am being pessimistic or realistic, I am not doing it to harm anyone’s feelings. I am offering my realist stance to provide ideas that are within reach.

This way of approaching conflict might have received some backlash in my previous experience in group settings, and it might have even broken some friendships. However, it has been useful to me in the majority of these settings. If I were to change the way I might deliver my realist view; one caveat to change would be my delivery. I seem to come off as bold and harsh, and that would be one thing I would like to fix, as it would help me not come off as someone who doesn’t care about others’ feelings.

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Reflection Journal #8

For my infographics, I decided to look up designs that have a pathway involved in the layout, as our research on the social isolation of youth and its attribution to adulthood is a continuing cyclical pathway. “The Carbon Budget” design is a good design as it discusses the importance of carbon and how it affects our warming patterns, and our group could find a template based off of this design as we want to have a pathway example moving through our infographic. This depiction represents a timeline as well. It is also very simplified as far as content, as it has little snippets of information at each point in the path. I like how the end of the pathway opens it up as a call for action, which is also something we want to discuss in our presentation. One of our sources is a source that talks about the importance of therapy and behavioral research to prevent inadequate adult behavior in group settings as a result of childhood social isolation; and I believe that a path design would be the best way to go for our project and presentation. This infographic is not only good on design alone, but the information presented on the actual piece seems to be accurate, and the image also has its sources listed in the paragraph at the top before the infographic is actually presented. Our infographic doesn’t necessarily have to encompass the problems of carbon usage, but this example still serves as a good design due to the way it is structured and the consistency of accurate content.

(Click on the picture to be forwarded to the link of the source)

What I see as a bad infographic is one that has inaccurate information. This is seen directly in the infographic I selected below. This image is discussing the way baby boomers describe themselves, and the information makes it seem to the reader that there was a sample size of 243%, even though the max it can be is 100%. Also, the design is flawed as the 61% ‘willing to learn’ category looks larger than the 78% ‘people-savvy’ category on the image of the person. If they had the information add up to 243%, those who made this infographic should have stated that the people that were researched could choose more than one choice, thus the reason why the percentages add up to 243%, instead of just leaving it as is. Apparently, this infographic had been used to visualize the results of a survey. Instead of this depiction, there should have just been multiple charts, as that would have been a better way to utilize the data. I mean, come on, the title of ‘How Baby Boomers Describe Themselves’ isn’t even centered; and why is ‘Baby Boomers’ bolded? This stylized method of representing this data visually is just an eyesore. is In addition to that, the little side notes under the ‘tech-savvy’ and the ‘creative’ just seem sporadically placed just doesn’t look right when looking at this image. I deemed this to be a bad infographic due to the inaccurate information, poor design flaws, impotent style, and senseless simplicity.

infographic-9.jpg

(Click on the picture to be forwarded to the link of the source)

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