Ok so this blog is about me not remembering about my blogs the last month! Ughhh…idk why it is so hard for me to remember to post these things. I have been really horrible this semester at writing. It is just that I have papers after papers and the; last thing I want to do every day is write…again. I am not over exaggerating when I say that I had four papers to write last week. Four that is one a day. Then on top of those four papers, my psychology class is nothing but writing. We go in for an hour every class period and write on an assigned topic. I have written more this semester than I have my whole life. I am not trying to say that these aren’t important or useful because they are, it’s just I guess I am stuck in my old habits and can’t seem to start new ones. I have really enjoyed this course; the only thing I regret is not doing these blogs. I know how beneficial they could have been in my research. I loved learning about my topic, and it has inspired me to care about something and know that I can do something about it. I think I will actually vote in this upcoming election, something I thought I would never do. I don’t like to hear all these negative things about all the candidates, so the way I saw it why vote for the lesser of two evils? Now I can see why, because this issue really matters to me now.
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Ok so now I have even a bigger problem!!! I went home this week and took my computer thinking I could do my homework when I got there and no worries right. Wrong! When I got home my screen went out, it was completely white and not a single computer store could fix it so it is a good thing I bought the warranty on my computer. The bad thing I am stuck in Texas, with zero access to a computer. I called everyone I knew and not a single person came home this week. Lucky me, no computer= no internet. And no internet= another week of no blogs. So I decided I was going to hand write my blogs and just turn them in on Tuesday. Well, I got everything done I needed to at home and decided to come back today. So now I am typing up all of my blogs that I hand wrote. I know that they are supposed to be up by Friday night, but I am hoping you will make an exception and accept my late blog posts. I know I could have done them sooner, but I did leave on Wednesday morning so I thought I had plenty of time. It’s just that I promised myself that I would do these things this time and then my computer screen goes out. I guess I just really am bad at this whole thing. You know what’s even worse? My computer will be back in 4-6 weeks and finals are next week and our big paper is also due next week so all of my research and writing has to be done in the computer lab. Luckily I saved my research on a thumb drive the other day; I guess God was looking out for me there.
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Ok so it’s Wednesday and I just got home to a great big happy family, not. Ok so I had to come home because my sister had a mental breakdown. Her husband, Steve is in Iraq again and every time she turns on the news she can’t help but worry herself sick. Well, it is so odd how children can say the littlest thing and hurt an adult so badly. My sister has two kid’s Felicity who is six and Clayton who is two. Well my sister went to pick them up from school and day care when this little boy walks up to my sister and says “you’re the mommy whose husband is shooting the bad guys right?” and my sister responded yes, that’s me and the little boy said to her “well you better hope the bad guys don’t shoot back.” To me I thought it was kind of clever of the little boy and somewhat funny but to my sister it was a nightmare. This was the last little push to make her break and she did. So I left early the next morning to help her. Normally my parents would be just a few minutes away but they just left about a week ago to go back to California because it was my bothers daughter Kiely, first birthday. So I went out there to take the kids to school and to cheer class and to playschool. While my sister stayed in bed all day and cried. I can’t even imagine what she is going through all I can do is be there as much as possible for her.
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The three dimensions of casualties are Internal/ external, stable/ unstable, and controllable/ uncontrollable. The first dimension, internal/ external causes includes all causes internal to that person such as beliefs and personality traits. Where as external causes include things such as social pressure and other aspects of the social situations. The next dimension is the stable/ unstable cause and is both internal and external. They are more so about how you perceive a person actions if it is constantly recurring then it is a stable cause. Although if it seems to alter somewhat it is unstable. The last dimension of casualties is the controllable/ uncontrollable cause in which a person is perceived as one or the other. This can co-exist with any combination of the other dimensions. (1)The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for observers to overestimate the importance of traits and underestimate the importance of situations where they seek explanations of someone's behavior (1). The fundamental attribution error is simply saying that people tend to explain peoples reactions to their personalities rather than according to the situation. This has happened to me before, I was in a tough situation with my boyfriend recently and my friend thought that it was just my personality and really it was all about the situation. In fact I hardly doubt that in a normal circumstance that I would have acted the way I did. Although she still believes that my problems with my boyfriend and I were because of my personality, not the current situation. She even went as far as trying to get me to break up with him. I was appalled because this was none of her business in the first place and she was making a huge fundamental attribution error. This in turn affected my attitude towards her until she realized how wrong she truly was. We were both bitter at each other for awhile, but she realized she was underestimating the whole situation. Cognition, for the purpose of cognitive dissonance, may be thought of as a piece of knowledge. The knowledge may be about an attitude, an emotion, a behavior, or a value (2). A person who has dissonant cognitions is said to be in a state of psychological dissonance, which is known as unpleasant psychological tension (2). This state of tension internal drive like properties that are much like that of hunger and thirst (2). When a person has been deprived of food, they experiences unpleasant tension and is driven to reduce the unpleasant tension that results (2). Although reducing the psychological sate of dissonance is not as simple as eating or drinking (2). Another theory is self perception this theory is about the behaviors between individuals that stresses their references about their attitudes into perceiving their behavior (3). I have experiences cognitive dissonance in my life, all it seems to be is discomfort in your mind. Not like a headache but more so like an unpleasant situation that you can not get out of your head and everyone has experienced this before. I am currently experiencing this with my parents. We just do not agree on my new living arrangements, here. They were honestly hoping that I would hate it here and want to go home, but the truth is I couldn't be happier than I am here. I could use this new information in the situation with my parents by explaining to them how people's attitudes change, and this could also be very helpful in the workplace by understanding that the grumpy old man that comes into your store everyday may just be grumpy because of outside situations. Who knows he could be sweet guy, I need to give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes. Works cited:1) Textbook2) http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/stephens/cdback.html3) http://www.sexualityandu.ca/professionals/older-women-8.aspx

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My hostile sexism score was a 2.18 and my benevolent sexism score is a 2.00 (1). My scores for the hidden racism suggested a moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American (2). I do not believe that I have biases towards either sex. I seem to think fairly in the world, I honestly believe that men and women are equal and should be treated as such. I do not like it when people try to belittle women or when women try to do the same to men. Either way it is not right and that is truly what I believe. I also do not think that I am prejudice towards race; I might have a slight preference towards whites but that goes back to the old saying birds of a feather flock together. I have some black friends as well it just happens that I have more in common with more white people. That does not mean I am raciest. I honestly do think that the color on your skin should not affect you and your surroundings. I think that if a white person and a black person are both going after the same job that the one with most experience or education should get the job and that race should never be the issue. I honestly do not agree with the sexist and racist speeches and other things but I also believe in freedom of speech and that even though they sound ignorant, however has something to say should be allowed to say it. You do not have to listen to the speeches or read the literature in which you do not agree to. That goes along with pornography; you do not have to go out and watch it or go to an adult store where it is easily accessible. It goes along with freedoms of Americans. If you were to outlaw pornography people would just find illegal ways to go around the laws. I do not necessarily agree with porn and I think it can be quite demeaning to both men and women but I still think it is others rights to be able to view what they choose. The difficult problem that comes with what should be outlawed is you want to do what is in the best interest for others in the country, but not everyone knows what is best for everyone. What is best for you may not be what are best for me. (3)I personally can not think of an instance where I was biased or prejudice. I am not saying that I am perfect, but I am saying that I generally do not act in such ways. Although people generally would react in a negative manner if you are acting irrationally. The most difficult aspect of being a minority group member is not always having people around that have the same views as you, and you can be found constantly defending yourself. Although the negative aspects of being the majority are far less strenuous, they include falling into a stereotype and not having a good sense of who you are anymore because you have been wrapped up in your majority group for so long. Works cited:1) http://www.understandingprejudice.org/index.php?section=asi&action=takeSurvey 2) http://www.understandingprejudice.org/iat/racframe.htm 3) Textbook

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