Life is what you make of it.

Problem-Solution Paper:

I am not a hundred percent satisfied with his “what to do about it” section, however I do really like the “repair” section of chapter 7, starting on page 212. He gives us three ways to repair something. One is to make a damaged object seem just like new. Two is improving operation, and three is altering it altogether. In other words he says that “these three strategies consist of restoration, remediation, and configuration.”(212) I agree with him when he states that all repair strategies depend on an initial judgement that whats broken can indeed be fixed. He also says that “reconfiguration is the most socially engaging……it proves the most effective in renewing cooperation.” (220  

Repairing 

• reconfiguration: making new, more socially accepted, reflection/metacognition 

We want to do a piece that we both agree is debatable. We want to talk openly about this topic and then we will vier off on our own opinions on the debatable topic. We have not yet picked what we want to debate yet so therefore we are unable to find a proper model. Our genre is a informative video so what we are thinking of using is the website prezi. With this we will add a youtube video of people debating our topic. 

We are pondering the topic of underage drinking and chico’s problem with partying and over use of alcohol. We think it would be interesting to look at other school and then solutions to this problem. these are some videos that we could possibly use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC8mgc1-7V0

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/2.8506/chico-state-s-party-school-reputation-a-long-involved-history-1.994136#.T5WjH5hJA20

http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/cs/spring_01/features/2.under.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfGHpOWSIqs

Topics or modes that would be interesting..

• the education system, why is it a socially accepted to have education and why is it that as the years go on we have to have proof of extended educations such as phds and masters programs. 
• Marketing system and media, how does something like cigarettes or something naturally bad for you, appeal to people by the media. The influences media has and how it affects society.
• Elections, the unethical ways that candidates seek for voters.

I really don’t know exactly what i would want to write and make public about. i still need time to think about it. 

Feingold, Alan. “Gender Differences in Personality.” Data.Psych.Udel.Edu. Psychological Association, 1994. Web. 26 Mar. 2012.http://data.psych.udel.edu/abelcher/Shared%20Documents/2%20Personality,%20Emotion,%20and%20Individual%20Differences%20(17)/Feingold,%201994.pdf

This article interested me because now that I have done a survey surrounding gender differences this gives a light into if there is a difference in personality not just views. I was very intrigued by this concept so I looked it up in Google scholars and that is where I found this pdf file.

This article discusses analyses done on gender differences in personality. They tested men and women on there personality in literature and inventories. The study was done between the years of 1940-1992. They looked into the male psyche first and “found that males were more assertive and had slightly higher self esteems then women.” Females were higher than males in “extraversion, anxiety, trust, and especially tender-mindedness.” They did not find any differences in social anxiety, impulsiveness, activity, and ideas. They ultimately found that there are significant gender differences generally constant in ages, “data collection”, education levels, and nations.

I found this very interesting. This proves that there are many differences in men and women and personality is a big one. Also that if we are so different then we cant treat each other exactly the same, because we are not the same. We have to treat each other to our needs and personality not by our gender type. This reflects back on another of my research logs that dealt with the golden rule and treating others, as you would want to be treated. This article also proves that the rule does not work in that we need to treat others differently based on their personality and quality.

This weeks research log i decided to do my own primary research and make a survey. It contains 10 questions. The topic I have chosen is Gender inequalities. I am trying to observe and see how people answer to questions about gender differences, and if having those differences causes any stunt in communication. Communication with different genders are hard for many people and i want to see and calculate how comfortable they would be with the opposite sex. 

I have received 56 surveys back and i am hoping to receive a few dozen more. After collecting all of the surveys i will view my findings and repost what i learn from peoples answers. I am asking all kinds of people, different races, ages, and of course genders.

The free market economies are based in capitalism and it works through a market system that everyone in a follows, this in my opinion would cause cooperation and prompt it. However there is a lot of individuality and personal profit in capitalism. This is the only part that confuses me. Sennett doesn’t mention the individual profit made by people investing and not necessarily working with others. I can’t really think of a personal example that would have to do with this subject. The only thing i can think about is working at a sandwich shop by my house and the team bonding skills we had to do to work better together.

I am researching problems in communication and how they effect our communication skills. Specifically i want to delve into Gender roles and the ideal of inequality of gender. Basically how gender differences causes a gap for communication. I also want to research the origins of this gap and what we can do to overcome this. I have already found through my research tons of problems that are bing faced when trying to have a dialogue. I have also found that sympathy and empathy play huge roles in the communication playing field.  I am still researching my main points and i haven’t found anything epically substantial. 

Victoria, Jane. “Hidden Barriers to Communication | World of Psychology.” Psych Central.com. 11 Mar. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/03/08/hidden-barriers-to-communication/>.

 Barriers in Communication.

The article I have chosen presents the idea of why people have trouble communicating. There are many hidden barriers to our communication process. The author of the article first gives the analogy of how artist are very in depth when they look and create a painting, they look at all aspects of their piece. She claims that if we had the same mind set as an artist we would all communicate better. She says “like an artist we need to learn to focus and really pay attention.” If we pay attention and learn from people around us we can breach these barriers and communicate.

The first step she gives is to have any real kind of dialogue with a person is to “be willing to admit that [we] are limited” in our perspectives.  We don’t know everything and once we accept this and are willing to listen to the person’s version of the topic we have already moved in a positive step towards communication.

One huge barrier in communication is emotions. Emotional hurts cloud ones ability to look at a subject clearly and objectively. The second step she gives is to “discover our strengths.” Recognizing the strengths that you have will change the way you look at the world around you. Understanding the variety of strengths in people can help people understand different worldviews and appreciation of differing identities.

She gives the obvious differences in gender, culture, and religion. These are all main barriers in our communication. However with the first two steps she listed all three of these barriers can be overcome. She ends the article by saying that “when we are able to respect and understand one another’s perspective” we can begin a real dialogue and communicate with one another.

I really liked this article because it gave a lot of insight into the differences people have. It never brought up the idea of sympathy and empathy however I think she was basically saying the same thing. The barriers that we have in communication really fascinate me. I find it interesting that people have such difficulty in understanding one another. This article helped a lot to clear up why we have such difficulty.

Rituals and there meaning.

The actual definition of ritual is an established or prescribed procedure for religious or other rite. I think that Sennett is using ritual not as a religious aspect. He takes it as rituals in life as a set of sequences. Everyone has some sort of structure in there life, something that they do every day. Things that are done almost subconsciously. These are the things that Sennett is implying as ritual behavior. For example this class room, we all come at the same time, three times a week, and to the same place. Upon arriving we sit in the seats we prefer which is usually the ones that we have assigned for ourselves. Then we start class. This sequence of events is a ritual. Another example in business meetings there is a set of rituals that make the flow of the meeting better. They may start by introducing them selves, introducing the reason of being there and the purpose of there coming together. The rituals we form in our life help us have structure and control. We may not know it but we all have them, either its our sequence of getting ready for bed, or the holidays we celebrate the same way every year. 

Bennet, Milton. “Over Coming the Golden Rule: Sympathy and Empathy”. New brunswick, NJ: Transactions Books, 1979. http://www.metfamily.org/agog/img/pdf/2011/Articles/Overcoming_Golden_Rule.pdf

This research log is a scholarly PDF file. It is about Sympathy and Empathy. The golden rule that this article speaks of is to “treat others as we would like to be treated”. The author Milton Bennet explains that this rule is what will bring international peace and intercultural understanding. He also says that the golden rule implies that everyone wants to be treated exactly the same, in that all people are exactly the same. If this is true then the golden rule is a fallacy, because everyone is individually different.

He then talks about how “the golden rule is a poor guide to communication.” On a philosophical level, he considers the assumption of similarity and its relationship to single realities. The communication idea he correlates with this is sympathy. Another thing in the philosophical level is the contrasting notion of assuming differences and its relationship to multiple realities. The communication idea linked to this is empathy.  

With big emphasis he then explains the ideas of “the melting pot” and “ethnocentrism”. The melting pot concept is a course of concern to minorities in our country. Its also been thought my many that “the fusion of ethnic differences in America would lead to a great civilization of supermen.” However as the mainstream culture developed, the original idea of the melting pot changed to the ideal of assimilation and Americanization. The idea of ethnocentrism is the “tendency to see our own culture as the center of the universe affects all intercultural communication, including interethnic relations.”

Sympathy has advantages and disadvantages. He list advantages of sympathy. This includes, “Its easy”, “its credible”, “often accurate”, and its “comforting”. The disadvantages of sympathy are “its insensitive to differences”, “can be patronizing”, “breeds defensiveness”, and it “assumes similarities”. Bennet is not a huge fan of sympathy and doesn’t think it works. He does however like empathy. He talks about the steps in developing empathy by assuming differences, knowing yourself, suspending yourself, allowing imagination, reestablishing yourself, and then implementing it. He then changes the Golden rule into what he believes is a better motto to live by. The Platinum Rule: “do unto others as they themselves would have done unto them.”

I chose this article because I was really interested in the way Sennett had described sympathy and empathy in his book. I wanted to know what other people thought and if one was better than the other. I really like how Bennet in this article explains how to attain both and what can be an advantage or disadvantage of being sympathetic with someone. I for the most part agree with Bennet.