Friday, July 31, 2020

Admission

Admission While the precise topic of my thesis is undecided, I am particularly interested in Mexico and its development towards a more democratic government. Minoring in Spanish, I have read various pieces of literature from Mexico and have come to respect Mexico and Latin American culture and society. I look forward to conducting this research as it will have a more qualitative tilt than my thesis in psychology, therefore granting an additional understanding of research methodology. As an undergraduate, I was privileged to gain extensive research experience working in a research lab with Dr. Carol. Additionally, my attendance would allow the Political Science department to make a more accurate determination on how well I would fit in to the program than from solely my graduate school application. My interest in attending the University of Rochester in particular, relates to my first semester at OU and the opportunity to take an introductory course in statistics with the now retired Dr. Larry Miller. I continued my statistical training by completing the second graduate statistics course on model comparisons with Dr. Roger Johnson, a Professor in the Psychology Department. The model comparison course was not only the most challenging course I have taken as an undergraduate, but the most important. As the sole undergraduate in the course and only college algebra under my belt, I felt quite intimidated. My inclination towards the varied is not contained to my food habitsâ€"it is a recurring theme throughout my life. I regularly switch from my mom’s house to my dad’s. After spending several weeks studying the EU, its history and present movement towards integration, the class flew to Brussels where we met with officials and proceeded to learn firsthand how the EU functioned. This fall I will embark on writing an additional honors thesis in political science. Many people in this former mining town do not graduate high school and for them college is an idealistic concept, not a reality. Feelings of being trapped in a stagnant environment permeated my mind, and yet I knew I had to graduate high school; I had to get out. Although most of my friends and family did not understand my ambitions, I knew I wanted to make a difference and used their doubt as motivation to press through. Four days after I graduated high school, I joined the U.S. The winter of my seventh grade year, my alcoholic mother entered a psychiatric unit for an attempted suicide. Yet, the rigors of the class compelled me to expand my thinking and learn to overcome any insecurities and deficits in my education. The effort paid off as I earned not only an ‘A’ in the course, but also won the T.O.P.S. award in statistics. This award is given to the top undergraduate student with a demonstrated history of success in statistics. Professor Mitchell obtained a grant to take a class of students to Belgium in order to study the EU. This course revealed a direct correlation between what I had studied in the classroom with the real world. Luckily, I rekindled my love for climbing in high school, and now cannot imagine life without it. My passion for climbing is fueled by the adrenaline that pumps through my veins. I love to play viola; I get a rush communicating without-words to my quartet members in order to convey a musical message. I am at my happiest reading a good book; their complex stories captivate me and I aspire to write a novel of my own. I have a fifteen-year-old sister and a two-year-old brother. It’s a chance to add depth to something that is important to you and tell the admissions committee more about your background or goals. Test scores only tell part of your story, and we want to know more than just how well you work. Take a look at our college essay samplesto get an idea of what colleges are looking for in your essay. Our vision is to be the company that best recognizes and serves the needs of international students around the world. Participating in such a large study from start to finish has validated my interest in academic research as a profession. I come from a small, economically depressed town in Northern Wisconson. I strive to become fluent in Spanish; traveling the world is a dream of mine. Recently, I have discovered that I really like to code; I’m sure in the coming years I will explore things I didn’t know I was interested in. To a casual onlooker, this question may appear inconsequential in its hypothetical nature, but as they say; you are what you eat. I want to make laws that improve my country; all people should have a shot at the American dream. I am passionate about protecting the environment; reducing our effect on global-warming is of the utmost importance to me. I want to help those in need; people still don’t have access to clean water and I want to use my privilege to help change that.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

10 Quick Facts About Social Psychology

10 Quick Facts About Social Psychology More in Theories Social Psychology Behavioral Psychology Cognitive Psychology Developmental Psychology Personality Psychology Biological Psychology Psychosocial Psychology Social psychology is a fascinating topic that has yielded a great deal of research on how people behave in groups.?? In many cases, the results of several famous experiments contradict how you would expect people to act in social situations. 10 Facts About Social Psychology Here are 10 things that you should know about social psychology: The presence of other people can have a powerful impact on behavior. When a number of people witness something such as an accident, the more people that  are present the less likely it is that someone will step forward to help. This is known as the bystander effect.??People will go to great lengths to obey an authority figure. People will go to great, and sometimes dangerous, lengths to obey authority figures. In his famous obedience experiments, psychologist Stanley Milgram found that people would be willing to deliver a potentially fatal electrical shock to another person when ordered to by the experimenters.??The need to conform leads people to go along with the group. Most people will go along with the group, even if they think the group is wrong. In Solomon Aschs conformity experiments, people were asked to judge which was the longest of three lines. When other members of the group picked the wrong line, participants were more likely to choose the same line.??The situation can a lso have a major influence on social behavior. Situational variables can play a major role in our social behavior. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, psychologist Philip Zimbardo discovered that participants would take on the roles given to them to such an extreme that the experiment had to be discontinued after just six days. Those placed in the roles of prison guards began to abuse their power, while those in the role of the prisoners became anxious and stressed.??People tend to look for things that confirm the things they already believe. People typically look for things that confirm their existing beliefs and ignore information that contradicts what they already think. This is known as expectation confirmation. It plays a major role in what is known as confirmation bias, a type of cognitive bias. This tendency to seek confirmation leads us to sometimes avoid information that challenges the way we think about the world.??The way we categorize others helps us make sense of the wor ld, but this also leads to stereotyped views.  When we categorize information about social groups, we tend to exaggerate differences between groups and minimize the differences within groups. This is part of the reason why stereotypes and prejudice exist.Underlying attitudes have a strong influence on social behavior. Our attitudes, or how we evaluate different things including people, ideas, and objects, can be both explicit and implicit. Explicit attitudes are the ones that we form consciously and of which we are fully aware. Implicit attitudes, on the other hand, form and work unconsciously yet still have a powerful influence on our behavior.Our expectations influence how we view others and how we think they should behave. Our perceptions of other people are often based upon things such as expected roles, social norms, and social categorizations. Because we expect people who are in a certain role or part of a particular social group to behave in a particular way, our initial impr essions of a person frequently rely on these mental shortcuts to make fast judgments of how we expect people to behave.We attribute outside forces for our own failures but blame others for their own misfortunes.  When explaining behavior, we tend to attribute our own good fortune to internal factors and negative outcomes to external forces. When it comes to other people, however, we typically attribute their actions to internal characteristics. For example, if we get a bad grade on a paper, its the teachers fault; if a classmate gets a bad grade, its because he didnt study hard enough. This tendency is known as the actor-observer bias.Sometimes it is easier to just go along with the crowd than cause a scene. In groups, people often go along with the majority opinion rather than cause disruption. This phenomenon is known as groupthink and tends to occur more frequently when group members share a great deal in common when the group is under stress, or in the presence of a charismatic leader.?? How the Need to Belong Influences Human Behavior These are just a few of the fascinating forces that influence our social worlds. Dive deeper into the world of social psychology to learn more about the myriad factors that influence our social behavior, perceptions, and interactions.