Chapter 12. Q2

According to the book attributions are, “an interference made about the causes of another’s behavior”. There are two kinds of attributions that can be made about another person’s behavior. The first is internal which is related to the other person’s personality and the second is external which is regarding that person’s circumstance. Internal attributions, for example, get on their personality which can usually lead to name calling. (She’s stuipid… Name calling: Idiot). External, on the other hand, is a way to avoid blame and avoid giving credit where credit is due. (You got that job because you graduated from a good high school)

False attributions are interferences made about another person which are not true. This can lead to many problems because you are beginning to call names or wrongly accuse someone they didn’t do anything wrong. There have been times where I have made false attributions about another person when I shouldn’t have. I feel like this happens a lot when my boyfriend and I are arguing. He will do something that bugs me and instead of thinking of all possible situations about why he could be doing that I immediately make an internal attribution about him like “he’s stupid”, “he’s lazy”, etc. This makes our arguments a lot worse than they already were because I really don’t know what the situation was or what was going on. This has caused me to not judge so quickly and step back to think about everything before doing so.

There have been times where I have made an accurate attribution that has actually helped me to be more aware of the situation I was in. I used to have this friend and at first I thought she was the greatest. We would spend every waking moment together and I would tell her all my secrets. I then started to notice some actions that she was making that didn’t seem right to me. From that point I started to hold back information from her and not spend too much time together. After doing that I came to find out that she was talking to my ex boyfriend behind my back. Because I made that attribution about her and the behaviors she was doing, I was able to watch my back for myself. 

Chapter 9. Q1

1). After reading Chapter 9 in its entirety, answer the following question:  If you are a member of a social networking website such as Facebook, think about the way you use it.  How do you present yourself?  What impressions do you hope people will get from reading your profile?  Have there been times people have posted something to your profile that you wished they hadn't?  How does this relate to conflict and communication? 

I joined Facebook about two years ago.. At first I really used it and was a frequent user. I would post everything I was doing, feelings, or thought about. That would be done through status updates, comments, and pictures. For a while I thought it was the "cool" thing to do then I stepped back and rally thought about what I was doing. I started to see other people do that as well and realized the negative effect I was thinking about them. I then thought about the effect that people may have gotten from me from what I posted and that was not acceptable for me. I wanted to create a positive face where people respect and liked what I was doing. I then started to think "what would a family member think if they saw this"? I want people to get the impression that I do like to have fun BUT that I have morals, I respect myself and others, and that I am a responsible person. From that point on I made a good amount of my profile private. Before pictures are posted onto my wall in which I was tagged in I have to approve it. I also stopped posting certain things so that I wouldn't get a negative response from people. I have had people post things I didn't approve of... I usually ask them to delete or delete it myself or untag myself from a post/picture. This is important because even though you may not see it as a big deal the impression you put online sometimes is the first impression you make upon people. Protecting the way you portray yourself is important for everyone.

Chapter 10 Q 2

2). After reading Chapter 10 in its entirety, answer the following question:  Is there an event in your life that you find difficult to forgive?  What is it?  What makes it so difficult to forgive the other person?  If you are not experiencing a difficult event now, describe a past event that you have found difficult to forgive.

Forgiveness is something that has always been difficult for me to do. I tend to hold grudges for reasons that I can not explain. Right now in my life I have a lot of family problems going on. My grandfather did something unexplainable and inexcusable by all means. It is not something that I wish to share on this blog, but it is something that no person or family member should ever have to go through or experience. It is extremely difficult for me to forgive my grandfather because I can not wrap my head around why he would do something so terrible. It is something that happened so long ago which makes it even harder for me to understand as well. I have went on for so many years not knowing this, so now it is making me second guess my past. I don't know if I will ever be able to forgive what has happened but I am trying to move forward to do so. I know that it is always best to forgive because it will allow me to move on with my life, but it is going to take time to totally forgive. 

Chapter 7 question 1

1). After reading Chapter 7 in its entirety, answer the following question:  Look at your work and school commitments.  How might you apply each of the "three solutions" to improve how you feel about your job and school?

The three solutions:
1. The first solution is making a balance between work and play. Working is something that we do for another purpose but play is something that we do for ourselves. We have to realize that even though work can be very serious at times, that we still need to make some time for ourselves and do things that we really enjoy. APPLY: I feel as if though this solution can apply to both work and school! I feel as if a large amount of my time is either taken up for work or school. I feel like there is always SOMETHING I can be doing which will help either one of my commitments. I need to be able to plan my work, school, and homework accordingly so that I have an activity I can do for myself. This can include going for a run or doing an activity like spending quality time with my parents, that really makes me happy. 

2. The second solution is actually changing your mind set on what you do. Its not always about what you but the mind set that you have doing it. If you have a positive mind set then your whole experience, doing whatever it is, will be a good one. If your mindset is negative then you will hate every aspect of what you are doing. I believe this to absolutely true and something that I can really benefit from. APPLY: For work I believe that this mindset can really change how I am. Right now work is really crazy and especially with holiday coming up it is going to become even busier. I am loosing the mindset that I began work with, which was positive and really fun. I am starting to become really negative about it and it is totally changing all the customer experiences that I am having. If I change my mindset then I bet it will change my overall attitude of life. This also applies with school because sometimes when I get down about assignments it truly affects the quality of work that I do. Changing my mindset will make me become a better student all together. 

3. The third solution is realizing that joy and pain are integrated, meaning that they come together. It a lot of situations you are not able to find joy without pain. I have learned this lesson a lot in my life and believe it to be very true. APPLY: In work I can take the pain that I am going through with all the stress and realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That there is a reward when I am doing whether it be the joy from customers that I help or acknowledgment from management. In school I need to realize that even though I am going through a lot of stress and work now my light at the end of the tunnel is graduation and getting a job in the position of my dreams. 

Chapter 8 Q2

When it comes to expressing my anger toward or to other people, it depends on who I am talking to about how I express it. I am not a person that is very good at conflict at all so I don't think that I know how to control it very well. When it comes to people I don't know or my family I am very afraid to express my anger. Towards people I don't know I don't like to express my anger very much because I don't know how they are going to react towards it. I don't know if they are going to get more upset or not take me seriously. Around my family I don't like to express my anger because I don't like to disappoint them or be disrespectful. I will usually just hold it in and let the anger build up. On the other hand when it comes to being angry at my boyfriend, I blow up. I don't know why it is that he is the other person that I can blow up on when I am angry, but that's just the way it is. I am working on trying to express my anger in a calm way but it takes time to change. 

When I don't express my anger towards my family I feel like sometimes they just don't understand what is going on. I know that this is not beneficial for my feelings but I really really really don't like to disappoint them. When it comes to expressing my anger to my boyfriend that creates an even bigger issue. I don't necessarily get my point across when I blow up so it turns into something bigger than what it actually needs to be. Hopefully by learning all these skills in this class I can become a better communicator of my anger. 

Chapter 6 Q3

An idea in the chapter that I found really interesting is where they talk about the topic of competition. Competition is where people or parties are positioned against each other with the out come of a win or lose situation. Sometimes competition can be healthy and people are able to grow and be better because they are working against each other, but there are also times when people take it too seriously and create chaos and drama. Competition is usually seen on a win or lose basis meaning that at the end one person will have the upper hand against another. This can be in an argument, a sports game, or really anything as a matter of fact. Having competition where one person wins and one person loses can cause problems around the whole situation in general.
One example that I can think of where something like this occurred in my life is the arguments that I get into with my boyfriend. It's not like we are competing for anything, but when it comes to fighting there always has to be a winner and loser. I hate it because sometimes we are not even fighting about important, but it always comes back to fighting about something personal. Especially when we are out or around other people it just leads to an unpleasant environment to be around.

Chapter 6 Q2

          For a relationship to be successful I believe that there needs to be an equal amount of give and take. Both people in the relationship have to be able to realize that sometimes things can't always go your way and you will have to work and collaborate with each other for it work out. When either one of the people in the relationship feel like they are not getting the equal amount of give and take then thats when it becomes an unbalanced relationship. One person has more power over the other and controls or makes most of the decisions that happen. When you are in an unbalanced relationship you feel like very unappreciated and the other person is taking advantage of you. It will start to seem like what you want or how you feel is not valid enough for the other person to care about. Having more power over the relationship may feel good at first, but after a while of treating the other person not as an equal will cause the relationship to go down and you will feel like the difference.

          I believe that sometimes it does happen where there is an unbalance in a relationship, but the most important part of of creating a truly meaningful and successful relationship is being able to identify the unbalance and fix it before it is too late.