Self Concept

The first characteristic that I want to focus on is my lack of talent. Yes there are things I am good at, but nothing that really makes me stand out in a crowd. My father’s side of the family is full of talented people; however, my mother’s side has other strong suits. So you would think it would stand to reason I would have talents busting from my seams. Unfortunately, that Is not the case. My father did try and push me to do and try new things, but If I said no my mother didn’t force me into it. That seems to me to have come from me , and my father worked all the time.

So I spent most of my time with my mother, Just her and l; which is great I would not change that for the world, it made us very close. I do look back, and wish that I had found a good thing to hold on to, nurture and really create a skill out of. I would also like to discuss some traits that I love about myself. I am very secure and resilient. I have had a few troubles in my life, but I have come through them with flying colors. Some I would not like to discuss, but I will touch on a few of them. When I was eighteen I found out I was expecting.

Awkwardly, I was in a bad relationship, but I was going to do the best I could with my circumstances. About a week into knowing of my situation I started to feel a little off. I knew right away something was wrong, but I had not told anyone but the father that I was pregnant. So I Just kept on going, finally the pain had Just become too unbearable. I proceeded to take myself to the emergency room; my blood pressure was 80/55, which to my surprise, no one seemed to think was weird. I was completely ale and almost too weak to walk. They admitted me and I called my then boyfriend to come and be with me.

Two hours alone in a cold room my friend showed up, in place of my boyfriend, she stayed with me through another two hours of sitting. Finally a nurse came in and asked me to take a pregnancy test; I was so dehydrated I could not do It, She proceeded to tell me I was having a miscarriage, and I was being discharge. I went home, and fell asleep. When I woke up I was bleeding profusely and I could not sit up. I immediately called my mother she left work and took me to my B, which was completely booked through a month ahead and is why I had not seen her yet, but did have an appointment.

I do not remember much after that, she ambulances me to Murphy for emergency surgery. I had suffered from a tubular pregnancy, I was 10 weeks, and my baby had attached to the wall of my tube, and proceeded to rupture my tube. After my surgery, I fell Into a deep depression; my medications; they didn’t help so I stopped taking them. I never went back to see her I just dealt with it on my own. I drove my mother and father crazy, did not sleep, did not eat, etc. My mother was my rock she got me trough that crazy time in my life.

I did eventually go and see a therapist, I told her I thought I was crazy, and I did not know what to do with myself. She proceeded to tell me because I had been through a life altering experience and with some help I would be Just fine. It took me a year of therapy to feel pretty normal again. I personally think going through that made me who I am today. Oddly enough I had another tubular pregnancy again with my current fiance; this time I handled it much better. I think it helped that I had my niacin next to me the whole time loving and taking care of me.

I really do not know how to describe it, but those experiences made me a stronger woman, also brought me closer to my family. I could have never developed the strength I needed to overcome such a struggle without them. I am now a more relaxed and calm person, because I Just live every day to the fullest, and try not to take anything for granted. Now onto my favorite personality traits; I am very sociable, fun loving and talkative. I love to talk about anything with my friends, and I tend to surround myself with people that are a lot like me.

I get those traits from my mother and father both. My mother and I are one in the same; we love to do everything together, and my close girlfriends love to hang out with mother also. My dad is also fun; we adore having friends over, and having cookouts. We did those kinds of things all while I was growing up; my dad has to be the center of attention. I think I tend to be that way too, but in a good way. My fiance is the perfect complement to me; he is very methodical, as I am very impulsive; he keeps me grounded; I keep him on his toes.

I was very shy growing up, maybe because I was an only child, not too sure on that one, but I definitely grew out of that. He always wants me to try new foods, and new experiences; and because I love him I try them, if I don’t like it, he moves onto something else. He is a riot, he works so hard to make sure we can pay our bills, and keeps us going while I am not working and going to school. We were planning on tying the knot at the end of this year, but we decided to wait, and let me be completely enveloped in school. Read about a ll the wrong moves

When I was growing up I hated to do any chores; I loud be left a list of things to do around the house, and they needed to be done when I got home from school. Let me Just say it was a fight tooth and nail to get that done. Somehow when I moved out on my own that all changed. I Joke and say “Ha, I just have COD! ” I am very concerned with cleaning, and everything being in its proper place. It’s not Just an “obsession”, I actually love to clean it makes me feel good. I get excited about purchasing cleaning products. Maybe I am a little obsessed, but that is just me. I think I have really touched on everything I wanted to discuss.

Sample practice test prompts for the CATW Sample 1 Assignment: Begin by reading the passage below. How Your Birth Order Influences Your Life Adjustment The child becomes known as the family’s only child, oldest child, middle child, or youngest child, depending on his birth order. He is thought and talked about as having that place in the family. Both in his mind and in the minds of other people, an important part of his identity is his family position. The other members of the family assume certain attitudes toward each child in terms of his birth order.

Parents usually expect their oldest child to be more capable and more responsible than the younger children. The oldest child comes to think about himself in the same way. These ways of seeing himself, of thinking about himself because of his sibling role, become part of his self-concept. Similarly, the middle child may think of himself as able to do things better than other people because he is usually more capable than his younger siblings. Sometimes, though, he must turn to an older sibling or to his parents for help, and so he thinks of himself as being able to obtain help when he needs it.

The youngest child may develop the self-concept that he is less able to do many things than other people. However, he is not concerned because there are always others around to take care of him. In contrast, the only child tends to think, “When my parents are not around, I have no one to turn to for help. So I’d better learn to take care of myself as much as possible. ” The place in the family establishes for the child a specific role to be played within the family group. It influences him to develop certain attitudes toward himself and toward other people and helps him develop specific patterns of behavior. 290 words) Adapted from an essay by Lucille Forer, “How Your Birth Order Influences Your Life Adjustment”, in Write to be Read, p. 7. Writing Directions Read the passage above and write an essay responding to the ideas it presents. In your essay, be sure to summarize the passage in your own words, stating the author’s most important ideas. Develop your essay by identifying one idea in the passage that you feel is especially significant, and explain its significance. Support your claims with evidence or examples drawn from what you have read, learned in school, and/or personally experienced.

Remember to review your essay and make any changes or corrections that are needed to help your reader follow your thinking. You will have 90 minutes to complete your essay. Sample 2 Assignment: Begin by reading the passage below. Modern Society and the Quest for Human Happiness Everywhere, by all means imaginable, people are striving to improve their lives. Yet strangely, my impression is that those living in the materially developed countries, for all their industry, are in some ways less satisfied, are less happy, and suffer more than those living in the least developed countries.

Indeed, if we compare the rich with the poor, it often seems that those with nothing are, in fact, the least anxious, though they are plagued with physical pains and suffering. As for the rich, while a few know how to use their wealth intelligently – that is to say, not in luxurious living but by sharing it with the needy – many do not. They are so caught up with the idea of acquiring still more that they make no room for anything else in their lives. In their absorption with material wealth, they actually lose the dream of happiness, which riches were to have provided.

As a result, they are constantly tormented, torn between doubt about what may happen and the hope of getting more, and plagued with mental and emotional suffering – even though outwardly they may appear to be leading entirely successful and comfortable lives. This is suggested both by the high degree and by the disturbing prevalence among the populations of the materially developed countries of anxiety, discontent, frustration, and depression. Moreover, the inner suffering is clearly connected with growing confusion as to what constitutes morality and what its foundations are. 242 words) From an essay by the Dalai Lama, “Modern Society and the Quest for Human Happiness” in Write to be Read, p. 170. Writing Directions Read the passage above and write an essay responding to the ideas it presents. In your essay, be sure to summarize the passage in your own words, stating the author’s most important ideas. Develop your essay by identifying one idea in the passage that you feel is especially significant, and explain its significance. Support your claims with evidence or examples drawn from what you have read, learned in school, and/or personally experienced.

Remember to review your essay and make any changes or corrections that are needed to help your reader follow your thinking. You will have 90 minutes to complete your essay. Sample 3 Assignment: Begin by reading the passage below. The Woman Who Died in the Waiting Room Esmin Green fell out of her chair in the waiting room of Brooklyn’s largest psychiatric hospital nearly an hour before anyone realized she was in trouble. For 20 minutes, she writhed and twisted between two chairs under the watchful eye of a security camera whose footage would later be broadcast across the country, spurring a public outcry.

Two security guards and two other staff members passed through the room and glanced at the 49-year-old woman, without bothering to check her vital signs or help her up. Nearly 40 minutes after she stopped moving, a nurse walked over and lightly kicked her. By then, she was already dead. The city’s medical examiner cited blood clots in her legs as the official cause. As disturbing as the circumstances of Esmin Green’s death were, they should not have come as a surprise.

Public hospitals across the country have struggled to provide acute psychiatric care to the poor and uninsured since the early 1960s, when large mental hospitals began closing their doors en masse. Rather than lock them away in cold, uncaring institutions, the thinking went, the mentally ill should be offered a place in society. But with insufficient outpatient services and a dearth of community-based support, the least fortunate of them have ended up in already overtaxed emergency rooms. They are the poor, the uninsured and the undocumented.

Many of them suffer from chronic conditions that could potentially be treated with medication and regular counseling, luxuries most of them cannot afford. With just 50,000 inpatient psychiatric beds for tens of millions of people across the country, the mentally ill typically wait twice as long for treatment as other patient populations do. “It’s like landing airplanes at JFK airport,” says Ken Duckworth, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “There is just no place for them to go. ” (306 words) adapted from July 12, 2008 Newsweek article, “The Woman Who Died in the Waiting Room” by Jeneen Interlandi  Writing Directions

Read the passage above and write an essay responding to the ideas it presents. In your essay, be sure to summarize the passage in your own words, stating the author’s most important ideas. Develop your essay by identifying one idea in the passage that you feel is especially significant, and explain its significance. Support your claims with evidence or examples drawn from what you have read, learned in school, and/or personally experienced. Remember to review your essay and make any changes or corrections that are needed to help your reader follow your thinking. You will have 90 minutes to complete your essay.

Many people perceive thoughts differently because they all have different view of the world. After reading the text, Communications in a Changing World, I learned how people can interpret things differently. There are steps of perception everyone goes through which includes interpretation, selection, and organization. As I showed a picture to three different people, they all had different words that described the picture and this explains how people perceive thoughts differently. Everyone in life has different views of the world because of their experiences and beliefs.

People went through many obstacles in life which alters their belief system. Once their belief system has been constructed, they are in a habitual cycle which makes them hard to be same with others. No people are alike. We are all different people. With this knowledge, I believe that people view things according to their habitual lifestyle. For example, a person who are stereotypical may view people or judge them by race or individual’s character. These people will tend to view society as if everyone did not come from the same family but different places and everyone is categorized.

However, some people may view things by emotions and actions. People perceive things differently as the author states, “Just as self-concept, identity, and physical factors act as filters on our perceptions, our personality also affects how we perceive others” (Dobkins, pg. 68). Many people are brought up in different cultures and background. Even though I may have friends that grew up with me in the same culture, we are different because our nationality might be different. We can eat different food and have our own unique styles.

Our interests are different. How we look and feel is different. All three people I showed the picture to came up with different words because they all were in different states and brought up differently in life in general as the author states, “We like things that are recognizable or similar to us” (Dobkins, pg. 70). First guy I interviewed goes by the name Jimmy. He looked at the picture and described how the person in the picture was behaving. He came up with words such as “chilling”, “sitting”, “relaxing”, “distracted”, and “resting”.

Jimmy used most of the words that describes the person’s action. He was not stereotypical at all. The second person I interviewed goes by the name of John. John however came up with words such as “black”, “afro”, “double-eye lids”, and “old”. John was being more stereotypical and described the person as if he belongs in a different family group. The third guy I interviewed goes by the name of David. David used words such as, “bum”, “poverty”, “frustration”, “hilarious”, “afro”, and “guilty”.

He perceives that because the man in the picture is African American, he may be doing something harmful to the society as he mentioned the word “guilty”. Also, he used the word “poverty” which may represent how he views African Americans as people who are poor. The words he also used was the word “bum” which indicates that David may feel that there are a lot of African Americans on the streets without homes. I do understand where David came from because he lived all of his life in Downtown Los Angeles. Media influences people to perceive differently about certain group of people in the world.

As in Los Angeles, there is always a news about someone shooting in Downtown Los Angeles and most of the time the people who commit crimes are either Hipic or African Americans. Just because the person is African American does not mean he commits crime or he is a bum. The person in the picture clearly determines that he is not a bad person. But just because of his race, David thinks he is someone bad. However, Jimmy did not use any words that were stereotypical. He only used words that described the person’s actions.

By this analysis, people perceive differently by the way they operate their views and belief system. People tend to cooperate by approximately determining their belief system and that is how they feel comfortable as the author states, “we often put ourselves in familiar situations, see the same patterns, and focus on the same senses in ways that are predictable and comfortable” (Dobkins, pg. 73). People may perceive differently by how they feel at the exact moment of time. When shown the picture if the person is at a negative state, they will look for negative words.

When the person is in an excited or happy state of mind, they will look for words that are more positive. Although media repetition may alter one’s mind about views of different nationalities, a person’s state can distract how they analyze things of this world. For example, a person in a good state may present happier motives and bring excitement and joyful emotions to the table. However, a person with a negative state of mind may extract bad energy that may bring people around them down. A person’s state may alter how they perceive things differently.

Jimmy and John may have used more positive words because they may be in a positive state of mind at the moment. However, David may have been in a negative state of mind at the moment he was interviewed. I do believe that people have their own ways of beliefs and view systems but the emotions they feel at the moment definitely do have some type of impact towards their perception as the author states, “As individuals, we bring the composite of our self-concept and identity, physical characteristics, and personality into every communicative setting” (Dobkins, pg. 68).

In conclusion, everyone in this world perceives differently. Everyone has their own core belief systems embedded into their lifestyle. This is due to their experiences in their lifetime. Media and other sources may impact one’s belief systems. Maybe some people might have been hurt by certain ethnic group of people. Jimmy, John, and David whom I interviewed all had different words that describe the picture. In this regimental paper, I have described how these three people perceived differently because of their different belief system, state of mind, and experiences.

In Erikson’s famous book, Identity and the Life Cycle, the author takes a close look at the development of the human personality across time, focusing on elements of human development as they relate to the psychosocial sphere of study. The three sections of this book are three famous writings from Erikson, entitled, Ego Development and Historical Change, Growth and Crises of the Healthy Personality, and The Problem of Ego Identity.

The first section, Ego Development and Historical Change, deals with the idea that the ego is a present yet also ever evolving part of humanity, that the ego shifts within the personality, surfacing healthily in times of wellness and separating the person from the leader led mob, balanced out between the super ego and the id, one might say.

Into the second part of the book, Growth and Crisis of the Healthy Personality, the reader gets a better idea of what Erikson means when he speaks about psychological and social interactions and milestones, developmental levels, which arise as the organism of the human person blossoms and changes naturally through various stages from conception until death. In the final pages of the book, the last paper, entitled, The Problem of Ego Identity, Erikson delves deeper into the meaning of human psychosocial development as it relates to both biological development as well as modern society.

Here he asks the burning question, do we prepare ourselves as human beings for the life cycles which we experience? A look at modern society shows the pitfalls for people who are not developed in mind, spirit, and body together and how people would benefit from being socially, cognitively, and physically adept at certain life stages, primarily at the transition from adolescence to adulthood. References Erikson, E. (1980). Identity and the Life Cycle. W. W. Norton & Company.

A college education has numerous impacts on an individual other than just a better education.

Individuals who have attended college and graduated tend to be more successful in life than those who didn’t. There have been studies through the years that provide evidence showing that a college education can be very beneficial to a person and have major impacts on their lives. The most comprehensive review to date on the question of the impact of college is found in Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini’s book, How College Affects Students.They used over twenty-six thousand practical studies completed over a period of 50 years in order to what aspects of a person’s life is affected during college. They concluded that an individual’s cognitive skills and intellectual growth; changes of identity, self-concept, and self-esteem; changes in relating to others and the people around them, attitudes and values, moral development, career choice and development, economic benefits, and quality of life after college are all affected while the student attends college.The details concerning cognitive skills and intellectual growth suggest that “students make statistically significant gains during the college years on a number of dimensions of general cognitive capabilities and skills” (p. 155), including the ability to deal with conceptual complexity, formal abstract reasoning, critical thinking, the use of evidence and reason to address ill-structured problems, and both written and oral communication.

Most of these benefits seem to occur during the first two years of college.Research on the net effects, or changes that can be accredited to the college experience itself, rather than other potential influences, of these outcomes suggests that college has a “net positive influence on diverse measures of critical thinking” (p. 156), reflective judgment, and intellectual flexibility, above the maturity level of individuals who didn’t attend college. Perhaps “college is the one [experience] that most typically provides an overall environment where the potential for intellectual growth is maximized” (p. 156).Although the may not be dramatic, changes concerning identity, self-concept, and self-esteem during the college years consistently support a significant positive effect, are evident. The evidence tends to support generally linear gains in academic and social self-concepts, as well as “students’ beliefs about themselves in such areas as their popularity in general and with the opposite sex, their leadership abilities, their social self-confidence, and their understanding of others” (p.

203). In addition, they gain in self-esteem.With the caveat that much of the research on the net effects of college on these particular outcomes is too often confounded by age and normal maturation, and absent controls for family background or other relevant characteristics, Pascarella and Terenzini concluded that “post-secondary educational attainment appears to be related positively to changes in students’ ratings of themselves relative to their peers” (p. 204), in terms of both academic self-concept and social self-concept. Such effects, however, appear to be small, mostly indirect, and interrelated with other characteristics.As far as changes in relating to others and the world around them, Pascarella and Terenzini concluded that, “students’ relational systems change during the college years,” including increases in “students’ freedom from the influences of others, … in non-authoritarian thinking and tolerance for other people and their views, in intellectual orientation to problem solving and their own world view in general, in the maturity of their interpersonal relations, in their personal adjustment skills and general sense of psychological well-being, and in their more globally measured levels of maturity and personal development” (p. 57).

It is believed that “the early college years may be somewhat more influential than the later ones” in their effect on these outcomes. The authors also state that “the weight of evidence therefore fairly clearly supports popular beliefs about the effects of college in helping to reduce students’ authoritarianism, dogmatism, and (perhaps) ethnocentrism and in increasing their intellectual orientation, personal psychological adjustment, and sense of psychological well-being” (p. 259).

One of the more ample topics concerning research on the impact of college over the decades has focused on charting changes in the values and attitudes of students in five general areas:

1.  cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual;
2. educational and occupational;
3. social and political;
4. religious; and
5. sex and gender roles

Pascarella and Terenzini found that the evidence for change during the college years is both plentiful and consistent, in that “colleges, as their founders and supporters might hope, appear to have a generally liberating influence on students’ attitudes and values.Without exception, the nature and direction of the observed changes involve greater breadth, expansion, inclusiveness, complexity, and appreciation for the new and different. In all cases, the movement is toward greater individual freedom: artistic and cultural, intellectual, political, social, racial, educational, occupational, personal, and behavioral” (p.326).The research on the net effects of college support a consistent but modest influence “above and beyond the characteristics students bring with them to college,” as well as independent of “changes that have occurred in the larger society” (p. 326) Long considered an important goal of American higher education, the character education and moral development of students has only recently gained the systematic attention of researchers.Evidence to date suggests that “college is linked with statistically significant increases in the use of principled reasoning to judge moral issues,” and that the college experience itself has a unique positive net influence on such development and may be accentuated differentially, from one institution to another, through the student peer context. Furthermore, the key to within-college effects in fostering moral reasoning may “lie in providing a range of intellectual, cultural, and social experiences from which a range of different students might potentially benefit” (p. 66), such as certain curricular or course interventions.Conditional effects in that regard are, in particular, more positive for those of high levels of cognitive development.

Nevertheless, any influence in that direction seems to be long-term and consistent, and may even be linked ultimately to “a range of principled behaviors, including resisting cheating, social activism, keeping contractual promises, and helping those in need” (p. 367). Individuals may change their career paths or interests while attending college. It is clear that students frequently change their career plans during college,” and that they “become significantly more mature, knowledgeable, and focused during college in thinking about planning for a career” (pp. 487–488).In terms of net influence, one of the “most pronounced and unequivocal effects of college on career is its impact on the type of job one obtains” (p. 488), offering an advantage through occupational status and influence.

Whether by socialization or certification a college education offers access to better positioned, and potentially more satisfactory, mployment. Study of the economic benefits has also attracted the attention of post-secondary education researchers, especially since this factor “probably underlies the motivation of many students who choose to attend college rather than enter the work force immediately after high school graduation” (p. 500). In terms of net effects, it appears that a bachelor’s degree “provides somewhere between a twenty and forty percent advantage in earnings over a high school diploma” and an estimate of financial return on such an investment is “somewhere between 9. and 10. 9 percent” (p. 529).

As I’ve said before, a college education has numerous impacts on an individual other than just a better education. Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini, while not the first to do so, are two people who have studied research to find the impact of a college education. Their research actually has evidence to support the argument that a college education is a valuable thing.

Biological factors & demographic factors – Obesity – can be linked to genetics as well as eating a lot; Psychological – self-esteem – a view of one’s self; how much you like yourself? Self-concept- I am intelligent/ self esteem – how much you like that? Social and cultural factors- disposable income (cannot afford gym) working hours (no time) location (no gyms, no football pitches ect) Religion – Muslim (women cannot wear sports gear) religious days could class with sports days (Sunday) Physical Activity characteristics – intensity, duration, frequency of activity; dependent on fitness levels of participants.Diagram Environment – e. g. running requires a certain environment, cycling paths available, rough area; don’t want to leave house in dark Person and Behavioural Psychological, cognitive and emotional factors Imporant – Self – efficacy – Situational specific judgement of your ability to complete a particular behavioural set.

Self efficacy assessment – includes both affirmation of a capability level and the strength of that belief. ‘I am 75% sure that I can achieve something’. Self efficacy could have a part in the fact that 60% of the population don’t do 30 mins a day. Triadic Reciprical causation modelSources of information that impact SE Performance Accomplishments – strongest impact on SE – They know that they have already done it. Making a task easy enough for the athlete to complete; this could mean that they have good SE in the future. Low exerciser – give them easy exercise. Vicarious Learning – Model someone elses behaviour – the closer you are to the model, the easier it is to replicate.

I couldn’t copy a golf swing from Tiger. Allows learning to identify errors in the model. Self modelling – watch themselves, video feedback, point out that they can do it, and pinpoint mistakes Verbal Persuasion -Physiological arousal – non-exercisers could not be used to things such as increased HR, and high breathing. Don’t perceive biofeedback properly. SE effects how much people believe they can impact the world/an outcome. Do they think they could win the match for their team for example. Transtheoretical model of behavioural change Each individual is given a stage depending on level you are at.

Pre contemplation – inactive, no intention Prepartation – active below criterion level 5*30 mins Action – continued regular level up to 5 * 30 Relapse or Maintenance Look at diagram for the rest of the info.