Understanding Attributions In discussing attribution theory, your readings point out that the thousands of possible explanations for success and failure can be classified into a few categories.

First: Understanding Attributions In discussing attribution theory, your readings point out that the thousands of possible explanations for success and failure can be classified into a few categories. The most basic categories are stability (a factor is either fairly permanent or unstable), locus of causality (a factor is either external or internal to the person), and locus of control (a factor is or is not under our control). In this activity you’ll explore your understanding of these attribution categories. Instructions Provide a sport example that illustrates and defines the attribution categories listed. a. Stability: stable b. Stability: unstable c. Locus of causality: internal d. Locus of causality: external e. Locus of control: in one’s control f. Locus of control: out of one’s control Next: Helping Lucille Regain Her Soccer Success Read the following case study and submit a 2 page program for helping Lucille regain her motivation by overcoming her outcome goal orientation.

After several years of training, Lucille has finally received a scholarship offer to play division one soccer. Outcome goals have always been her driving force, be the fastest, toughest, score more goals, and get more assists. Unfortunately, after an All-American high school career, Lucille has a rough beginning at college. Her shooting and passing accuracy is struggling. To make matters worse, she is struggling a bit with minor injuries, which makes it difficult to maintain consistent playing time.

As Lucille’s frustrations continue to increase, she begins to no longer enjoy practice and even competition. She blames her poor performance on injuries, playing time, field conditions and teammates unwilling to pass the ball. The outcome goal orientation now seems to produce a lower self-confidence, self-doubt, and less motivation.

How would a viewpoint that encompasses these elements affect perceptions about personality?

1. Early psychologists were medical doctors or scientists. By the middle part of the twentieth century, philosophers and theologians added their ideas to the study of personality. How would a viewpoint that encompasses these elements affect perceptions about personality?

2. Freud, Piaget, and others viewed life as a series of stages. In contrast, Fromm and Rogers saw it as a process. How could these differing viewpoints affect perceptions of personality?

3. Identification with a subculture in childhood and adolescence may help individuals become well-adjusted later. Using Sullivan’s idea of “chumship,” what does this help us understand about personality?

4. Murray saw life as a story about a person’s “needs” and “presses.” Explain Murray’s concept of personology as distinct from personality.

5. In what way, if any, is sex segregation in public schools different from racial segregation? Are there differences in the nature of the categories of gender versus race that make one type of segregation less objectionable than the other?

6. One of the ways cognitive psychology looks at the difference between genders is through gender schemas – organized mental structures that delineate appropriate male and female behavior. Gender typing is having strong views on genders that are hard to move. How is this phenomenon related to personality?

7. What have you learned about what blaming people for various illnesses and perceived weaknesses says about the society that propagates that type of attitude?

8. Some people always seem to be complaining about their health. They seem to find peace in what is called the sick role. Which cognitive factors are relevant to a person’s taking on this role? When are we more likely to feel pain or decide that our body is not functioning correctly?

Discussion Topic: High Technology Crimes

Discussion Topic: High Technology Crimes

Historically speaking, how have advances in technology affected society and criminal activity? What new kinds of crimes have technological advances made possible? Distinguish between new types of crimes produced by advancing technology and new ways of committing “old crimes” that have been facilitated by emerging technologies.

Question Topics:

Question Topics:

1. What is meant by the axiom “correlation is not causation?”  Give several examples of this issue.

2. What cultural and environmental factors in the United States may have contributed to the shift from an authoritarian “spare the rod” parenting style to an authoritative one since WWII?  Is another shift underway?

3. More than a quarter of adolescents report feeling so sad or hopeless for two or more weeks in a row that they stop doing their normal activities.  The depression rate for girls is higher than for boys.  There is no evidence that hormone or gene differences account for this higher rate.  Post why you think the rate is higher for adolescent girls than boys, and what you think our educational system might do to help in this matter.

4. What does “familiarity breeds rigidity” mean?  Give several examples of this phenomenon. Give an example from your own life.

5. In 1998 Oregon passed the “right to die” law, giving physicians the legal ability to help their patients die.  Do you support this law?  Why or why not?  If you were in a terminal situation where the pain was terrible with no hope of getting better, would you want assistance in dying?  How would you feel about assisting someone that you loved?

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Topic: Empirically-Based Theories

Topic: Empirically-Based Theories

Question/Prompt: Detail one human growth and development theory and discuss its empirical support. Then read Defining spiritual development: A missing consideration for student affairs (Love & Talbot, 2009), and discuss research on spiritual development and how it could be connected to the other areas of development (physical, emotional, and social).

Measures of Validity

Measures of Validity

A college uses a particular admissions test, which has well documented predictive validity. However, members of a particular minority group tend to score low on this admission test. Some students who have been denied admission based on their test scores are criticizing the school for using a biased test. What steps need to be taken prior to making the conclusion the test is “biased” in the psychometric sense? How can a determination be made regarding whether or not the test is being used in a fair and equitable manner? What other measures of validity would you need as evidence to support the continuation or discontinuation of this admission test?