Learned throughout semester

 I learned a lot about myself in this course. I think that is why this class was one of my favorites, because I was able to apply the context and what not to my life.  I learned mostly about myself in this class. I learned that I tend to have a temper when arguing, I shut people out and I am not a good listener. This class made me analyze myself when in conflict. My favorite theory we learned in this class was the S-TLC approach. It is an easy, common sense approach but sometimes we over think the obvious. Now when I am in conflict, I take a breather before I respond and am a way better listener. I also analyzed the close relationships around me and how they handle and communicate when in conflict. More specifically, my poor boyfriend because I am around him the most. But, I think through all this analyzing I have hopefully made him a better communicator when in conflict situations.

Strengths/ Weakness of class

This was definitely one of my favorite online classes. I take online classes to fit in with my busy schedule, however I really dislike them because I like the face-to-face interaction I get in the classroom. What I did like about this class was the professor being easy to talk to, and down to earth. You were able to get a sense of her personality, which is hard with online classes. I also liked the discussions, and how we had to connect to our personal lives because it allowed us to all understand one another better. Meaning, we were able to get a deeper meaning about one another, not just seeing each other as a computer, but more as an emotional human being. I like that in this class we were able to open up a lot and connect to the book using real world examples. When you connect the text with your real lives, for me at least, I understand the content a lot better and I also remember it better.  I think the only weakness in this class, was having to post at three different times during the week and it being 12 hours apart.  I understand the point of it, but it was challenging at times to post three different times and keep track of those three times. I almost rather have two post, that were just longer in length. I would absolutely recommend this class to someone. This class is very beneficial. One of the reasons I am majoring in Communications is because you learn theories, content that you can apply to your everyday life verse like my geology class that I will never apply to my life. I think by taking this class you will learn a lot about yourself as well as how you can strengthen the relationships around you.  I also liked the blog setup better then D2L. At first I was apprehensive about it, because it was new but it is more organized then D2L and is easier to keep track of with all my classes. OVERALL, LOVED THIS CLASS =)

Social Exchange Theory

 I found the social exchange theory to be very relatable. I have been in a couple long-term relationships and as a young women, you tend to rate your relationships and analyze them to see if you are still happy in your relationships after a long period of time. The social exchange theory states that people evaluate their interpersonal relationships in terms of their value, which is created by costs and rewards associated with the relationship. I think where you run into problems in your relationship is when you rate your relationship satisfaction, based on previous experiences, because your comparing your boyfriends to your ex then you think about how your ex did one thing that your current boyfriend doesn’t. I also think that rating your relationship on relationship commitment level, such as rewards, or costs of alternatives can be useful because it allows you to see that your getting back what your putting into the relationship. Not saying that you need to be spoiled with goods, or money but making sure that your not putting more into the relationship then your significant other. This can lead to feeling unsure in your relationships.

 

Chapter 12- Post 2

         The Attribution theory, states that people act as they do in conflict situations because of the interferences they make about others based on their behavior (P.217). I recently asked my girlfriend to go to dinner with me, because I haven’t seen her in awhile, she replied no because she had a lot of studying to do for her test coming up. I knew she had the test coming up so my feelings weren’t hurt. Then, I was invited by my other friends to go out to eat and I said I couldn’t cause I already ate and they explained to me that they saw my girlfriend(the one I asked to go out to eat) at the place they were eating at with our friend. So I assumed she was trying to avoid me, or just didn’t want to hang out with me so naturally my feelings were hurt. Later, I texted her and made a remark stating our friends saw her. And she replied saying that they were studying together and took a break together. At first I was annoyed and bothered but later realized that I was in the wrong.

         A situation where making accurate attributions has helped me, is when I started to learn how to do makeup. I was at my friends house and she was doing my makeup for the night and I was telling her how much I loved my makeup and how I wish I knew how to do makeup. Later, she taught me how to do basic makeup looks and led me down the path of having so much passion for hair and makeup.  

Revenge, Reconciliation and Forgiveness

Sometimes I like to read my classmates posts before I do mine to help generate some ideas for my posts so what I found to be interesting was

What was interesting to me was that I found more sights with forgiveness than on revenge and reconsiliation. While, my many of my classmates found revenge to have the most sites. Reconciliation had a couple things that popped up many of it had to do with defining the word. When I first typed revenge in my google search, the television series revenge popped up everywhere. What I find to be interesting with this show, especially the title is that the media is portraying revenge as a good thing, and naming a show after the word. The show is about a girl seeking revenge for his families death. When I looked up the word forgiveness, a ton of stuff popped up. I then reworded my search so that I wouldn’t get bomboarded with sites to the television series and I still didn’t see as much sites as I did for forgiveness. A lot of stuff that had to do with the bible popped up. Such as, what the bible says about forgiveness, and  how you can be healed through forgiveness. I thought revenge would have more sites, but to my surprise forgiveness did. I am not sure why forgiveness has more sites, I thought revenge would, maybe it was what I was googling. However, maybe there are a lot of people out there wanting to seek forgiveness but don’t know how or where to start so they google it and a ton of support groups pop up. It is always interesting to see what pops up in the google search

third post-Facework

On the first discussion this week we touched base on Facebook and how we present ourselves to others. A lot of these issues that stuck out to me. My sister is in junior high and trying to discover who she is, and trying to create an image for herself so throughout this chapter I thought frequently about what she is going through. On page 161 the author talks about facework, which is the “process by which people establish and maintain their impressions of themselves to others, as well as supporting or denying the impressions that others are making”. I think a lot of young kids, fall under this pressure because they want to be seen as cool which leads to giving into peer pressure. When you usually give into peer pressure your doing something that you know isn’t who you truly are, but your supporting the impressions or assumptions people have made of you. 

Chapter 10- Forgiveness

I have a hard time forgiving my father for his past mistakes. My dad and mother divorced when I was 4 and my father moved to Connecticut. My mom is remarried now to my step-father whom is an amazing person and my dad is still in my life, just not exactly as a father. I have a hard time forgiving him, because he intentionally did things to hurt my mother and I. I am usually one to forgive and forget, but when people repeatedly intentionally hurt someone it shows their character and makes it hard for me to want to develop and relationship with them. It also almost makes it impossible to form a relationship with that person because there is no trust involved. Chapter 10 describes forgiveness as the “cognitive process that consists of letting go of feelings of revenge and desires to retaliate”(P.176). I am not sure that I 100% agree with that definition, because I don’t have any part of me that seeks revenge in my father. I don’t think that revenge will solve any emotional issues that I have. The chapter goes on too talk about transforming the meaning of the event, and I have learned to do that with my father and mine relationship. I have tried to view our relationship in a more positive light, and see it as I am older and so is he now so I am trying to start fresh with our relationship because I do feel that people can learn from their mistakes.