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. 

chapter 9- discussion 1 (Facebook)

 I used to present myself on Facebook as a typical college girl, didn’t care as much what I posted or what pictures were tagged of me. Now however, I have much more privacy settings and have to approve what people can tag of me. I think this just comes with age, wanting others respect and knowing that your future career can see the pictures and comments on your page. Of course you want people to respect you.  Throughout high school and beginning of college I wish there were a lot of pictures that I wasn’t tagged in. I also wish I put a little more thought into posting certain pictures.  Facebook is all about communication because you communicate to each other via Facebook, and there is a ton of conflict through Facebook . People create groups and events and bully people through those groups. There is a lot of drama that stirs up from Facebook.  In chapter 9, it talks about face management, which describes “face is what one does, face management is the face that results during interaction with others”(P.157). In other words the face is Facebook and the face management is how we present ourself through our Facebook page.  Goffman brings up a good point on page 157, about the fact that we all have images of ourselves and we project that image(our face) in interactions with others. Facebook is a terrific example of Goffman’s view. How we communicate with others is how we want others to see us. For example, if you post pictures of you always drinking on your Facebook and posting statuses about drama in your life, your more then likely going to get a certain reputation. This reputation comes from positive face and autonomous (negative) face. Positive face means that people want others important to them to like and respect them. (P. 159). Positive face is more then likely what most people want. Autonomous face is the part of us that longs for some independence, privacy or time alone. People need to realize that Facebook is public, and it reflects how people view you. 

Chapter 7- discussion 3

Chapter 7 was very interesting for me to read, because I used to be a very stressful person and used to let stress ruin my day, my relationships and my attitude toward life was very negative. About 2 years ago I broke up with my ex and realized that the reason I was also so stressed was due to our relationship and it brought me down. Now I am a very optimistic person and try to always see the good in life. By having a positive outlook on life it has allowed me to accomplish more, because I feel that I have more motivation then ever before. I also feel more confident in myself and what I am capable of. When you are constantly stressed out it can ruin all of your close relationships, because nobody wants to always be around negative nancy. Your attitude certainly rubs off on people. So what caught my attention was in chapter 7 on page 128 about the idea of managing stress by having a playful spirit. The book define playful spirit as, changing your attitude toward life in a way that enables us to lighten up. It has a list of techniques that are beneficial, but I will only list a couple that I found more important. “Don’t blame yourself for everything that goes wrong or doesn’t pan out” (P.128). This one I have found extrememly useful, because I am a firm believer in that everything happens for a resason and when something goes wrong I see it as an opporuntity to fix something or maybe something better is coming my way. “Learn to say “no,” without feeling guilty. I used to always try to please others and would never tell someone no to helping them or hanging out etc. so I was too busy trying to please others and didn’t realize that I was not satisfied in my own life. So I truly feel that having a playful spirit, or never truly growing up but having your moments were you act playful like a child will keep you young and happy.