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Job Strain Leading to the Effects of Mental Health

Job Strain Leading to the Effects of Mental Health IssuesJob Strain Leading to the Effects of Mental Health IssuesAmanda Monique AlvarThe University

Spring 2020

ABSTRACTThe word Mental Health has been a very serious awareness that the world has been taking into consideration lately. Work has been a global threat to many individuals in multiple ways that affects their intra and interpersonal levels. Through modern research, it has been recognized that the increased statistics of employee’s mental health is a critical dominant in their overall health. By having poor mental health, you can also have misleading factors that affect their own personal health. Personal health problems that can arise are hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and much more. Although mental health affects physically, it also affects psychologically. If the work atmosphere is not pleasing or comfortable for the employee, problems will begin to arise psychologically. If the individual begins to build negative characteristics at their work, they can bring those stressors home and cause conflict with the family. Work related stress is a major conflicting factor because it can lead to poor productivity, poor work performance, and increase human error. This stress is very related to pressure, and due to jobs requiring different work ethic, the pressure can be significantly excessive compared to others. Another affecting factor that causes work strain is, unemployment. This is a major concern for the people who work to survive and provide. When an individual is working, their main reasons is to, “support the family, feed the family, and pay the bills”. With an invisible enemy such as “work stress”, this study is going to perceive different ways that work-related stress can cause impact towards the middle age adult’s self-efficacy. Job Strain Leading to the Effects of Mental Health IssuesJob Strain Leading to the Effects of Mental Health IssuesSigmund Freud once mentioned, “work and love were the most important factors affecting humans”. Taking this quote into consideration, significantly means that individuals should enjoy and feel comfortable working in their environment. If an individual feels uncomfortable, negative energy, or work-related stress can all be significant factors to bring in problems into their intra/inter personal levels in life. For this research, I want to identify the leading factors that affect work related stress for middle-aged adults, and determine the effects of those factors. By identifying the factors, one can determine ways to work with the factors to avoid work related stress. Research has provenEvidence suggests that the main factors that affect work-related stress are “Superior relationship, co-peer relationship, job insecurity, family related conflicts, high demand requirements, and bureaucratic constraints. According to, (Rajgopal, 2010) these 6 factors are the main leading factors that lead to work related stress. Since occupations are more at risk of mental health compared to others, ways to determine these factors are by providing health assessments through the company’s quarterly so that the individuals can reflect on how they feel interpersonally. (Maulik, 2017). When individuals can take the time to reflect on how their work-related pressure is, it can really affectimpact the outcome of job performance, energy within colleagues, and reduce the risk of developing health complications. (Espina, 2019).The health topic that I have selected for this study is how work-related stress effects the mental health of middle aged adults in San Antonio, TX. The reasoning that I chose middle aged adults is because that’s when most people begin to search for serious jobs, begin families, move out of households with a new partner, and try to settle in life. By having all these factors behind them, including a job, can be an emotional load for an individual dealing with all this at once. (Rao, 2012). I want to perform a cohort study design for this study because I want to apply two comparison groups. One group will be “the healthy group”, and the other will have “diagnosed psychological problem”. The reason behind this cohort study is that I will be able to observe and collect qualitative and quantitative information from my participants while reducing biased information as best as possible. Since I have selected a specific location for my study, this will allow me to collect data efficiently. I will first begin my study by collecting information from San Antonio Metro Health, and Texas DHHS to perceive what area codes are affected the most by work related stress and mental health. I will issue out a home survey to the participants in the area codes that are needed with instructions to follow. They will have to answer the questionnaire as accurate as possible and return it with a pre-paid stamp followed by an incentive for replying. Once responses have been collected, I will contact the participants through a phone interview to instruct the following procedures to continue the research study. This will allow to gather some of their health information, socioeconomic standing, and health diseases if any. (Guglielmi, 2013). My specific aims for this research is to determine that if participants get affected by work related stress, which results mental health problems. I also want to determine if work related stress reduces self-efficacy towards the participants which results in poor work energy or cooperation with colleagues. This will allow me to determine if these factors affect the individual mentally, and try to figure out on ways to improve this work-related stress. According to a very similar study done by Lerner (2019),, has proved to show very accurate results from the participants. In this research, the author used Work Limitation Questionnaire, which a questionnaire that is fully validated for employed samples with or without mental health issues. (Lerner, 2019). Hopefully after gathering some mixed method data from the participants, I will be able to organize the cohort study with accurate results in which can generalize larger populations. After the study, I am hoping to discover some effective factors that apply to the individuals who have healthy mental health and to the ones with mental health issues. By determining the work-related stressors, I am hoping to prove my hypothesis correctly in which I can raise mental health awareness when it comes to work related stress to prevent health complications and live a healthy stable life physically and mentally.

ReferencesGuglielmi, D., Simbula, S., Vignoli, M., Bruni, I., Depolo, M., Bonfiglioli, R., Tabanelli, M. C., & Violante, F. S. (2013). Solving a methodological challenge in work stress evaluation with the Stress Assessment and Research Toolkit (StART): a study protocol. Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England), 8(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/1745-6673-8-18

Lerner, D., Adler, D. A., Rogers, W. H., Chang, H., Lapitsky, L., McLaughlin, T., & Reed, J. (2010). Work performance of employees with depression: the impact of work stressors. American journal of health promotion : AJHP, 24(3), 205–213. https://doi.org/10.4278/ajhp.090313-QUAN-103Maulik P. K. (2017). Workplace stress: A neglected aspect of mental health wellbeing. The Indian journal of medical research, 146(4), 441–444. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijmr.IJMR_1298_17

Menéndez-Espina, S., Llosa, J. A., Agulló-Tomás, E., Rodríguez-Suárez, J., Sáiz-Villar, R., & Lahseras-Díez, H. F. (2019). Job Insecurity and Mental Health: The Moderating Role of Coping Strategies From a Gender Perspective. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 286. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00286

Rajgopal T. (2010). Mental well-being at the workplace. Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 14(3), 63–65. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5278.75691Rao, J. V., & Chandraiah, K. (2012). Occupational stress, mental health and coping among information technology professionals. Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 16(1), 22–26. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5278.99686

John Wayne Gacy a serious mischievous killer

John Wayne Gacy a serious mischievous killer

Ramona Ross

Georgia Gwinnett College

John Wayne Gacy a serious mischievous killer

Introduction

There are famous criminals in America who have been reported everywhere. John Wayne Gacy is an example of a criminal whereby words like a socialist, entertainer, businessman, murderer, psychotic sadistic individual are words one would use to describe him. John Gacy was considered as a nice man because he often would dress up as a clown and entertain kids. The image of him being a good person ended when he started to rape, torture and kill people. Perhaps one would say John did entertain kids to hide his real nature and obtain victims for his crimes.

Background Information

John Gacy had a rough past as his dad was an alcoholic. Also, at a young age Gacy was struck with an instrument that caused him to have a blood clot. His mother showed much care to John unlike his mother who was harsh and treated him like a grown up man. Unfortunately, his father warned his mother that John was going to be queer, but no one knew that he was going to be a serial killer clown (Carpozi, G., & Wheeler, P. 1972). Because of John’s fathers verbal abuse, he carried that energy with his victims. He didn’t have any compassion or sympathy because of his fathers’ harsh words. This can be linked to theories that describe how one is treated at an early age determines how one will treat others.

It is so ironical that as Gacy grew up he wanted to be a police officer yet ended up a big criminal. John was a good student at start but at teen age he begun to transfer schools and later dropped out while in Vegas. Years later while in prison he decided to finish high school and took college courses.

John Wayne Gacy was a contractor who was married at a young age. Criminal life started when he would help the employees of the businesses he did manage to steal. When his second born was born he was accused of harassing a 16-year-old boy sexually and was taken to prison. After his first time in jail, his wife divorced him and took the kids away from him as well. Afterwards, Gacy moved into a small apartment where he lured, tortured, and raped young men (Kozenczak, J. R., & Kozencz, K. M. 2003). Gacy was respected in his community because he was a successful business man who had his own company.

His spare time was the problem because while posing as “Pogo the Clown”, Gacy was really on the lookout for his next victim. He would lure his victims in by promising them that he had construction work for them. Once the victims were in his house, Gacy would torture them with utensils such as a rope. Gacy would kill his victims and bury them under his house and sometimes by the river close to his house. Gacy never did his torture or killings outside of his house but sometimes the bodies would come up outside of his house (Anderson, K. R., & Braun, B. R. 1994). Unfortunately, the police caught up to Gacy’s ways because even a serial killer can make mistakes.

Conviction

At Waterloo Iowa he was accused by a 15-year-old and another boy of sexually abusing them. Gacy denied the allegations but was indicted by a grand jury later that month. He paid another boy to beat up one of the accusers. He was not affected by his actions but went on harassing other people sexually. He was found competent to stand trial, fortunately he pled guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison but only served 21 months (Sullivan, & Maiken, 2013). John was said to have made 33 male killings and rape cases. Gacy convicted on March 13, 1980 of 33 counts of 1st degree murder. He was sentenced to 21 consecutive life sentences and 12 death sentences. Executed in 1994 when he died after a lethal injection (Anderson, K. R., & Braun, B. R. 1994). This was justice since all h deserved was to die.

Conclusion

John Wayne was a psychopath who would blame his actions on the victims and say that he was trying to defend himself. John’s actions begun at an early age for example during his childhood when he was 10, he buried his mother’s panties the same way he would busy the bodies when he got older and committed murder. Ones actions and future is always seen and can be judged at an early age as John’s father did.

References

Sullivan, T., & Maiken, P. T. (2013). Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders. Pinnacle Books.

Carpozi, G., & Wheeler, P. (1972). The John Wayne Story. Arlington House.

Anderson, K. R., & Braun, B. R. (1994). The Legal Legacy of John Wayne Gacy: The Irrebuttable Presumption That Juries Understand and Follow Jury Instructions. Marq. L. Rev., 78, 791.

Kozenczak, J. R., & Kozencz, K. M. (2003). The Chicago Killer: The Hunt for serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Xlibris Corporation.

JOURNAL #1

JOURNAL #1

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

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Date

01/A (LO#01 – Define service and identify how service businesses differ from manufacturing businesses)

Service is an activity offered by an individual, group, company, or any other party to help with intangible activities and does not change ownership of anything. Service is generally production that can be associated with or not with physical production. Services are commercial activities that add quality and help consumers at particular moments and places as a result of bringing about the needed outcome in – or on behalf of – the beneficiary (Angelo, 2017). However, service businesses significantly differ from manufacturing businesses following some of the unique characteristics of services. There are major distinguishing characteristics of services that have a great impact when differentiating service businesses from manufacturing businesses. These characteristics include intangibility, variability, and lack of ownership, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability (Angelo, 2017). Service businesses are mostly associated with short periods being offered, for instance, in the tourism sector, where I had a good experience during my last vacation. I had a good service at Banff National Park, Canada, where my family visited the last vacation. Tourism is a major sector in hospitality that has matured as an industry and calls upon providing various services to different customers to their satisfaction. For instance, the implication is one key characteristic that distinguishes a service from manufactured goods. This is because during service production customer or the service recipient is engaged in the production and delivery of the service. During our vacation, when traveling across the park, we were involved in transportation to different places where we were guided to avoid an accident.

Variability is another service characteristic that distinguishes service from manufactured goods. This characteristic implies that the quality of the services may vary depending on who is offered the service to a customer. While with manufactured goods, anybody can provide the product and does not need a specialist like in service businesses where only a particular person can provide it, unlike the manufactured products. Perishability is another characteristic that differentiates the two. Services cannot be preserved for future sale or use (Angelo, 2017). This means that if a group is being prepared a dinner for a night, the service cannot be stored for later use; even if some people have not turned yet, the service will take place, and when the other people come, they will order for their services. Lack of ownership is a key differentiating factor between service and manufactured products (Angelo, 2017). This is because in the service industry service provided the customer does not completely own it but only has access to use it. For instance, in tourism, a customer has access to tourists’ cars but does not own them since they move you around the park and leave them within the premises when your time is over for being within the premises.

#01/B (LO#02 & #03 – Explain the importance of strategic planning, and identify the steps in the strategic planning process)

Strategy is having a plan of actions or steps purposely designed to attain a particular aim in an organization. Strategy planning is an important process in which organizations or business leaders/managers define the organization’s vision and future objectives and goals (Angelo, 2017). This process involves a major sequence of steps in which the set objectives and goals would be attained to attain its defined vision. Strategic planning is an important process that enables leaders of an organization to track their progress towards achieving its goals and objectives. Additionally, having a strategy is crucial since it involves SWOT analysis which is vital when setting goals and objectives. This is because through SWOT analysis leader of an organization can determine its strengths and weaknesses that can prevent the business from achieving its set goals. The strategic planning process involves major steps: performing a SWOT analysis, formulating strategies to use, implementing the strategies, and monitoring and evaluating results. Every organization’s strategic planning process must follow these steps to succeed. In the tourism sector, like in Banff National Park, when performing a SWOT analysis, I would figure out the park’s strengths in terms of the sites that are attacking more tourists across the globe and how it could use the potential strength to keep it at that level. To effectively know the weaknesses, I would provide some forms that tourists would fill in to give feedback regarding services provided to know where they can improve.

Secondly, when formulating strategies, for instance, developing a website where customers can book slots during their vacations and services they would like. The third step would be implementing the strategy involving a web designer who would develop a very good web for the park that all people can access using their different devices to book the slots regarding the number of people who will be visiting the park at different times. Lastly, it would be monitoring and evaluating the strategy implementation process over a certain period (Angelo, 2017). To implement this step, I would visit the visitor’s book for a particular period, like one to three months, and compare if there is an increased number of tourists compared to the number of visitors of a previous season before designing the web. Moreover, I would have interviews with different directors to survey to determine if designing the web in the tourism sector is effective.

#01/C (LO#04 – Recognize the basic components of a strategic service vision)

A strategic service vision comprises of identification of a particular target market segment, establishment of a service concept that is aimed at addressing particular and targeted consumer demands, codification of an operating technique to support the implemented service concept, and designing an effective service delivery system to support and the established operating technique (Angelo, 2017). The components mentioned above of the strategic service vision are crucial and basic because they greatly help any business like the tourism business where you have been a customer. For example, in the park, they have implemented these basic components of the strategic service vision because there have been established effective service delivery systems to customers to meet their needs when they visit the park. For instance, upon visiting the park, there are forms that tourists fill out upon arriving indicating their expectations that they anticipate fulfilling, and they are offered service in relation to their expectations. And surveys are conducted through questionnaires to ensure that their expectations are met to prevent customers from being disappointed and providing negative compliments about them.

#01/D (LO#05 – List the keys to delivering good service)

It is significant to various and crucial principles to deliver good services to customers and attain their satisfaction. This is because failure to adhere to those ways will lead to poor service provision to customers. These vital keys to delivering good services include: keeping in mind who you are as a service provider to customers and not forgetting (Angelo, 2017). In the tourism business at Banff National Park, employees who provide customer service have been trained to not interfere with tourists but keep work professional and stick to their roles, not misbehaving with the visitors. Secondly, each employee at the park acts like a manager such that not at any given point can an employee watch wrongdoing and keep a blind eye to the action; they address it effectively. A third key way to deliver good services integrated into tourism is correctly handling all moments of truth (Angelo, 2017). For example, if any visitors do a wrong that they were unaware of and openly revealed themselves, no penalty is imposed on them, but they are given a warning. Key ways of delivering good services have been implemented through the customer care desk since customer messages, calls, and inquiries are immediately attended to. This shows that responding promptly has been well initiated. Lastly, for efficient services, the business has hired very good employees who are patient with the customers and have been kept happy through the provision of allowances (Angelo, 2017).

References

Angelo, R. M. (2017). Hospitality today: An introduction. American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute, Lansing, MI.

Journal 3 Reflection

Journal 3 Reflection

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course Number and Name

Instructor Name

Due Date

Journal 3 ReflectionTeamwork is always tricky at the beginning most of the time. However, when people are well acquainted with each other well and work on a joint project in which they want to succeed, the group work becomes even better and enjoyable. This was the case for my group project about suicide. We did not know what to do at first, but in the end, we came to realize that we had a common interest to see people become better and advance in their mental health through communicative therapy. Therefore we came together and worked on our project successfully. This paper discusses the steps, challenges, and other issues that arose as we were doing the group project and how we successfully finalized the group project.

The first step was deciding on what type of topic to discuss. At first, it seemed like there was no best topic to discuss. However, we had a brainstorming activity, and we came up with all possible ideas. Even though some were crazy ideas, but we encouraged open-mindedness and creative thinking. After the brainstorming process, we had to decide which specific way to choose. We, therefore, gave our choices and the reasons we had chosen those choices and not others. Each of the group members also had to explain the reason as to why they thought a specific topic was better than another one. We narrowed it down to service through this method to stop or reduce the number of suicides witnessed around us.

After choosing the topic of suicide and trying to think of new ways to stop this, we realized that we did not have enough information and resources on how to write this project, and therefore, the next step was doing research. We decided that it was best that every person did their research independently. Then we came together to discuss our different researches and how to go about making out the project the best possible. I researched the reasons why suicide is so common within the area. I found a lot of information revolving around family separations, divorces of parents leading children to be depressed, love issues, especially among the youth and teenagers, among other factors.

After the successful research, we came back together and discussed our different parts of the project, and the PowerPoint was made by each person making their part and then presenting to the group why they included each part of the work the way they did. If the group members agreed that it is okay, the part of the project was forwarded to the group leader for combining. At the same time, if the team felt that something was missing, the group member was requested to revise the part they had done and then send it to the group leader for combining. After combining, the final thing was to come together one last time, discuss the project, and view the final work before being uploaded.

Apart from seeing the paper, we realized that the work is essential, and there was a real need to begin such a project not just present the academic profession, get marks and go along our different paths. Therefore this has opened our eyes to the outside world and how we can help, and we are discussing the possibility of having such kind of a group that helps those who have suicide issues to be better and avoid their stress and live everyday life. This can be one of the change-makers in the societies whereby the youth are suffering so much in a lot of emotional pain to the point of wishing to commit suicide. And the fact that we are also youths gives us a better chance to help them and therefore hopefully the project will be realistic.

Journal 4

Journal 4

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course Number and Name

Instructor Name

Due Date

Journal 4

Communication is always of great importance between humans. This is a very unique feature of human beings. Even though other animals communicate it is not as advanced as human language and therefore the reason for it to be special. This course has taught different skills and types of communication which have been of great importance to me as well as my classmates. This paper discusses the goals set for this course at the beginning and a reflection on whether those goals were met.

Introduction to speech community has been of great importance in helping me unlock my communicative potential. There are crucial things I had to make better in my communication and this course has helped me be better. In my desire to be a better communicator and as well be a good listener I set my specific goals at the beginning of the course. I am proud to state that most of the goals have been met and that I will keep on following every skill that I have learned in this course in my communicative desire towards perfection. Some of these goals which were met include being able to identify and use non-verbal skills in the right manner to express me. I have also learned about a very wide variety of non-verbal communication which I never thought or imagined was a kind of non-verbal communication. For example, the link between culture and non-verbal communication is very strong and I had never thought about this. When a person puts on certain types of clothes either in unison with the other people or puts those kinds of clothes and is the only person putting them on they tend to communicate something. This was one of the most astonishing discoveries during this course.

The other part of a culture which I learned and was one of my goals was about the language we use and the behavior we usually have. I had always questioned what is culture and how does it impact communication. This was answered in this course since I learned that culture is a peoples way of life and this influenced communication even from the time one is born, the words which the person is taught is part of the culture and it is a very essential part of them since what a person learns when they are young as part of their culture is how a person ends up communicating to the people around him or her. It also takes a lot of energy to change how a person communicates be it verbal or non-verbal.

I cannot state categorically if there is an area that has not been addressed that was part of my goals. However, with the new knowledge from this course, I am hoping and desiring to keep on learning more about different people especially those around me. Through this kind of evaluation I will be able to understand the people around me more deeply and if there has been a misunderstanding before I will be able to realize it because understanding a person’s culture is part of understanding them. Without understanding a person’s culture or the reasons why they communicate in a certain way, the understanding of the communication of the person is lessened and there is a likelihood of misunderstanding. Therefore I desire to be able to understand everyone and listen to their communication so that I only reply most nobly.

In conclusion, communication is a crucial part of our daily lives, and employing the right kind of communication can enable one to unlock so many doors in life and become successful. However, a person can also be a bad communicator unintentionally and it is important to understand different people and treat them with respect.

Journal Article Analysis

Journal Article Analysis

Student’s name

Institutional affiliation

Course

Professor’ name

Date

Journal Article Analysis

Crooks, C. V., Jaffe, P., Dunlop, C., Kerry, A., & Exner-Cortens, D. (2019). Preventing gender-based violence among adolescents and young adults: lessons from 25 years of program development and evaluation. Violence against women, 25(1), 29-55.

The article Preventing gender-based violence among adolescents and young adults: lessons from 25 years of program development and evaluation was authored by Claire Crooks, Peter Jaffe, Caely Dunlop, Amanda Kerry, and Deinera Exner-Cortens. The five authors have unique backgrounds. Dr. Claire Crooks is a Director at the Centre for School Mental Health and a Professor at the Western University in London, Ontario Canada. Crooks has been involved in the development of eight published articles in the field of mental health and promoting healthy relationships among women and girls, the youth and children. Crooks’ background has no negative effect on how I view the article. As a matter of fact, Crooks’ background increases my level of trust in the article. I feel that since Crook is an expert in mental health matters and has conducted vast research in mental health issues, she is best placed to write about the intervention programs for gender-based violence among young adults. Further, I feel that the information presented in the article is accurate because it was written by a team of experts. This makes me view the article as accurate and reliable.

The article was first published on 16th December 2018 in the Violence Against Women (VAW) journal on Sage Pub. The date of publishing improves my understanding of the article; it makes me relate to the issue of partner violence and how much of a problem it is for the current society. Initially, I believed that partner violence is mostly a problem for married people but now I am aware of the prevalence of dating violence in high school, university, and colleges. The purpose of the Violence Against Women (VAW) peer-reviewed journal is to publish information and research on all aspects of the vice of violence meted against women and girls. Other types of writing that can be found in the journal include sexual harassment, domestic violence, incest, sexual assault, female infanticide, and female slavery. The intended audience for this research is adolescents and young adults. This includes boys and girls that are dating within high school, college, and university. Additionally, the journal also targets the general members of the society as they are likely to be bystanders that witness aggressive acts or physical assaults. This article is scholarly; it is peer-reviewed and was published for the purpose of the general press. The article did not have a specific audience in mind as the information written is useful to all members of society. The author of the article makes the appeal that we need to be more flexible in future intervention research and programming. There is a need to address the models of identifying partner violence including traditional approaches to gender-based violence approaches.

The authors make valid arguments throughout the article. They found the flexibility of the research designs to be a key component of evaluations strategies of GBV. For a long time, researchers were not able to research programs in marginalized communities as they did not meet the standards for rigorous research. However, to attain quality outcomes, research must consider the real-world settings including a small sample size to meet the needs of the stakeholder.

As regards the gaps of this research, I am of the opinion that a section of women has been overlooked in the research intervention. I feel that gender-based violence goes beyond only affecting the youth. The researchers did not pay attention to other groups that have been victims of structural oppressions including disabled women and girls, women of color, indigenous women, women in poverty, sexually diverse women, migrant women, women abused as children, gender-queer and sex workers. Without a doubt, women generally are at high exposure of GBV but there is a need to delve into the different groups so as to address partner violence completely.

The evidence that I found to be most convincing is the mention that “evaluations showed evidence of increases in participants’ self-reported likelihood of using bystander behaviors and of positively influencing participants’ perceptions of their confidence to intervene.” As an intervention program, the bystander effect has proved effective in bringing behavior change (Abebe, Jones, Ciaravino, Ripper, Paglisotti, Morrow & Miller, 2017). The bystander effect has proved helpful in intervening safely in abusive behaviors between partners hence reducing the prevalence of gender-based violence.

The evidence I found as least convincing is that “The Ending Violence program increased youth’s knowledge of dating violence laws and increased the perceived helpfulness of seeking legal counsel as a response to dating violence.” I find this hard to believe because teenagers instincts often make them behave in the exact opposite manner. Not many teenagers are open to admitting that they are going through violence as there is stigma associated with the vice. Most of them fear being ridiculed by their colleagues making them shy away from seeking help. It is for this reason that I do not find this evidence very convincing.

The source of this article changes my mind about the topic in various ways. The source makes me view the issue of intimate partner violence in a new light. It convinces me of the seriousness of the matter and prompts me to think critically about some of the programs that might prove helpful in addressing dating violence. It has changed my mind about the role that each person should play in making society free of gender-based violence. I realize that bystanders have more power than they may know. Bystanders are in opposition to make a difference by acting if they encounter incidences of violence.

Now that I have read this article, I understand better the fact that partner violence is not an issue that affects married couples only and grownups. I now understand that dating violence is also rampant and an issue of concern for young adults including high school students. I have never thought about intimate partner violence in this light but upon reading this article, I have broadened my understanding of gender-based violence.

This source compares to other sources that I have read in the past concerning gender-based violence in various ways. First, the source posits that although gender-based violence cuts across both genders, women and girls are at more risk of encountering GBV than their male counterparts. Just like other sources, this source speaks to the vulnerability and victimization of various marginalized sub-groups. Women with disabilities, gender-queer women, indigenous women, and women and color face gender-based violence more than other groups.

Now that I have read this article, I see possibilities of future research on areas such as the effect of intimate partner violence among intersex individuals. This is an area that should be explored at length because compared to other groups there exists little research that has been conducted on the subject. Future research should focus on reducing gender-based violence for vulnerable groups in real-world settings.

References

Abebe, K. Z., Jones, K. A., Ciaravino, S., Ripper, L., Paglisotti, T., Morrow, S. E., … & Miller, E. (2017). A cluster-randomized trial of a middle school gender violence prevention program: Design, rationale, and sample characteristics. Contemporary clinical trials, 62, 11-20.

Journal Article Reaction Paper

Journal Article Reaction Paper

PSYC/NRSC 350 Cognitive Neuroscience Dr. Orr

Assignment Description

You will pick a journal article from the list of available papers to summarize and critique. These articles are those that have had a big impact on the field and/or represents new and cutting-edge research. Some papers may appear to be short (e.g., those from the journal Science) , but they will often have supplementary information on the journal website. You are responsible for reading any necessary supplementary materials. Half of the paper should be a summary of the article and the other half should critique/ evaluate the paper. Your paper should be 1000-1500 words (about 2 pages, single-spaced). Reviews of the papers are meant to be anonymous, therefore DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME/ID IN THE TEXT OR IN THE FILENAME. You will lose points for failing to follow directions.

Other critical points:

–  Use APA citation format for the paper and textbook (in-text citations and references at the end of

the paper, but don’t need a separate references page). Other than citations, you don’t need to follow APA format, i.e., don’t include a cover page and don’t put anything in the header or footer.

–  DO NOT USE QUOTES! Journal articles communicate research to other scientists and experts in the field. Use your own words! Write the paper for your grandmother, as my grad school professor would say.E.g., In the article: “As SSD was varied to yield ~50% P(inhibit), SSRT was estimable by subtracting average SS from median correct Go RT (according to the race model).” In your words, “The authors used an establish method to set the delay for the stop signal wherein participants would be unable to stop in time on about half of the trials.”

Key Components of a Summary

Summarize the research question being answered in the paper and what has been done to date (i.e., review what you learned from the literature review). Condense the content of the work by highlighting its main points and key supporting points.

Describe the participants, procedures and methods very briefly (to understand the methods, you may need to consult additional resources)

Describe the results including the primary analyses that were used and what they found

Describe the main conclusions that the authors arrived at

Article Critique/ Evaluation

You should heavily rely on information discussed in class for your critique

What were the strengths of the paper?

What are the implications of this research for our understanding of the mind/brain?

Did you notice any problems with the methodology, hypotheses, interpretation, other limitations?

Why do you think this paper is impactful or cutting edge?

Is the work related to problems in our present-day world? If so, how?

How is the material related to your life, experiences, feelings and ideas?

Did the work increase your understanding of a particular issue? Did it change your perspective in

any way?

Journal Article Summary

Journal Article Summary

Student’s name

Institutional Affiliation

Background

The journal article is titled “Psychologists Report Large Increase in Demand for Anxiety and Depression Treatment.” The survey was conducted by Sophie Bethune located at the institution of the American Psychological Association. The journal published on November 17th, 2020 builds upon a previous research conducted on the same subject in June 2020. In terms of age group, the study was conducted among practicing psychologists in the early, mid, and late stages of their careers. The survey which took place between August 28th and October 2020 can be described as a correlational study. It is a correlational study because it adopts a non-experimental approach whereby the researcher studies two variables and analyzes the statistical relationship that exists between them with little control of extraneous variables (Xiao, Carney, Youn, Janis, Castonguay, Hayes, & Locke 2017). The approach to research in this study is purely descriptive and does not rely heavily on hypothesis formulation and testing as in scientific research.

Summary of Methodology

The article focuses on the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the increased cases of patients with depression-related conditions and the changes to the service delivery to patients by practicing psychologists. According to the survey, about six months into the pandemic, many psychologists admitted to seeing more patients presenting with depression and anxiety according to the Telehealth Practitioner Survey on covid-19 done by the American Psychological Association. In regards to methodology, the practitioner survey was disseminated to a sample that was geographically representative of practicing psychologists in the USA including both members and non-members of the American Psychological Association. Worth noting, the fieldwork of this survey took place from August 28th, 2020 to 5th October 2020. Out of the total number of psychologists reached, a total of 1787 responded to the survey. Noteworthy, the sample was a non-probability sample hence it is impossible to compute the margins of error or confidence intervals.

Summary of Results

Data collected from the survey confirmed the institution’s worst fear, that the pandemic was taking a heavy emotional toll on Americans. This is according to the institution’s Chief Executive Officer. In responding to the unprecedented mental health crisis, most psychologists were getting more referrals, seeing more patients and experiencing fewer cancellations. Further, it was noted that more psychologists had embraced telehealth as they began treating patients remotely. Results from the September survey indicated that most psychologists reported seeing an increased number of patients with depressive disorders accounting for 60% and anxiety disorders accounting for 74% compared to before the pandemic began. Moreover, other treatments that recorded a significant increase in patients included sleep-wake disorder and stress-related disorder. Additionally, according to the survey, 37% of the psychologists which accounts for more than one-third of the total psychologists revealed that they received more patient referrals compared to before the pandemic. Moreover, 44% admitted to recording fewer cancellations or no-shows. The survey further revealed that compared to pre-covid days, 43% of psychologists said that they were attending to the same number of patients, 29% said they were attending to more clients, and 28% reported seeing fewer patients. Most psychologists reported that they did not see any notable changes in the patient variations recorded with specific ethnic and racial groups. However, 9% of psychologists reported an increase in attending to patients of Asian origin while 11% recorded an increase in seeing African American patients. Further, 19% of the psychologist reported attending to White patients and 8% revealed they were seeing more patients with Hispanic patients. 21% of the psychologist revealed that they were attending to more adolescents aged 13-17 after the covid-19 pandemic while 29% revealed that were attending to more adults between 18 and 64 years. Moreover, revealed that 17% attended the older adult patients between 65-79 years while 30% noted that they attended to fewer children that were below 13 years. 63% of the psychologist treated all patients remotely while 32% conducted in-person treatment. Worth noting, 63% of the psychologist reported remote treatment to be more challenging than in-person treatment, 26% recorded a fair amount of challenges, 58% reported few challenges while 16% experienced no challenges relating to telehealth.

Questions Raised by the Study

This study raises the question of the direction that health service delivery is taking and the need to invest and employ technology as a tool to improve community health. Without a doubt, the covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented issue that prompted us to seek alternative ways to health care delivery. When the pandemic emerged, doctors had to e creative to ensure they went on with their work without exacerbating the spread of the virus. Although telehealth is challenging, the pandemic has taught us that it is doable. The focus now should be on devising ways to make the telehealth experience better and even adopting it as a means of treatment even after the pandemic is over. There is need to invest in policy formulations to regulate telehealth services.

References

Xiao, H., Carney, D. M., Youn, S. J., Janis, R. A., Castonguay, L. G., Hayes, J. A., & Locke, B. D. (2017). Are we in crisis? National mental health and treatment trends in college counseling centers. Psychological services, 14(4), 407.

Journal Entry 1 – Chapter 3 Communication and the Self

Journal Entry 1 – Chapter 3 Communication and the Self

For all individuals, communication is key in determining who an individual really is, and therefore, it helps define oneself. The presence of social media has increased our communications with one another, not only with families but also with friends. These platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, have helped us identify our public self, in that we opt to show a particular part of ourselves to the public while keeping that which we don’t want to be seen in private. Based on this, we choose to disclose some things which we perceive as relevant in relational development. How we communicate and perceive ourselves tends to affect our self-esteem – the evaluations of self-worth; therefore, it affects how we communicate with those around us.

Self-concept is defined as the relatively stable set of perceptions that an individual holds about themselves. This implies that self-concept is crucial in determining our personalities, including attributes of whom an individual is in their normal mood states, likes, dislikes, special talents, or roles. An individual’s personality determines their self-worth, which means how individuals feel about certain qualities may have to do with their self-esteem. I believe that the type of parenting affects both the self-concept and self-esteem of an individual as they grow, and this means that the childhood of a person is essential in shaping their self-worth. Authoritative parenting allows very little interaction of their children as they live in a controlled environment. However, there are democratic parents who allow their children freedom to do as they wish; they trust their children to make major decisions about themselves and make them responsible for their choices. Such a child grows to have strong self-worth and self-esteem compared to a child who had no freedom to choose.

Children brought in authoritative parenting will always look for approval from others as they don’t know how it is like to be independent. However, an individual with a strong self-concept and self-esteem tends to have positive thoughts, which they use to develop desirable behaviors. If a person feels good about themselves, they pose positive expectations about how they will communicate with those around them. There is a high likelihood that their communications will be successful. Having successful communication can help an individual develop positive evaluations of self, which increases their level of self-esteem. Therefore, positive evaluations can be a key determinant as well as a beginning for developing positive communications with others. Communications cannot be successful if the wrong strategy is applied; therefore, if an individual wants to improve how other people perceive them, they have to devise a strategy that will impress others. Based on this, impression management is another key element in developing conversations as it helps increase thoughtfulness, self-awareness, honesty, and understanding of personal emotions. However, impressions need to be guided by authenticity. Therefore, it is important for an individual to be self-aware of themselves before engaging in a conversation so that they don’t play the role that is not theirs.

Thoughtfulness and being an efficient listener help understand the other person’s perspective. Therefore, it is essential that before conversing back, an individual should evaluate the consequences of their feedback to avoid negative implications that could ruin relationships with others. Being conscious and thoughtful can improve personal relationships with others. Self-disclosure is also an important part of effective communication as it helps reveal information about the self to another person. It can be used to bring a sense of psychological belief, making an individual feel better when they get a burden out of their chest. However, if an individual is not careful in self-disclosure, they might spill too much information that could be toxic and thus lead to rejection. Therefore, it is essential to understand the limits and disclose only information whose damage can be controlled to ensure effective communication. A close observation of these rules can help an individual better understand the self.

References

Chapter 3 in Adler, R. B., Rosenfeld, L. B., & Proctor II, R. F. (2018). Interplay: The process of interpersonal communication (p. 504) Oxford University Press, New York.

Journal entry 7

Journal entry 7

Antigone is an idealistic character caught between doing what is morally right or obeying political laws. Antigone finds herself in this position after Creon prohibits the burial of one of her brothers. Based on the play, it is apparent that Antigone prioritizes the laws of the gods, and her desire to bury her brother, who was named a traitor, stems from her strong sense of family loyalty. Unlike Antigone’s priorities, her sister’s and uncle’s priorities are focused on political expediency hence their unrelenting stance in going against the laws of the gods. The conflict between Antigone and Creon results in the tragic demise of Antigone and multiple family members related to her. Creon also regrets his choices and laments that everything he has touched has amounted to nothing. Antigone is a tale that highlights the differences between political laws and moral laws and calls to attention the need for people to prioritize morals. While both Antigone and Creon ended up losing a lot, their choices highlight the possible implications of following either moral laws or political laws. While Antigone’s demise is tragic, I believe that the play highlights the limitations of political laws. For instance, Creon’s laws are dictatorial as they disregard human ties. As a result, Creon’s disregard for Antigone’s family obligations results in the loss of his own family. The play also reveals the complexity of life. It challenges the audience to stand for what is right as opposed to blindly following laws that judge people’s actions on an unrealistic dual system of black and white.