Tag: psychology

#EndTheStigma

I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for quite some time. It is unfortunate that a prominent death is what gave me the final push to write this post.

My reaction to Robin Williams’ death was similar to many others- shock. I had no idea he suffered from severe depression and was sad to hear he resorted to suicide in order to end his pain. Immediately logging onto Twitter I saw a host of celebrities grieving for Williams and saying things like “Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help” or “Please get help if you are hurting.”

As a psychology major and someone with a history of mental illness in the family, I’m glad to see celebrities and major figures begin to show awareness towards depression. But why did someone’s death have to prompt this conversation? Why isn’t depression awareness already a topic of conversation in the media. How come so many people don’t understand depression and see suicide as a selfish act, rather than an act of desperation.

One of my facebook friends posted this article discussing Robin Williams’ death. I completely agree with the author in saying that Williams did not die from suicide, he died from depression. Like the author states depression is an illness not a lifestyle choice. People don’t just “get depressed” they have depression. And it’s not something as simple as being sad all the time, it goes deeper than that. I found a BuzzFeed article called “15 Things You Shouldn’t Say to Someone Struggling With Depression” and believe that it is an article that everyone can benefit from reading.

Overall, I wish more people were more educated on depression (and mental illnesses in general) and did not stigmatize the disease. Because that’s what depression is, a disease. If anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel free to comment on this post and I will be happy to discuss it with you.

Some more information on depression worth looking at: Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part 2, DGC Says, 6 Things Not to Say to Someone With Depression, and lastly I Had a Black Dog, His Name Was Depression.

Some phone numbers to be aware of:
US Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-2433
Suicide and Depression Hotline- Covenant House: 800-999-9999
NDMDA Depression Hotline- Support Group: 800-826-3632

If you or someone you know is struggling from depression, please get help. Depression is a flaw in chemistry, not character. Asking for help does not mean that you are weak, it means you are strong enough to get the help you deserve and need.

The Final Lap

Having my first last day of classes ever was a weird feeling. With a month-long break I feel like it should be fall semester because I haven’t seen campus in so long. Spring semester always goes by much faster than fall semester for some reason and I hope this year it could slow down for once. I’m excited for my classes to begin even though this semester will be a lot of hard work.

Of course, in all my communication classes we went around the room and introduced ourselves and talked about interesting facts or what we are interested in within the communications major. That didn’t happen in my 70+ max capacity psych class, though. Being a double major is always interesting. I get to see how two different departments work and see the differences (and similarities) between the professors. I’m fortunate in the fact JMU has amazing professors in every department. I am biased towards the professors in SCOM and psych though, because the professors are truly phenomenal.

Yesterday in my psychology of learning class, my professor spent a good chunk of time going over his history with school and how he got to where he is today at JMU. He story consisted of not doing so well his first few years as an engineering major, finding a love for psychology and changing his major. At JMU, he teaches psych of learning, research methods and a senior seminar class. He also has the opportunities to conduct research he is truly interested in. After finding his own passion for psychology and teaching, he studies what makes other people passionate and why they are passionate. He also strives to instill a sense of passion in his students and after one day in class with him I already know it is going to be an inspiring semester to say the least. His enthusiasm for psychology of learning made me interested and focused, even though classical and operant conditioning are not my favorite subjects in psychology.

Today, I had a SCOM professor give similar advice to the class. I feel like passion and enthusiasm are strongly emphasized senior year. It is not that in previous years professors haven’t talked about being passionate, but I’ve noticed as we get ready to leave the JMU nest professors are trying to get us to get over grades and lean more towards actually learning the material and wanting to know more. I have had numerous psychology professors say “If you focus on learning the material, the grades will follow.” Because ultimately, my grades won’t matter one day. People will want to know what I learned, not that I got an A in advanced public relations writing.

So this semester I’m going to focus on learning as much as I possibly can from my classes as well as my professors. This semester I also want to get to know my professors better than I have in the past. Especially my professor studying passions, I hope he can help

Maximizing vs. Satisficing: Which one are you?

Maximizing vs. Satisficing: Which one are you?

(That is not a typo in the title, don’t worry, I’ll explain.)

I love being a double major. Throughout my course work I have found so many different topics overlap from communications into psychology and vice versa. For my Industrial/Organizational psychology class we had to read a research article I found to be particularly interesting. The article, Doing Better but Feeling Worse: Looking for the “Best” job Undermines Satisfaction, was about maximizing and satisficing and how these choice-making strategies can affect general happiness and job performance.
The article defines maximizing as “to seek the best and requires an exhaustive search of all possibilities.” Satisficing is “to seek ‘good enough,’ searching until encountering an option that crosses the threshold of acceptability.” The example used is when watching t.v., maximizers channel surf and look at all the channels, leaving little time to actually watch a show. On the other hand, satisficers would channel surf until he or she found an acceptable show and actually watched said show.

The research led to show that compared with satisficers maximizers do better financially, but feel worse. Maximizers are more unhappy with their choices after they have made them, even if it is a good decision. On the other hand, satisficers are happy and are not just settling. They are falling under what they consider to be an “acceptable threshold.” The article also states that maximizers might act this way because in the past they have been high achievers with past successes and have learned to expect more of themselves.

As the discussion on this article continued in class, we began talking about how this actually applies in the workplace setting and in real life. My professor brought up social media and how maximizers would be on all the different forms of social media and constantly checking the sites, which in the end only leads to unhappiness. This lead me to think about public relations professionals. Could public relations professionals turn off social media for a day and still feel like they are able to complete their tasks for the day or get projects done?

Soon this conversation led to talking about the 40-hour work week and how stress and overworking are socially reinforced constructs in our culture. I remember being in middle school and just doing my homework to get it done so I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. But then I got to high school and suddenly it was “cool” to put off doing work until the last minute so you’re up all night studying or writing a paper. In college it seems as if people are competing for who got less sleep or who has more work to do. My professor made a great point, you never hear anyone say, “You know last night I got a great full nine hours of sleep and I woke up feeling really refreshed and had a great start to my morning and I don’t need any coffee today!”

 

Our culture values spending more time at work and you are considered a better person if you work longer and harder hours. However, working long hours in the long run causes productivity to go down and people are likely to “burn out” faster. This entire discussion gave me a lot to think about for my future career. The public relations world is often never ending, with taking calls and checking emails at home.
It is readings and discussions like these that make me so grateful to be studying both psychology and communications. I feel that having this knowledge about maximizers being unhappy will help me to remember to not become fixated on what could have happened if I had made another choice or picked a different job.

Along with the reading we also had to complete a survey and score ourselves to determine which side of the scale we fall on. The higher the number, the more likely you are to be a maximizer. I scored a 3.5 which I feel is pretty accurate of myself. While I have high standards for myself and work hard, I don’t overstress myself to the point where I am only worrying about the options I should have chosen instead of the one I did choose.

So what do you think you are, a maximizer or satisficer?