Psychology III Personality Psychology Practical 1 Khalil Bendie G10b4946 Tutor: Cara du Toit

April 2012

Homework Assignment 1A:

Identifying and correcting cognitive distortions:

During a particular social event this past week a stranger came up to me and said that they have seen me around campus. They told me that I seemed like a nice person and I am not what everyone else says. I was taken aback by that statement and asked what they had heard about me. They replied that they had heard people say that I was generally not a nice person to be around. The first thought that came to mind was, How could people say that if they do not even know me? Secondly was, Why is this stranger even bothering to speak to me if they have already assumed what I was like based on somebody elses prejudgement? The feelings that I felt from these thoughts were predominantly frustration and defensiveness. At first I got frustrated at the fact that I was talking to a complete stranger who came out of nowhere to share such ill news that he had heard about me too me. I then got immediately defensive and did not want to continue my conversation with the person any longer. After the occurrence I spent most of the night in a frustrated mind-set thinking of how misunderstanding people can be of others.

Accuracy of my thought: How could people say that about me? This was the first thought that came to my mind when the stranger told me what they had heard about me. I felt that it was fair to question why someone would think such negative things about me when they have never met me before.

Rationality of my thought: Why is this person even bothering to speak to me? After getting frustrated by the comments that I heard were made about me I instantly started questioning the motives of the stranger who came up to me. I rationalised the situation by thinking that this person has a preconceived idea of me so therefore their words cannot be trusted.

Functionality of my thought: The thoughts that came to mind during the incident triggered my defense mechanism of retracting from the conversation. I felt frustrated and upset from what I heard so immediately put up my guard in order to remove myself from the conversation as quickly as I could. On the one hand it protects me from allowing people to get to close and on the other hand I could see how it could lead people to assume that I am not friendly or nice to be around.

The second incident took place during lunch time in the dining hall. The conversation that was taking place amongst the guys sitting at my table seemed to be very sexist towards females in general. The first thoughts that came to my mind were, I am so tired of hearing these guys speak like this about woman. Secondly I thought, Do they speak this way in order to feel cool by the others sitting at the table? and thirdly I thought, I should say something to stop this conversation from continuing any further. In general the main feeling that I felt was anger and to an extent I did feel offended by the guys comments even if they were not directed towards me in particular. Accuracy of my thought: I am tired of hearing this All too often do I go to the dining hall and the conversation tends to objectify woman and be degrading towards them in some way. I feel the attempt is futile when I do say something about it yet it just continues to happen over and over again. Rationality of my thoughts: Do they speak like this for a reason? Whenever I overhear a conversation like this take place I immediately think that there has to be a reason for whoever is speaking this way about woman. In my mind I think that they do because it is considered the right kind of male thing to do. So I draw a conclusion that the person must feel insecure in some way and speaks badly about woman in order to be accepted more. I know that this is

just my general assumption and I could be completely wrong as to the real reasons but that is how I rationalise the situation. Functionality of my thought: I should speak up and say something If someone says something that is either offensive towards others or myself, I usually do voice my opinion at an attempt to make the person aware of the absurdity of his comments. By voicing my opinion I feel that I can let some of my anger out by expressing myself through words and in order to get people to think about what they said. However, usually my comments are not really taken seriously and the scenario ends up replaying itself at another point in time.

The third incident that took place occurred when I was on my way to a class. I happened to bump into my best friend and when I saw him I was genuinely happy to see him. However, the feeling was clearly not mutual and when I greeted him he just greeted me back in a nonchalant manner and continued on to his class. The first thought that came to mind was, What the hell is his problem? Then I thought, Wait, have I done something wrong that I do not know about? And thirdly I thought, I must find out what his problem is! The first feeling I felt was rejection and hurt, as I did not expect my close friend to treat me that way. Then I felt angry for feeling hurt and tried to brush it off. I knew that the only way to let go of those feelings was to speak to my friend and find out what the issue was.

Accuracy of my thought: What is his problem? Obviously this came to mind because I did not see that reaction from him coming and I did not expect for him to take his bad mood out on me. Rationality of my thought: Have I done something wrong? This thought followed as I urgently thought if I had previously done something wrong during the last time that we were together. I rationalised the situation by thinking that it cannot be me and that he must ne going through something that is upsetting him and he is not in the mood to be all nice to those around him.

Functionality of my thought: I need to find out the problem! I assumed that either he was upset with me in particular or that by being in a mood he was showing me that something was not right with him. By thinking this I knew that either way I should get in contact with him as soon as possible and find out what the issue is. This response helps me take the initiative to make sure that those who I consider close are okay.

Homework Assignment 2A: Self-Disclosure:

After completing the assessment on self-disclosure it came to my attention that I could use some improvement in being able to openly express my feelings of vulnerability. I noticed that I am more willing to share positive feelings with the ones closest to me yet struggle to openly share the more vulnerable aspects of myself. After giving it some thought I realised that the main reasons for this is that I find it difficult to let down my guard and share my true feelings perhaps due to my own fears of possible rejection or being misunderstood. According to Nelson-Jones (1990), Expressing feelings can be scary: you may not like your own feelings, and/or be afraid of the consequences to you and others if you disclose them. There is great truth in this statement and if I want to build stronger relationships with others who I care about then I am going to have to learn to communicate my true feelings with them a lot better.

In my experiment with self-disclosure I will attempt to open up to my closest friend about the reasons for why I choose not to get into intimate relationships with others. I consider this the most difficult aspect of myself to share and there is only one other person that I have ever confined in about it and that is my eldest sister. What scares me the most about disclosing such an important part about me is putting in the effort to try and express my feelings in the best way yet at the end of it still be completely misunderstood. The rationality of that is simple because I struggle to express my feelings there is a good chance that when I do try and express them that the person that I am confining in does not get what I am trying to express in the first place. If this had to happen I would probably be left with that feeling of being misunderstood which could make me feel quite disconnected and isolated from others. In my

experiment I will choose the person who I feel most comfortable speaking to here at varsity and try to express my true feelings of how I struggle with my own feelings of vulnerability which make me feel incredibly anxious when they arise.

The approach that I took was simple really, I thought clearly about what feelings I was trying to express. The outcome that I was aiming to achieve was some type of better understanding between my friend and me, along with a sense of empathy. I expressed to her that I only felt comfortable with confining with her out of our group of friends due to the mutual trust we have built between us. I expressed to her my feelings of how I struggle with being open with others. The interesting thing was that she had similar feelings regarding being vulnerable yet she tackled her own fears differently. At that point the understanding was gained and I felt a strong sense of relief that there was someone who knew genuinely how I was feeling about the particular topic. Where there were moments where I could not find the correct words my friend helped me out in her own words which made the whole experience flow and develop quite intensely.

Prior to sharing my thoughts and feelings with my friend I was fearful of how she would interpret the entire conversation; thinking that she probably will not understand what I was saying. However, it was quite on the contrary and she happened to empathise with me completely. I felt understood for once and relieved of not having to feel the need to always be strong and have my guard up. The whole experience of sharing and relating to one anothers stories and thinking of possible reasons as to why we felt this way was incredibly cathartic.

What I learned from the experience was that having that one person that you can trust and confine in can make all the difference in ones own life. Before I felt that I had a good group of friends but choosing to really share my true feelings with just one of them just made me feel reconnected and understood by somebody. I took a risk by letting my guard down with just one person which may in the future help me with more intimate relationships. For now though I feel good about just knowing that there is that one person who empathises with me on another level and who I can trust with my own thoughts and feelings completely.

Homework Assignment 3:

Planning and experimenting with assertive behaviour:

During a recent incident between a friend and I realised how upset I get when I feel that I have been taken advantage of. I do feel that to a large extent I am an assertive individual. There have been times though where the lines between assertiveness and aggressiveness might have been crossed and where I could have reacted in better way if I had thought before I acted out. However, in this particular incident I felt that I was assertive and no aggressive even though I could have easily come across as aggressive had I not thought before I spoke. Even though the matter was trivial, in the broader context the principal still counts and therefore I am making light of what occurred. Both my friend and I are smokers yet Im often the one who ends up buying cigarettes all the time. I have no problem with sharing with others but I began to feel that I was supporting both our bad habits and he did not even recognise or acknowledge that. I decided to say something about it the next time we were having a smoke break. I said, John, you know I cant always be the one to buy cigarettes for us and if you are going to smoke you should buy your own now and again. The reason that I decided to confront the situation is that I was feeling used by someone who I consider close and this left me with that feeling of being unappreciated and being taken advantage of.

At first I was hesitant as to how I was going to confront the situation as I did not want to come across too strongly. Therefore, I decided to just bring the issue up just in our general conversation. The last thing I wanted was for him to take it the wrong way as really it was a minor issue and our friendship is based on more than just the exchanging of material things. Even though I was rather frank about the matter my intentions were never to offend him in any way but rather to make him see where I was coming from. Personally I know when I have crossed the lines to being more aggressive in getting my point across and I am usually left feeling a sense of guilt for my actions and wish I could go back and correct them. However, in this case I felt that I addressed the situation in the most concise manner possible and in the end my friend did agree with me. He told me that he had no idea that I felt that way and it became so natural for him to smoke with me on a day to day basis.

The scenario was not serious to the extent that I felt that my personal rights had been violated. That seems irrelevant to this situation as I was just frustrated by the fact that I was the only one buying cigarettes all the time. In no way did I feel violated and rather I felt more frustrated by the situation. I knew that the only way to clarify it was to speak to my friend about it and let him know that he should also play his part if he is going to continue to smoke. I did respect his rights to by not coming on to aggressively and instead I rather just told him assertively what I was feeling and said that I will not continue to buy cigarettes all the time.

Usually in a situation where I become frustrated by what is taking place I tend to lash out aggressively even though I feel that I was being assertive. This often leads to my feelings being misunderstood and others taking offense to my actions even though that was not my intention at all. This is clearly something that I need to work on myself and thats why I wanted to approach a situation where I have felt frustrated in a different manner. With regards to the situation with my friend I thought clearly about how I would approach the subject as I did not want him to take what I was saying in the wrong way. I was also not attempting to make much ado about nothing and was mostly using the situation as an exercise to be assertive in the correct way. The one thing I did not do though was tell him exactly that I felt used. I felt that saying this would come across as aggressive and over the top. Instead I just approached the situation as casually as I possibly could and told him that if we both going to smoke we can share our cigarettes but we should not depend on one another to continue our habit.

What I have learnt from this experiment that in order to be assertive and not aggressive it is highly important to think clearly about how your point of view will be received and interpreted by the person listening to it. The last thing that a person wants to do is unnecessarily offend someone especially if that person is someone you are close to or care about. I also learnt the importance of assertiveness and knowing how useful it is in establishing boundaries and good communication skills within relationships.