How can the things we are learning this week help you save time or provide additional information for making a decision?

Respond to the following questions in a minimum of 175 words:

• Which ideas about functions do you think might be the most helpful to you in your day-to-day planning?
• Pick one situation from your life (personal, professional, or even academic) that you might be able to use one of the concepts related to functions presented this week. Discuss a specific example from real life, your life. How can the things we are learning this week help you save time or provide additional information for making a decision?

Respond to Sevie and Luke, discussing how their chosen events can be seen in the modern applications of the social sciences. Consider how the events changed how social scientists work today. Additionally, how did the historical developments of the social sciences influence their evolution and uses today? Consider how changes in society led to this event.

Sevie post

The timeline event that I found most interesting was from the History of Psychology Timeline for the year 1908. This is when Clifford Beers had his book A Mind That Found Itself published and it was his first-hand account of his own patient experiences in mental asylums in the 1800’s. I found it remarkable that it took a tell-all exposé book from a patient to shine a light on the deplorable conditions and inhumane treatment for patients. By writing this book, Beers was able to pave the way for more humane treatment and help educate the general public about mental illness, which had always been a taboo subject. According to the timeline entry, “this book inspires the mental hygiene movement in the United States” (Annenberg Learner, n.d.). As a social psychology student, I am interested in learning about this topic. Clifford Beers was able to initiate changes in the general public about how mental illness was viewed. More importantly, he was able to convince psychologists, psychiatrists, and influential government authorities to look more closely into the conditions in mental asylums and the treatment of the patients. This led to eventual changes in processes, treatments, and legislature that helped improve conditions for patients. What I learned from this event is that even just one person can bring about change and that gaining the perspective of stakeholders (in this case, a patient) is invaluable when studying groups.

Luke post

One of the events I find most interesting is the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill Wilson and Robert Smith of Akron, Ohio in 1935. In a post-prohibition America at this time, the treatments for those with alcohol dependency issues were much worse due to the lack of knowledge and those who could afford medical or psychiatric help were subjected to a treatment with barbiturate (a nervous system depressant) and belladonna (a poisonous plant) known as the “purge and puke.” When Smith and Wilson met, a conversation that was supposed to last only fifteen minutes ended up lasting over six hours and ultimately led to the beginnings of the concept of AA. To think how many programs use it’s outline now and how many people’s lives it has saved and have benefited from it’s twelve step program to help combat addiction. I think it has been a major impact on how we view and deal with chemical dependencies and mental health issues that has helped keep some of the greatest minds of our time around longer and gave us a deeper understanding as to what drives us to do what we do, think what we think and feel the ways that we feel.

In your responses to Elizabeth and Austin, examine how your views might be similar or different. Use information from the module resources to explain your views. Also, discuss the role of the more complex experiments you learned about this week in conducting sound research that provides clear data.

Elizabeth post

I believe that experimental research is important in today’s society. It provides information towards many of concepts.

A couple of advantages of experimental research are as follows:

• When researchers conduct an experimental research, it allows the researcher to be in charge of what is being studied. For example, a study could be conducted on sleep deprivation and workplace effects. In order to receive the best possible results, an experimental research would be the best fit for this scenario.
• Experimental studies can be performed by many other researchers which gives the results more credibility.
• Experimental studies can be used in numerous fields such as biology, pharmaceutical, chemistry, physics, and social science.

A couple of disadvantages of experimental research are as follows:

• Oftentimes, the variables are manipulated to be similar to real world scenarios. This manipulation can cause a variety of results that may not be suitable to real world scenarios.
• Experimental research can also include errors. For example, people being studied can cause an error by giving false information.
• The cost of experimental research may be out of reach for many researchers. Oftentimes, a study will be halted because of lack of funding.

Types of research procedures can vary. Some examples of these procedures include surveys, questionnaires, case studies, experimental research and observational research. The way to convey results to an audience may also vary. If the audience is medical professionals, terminology may be used. However, speaking to a crowd that is not familiar with terminology would be practically impossible for the person to understand. For a general public audience, simpler terms would be more of a fit.

I believe experimental research is a gold standard. Experimental research has provided study results over the years that are beneficial and have provided a good bit of information. These studies have been performed over and over.

Austin post

The advantages of an experimental design is having controlled variables, being able to see exact cause and effect, results can be duplicated, and can be combines with other research methods. Some disadvantages are human error, bias-ness, creating unrealistic situations, ethical variables, and extraneous variables that cannot be controlled. Experimental design can be very useful and effective, but might not be the best fitting method.

Observational design is another method that can be used for research questions. Some advantages of an observational design is preventing unbias-ness, no need to create situation, avoiding unethical experiments, and having real life events. Each design method has its own advantages and disadvantage, and so there is no golden standard, it just depends on which design method best suits the needs of the question.

In response to James and Nicholas, assess whether your classmates discussed factors that you had not considered and offer a factor they did not consider.

James post

After the readings this week I feel as though marriage will have a very fluid and dynamic interaction with its historical institutional ways. One example of this is the how up until around 1970 women would drop their maiden name in place of their husband’s name (Welsch et al., 2020). This shift signifies a move away from the historical nature of marriage in a way that gave the rights, power, and identity of the woman to her husband. Another aspect of the fluid nature of marriage is how wealth and power are distributed, in the Zulu tribe culture bride’s families are compensated with cattle or wild game(Welsch et al., 2020).  Which has been a tradition of that culture from generations dating back to the domestication of animals. In stark contrast of western societies such as the United States, in today’s culture it is not uncommon for the woman in the relationship to have a higher paying job and in some cases have a higher level of education. Which is a complete departure from the original nuclear family model seen in early pre-world war two America.  As the United States remains in the forefront of the global stage in regard to pop culture, innovation and acceptable social and cultural norms, I think that we as Americas take for granted our ability to choose a partner to marry. This is not the case in may parts of the world. IN many other societies around the world marriage is still used to solidify political, and economic relations between families. For these reason I believe that while in more western countries such as the United States marriage is moving away from the historical model of an intuition practice to one of more choices and with the shift in the perception of same sex marriage a larger various and what both natal and nuclear families look like. With that begin said I do believe that many other societies around the world who and gradually begin absorbed by the globalism in the world marriage as a historical intuition will always have a place.

Nicholas post

I think in one way or another marriage will continue to exist as an institution. I think as the culture of different areas changes along with demographics marriage will change, but it will never go away. Marriage is a union that unities families and gives structure to family structures and it takes different forms all over the world. In the video “Are five husbands better than one” we saw how different cultures adapted to different marriage arrangements based on a number of things. In parts of the world where woman are sparse we may find marriages with multiple husbands whereas an area with the opposite might have more wives with one husband.

The culture as well as the landscape, religion, and government of an area can all have an affect on how family structures form or work. We even saw how many people changed their marital structure as they got older and realized the current form wasn’t working due to the culture or things like jealousy. “Different people are suited to different marital arrangements” (McKay, 2021) . Unless something cataclysmic happens or something that forces society to give up marriage I think people all over the world will continue to practice it.