Unit 3: Questions for Discussion and Instructions
Instructions for Discussions
Step 1: Review the questions for this Unit.
Step 2: Review the questions that have been answered on the Class Discussion board by your peers.
Step 3: Choose a question nobody has answered yet until all questions have been answered.
Step 4: If everyone has answered a question, choose the least answered question to work on. In other words, the answers to questions should be equally distributed among the class.
Step 5: Your Initial Post
Your initial post should answer the question from your own perspective, based on the readings and documentaries in the unit being covered. This initial post should be a minimum of 200 words and must include citations from the weekly readings.
Unit 3: Questions for Discussion (only choose one question)
How do most Americans see Russia today? During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was seen through the enemy image. Thirty years later, through what image is Russia perceived?
Give some examples of impermeable social or political groups. Why are they impermeable?
Give an example of the Fundamental Attribution Error that you have committed.
What is cognitive balance? Why do we want to have it?
Why is social identity important for political behavior?
What is the difference between the Rogue image and the Enemy image? Does the US have an enemy today?
Does knowing about a stereotype mean that a person uses that stereotype to evaluate others? Why or why not?
Step 6: Two Responses to Peers (Choose peers who have none to the least responses. Responses should be equally distributed throughout the class.)
Write each response like a well written email—use your peer’s name as a greeting.
Each response should be a minimum of 100 words.
Your response to peers should be critical and engage in substantive discussion, through your own insights and questions for the original author.
Close with your name when you finish your response.
Tip for Success: Avoid comments like, “I like this,” or, “I didn’t like this,” etc. Rather, these responses ask you to critically engage with the materials and to use textual evidence to support your discussion
Response one – Dongfang
Why is social identity important for political behavior?
Social identity is a collective form of national identity, cultural identity, regional identity, collective identity, and identity. People are constantly thinking about future actions in society and daily life, repeatedly evaluating their own and other people’s personalities, reflecting their feelings, and trying to understand and explain them. As a result of discussion and reflection, it is social identity. In short, it is a consistent understanding of specific issues. For example, people’s understanding of justice and tolerance, as well as their importance, has a surprising global consistency, which is a kind of social identity. Tajfel and Turner explain social identity with three theoretical principles. First of all, group members strive to achieve or maintain a positive sense of social identity and ensure that one group has no personal reasons to discriminate against another group. Second, ensure that there is no hostility between groups. In order to gain positive self-awareness, individuals compare their own groups with other groups to create favorable differences between groups. Third, ensure that individuals have no conflicts of interest. When the social identity of group members does not meet their requirements, they will try to leave their group or join a more active and unique group. (Cottam, p. 58)
Politicians’ political behavior should be consistent with their group, whose group is based on individual politicians and presupposes individual politicians’ understanding and cognizance. Individual politicians’ life experiences will converge into a stable psychological tendency. With rich life experiences and experiences, individual politicians’ understanding of some specific social problems will form an intersection, which will be strengthened into collective memory after repeated practice. Social identity is the process of making repeated choices for collective memory. Politicians in social life know themselves and society through the collective memory after selection, restrain their political behavior, and follow the social system and moral standards, which are recognized by the people. Politics and its behavior can clarify the complexity and diversity of social interest relations by discussing the dilemma faced by mankind and the relationship between human and nature, man and society as moral roots. The weakening tendency of judicial authority and the grouping tendency of social conflicts will reduce social identity to different degrees. In view of this, we need to strengthen the influence and persuasiveness of political mainstream discourse. Therefore, social identity is very important and can be shaped in contemporary times.
References:
Preston, Thomas, Dietz-Uhler, Beth, Mastors, Elena, and Cottam, Martha L. Introduction to Political Psychology. Psychology Press, 2010.
Response 2 – Jasmine
7. Does knowing about a stereotype mean that a person uses that stereotype to evaluate others? Why or why not?
I don’t think that knowing about a stereotype subjects someone to use that stereotype to evaluate others. I think that if someone is aware of a stereotype and doesn’t believe in judging someone based off said stereotype then they have the power to think freely and judge the person based off their individual characteristics without a predisposition. The key word is being aware. Everyone is conditioned to think a certain way based off their upbringing and the beliefs of family/friends throughout life. Some stereotypes may be imbedded in our brains and can be very difficult to shake. I believe the key to not stereotyping people is to be aware of self and the stereotypes that have been imbedded in our own brains. Seeing people as human and similar to ourselves instead of being distant and different also helps. I think it all comes down to how well someone can reflect on what is inside of them. Although many people do stereotype others I don’t think simply knowing about the stereotype subjects them to judge others based on the stereotype. I believe that if someone does not want to judge others based off stereotypes they have the power to rid them and make their own judgements based off the characteristics of each person individually.
The post Unit 3: Questions for Discussion and Instructions Instructions for Discussions Step 1: appeared first on PapersSpot.
