Individuals in Groups

In the article,"Individuals in Groups" Carol Travis explains that people tend to behave and act different when they're on their own. Experiments have shown that people who were alone acted quicker when presented with a dangerous situation, than people who were in a group. Psychologists call it "diffusion of responsibility" or "social loafing". She ends by saying that when individuals are in a group, they react less to danger or an accident because they think that someone else is going to take care of it. From what I've seen people act different when they're in a group because they want to follow what everyone else is doing and when someone is alone they are in charge of what to do.

 When I was in eight grade a group of my friends decided it was a good idea to throw a stink bomb in the middle of math class and that was just awful everyone had to get out of the class room. Before we left the room one of them threw the plastic back out of the window so that the teacher wouldn't find it. Needless to say our teacher got mad and was asking everyone who was responsible because he was going to get detention. A couple of my friends and I knew who did it , but nobody told the teacher because we didn't want him to get in trouble. This show that when people are in groups they do things that they would probably won't dare to do if they were alone and if it's a group of  friends you try to support them even if the idea is stupid. This is an example when the author said "group observing the same danger, they hold back. The reason has more to do with the nature of groups than the nature of individuals". In this case it was us not telling the teacher who was responsible and preventing our friend from getting in trouble.

 I was getting off the bus the other day and a big gust of wind came by and push an old lady down to the floor. I was the only person around so I immediately went to help her and see if she was okay, she was fine and  I helped her get up. I think that if I had found my self in the same situation with more people around there I wouldn't have probably reacted as quickly as I did. As the author said "The more people in a group, the lazier each individual in it becomes". This would have been an example of "social loafing" because if there were more people there I would of imminently assume someone was going to help her and think there wouldn't be any reason to get five people to help a person. If there's someone that need help and I'm alone I would feel more responsible to what going to happen to that person and be more willingly to help anyone, than if I was in group.

In conclusion, individuals in group tend to support each other especially if they're in a group of friends and dare to do more things than if they were alone.

I Know the Truth essay

In the article, “I Know the Truth, So Don't Bother Me with Facts", Jeffrey Kluger explains that it's hard to change someone’s belief because when they are presented with a contradiction they try to stick with what they know. In a study presented in the article only a few people change their mind after hearing the facts. He ends by saying that it might be our own ego that's preventing us to change our belief. I agree that even in the face of facts people will always stick with their own opinions.

            First of all, I believe that people would cling to what they know because of their ego. As the author stated, “some of that may be simple ego- none of us like being told we’re wrong.” I think almost everyone could relate with this including myself. This reminds me of the time when they showed a video of a kid being taking away by a hawk. After a while they showed it was fake I told my dad, but he didn’t believe me he kept saying it had to be true because it was on the news and that there is no way it could be fake. As much as I tried to convince him it wasn’t real, he jus didn’t want to believe me. This shows that people are stubborn and would rather ignore the facts than admit they could possibly be wrong.

            Moreover, I believe people tend to let emotion get in the way of facts. According to the article “even when people do take the time to learn the facts, the effort does no good”. This reminds me of an episode of the T.V show “How I Met your Mother”. When someone told Marshall that his wife got on her bosses limo Marshall immediately assume she was cheating on him. So he when to the bosses house and punched him in the face. Lilly’s boss explained that nothing had happened, but he punched him anyway because he was too mad to accept the facts. In brief, emotions can sometimes clutter our mind and make us not listen to anyone.

            In the end, sometimes we let our emotion and ego get in the way of what’s really going on. We never like to admit when we are wrong, even when the truth is being told right at us and have adapted to a mentality where we cannot easily accept things. We forget that we are all human and that we do make mistakes, we cannot always be right because we do not know everything in life.

I Know the Truth summary

In the article, “I Know the Truth, So Don't Bother Me with Facts", Jeffrey Kluger explains that it's hard to change someone’s belief because when they are presented with a contradiction they try to stick with what they know. In a study presented in the article only a few people change their mind after hearing the facts. He ends by saying that it might be our own ego that's preventing us to change our belief.

Hype Revision

In the article, “Hype” the author explains that nowadays people can find advertisements everywhere at any given time. The author said this because commercial advertisements have increased in a big way without people noticing. The author concludes by saying that there is no way to run from these advertisements. After reading this article, I completely agree with the author that there is too much advertisement and it’s almost impossible not to come across one.

            To begin, I believe that advertisements have gotten a little out of hand because there isn’t a day when you’re not going to see one. As the article states, “no longer are ads confined to the usual places” buses, bill boards, stadiums”. For instance, when I’m on Facebook or watching videos online there seem to always be an ad. And especially when you’re watching YouTube videos, I hate when ads appear and you are forced to watch the whole thing in order to continue to your video. To me, this show that there are just too many ads even when you are trying to enjoy a music videos these ads would pop up and annoy any one.

            Further more, I believe that ads can influence people to spend lots of money. According to the article, “kids watch Pepsi and snickers ads in classroom” It shows how kids are being targeted by ads when they offer toys in kid’s meal. It said that kids start to nag their parents until they convince them to buy them a kid’s meals. Ads target children because they know that kids can persuade their parents to buy them anything they want. In brief, this shows that ads can have an influence in what consumers buy and that they know how to get people to buy these things.

            In conclusion, advertisements are found everywhere from TV commercials to the tedious internet pop ups, to the streets and they’re never going to go away. Everywhere we look we are coming across some type of ad targeting people from any age to try and force us to buy their product and the only thing we could do is to ignore most of them.