Question Description
I’m working on a psychology discussion question and need support to help me understand better.
For the first TWO discussion responses, Each peer response should be 150 words or more. When responding to a peer, consider whether his or her post contains any assumptions or faulty logic that should be questioned. Is it incomplete in any way? Can you enlarge upon the ideas presented or suggest variations? Are there flaws with participant recruitment or research biases that can be avoided? Support your opinions by citing course readings or your own experience, if relevant.
First Discussion
Modern Western scholars describe religion as a way of living together characterized by distinctive purposes, virtues, beliefs, practices, and commitments (Carter, 2016). Religion is a very controversial topic. Wars and countless horrific acts have been acclaimed to religion. The largest and most influential religions are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism (Carter, 2016). Religion can be classified as a culture whereas spirituality cannot (Carter, 2016).
Stereotype are undependable and oversimplified generalizations about all members of a group that do not consider the individual differences within that group (Carter, 2016). Carter (2016) stated In more recent history, Arab and Muslim Americans have fought stereotypes that they are religious extremists who are violent, without conscience, and threatening to all U.S. Americans since the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001 (p. 30). Another stereotype that is among the religion of Islam is the term towelhead about a woman wearing a hijab (head scarf) on her hair.
Labeling Muslims as violent, terrorist people has negative effects on individuals within that community of religion. This stereotype can hinder one growth in career, become victims of violent or vulgar acts, and possibly depression or paranoia to these individuals. Mentioned in previous unit, the research study to be conducted will be in relation to individuals that are Muslims in the western civilization. The research will study stereotype on Muslims pre-and-post the September 11 attack on the United State World Trade Center, claiming many lives. It is important to study way of life in the Muslim community before and after to identify if stereotype to this group has increased, stayed the same, or even decreased. Then one will analyze if stereotype has affected ones way of living and health. Participants will be recruited by administering survey to sample of individuals that are Muslim and have lived in the United States before 2011. Bias will try to be avoided by allowing the survey to only answer age and gender of the individual. Participant names will not be requested. This can prevent or reduce social desirability bias. Furthermore a standard set of participants that can be identified to one of the five the major religions, atheist and theist. People that practice spirituality will not be included in the study, because spiritual people can have multiple beliefs from different religions, including Islam. To have a control of dataset can help restrict errors within the study.
Second Discussion
There are innumerous stereotypes about Islam faith. A primary one is that the women are subordinate to men. This is normally construed to be the case due to the visual differences between Muslim men and women, primarily the covering of the body and hair for women (Hametner, Rodax, Steinicke, & McQuarrie, 2021). However, this stereotype is not true; while women of the Islam faith may choose to wear a hijab by choice, in the written understandings of the faith, women and men are moral equals (Esposito, 2005) in the eyes of God, and the same expectations are set for them. In fact, in some major Islam practicing countries, women have risen to power much faster than women in traditionally Christian countries, with women in roles such as Prime Minister stemming back to the 1980s (Esposito, 2005), while the US has yet to see a woman in its dominant position of political power. Many Muslim countries actually have significantly higher levels of birth control and body autonomy for women (Hametner, et al., 2021), which is in direct contrast to the stereotype of the Muslim woman locked away at home.
Another stereotype about the Islam faith is that anyone who is Muslim must have brown skin. Due to the association of the Islam faith with countries in the Middle East, many in western countries racially stereotype Muslim practitioners. It is fully possible for a person to practice Islam and be any race (Corbin, 2017), as much as it is possible for someone to be from the Middle East and not be Muslim. This stereotype is similar to the stereotype against Muslim women as it dictates what a person can or cannot be. In the first stereotype, women are assigned a lower position in society, while in the second stereotype practitioners are assigned an assumed skin color. These stereotypes also share the similarity of being based on visual comprehension (Hametner, et al., 2021). One difference between these two stereotypes is the potential for passing (Carter, 2015) in the second stereotype. In the first stereotype, the presence of the Hijab for women who choose to wear it makes it impossible for them to visually pass for one who may not be subject to said stereotype. Given that not all Muslim people are from the Middle East, it is possible for a Muslim person to pass as non-Muslim if they appear to be of a different race or ethnicity (Corbin, 2017), giving them an opportunity to avoid or subvert the stereotype if they so choose.
In classes analyzing different theories of psychotherapy, I resonated with the practices of both REBT and CBT. The further I examined both psychotherapies the more I leaned towards CBT use, purely for the issues that arose in REBT for calling a belief or thought irrational. To address this I would conduct a research study examining the use of REBT with patients of several different religions to determine effectiveness of irrational thought counseling when intermingled with religion. Volunteers would be recruited from a variety of places of worship, such as churches, mosques, and temples. There would also be attempts at recruitment at more public gathering locations, such as putting flyers up at libraries or fitness centers. This is to counteract the bias that there are those who are zealots and cannot clearly comprehend the world due to their religious beliefs. To counter this, in addition to recruiting people of different religions, I would actively seek out, through means of an opening survey, people who are at varying levels of commitment to religion and letting their religious beliefs determine their worldview. From the overall pool of volunteers at varying levels of religious belief, probability sampling (Carter, 2015) will be utilized to finalize the volunteer group to attempt better representation of each sampled religious population.
Another way I would avoid bias is by recruiting counselors of varying religions. At the end of the study, the understanding of success would come from both patient exit interviews and surveys, but primarily from the counselors exit interviews; this is because the counselors are presumed to have a better understanding of the ideas and usage of REBT than the volunteers would, and so are better suited to comment on how the religious aspects impacted traditional usage of REBT. Having counselors of varying religions would avoid allowing one counselors biases to become a confounding variable (Carter, 2015) in the study. For example, a counselor who was atheist might find themselves struggling much more with viewing client views as irrational when they may be rational within the context of a devout faith view.
Third Discussion (50 word minimum)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has always stood out more to me, this is most likely because working at a behavioral health hospital, it was used very often.
CBT is a type of psychological treatment that is used for a range of disorders including depression, anxiety, marital issues, eating disorders and severe mental illness. Some core principles are psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking, learned patterns of unhelpful behavior, and individuals learn better coping skills to help relieve symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives. CBT treatment involves efforts to change thinking and behavioral patterns. CBT is different in the sense that it focuses on helping individuals learn to be their own therapists. Individuals use exercises in the session and outside of session “homework,” which helps them be able to develop coping skills, learn to change their own thinking, problematic emotions and behaviors.
Fourth Discussion (50 Word Minimum)
Conservation of Resources Theory
The conservation of resources theory (COR) describes motivation as increasing the resources of anything an individual values, removing the stressful environmental factors that create an overwhelming situation, where resources are lacking (Holmgreen, Tirone, Gerhart, & Hobfoll, 2017). Rubino et al. (2009) in the deleterious effects of role ambiguity on job performance, satisfaction, and commitment. Supervisors influence the level of motivation and resources that subordinates invest through the perception of ridicule, lack of constructive feedback, competition, increased demands, and lack of support (Kim, Lee, & Yun, 2016; Wheeler, Halbesleben, & Whitman, 2013). Kim et al. (2016) suggested the lack of prosocial behaviors and trust from an abusive supervisor creates competitiveness and distrust among subordinates. Subordinate exhaustion from continual self-regulation results from abusive supervisory behavior.
The loss of emotional resources leads to self-regulating impairment and prompt deviant behaviors. The impairment of self-regulating ones emotions and behaviors stems from resource loss and stimulates interpersonal abuse among co-workers (Li, He, Sun, & Zhang, 2020). Continued loss of personal resources through abuse reduces performance as an employee exhibits emotional exhaustion, lack of impulse control, and increased cognitive resource drain (Wheeler, Halbesleben, & Whitman, 2013). Self-regulation model posits employees pursue equilibrium with the organizations culture (Wheeler, Halbesleben, & Whitman, 2013), even if the culture is dysfunctional due to abusive supervision, prompting employees to mimic the normal behavior of the team. A low-performing employee may be an example of an employee lacking resources, whether it is support, feedback, or tools to perform his/her task.
Improving self-regulation may ameliorate abusive supervision and improve team performance. Establishing trust in an abusive supervisor-subordinate relationship requires effective hiring processes that include communication skills, zero tolerance for abuse policy formation, and increased supportive behaviors through feedback, assistance performing tasks, recognition, and appreciation (Ji & Jan, 2020). Anasori et al. (2020) suggested coping strategies that include improving mindfulness and resilience training programs, enabling employees with coping mechanisms for work related stresses and demands.
