My Passion

Ahhh psychology, the major that all the nosy people choose so they have an excuse for being nosy. I love it. It's like professional gossiping, one of my favorite past times. 

Giphy. "Are You Nosy?" 1/27/15 via huffingtonpost.com. Licensed for noncommercial reuse.

• Students in my department learn, generally, how to decipher an individual's actions/behavior and figure out why people people do what they do from a psychological standpoint.

• People who get a degree in psychology typically go on to get a master's or doctorate's and become psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, psychiatric physician assistants, etc. While a bachelor's degree can typically land a job as a rehab specialist, psychiatric technician, or a counselor of some sort.

• I love helping people and learning about different mental disorders and learning about what makes people do what they do. Plus I'm a super nosy person so it's perfect.

• Ok so this guy Dr. Richard Friedman is an absolute stud in the psychology world and wrote an for the New York Times. Oh yeah and did I mention he's  a professor of Clinical Psychology at Cornell's Medical College, he's the attending psychiatrist at New York--Presbyterian Hospital, and he's the freaking director of pharmacology at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic? I am seriously so starstruck writing this right now, I need to calm down.

• Dr. John Allen is another major player in the field of psychology. And guess what, he's a professor HERE at UA! It's crazy, he's been working here since 1992 where he's currently a distinguished professor for the psychology department for the university. Plus he's hosted countless psych conference presentations. He's also interested in researching mood and anxiety disorders, which is pretty much my main passion in psychology. 

• Of course I can't forget Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the father of the controversial "Stanford Prison Experiment" of 73'. He's a serious celebrity in psychology, like Beyonce status, he's been the president of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Western Psychological Association (WPA). He's currently the Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University and has written numerous books and textbooks on psychology. If I ever met him I would be so tempted to ask for his autograph. Seriously.

• Three leading scholarly journals in psychology are all published from the American Psychological Association and the journals are the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Rehabilitation Psychology, and the Journal of the American Psychologist. 

My Interviewee(s) on Social Media

Ok, it's official, I'm a creeper. I'm used to stalking my friends or other people my age on social media, but it's a little weird stalking professionals on social media. Yeah, I definitely feel like I've crossed some kind of line here, but oh well right?

Awkwardlifeisawesome. "Stalker Gifs." Via tumblr.com. Licensed for noncommercial reuse.

• Verica Buchanan: The only social media I was able to find her on is researchgate.net (for her publications) and the ASU directory profile. 

• Dr. David Sbarra: He's more modern and open on social media and I was able to find him on Facebook, Twitter, and he actually was on a Ted talk in Tucson back in 2012.

• Verica Buchanan: Ok so she actually moved from Croatia (a small country right next to Germany) to the US when she was in her 20's with her husband. That being said, she's a very old-school German who doesn't believe in having a social media presence. 

• Dr. David Sbarra: On the other hand, Dr. Sbarra has a pretty laid-back and outgoing social media presence. His Instagram and Facebook are full with his kids and their life events and shows his more human (nonprofessional) side while his Twitter and Ted talk shows his more professional side. Even on his Twitter, he retweets and is active in many conversations about different psychological events. Even so, he'll retweet the occasional Tucson weather report.

• Verica Buchanan: Her persona is the same for both social media and in an academic journal since she doesn't necessarily have a social media presence at all. 

• Dr. David Sbarra: His persona differs a lot from his social media presence and his professional presence since his social media presence is more relaxed. For instance, his Facebook profile picture is his two kids and there's a picture of him with a sombrero and gardening gloves on....a little far from his professional persona where he conducted a study on how physical activity and body mass predict cognition in the elderly.

My Interviewees as Professional Writers

This project is only in pre-production and I've worked on it for about one day now and already I have done so much research and in-depth analysis it's crazy. I definitely feel like an official stalker now after researching my two interviewees. I hope they never see these blogs.

Asthana, Alka. "Side Effects of Facebook." 6/22/15 via endlessorigami.blogspot.com. Licensed for noncommercial reuse.

• Verica Buchanan: she has helped author numerous different professional publications and studies that she's been a part of according to her publication site. Most of her publications that she's been a part of is a crossroads of engineering and psychology, which is a very interesting combination in my opinion. A lot of her publications have to do with the test of human intelligence on various cognitive science issues and all are in a case study format.

• Dr. David Sbarra: he has helped author countless professional publications that can be found on his website. Most of his publications have to do with how human health is affected by the different social relationships a person has (i.e. parent/infant relationship, marriage relationships, etc.).

• Verica Buchanan: One of her publications, Human Factors Guidelines, is a scientific article aimed at highlighting the difficulties of intelligence analysis and outline guidelines to study and design collaborative intelligence analysis tech and tools. Another one of her scientific articles that she worked on, The Cognitive Science of Intelligence Analysis, she highlights cognitive challenges that make intelligence analysis hard. In response, she offers the Living Lab approach as a solution to understanding the cognitive science of intelligence.

• Dr. David Sbarra: One of his publications entitled Absent but not Gone, is a long-term case study that studied 325 couples before and after a spouse's death in order to reveal if a spouse's characteristics transferred to the other spouse after death and how it affected their quality of life. Another article he helped work on, Social Baseline Theory, which explained the theory that social relationships are used by the brain and that a lack of social relationships can actually lead to an increase in cognitive and physiological effort.

• The only professional genre I could find were case studies and articles that each interviewee was a part of. The only difference between a scientific article and a case study is that a case study has a section on methods and a summary of the experiment that took place with a discussion of the results that opens it up to other professionals in the field.

• Context:

• For both of Verica Buchanan's articles, the context involves the challenges and issues that intelligence analysts have been running into on a daily basis that mostly have to do with cognition.

•  For both of Dr. Sbarra's publications, the context involves how our social relationships can affect our life and why having close social relationships is extremely beneficial in staying healthy both with cognition and physiologically.

• Message:

• For both of Verica Buchanan's articles, the message is that the Living Lab approach is a valuable tool to use in order to understand the cognitive science behind intelligence analysis. Also, to study and design collaborative intelligence analysis tech and tools.

• For both of Dr. Sbarra's publications, the message is that a lack of social relationships can lead to an increase in physiological and cognitive effort. Also, that an intimate relationship with someone can affect your quality of life even when the other person is gone.

• Purpose:

• For both of Verica's Buchanan's articles, the purpose is to inform and persuade with scientific articles.

• For both of Dr. Sbarra's publications, the case study's purpose is to educate and inform of the study's results. While the purpose of the scientific article is again to inform and persuade.

My Test -- I Mean Interview -- Subjects

Wow I'm so nervous for these interviews. I feel like I just submitted the last project and now I'm being thrown into this new project. I still don't fully understand the topic of this project, but I guess it's trial by fire?

• I have scheduled two interviews, one with Verica Buchanan (a professional in the field of psychology) and another with Dr. David Sbarra (a professor at the UA in the field of psychology).

• Verica Buchanan is a graduate research assistant at the ASU polytechnic campus in applied psychology. Dr. David Sbarra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the UA as well as the Director of Clinical Training (DCT) for the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology.

• Verica Buchanan is a graduate assistant/associate in applied psychology as well as in simulation, modeling, and applied cognitive science from ASU. Dr. Sbarra received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia.

• Professionally, Dr. Sbarra has worked in the field since 2004 (for about 13 years). While Verica Buchanan has worked professionally in the field for about six years.

The beautiful Verica Buchanan:

Buchanan, Verica. "Verica Buchanan." via webapp4.asu.edu. Licensed for noncommercial reuse.

THE Dr. David Sbarra:


Sbarra, David. "Welcome!" via sbarra.faculty.arizona.edu. Licensed for noncommercial reuse.

• For Verica Buchanan, the interview is scheduled to take place this Saturday (tomorrow) at 5:00pm in her office at the polytechnic campus at ASU. For Dr. David Sbarra, the interview will take place during his office hours this Friday at 9:00am in his office (Psychology 210C).

• Interview questions for Verica Buchanan:
• What's your professional background in psychology?
• What's your current position at ASU?
• What past positions have you held?
• How did you get into the Human Systems Engineering Program at ASU? 
• Roughly how many publications have you been a part of?
• What goes into a typical publication for you?
• What form are most of your publications published in?
• What's your favorite part of working on a publication?
• What's your favorite genre of publication in your field to either read or be a part of?

• Interview Questions for Dr. Sbarra:
• What's your professional background in psychology?
• What's your current position at the UA?
• What past positions have you held?
• How did you get interested in how human health relates to our social relationships?
• Roughly how many publications have you been a part of?
• What goes into a typical publication for you?
• What form are most of your publications published in?
• What's your favorite part of working on a publication?
• What's your favorite genre of publication in your field to either read or be a part of?

Local Revision: Tense Usage

Yay! More lists! It was definitely more time-consuming than I thought, but voila!

Present:

·       mad

·       is: 37

·       sexist

·       performs: 2

·       stay: 3

·       focuses: 3

·       be: 6

·       going: 2

·       testing

·       assume

·       fight

·       make

·       focuses

·       affects

·       are: 19

·       remain

·       get: 8

·       joking

·       make: 2

·       exercise

·       exist: 2

·       being: 5

·       test: 6

·       uses: 3

·       does

·       riot

·       ask

·       mention

·       let

·       shows: 3

·       sleep

·       reinforces

·       responsible

·       spread

·       carry

·       do: 10

·       forget

·       taking

·       coming: 2

·       skyrocketing

·       starting: 3

·       calling

·       can: 3

·       fall

·       march

·       state: 2

·       through

·       win

·       freeze

·       help

·       pay: 2

·       need: 3

·       ganging

·       raping: 2

·       read

·       decide

·       wait

·       joking: 2

·       does: 4

·       affects: 3

·       diminishing: 2

·       saying

·       cover

·       keeping: 2

·       rising

·       reduce

·       follow

·       feel

·       know

·       open

·       sees

·       protesting

·       judge

·       determining

·       puts: 2

·       open

·       look

·       insert

·       save

·       passing

·       excluding

·       telling

·       adds

·       ignores

·       chooses

·       happening: 4

·       targeting

·       stands

·       becoming

Past:

·       Started: 3

·       have: 10

·       been

·       had

·       broke

·       been: 5

·       won

·       decided: 2

·       happened

·       used: 3

·       has: 7

·       been: 5

·       found

·       sounds

·       performing

·       founded

·       was: 10

·       found: 3

·       were: 3

·       broken

·       born

·       started

·       took: 4

·       organized

·       became: 3

·       united

·       dedicated

·       gotten

·       showed

·       taken

·       did

·       mentioned

·       surrounded

·       dragged

·       forced

·       released

·       received: 3

·       banned

·       said: 4

·       diagnosed

·       described

·       risen

·       went

·       heard

·       asked

·       held: 2

·       taught

·       explained

·       mentioned: 3

·       stated

·       linked

·       realized

Future:

·       fast-forward

·       will: 3

·       become

·       give

·       provide

• The most prevalent tense in my draft is definitely the present tense.

• I think this reflects how I put the readers in a situation where the situation is still going on, then I reveal what ended up happening. A story is best told when immersing the reader.

• I use more past and present tense, there's barely any future tense in my draft. Not too sure if that's a good or bad thing, but I'm gonna roll with it. The shifts between past and present is mostly when I bring up past events that correlate with the controversy that I was focusing on. 

• Oh don't worry, I definitely employed present tense verbs in my piece... Like I said earlier, it helps to put the reader directly in the situation and forces them to choose a side as the story unfolds, then once the story ends the reader can feel like they were actually a part of the controversy itself.