GPA Increase for Spring Semester

There has been eye opening learning about social psychology and mental processes. I have learned how knowledge, which is a great way to maximize my brain and thinking abilities, is stored, manipulated, remembered, known and thought about. I am now familiar with ways of thinking and solving problems I find both in and out of class.
I learned how to think inductively, i.e. from a particular idea to a general one, and deductively, i.e. from a general idea to a more concrete one. When answering questions in my test, this will benefit me because I learned how to be both a critical and creative thinker on this topic. With critical thinking, I will grasp the deeper meaning of ideas, maintain humility on what I know and see past the obvious to evaluate the evidence. Being a critical thinker, I will be more mindful and open minded. As a creative thinker, I will think about a particular problem and devise exceptional solutions to the problem. I would continually improve my GPA through applying intelligence so as to do well on cognitive tasks, to solve problems, and to learn from experience. (Thinking, Intelligence and Language)

Albert Einstein's story on how he developed from being hot tempered to probably the most famous genius in the world made me realize the importance of acceptance, coexistence, and human development. (Human development) It made me appreciate my classmates and appreciate each one of them regardless of their character since nature and nurture are a great influence to one's development capabilities. This has helped improve how I relate to people in the class and can easily discuss with my classmates about certain key topics that will help me pass my tests and hence increase my GPA.

It is through nurturing that I have grown from childhood to the student of noble character and the responsible fellow I am today. I will use this strength to my advantage by being responsible for my school work and giving my studies the best shot so as to be successful at the end of it all. I might, however, fall prey to cohort effects since I tend to do most of the things my peers do in order to be at par with them. Adolescent egocentrism is an aspect I am also struggling with at the moment because at times I perceive that someone else is watching and noticing me more than the actual case especially through to social media.  

According to Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development, I fall under the Identity versus identity confusion. On the positive side, at this stage, I will find out who I am, what I am about and where I am going in life especially in my classwork. Nevertheless, I will have to struggle with an exploration of alternative solutions to roles as well as my career exploration and be careful enough to make the most optimal decisions in my life.

Motivation is an energized force to move people to think and feel the way they do. Intrinsic motivation is based on internal factors such as organismic needs, curiosity, challenge, and fun while extrinsic motivation involves external incentives such as rewards and punishments. (Motivation and emotion) Intrinsic motivation will be a factor for me to increase my GPA since I am internally motivated to put forth considerable effort and achieve high grades in my school work. It is through extrinsic motivation that I work hard to improve my grades to make both myself and parents proud. Intrinsic motivation will improve my performance, creativity, and self-esteem since research has it that this kind of motivation has competent behavior and mastery, reason being, people with intrinsic motivation show more interest, excitement and compassion in what they do.

Despite being motivated to do something, I sometimes procrastinate what I do until time runs out. Through both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, I look forward to overcoming procrastination.  According to optimum arousal theory, performance is best under conditions of moderate rather than low or high arousal. (Motivation and emotion) Moderate arousal often serves me best since neither high nor low emotions will influence my performance and decision making. I can, however, use high arousal especially after the excitement that I get after reading an inspiring book to build intrinsic motivation for better results in my work.

Psychologists say that personality is primarily unconscious and that it is the pattern of emotions and thoughts that characterize the way an individual works or adapts to the environment. Bandura's social cognitive theory states that behavior, environment, and person/cognitive factors are all important in understanding personality. These three events spur each other out and influence each other back and forth. For instance, behavior could involve how hard I study to attain grade A in Psychology, the environment could be my Psychology instructor who provides the lecture notes and takes me through the course work before my exams while person/cognitive factors is how I feel confident about my ability to do well in Psychology as a subject. The social cognitive theory emphasizes the influence of cognitive processes in explaining personality and suggests that people have the ability to control their environment. (Personality)

Other factors that might be involved include Bandura's belief that observational learning is a key aspect of how we learn. Social cognitive theory believes that through observational learning, we form ideas about the behavior of others and possibly adopt this behavior ourselves. For example, I might watch how the best Psychology student in my class plans their day and ways they use to revise for the exam and then eventually begin to have characteristics like those of the bright student. Social cognitive theorists believe that we acquire a wide range of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings through observing others' behavior and that these observations strongly shape our personalities. (Bandura, 2010)

Social cognitive theory also emphasizes that, through personal control, we can regulate and control our own behavior despite our changing environment. For example, as a student, I could have a hostile parent but find out that that behavior is despiteful and so once I become a parent I conform to being more reasonable, loving and kind, unlike my very own parent's behavior. This locus of control could be internal if controlled by our choices and behavior or external if controlled by other external influences.

References

Bandura. (2010). Social cognitive theory.

(n.d.). Human development. In Chapter 7.

(n.d.). Motivation and emotion. In Chapter 9.

(n.d.). Personality. In Chapter 10.

(n.d.). Thinking, Intelligence and Language. In Chapter 7.