What I Have Learned

I have learned that conflict is not a bad thing. Understanding that conflict is okay and a necessary part of life was huge for me. It made me much more relaxed and it really improved my relationship with my boyfriend. I have learned that conflict is healthy, as long as everyone involved works together to come up with a solution. I have also learned that I need to listen to other people. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my own thoughts and emotions that I forget to pay attention to the other persons needs. This is a problem that I have had since I was little and I wasn't even aware of it until I took this class. It is really hard for me to mention everything that I have learned because there is so much I have taken away from this class. To sum things up, this class made me learn a lot about myself and the choices I make while handling conflicts. This course was a huge eye opener, and I plan to continue using the concepts that I have learned in this class in my personal and professional life.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

• The professor was easy to contact. I never had to wait more than 24 hours to hear back from her.
• The book was helpful and easy to read.
• I really liked the weekly posts. It was a nice way to get to know the other students in the class.
• The assignments were helpful and really pushed us to understand class concepts. 
• The workshop assignment was my favorite part of the class. I had never done anything like that before. I was really intimidated at first, but ended up learning a lot from it.
• Class material is useful for my professional and personal life.

Weaknesses

• I do not think there were any weaknesses in the class. Everything was very useful.

I would definitely recommend this class to my friends. I learned a lot and had fun participating in the class discussions. I think everyone could benefit from this course (:

Chapter 16- Conflict

Before I took this class I definitely had a negative view of conflict. I always thought conflict was bad because it meant confronting an issue and usually arguing about it. However, this is not necessarily true. Now that I have taken this class, I understand that conflicts are normal. Not all conflict is bad, as long as you follow the right steps or methods to work through them. If conflicts are handled correctly, everyone involved should be happy with the outcome.
In the past when my boyfriend and I would argue, I would get really worried that he was going to get sick of the arguments and leave. He always told me he hated conflict and avoided it. During the semester, I would talk to him a lot about class concepts and encouraged him to try having a different outlook on things. We now understand that conflicts are completely normal, that how we handle them is the most important part. It is definitely important for people to know that it is normal and okay to have conflicts.

Anxiety-Chapter 12

“Anxiety is a tension that occurs when people perceive danger in a situation” (Abigail & Cahn, pg 214). Anxiety happens when people fear things about situations such as, people conflicting with their goals or when they feel wrong about their own actions. Anxiety can also lead to suppressed issues.

When I was in the 4th grade I had a math teacher that used to pick on me in class. For no reason, she would make me cry in front of the other students. Math has always been a subject I struggled with the most, but I was a huge over achiever and wanted to make sure that my grades were perfect. Every night I would stay up with my father trying to do my math homework. My fear of my teacher caused me to spend way too much time perfecting my homework. I would end up going to bed with major anxiety, unable to sleep because I was so stressed out about my math homework. This was a cycle that continued for several months until my mother found out about my teacher harassing me and nearly got her fired.

Attributions- Chapter 12

I have made false attributions a lot while texting. In a text message you are not able to see the person’s facial expressions, read their body language, or hear the tone of their voice. This has caused me to assume things that were not necessarily true. I have a friend that can be pretty blunt at times which causes me to believe she is mad at me. Usually I am able to tell her mood by her facial expressions or the way she says things. However, when we are texting it is much more difficult to tell if she is simply stating something, or being rude. Back in high school I was much more sensitive then I am now. Sometimes when her and I would text, I could not figure out if she was upset with me or not and my feelings would get really hurt. I just assumed that she was angry at me for something and felt terrible about it. Later, I learned that was just the way she communicated and to not be so sensitive about things.

Sometimes at work I make accurate attributions that help me. I work in cosmetics and in my department; we sell several different makeup brands, much like a Sephora. Philosophy is an expensive skin care line so usually the women looking at the Philosophy products spend more money than other customers. Knowing this, I try to be as knowledgeable and helpful as possible, in hopes that I can persuade the customer to purchase more products. I am helpful to every customer that walks into my department, but I have learned that women who shop for Philosophy products want that expert product knowledge and are more willing to spend money.

Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Revenge-Chapter 10

When I typed the word forgiveness into google 66,300,000 results appeared in .10 seconds, about 8,800,000 results for reconciliation, and about 50,700,000 for revenge. The word forgiveness produced a lot of websites with definitions and also techniques or information on how to forgive. There were also a lot of religious sites. I believe this produced the most results because a lot of people struggle with forgiveness. It is much easier to get angry at someone than it is to let go of sour emotions. People probably seek advice on how to forgive through the internet.
When I searched reconciliation, the first page was full of almost all definitions or links to religious(mostly catholic) websites. This word did not provide a lot of useful information for me, other than the definitions.
The websites for the word revenge were much different than those for forgiveness and reconciliation. They were all for a television series titled Revenge, except for one definition. There was also a Facebook page for the show. To get results that would benefit me, I would have to be more specific with what I type into the Google search engine.

Why Don't People Forgive?-Chapter Ten.

Abigail and Cahn explain that there are may reasons why people do not forgive. One reason is that the person who committed the offense has not admitted their, "wrongdoing, apologized, or asked for forgiveness"(179). If the other person has not addmitted their wrongdoing, the person who feels hurt has no desire to forgive.
The way a person has apologized also plays a role in whether or not a person will forgive them. "When a person is offended, being offered an apology that is too elaborate for the offense or too simple may result in a lack of forgiveness"(179). If I feel as if a person's apology is not sincere, I have a hard time forgiving them. Knowing that a person has actually thought about why I am upset and has taken my feelings into consideration is what makes me forgive them. I would much rather have no apology, than an apology that I know is not sincere.