Evidences for Decision Making
Contents
1 . “My Work Values Profile” Assignment for Career Design
2. “Values Exercise” for Wacko Wednesday
3. “Current and Ideal Career Situation” Assignment for Career Design
4. “What Roles Do I Have in Life?” Assignment for Career Design
6. "Essay" Assignment for Intercultural Awareness
8. Deodorant and Tampon Fundraising for Women in Need
9. Self Assesment
“My Work Values Profile” Assignment for Career Design
According to my result in this test, the work values that are important to me are “autonomy, financial rewards, security, work- life balance, working conditions, work relationships, prestige”. For example, autonomy, that is, having control over my own work, is important to me. That is why I would like to have some degree of independence in my future profession and decide for myself instead of others what to do and when to do it. Also, after taking this test, I realized that security and financial rewards are also important to me in my future job. This means that a permanent contract in my future profession and the financial security it provides is important to me. I would like to receive a high salary in return for my labor in my future job. Prestige is also an important value for me. In other words, how other people and society regard a particular job is an important criterion for me in choosing a job. At the same time, for me, working hours and non-working times should be reasonably separate and in harmony (my work- life balance). And it is important to me to be in solidarity with my colleagues and to be able to get along with my colleagues and managers (my work relationships value).
Why did I add this assignment to this theme?
Solving this test and seeing the results of the test concretely showed me the values that are important to me in my future job. Before this test, although I knew more or less what I wanted to achieve from a job, I could not call it concrete. For instance, I was constantly being asked for something outside of working hours in one of my internships and I was quite uncomfortable. However, I couldn't understand why I was bothered. Now, I realized that work-life balance value is very important to me and what caused this situation was that work requirements conflicted with my value. Now, when looking for a future job or internship, I will apply to jobs and workplaces that fit these values and my abilities, so that I will not experience discomfort, dissatisfaction and loss of productivity.
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“Values Exercise” for Wacko Wednesday
From a list of many values, I chose the 5 most important to me. These are “enthusiasm, equality, financial Stability, well- being, relationship”.
Why did I add this assignment to this theme?Although it was difficult to choose 5 values among many, doing so showed me my core values. As I realize that these values are the most fundamental and important values for me, I will use these core values as a guide when faced with important decisions such as what kind of organizations I want to work for or what I want to work on in my master's / doctorate. For example, I will not apply to a workplace where there is discrimination or no financial security, stability. I will not apply to a graduate program that does not enthuse me just because I have a chance to be accepted. At the same time, I am going to pay attention to these core values in my relationships with both my classmates and my colleagues. For instance, if I am not treated fairly and equally, I will try to resolve this issue by talking to those people.
“Values Exercise” for Wacko Wednesday
From a list of many values, I chose the 5 most important to me. These are “enthusiasm, equality, financial Stability, well- being, relationship”.
Although it was difficult to choose 5 values among many, doing so showed me my core values. As I realize that these values are the most fundamental and important values for me, I will use these core values as a guide when faced with important decisions such as what kind of organizations I want to work for or what I want to work on in my master's / doctorate. For example, I will not apply to a workplace where there is discrimination or no financial security, stability. I will not apply to a graduate program that does not enthuse me just because I have a chance to be accepted. At the same time, I am going to pay attention to these core values in my relationships with both my classmates and my colleagues. For instance, if I am not treated fairly and equally, I will try to resolve this issue by talking to those people.
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“Current and Ideal Career Situation” Assignment for Career Design
My Current Career Situation
My Ideal Career Situation
Visualizing and embodying my current career situation and ideal career situation in this assignment helped me realize what career I wanted to have in the future. First of all, I realized that I was quite confused while thinking about my current career situation. Because of the economic and political conditions in Turkey, I don’t want to stay there and find a job there, but on the other hand, I was undecided about which department I would go abroad for and what I would apply for. However, later, when I thought about my ideal career situation, the mental image of academicism came to my mind clearly. I know that I love doing research from the psychology labs where I did my internship, and I also love to teach and learn from someone. So, thanks to this visualization task, I realized that I could move towards being an research assistant, which is the combination of these two. Additionally, I think that this job is compatible with my values such as work-life balance, working conditions, enthusiasim.
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“What Roles Do I Have in Life?” Assignment for Career Design
What can I do to get a better balance? What could the 3 interventions be?
When I look at this pie chart, my roles that take energy from me more than the energy I get from them are my “student, daughter and citizen” roles. Since I can't change my family and my role as their child will never end, maybe moving to a separate house or living in a different country or city sounds like a good idea. Thus, as my time to meet with them will decrease, the energy loss or stress caused by them will also decrease. Also, as seen from the pie chart, my "citizen" role is the one that gives me the least energy. Because of corruption, economic crisis, sexism, homophobia and unemployment in my own country, being a Turkish citizen does not make me happy and does not make me feel safe anymore. To change this situation, I can do my master's degree in a European country where I feel comfortable and safe. Finally, my “student” role takes more energy from me than it gives me. In this minor, I actually started working to change this situation. Some my unhelpful thoughts that have very high expectations of me increase my constant anxiety and thus force me to work constantly. I started to reduce their impact by using the defusion techniques I learned in Mental Health and Happiness classes. Thanks to these techniques, my anxiety is reduced and I don't work all the time, so I have more time for myself and my friends. Now, I can use these defusion techniques more and thus reduce my stress and anxiety that take up my energy in my student role.
This assignment has helped me a lot in seeing this imbalance and embodying what I can do to fix it. From now on, I will focus on my options such as using defusion techniques or studying in another country to achieve this work/studying-life balance in the future.
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Why did I this assignment to this theme?
I didn't need to be productive, useful in this big assignment that include both two semester. I spent an hour in 2 weeks painting. It gave me great pleasure to do this. It also helped me to close the study-life imbalance that I explained to the “What Roles Do I Have in Life?” assignment above by keeping me away from homework and housework. For this reason, I will continue to do this in the second semester. Even after this minor, I will continue to do this as it helps me maintain my work-life balance and is good for my individual well-being.
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"Essay" Assignment for Intercultural Awareness
The Impact of Cultural Differences on Creativity
Creativity is the generation of new or original and useful ideas (Amabile, 1996). Ideas that are new but not useful cannot be applied to a new product, technology, service. Culture is one of the factors affecting creativity. Cultures differ in the degree to which they value their citizens and nurture creativity (Zha et al., 2006). Therefore, in this essay, the differentiation of different cultures in influencing creativity will be examined using Hofstede's 6 cultural dimensions model and Pinto's cultural structures model.
One dimension of Hofstede's cultural model is individualism. According to this model, countries such as the Netherlands, the USA have individualistic societies. Individualist societies have loose ties among their members, and individuals prioritize their own interests (Hofstede, 2003). On the other hand, countries such as Turkey, Japan are collectivists. Collectivist nations have stronger ties among group members and give priority to social interests rather than individual interests (Hofstede, 2003). There are also important differences in terms of creativity among cultures that differ on this dimension. There is more room for creativity in individualistic cultures compared to collectivist cultures. Because values such as autonomy, independence and freedom associated with individualism are necessary for a nation to be innovative or creative (Rinne et al., 2012). In collectivist societies, people belong to groups that take care of them on the condition that they show loyalty to the group (Country comparison, 2021). That's why it's important to be like the group, not to think outside the group. This situation negatively affects people's production of new thoughts and products, that is, their creativity. For example, many studies have shown that participants in individualistic countries (America, Australia) score significantly better on creativity tests than participants in collectivist countries (Iran, Russia, China) (Ng,2003; Zha et al.,2006; Kharkhurin and Motallebi,2008). Based on these results, it is seen that the values related to the individualist or collectivist structure of the countries affect the creativity of individuals.
Also, different cultures affect how you are allowed to be creative at work. Power distance is another dimension of Hofstade's model. In high power distance cultures (e.g, Turkey), inequality in the social hierarchy is accepted and the less powerful is controlled by the stronger (Hofstede, 2001). Subordinates in high power distance societies should obey their superiors and accept their authority in the workplace and subordinates depend on their superiors in terms of direction and decision making (House et al., 2004). Therefore, the fear of deviating from the existing norms and the decisions of the superiors and being punished for this (Hofstede, 2001) may prevent these people from thinking independently and producing their own solutions to problems, that is, being creative. On the other hand, employees are encouraged to be autonomous, participate in decision-making processes and express their opinions and ideas in societies with low power distance such as the Netherlands (Morrison & Milliken, 2003). Values such as autonomy, independence, freedom play an important role in creativity because they allow a new product or idea rather than suppressing it. Therefore, individuals in low power distance cultures will show a higher level of novelty in generating ideas in the workplace than individuals in high power distance cultures.
It also be possible to support the idea that different cultures affect people's creativity differently with Pinto's model. Pinto divided cultural structures into F and C. The F structure represents cultures with a strict structure of detailed rules and codes, while the C structure represents cultures with a loose structure of general rules and codes (Pinto,2000). People are group oriented in cultures with the F structure, and therefore the group defines the basis of participation, and often people in these cultures do not participate in society of their own decisions (Pinto,2000). The importance of thinking and acting as a group in these cultures contradicts the need for originality and novelty of ideas, behaviors or products for creativity. For example, in a study (Oner,2000) conducted in the culture of Turkey, which is closer to the F structure, Turkish participants expressed fear that the pure traditional moral values of Turkish culture would be corrupted through innovation. Also, people are viewed as individuals with personal freedom in cultures with a C-structure (Pinto,2000). Values such as autonomy, independence and freedom are necessary for a nation to think and produce something new (Rinne et al., 2012). Therefore, it is more possible to develop creativity in cultures with a C structure, such as the Netherlands.
In conclusion, it seems that different cultures' giving varying degrees of importance to values such as independence, freedom, autonomy, authority affects their capacity to break conventions to allow a new vision, idea or product to be developed. There are more room for creativity in cultures with individualism, low-power distance and C structers where the values of independence, freedom and autonomy are at the forefront, compared to cultures with collectivism, high-power distance and F-structure.
References
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context (Nueva York, Westview Press).
Country comparison. (2021, June 21). Hofstede Insights. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/turkey/
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work related values (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (2003). Cultural dimensions. www.geert-hofstede.com.
House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., & Gupta, V. (Eds.). (2004). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. Sage publications.
Kharkhurin, A. V., & Motalleebi, S. N. (2008). The impact of culture on the creative potential of American, Russian, and Iranian college students. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 404–411.
Morrison, E. W., & Milliken, F. J. 2003. Guest editor’s introduction: Speaking up, remaining silent: The dynamics of voice and silence in organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 40(6): 1353–1357.
Ng, A. K. (2003). A cultural model of creative and conforming behavior. Creativity Research Journal, 15, 223–233.
ONER, B. (2000). Innovation and adaptation in a Turkish sample: a preliminary study. The Journal of Psychology, 134, 671–676.
Pinto, D. 2000. Intercultural communication: A three step method for dealing with differences. Leuven: Garant Publishers.
Rinne, T., Steel, G. D., & Fairweather, J. (2012). Hofstede and Shane revisited: The role of power distance and individualism in national-level innovation success. Cross-cultural research, 46(2), 91-108.
Zha, P., Walczyk, J. J., Griffith-Ross, D. A., Tobacyk, J. J., & Walczyk, D. F. (2006). The impact of culture and individualism–collectivism on the creative potential and achievement of American and Chinese adults. Creativity Research Journal, 18(3), 355-366.
What I realized while writing this essay is that in my country's culture, creativity is not widely accepted because of values such as authority and group belonging. This has an effect on me as well. Because, as can be seen in my work values profile above, my creativity value is lower than people in Europe, and my preference for structured work rather than being creative is higher than people in Europe.
Considering that I want to continue my education in Europe and become an academician in the future, it will be important for me to be creative in my future work. For this reason, I realized that now and in the future, I need to think a little more out of the box and add my creativity to my work. That's why I created a blog account instead of presenting this portfolio to you as a plain Word document. In the second semester of my minor, I will continue to do different, colorful and creative tasks by pushing my own limits, rather than implementing the easiest ideas that come to my mind.
"Video Assignment" for Human Technology Interaction
In this video, I talked about how negative fake news is in terms of both our psychological and physical health. And in the sentences that I shared below, I made a decision about how I could combat these problems in my future job, what I would do about this problem.
“My major is psychology. And in the future I want to stay in academia and become a lecturer. In my future career, in order to reduce the impact of fake health news on people's mental and physical health, I will create course content where I discuss with my college students about how fake news can be manipulative and negatively affect the health of the community. Because researchs have shown that making people aware of both their own vulnerability and the manipulative intentions of others increases resistance to deceptive persuasion (Sagarin et al., 2012)”
References
Sagarin, B. J., Cialdini, R. B., Rice, W. E., & Serna, S. B. (2002). Dispelling the illusion of invulnerability: the motivations and mechanisms of resistance to persuasion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(3), 526.
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Deodorant and Tampon Fundraising for Women in Need
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