Question #2

The five cultural barriers to creativity are a requirement for conformity, an expectation of practicality and efficiency, particular arenas for competition or cooperation, an expectation of politeness and following rules for social order, and a trust in the power of reason and logic (Harris & Sherblom, 2008). I believe that these barriers would restrict a small group from being creative in many different ways. It would allow them to only confine to the “norm” and not the uniqueness of their group. As the saying goes, “hopping into the wagon” means that a certain group or person is following the crowd and not being creative in their perspective. For example, the fraternity I’m in currently, started off as a normal fraternity. All we did was party and go out every night. But we wanted to create a different kind of organization that didn’t follow the stereotype, so we created a fraternity towards community service. We are proud to say that this new change has helped our moral because there are few fraternities that dedicate themselves to helping the community.

question #3

The concept that I would like to discuss is maintaining openness with others. The books definition of maintaining openness is “maintaining openness-a supportive communication climate-during the problem solving process is vital for creativity” (p.194). I believe that being able to be open to other’s but also expressing it in creativity is an important role in communicating. Being able to open your mind and express your creative ideas is, in my opinion, a great way to show your openness. The way I show my openness is by taking pictures. I’ve been actively taking pictures for quite a long time. I express my creativity by being able to open myself by showing others how I view the world. I’m a terrible drawer, I cannot paint, so I’m able to only express my openness by doing photography. When I started with my first camera, it was just like a normal hobby. But I began to notice that I was expressing myself through my photography and I enjoyed it that much more.

Question #1

The concept I will be using is how that “Creativity is going beyond the current boundaries of technology, knowledge, social norms or beliefs or seeing and acting on new relationships, thereby bringing them to life” (Anderson, 1992, p.42). I’m a part-time wedding photographer, so the more creativity will offer a better paycheck. Over the years, my photography has been getting a lot better and it shows in my photos. Getting critiqued by my friends has helped my creativity grow to many different aspects. My older cousin has been the most helpful when critiquing my pictures. Having an outside view of your own work will help your creativity to open its doors. He was a huge help in getting my job off where I am now today. I believe that creativity is experienced through different perspectives and is grown though critiques and inspirations. I’m thankful that photography has helped me create some “artsy-fartsy” creations at weddings.

question #3

The concept I found interesting in chapter seven was “noise.” Although it’s a pretty simple concept, noise occurs all the time in our daily lives, yet it goes unnoticed. Especially around the time of mid-terms does “noise” get recognized.
When I was in the library cramming for my EMT mid-term, the slightest noise would distract my attention and throw my concentration off. The sound of someone’s conversation from 10 feet away would really bother me. I would try to block that noise by putting on my headphones, but then I would lose my concentration by getting lost in the lyrics. So in order, for me to truly concentrate on my work, I would have to be in a completely silenced room without any noise or distractions. This is also true when I’m having a intense conversation with a friend. As our conversation will get deeper, something or someone will distract it unintentionally and the conversation would lose it’s desire.

question #1

The most difficult part for me in the four phases of listening is active listening. I find active listening difficult because not every conversation, lecture, or discussion is always appealing to me. Sometimes I have a lack of interest in the subject, so even though it might seem like I am listening, I’m actually hearing only some parts of the conversation. When I’m with my girlfriend, however, I always have to be active listening because she always catches me when she knows I’m not paying attention. It’s most difficult in class when you want to actively listen, but sometimes I might be a little tired from the night before or hungry during lunch. This causes a distracting ability to not actively listen to the instructor. I usually just listen for important facts in most of my lectures because sometimes it is difficult to understand every single word that the instructor is saying.

question #2

I have had selective attention when I recently purchased my Siberian Husky. Ever since I’ve had a dog, I’ve been noticing other dogs that are around my neighborhood. Now that I own a pet, I also enjoy listening my other friend’s stories about their pets. It’s an unusual feeling when I actually realized that reading about selective attention. Another example is my relationship with my girlfriend. When we were going through some rough times, she had said some hurtful things about many of my bad habits. The day after I started to try to look for her bad habits and point them out to her. While our relationship was going well, I had never noticed her habits until I started intentionally looking for and pointing out her bad habits. I never realized that until I was thinking about it during this blog. Next time I’ll catch myself so I won’t do it again. Thanks comm 141!

question #2

I believe that there are many of the same universal rules for different religions. For example, I found that people in Sweden are very punctual and on time. My dad taught us that, “To be early, is to be on time; to be on time, is to be late; and to be late, is unacceptable.” My Dad taught me his moral rules for life and I see many similar ideals in other ethnic cultures. My Dad also enforces me to do well in school. I believe that every culture enforces education and someday have a good job. Some people believe that “Asian parents” are super strict about having straight A’s all the time, but I believe that all cultures want their children to do well and push them to do better than average in their education. I feel that cultures have many different and similar morals that can be shared and adopted into their families.