Aditi Mishra
Remedial for Quiz 6
An article in ‘Psychology Today’ instigated not only
the teens but the older people too. The article, ‘Change Artists’ by Abby Ellin
which was published on 1st January 2018 and focuses on several
aspects and causes that give way to change or transformation in the patterns of working or chain of thoughts that drives or motivates oneself to achieve their goals.
The
article starts with a case study where Beverly Rice, the patient, had a big
career as a painter and had a successful life with many friends and followers.
Unfortunately, this successful life came to an abrupt pause when she went
through a bad marriage in her 30s. Since then she had spent few years and most
of her time in being attracted to “liars and psychopaths” which indicated the
wrong choices in men and relationships.
She had been to therapists and the treatments which had given her a
shift in the past like quitting bingeing but the problem of not finding love
made her feel deprived and alone.
While
Beverly was trying to balance her life, she clicked with a therapist who she
described as ‘tough’ and his guidance helped her know the exact problem, that
of fear. She had the fear of losing her independence and hence this fear
reflected in her relationships. The only solution to this was to balance her
desire for love and she want to be independent. Not just this, but Beverly had
more stressors in life that triggered some complexities in the way she thought
of herself and her relationships. After some sessions with the therapist,
changes dawned upon her life and she settled with a man who she met over the internet.
The article then quotes Beverly, “Change is not magic” and goes on to explain
the relationship between procrastination, dedication and change.
Each
individual has one or the other trait to change and bring about a change in the
way they function. According to a study that had people ranging from 18 to 70
years old wanted to change some fundamental aspect about themselves. They
mainly wanted to move towards the positive end of the big five personality
traits- open, extraverted, and mainly agreeableness. Most of the people wanted
to be conscientious and motivated. The personality traits as the article says,
‘are defined as patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving’.
The
article also provides a contradictory stance where it states Art Markman’s a
Psychology professor at the Texas University, statement saying, “change sucks”.
He continues to talk about the brain and its relation to change, “The brain is
a prediction engine. It wants to be able to predict what's happening in the
future and then act accordingly, even with things that are bad for you. As soon
as you make significant changes in how you do things, you no longer know how to
predict what the outcome will be.” Change can happen over different spectrums
of life. Socio-economical, psychological, etc. Change is mainly a struggle
within oneself.
Cognition
plays an important part in bringing about change in oneself. “I don’t think there’s
more to this”, “I am definitely going to be disappointed”, “this is definitely
not going to work out”, etc. prove to disrupt the whole process of the change
as the mere motivation of a reward at the end diminishes and doesn’t let the
person carry on with the thought. Angel Wilson, 36, who works with autistic
children, surprisingly had a negative outlook towards life. She always expected
the worst to come to her. "Shifting my thinking equaled being vulnerable
in my eyes," she said in the article. If one compromises with shifts and
changes, one is bound to lose out on happiness and give in to negativity.
Several
aspects of personality have to be catered to, to understand the whole process
and acceptance of change. The article gives ways to boost oneself and how to
not give in to negativity. It talks about openness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. This article does seem a bit
non- backed up by strong statistical evidence yet gives some strong points for
teens and adults both to incorporate and be open to changes in life.
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