Please may you mark the following comments, thank you! 🙂
http://psud5d.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/why-do-we-laugh/#comment-35
http://psuc0e.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/omg-have-you-heard/#comment-32
Mar19
Monthly Archives: March 2012
Mar16
Do we fail because there are not enough hours in the day or because of our locus of control!?
Everyone has ambitions and goals. Some of them will turn into reality whilst others will remain as unattainable dreams. Throughout this blog I will argue that failure may not occur because of an individual’s locus of control, but because there are not enough hours in the day to complete everything we want to do!
The average life expectancy for men and women in the UK is 78.2 and 82.3 years respectively (Office for National Statistics, 2011), hence averaging around 80.3 years. This means people are living for 963.6 months; 29871.6 days, or 716918.4 hours. Taking this as an average time to complete everything an individual aims to do in their life, I will analyse the breakdown of how this time is spent. These are things that must be done before achievements above and beyond the norm can be even thought about.
Let’s start with one of the largest, unavoidable activities: sleep. The average adult needs 8 hours sleep per night (CDC, 2011). This means 299.8 months of everyone’s life is spend in bed, leaving 663.8 months of life left to turn those dreams into a reality!
In the UK, school is compulsory for 4 to 16 year olds. This equates to 12 years or 144 months of life. Now only 519.81months of life are left. However those reading this blog are attending university, hence have been in education for at least 2 extra years; 495.8 months left. The average undergraduate degree lasts 3 years; 459.8 months are left.
Research has found both men and women spend an average of 1 hour 42 minutes per week, on the toilet and 103 minutes per week showering and teeth brushing (Scotsman, 2008). This totals to 3.4 hours per week in the bathroom. The average person therefore spends 6.8 days per year in the bathroom alone, and 18.3 months in their lifetime. We now have 441.5 months left.
49% of computer users spend up to 5 hours a week on the internet (Nie &Erbring, 2000). Within this time, 66.3% said they spend an average of 30 minutes on facebook each day or 3.5 hours per week. Throughout our life we therefore spend an average of 803 days or 26.8 months in front of a computer. This leaves 414.7 months of life left.
In the UK, individuals spend an average of 1530 hours at work per year, 476 hours eating and 257.6 hours completing household chores per year (Organization for Economic Cooperation and development, 2006). All together this totals to 2263.6 hours per year or 252.5 months in a lifetime. This leaves 162.2 months left or 13.5 years left.
This is just a few of the many day to day tasks we participate in. On their own they don’t appear to be significant but when added up, they contribute to a considerable amount of time. For example, the amount of time on holiday, drunk, socialising and watching TV all add up! The window of opportunity to achieve personal goals and strive to be the best in a certain field, therefore becomes very narrow!
(For a little bit of light entertainment, take a look at Jasper Carrott’s sketch explaining how little time we have left… So funny!!! starts at 3:30 minutes in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjvQNUw_5Gw)
As quoted by Robert Half: laziness is a secret ingredient that goes into failure. But it is only kept a secret from those who fail.’ This suggests everyone could succeed if they put a little effort in. However with such a small time frame to achieve goals and reach the top, success cannot surely be attributed to the type of internal locus of control of an individual has alone. There must be some element of luck involved as well.
An individual with an internal locus of control believes success and failures are one’s own fault, with their fate being controllable and changeable (Rotter, 1990.) In comparison an external locus of control attributes success and failure to external agents.  To succeed an individual needs to have an internal locus, as they must believe they, themselves, can influence their future and employ task-based coping strategies (Anderson, 1977). However this is surely over ruled by the limited time constraints previously discussed. If an individual is not in the right place at the right time to seize an opportunity, the chance of turning a dream into a reality may be lost forever. An individual’s locus of control then, arguably, becomes irrelevant. Â
Anderson, C. R. (1977). Locus of control, copying behaviours and performance in a stress setting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62(4), 446- 451. Doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.62.4.446
CDC. (2011). Insufficient sleep in a public health epidemic. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/Features/dsSleep/
Nie, N. H., & Erbring, L. (2000). Internet and society. SIQSS. Retrieved from: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/alan/webuse/handouts/Nie%20and%20Erbring-Internet%20and%20Society%20a%20Preliminary%20Report.pdf
Office for National Statistics. (2011). Life expectancy at birth and at age 65 by local areas in the United Kingdom. Retrieved from: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/life-expec-at-birth-age-65/2004-06-to-2008-10/statistical-bulletin.html
Organization for Economic Cooperation and development. (2006). Time spent at work, at play and asleep. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_oecd_20090504.html
Rotter, J. B. (1990). Internal verses external control of reinforcement. American Psychologist, 45(4), 489- 493. Doi: Â 10.1037/0003-066X.45.4.489
Scotman. (2008). How long do we spend in the bathroom. Retrieved from: http://www.scotsman.com/news/how_long_do_we_spend_in_bathroom_1_189_years_1_1072528
Mar7
TA’s Homework (Semester 2, Week 8, Blog comments 3)
Please may you mark this weeks comments, thank you!!! 🙂
http://raw2392.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/should-animals-be-used-in-research-110312/#comment-58
http://psych31.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/why-is-the-file-drawer-problema-problem/#comment-66
http://psyalo.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/why-do-we-yawn/#comment-77
http://liamjw91.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/statistics-are-like-a-bikini-no-really-they-are/#comment-66
Mar2
The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Female…
Throughout this blog I am going to argue that women are overall the harder working, more intelligent and domineering gender! There is a definite occupational divide within society, which reflects the evolutionary bias. However, socialization is enabling women to flourish in jobs that were stereotypically male dominated. So for the time being the classic saying ‘we can’t live with men, but we can’t live without them’ is applicable in the employment world, but for how much longer…!?
For certain A Level subjects, there is an evident ability divide between genders: 92% of females gained A grade in performing arts, 82.5% in psychology and 77.3% in welsh. (Interestingly Welsh was the highest scoring language, with French, Spanish and English closely following.) In contrast males dominated in computing, with 90.6% receiving an A grade, 76.2% in the sciences and 54.4% in maths (JCQ, 2011).
Such divides can be explained by the theory of evolution. Women are more emotionally expressive, hence achieve higher in languages and the arts, whilst males have better spatial abilities as these were needed for hunting and gathering food. This suggests both males and females have their own strengths and weaknesses. For society to function we therefore need both males and females because different jobs require different skill sets.
The graph (Cartwright, Edwards & Wang, 2008) below shows occupational gender differences for some sectors in 2008. It is very clear to see females, on the whole, occupy jobs requiring them to have higher language and expressive skills- such as receptionists, teachers and nurses. Males on the other hand occupy jobs involving highly tuned spatial awareness skills such as pilots, physically demanding manual work and managerial roles.
However the UK employment statistics show society is deviating from what were ‘typical’ male and female roles…
7.2% of females obtained an A* in GCSE business studies in comparison to 4.8% of males in 2010 (JCQ, 2010). This does not reflect the current gender employment divide for managerial jobs and those working in business, as seen in the above graph. At the moment 83.4% of males are Chief Executives (National Census, 2000). However with females significantly dominating school business exams, it could predict a rise in women seeking high end executive jobs in the future. Such early achievements carve strong foundations for future success to build upon. Relating back to the idea men and women have different skill sets enabling them to shine in some jobs more than others… if women are gaining a stronger business acumen they will be the most capable in the future, hence the most employable.
The same situation is also occurring in the medical world. In 2009, 43% of ÂGP’s were women and by 2013, the Royal College of ÂPhysicians predict this will rise significantly. By 2017, hospitals will be dominated by female doctors (Boseley, 2009). Such figures conflict with the evolutionary theory, as it would appear socialisation and environment interaction is enabling women to flourish in what was once, a man’s world. Therefore there may currently be a gender based occupational divide, however if females can out score males in business and medicine- perhaps over time they will in other area’s too!?
Boseley, S. (2009). The Future is female- how women are transforming face of the health service. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/03/women-doctors-nhs-medicine-review
Cartwright, B., Edwards, P.R., & Wang, Q. (2008). Job and industry gender segregation. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/11/art3full.pdf
Joint Council for Qualifications, JCQ. (2010) GCSE Exam Qualification Results. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgdO92JOXxAOdHM4WDNTeFJScUdzVkJ0emdPaDR6Vmc&hl=en#gid=1
Joint Council for Qualifications, JCQ. (2011) A Level Exam Qualification Results. Retrieved from:
National Census. 2000. Occupational Employment by Gender. Retrieved from: http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/pdf/gender.pdf
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