Chapter 1 Event: The event that I chose is the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The Supreme Court recently blocked the vaccine mandate implemented by Occupation Safety and Health Administration on the grounds that it lacks the authority to implement such a nationwide mandate. While the vaccine does show effectiveness at preventing severe outcomes, it is also starting to show signs of waning immunity and declining effectiveness. Despite that, there are still many people that favor the vaccine mandate over promoting individual freedoms.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to fit this event most clearly is critical thinking. Although this term seems like common sense, it is immensely absent in our current society and scientific research. The textbook states that critical thinking requires people to be skeptical of hypotheses while remaining open-minded to accept contradicting hypotheses if there is enough evidence to support that claim (Chapter 1, Page 39). I believe this term fits into this event because people might not have actually looked into the specific peer-reviewed medical research that proves the vaccine’s waning protective immunity. For example, there was a research that Lancet published back in October 2021 that utilized the empirical methods of research and sampling. It found that the susceptibility to reinfection of the virus increases with time. In most cases, two to three months after being fully inoculated. The researchers from this study also concluded that the vaccine does not prevent the spreading of the virus. However, none of this information was conveyed to the public. Therefore, if people had a degree of skepticism as specified in the textbook for these policies and actively sought evidence to justify those mandates, they might have had drastically different conclusions and/or opinions.

Chapter 2 Event: The event I chose is one of the classes I took this winter intersession, Music Appreciation. We were shown a Ted Talks video of a neurosurgeon speaking on the effects of music and the brain during a virtual discussion forum. Towards the end of the video, he brought over a machine that records the brain’s electric magnetic signals to show how different styles of music affect the brain.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to fit this event most clearly is electrical stimulation. The textbook states that electrical stimulation is a device that observes the effects of certain parts of the brain by sending a minuscule and safe amount of electrical current through the test subject’s brain (Chapter 2, Page 68). I am not entirely sure if this is the same device used in that Ted Talks video. However, I believe that this term fits here because it might be a device that utilizes similar technology to examine brain activities. Similar to that of the EKG machine used to observe a subject’s cardiac rhythmic patterns.

Chapter 3 Event: The event I chose is one of the classes I took this winter intersession, Music Appreciation. We were asked to listen to a wide array of classical music playlists in that class. The era ranges from the ancient Medieval to the more recent Baroque period of music. In some of the practice quizzes, we were asked to filter out the different musical layers such as melody, rhythm, harmony, and bassline.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to fit this event is selective attention. The textbook states that selective attention is a process in which a person actively tries to eliminate the irrelevant parts of a particular sound or visual (Chapter 3, Page 117). Therefore, in order to achieve this, I would have to utilize that method and listen to this song multiple times. And with each attempt, I would have to focus my attention on a specific layer of the music in an effort to isolate it into its own track. This method will also work if I have to name particular instruments from the orchestra, which is part of the upcoming final for this class.

Chapter 4 Event: The event that I chose is signing and playing board games. Sometimes, I would play board games with my family while also singing songs on my phone’s karaoke app. I chose this event because every time this happens, it seems like I could do both things at once, all in a seamless fashion without hiccups.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to fit this event most clearly is divided consciousness. The textbook states that divided consciousness is when a person acts or performs two or more tasks all at once (Chapter 4, Page 139). I believe I was able to do this because when I was learning the board game and singing, I’ve dedicated all of my brain’s processing power and attention to that one task during the focused awareness phase. After my brain adapted to performing these two tasks flawlessly on its own, my brain was then able to solidify these two smaller tasks into a more significant single task under the leisure category.

Chapter 5 Event: The event I chose is the stimulus checks that were passed out over the pandemic years. I chose this event because it seems like some legislators on the Capitol are pushing for a repeated and monthly stimulus check until the pandemic ends. It is likely that the government will not be able to afford to pass out a monthly stimulus check to the people without worsening our country’s overall economic situation. Nevertheless, despite the debt issue, there is also a bigger psychological factor in play.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to fit in this event most clearly is negative reinforcement. The textbook defines negative reinforcement as an act that an enforcer uses to strengthen the message to the person being enforced to promote that a particular behavior repeats again. (Chapter 5, Page 193). In this case, the enforcer is the government, and the person being enforced would be the people. By issuing that checks to the people, their short-term financial situations may improve, thereby sending a message that they should ask for more. That message reinforces people to ask for more checks. However, all of this seems to be positive until we see the longer-term consequences of that “free money” turning into record-high inflations. In that case, the short-term financial relief will turn into a negative punishment for everyone.

Chapter 6 Event: I chose karaoke as the event. Whenever I was singing karaoke, regardless of how old the song was, if I have heard it before and know the lyrics, I will almost always remember the lyrics after hearing the prelude of the song. If the prelude did not help, I would most certainly remember the lyrics after hearing the song’s first couple of lines lyrics. It is magical because I would never remember or recollect the texts if I did not hear those lyrics. Nevertheless, after I hear the melodies and/or the first couple of lyrics, I will instantly remember everything else that follows.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to fit this event most clearly is echoic memory. The textbook defines it as an auditory stimulant in which when a person hears a sound, imagery appears in their mind. As a result, the person will be able to draw connections with the sound to a particular event or scenery (Chapter 6, Page 219). I believe the reason why this term fits this event is that these memories are not commonly used. Therefore, they have been kept in a deeper state in our brains. Just as the book said that it is similar to that of a siren, you already know what you will have to do the moment you hear that sound. It is all part of muscle memory. Nevertheless, they will only be stimulated after hearing them because they are just not part of our daily lives. Circling back to my karaoke example, it is likely a similar fashion. I don’t usually sing those older songs, but those memories come back when I do. A similar example is when I enter a coffee shop and hear the music they are playing in the background. If I knew how to sing the song that they are playing, I would likely be able to sing along with it.

Chapter 7 Event: The event I chose is sitting through a meeting. I chose this event because, in the past, I had to sit through hours-long meetings with the executives to present monthly, quarterly, and annual sales reports. Therefore, when I make my presentation, I try to target my report to be as simplistic as possible while also anticipating what the executives may ask me during that meeting, based on the materials that I have presented.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to be the best fit for this event is framing. The textbook defines framing as a decision-making process in which the person making the decision anticipates the potential outcomes and prepares with expanded foresight and a broader scope of expected risks (Chapter 7, Page 260). I believe this term fits this event because when I prepare for those meetings, I will also try to learn what my target audience anticipates to learn from me. What are they expecting to take away from my report, and how can I present the data without undermining our department’s best efforts. In times of extreme formalities and limitations, I will also lay out the plans forward while also emphasizing the key points rather than going through each set of data one by one. I believe all of these mentalities are to be sourced to the idea of framing.

Chapter 8 Event: The event I chose is the mass adoption of the EMV chips in our present-day U.S based bank cards. I chose this event because prior to the mass adoption of the EMV chips in the United States, European countries were actually way ahead of us. For example, a news report a couple of years interviewed several European merchants. Some of these merchants said that they were in total shock that U.S travelers still handed them old-fashioned stripe credit cards. Because so, they had no choice but to refuse service to them because they did not have a machine to take their payment, and they had not seen stripe credit cards in their country for over 20 years.

Application of Concept: The term that seems to fit this event most clearly is incentives. The textbook defines incentives as a valuable item or particular gain that people appreciate that motivates or encourages a particular action (Chapter 8 Page 293). I believe this term fits this event because incentives ultimately encouraged the U.S financial institutions to adopt EMV chips for consumers. Because according to an industry watcher, the financial industry was well aware that the EMV chips are significantly safer than the traditional stripe cards. However, the reasoning they had for the late implementation was that the cost associated with mass implementation was too high to the point that it far exceeded the annual losses from fraudulent charges. It was not until that fraudulent charges started to spike in the late 2010s that the financial institutions began to rethink their approach to mass implementation in an effort to protect their bottom lines. Circling back to the psychological factor of incentives, it is not until you show people what they have to gain or lose before they take action; it is to protect our own pockets.