Harper High School

This article was very shocking and sad. It’s hard to believe that 29 kids were shot at and 8 of them died without even making that big of news. I feel really bad for the staff at Harper High School because they are trying so hard to fix their schools, but as soon as it starts to get a little better, something bad happens again. My impressions after listening to these episodes was that the school is not the problem, the community is. The principal and counselors really want to help these students and truly believe that they are not bad kids, but don’t even get the chance to show it. I was very upset at the end to hear that they are losing 1.6 million dollars of turn around money. This money they desperately need in order to fix their problem with gangs and shootings. I can’t imagine what those students go through everyday that witnessed their friends die and get shot. I think that the homecoming game and dance is very important to the students and that having it is necessary for the school to move forward and have some type of normal life.
Throughout these two episodes I noticed many social psychological principles operating this school and community. One principle is social norms. Social norms are expected standards of conduct which influence behavior. At the beginning of the episode they talked about how Harper High School was a normal high school. The freshmen were nervous and the seniors were confident the first few days of school. The first day consisted of a pep rally, rules and introductions. The only thing that was not a social norm was a moment of silence to remember the ones they lost the past year from gang related shootings. One of the main aspects presented in these episodes were how people let others influence them. These students that were apart of gangs were forced to retaliate in order to protect their gang. This can be known as compliance. It is the tendency to agree to do things requested by others. These gang members altered their own behaviors and opinions to match those of others or to match other people’s expectations, also known as conformity. I thought it was interesting how many students on the football team were apart of different gangs, but were able to work together as a team to play the game. This is similar to deindividuation, where people are not self-aware and therefore are not paying attention to their personal standards. There were also many stereotypes. One student described that they often had guns pointed at them as a threat because some gangs thought they were part of another gang all because of where they lived and that they looked of age, when really they didn’t belong to a gang at all. This same student talk about how even though some teachers, parents, and police knew what was going on they never tried to stop it. So these students were forced to “fight fire with fire” and were driven by fear. These teachers, parents and police officers can be accused of bystander apathy, which is the failure to offer help to people in need. Devonte, a student who accidently shot his brother, said he could tell his sister, mom and classmates didn’t care about him anymore because of their facial expressions and body language. There term ‘thin slices of behavior’ descries how having a few seconds to read body language can provide sufficient cues for us to form general impression about people. One of the principles not operating at this school is obeying authority figures. The students in the gangs obviously do not care about obeying the police who are the main authority figures in a community. They are not afraid of their consequences because they instead obey their promises to their gang. I really hope things change at this high school and in their community.

Psychological Terms: social norms, authority, obedience, bystander apathy, facial expressions, body language, deindividuation, conformity, stereotypes, compliance,

Right off of the bat I felt sad while listening to this podcast. The staff member mentions that three current students were shot and it was said that twenty-one former students were shot that year. She tries to hold a moment of silence, a reasonable request of the students, but many of them don’t quite down. I think this might be because the social norm is to ignore authority figures, or they the students are deindividualized. The student are all part of the large assembly, so maybe they don’t feel as responsible for their actions. There is also mention on how if that number of shootings happened at a more upper class school that the school would be national news. This too doesn’t make me feel good. The whole situation sound a lot like discrimination to me. It really just isn’t fair or just at all. I think in America and American media there is a prejudice against minorities and low income peoples. That the reason for the discrimination.
When we meet the assistant principal he talk to a new student associated with a gang. I never did realize this until now, but gangs are just an extreme form of ingroups and outgroups. Most of the time I think the gang members only have location as a common factor. That is what separates them from the kids down the block after all. So just by social exposure the kids are put into gang. Knowing it or not when they move into a house on a certain block the kids are expected become member of the gang that runs that particular area. It is simply the culture. I think it is a pretty bad situation when even the police department acknowledges the fact that nothing can be done about having to join a gang. It is sort of gross to think of. The whole community has been conditioned to think that gangs are normal and that there is nothing wrong with them. This leads kids into a bad self-fulfilling prophecy. Kids involved in that type of thing become accustomed to that type of life style. They learn to believe that that is all there life will be throughout the years.
The rules really confuse me. One states that you should never walk alone. The very next one says not to walk with others because it highlights affiliation and make you a vulnerable target. This has to be a source of some major cognitive dissonance. These two ideas are exact opposite yet the students try to follow through with both.
Facial expressions and thin slices of behavior are really demonstrated by Devonte. He was the one that had accidently shot his brother. He had a sad face all of the time. His voice was muffled and inward. On the other hand the principal had the opposite features. Almost everything that came out of her mouth was positive. Even when a student said the only positive thing about his summer was that he stayed safe she was overly joyed by the news.

terms used: individuation, social norms, discrimination, prejudice, ingroups, outgroups, social exposure, conditioning, self-fulfilling prophecy, cognitive dissonance, facial expression, thin slices of behavior.

Harper High School blog response

This is tragic, the fact that people have to live in such fear is so sad. It just goes to show, that even within the United States an area really does affect the social norms. At this high school in Chicago, gangs are something that has become unavoidable. Even the teachers and the police officers understand that kids have very little choice in whether they are in a gang or not. They said that you were basically in the gang if you lived within a certain area. The one high schooler, which refuses to be in a gang and not conform to the social norms, has to watch his back all the time. He cannot go outside, because it is so unsafe for him because he is such a target for not being in a gang.

The kids of Harper, as well as the staff are scared. The teachers have no power over what happens, they can only try to get through to the kids, and try to make the violence stop. They hear and talk to the students to try getting news of what is happening, but in many situations, even if they know what will happen, they are powerless to stop it. I feel like the facility and students have started to develop learned helplessness. We see one teacher break down because for her own safety she must leave the school early, and she feels terrible for the students left behind. She’s also upset because she knows the violence is building up and that somebody is going to get hurt but she is powerless to stop it.

An observation that I made is that these students don’t seem to have viable motivation for all these shooting and killings, yet they continue to do them, on the show they talk about how many times it is something petty that starts a fight, and after a spark is ignited, gang wars can continue back and fourth for a long time. So why do they continue to risk their lives and do bad things over such petty subjects? I think this goes back to social psychology. They are in group settings, and have different social norms and this causes them to not think properly and do that thing that are terrible. There social norms is already what they are used to, but add deindividuation into the mix and these students find themselves really losing a sense of who they are, as well as the standards they have for themselves. Another thing is that for them, conforming is not just trying to fit it; it’s a way of survival.

Going from this, if we believe in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, they are unable to be normal teenagers. Most may have their bodily needs covered, but that’s where it stops. According to Maslow’s theory, since they are worried about their safety and security, they don’t have a ton of time to be healthy, make friends, or improve them. The boy who was not part of a gang said that he wished he had friends, but in that area, it probably would’ve been too dangerous to be friends with someone like him. It could be dangerous and heart breaking to be friends with anyone actually because there is a definite possibility that they could get shot, or into a fight with someone, which would cause them to shoot down your friend and whoever is with him.

Terms: Social Norms, Learned Helplessness, Motivation, Social Psychology, Deindividuation, Maslow’s Hierarchy,

This American Life episode was very informative about gangs and how they actually are in some parts of the world. Where I grew up I never thought stuff like this actually happened, the number of gangs, how young the kids were, the fact that every kid in a gang had a fun, and how strict the rules were. I’m from Dubuque, Iowa which is only three hours away from Chicago and i had no idea things were this bad. The fact that you could move into a house and automatically that determined what gang you would be apart of, you had no option but to be in one of these gangs so you're automatically sentenced to a life in fear. I really liked the part of the american life episode where they talked about the lady named Crystal. She would walk around and let people know how important they are and say cliche nice things to all the people at Harper. The counselors and social workers really wanted to improve the living conditions, It’s so sad that things got this bad.
One of the terms used in the book that is relevant in this American Life episode is stereotyping. The principal called the young african student in to find out what kind of gang he lived in. What led him to believe he was in a gang? The way the neighborhood that the boy lived in was set up so whichever block you lived on decided which gang you were in. Another term I noticed was social norms, the different cliques have different rules. The gangs had rules like, don’t walk alone, don’t walk on the sidewalk, if they shoot; don’t run, don’t go outside, and plenty more. Social norms can be different throughout any society and in this case for their own safety. Compliance and conformity is also relevant in this situation because if you disagree with somebody or refuse to do something, this can lead to being hurt; even shot. With conformity you must change yourself to fit into whatever block you live on and you must follow the rules, otherwise you may end up hurt. Obedience is extremely relevant in this story as well due to that fact that, again, they must follow the rules of the head of their block otherwise you will end up hurt; no matter how big or small the incident you did. With these gangs you also notice aggression; these young kids are fighting each other and shooting people for the simplest reasons such as saying something to the wrong person or giving the wrong facial expression. Prejudice is shown between the different gangs, they all have negative thoughts towards each other and it is considered wrong to associate with people of the other gangs. Social facilitation can be noted when there is more people around in a group setting things can get more aggressive, this can be risky behavior so it would enhance people to be safer and stay armed. With the story about devante, after he accidentally shoots his brother I noticed deindividuation. He has trouble sleeping, he looks at pictures of his brother every night, does not really focus on himself.

Terms: stereotyping, social norms, compliance, conformity, obedience, aggression, prejudice, facial expression, social facilitation, deindividuation

This week’s radio post was about Harper High School and the many gangs consuming their students’ lives. I thought the stories in the two posts were incredibly shocking as well as heartbreaking. The fact that this school has several teen gangs, countless shootings within the neighborhood, and so many students with mental problems, is hard to wrap my mind around. The way these students are growing up is completely different from my experience being raised. I was raised in a small town just mentioned as one of the safest places to live in Iowa and I can’t imagine seeing someone being shot in my own front yard, like many of the teens in this story have.

There are many aspects from chapter eleven and social psychology that are seen within the context at this school. Many social norms and stereotypes were seen throughout the entire show. The stereotype is that these because these kids are in a gang, they are horrible people, which isn’t true. These kids have no control over whether they are in a gang or not. Many of the students undergo many mental problems from the situations they are put into everyday. The town’s culture creates these stereotypes. Almost every kid in the school system is in a gang and each gang has rules. Some of these rules include not walking alone, not walking in groups, not walking on the sidewalk, etc. These are rules or social norms. The gang activity is a social norm in general, for this town as well as many neighboring towns. People driving in cars know to go slow because kids will be walking in the middle of the street because they aren’t suppose to walk on the sidewalk. Everyone in town, teachers, police offices, parents, and many others know that the gang activity is happing, and can’t do anything to stop it. The violence, aggression, and shootings are completely normal for this town; they expect it to happen. Everyone lives in a constant state of fear because they know something horrible is going to happen next, but don’t know when, where, or to who.

If your mom got a job in this town, bought a new house, and enrolled you in school, you would be in a gang. You have no control over what gang you are in or whether you participate or not. This is like cognitive dissonance. This is when you have an uncomfortable mental state due to a contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior. If you don’t want to be in a gang and think gangs are horrible, but you participate in one, this is cognitive dissonance. These kids are not choosing to be in these gangs, but there is still a mental state in which they do not want to be in, which is conflicting. I think obedience also works into this. Because these kids live in a community where gangs rule, they must be obey them, if they want to live. Everyone knows, if you go against the gang, you will be shot, another social norm.

One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was the story about the homecoming game and dance. Because there were multiple shootings, they were thinking about cancelling the two events. If there had been a shooting anywhere near my school, it would have been on lockdown and the two events would have been cancelled immediately. This kind of thing happens regularly for this community and instead of taking these things away, they really have to think about the students and how much they want to have normal lives. I thought it was interesting that the school has to plan and work around shootings. This town is consumed with gang activity and violence and the social aspect of the community needs help.

Psych Terms: social psychology, stereotypes, social norms, aggression, cognitive dissonance, attitude, obedience

Right at the beginning it took me off guard that there were 29 students that were shot. I live in Waverly, Iowa where the population is about 10,000 people. In my high we loose at least 1 person every year so i was able to relate. But i am not used to school shootings. I only hear about them on the news and not actually experience them personally, but i am glad that i never had had too. I think that it doesn't matter who you are listening to this has to touch you in someway. Something that also stood out to me was that the narrator made a comment about how in old schools this would be national new. But this is a Chicago school so it is excepted and people don't really think about it. Gangs are so prevalent there you honestly expect this to happen on the daily without thinking twice. Its weird because from where i am from a town where there isn't gangs so to me this touches me even more people i feel for these people so much. It really touched me that administrators pick up kids before school just so that they feel same.
This school shows many things from chapter 11 like stereotyping. People think that just because you are from Chicago you are in a gang, carry a gun, and do drugs. When in a lot of the cases that isn't true at all. People say you're obviously in a gang because you’re black and from Chicago that means you're a terrible person. The kids that are in gangs do have social norms or rules. Like sticking together, don’t go out alone, walk with someone to school. In Chicago this is their social norm.
The motivation is present and not present hear. The staff and community members are motivated to stop violence and shootings by making student aware of the consequences. But the shooters really don't care and aren't motivated to listen and to not kill. There isn't even valid reason to shoot people most of the time. The kids social psychology cause them to think different ways than we do. They are in an environment of kids that is constantly provoking killing and gangs. Which is all they know so they think that it is okay. Which is no excuse. This podcast made me so much more aware and makes me want to make a difference and helps kids in these situations.

Terms; stereotype, social norm, motivation,

Listening to this episode was an eye opener, to say the least. It’s crazy to think that we haven’t heard of this in the news at all, meaning there are most likely other problems in our world that we do not hear about. 29 shootings and 8 dead seems like a pretty big deal to me. I felt very bad for the students that were interviewed in this episode. It’s crazy to think how different a school in a bigger city, like Chicago, could be from a school in Iowa. The kids do not have to keep their gangs a secret at all, when asked they would tell teachers or principals. Their rules show what a dangerous place they live in. Rule #1 look at a map; where you live determines what gang you will be in and the worst part YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. If you do not want to be a part of a gang you can not avoid them. Rule #2 never walk by yourself, you risk getting jumped if you are by yourself. Rule #3, never walk with someone else because walking with a big group makes you a bigger target. #2 and #3 seem pretty contradicting, they walk with people but they will stay a ways behind one another. Rule #4 do not use the sidewalk, they walk right down the middle of the streets so they don’t have to walk by the trees and they have a better view if they need to run. Rule #5 if they shoot, don’t run because if you run you you will probably get hit in the back, you should fall to the ground. Rule #6 you can be shot for reasons big and small; the students reported that there are shootings over girls, money, or just rivalry shootings. Rule #7 never go outside the students said the best way to stay alive was to get involved and stay at the school as late as possible, and do not go on your porch. I couldn’t believe that they didn’t even feel safe to go out on their own porch! From listening to this I could tell how much the schools faculty cared for their students and wanted to help. I especially saw this with their student, Devonte. Devonte had accidentally shot and killed his own brother, after the incident he trasnferred but then came back to the school. Devonte said he didn’t feel the same about his classmates and teachers anymore because he could tell they didn’t care about him by their body language and facial expressions. Devonte regularly met with a counselor in the social work office and she put a lot of thought into how she would connect with Devonte. At some points I thought the faculty could have been more of authoritative figures instead of friends, but they were just trying to connect with their students. They really wanted their students to feel safte at school. In the episode we listened to an interview with a boy and the principal. The principal asked him what gang he was in, and he openly told him, then the principal asked him if he would come to him with any problems so that they did not carry over into their school building. The student said he would try, but he couldn’t promise anything. They want th problems these kids have outside of the school to stop, but that is probably out of their reach so they are making sure the problems do not come into school as well. It would be very difficult to see your friends/people you know being killed all around you, but having these teachers who care and aren’t just worried about punishing you would be somewhat helpful I feel. Since we learned about the environment you grow up in has an impact on your learning I am just going to predict these students are not highly successful in school. They have too much stress and things to worry about outside of school to give their best focus. Stress has been proven to make it hard to develop cognitive and non cognitive skills. I think it was easy to see that this school is most definitely not focused on just the cognitive aspects; they genuinely care about their students. I could also see that there was definitely a consistent stereotype going on here. When in most high schools there are “cliques” here their cliques are gangs. And when their is an outsider here you can about guarantee they will have a negative stereotype of this area. It looks dangerous and scary. These students have their in groups and out groups; they would do anything for those in their groups and wouldn’t for someone outside of their group, unless they were allies. Their environment is much different than the social norm; they have struggles and things to worry about every second of their day. It would be hard to focus in such circumstances like this, but it is nice that they have faculty at the school who really care and are so positive even in times like this.
Terms used: Cognitive, non cognitive, ingroups, outgroups, social norm, stereotypes, stress, learning, body language, facial expressions

This episodes of This American Life were extremely depressing when listening to the stories of these people and how they have to grow up in fear for their lives and how they have to grow to become accustom to the violence that they live around. All of these students in the school had to live knowing that many of them may end up living in prison in their lives and that they do not know how they will live their lives in the way they are now or if they will even live long enough to go there. The norms that they had to grow up with would be completely different for many other people that would grow up in a area that is considered “safer” for the students and how their life would be completely different to how they live normally. All of the students that went to Harper High School had lived around gun violence for so long that many of them it was nothing new when another shooting took place in or around the area that they lived in and many times they would just continue on with their lives and make sure that they were able to survive another day.
This type of growing up and interaction with society would change many people when it comes to acting with their social norms and how their attitudes in other parts of life would be affected. In the broadcast it stated that many of the students looked like they were always tired and ever had the energy to do things in school. With growing up around all of this violence and knowing that many that they cared for were killed it permanently changed their attitudes towards other people and how they acted in different situations and became more prone to violence because of this. All of these different types of violence that some of these students lived around gradually shifted over to themselves when some decided to join gangs to make their living and their cycle of violence continued with them.
I thought it was great that many of the councilors and social workers that worked at the high school were really trying to give it their all when trying to help the students get over either the gun death of a student that they knew or trying to help them get back on the right track if they were in trouble. All of these teachers really cared for the students and wanted to make sure that they are able to function in society when they leave high school as well as make sure that they try to stay out of prison when they do finally leave.

From this episode, it was shocking that so many students died, or were injured. From the description of the pep rally in the beginning of the show, one would not be able to tell that the school had experienced such a tragedy. This episode made me feel sorry for the kids and staff that have to deal with the “gangs” surrounding and influencing the kids throughout the neighborhoods by the school. To make matters worst, it is terrible that half the kids in the school are bound to die young.

Throughout the two episodes of the show, there were many social psychological principles mentioned. As soon as the first episode began to talk about gangs and death, I thought of actual gangs that sold drugs, had a leader, etc, but to my surprise it was the opposite. The gangs did not sell drugs, or have a central leader, but it was just a neighborhood and cliques. Cliques are common throughout high school, but not to this extent. Most of the gangs fight and kill over small things like: dating, rumors, etc. Due to these gangs and shootings the students fit into the term social norm. Social norms are expected standards of conduct that influence behavior. The violence within the students and neighborhood cliques, especially in Chicago, lead people to think of stereotypes. Although some of the stuff the show said did seem stereotypical, some of it is just confused and scared teenagers in cliques due to the safe feeling they get. The obedience some of these kids have towards their gangs, cliques, etc is as if they were all best friends. Due to that, their consequences don’t scare them, for they are obedient members in the gang. The school is doing as much as they can to lower the risk of their students dying young, but one can only do so much.

Terms: social norms, behavior, feeling, confused, scared, obedient, consequences, stereotypes.

This episode is rather shocking and upsetting. It is just scary and sad of how Harper High School’s life is. There are many gangs in high school, at the beginning of the episode, it talks about how 21 students got shot and 5 students dead. Regardless of how much the school is well taken care of and how the staffs like the kids, parents still transfer their kids to a different school for their safety. Principals event drive over to the kids and pick them off and drop them off every school day to keep the kids. It’s just sad to see how principals try so hard to keep the students to enroll in Harper High School. Every staff at Harper tried their best to socialize with the kids to make up for everything that ever happened at this school.
At the beginning of the episode 487, the assistant principal convinced the kid to come to him if he got in any trouble. There are tons of street gangs around the block. You don’t have to sign up to be in a gang, you automatically be in a gang, because a gang is cover almost everyone. For example, if you live on a street whereas the gang cover, you’re in that specific gang. You don’t have a choice to be a gang affiliated. There are rules around the block if you don’t want to get jump on. They said, if you walk with a group of people or walk alone, the risks of being jumped on is the same. It is crazy how the gangs have gun and everything. It’s more like the gang is taking over Chicago.
The most shown social psychological principle in this episode was stereotype, both prejudice and discrimination. That’s how many conflicts happen at Harper High School. Because stereotypes can make the students feel in a certain ways. Related to stereotype, I could see ingroup and outgroup bias. It just how the gangs work. Each gang could affiliated with another gang or could hate each other. And will do anything to protect their gang members or could harm other gang members if they have to. And at the beginning of the episode, the stereotypes can also affect perception of how people look at Harper High School. I even see some of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the episode by how the kids around the block have to join the gang and behave like their gang’s expectation.
In concluding, the gang was taking over Harper High School. Everyday, the Harper High School staff try their best to keep their students safe and have the best high school time like any other kids in the country. But they never know what’s coming and it just sad to listen to this long episode about their stress lives. Not only the school staff, but also the family members and the students. Everything they do is just not enough to stop the gun violence.
terms: prejudice, discrimination, ingroup bias, outgroup bias, perception, self-fulfilling prophecy, stress, violence.

This article was very shocking and surprising. Being that I am from the suburbs of Cedar Rapids, I cannot imagine what there life is like. I couldn’t imagine what I would do in this situation. The fear that those kid must have could give them so much stress and anxiety. I never knew how bad gangs and gang violence was until this told me that in there town depending on the block they live on they have to be in that particular gang. These kids must be so much stronger than the average person because of the thing they have to witness and go through every single day.
Attributions are shown in this episode. Devonte is the young high school boy that shot his brother on accident. Because of this he now goes to his counselors named Anita and Cristal. Anita and Cristal talk to Devonte to make him use personal attribution meaning his explanation for why events and actions occur and the make him talk about situational attributions in which make him explain why events and actions occur that refer to external events. One example of attribution could be, after Devontes brother dies his Family doesn’t say anything about the incident like it never happed but they don’t understand that sometimes talking about things can make situation much easier to understand and cope with.
Subtyping could be seen in this by one that says all African Americans are in gangs or are violent instead of saying that these kids are forced and that not all African Americans approve of the situation there in like Deonte. Deonte live in the Harper community and he is anti-gang. One thing he does is he has bible study in his home. Not all kids are strong enough to say no in the circumstances they are in.
Terms: Stress, Anxiety, Personal Attributions, Situational Attributions, Subtyping

Listening to this article was not very shocking to me because I am actually from Chicago. This is not just a thing that is at Harper High School but it is all over the city of Chicago. Many children do not have a chance at life having to live and go to school in these areas. It is very heart breaking that children have to not only get shot but die amongst going to school trying to get an education. It is nothing that is new or even shocking to the people that are around. I don’t think any child should have to ask their parents to take them out of school because they are concerned that they are going to die. This is unfortunate. Many of the children that do get shot or die are really innocent. After listening to the episode and really hearing what they have to say made me realize that I don’t think enough is being done to prevent this. Chicago is a big city with a lot of communities. The communities and the school system needs to get together to fix these problems. Much of the problem with the Harper High school is the gang violence. This has to do with ingroups and outgroups for many gang members. It is said that everyone has to be in a gang or affiliated with a gang. This is a social norm for all of Harper High. This is outrageous. This turns innocent children that want to learn and move out of the ghetto into gang juvenile delinquents. Listening to this tape it said that the number one rule is to never walk alone. You have to walk in a group of people that are in the same group as you and you are never allowed to walk with someone else. That is sad to me. That you can’t even feel safe in the environment that you have to call home. Looking over your shoulder, watching what you wear, watching what you say and how you say become everyday norms to these children. The second rule to never walk on the side walk. This is because they feel safer walking in the streets so you can keep a broad view and have a bigger area to run. The next rule is, if people do shoot do not run! If you run then you will probably get shot in the back says one of the students. The next rule to this community and harper high school is that you can be shot for anything! Girls, money, fighting, or saying something wrong. Finally, the last rule is to stay from outside. I think this is like being in a prison. Many of these children are so scared that even the principals and teachers pick them up from home and drop them off every day.

Many of these children that go to Harper High School cannot be friends with people that they think are nice or with people that they want to be friends with simply because of the neighborhood that they live in. This can cause stress for many children wondering everyday if they will live to see the next day on their way to school. Although this school is out of control in my eyes the school is trying to do many things to try to prevent violence. Social workers are available in the school that helps children to cope with things like shootings, killings; being scared etc. many stereotypes are put on children in this school by other children and by the staff. There is many staff that are trying to help these children like psychologist, social workers, and even a big brother program. Even though children have problems at school many children have problems even at home. This one boy that was brought up in the show named Devante accidently shot his brother and has had to carry the weigh on his shoulder throughout school and every day of his life. Deindividuation was seen in Devante’s character. He had a picture of his brother on his shirt that he seen every day and he has to drink Nyquil every night just to get sleep. To Devante and to many children at Harper High there are two choices that they have. They have the streets and school that is much like the streets.

Psychological terms: Stress, Stereotype, ingroups, outgroups, social norm, Deindividuation

After listening to these episodes I felt sick to my stomach. It is hard for me to imagine living in a place so violent, much less going to a school in an area like that. I grew up in a small town, and went to a somewhat small high school. My graduating class size was average, and I knew almost every person by name, so it is hard for me to visualize a place where things like this happen. I feel extremely safe in my community and even more safe when I’m at school. This Chicago high school lost eight students due to shootings and had twenty-one students who were wounded. The story that touched me the most was Devonte’s story about his brother. Devonte accidentally shot and killed his fourteen-year-old brother. His story is about how he dealt with the guilt and what his home life is like after the death of his brother. His mother was interviewed and informed them that her daughter, Devonte’s sister, was no longer speaking to him. His mother said, “the house was like hell.” This story touched me because I can’t even imagine what Devante had to go through. It would be hard enough to lose a family member, but to be the person who caused it would be unimaginably painful. The second part of the radio show talked about how most of these shootings happen in public places. To me that is the scariest part of all of this. My parents always told me that if I feel unsafe I should run to a public place, but in this area that is not the case. I can’t grasp how it would feel to be afraid to walk to school or even to go to your mailbox to retrieve your mail. This part of the radio show also talked about how most students have either witnessed a shooting, or been apart of one. They describe a boy name Thomas who has seen more than his fair share of violence in his neighborhood. When he was only ten years old he witnessed the shooting of one of his friends, and he said that he saw her lying on the floor, with what appeared to be her brains lying next to her. He witnessed his brother get shot three times and was there when he was paralyzed. The violence in this area was so bad that they debated whether or not to cancel homecoming. This radio show relates to our textbook chapter about social psychology because it is all about the way we interact with each other. In this case, the students made judgments on each other based on where they live, and categorized each other into specific gangs. Rather than judging each other on the way they look, they judged each other by the streets that they lived on. In a way, they stereotyped each other, because even if a person didn’t want to be apart of a gang, they were anyway. People automatically associated you to a certain group, and there was no going back from it. The chapter also talks about social norms, which you can easily point out in this radio show. Every student who was interviewed said that is wasn’t safe to be outside, and their reasoning was because, “you could get shot.” It was normal for shootings to happen in this area, in fact, people expected it. If you were to walk alone, you could expect to get jumped or even killed. These are all social norms of this particular area. Then of course, the chapter that we read about social psychology talked about aggression. Aggression involves the intention to harm someone else. Aggression played a huge role in this community, and it seemed to be the only way that anyone solved their problems. After listening to these episodes, I am very grateful to have grown up in the community that I did, and I cant imagine having to grow up like these young kids.
Terms: violence, stereotype, social norms, aggression

Cassandra Rutledge
Harper High School
11/5/2014

These episodes made me feel aweful because of all the shootings have happened have not happened in the school, but they were outside of school. When the shootings happened nothing was said on the national news, even though their were twenty-nine students injured and even dead. The shootings were not important enough for the president to announce like Shady Hook Elementary. I believe that every shooting is important and should be made noticed, we as citizens of the United States need to know how dangerous things are for the safety of our kids.
Social Psychology is involved with gangs because with gangs when you are a part of a gang you have brothers who will have your back. You are given a certain gang when you live in a certain area, and you do not have a choice whether or not to be in the gang. Gangs are the defining social structure of the school, and are not necessarily the bad kids in the corner. The seven rules are know your geography, never walk by yourself, never walk with others, do not use the sidewalk, don't run if you are getting shot at, you can be shot for reasons big or small, and never go outside. The affiliations of this is to not make a target on yourself and not the give a reason for being jumped or shot. They advise you to stay off of your block as long as possible, just stay in the school as lon as possible. Gangs really shows that social psychology is really not important because no matter what you do you cannot go out and make friends with whoever you want because there are rules that you cannot change.
Terms: social psychology,gang, affiliations, important,

This episode made me feel lucky that I come from the area I do, but it also made me feel really sad for the people who live in that area. The reason why so many kids have been shot in that school district is not because of the school itself, it is the area that the schools and what surrounds it. I do not think it is fair for those kids because you cannot help what your born into, those kids did not choose to be born into that life or that area, a life of constant gang rivalry and shootings. I think it is really cool that Harper school has social workers that want to tell them and reach out to the kids because people in their homes lives do not help them. It was crazy to think that you weren’t allowed to walk around the neighborhood with certain people because it will lead to their deaths. It amazed me that at of all the people they interviewed and talked to there be just one kid who stayed in his house all day and was not affiliated with the gang life. This school and community have no help either. It made me feel really sick to my stomach because if this ever happened to a mostly white school in the middle of Iowa, where kids were getting shots on the streets and out of one school twenty-seven kids had died it would make national news, but just because it is a mostly black school in Chicago it is normal. Which is not ok because then the problem is not noticed and it keeps on going and getting worse and worse. It is also made me feel sad that the school is losing funding and the positions that are helping the students are being let go. It also amazed me the kinds of thing the kids did not have, like a warm winter coat, or even laundry soap.
One social psychological principal that is shown in this podcast is personal attributions. Personal attributions are people explanations for why events or actions occur that refer to people’s internal characteristics. This is people blaming just hating each other and being in rivalry gangs to they kill each other. They explain shooting people with just hating each other and being in different gangs from one another. In-groups are a very big part of this school. In-groups are groups you are so connected with that you cheer them on and would do anything for them even die for them. The in-groups at Harper School are the gangs, they are very strongly connected with one another that they kill for each other and would die for each other. Also out-groups go on at this school, each person has their own in-group and it usually only one in-group and the rest of the gangs to all the other people are out-group because they do not belong within that group. The mere exposure effect is also very seen in the Harper school district. Mere exposure effect is the increase in liking something due to repeated exposure. This is shown with people at this school seeing more and more violence going on within this school and people pick up the violence shown within this school and create a liking to it and participate in it. This school has different social norms than a school I would attend. The social norms at this school are be a part of a gang, own a gun and not being afraid to kill people. The normal thing in a community like this is being in a gang and not caring about school, and in many other parts of the country those are very far from social norms. People at this school have no obedience. They do not like authority and do not listen to teachers when they are trying to help with their outside problems. This school has a lot of aggression and let it out through gun violence.
Personal Attributions, In-groups, Out-groups, Mere Exposure Effect, Social Norms, Aggression

This episode was very shocking to me, yet it was very intersecting. It was eyeopening. I was exposed to something very different and new. I grew up in a complete different environment than that. I come from a small town in Iowa where people are very nice and friendly. There are no gangs and no shooting. I can not imagine going to a school where there are gangs and crime and violence around the block. I would be very uncomfortable going to that school knowing that my classmates are part of a gang. I have never lived or been to a rough neighborhood. Living in middle of crime and violence how can they have a safe environment to study and focus on school while get good grades. They are just focused on surviving and not getting shot. What shocked me the most was that they are part of a gang not because they want to, but because of where they live. The kids do not go to a bad school, they just live in a bad neighborhood. They can not walk around be them self, they have to go in a group. Principles, teachers and security guards are all trying hard and doing there very best to provide good education and a safe environment for the kids to learn. It is not their fault. What shocked me the most was that they can not even have homecoming without security. That stuff is meant to be fun. I remember in high school we had homecoming and our community participated in it and had a huge role in. That part for me was heartbreaking, but in the end I was happy that they had a good homecoming dance and football game and had fun.
In the second part for me was even more heartbreaking. I had not idea that 82% of murders in Chicago happens are in public places. I can not image witnessing a murder, let alone that many murders that Thomas had witness. I was surprised to hear the fifteen year old has a gun and they know people who can get them gun. They knew so much about a guns, like they knew where to get them, who much to pay for them. They know about guns inside out, I do not know that much about a gun as that fifteen year do. I am glad that they are working with a social worker to improve their community. I like the social worker, she seems really caring and is impacting the students in a good way. She said that nothing has changed in last twenty years it is the same.
Some of the social psychological aspects that are present is stereotype, that someone is sacred of someone else. When the principle called the kid in his office and just thought that kid is part of a gang, he just assumed that he did not even asked him any question or anything to find out if he is part of a gang. Also prejudice and discrimination is also part of social psychological is if this was some rich white school kid media and people all-around the country would be talking about this and this would be a big issue, but it not the case and so not many are taking about this. Social exposure is also part of this, these kids are part of a gang because of where they live. I think that the parents should also standup and get there kids out of that community and move somewhere else or if they know that their kid is part of a gang they should put some sort of restriction on the kids. Conformity is also part of the social psychology, if they are part of a gang they have a symbol to represent their gang or a name for the
gang. Social norm it was part of their community, if someone is part of a gang it influenced other people to be part of the gang and get involved in crime. It put pressure on other kids to do that. Aggression also plays a main part, having a lot of anger and hatred, I think that it is like that because many of them have seen a lot of murders and crime and they just need something to get rid of that frustration so they get in fights.
Psychological terms- Stereotype, discrimination, prejudice, social exposure, conformity, social psychology, aggression

Listening to the Harper High School radio show really made me feel shocked and sad for these kids. In the first show it talked about how these kids couldn’t relax because just walking down the street or sitting outside their house could get them killed. I was extremely shocked hearing the police officer talk about how they cant avoid being in a gang because this wasn’t a fairy tale where that was an option for them. It was extremely shocking to hear about all the violence and aggression between gangs how some of the students turned to being in gangs as a way to gain more safety and security. I just thought it was so strange that everyone in that school was technically part of a gang just because of the street they lived on. The amount of stress these kids have going on in their life is tremendous. Not only do they have the basic daily hassles as any normal teenager such as dating, school, money, and sports but they have special ones such as being shot, hurt, or bullied by the various gangs in their area. Many of the kids that they had on the show talked about some major life stressors such as seeing friends and family be shot and killed. One of the students actually had to dead with the stress of accidentally shooting and killing his 14 year old brother. I honestly think if I was dropped or transferred into that high school I wouldn’t be able to handle the stressors these kids live with in their everyday life. When they talked about all the times people have been shot at and how to react I was just so shocked to hear their answers. These kids had dealt with being shot at enough times that they had been conditioned to just fall to the ground when presented with the stimuli of being shot at. When they posed the question I figured they would say something along the lines of fight and flight responses but they simply just said if you ran away you would definitely get shot. The students aren’t the only ones affected by all the gain violence though as we can see from this story because the social worker, Crystal, mentioned how the stress of the job and the worrying for the students actually got to the point where she thought she was having a stroke. She described her bodies stress response to be causing her numbness throughout her body. At the end of the show the student who accidentally shot his 14-year-old brother actually fell into a social norm from his community. He had fallen on rough times with family issues due to his brother’s death and was literally giving up on life. He fell into the social norm though because he got a gun and was picked up on gun charges and stopped going to school. For this community to join a gain or get stuck in the cycle of all the gain violence seems to be a social norm. Crystal on multiple occasions refers or brings up the idea of helping the students “get out” or people that “got out”. This to me seemed life she was seeing those people as getting away from the gang violence or by simply putting it breaking the social norm.

Terms Used: aggression, stress, daily hassles, major life stressors, stressors, conditioned, stimuli, fight or flight response, stress response

When listening to these episodes I felt remorse for all of the kids because of the hardships the kids had to go through. I grew up in Northeast Iowa and there was nothing to the extent of school shootings. The closest area that has those would be forty-five minutes away. The kids at these schools could have lost a friend or someone special in their lives. In the episodes there were examples of kids that went through traumatizing experiences that alter the way they act. The main example I’m going to use is the when were student accidently shot and killed his younger brother. He thought the kid was someone else but later learned that it was his own brother. This kid lived in a life where guns and violence were a common thing. In a way it was like a part of their culture because no matter where you lived or what you wanted, you were a part of a gang. In school people organized themselves into gangs because it was a way of making friends and getting help if you were in trouble. This kid was a part of a gang like all the other kids and thought he was in danger so he acted. This kid now knowing he killed his brother has changed his ways and does whatever he n to not get involved in gangs and to excel in school. He has changed mentally and is haunted by how he shot his brother so he can only sleep in his brother’s bed to feel better. People form their attitudes through experience and exposure. Once these things started on the school, they leaked to other people in the school. When they all were exposed to being in a gang they all became a part of one because it was the thing to do. This is called the mere exposure effect because this increases the liking due to repeated exposure. They do not see a problem with this because they are exposed to it throughout their life. The kid that shot his brother now sees something wrong with this because he lost someone in his family.

These audios made me feel extremely happy about my high school and how non-violent it was. Growing up I thought my town was not the best place to be. I mean this as in there were “gangsters” but they were not toting guns and there was no shootings. I would definitely want to move if I went to this school because my education is not worth my life. I think that it was interesting how they handled shootings and the aggression of gang life in general. I thought that they were extremely smart how they handled each individual incident; how they didn’t have a strict rule that applied to everything. The way they handled things made it seem like they actually care about the kids involved; as if they were family. This is probably why the kids were so obedient during school. The main girl at the school (blanked on her name), was very respected and could talk to most of the kids. I think that without the attitudes from the staff of the school these kids would really be destined to young pointless lives. If the staff was any different I think that the school would probably be shut down because they would label the students and they would be on the long path of self-fulfilling prophecies. I mean this because if they don’t get the nurture from school like they do now; and teachers look at them as gang members then they will end up becoming just that. I think that the problem for this school would be the social norms. The way they said that just the neighborhood you lived in was your “gang”. If they would eliminate this and the other “rules” I think that the school would be much better off violence wise. I also think that once most of the kids start to go this path then the rest would conform and follow in their footsteps. The kids aren’t bad; they just need some leaders to help stop all of the “rules”. Once we stop the cycle of being mad and having to act on that aggression (frustration-aggression hypothesis) I think that the town can have a normal social environment.
Psychological terms that I used were; aggression, attitudes, self-fulfilling prophecies, social norms, conform, obedience.

This American Life episode made me think about how lucky I am. I thought I had a lot of stress here in college at UNI, but I can’t imagine what kind of stress these students have on them by just attending high school everyday. They have daily hassles that impact their lives greatly. The numbers really got to me in this show. The fact that there was twenty-seven shootings at one point in the year really shocked me. It put this into a new perspective. I thought to myself, my graduating class had forty-four people. This would mean that more than half of the students in my class would have been shot. The amount of violence and aggression that takes place in and around the neighborhood of Harper High School is more than enough. What would it be like to go to a school where ultimately everyone is a gang? I have thought of gangs before but not in this kind of situation. For them this is all they know. In their eyes it’s socially normal. For them if they stand on their own porch they have a risk of getting shot at. For me, I’ve slept on my porch under the stars and not felt even a little bit scared. I wonder what these students’ attitudes toward life are. What really are their goals in life? To try to live without being shot at? The people that really made me believe why some of these students wanted to live were those who put in the extra effort and gave real compassionate love to the ones who really needed it. Both of the social workers in the radio show, to me, showed some type of act of altruism. Even though they were obliviously getting paid to work at Harper, I feel as if the got an even bigger reward out of their job then most. What they did for the students like Devonte was more than what they were getting paid for. At the end of it all Devonte did end up running from his problems, but when he looked in the mirror he saw the ‘good’ Devonte. That said, I think Crystal, the social worker, did her job and more and made him believe there was some good in himself. The health and well-being of the students in this community were and still are affected by social psychology. The judgments and stereotypes formed influence people to think wrongly of those who live there. Even though living isn’t considered great in this area there are still good people such as the staff members who are there not to discriminate, but help those who aren’t emotionally and mentally stable. Like I said before this episode shocked me, but it also made me realize how fortunate I am to be here today. The psychological terms I used were stress, daily hassles, aggression, social norms, attitude, goal, compassionate love, health, well-being, psychology, stereotypes, discriminate.

After listening to Acts One and Two of Harper High School I feel very uncomfortable and a little upset. I think it is sad how much influence gangs or the need to be accepted has on kids today. At Harper High School, you must be accepted somehow some way, and if your not you still lose. In part one it was talked about how if you walk alone you risk being jumped and if you walk with people you risk becoming a target by being affiliated with those people. Gangs and violence are being taken too far. Twenty-nine kids being shot, and eight dying is just sickening, especially because they are being shot for nothing. Part one mentioned how kids are shot for things such as girls, money, and other small feuds that have been taken too far. The only thing worse than the fact this stuff is happening, is that we never heard about it. Maybe we would have heard if it was a richer place or nicer city. However, 29 shot and 8 dying over the course of a year, all kids, has become normal in places like this, and that is the worst part.
As far as the homecoming still happening, I think it would be a good thing for the school to cancel. I know many people think it would be good to go on with normal activities, but I think thats the problem. These types of things are becoming too normal. It has to stop. I really think the idea of normal needs to be changed before anything else can change. These kids no nothing more tun gun violence. They need something greater in their lives to lean on. They need to learn values, and ways to deal with problems without looking to violence. Today kids aren't developing friendships. They develop cliques and build brotherhoods. They stand up for each other and are used to protecting each other no matter what the cost. These things are good traits if they are used the right way. However, in the case of TG being killed, gangs thought they needed to retaliate in honor of TG. These things are very sad to see, because you know there will be revenge after the revenge, aggressions will become more serious and it will just keep carrying on. Places like Harper High school need something to live for.
I think everything happening in this school is practically all of chapter 11 section 3 of the textbook. The section is how other people influence us. The first way it relates is talking about social facilitation. This is when your performance is enhanced around others. In the school, gangs will stop at nothing to make sure they keep their “people” pleased. Whether it is stealing, or even killing. Another way I can relate it to the social aspects of psychology is through deindividuation. This is when phenomenons occur because people are not aware of themselves. These kids are so into the things they do they don't take the time to stop and realize what they could become. They think for the moment and hope they can do what needs to be done at the moment, no matter what it takes. These kids conform to the ways of others to make sure they stay safe with the protection of others. They take sides and exhibit compliance and become a part of these tragic events that have become social norms. They have more obedience to their own social groups and kids their age than adults. It’s not that they don't listen to or rebel against adults, they are just more so influenced by kids their age.
It is a lot easier to see why these things happen and where the influence comes from after knowing the things previously mentioned. Unfortunately, knowing why it occurs isn't creating answers to the problems. Kids are still getting ahold of guns, and in the end, kids are still shooting kids. Hopefully we reach a point in time where this can come to a stop.

Terms Used: Social facilitation, Deindividuation, Conformity, Social norm, Compliance, Obedience, Agression,

This episode made me sick to my stomach. I cannot believe how harsh people, especially students, are to each other. Never have I ever heard of such a scary community to live in. It’s terrible that it is a normal occurrence to have students killed and shot. I am happy, however, that they have a nice teacher staff to help their students be safe and feel protected. It was mind boggling that since the principal has been there, twenty-seven students have been killed. At my school, my principal has been there for thirteen years and since he has been there maybe one or two students have passed away due to natural causes or car accidents. We have never had a shooting or an act of violence so major like this school has. I realize how blessed I am to live where I do live. I didn’t have to be afraid to walk to or from school everyday. I didn’t have to worry about my friends or classmates being gang bangers. It’s even worse that these shootings are silly stupid ones done for little arguments or nothing at all.
I love how teachers are so supportive of the students and the school. They want to be in the life of the students to make sure they feel safe and they are comfortable. They want to make sure the students can graduate so they can have a better life somewhere besides there on the streets. They were especially really nice to a boy named Devonte. Devonte accidently shot his little brother. His mom and sister did not believe he did it accidently. The teachers knew his home life was not good and the other two places where Devonte would go would be school or on the street. The teachers made sure they saw him a couple times a day to make sure he was doing all right throughout this horrific experience. It is nice that the students who feel like they have no one actually have someone they can trust.
Student at those school who shoot others are affecting other students because of the consequences it has on them. The students who didn’t cause the act but is affected by them can become aggressive due to frustration-aggression hypothesis. Aggressive is any behavior that involves the intention to harm someone else. Frustration-aggression hypothesis is the more frustrated we feel, the more likely we are to act aggressively. Thomas, who has seen lots of shootings, felt like this and because of this her wanted to hurt other people to take our his frustration and make himself feel better.
They have terrible stereotypes about one another. If you are in one gang that means you are uncool and they will shoot you or if you live in a certain neighborhood they will beat you up. They had so much prejudice against each other even though they never really knew each other. They would go out of their way to hurt one of the other gang members whether it was their family, friends, or that person alone. The hurting of another person because of prejudice is called discrimination. This is getting so bad they have to walk in the middle of the street just in case they get mugged. Teachers have to pick them up because they feel unsafe. When they get to school they feel safer. Their attitude toward school is welcoming and protected place. They want to go to school and stay as long as they can because it is an implicit attitude they have toward feeling safe.
Key Terms: Frustration, frustration-aggression hypothesis, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, attitude, and implicit attitude

This episode was so interesting, shocking, and depressing all at the same time. I really enjoyed listening to it because of the interest I have in people that have to live with these day to day problems and scares. I can’t even imagine being a high school student and seeing multiple shootings like these students that are being interviewed at Harper High School in Chicago, Illinois. In the 2011-2012 school year, there were 29 shootings. 21 students were wounded and 8 students were murdered. This is unheard of in my hometown. Where I am from, shootings happen in places elsewhere, so I never had to worry about my own personal safety just living where I live and going to school whereas, this is a constant worry for these Harper students.

I think people like Anita and Crystal are very helpful in these areas. They bring positivity and encouragement to these students. They bring such optimistic attitudes into these areas. Without these women, alongside the other staff, I believe that these students would be so unbelievably helpless. They don’t have much support outside of school because many are in unstable households. The way that Crystal walks down the hall, supervising, and basically cheering on the students. She tries to get their excitement up about school and it works a lot of times, but a lot of students also see it as forced. In the first and second episode, they focused on one specific student, Devonte. When he was 15 years old, he had accidentally shot his 14 year old brother. This has obviously haunted Devonte ever since. At the beginning, he just couldn’t sleep. One night, his mother had drunkenly said, “Devonte shot my baby boy.” Soon, his sister wouldn’t even talk to him. This hurt Devonte so much. He blamed himself a lot for the accident, so much that he couldn’t even sleep at night without some sort of sleep aid. Harper High School’s administration advised Devonte not to come to school for a while because they were worried about Devonte’s safety. After some time passed, he returned and went back to being a full time student at Harper. He was interviewed again after getting back into the routine. During the interview, Devonte vocalized that he hates himself for what he has done and even more so because of the way people were acting towards him. He said that his family members didn’t act like anything had changed except for the fact that they hated him. “They look at me stupid”, were his exact words, explaining how his relatives look down on him and give him the cold shoulder. A few short weeks later, Crystal noticed that Devonte had been absent from classes for about ten days. She had been hearing rumors from his peers, but she wanted to get the true facts, so she reached out to Devonte’s mother. Mrs. Grant informed Crystal that Devonte had been picked up by the police on gun charges and went to court. After going to court, Devonte ran away and is still, to date of February 22, 2013, nowhere to be found. Crystal spoke to him once and reminded him to keep the good in him.

I think this story is so incredibly sad because Devonte’s life just spiraled out of control because of the gang life he was involved in. I think for him, what really got him was deindividuation. Underneath the gang violence he was and still is involved in, I think he was truly a nice, good kid. It was so obvious that he cared and loved his brother, mother, and Crystal. I just think he was just so conformed in the negative social norms that he lost the positive side of his personality. Based on what I just said, I think the way Devonte is, is based on his situational attributions. Whereas if he was taken out of the situation (living in a gang filled area, such as Chicago) he wouldn’t be in such compliance of violence or even aggressive towards others. I’m not saying that he was a violent person, because I don’t know him personally, but I do believe that if he was raised elsewhere, he would be a different person.

Psychological terms: Attitude, deindividuation, situational attribution, conformed, social norms, compliance, aggression

This episode about Harper High School, makes me very sad not only because it would be terrible to lose your classmates as much as they do, but also because of how much attention this doesn’t receive. No, the shootings are not occurring at school like others we hear about on the news, but they certainly should not be overlooked. Harper High School is in Chicago in the neighborhood of Englewood, and it is unlike any other school in Chicago. It is said that the school is very well taken of, looks nice and well put together on the outside and Leonetta Sanders takes good care of her students on the inside. There are 16 bodyguards in this school and the students are loved and well appreciated, some administrators even pick the students up for school to make sure they arrive and are safe. However, the neighborhood around doesn’t act as well as the school does. Dozens have been shot within the past year with 8 being fatal (according to Act 2). The social structures of this school are unlike any other I’ve ever heard. There are certain “cliques” and stereotypes in high school as everyone knows, but in Harper High School these “cliques” are known as gangs. The gang affiliation is well known by the school and throughout the neighborhood, because you don’t have to want to join a gang, you are assigned one by the location of where you live. Even a Chicago police officer says that the kids don’t have a choice.
Social psychology is presented many times within these two acts. A shocking one is about how gangs are considered to be a social norm at this school. Social norms are expected standards on conducts that influence behavior. The police, school officials, families, students, etc know how gangs run in this neighborhood, even though it isn’t okay, it is what it is. Another example is the usage of ingroup and outgroup bias. Ingroups are the people you fight for, you love, and die for, that can relate to how gangs work. But in this particular situation, ingroups may take it as far as killing others or shooting others who aren’t apart of their gang (outgroups) to stick up for one of their own gang members.
I found it interesting when the certain “rules” were brought up. There are seven rules that people who attend Harper High School follow. Rule 1, look at a map, this is used to know what gang you are apart of. Rule 2, never walk by yourself, because you are at more of a risk of getting jumped. Contradicting to rule 2, rule 3 is never walking with someone else, because you don’t want to see like you’re trying to start something. Rule 4, never walk on the sidewalk, walking on the street is safer for extra time to run and not having to worry about people jumping out from behind trees. Rule 5, if they shoot don’t run, falling to ground will decrease risk of being hit by shots not meant for you. Rule 6, the shots are fired for reasons big or small, like girls, not paying money back, or even over paintball. It’s meant for retaliation between gangs. Finally, rule 7, never go outside, not sit on the porch, not walk around the block, and it helps to stay at school as long as you can. Those rules to me are mind-blowing, and I can’t imagine living where I’m afraid to stand outside or even walk on the sidewalk. There are always risks living in a neighborhood like this, and that is eye opening.
The psychological terms I used were: stereotypes, social norms, ingroup bias, outgroup bias

After listening to the Harper High School; This American Life Episode, I was not only surprised but I was petrified. I am fortunate enough to have grown up in a small and safe school district with extremely rare violent acts. Wherever these Harper High students lived, they were considered to be a part of a gang even if they wanted zero affiliation with them. They lived by social norms just to survive the day which included a set of rules to follow; do not walk alone, walk on the street and be aware, if you are shot at, do not run, fall on the ground, and do not take the sidewalk. When these students follow these rules, this is an example of compliance and conformity because these are ways for them to survive. It makes me sad to think that these students are living in fear of walking out of their homes because of the amount of gun violence that has occurred from gang to gang.

Throughout the interviews with the Harper High School students, I noticed that some of them had a strong aggression due to the violence happening in Chicago. Thomas, a Harper High School student, explained that when he thinks about gang violence he’ll “do something” meaning, he will hurt somebody. This is where Crystal Smith and Anita Stewart come into play. These women work as social workers at Harper High School, and are a strong influence on the students, especially Smith. Her happy and joyful personality attracts the students and her positive attitude encourages the students to do better in certain aspects of life. When guns were discussed in This American Life, I noticed that the students became accustomed to them because they are around them everyday whether it is hiding a gun, seeing one on the streets, or finding one in a garbage can. This is an example of the mere exposure effect. The more they are exposed; students develop a fondness for them. When these students experience violence or a loss in their life they encounter deindividuation, which means, they reach a state of reduced self-awareness, attention to personal standards, and individuality. The ending result to these losses is the lack of motivation. Their performance levels and attendance at school may decrease as well as, their social life.

Overall, I believe that nobody should ever live their life in fear. At Harper High School, the faculty is trying their hardest to make improvements to their education system. Having great staff members such as, Crystal Smith, will improve social facilitation because of her cheerful presence. It is important to realize that gang violence does not only occur in Chicago but several other states such as, Florida, Texas, Philadelphia, and many more. With each state well aware of the horrible gang violence taking place, I believe that people will try to improve their communities and education systems to ensure a decrease in gun affiliation.

Terms: Social Norms, Compliance, Conformity, Aggression, Attitude, Mere Exposure Effect, Deindividuation, Motivation, Social Facilitation

These two episodes were very eye opening for me. I knew the south side of Chicago was typically a bad area involving shootings and guns, however; I had no idea it was this bad. It was kind of hard from me to wrap my head around this at first. I grew up in Cascade, Iowa, where we have a population of around 2,000 people. In a tiny town like this, hearing a siren from an ambulance or fire truck causes everyone to look around and ask what’s going on. On the contrary, you have Harper High School, where 29 people have been shot. My small town and the neighborhoods around Harper High School are like two completely different worlds. There are many different types of gangs that swirl around the school, and I can’t imagine the stress on the staff of Harper High. In the first episode, an issue arises during homecoming week. A student is shot on Thursday, the day before the homecoming game and dance, causing a major issue for the school administrators to solve out. Do they let the game and dance go on and risk another shooting? Or do they cancel the game and dance for precautionary reasons? These are examples of the decisions the Harper High School staff have to make regularly. Having to always be on high alert of danger would be unbelievably stressful to say the very least. The social norms and body language have even adapted to this neighborhood. For example, it is a social norm to not walk by yourself around this neighborhood in fear of being shot. Instead people walk in groups, but not actual groups we envision. A boy was walking home with a group, the other members of the ‘group’ were fifteen feet behind him. It is also basically a social norm to be in a gang; hardly anyone isn’t. In the first episode, the security police officer was asked how you can avoid being involved with a gang. “You can’t,” he responded. It really is sad how much of a role gangs and violence play in these young kids lives. In the second episode, a kid admits to receiving his first gun at twelve years old. It really is mind blowing for me to think about growing up like this. South Chicago would be a very difficult place to live, however; by the sound of these two episodes, they make it work. They adjust to what their dealt with to make Harper High School the safest place it can be. Terms: stress, social norms, body language

Wow. That is really all I have to say. I was shocked at the prologue of this recording. There were so many kids who had been shot at and injured and even a handful of those students had died as a result. The recording talks about how nice of a school Harper is and how the students and faculty get along so well, but then why is it such a nasty, bad place? Later in the show they talk about the kids are involved in gangs. The faculty members are very understanding about where the kids come from and the gangs that they are involved in. What I thought was very interesting were how they want to help the students with the problems they have with other students.
This recording goes well with what I found most interesting in Chapter 11 Social Psychology. The topic I talked about in my last blog post was the topic on justification of effort, which is the amount of effort someone puts into a group because they feel how important the group is. In this situation the kids don’t have any say in being in the gang or not. They are a part of a gang based on the block that they live on. For these kids being in a gang is a social norm for them. The book says that a social norm is driving on the correct side of the road. That society has rules that we need to follow. For the students at Harper high school a social norm for them is being in a gang. Another social norm for these kids are avoiding the gangs at all costs. They do whatever they can to be at school as late as possible, and they also stay inside their homes never going outside because of the chance of being shot. The kids behave in prosocial ways. Prosocial means that you behave in a way that benefits others. When all the students are home away from school they behave in a prosocial way by staying inside. This is beneficial to the other students because they are not going to look for each other because they are in gangs and they are not outside putting themselves and others in danger. This prosocial behavior that a majority of the students have shows that they all share similar attitudes, or feelings, towards their situations of being in gangs at Harper high school.

Terms, Attitude, prosocial, justification of effort, social norm

These episodes brought me many different emotions. Part of me felt devastated for the teens that live this life every single day, but part of me is so encouraged by the amount of dedication that the adults have put forth to try and create a better life for them. I could not believe the things that the members of this high school had to endure between the shootings and the deaths. They had gangs and safety down to a science, and I think it is really sad that this is forced upon them if they want to survive. There are many parts of social psychology present in this podcast. One that stuck out to me the most was stereotypes. They said in the beginning of the podcast that there had been virtually no acknowledgement from the media because this high school was located in a bad neighborhood, so it was expected. People are being shot and it is not even being acknowledged. The principal and the counselor are trying so hard to turn around the school and the students around, but every time they take a step forward, they just fall back into social norms. I think that this is definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you expect the students to do bad things, chances are they will. That is what makes the situation so disappointing. The students could be successful, but they are not given a chance. Listening to this podcast made me evaluate the stressors in my life versus the stressors in these students’ lives. I have it so easy compared to them, they literally have to worry about living another day. I think that this is an eye-opening thing to think about, it is ridiculous that on top of the daily stressors of being a teenager they have such serious things to worry about. There is definitely a sense of ingroup and outgroup bias at Harper High School. The students are practically forced to be in a gang based solely on where they live in the neighborhood. This automatically creates a group of people that you are to be a part of, and the group of enemies that do not belong. This leads to many attitudes, not only towards the people not in your gang, but towards life and morals in general. The counselor tried really hard to stop physical violence, but the teen was so stuck in his attitude, he could not make any promises. The staff at Harper High School was trying to persuade others to help with the state of the school, but they just cannot do it on their own. All the ingroups and attitudes lead to a sense of deindividuation, as well. They pay attention to their group, not to individual details of situations. Hearing about this makes my so thankful for the support from my hometown. There is always a sense of community and genuine care for one another. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have this be a reality. I can only hope that things get better in this community in the future.

Terms: Social Psychology, Stereotypes, Social Norms, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Stressors, Ingroup and Outgroup Bias, Attitude, Persuasion, Deindividuation

I thought both episodes of This American Life were crazy. It is weird to think that some kids cannot travel to and from school safely, and gun violence is an everyday occurrence. I have never felt “unsafe” at school, so it is hard for me to imagine what that would be like. I feel it would take a toll on schoolwork and increase dropout rates. Which, seems to be the case. I also thought it was interesting to hear an inside perspective of today’s high school gangs. The fact that kids “don’t have a choice” whether or not to join a gang also blows my mind. In all reality, it is possible, but it wouldn’t be an easy road. 29 shootings at a school does not seem like an enticing option for prospective students though. When the school is surrounded by gang territory, it is a wonder it all stays off grounds.

I feel that the whole high school is controlled by social status. It seems as no one can think for themselves, and literally everyone is part of a gang. Their high school is the same as everywhere else, with school events and classes, but the students seem to follow more pack like instincts. The gang affiliation is by territory, and most of the time there is no drug dealing or racketeering going on. The gangs do hold true for the gun wielding. The missing factor is the reason for the violence. No one thinks for themselves, group mentality is what is used. For both survival and attack the gangs feel it is necessary to stay ahead. This baffles me, as I am from a smaller more rural town. Mindless killing is an everyday thing in some places, but some are able to rise above it.

After listening to this heart breaking story of this high school it makes me feel like we need to take more action. I think that this was a high school that didn’t get attention in the news because it is a school with problems in it. Unlike Sandybrook Elementary School it was innocent lives being taken and it was a good story for the news. It was a good story because people felt bad about the innocent children being killed and all the lives sacrificed to avoid even more deaths. It was a heart-warming story that many people feel sorry for them. Which we all should it was a sad story. This story about Harper High School was different because it was different gangs going after each other and didn’t have as much going for a good story for everyone to relate to. This took place in Chicago where shootings happen all the time.
Harper High School was not those gangs that were drug dealers or the tradition gangs we all think about when we hear the word “gang”. Which is a stereotype, in itself. These gangs were given stereotypes from each other and that is why they were shot. I’m going to assume there was prejudice and discrimination throughout the school. Attitudes of the kids were harsh towards each other because of the associated gangs. These gangs were formed from location in the city and that is why there was so much discrimination between them. These people had no right to go and kill these other people it was just what they believed in because of their gangs. They were persuaded to do these things from other members. All these members were obedient to the others as well because they didn’t want to die. I don’t think that this was right but I do sort of understand some of the reasons behind people thinking it is the right thing to do. They thought they could fit in or save the lives of family and themselves if they killed or wounded others. They were brainwashed in persuasion. They followed the rules of the leaders and did what they were told because of the reasons.
Key terms: stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, persuade, obedience

This episode I did not like at all. I felt bad for the kids because they couldn’t or didn’t feel safe walking back from school. I would not want to go to school knowing that it is not safe to walk home. I thought it was weird that people really do not have a choice. If they walk by themselves they are in danger and if they walk with other people they are considered a gang and could get shot. I felt bad for the children. At my school we had one incident where someone fired a gun near our high school and we were in lock-down for the whole day. This happened during my sophomore year and I remember that I felt scared. The teachers did everything they could to protect us and I remember that at 2:30 pm we finally got the all clear that everything was safe. I do remember that as I was driving home after school I still felt scared just because of everything that happened that day. I can’t imagine what the students at Harper High School feel like. The beginning of the episode talked about how many students had been shot a year earlier. This made me think of the Columbine massacre that happened years ago. Even though this was at a college it was still sad that many people were shot. It is weird that these things happen at schools places that are not normally talked about. I would not want to send my son/daughter to this school. I would not like the thought that my child might be shot at by walking in the streets.
One principle that noticed that was at this high school was norms. When we think of the first day of school we usually get a general idea of how things will go. We usually think of students and teachers getting to know each other and students learning where everything in the building is at. Students are expected to be on their best behavior. At Harper High school, the first day of school was very different. Everyone was told to be quiet so they could mourn everybody that had been shot the year earlier. I felt so bad for the students at this school because nobody should have to go through a shooting, especially in high school. I wish that these things did not happen and that people could go to school without being scared that they might get shot that day.

The social norm is that you are apart of a gang. The police officer said that there was not a way for them to not be in a gang. That is just what happens. The police officer said that there use to be a way to not be in a gang. Now there is not a way to be in a gang. One way this could happen is because it is a mere exposure effect. The gangs could have been there for a long time. Because they were there for a long time people could have got use to it. When they got use to it then it was a social norm. There could be normative and informational influence. Normative influence is when you are in a gang because they want to feel apart. Informative influence is when they are in a gang because that is what is happening to everyone. If you did not want to be apart of a gang then you probably had to conform. Being part of a gang was a social norm. There was one kid that did not conform. The show said that he had Bible study in his house. This kid did not conform. One of the kids in the show said that he wanted to do something to hurt someone. He actually did do that to someone. The show said that he hit the kid really hard that there was a tooth in his hand. This kid has a lot of aggression. There was a lot of aggression in the show. The show was about what aggression has done. There was a lot of ingroups and outgroups. If you were apart of a gang then they were your ingroup. The other gangs were outgroups. There was obedience in the school. There was not a lot of bad things that happened in the school. The principle did things to have obedience. On the night of the dance she had a lot of police officers. The security in the school helps make sure that there is obedience. The obedience keeps the school safe. There is not a lot of obedience not in the school.

Social norm, mere exposure effect, normative influence, informative influence, conform, aggression, ingroups, outgroups, obedience

The social norm is that you are apart of a gang. The police officer said that there was not a way for them to not be in a gang. That is just what happens. The police officer said that there use to be a way to not be in a gang. Now there is not a way to be in a gang. One way this could happen is because it is a mere exposure effect. The gangs could have been there for a long time. Because they were there for a long time people could have got use to it. When they got use to it then it was a social norm. There could be normative and informational influence. Normative influence is when you are in a gang because they want to feel apart. Informative influence is when they are in a gang because that is what is happening to everyone. If you did not want to be apart of a gang then you probably had to conform. Being part of a gang was a social norm. There was one kid that did not conform. The show said that he had Bible study in his house. This kid did not conform. One of the kids in the show said that he wanted to do something to hurt someone. He actually did do that to someone. The show said that he hit the kid really hard that there was a tooth in his hand. This kid has a lot of aggression. There was a lot of aggression in the show. The show was about what aggression has done. There was a lot of ingroups and outgroups. If you were apart of a gang then they were your ingroup. The other gangs were outgroups. There was obedience in the school. There was not a lot of bad things that happened in the school. The principle did things to have obedience. On the night of the dance she had a lot of police officers. The security in the school helps make sure that there is obedience. The obedience keeps the school safe. There is not a lot of obedience not in the school.

Social norm, mere exposure effect, normative influence, informative influence, conform, aggression, ingroups, outgroups, obedience

These episodes made me feel a mixture of emotions. Overall, it made me sad that so much violence has to occur for these kids, angry that this has to happen to kids in general and when people try to help they don’t have enough support, and it also made me happy that this wasn’t my own personal high school experience.

In Harper High, hard core violence has become a social norm. For example, in the radio show, they said that when you start school, you’re pretty much assigned into a gang. Like the kids said, that’s their only forms of protection. It’s almost like this community has altered their perceptions of the aggression throughout the entire situation. In one year, twenty nine students were shot and eight of them were killed. Some teens even said that it’s very uncommon to not be shot at. Even with that understanding, I feel as if these teens’ development is totally obscure. I can’t even imagine their anxiety and stress levels that these kids have. Especially because, what they’re dealing with is a major life stressor that will impact their cognitive development completely.

What especially hit home with me was the fact that the teachers want to help. Just the way that the principle talked to the students conveyed a good and clear message. She never put them down instead she reminded them how great they truly were. I also that that it was so amazing that if she were to receive a large chunk of money, she would invest it into the students no matter what the cause.

Overall, big changes need to be made in order to promote well-being and a better quality of life to everyone there. But, it can’t just be the voice of one high school; it has to be a voice from everyone (government, communities and volunteers) for a change to be among them.

TERMS: Perceptions, aggression, development, emotions, social norm, major life stressor, stress, well-being, quality of life, anxiety, and cognitive development.

At Harper High located in the West Englewood neighborhood in the south side of Chicago students attend another year of high school. It’s the first day and students are informed about the three students who were killed last year. However this was an understatement. There were actually 29 recent and current students who were shot. 8 of those students died. I was in awe that I had never heard of this story before this. I now know that this is because this type of thing happens every year in different high schools around the world. I have never felt the type of fear that these students have felt. Harper is located in a run-down part of Chicago however is a very pristine 4 story building with 16 security guards. School is the safest place for these students to be in this neighborhood. Life here is not only hard for students but also for staff. Year after year these teachers and counselors have to worry about the students at their school as well as themselves. This makes me truly believe that these people care and want to make a change in this school and neighborhood. Mr. Adams, the president of Harper, meets with new students and discusses where they live. It may seem odd but he is actually trying to figure out what gang they are affiliated with.

There are certain rules that one must abide by to understand how to survive in this neighborhood and places like it. Rule number one is look at a map, know your location. Kids in this neighborhood do not choose to be in a gang, rather they are assigned a gang based on what block they live on. Even a local cop admits that these students cannot avoid being in a gang. They used to have what they called “neutrons” or people who were neutral or not assigned to a gang however it is now the defining social structure of the school and neighborhood. Rule number 2: Never walk by yourself. Walking by yourself leaves you more likely to get jumped or killed. Rule number 3: Never walk with someone else. Walking with others risks being associated with other gangs. Rule number 4 is never use the sidewalk. Students here walk home in the middle of the street. This is so that they can have a broad view of their surroundings and a couple of extra seconds to make decisions. Rule number 5 is to never run when they shoot. Students say that they will fall to the ground, if they run then they are likely to get shot in the back. Rule number 6 is you may get shot for reasons little and small. Often times students are shot for small things like girls, stepping into someone elses block, ect. The last rule is never go outside. The safest thing to do is to get involved at school, so that you can avoid being outside. How can anyone who hasn’t lived in this environment understand these rules? They can’t. I have felt safe going to and from school all of my life, I have never had to worry about being affiliated with other gang members. I feel supremely fortunate to have been brought up in such a safe place.

In this school there is a social work office. Here students seek for support, advice and sometimes just someone to talk to. You can imagine that these students have a lot that they need to get out. One student in particular, Devante, is mentioned multiple times throughout the two episodes. Devante accidentally shot and killed his own 14 year old brother with a gun that he didn’t know worked. Crystal Smith, the social work officer who he connects the best with is very passionate towards him. Crystal explains how Devante needed to be at Harper. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t have anybody to talk to and his problems would just keep building on top of each other. However it is very hard for Devante to open up. Crystal says she’s only “cracked the door, but the size of a mousehole.” Devante tells Crystal that he cannot sleep and that he is taking Nyquil every night. He cannot stop thinking about his brother and the guilt that he has. Devante near the end of the episode says that he hates himself; that he wants to give up on life. “If I leave this world, they won’t care” he says referring to his family. He feels that his family does not believe him or care for him. His sister won’t even talk to him. Crystal then talks with Devante’s mother who is now impressed with his grades. However they never talk about what happened at home, they just act like it never happened. Devante’s mother actually still questions whether or not it was an accident. I do not blame his mother for questioning it, I think that this is a natural thing. I do not think that she actually thinks that Devante did it on purpose, but rather she just still has her doubts. She wasn’t there, how can she ever fully know what happened?

Staff at Harper are constantly questioning whether or not that they can make a difference. Much of the staff, and especially Crystal, keep a highly positive attitude during school hours. Students say that Crystal is the “mom patrol”. She praises you for everything good that you do. Students love talking to Crystal. I think that it is extremely important that these students have someone to talk to, and someone that they enjoy talking to. I do not think it is a bad thing that they think of Crystal like a mother as this means that they are comfortable with her.

Homecoming week is a struggle for the staff as they try to make sure that these students still have normal high school activities like a dance and a football game. The Harper football team is undefeated this year and have a big game coming up. The thing that is special about the football team is that the students put rivalry aside. Half of the football team is affiliated with one gang while the others may be of opposing gangs. When the football players were asked about how many players have been shot at they replied that the whole team has been shot at. As the game nears one of the major stars of the football team and candidate for homecoming king Damoni finds out that one of his friends James has been shot. No longer was the school thinking about the game. School staff got together and came up with a plan because they knew that there would be retaliation. They sent those home who they felt may be attacked early. They hired extra police security. After questioning whether or not to continue with the dance they decide to. They really wanted the students to have a normal highschool event. Fortunately nothing happened, there was no retaliation. It would be very unfortunate, in my opinion, for these students not to have nice highschool memories like a homecoming dance or game.

A question that rose in my mind but was also addressed in the episode was “how do these kids get guns?” When interviewed about the questions students answered “from one of the guys.” They explained the difference between dirty guns, guns that have been used for crime or murder, and clean guns, those that haven’t been used to commit murder or crime. Many students get guns around the age of 12. They explain how they never keep the gun in the house, they always keep it somewhere close, but not too close. Somewhere like an abandoned house. So they can have access to it when they “need” it. I feel that almost every kid in that school probably owns a gun. I would too in their situation. Im not saying that it is right for these students to own guns. I am just saying that I probably wouldn’t feel very safe without one in this neighborhood. I wish there was a way to completely remove guns from this area and I think that the students wish that as well.

According to what I know about scientific aspects of social psychology, I notice that there are many psychological principles that are operating at this school and community. One of the largest principles that I see is snap judgements. Something as small as a facial expression could lead to a death in this environment. Intentional or not these students must watch that they do not make any behaviors that may result in conflict. Another principle that I’m sure exists between different gangs is stereotypes. Gangs will automatically assume information about those within their own gang and especially about those of opposing gangs. Lastly groups can affect individual behavior immensely. Especially when one is in a gang, if they do not act a certain way or show appreciation for someone in another gang they might easily be threatened or killed. Deindividuation is occurs within gangs. Gangs are a type of group and groups affect individual behavior.

Psychological Terms: Snap judgements, facial expression, stereotypes, groups, deindividuation.

When I listened to the two parts of this show, I felt many different emotions to the various situations the show covered. I asked myself many questions…Why don’t they just move away?…How can people live that way?...Where are the police? Then I focused on the social issues and realized that most of the kids are products of their environment. The direct factors that cause people to join gangs are 1) family influences 2) cultural differences and 3) protection while the indirect factors are 1) low income 2) family issues and 3) drug and alcohol abuse which lead to a great deal of time on the streets. Many children join a gang because they need protection from other gangs. In this situation, the child might be a good student or just an innocent bystander who becomes the unlucky target to a gang. The gang will beat them up, harass, blackmail, and do almost anything to make their life miserable. This unfortunate kid can only take so much until the thought of strength in numbers come into their mind. The kid would then join a rival gang so that he now has protection and an alliance of friends who “have his back”. Eventually the gang life becomes the air they breathe as they get sucked in farther; it becomes arduous to escape the wrath and they are stuck in the violent rollercoaster, dangling their very existence over their heads. Numerous aspects of poverty all come together to lead to a change in prospect and a difference in the futures of many youth born into a cycle with no choice. There are many negative effects of growing up in a high poverty area. Violence is a reality for youth that grow up in inner-city poverty and is a big stressor. New studies have shown that children growing up in these areas are actually experiencing psychological changes due to violence and other effects of poverty due to the over stimulation of their frontal lobe. The frontal lobe controls instincts, reactions to emotional stimulus, and is the primary instrument in child processing. As the brain is overstimulated by excess violence there is proof that it begins to adapt and change. This change causes children in these areas to become more violent and see violent behavior as something that is common to them. There are many social psychological principles that are at work in this school. The one I noticed was the issue with Devion who shot his own brother by accident. It was a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy because he ended up being and doing what he thought everyone else was thinking about him. He ends up in trouble with the law and on the run. At the end of the show they aired other principals from around the country that had similar problems to Harper. One in particular, Furr High school in Houston, caught my ear. I have personally been to that school in the 80’s for a ROTC competition. I remember being on the bus surrounded by huge barbed wire fences waiting to enter the school to begin the competition, feeling scared because we knew of the reputation the area and school had. We even made jokes about where the Major hid our ammunition to our rifles, just in case. It saddens me that people, especially kids, have to live in that environment on a daily bases. The psychological damage that must occur has to be overwhelming. And then it becomes a vicious cycle because the next generations only know that way of life. In children, this biological adaptation to violence is the balance that enables a child to survive and is a big cause for concern. A mindset prone to violence extends poverty and delays rational mature thought processes. Terms: Frontal lobe, Self-fulfilling prophecy, Stressor, Biological adaptation.

These episodes made me feel really sad and it also made me feel very fortunate. These episodes of This American Life is also very disturbing to me. I find these episodes so sad because I can not imagine living everyday in an environment like this. That is also why it is disturbing because I can not imagine being somewhere where there are strict rules you need to follow to keep yourself alive and protected. There are seven rules that the kids in Chicago live by day to day. The first step is to know geography and know how to read a map. This is important because you need to be able to know where each gang is and where the gang’s territory is. The second step is to never walk alone because if you are walking alone you are at risk for being jumped or something happening to you. Going along with that, step three is never walk with someone else. Step two and step three are: never walk alone and never walk with someone else, to be protected in the communities around Harper High School you need walk a distance between each other. Step four is to never use the sidewalk. This step was very confusing for me but after kids explained why this is a step it made sense. The teenagers said that not using the sidewalk is a step because it is safer that way. I didn’t quite get how walking in the street would be safer, but then they explain there isn’t any trees and the street is less dangerous. Going along with step four, on the street you have a broad view and more time/places to run. One teenager said that there is “too much stuff going on”, this is part of the reason Harper High School students are always paranoid and they use the street instead of sidewalk. Step five is if they shoot, don’t run. One student of Harper High School said that whenever there are shots he just drops to the ground. The student says he has had to drop to the ground quite often when shots have been fired. Step six really isn’t a step but it talks about what the shootings that are taking place around Harper High School in Chicago are about. I found out the shooting can be over girls, walking off the block, retaliation for other shootings or simply nothing. Many of the shootings that happen are simply over nothing at all. This shocked me because I do not understand why there would be shootings in the first place but especially when the shootings are over nothing. Step seven is to never go home. Many students discussed that you try to stay away from your block as long as possible. You can't even go home and be on your porch and be protected. In these places that these children are living there is really no place that they are safe. These episodes made me feel very fortunate to grow up where I did and for growing up in the community I did. I cannot imagine what these students go through and I feel very sorry that things are the way they are for them.

Taking what I know about social psychology from my textbook I believe there are a handful of social psychology principles operating in Harper High School and in the community. I think attributions can be a big part of what is going on in this community. Both personal attributions and situational attributions are occurring in the community. Personal attributions are people’s explanations for why events or actions occur that refer to people’s internal characteristics, such as abilities, traits, moods or efforts. Mood is the big part of personal attributions that I think come as explanations for things that occur here. Situational attributions are people’s explanations for why events or actions occur that refer to external events, such as the weather, luck, accidents, or other people’s actions. I strongly believe that situational attributions have a big part of the things occurring in the community around Harper High School. I find situational attributions to be a big part because I think they have a lot of influence on the gangs in the area. Attitudes are also a social psychology principle I believe affects Harper HIgh School. Attitudes have a strong impact on all schools but I believe it has a strong impact on especially Harper High School. I think attitude has a big impact because the students attitudes towards each other have a big impact on their daily life and everything going on in the atmosphere. Social norms also has a big impact on the students because the kids want to fit in and many times in this area this means gang affiliation. Not only do the students want to fit in but it seems as if many times they have gang affiliation to also be protected and to be part of their blocks gang just because it is such a social norm there.
Psychology terms used: social norms, personal attributions, situational attributions, attributions, attitudes,

I grew up on a farm outside of a tiny town called Elma. The population of the town is only 650. I attended a high school that was only 15 miles away, again in another small town. My class size was only 22. Literally everyone knew each other. Because of this there was never any shootings that took place around here. There are no are gangs, nothing! This episode was very shocking to me and very sad. I couldn’t believe that 29 kids were shot at! That is more than my graduation class. 8 of those 22 died. That's like if all the girls in my class suddenly died. It sounded as if the school had some issue with shootings. It also sounded though that the Harper High School staff were really trying hard to fix the school. However, I think the community is also at fault. I couldn’t believe that the school was losing 1.6 million dollars of turn around money. This is the money that the school could be using to fix the problems with gangs and shootings.
The episodes can be related back to the idea of social norms. To me, it didn't necessarily sound as if the kids had the true motivation for the shootings and killings. However, it talked how the kids started fights over random things. The kids are in these social norms and causes them not to think properly. People use stereotypes against other people which makes them go into different social norms. It goes back to the study with the kids pretending to be guards at a fake prison. Once we get into a setting that we are not used to, we do not act like ourselves. We lose the sense of who we are.
Gangs were a pretty big topic in this episode. This can be tied back to psychology because of cognitive dissonance. This is when you have an uncomfortable mental state due to a contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior. For an example, some students will things that gangs are the worst, however, they end up joining one. They are in mental stage in their live in which it persuades them to join.
Psychology terms: social norms, stereotypes, cognitive dissonance

This was by far my favorite The American Life episodes so far. It was twice as long as most and I didn’t find myself once spacing off. Listening to this makes me feel so many things at once. First, it is really sad that no one seems to have any idea that things like this are happening as we speak. It makes me feel so bad for all the students, staff, and families in this area. Especially the guys who are only involved in gang violence because they live in a bad spot. That seems so dumb and unfair that that’s literally how they decide who is in what gang. Also, this includes these innocent guys in the gang affiliated stereotype. Not a very good reputation to have. This also brings to mind the self-fulfilling prophecy term. Thinking of the ones who are in the gang just because they live in that area, depending on how long they are going to live there, it would not be surprising if eventually those guys joined in on the violence of gangs. I mean if everyone is already assuming and expecting them to be like that, why try and resist anymore? I bet something like that would happen more often than not.
I was so surprised at how young some of the guys talked about were. Like when they were trying to find where they all get their guns, they were asking freshman. And they all seemed pretty confident that they could find one. And the 16 year old, Terrance, that was killed and people started a gang in his name. Those kids that were singing about him sounded way too young to have anything to do with gangs. It’s so sad those young kids are already involved in gangs just because of where he’s growing up at, they are all already probably so deindividualized, because they belong to a kind of group that you HAVE to have your teams back or else you will get turned on and likely killed. Who knows, one of those kids could have discovered the cure to cancer but he, or any of his friends, don’t even have a chance at a safer, normal kid life.
The section about how our attitudes are formed also relates. Specifically, socialization I am sure forms a majority of their attitudes about school, gang violence, family life, everything. Everyone that was talked to seemed to have no self-worth. They all seemed to think they were no better than the gang life, so minus well join them. Or conform to them. Both of the social workers, Crystal and the other one, they seemed like they were really good at their job, and really good for that school and the population there. I liked Crystal a lot. She was so positive and seemed like she was always trying to convince, or persuade, students everything that they were better than the generalizations and stereotypes given to them. She just always tried to lift up the student’s moods. Also, her episodes with Devonte were my favorite. You could tell they have a close relationship just from listening. I think that this is probably due to the birds of a feather idea, and the personal characteristics. First, you could just tell their personalities meshed well. She understood him and knew how to get through to him. It seemed like she could get him to comply with nearly anything she suggested. Also, she seemed like a very sincere and trustworthy woman, both are high admirable personal characteristics. Probably even more admirable characteristics to a boy in a situation like him, feeling absolutely awful about a mistake, and then having his mom and sister not really believe him. Having a trustworthy friend that he could rely on and talk to was crucial for him.
Terms: stereotypes, self-fulfilling prophecy term, deindividualized, attitude, socialization, self-worth, conform, persuasion, birds of a feather, and personal characteristics, compliance, sincere, trustworthy, admirable characteristics.

In these two episodes of The American Life, we are introduced to Harper High School which is located in one of the many suburbs of Chicago. I personally love the city of Chicago and have visited many times as I have family who lives in the suburbs. Chicago was ultimately the place where I wanted to go to college, but it was dismissed as an option by my parents when they began to realize how dangerous the city can be. They did not like the idea of me going from a town of 2500 to a city of 2,695,598 and a “dangerous” city at that.

The tone for the episodes are immediately set for each episode. Three students were killed in school nearly the size of my old high school which felt terribly small. 26 other students had also been shot. I think back to my school and even the death of one teenager was felt throughout the entire community and was talked about for a long time. However, for these students, death and violence is all they know. All they know is fear and to defend themselves which creates a terrible mental state for these students. I can only imagine the amount of anxiety in which these students and even staff are experiencing just by waking up and going to school/work in fear that maybe today will be the day that they are going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A gang is something so foreign from where I come from. There was no talk of gangs other than maybe a gang that was supposedly forming in a bigger city about 20 minutes away from my hometown. They were talked about like it was a huge surprise that anything like that would actually exist even semi near where we all resided, but for these kids, they are faced with the prospect of joining a gang nearly all their lives. To avoid being involved in some gang related activity is to probably never have your own group of friends. There is hardly a way around being in a gang. Gangs are particularly dangerous because there tends to always be one leader. This leader makes damn sure his or her followers are totally loyal to him/her. The obedience of some people is almost mind boggling. This extreme obedience also creates deindividuation, or the loss of self-awareness in a group setting.

I’m not exactly sure how anyone would go about solving this problem. On one hand, I feel terrible because as the book says, “our experiences shape our attitudes/personalities”. Did these kids ever really have a chance? Would they be these ‘viscous criminals’ had they been born in a small town like I was? If I was born into the same areas as these kids, would I succumb to the gang life or would I even be able to survive? There are just so many questions about how and why gang life has taken over the way it is.

Psychology terms: anxiety, mental state, obedience, deindividuation.

I can not believe any of this. It’s crazy to me because they said that 12 people were wounded by gunshot wounds and three kids were shot and killed from this school. It’s just absurd how many kids are dying from gang violence all across the country. I don’t blame any of the parents who wish to transfer their kids out of the school. If I were a parent or even a kid who went to this school I would be trying to transfer too. I would not feel safe at all going there. It bothers me that most kids don’t even have a choice, they just have to join the gang without any kind of choice on their part. I think the most social psychological principle that is operating is more than likely deindividuation. Deindividuation is really complicated. The study of the students who were the prisoners and guards made me think of how these gangs work. Kids who are forced into a gang will eventually just go into the regular gang norm. I really enjoyed listening to this episode. My favorite part was about Devonte. He’s one of those kids that I think slipped through the right crack. He didn’t fall into the gangs and even is a role model and a leader for most kids. That is something Devonte should be proud of. I really think we as a nation should start helping these kids. It’s important and we need to help all of the kids who really can’t help themselves.

This radio show was very saddening to know that this goes on within our country in one of the biggest cities in America. There is a lot to say about this radio show but the first thing that I personally noticed with the show was that the media doesn’t care about this high school. im from a little school in Wisconsin where if a student from any local school has died in a school related or non-school related it is on the news. In 2008 my high schools biggest rival which was 10 miles from my school had a shooting within the building. One person was shot and killed. This was on national news and broke the hearts of everyone including my school. We felt for the loss of the principal of Weston high school, yet we also couldn’t believe that some of our best friends were first hand witnesses of this shooting. The entire nation seemed to have Apathy For this small community. When listening to this radio show people seem to not care about the shootings. The moto appears to be kill or be killed as if they were fighting in a war, our these neighborhoods a true war? The attitude In these neighborhoods are truly kill or be killed. With this type of attitude I am not surprised that there are so many school shootings because people feel the need to carry guns the moment they walk out of the house. This radio show interviews a police officer and states that when attending Harper high school, the streets these kids were living in had no choice but to be a part of a gang. Each street could be a different gang, meaning as these young men and women would walk to school they would cross many different gang territories and many killings and “jumping’s” happen within the crossing of territories. These gangs felt that they could have been being prosocial, trying to better the world by removing people, the shootings became daily, almost like the first couple days hunting. The workers of this school are truly saints, the amount of work they are willing to do to better these kids and to protect them is something that is national news. Going back to my local school shooting at Weston high school, the major news channels such as CNN and Fox arrived within the hour of the shooting telling the story of the hero’s at Weston high, what they did was heroically but what is done daily here at Harper high school is outstanding. They do outstanding things every day and are willing to personally pick up students within these different gang territories. The news should report these type of people, we are told we need teachers to play a bigger role in these schools but Harper high seems to have exactly what the news said we need. I was not shocked how these students earned guns, being from a large hunting community in Wisconsin I personally got a rifle for $50 which is fairly cheap for the type of rifle I have. Granted the reason I would have a gun then the people in this story are very different because they are trying to kill people. This radio show is sad that these kids much younger than I grow up seeing death and instead of thinking of college they think of ways to survive the next day.
Attitude- prosocial- apathy

I guess I don’t really know how to feel about this episode, mostly because I don’t understand the senseless violence that defines the entire culture around Harper High. Why are people shooting each other, why do they need to be in gangs, why don’t they stop? I just don’t understand it at all. It’s sad to hear that students feel the need to be in gangs to be protected on their walk to and from school. It’s even sadder that they don’t have a choice in life except to be in a gang just because they live on a specific block. I always thought the gang structure was like This American Life’s description of a typical gang where there was one leader with thousands of members and a complex structure that was built to sell drugs. Instead, it seems like these gangs are just social groups based on what block people live on. The difference between them and a normal group of people is that these gangs have guns and are willing to shoot people over literally anything. I am nowhere near educated enough in psychology to assess what is happening at Harper High, but the entire situation reminds me of the mob mentality section. All of these kids are in a gang and the gang becomes their entire identity. They lose their sense of individuality from the beginning because they are always part of a gang. They proceed to behave in ways that would normally be unacceptable for an individual. Another factor could be peer pressure/normative influence I guess. If all of everyone is in a gang, then how do you avoid it? It was sad to listen to the part about the kid who avoided gang life entirely. I mean, this kid was doing the right thing and avoiding gangs, but he had literally no friends. That is not an easy way to go through high school. All he could do was sit in his house alone and go to school. I know I would not want that life, and I imagine that is how most of the high school gang members feel. The gangs are their entire identity. This American Life talked about how the gangs decided who they could talk to at school, sit with at lunch, or even acknowledge in the hallways… that is absolutely ridiculous. These gangs force every student to conform to their strict rules or else they are in danger of being shunned, assaulted, or even killed. Even with the gang’s protection, all of these threats are very real possibilities. At least with the gang, the kids feel some sort of acceptance and sense of belonging.
Anyways, all this was to say that I do not understand the social environment that surrounds Harper High and similar neighborhoods. I feel sorry for every person who grows up there, but I don’t know how to fix it and that frustrates me. No one should live in constant fear like that.
Terms: peer pressure, normative influence, social, hierarchy, psychology, mob mentality, behave

It was very disturbing hearing how many students were shot and actually killed from Harper High School. Even more disturbing is the fact that I have never heard of anything coming from this area on the news or by other people. Coming from a small Iowa farm town I have no experience with the violence on that kind of level, and I can only wonder how the Harper High students can deal with that on top of the stress of school. I am very shocked by the fact that these students are put into gangs solely based on where they live. I have always been big on the fact that we always have a choice in a situation, but the kids that don’t want to be apart of the gangs simply don’t and that idea is very scary and sad to me. It sounds like some kids just give in to the self-fulfilling prophecy, and embrace the gang they are in and act how they do just because it is expected of them. A sick fact about these gang wars and attacks is that the reason for killing someone does not involve drugs or business, but just over petty arguments like who owes who money or who’s dating which girl. I just can’t wrap my head around why these gangs think it is okay to kill someone just because they you angry. Is it because they feel they just have to, or because of the mere exposure effect they actually start to like what they do? If these students had not previously enjoyed or been apart of gang related issues, but since becoming affiliated and participating they’ve found they like it, deindividuation is the problem. When someone holds a gun and has the power to take another person’s life, that power can go to just about anyone’s head. This is especially true for teenagers who have not cognitively developed all the way yet and deal with mood shifts and aggression. Then when you throw all of what one person is experiencing into a group of similar individuals, any morals or values that would stop them from abusing power is long gone. For the kids who don’t become deindividualized, they must still conform to being affiliated with gangs because that’s how their neighborhood is set up and there really is no choice. The social norm is to understand that you are in a gang no matter what, and you must comply with how the system works or there is just as good of a chance of you being killed than if you embraced being in your gang. This is just a horrible situation that looks like it cannot be stopped or fixed.

Terms: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Mere Exposure Effect, Deindividuation, Conform, Social Norm, Comply

This episode made me very upset and angry at the same time. All of these shooting, all of the children dying for no reason and nothing about it on the news. It’s ridiculous that because they live in a mostly black community that it is expected as a social norm or that it’s not a real issue. In my high school one of my friends died and it made local news because kids and teens don’t usually die around us. But in this community it does. The kids don’t get a choice to be in a gang, they are labeled. They can’t walk alone, but are also targeted if they walk together. They are afraid to walk on the sidewalks. This isn’t something that should be ignored. It’s not even the schools fault, because they do everything they can to keep the children safe. It really is the community and local police that should take more of an action towards making these children safe.
The people in the gangs seem to conform to be like each gang. I understood that the football team was apart of many different gangs, depending on how you look at it, it could be diedividation. Whether you look at it as they don’t pay attention to the things they are supposed to do and people they should hate during football, or the same while they are in the gangs. These kids and teenagers really don’t have a choice, so they have to conform to the gangs. A big stereotype is that this wasn’t even put on the news and nobody really knew about it because they are mostly all blacks and live in the ghetto, which makes it expected. The community doesn't stop this, and kind of lets the gangs do what they want. Making shootings a social norm.
Diedividation, stereotype, conform, social norm

I was so surprised how 29 students were shot, and 8 of them were dead. I live in Illinois, and not that far from Chicago and it is just amazing to me how just an hour out of the city how different our two schools were. It is crazy to me that kids were scared to go to schools because of the shootings and fights. My school wasn’t perfect; we had our fair share of fights, but never anything that we needed security guards for. I was also really touched by the story of the brother shooting and killing his younger brother on accident. I couldn’t imagine what he could be going though, but at the same time it changed him and he now comes to school now because it’s where he can get away from his problem but then talk to someone about them too. I was honestly really shocked at how many of the students were open with the administration about being in gangs, but I think it’s good that they did. I have to agree with the teachers who didn’t stay after school to make sure things were okay, but if you have these kids talking to you and telling you to stay out of the neighborhood I probably would too. Especially something as big as James’ death was. If I had a family and kids of my own I would want to make sure they were protected too, because like Anita said you can’t stop it. I thought it was nice that the school let the kids who were apart of the gang that supposedly shot James. Even though one of the kids and his dad got shot at, I think it was the best thing that they were sent home earlier. It kept them and other students leaving school safer.

In the second show I could not believe that Thomas had actually witnessed or at least been at a birthday party where a ten year old got shot and actually saw pieces of her brain laying on the ground, or even standing on the same porch as the girl who was shot and killed. I don’t blame him for wanting to hurt someone who did these things. I couldn’t imagine seeing your brother and friend being taken away in an ambulance, and you being just fine because you ran from the shots. I wish I knew the shooters reason why he just ran up because the way Thomas made it seem is as if he came out of no where; or why Thomas, Shakaki, and Thomas’ brother just didn’t go inside quickly. I was shocked when they said that no one was ever charged with the deaths of these kids. It’s just amazing to me how even the girls get into gangs drama too, or even start it. Like Terrance’s ex girlfriend saying “my brother is gonna get you,” just because of a break up. I was surprised that more parents don’t take precautions to keep their kids from not being in a gang.

In this school there are a lot of aspects of social psychology going on. The first one that stood out to me would be stereotyping, because if you lived on a certain street you were automatically placed into a certain gang, when you may not be. Kids too might look at gangs as being the “cool” thing to do. They may have friends or family members who are apart of a gang and they may even be pressured to join one. I also think that the community itself is stereotyping these types of schools. The first episode we listened too opened by saying that none of these deaths were talked about on the news or anything because “it’s typical Chicago,” it happens all the time. I think with the fact the public is turning the other way on this is just making the problem worse. If no one is getting charged with these murders, that shooter is still out there and will do it again. I like how involved the school is, but I think this problem is bigger than the school and more action needs to be taken. Social facilitation is a big factor in what is going on. These kids at school are nice and are talking about the problems going on, but when they are in their group they want to act tough. Because these kids have grown up in these neighborhoods they don’t really know anything else. They conform to what all the others are doing around them because they think that’s the only thing they are good for. Another thing from the chapter that relates to this community is self-fulfilling prophecy. These kids are acting in ways to be approved by other gang members, and in school to be known as someone not to mess with. Like the boy who got a gun because he had a special rank in the gang at age 14. What did he have to do to get that ranking? New members of the gangs may be more likely to experience compliance to be accepted. They will do whatever it takes just to be liked by their fellow gang members. I think the over all major principal that is involved here is social norms. Even when I was talking about how these shootings or deaths aren’t talked about on news stations is because they look at it as a normal action. These kids don’t know anything else other than being in a gang, because that’s all the community worries about there. Kids have certain rules to follow, and even the rules don’t make sense because you aren’t safe anywhere unless you stay inside most of the time like the valedictorian did.

These episodes made me thankful for the high school I came from and actually understand why our administration was so strict. We didn’t have a major gang problem, but we did have gangs in my town and they too wanted to make sure that if kids were involved, they kept it away. Even though I didn’t live that far from Chicago I didn’t hear about most of these shootings and deaths that have happened which is surprising to me. I couldn’t imagine how tough it is to grow up in a community like Englewood and know these people who have gotten shot and or killed or even be someone who was shot at.

Terms: Stereotyping, Social Facilitation, Conformity, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Compliance, Social Norms

Psychology
Blog
11/06/2014

In this blog we listened to the “this American Life” episode number 487 and 488 called Harper High School. It was a very emotional podcast in my opinion that was both very depressing and shocking. This podcast stated that twenty nine kids were shot and only eight of them survived and the occasion didn’t even make it on the news. My question is why wouldn’t they even try to bring attention to this horrible tragic event that killed eight students from harper high school. Even though it was gang related they should have at least brought a little attention to what happened because those deceased children have a right to be recognized in the media, from the result of a gang related incident. Its not the schools fault however because they are in a very bad and run down environment. After hearing about the other shootings that happened this episode had me feeling sorry for the kids at this school as well. It takes a sick person to go and shot kids in a school building or kids alone. The kids there are not bad children but are never giving the chance to prove themselves because of where they live. This should not be happening because a person should not be judged on where they live. These people who live here in my opinion are stronger and wiser then most people in well rounded communities. Maybe the problem with these kids are that they are trying to keep up with the other people in the gang. When they act out in these violence acts its mainly because the don’t want to get made fun of from the gang members and they try to fit in or better known as the book defines it as self-fulfilling prophecy. Its also sad that kids these day have to have rules like don’t walk alone never walk after dark, that little stuff. I come from a really small town where there was never even a thought of someone hurting us if we were out after dark. I guess that’s the difference between a small town community and a bigger city. In a small town you know everybody and everybody knows you. Its like a small little family within the town where a city your lucky if you know your neighbors.
Terms used: self-fulfilling prophecy, gang

After reading chapter 11, social psychology I learned many different key factors that come together to form the way we are social, and how they come together to form who we are and our behaviors. We use different key points that can help us be social without even talking. In this Act one and Act two it was a very sad story, and how they use social psychology in their life, or how Inglewood Chicago deals with social psychology.
In this talk show, they talk about shootings, gang violence, and people being scared to come to school, or come out of their house. The school started off with a pep assembly, new students getting the rules, and then a moment of silence. When I made my first connection to social psychology I did how we think about other people. When I think of this I feel scared, and I feel bad for the way they live their life. It’s almost if they are fighting to live. Then after we think about others we make quick snap judgments about people. If people were to think of Inglewood they would think it was a poor city, and had many gang affiliated action. They would think there is common death and some of this is true. In one year there were 27 deaths that came out of the high school. All these quick judgments don’t show the hard working parents, and kids not wanting to go back to the school because they are scared.
In the city you cannot walk alone, you will either be shot at or you will be shot. Try and walk into groups. Could you imagine what life would be like if you had to walk with someone at all times, or your life would be at risk. It is so scary to think about. When I think of all this happening to kids, adults, families, and school system I think of personal attributes.
When someone gets shot you shows sadness, but it becomes more common, that it now is a way of life. You form your attitude through your personal experience. You see so much violence, or a family member gets killed so in their lifestyle you know how to be stronger, and how to stay safe. Some show no sadness anymore, and you get over it. Their personalities are nothing because you have to stay strong and have to survive the game. Learn to fight back. Along with this comes from situational attributes.
This is similar to the personal attributes, but this is situations that make and form your personality. For example the principal who’s students were being killed, made her care more for her students, but at times she questioned how much more she could handle. These situations make it hard for her to keep her sane, and how much more she can handle students dying off, and her trying to stay strong to keep her bold personality. It’s the way they live, and some deal with it, and some want to get out. These are all characteristics on social psychology that I got out of this talk show. It was very sad, and that people that have to live that way.
TERMS: social psychology, personal attributes, stitutional attributes

After listening to this, I feel very shocked. I come from a very small town in southern Iowa, Davis County. It is literally 20 minuets away from Missouri. My graduating class was 63. It’s hard for me to believe bad things like this happen at schools. My school has always been safe; there have never been any huge things that have happened. The worst is someone escaped from jail and we were on lock down for 20 minuets until they got him. Like Mrs. Sanders school, we were reprimanded, but with love. I guess I know schools have shootings, and people die all the time from it, but I have never really processed it through my mind, because I have never had to worry about it. 29 students were shot at Harper. It really is a huge deal. It makes me scared for when I become a teacher, and when I have kids one day. I can only imagine how hard it must be to go back to school, or even enroll in the same school that the shooting happened in. My school never had gangs, we are too hick of a town to even really understand what a gang is. It would be hard to be an administrator at a school, when you have students that are members of a gang. And helping them fix the problems, so they don ‘t come into the school. Its very disturbing knowing this kind of thing goes on all the time. It’s even more disturbing to know that the children and people around this kind of thing can’t get around it. If you live there you are part of them.
Listening to this video the social psychological principals I noticed were social norms, expected standards of conduct, which influence behavior. At Harper school, The seniors were confident during their first few days at school, The freshman were always nervous, There was a pep rally, and rules for the school year the first day of school. But when they had a moment of silence to remember the ones from the shooting, was not a social norm. I feel like in places like this, being in gangs is a social norm. I also related it to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The kids are unable to be “normal” teenagers. Since these kids are always worried about their safety, they don’t have a lot of time to actually be healthy. They live in fear of stepping outside of their house to just get some fresh air. They don’t have time to make health relationships with friends, because it is too dangerous. It is sad that they have to live in fear of their lives everyday. It can be very stressful for them, which is also unhealthy if the stress level is too high.
Terms: Social Norms, Social Psychology, Stress, Behavior

This episode is very sad. I knew that Chicago was a dangerous but I wasn’t aware of how violent the city actually was. I am amazed that this isn’t more well known. Columbine School is a household name, until this radio episode I had never even heard of Harper High School. These kids are experiencing extreme trauma. Twenty nine people were shot last year and eight died. That is incredible.

This radio show focused on how the school system is reacting to these shootings. The gangs are such a problem that the school can’t ignore them. The school officials openly talk about what gang the students are involved in. The also surprised me. The school is well aware of what things are happening outside of school. Gangs are the main social structure in school. Where you live is who you associate with. There are seven rules that were discussed in this episode. The first one is to know the geography. These gangs aren’t based on a hierarchy anymore, they are based on territory. The second rule is to never walk alone. This rule makes the third rule very confusing; never walk with someone else because that highlights your affiliation. Rule number four is don’t use the sidewalk. The students all walk in the middle of the street because it is easier to get a broad view of what is going around around them. The fifth rule is if the shoot, don’t run, instead just drop to the ground. Rule six is that shootings can happen for any reason, mostly because of retaliation. The final rule is never go outside. If you aren’t at school stay away from the block and don’t leave the house. These kids on the block are drafted into wars that they aren’t even a part of. People shoot other students for retaliation but they don’t even know what they are getting revenge for.

I have a lot of respect for the Harper School system because dealing with this high amount of violence can’t be easy. Administrators will do anything to make kids feel at home and safe while at school.

This episode is a great example of social psychology. The biggest connection in this chapter is how other people affect us. Deindividuation is a term used to describe a state of reduced individuality, reduced self-awareness and reduced attention to personal standards. This phenomenon may occur when people are a part of a group, or in this situation, a gang. This leads to conformity which is the altering of your own behaviors and opinions to match those of other people or to match people’s expectations. This is evident in the shootings. Students shoot people they don’t even know because of an old war they have nothing to do with. This is related to compliance which is the tendency to agree to do things requested by others. These students experience such intense stress and emotional trauma that it leads to frustration-aggression. This hypothesis states that the more frustrated we feel, the more likely we are to act aggressively. This was evident in the story of Devante, the young man who accidentally shot his own brother. He discussed feelings of wanted to hurt other people.

Psych terms: stress, emotional trauma, Deindividuation, self-awareness, attention, individuality, conformity, behaviors, compliance, frustration-aggression, social psychology,

Listening about the Harper High School and what happened was tragic, and deeply saddening. Having 8 people die and having 29 total people shot is awful to hear about and you question why it would happen. The social norms of that area were different and it caused something tragic. We as people going to school to get an education shouldn’t have to worry about getting hurt or even killed while attending our classes. Chicago is one of the most dangerous places to live, because of all the shootings that happen day in and day out. One of the students who won’t get in a gang who won’t cooperate with the social norms, and he can’t go outside now due to the fact it’s so unsafe.
People do sometimes stereotype and get the wrong message about the school though. The staff and others keep the school clean, and they have a strong connection with the school. No shootings happened in the school the last year, but parents were trying to pull their kids out because of the violence happening around the school. They have really tried to reach out to the children and teach them obedience, however the gang’s obedience on the children usually out-weighs the schools. The teachers have control in the school, but they really are scared and have no power outside of school grounds. The head of the school was thinking of stepping down after an honor student was shot down on the porch just having a normal conversation.
The really is no motivation for these shootings, but the kids keep on doing it. The problem with these shootings is because of all the gangs. Some gangs are close, and kids get killed due to being in the wrong gangs. The head of the gangs make the people below them, and the people comply which leads to more problems for the school and community. Honestly if no gangs were involved at the school, there would be no violence happening at all. We have too many gangs in the school that disagree with one another and that just leads to mass violence, instead of just talking it out. These boys weren’t raised to just talk it out, they were taught to handle their problems with violence. That would be the main cause to this problem and situation.
It’s just a different world out there, and it has taken me awhile to realize that. I come from a small town in northeast Iowa with a population of about 4,000 people. We maybe have 1 person commit suicide every 5-10 years, but never do we have murders or other injuries. You really have to watch where you’re going and always keep an eye out if you are unaware of the situation. I’ve heard stories of gangs and other violence happening in Waterloo all the time. I just hope that doesn’t find it’s way to Cedar Falls and close to UNI’s campus.

Terms: Stereotype, Social Norms, Motivation, Compliance, and Obedience

To me this article was very shocking. It is very hard to believe that 29 kids were shot and 8 of them ended up dying, especially since almost nothing was said about it in the news. The staff at Harper High School are trying so desperately trying to fix their schools, but as soon as it starts to get slightly better, something bad happen and it goes down again.
My impressions after listening to these episodes was that the community is the problem, not the school. The principal and counselors are trying so hard to help these students and truly believe that they are not bad kids, but don’t even get the chance to show it until something happens. I got very upset towards the end upon hearing that they are losing 1.6 million dollars of turn-around money. This money they desperately need in order to fix their problems with gangs and shootings. I can’t imagine what those students go through every day. Witnessing friends get shot and maybe end up dying is very hard for anyone to do, especially teenagers. I think that the homecoming game and dance are very important to the students. These events are necessary for the school to be able to move forward and have some type of normal life again.
During these episodes I noticed several social psychological principles operating this school and community. One principle is social norms. Social norms are expected standards of conduct which influence behavior. At the beginning of the episode they talked about how Harper High School was a normal, average high school. The freshmen were nervous about finally being in high school and the seniors were confident the first few days of school. One of the other main aspects in these episodes were how people let other people influence them. The students that were going along with the gangs were forced to retaliate in order to protect their gang. This is known as compliance. It is the tendency to agree to do things that are requested to you by others. These gang members changed their own behaviors and opinions to match those of others around him or to match other people’s expectations, also known as conformity.
Words: social psychological principles, social norms, behavior, compliance, conformity

I personally think it is scary how much goes on without it making the news because it sounds like that is just how things are there which is not okay, no one should have to live with that kind of fear and dealing with losing friends and loved ones to violence. As I listened to the show, it got me thinking and it reminded me of my sophomore year of high school. The school I went to had huge fights everyday, drug problems, kids brought weapons to school (thankfully never did anything with them.) We were told sitting in a sophomore year LA class that it was said by the administration, if that stuff kept happening and increasing, in 10 years that school could potentially classify as a “inner-city” school like Chicago. I was in shock and personally doubted it when I heard it, it is a town in Iowa of all places, why would that happen there but seeing how concerned teachers and students were about the school’s future were not a joke or anything, it was a true concern. I remember 30 kids had a huge fight in the middle of the school, the parents were all called in and started fighting each other. It made the local news and put us on lockdown which was the tipping point of where the future of the school was going. Since it was students from other schools who came and started it, they had to lock the doors at all times. They were talking about maybe putting in metal detectors that students would have to go through everyday before school, especially after they found out a few students were associated in the shooting that happened a few streets away from the school. I heard about people talking about being in gangs or how gangs from Chicago were making their way into Iowa, I never knew how to feel about that whether it is true or just a “he said, she said” spreading around. Makes me wonder how much goes on without me realizing it, I have no idea if that is the truth or just high school students making stuff up. Thankfully, the violence slowed down my last two years of high school and nothing too traumatic happened in that time. I know that is nothing compared to what those students at Harper face everyday and have to live down, it is just scary that our generation is heading that way, where students have to fear going to what is supposed to be a safe place. All I have to think is why…. What is worth fighting over where you are acting in violent ways that can get you or someone you know killed. Why are drugs and violence becoming a source of entertainment for people. I don’t understand the motives of people that get in situations like this. No one should have to live in this much fear or worry about shootings or dying so young. I can not even imagine how hard it is for administration, teachers and counselors to handle this, the loss of students, the aftermath, comforting students who were upset and affected.
I think stereotypes can feed into it, especially if they are hated on, it can cause a lot of anger to a group of people who may want revenge or people who feel they are nothing but a stereotype which is a common feeling which has a lot to do with quick judgements people make. Discrimination and prejudice have a lot to do with it, I noticed that attending high school, some people were really mean and it was considered bullying. It makes people feel less than they are which can turn into anger causing a person to react in an extreme way. I think the grouping makes sense since it is mainly gangs who engage in the violence, social facilitation probably has a part in that since most people act out when there are others influencing the situation. It is sad hearing how it is probably the social norm there though. I think it is interesting how the social psychology can relate to this topic when nobody knows the motives behind it all, it kind of helps piece together logic behind why people act the way they do. I still don’t think I will totally understand why this happens myself but psychologically there are reasons behind it.
Terms used- stereotypes, discrimination, prejudice, social facilitation, social norm,

Coming from a very rural Iowa town with a graduating class of 14, I have had absolutely no exposure to any sort of school and home life as was presented in the radio podcast. The entire radio episode was providing a new perspective on something that I could only read about in the news. It made me feel extremely emotional. Not only did I feel bad for the kids that had to grow up in an environment like that but also for the teachers and administrators who are almost definitely underpaid compared to what emotional and physical stress they have to endure every single day. However, the school presented in the episode, Harper High School, is a place of refuge for the violent life outside its walls in the community where these kids live. The school was a place where even opposing gang members could cooperate, such as the case with the incredible football team. The problem is the social life outside of school where you are “in a gang” if you live on a block that has a gang attached to it, even if it’s against your own free will. The structure of society is the source of the problems within the area yet some people had blamed it on the school atmosphere, when in reality, the school is the best place the kids can be. Especially the ones who have been through traumatic experiences that can’t get help from their own families.
Many aspects of social psychology are were being shown during this episode. One of the first obvious ones is the stereotype principle. The fact that all the kids are grouped together as active gang members is a definite stereotype. Due to the place they live, they are considered active gang members even when they do not want to have anything to do with the gangs. This stereotype leads to opposing gang members shooting or harming anybody within the locale of the gang, even if they are not, nor want to be, an active member. The stereotype also enforce considerable discrimination and prejudice towards rival gang members. Those who are members of an outgroup are considered weak and of lesser value. While those within the ingroup consider themselves as the superior human beings. The entire system of gang life leads to what we call deindividuation in which essentially, individual members of a group will not think for themselves but rather every member will think as one, thus those who follow the gang leader will believe his beliefs, rather than their own. This is a definite problem with gangs. Many of the members of the gangs have good morals and views when given their individuality, however, once you take that away the members will practice the beliefs of the authority figure, such as the gang leader.
The gang life is influenced with social norms. Gangs are a social structure within the cities that cause them to be a normality. It is a normal thing that kids become a part of a gang. When you move to a new block, you are instantly considered part of the gang, without any initiation. It has become a social norm to be affiliated with a gang in these urban areas. The social factors of gang activity naturally leads to aggression. Humans naturally feel the need to protect those of their own. It’s an evolutionary trait. The same goes for gangs. People of the same group will always try to protect their own. When something happens to their own, they will try to retaliate and protect the other members. This was the entire basis around the issue with the killing of Little James where the suspected gang was one in which half of the players on the football team were part of, thus causing the school to be cautious with every action because the retaliation could definitely happen at the homecoming gang. Thankfully nothing happened but the entire situation was one that was to be fearful of due to the social factors of gang society.
Terms: social psychology, stereotype, discrimination, prejudice, outgroup, ingroup, deindividuation, social norms, aggression, retaliation, social factors

These episodes made me feel upset to say the least. I can’t believe just because you live in a house on a certain street means you’re in a gang whether you want it or not. Also, I can’t believe you can’t walk outside or sit on your porch without having people shooting at you. It’s hard to believe that kids have to go through this. It would be really hard growing up in this community because of all the gang violence. I found it interesting to hear how the kids got guns. They said they get guns for free sometimes and from the other gang members. This isn’t helping the gang violence obviously since it’s so easy getting a gun. There was one thing that made me feel better and that was the school. The school they explained to be nice and clean. The thing that made me feel better was the people working there, these people are really nice to the students no matter who they are and they just want to help every kid out. One social psychological principle used is self-fulfilling prophecy and that is when a person acts the way they do in front of a group of people just so they don’t get made fun of or discriminated. Even if someone doesn’t want to be in a gang they feel obligated so they don’t stand out. Terms used: self-fulfilling prophecy, discrimination.

Alberto Sveum
These podcasts make me feel disturbed and thankful to have grown up in a safe neighborhood where violence wasn’t so ubiquitous. I am disturbed that children have to be thrust into such awful conditions. Shootings and violence should not be a regular part of school curriculum.

The school obviously wants to end the violence, and the children want it as well, but in order to remain safe, it seems the kids must be obedient to the rules of the different gangs. Much of the violence was attributed to vengeance, which I think makes sense. The senseless killings and vengeance murders seem to be reinforcing these awful behaviors. Being surrounded by gangs and such terrible conditions basically locks these children into a deadly cycle; it is the social norm to be in a gang.

Another unfortunate aspect of the gangs involving such young people, is that these kids can’t even make a real decision on the danger they are in. All of the people interviewed seem to be saying “this is just how it is.” To a certain degree, it is, but if these children were old enough, with full functioning brains that are capable of critical thinking, they could likely do more for themselves. The children are vulnerable and are in no shape to try and deal with shootings and violence, that to them are daily hassles, and still pursue an education or a life.

One thing I found extremely powerful was the drive that the principal had to keep his students safe. He, no doubt, is even in danger, but is willing to reach out and try to help. It deeply saddens me that someone so involved with kids would ever have to bury so many of them. The school sounds like the only real safe haven for the students, which surprises me, because the podcast said the children weren’t even safe outside their own homes. One student said to try and stay after school as long as possible to remain safe; it sounds quite strange, because usually I hear people trying to stay away from school as much as possible.

Psychological terms: obedience, reinforcement, critical thinking, daily hassles, social norm

These episodes were not nearly as emotional for me as past episodes have been – there was no tearing up in the Rialto, no overtaking of my thoughts. I could understand their feelings of hopelessness toward the end of the second episode – it’s easy to relate to that feeling of just being tired. However, I was inspired by Crystal and how she worked so hard and so selflessly toward trying to make these students’ lives better.

In terms of social psychological aspects that I could see at work, the ingroup/outgroup bias was by far the most prominent. The students who were involved in these gangs didn't have much choice – as in, regardless of their attitude toward gangs, the students had to be compliant to the social norms of the area. The students were assigned a group to which they belonged based on their address, and then simply began to treat those outside of their group with hostility.

Though many may have originally assumed that the area’s violence would be based on personal attributions (unfortunately, these assumptions may have root in stereotypes), those who live in the area give it situational attributions – even members of the police agreed that it is impossible to avoid being in a gang if you are a student who attends Harper High School.

I also strongly saw persuasion at work, as seen primarily through Crystal. Aware that the students are in a less than ideal situation with a lot of aggression, that they have to deal with a lot, and that they liking question the worth of themselves, Crystal exclaimed consistently phrases like: “I love you,” “I appreciate you in advance,” and “You are valuable.” Crystal also shows prosocial tendencies, in that she plans out spending her lottery winnings largely for the school and students.

Devonte may have been displaying support for the frustration-aggression hypothesis. Accidentally killing his brother and thus being all but shunned by his family frustrated him greatly. He couldn't get them to understand that it was an accident nor to get them to give him the emotional support that he needed. This frustration continues to build for him, and he only feels better when he acts aggressively, as seen through the fight he got into and the relief he expressed he had after he hurt his hand. Moreover, he himself suspects that this will be a recurring pattern.

Ingroup/outgroup bias, attitude, compliance, social norms, personal attributions, sterotypes, situational attributions, persuasion, aggression, prosocial, frustration-aggression hypothesis

really banking on getting out early today!!

Listening to these episodes about the high school made me feel really upset. I knew that in our country there were thousands of places like this, but just hearing the stories play out in detail really got to me. It’s not that all these kids are bad, or that they just don’t think straight. The fact of the matter is that things like this existed before these kids were ever born, and they grew up in a place where that’s all the streets and blocks knew. It talks about how the gangs weren’t about drugs anymore, but more about where you live. I can see how this is true because where I am from, there is no real mention of gangs outright, but there definitely are some. There are places downtown that are known to have a lot of criminal activity and some of these rules that the students made up to be “safe” I found myself following when I hung out with my friends from school who just happened to live in a worse part of Cedar Rapids. It’s hard to hear about this happening so much. I live in what I would call one of the better or best parts of Cedar Rapids, on the North East side. But even there, just not even a mile or two away, there are a set of apartments that I have always known to stay away from. They are increasingly dangerous, with many shootings, murders, fires, and drug deals going on it seems just about every year. The random spread of this activity is what makes it scary, and for the kids who are living in the blocks next to Harper, they can’t escape from the crime either. I couldn’t believe that there had been so many deaths and shootings in the school in just that previous year, and it really freaked me out because I don’t remember even hearing about it at all on the news. It’s surprising because even though none of those shootings occurred in the school, they were all highly related with it, so it’s sad to see that the deaths that did occur just outside the school on the streets did not garner the same news coverage as those that have happened within the walls of a school somewhere else in the United States. I feel that the role of cognitive dissonance plays a pretty huge role in the situation at Harper High School. The theory in this case is based in my observation off of the fact that all of the students obviously know that there is nothing good coming from gangs, and there is severe eminent danger involved with them, and with owning weapons like guns. Yet, even though all the students must know this to be true, most all of them seem to remain a part of the gangs because either they have no choice due to where they live, or because they feel that the trade-off of avoiding all social interaction is impossible, like shown by one of the students who was a junior at the time whom hosted bible studies at his home. The students also feel that the gangs are the only things that will keep them relatively safe when walking. This is portrayed in the catch-22 between the rules never walk alone, and never walk in a group. Walking alone yields the consequence of being jumped, while walking in a group (like the show states) highlights your gang’s affiliation and can prompt shootings just for walking in a group of people, or standing on a porch in a group. All in all I found these episodes to be highly eye-opening and required me to think a lot about how much different our own school systems are from the ones in places like where Harper is located. I feel that the school is doing its absolute best to minimize the amount of violence and expresses a maximum amount of positive Social Facilitation by rewarding and encouraging its students to do well and get involved. Just like how even though there are many different gangs that are a part of the football team, they all seem to get along and come together for the better of the team. This cohesion is similar to the kind found amongst the social workers office and the students who seek help there.
Terms: Cognitive Dissonance, Social Facilitation

while listening to the podcasts this week I was basically in shock that kids who are the same age I was a little over 2 years ago had lives so completely different from mine. Hearing about how they couldn’t even walk a block over without having to fear for their lives or the fact that they had to carry guns with them. The most shocking thing was about the 29 shootings they had the previous years. What was even more shocking was that you never hear about this on national news. The way these kids are conditioned into being in a ganged is insane to me. They don’t have a choice either. When they are young they can focus on sports and not have to worry about crossing into the next block without but as soon as they get to a certain height they now have to worry about other gangs trying to mess with them. Once it gets to that point is when they become part of the gangs. One thing that surprised me was that they really don’t get initiated into them like I always thought. All the stereotypes of them having to do something crazy like kill someone or that they all just sell drugs didn’t apply to them. They were just thrown into it because of where they lived. It was almost a way to protect them. All the social norms that school and neighborhood had about being in the game seems so natural to them. The kids from the podcast seem like they are kind of scared but at the same time it is so natural to them and normal for them that they don’t care. They even talk to the principal's and teachers about the gangs without hesitation. The teachers and principals are even scared for their own lives. They know what goes on and they try to help and stop it but they also know they can only do so much because it is just a social norm. The kids are conformed into the gangs as they get older and I think they forget who they are and just become another person. There is so much deindividualization going on because they lose themselves in everything that goes on. There is one kid who didn’t conform and he has to watch out for his own safety constantly and stays in his house all the time. He even holds bible studies at his own home that other kids attend.

All the gangs are kids that go to school together and who are actually probably really alike but they discriminate against each other because of what block they live on. There are even some gangs that fight wars that were so many years ago that they don’t even know how or why it started. They’re fighting a battle and risking their lives for no reason but it is just how they show their obedience to their gang. Many of these kids complied to what they were supposed to do or told to do just to survive. It didn’t matter anymore if they were good at sports or excelled in school like it had before. They basically had to so that they could survive. The rules they had were very conflicting and confusing. They couldn’t be seen walking alone but they couldn’t walk in groups. Also it mentions how they felt safer walking in the middle of the street but if where I am from you wouldn't ever hear anyone saying they felt safer to walk in the middle of the street.

Terms: conditioned, social norms, compliance, deindividualization, stereotypes, conform, discrimination