The Hidden Driver Of Excellence

One of the strengths of this approach is that it looks at thought processes which are ignored by other psychologists. Such processes are memory, attention and perception and have been studied to have an effect on behavior.

Attention is thought to be selective-focused on one subject at a time. Traditionally, it has been assumed that automatic processing is involuntary, it does not require attention, and is relatively fast; whereas, controlled processing is voluntary, does require attention, and is relatively slow. We can conclude from this that the more we repeat a certain material or tasks the more it becomes automatic and effortless to us.

We are presented with a theory that there aren’t any successful self-made people, which we know is contrary to popular beliefs. This theory was presented by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success. The theory is further defined by the premise that holds that success is enabled by a person’s culture, environment, when and where they were born, and a strong work ethic. These theories and examples of success are analyzed using the textbook, Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills (2015) by Andrew DuBrin. Several examples are provided in this paper that illustrate and support Gladwell’s thoughts on opportunity and cultural legacy.

Attention is considered to be a core cognitive process, it refers to how people actively process specific information in the environment. Attention refers to how people select from information and stimuli in the environment, facilitating processing of some of the stimuli and inhibiting processing of others. "Everyone knows what attention is, it is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought...It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state. “This definition of attention was proposed by psychologist William James (1890). This review will focus on literature that gives explanation to selective attention. Selective attention refers to the process where a person is able to select out of many stimuli and focus on the one they want and ignore other stimuli.

In the novel The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, a deeper way of how the mind works is shown. The authors explain what they call the “illusion of attention” by providing experiments and illustrations. The message being passed is that we as humans might think we are always aware of our surroundings, but we actually miss what is right in front of us. People usually focus on one thing at a time, therefore the unexpected goes unnoticed. The book explains how the brain only focuses on the object or area you are concentrating on, making you “blind” to everything else. Many experiments were held to prove to the readers that our intuition deceives us.

As the Behaviourist approach differs so greatly in comparison to the Psychodynamic approach, people have mixed opinions on both approaches. As no one can ever fully understand the complexity of the human mind, neither the behaviourist nor psychodynamic approach will ever be completely correct. As both approaches vary, we can conclude they have both been successful and incorrect in many cases. Psychologists have studied the mind for decades and these approaches give us a foundation in understanding the human

Over the past semester there have been so many great things I have learned in this class. Since the start of my education at Southwestern Assemblies of God, I have looked forward to taking this course more than any other. I am glad I had the opportunity to take it with a knowledgeable and wise professor. Throughout my life, the concepts of management and leadership have always been intriguing. Prior to my time here at SAGU I attended a leadership school called Masters Commission USA in Lewisville, Texas. There I learned the basic principles of how to become an effective leader. Although I have had a small amount of training in the past, it has been amazing to learn under your teaching. Being an effective manager is a daunting task to say the least because of the weight it carries. I definitely feel more equipped after taking your course. The concepts I am going to discuss in this paper have been reiterated over the course of the semester and have changed the way I view management. These principles that have changed my perspective are: the idea that Jesus is the center of our success, the core of management is servant leadership, and finding the balance in being a goose, an eagle, and a turkey. These principles are the key to becoming a successful

In the book, “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain,” David Eagleman challenges many ideas that we might have about our identities, mindset, perception and how they all come together to affect our actions and beliefs. Eagleman talks about how our brains work with our bodies to perceive our everyday life and tasks. He explains that the brain is a three- pound organ that takes control of our daily actions and alters our way of thinking and performing certain tasks. He states that it is easier for our brains to perform tasks like ride a bike or drive a car without thinking too much about it. In his book, he also talks about how the brain does not perform or think the same way someone else's brain might. The brain can automatically do a certain task without you even realizing it and is even able to make up a response when you don't remember exact details of a past event. This book has challenged many ideas that we may already have, or known about ourselves, and raises many questions about how our brain works to perceive and analyze information.

Powell (1986) conducted a study in which individuals viewed a photo or slide. Individuals were required to scan images and decide on an image for the entire display (Powell, 1986). Objects were pointed to, and subjects were asked to identify its location (Powell, 1986). The subject was asked to close his or her eyes and were shown another image. The subjects were to decide if the object was in the correct position (Powell, 1986). The subjects would hear one of the objects and was required to focus on the object while keeping the entire image in his or her mind (Powell, 1986). When the next object was identified, the subjects were to move from the first object to the second watching a black dot moving in a straight line (Powell, 1986).

“A big part of achieving success, according to Barnes, has been moving the corporate culture towards one based on teamwork and integrity. As a leader, I need to instill the right culture and values that will stand the test of time” (Routson, 2009).

Early studies have widely researched attention with selective processing (Driver, 2001). Broadbent (1958) filter theory of attention states that certain information does not require focal attention. It is based on certain stimulus attributes such as colour and shape (Friedenberg, 2012). A previous study carried out by Treisman and Schmidt (1982) proposes that when attention is diverted from a display of several figures, the participants incorrectly combine the features of colour and shape therefore increases the illusory conjunctions portrayed by the participants (Tsal, 1989). Another study by Shaw (1978) found that reaction time of participant to identify targets varied with the probability that a target would appear in a particular display location. These results indicate that different amounts of attention towards the targets are distributed to different positions in the visual field. However, Houck and Hoffman (1986) found that the feature integration of colour and orientation can sometimes be accomplished without attention (James et al.,

The article by Avital-Cohen and Tsal (2016) discussed the flanker task experiment, which asserted that distractor interference happens unconsciously as a result of focused attention toward the target. The results from the original flanker task indicated that participants had slower responses for incongruent trials, since the distractors are inconsistent with the target and would require a different response (Avital-Cohen & Tsal, 2016). However, Avital-Cohen and Tsal (2016) questioned the findings from the flanker task experiment. They decided to challenge the idea that only the target stimuli receives top-down processing, and not the distractors (Avital-Cohen & Tsal, 2016). The first experiment aimed to test whether the distractor interference is purely bottom-up processing as claimed in the flanker task. The experiment manipulated participants’ expectations of the target using the context effect - a type of top-down processing - by changing the distractors to be either letters or digits (Psych 240 lecture, 9/21/16). Then, the researchers conducted a second experiment and eliminated the ambiguity of distractors. They wanted to test whether the result from experiment 1 was caused by an overall bias or the ambiguous distractors. In experiment 2, the researchers predicted that they would obtain similar results to the first experiment only if the results were due to an overall bias effect (Avital-Cohen & Tsal, 2016). This study allows us to deepen our understanding of available

How Successful People Lead, by John C. Maxwell, Center Street, New York, NY, May 2013, 148 pages. Reviewed by David A. Hudson

Research carried out on attention has mainly been associated with the selective processing of incoming sensory information. It proposes, to some degree, our awareness of the world depends on what we choose to focus on and not simply the stimulation received by our senses. Attention is often linked to a filter that screens out most potential stimuli whilst allowing a select few to pass through into our conscious awareness, however, a great deal of debate has been devoted to where the filter is situated in the information processing chain (Martindale, 1991). Psychologists have made extensive contributions to this subject matter in the past century. Notable examples include Donald Broadbent's filter theory of attention (1958), which set the

The Excellence Theory is a public relations theory that “specifies how public relations makes organizations more effective, how it is organized and managed when it contributes most to organizational effectiveness, the conditions in organisations and their environments that make organizations more effective, and how the monetary value of public relations can be determined” (L. Grunig, J Grunig & Dodier, 2002). The theory resulted from a study about the best practice in public relations, which was headed by James E. Grunig and funded by the Foundation of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in 1985.