According to Dalton Conley, Reference Group is a group that helps us to understand or to make sense of our position in society relative to other groups. In other words, the groups or any individual who tends to adopt others behaviors or habits and relate to their own behaviors. I come from a joint family and we have a tendency to follow our elder siblings and cousins. All my cousins are either engineers or doctors. Thus, this has become a practice in our family that you either be an engineer or a doctor when you grow up. I have seen how my cousins were engaged in choosing such kind of careers when they went to college. However, when it came to my career selection, I chose to study as an Electrical Engineer. I have grown up seeing my cousins
I could make a living doing what I love by either becoming a doctor or engineer. I love helping people and I could achieve that by becoming a doctor. If I was a doctor I could help create medicine to aide injured or sick people by using bioengineering. I could also do what I love by becoming an engineer though. I love being able to figure out which pieces go together, but I also
Are Parrot Heads a reference group? Yes; a reference group is a group of people who can influence others. Since 2002, members various Parrot Head clubs around the world have volunteered more than 3.1 million hours (Parrot Heads in Paradise Inc., 2014). These groups, who report to Parrot Heads in Paradise Inc. (PHIP), report an increase in charitable contributions and volunteer hours. According to the PHIP, charitable contributions have increased ...
The career I have chosen for my future is to become a registered dental hygienist. It wasn’t until I actually learned what dental hygienists do that influenced my interest from medical to dentistry. The first honest reason I was gravitated to dental hygiene was because of the salary. I didn’t really know what Dental Hygienist actually did until I did some research.
Analyzing career theory is an important task, not only as an individual but also on a large scale. If everyone has the career they are best at and enjoy above all others, the world would be a much happier place. Imagine a world where each individual viewed work as not something they have to do, but as something they want to do. Productivity would increase at all levels. Charitable foundations and businesses would be abundant. Whereas this ideal may not be fathomable at this point, if each person used this information, it would be only a matter of time before we are moving in that harmonious direction.
I used to believe and, to a less extreme extent, still believe that God does not have for everyone a specific occupation to pursue. Only those who undoubtedly heard the call of the Lord had that precise of a plan. In middle school and my first two years of high school I wanted to be a doctor. Everyone around me was exceedingly academically gifted and many of them had dreams of going to medical school and one day making six of seven figures. I pretended this was my goal as well. It was not until my junior year, I decided that a good path for me to follow was that of teaching. I kept having amazing history teachers that really sparked my fire to learn in that area. As I put the pieces of my life together (my skills, my talents, my passions, my personality) I realized the shape they made looked a lot like a history teacher. So if the Lord does call every individual to one certain career, which I am still not sure I believe, He did it in an indirect, yet completely successful, method with
These reference groups helped shape us by providing us the means of how to behave in group settings in the proper manner, communication among people from all social classes, and gave us the ability to identify other social norms. My friends and their families taught me soft skills that I had not been exposed to within my family. “Soft skills are the character traits and difficult to teach interpersonal skills that characterize a person’s relations with other people. Soft skills have more to do with who we are than what we know. As such, soft skills encompass the character traits that decide how well one interacts with others, and are usually a definite part of one 's personality (www.investopedia.com).” “Soft skills are things like knowing how to dress, act and present oneself or the ability to work well with other people (Manza Pg. 417).” For example, I learned proper table etiquette such as not starting to eat before everyone was served. This was not something that was taught at my home. I learned proper clothing attire based on the occasion and or different adult surrounding. The benefits of these soft skills became invaluable later and into adulthood by helping me in the real world. I learned what to say and when to say it in conversational circumstances that I might have been unprepared for otherwise were now familiar to me. This allowed me to carry on conversations and
In the story " Groups and Conformity" by Michael R. Solomon, it talks about how people in groups are more influential then a individual person would be. In the opening it talkes about a guy whos name is Zachary. Zachary is a business man during the week and on weekends you can find him riding his motorcycle or with his group of motorcycle friends. You see Zachary is a part of the many individual 's who are in a reference group. A reference group is based on a individual or groups; evaluations, aspirations, and or behaviors. Reference groups are important because of two reasons. Reason one is because of the recent research on the smoking cessation: And the powerful impact it has on reference groups. According to the author, Michael Solomon,
This is true in careers as well. My decision to go into nursing stems from years of personal reflection. I had known for years that I wanted to work in the health care field, but I always believed it would be as a doctor. I watched for the first few years of my brother’s life as he struggled with different health challenges such as being born premature, having croup and breathing difficulty, and speech impairment.
Although I had no definite career plans, from childhood, my parents instilled in me values, such
In the story “Groups and Conformity" by Michael R. Solomon, it talks about how people in groups are more influential than an individual person would be. In the opening it talks about a guy whose name is Zachary. Zachary is a business man during the week and on weekends you can find him riding his motorcycle or with his group of motorcycle friends. You see Zachary is a part of the many individuals who are in a reference group. A reference group is based on an individual or groups; evaluations, aspirations, and or behaviors. Reference groups are important because of two reasons. Reason one is because of the recent research on the smoking cessation: And the powerful impact it has on reference groups. According to the author, Michael Solomon, smokers
At the Group level, individuals share similar characteristics with their counterparts in the same group. Different groups are identified by race, gender, class among others. Individuals within a collective group share similar beliefs, values, social practices, and rules.
Reference groups help us to realize something about ourselves when we compare ourselves to others. This comparison can be minuscule or monumental in self-meaning. It may be a comparison that is permanent or superficial/fleeting. A superficial comparison may be how some feel in grade school when a group of children have a new toy that others did not. This feeling of being left out is momentary since it only lasts until the popularity of that toy is lost and another gains more popularity. Another way it may be fleeting is if a child’s parent caves in and buys the child that new toy. And so, that child, who once did not have that toy, is now apart of that reference group. I always remember myself having these fleeing feelings
After reading the text You May Ask Yourself by Dalton Conley and doing research on reference groups, I realized that I am apart of and look at reference groups as I go about with my activities. A major Informal reference group that I belong to is my family. My family especially my older siblings would be considered an informal reference group. Growing up all my siblings were athletes starting at a young age, and had major dedication and commitments to their sports. Being that I am the "baby" of the family, I always looked up to what they did and even what they are doing now for guidance. Two of my siblings were divers and went to division I schools, my other sibling also played field hockey at division II. I also shared the interest in sports,
The career i chose is a branch of the medical field. I chose a career in nursing, more specifically the career path of a registered nurse. This career consists of providing care for people of all ages and helping them with managing their conditions. I chose this career because my mother is an rn and my family has a strong presence in the medical field. It is important to understand the education or training requirements, skills, or talents needed, salary, benefits offered, and the duties for a particular career when making this decision.
I believe everyone has a reason for the career path they choose. Some choose by submitting a career test, some by following in a parents footsteps and other choose based on personal hardships or experiences. For myself, my reason for choosing social work was a family hardship with addiction, a struggle to find significance in the career I had originally chose and I saw many opportunities in the social work profession, allowing me to work with various populations.