Playgrounds

Good Playground Design





1.The playgroud become a symbol of the  big brother, or the caring adults....

2. Water is alwasy a nice element to add into the playground design, and like how paretns and kids play together in the photo above.

3. I like the use of color and material in this design. They are cheerful and atrrctive.Due to the scale of the structure, even adult look small inside the space. The scale difference between parents and kids will be ignored in a enormous space.













Bad Playgroud Design

1. Actually I think this is a interesting playground design, but I am just not sure about how kid can play collectively inside the fence.

2. Setting is really important for a playground...But they look like they don't notice the crime scene next to them...

3.Environmental designer Kevin Lynch interview urban children from cities around the world, and record their various "playground" in report "Growing Up in Cities". In some cities, streets, stair-front, and the abandoned corners are secret play spaces for kids. I just think it is really dangerous for them to stay outside, and a nice designed public play space is necessary.

Other playgound design

Best & Worst Playgrounds

Best Playgrounds:

Playground for All Children (Flushing Meadows)

This playground is particularly successful in its emphasis on being a location that is accessible to children who are handicapped. Many times, handicapped children are unable to spend time on playgrounds because of the hazardous conditions or inaccessibility to use any of the equipment. Here, children, both handicapped and not, are able to play together.

Shane's Inspiration (Los Angeles)

This playground caters towards many walks of life. For those that transport by bicycle, the park is specially designed to protect pedestrians from bike accidents and collisions. Mothers carrying babies have swings that are specially designed for their needs. On top of this, playground equipment is designed to be educational and understanding to children with handicaps.

Clemyjontri Park (Virginia)

This playground is vibrant, attractive, huge, and uniting. Again designed to have handicap children play alongside those that are not, the playground makes up for its immense size by offering separate spaces for visitors to rent and reserve. A carousel is placed directly in the center of all the separate spaces, bringing together those that have come here separately.

Worst Playgrounds:

I was unable to find anything legitimate on reportedly bad playgrounds, so instead I am reporting with dangerous playground equipment.

Trampolines are considered one of the most dangerous types of playground equipment. Trampolines can cause serious head and neck injuries and are very difficult to supervise.

In terms of surfaces in a playground, asphalt is your least ideal option. Scrapes, falls, and trips are only exacerbated when they occur on a blacktop.

Also, dirty sandboxes are cesspools for litter, germs, and poor sanitation. Sandboxes should always be covered when not in use.

Playgrounds

Best:

1. Nishi Rokugo Playground- Tokyo - This playground looks like so much fun. The playground itself is made up of tires, over 3,000 of them, shaped to take the form of robots, dragons, bridges, swings and slides. Kids can climb these tire shapes and if they fall, they land on more rubber so it's relatively safe. The only issue is that the children might smell like rubber tires when they leave?

2. Gulliver Park- Spain - I think this playground is so creative. Designed to look like the body of Gulliver (from Gulliver's Travel) this playground is scaled so that the children are the size of the Lilliputians from the story.

3. The Fruit and Scent Playground - Sweden - Both adorable and educational, this playground encourages children to eat healthier by showing that fruit can be fun. I wonder if it actually smells like fruit?

Worst:

1. Elephant Slide- I found this in a Huffington Post article that showed some of the "worst playground fails of all time." I definitely think that applies to this one.

2. Lonely Sandbox- It's pretty obvious why this playground is one of the worst. A dirty, broken down, fenced in sandbox; oh so welcoming.

3. Cheese Grater Slide- There is no way that this slide is real but if it was it would definitely fall in the category of being one of the worst playgrounds ever.

Be Aware to Care

While reading about helping others this week, I came across something in particular that caught my eye. The book states that the first step to helping someone is noticing that something is wrong or unusual. The book also brings up the point that “people who live in big cities and noisy environments may become so used to seeing people lying on sidewalks or hearing screams that they begin to tune them out.” After reading this I realized that this statement is, unfortunately, very true. For most of us, we’ve become all too accustomed to the sight of a homeless person curled up on the streets or the desperate pleads of the needy for small donations and pocket change on the subway. Because of this “blindness” that many city-folk experience, they are then not able to, or choose not to, interpret what they’re seeing as an emergency and, further more, they do not provide help. When in large crowds, people begin to diffuse responsibility and become consumed in, what is known as, the bystander effect. I find this idea of distancing oneself from a situation and letting one’s peers handle it to be very interesting.

In this article, researchers studied the bystander effect and possible ways to eliminate it in social settings. Researchers found that the most important part of decreasing the bystander effect is to increase one’s public self-awareness through the creation of accountability cues. When individuals are singled out from a large crowd, they are more likely to feel responsible for providing help and are, then, more likely to become involved. The use of video cameras is one method which has proven to increase self-awareness, as well as a way to boost or maintain one’s reputation, and in turn, lowers the bystander effect. Someone who knows that he is being watched instantly becomes more aware of how he acts and, when faced with an opportunity to help someone, is more likely to do so.

Going along with this point, I don’t know if any of you are familiar with ABC’s show “What Would You Do?”. The show deals with these same issues of when and why people help other people. The show’s website offers a quiz that I think is both fun and interesting. Check it out here and let me know what you think!

First Impressions (Online)

A field of research relevant to social psychology is interpersonal perception, a subject focusing on the beliefs and impressions between two interacting people. First impressions are always a major concern (I read in The Social Animal by David Brooks that a majority of the long-lasting judgments you make on a person become solidified in the first 20 seconds of meeting them) when it comes to meeting people for the first time and has manifested itself into a manipulable form when it comes to making first impressions via online social networks. YouJustGetMe is a site developed by social psychologists attempting to determine the significance of a few autobiographical details in relation to the accuracy with which you can judge another person's personality online. To participate, you have to create a free account, fill out a 40 question personality test, and from there you can select random profiles, look at their photo and read their about me, and then evaluate how you perceive their lifestyle, behavior, and attitude. Your score is then assessed in comparison to how they view their self and, as if to add just another twist to the site, if you receive a high enough score, you are allowed to contact them for further communication. The site offers some interesting commentary on the accuracy in which you can judge others on dating sites or social media while also admitting to the skepticism from the ability to screen your own personality online.

I suggest that you take a moment to check the site out, yourself. Can personality tests like these accurately assess people and are the methods being employed here successful in measuring a first impression? I invite you to take a look through my profile, evaluate me based off of the information I have given, and see if your impression of me rings true. If you decide to create one for yourself, I suggest posting it here to see how accurately others can assess you online.

By Fore of Arms

By Force of Arms: Rape, War, and Military Culture

Madeline Morris

Duke Law Journal , Vol. 45, No. 4 (Feb., 1996), pp. 651-781

Pg 725 Deindividuation Norms in Primary Groups;

Upon reading the theory of deindividuation I was interested in this notions role in the army. I found this article on Jstore that is a researche that focuses on  variety of issues but what was really interesting was how they broke down the fluxuation of issues of sexual assault by military forces in peace time and war time and also wether the deindividuation pay particularly and important role in offiicers participation in sexual assault. And seeks a solution for to solve these existing issues within the military. 

As it turn out in, war time instances of sexual assault by military forces does change quite a bit compared to civilian rates of incidents. The article focuses on how some aspect of military culture: military organization being composed of bonded groups of individuals who share group norms which revolve around masculinity, sexuality might cause this fluxuation of rape incidences as specially by indirectly forging deindividuation due to the nature of it's structure. 

In general , i found the article to be very well documented ,non biased and insight full. It is quite interesting to she how the individual character play a big role within the process of deindividuation. It is quite interesting to see how the context effect the individuals internal constrains on behavior. What is exteremly intriguing is the potential of deindividuation for  both extreme positive and negative behaviors.However that being said, it is also quite disturbing to see that military needs deindividuation to some extent to functions as an enforcing mechanism where individuals are called upon to act on external cues. With that in mind this dynamic presents a quite intriguing dilemma with the whole military culture and functioning.
What do you guys think ? 

Does Flirting Help Women Get Ahead?

LINK

The Telegraph recently posted an article about how if women use flirtatious behavior while doing business, they will have positive results. Researchers from UC Berkeley and University College London conducted a test in which 100 participants were polled on their reliance on charm while doing business negotiations. The results found that women who flirted during these negotiations achieved more favorable results than those who try to appear tough. In a second experiment, the volunteers were asked to imagine a scenario in which they are selling a car, and how much they would ask for it. They were asked to imagine two situations, one in which the woman selling the car is warm and flirtatious, and another where they are colder and more stern. The study found that more affectionate women could sell the car for less. In contrast, a study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that men who utilize their charm in business situations with the opposite sex perform no better than women who use the same technique.

The results of this test makes sense, although their would be more effective ways to carry out the experiment. It appears to have been a descriptive study, in which people were simply asked to imagine certain scenarios or report how they acted in certain situations of their past. These tests are tricky because people cannot be trusted to tell the truth, and will usually modify their response if they know they are part of an experiment. A correlational or even an experimental study of some sort would have gained more reliable information on the topic. If successful women were studied concerning how they got to their positions of power, this could be an effective correlational study. An experimental study in which men were tricked into thinking they were interviewing two different woman, one flirtatious and one with a more cold demeanor, this could have had interesting and telling results.

Nevertheless, this topic of this study is fairly important. Gender equality in high-paid jobs seems to be on the rise, but how the women get these jobs seems to be overlooked. It does not surprise me that women who are more flirtatious achieve better results, this seems to be a real world truth that many people have accepted. Men react well to women who they think are interested in them. Men do the same thing to women, and it is how a lot networking goes down in the business world.

Personally, I am not sure how to react to these results. They seems pretty obvious, but I wonder if the results would anger anyone. I think it is hard to draw the line between confidence and the ability to talk comfortably and flirting. We live in a very shallow world, and what is perceived flirting can be many different scenarios between genders. What one person could consider flirting, another person may not. When does flirting in a business environment become unprofessional? There are so many variables, but it seems apparent that when business takes place between genders, men will react more favorably to women who seem interested in them.