Recently I attended a seminar on 'Boundaries of Change'. Interesting topic to ponder about regarding change and when to change. Change is constant but do we always need to change or when is the right time to change? What makes us change?

Interestingly, a point mentioned was that change is directly related to one's attitude and age. To effect change in oneself, it boils down to one's attitude to determine the need to change and the motivational factor to change in adaptation to the changing environment. Another point brought across was that as one ages, one would become steadily more resistant to influence.

Consider this, how many times have we attempted to change ourselves to suit the norm, to conform to pressure for we do not want to be outcast by the group. To a certain extent, when we are so immersed in a group that we tend to behave like what other group members behave. Do we call this a purposeful change or situational change? The difference between these two lies in the consciousness of one when there is sign of behavioural change. For example, when we talk about purposeful change, an individual is aware why the change is needed and the motivational factor(s) that causes the change. The goals and direction are very clear to the individual that spur the need for change to take place. However, situational change could possibly result in loss of one's identity that he/she is caught unaware that change in behaviour is taking place.

You could term situational change as deindividuation which refers to 'a loss of personal identity and a sense of immersion in a group: people feel anonymous and can be caught up in the actions of those around them'. However, certain change in behaviour may not be appropriate to be seen as deindividuation depending on the context. A common behavioural change evidently shown could be the effect of imprisonment. To a certain extent, prisons can induce deindividuation on one. Their behaviour could range from good to worst depending on the clique that they mingle with. In this case, it could be viewed as a situational change, yet not permanent, to suit the group dynamic.

Nevertheless, change has to come from within, that is, attitude. It is always good to have purposeful change but at times, circumstances do not allow us to gain full control of our behaviour.

"When you're slim, you're more pleasant on the eye. When you're big, people think: slow and lazy." I quoted this from The Straits Times (29 March 08) on 'the BIG issue' that talks about the stigma of obese people faced.

How many a times do we cast a second look on people who look 'humongous' yet normal? How many of us were guilty of downward counterfactual thoughts or took a secret glimpse of your own figure whenever you came across these group of people?

Stereotypes qualify as one kind of schema that is a mental representation for us to organise information about the world. Society tend to view these people as slow, lazy and even to the extent of unkempt. Such prejudice is probably uncalled for especially when one enters a lift or take a bus ride home, people either 'shun' them or 'snigger' at them all the time.

Whether their plight is due to dispositional factors or situational factors, having prejudice against these people will only impact their emotion negatively and further demoralize their confidence. Their challenge of not to be seen as lazy or slow could only be overcome if such schemas/prejudices were non-existence. Their ability to secure a job is also dependent on how society views them. If owners or employees of companies do hold on to such prejudice against obese people, the latter would forever remain jobless and eventually, prove that the schemas people held all these while were true.

'A' standard students set the benchmark, average students feel the stress. I personally feel this is true to some extent. A lot of times when students do not score well in assessments, parents will reprimand or think their kids did not put in much effort. It used to be a norm for parents to compare their kids' results with one another in the past (in my case, my cousins). One parent will go like 'my child scored 79 for maths' and the other parent will go like 'oh, my child scored 95 for maths'. Thereafter, the first parent would expect his/her child to score above 90 for subsequent math tests. Failure to obtain that score, disappointment sets in and negative emotion will be experienced by the child.

Such negative emotion would tend to have a negative impact on their development, especially so when they think that they have put in so much effort to score well yet not rewarded. Expectations from parents do contribute to their child's stress level besides the benchmark set by academically competent students. While parents may see the problem as the child spending too much time on computer games and watching TV programmes at the expense of their study time, the child may attribute their poor performance to the high standard set by parents as well as the benchmark set by the high academic achievers.

Relating this to the Fundamental Attribution Theory, it states that the self tend to view the cause of failures to be attributed by situational factors rather than dispositional factors. In this case, parents' point of view tend to attribute the cause of failure to the child's dispositional factors. They would tend to think that the child did not put in more time and effort in their study or that they played too much games, spent too much time on the internet. To the extreme of having the perception that their child is not smart enough.

The consequential effect of prolong negative affect experienced by the child overtime would only caused him/her to develop emotional disorders such as excessive worry, fear and sadness, especially so when they continue to face external pressure to have better performance academically.

Relating this issue with the recent article on More troubled kids turning to IMH reported over The Sunday Times (16 March 08), it mentioned:

"These experts were concerned that, besides the higher stress faced by young people today, there seemed to be a greater lack of parent-child interaction.

Longer hours in school and at work meant that family members were spending less time together.

During interactions, parents inevitably asked about schoolwork and test scores rather than about their children's well-being,... "

She has noticed a trend of children equating their self-worth with how far they had met their parents' expectations.

Today's children also have another thing vying for their attention: the Internet.

Ms Jessica Leong, a counsellor in private practice, said that more parents had problems getting their children to bed as their kids stayed online till early in the morning."

In this instance, parents' high expectations potentially pose great pressure on their child regardless whether the latter is able to cope. The hope for better results could be for a good cause in wanting their child to get into a better school. However, they neglected the fact that the child faces pressure from school too.

On the other hand, the child's failure to meet parents' expectation could stem from their short attention span on school books, especially so when they are so 'addicted' to the use of Internet. In this case, the child should see that the cause for his/her poor performance is attributed to dispositional factors rather than situational as they have failed to prioritized their goals.

Just what is aesthetic treatment that calls for a recent ban by Ministry of Health (MOH) to stop various aesthetic treatment practices? Aesthetic treatment includes treatments such as fat-busting injections, skin treatments to remove flaws, skin whitening treatments etc. MOH's explanation being, that these 'treatments' have not been medically proven as effective and harmless, and should not be advertised as being medically beneficial. (For more details, check out the news in ST, 21 March 08.)

In The Sunday Times (23 March 08), I read more news on this issue and somehow, mixed reviews were posed on the ban on some of the aesthetic treatments. Some view it as a good move in stopping any potential malpractices by doctors while another group view the authorities as 'overreacting'. Those who are for the ban had bad experience with aesthetic treatments previously while those who are against the ban experienced successful treatments.

What caught my attention was the fact that some of those who are for the ban knew that such treatments are not scientifically and medically proven to be harmless or effective. The adverse or no results obtained from the aesthetic treatments they had somehow 'coloured' their opinion that banning such practices is good. Nevertheless, when they were so attracted and 'persuaded' by the advertisements initially, all else seem oblivious. Obviously for those who wanted to lose weight and have a slim waist, they had the option of working out in the gym or controlling their diet, yet, they chose the fastest and less time consuming way of losing weight.

I believe those who experienced successful treatments would continue to believe that they have made a rational and right decision. Whereas for the lot who had bad experience with aesthetic treatments, they would have thought that how irrational could they be by signing up a series of unproven treatments.

It's like the saying goes, "Once bitten, twice shy". I doubt these disgruntled patrons would attempt aesthetic treatment again unless it has been scientifically and medically proven to be harmless and effective in its treatment.

For those who have yet to try such treatments or intending to, would now be procrastinating their action and having second thoughts of going for aesthetic treatments. The fact that others' unfortunate encounter would have some degree of deterrence effect especially now it is educated to the ignorance that such treatment has yet to be proved medically.

Facebook; ask anyone, majority will say, 'Oh yes, I have a facebook too. Please add me!' Is this becoming a social norm or what?

Recently, I met up with a few friends and we happened to talk about facebook. Out of the six, only one had not started an account with Facebook. The session soon turned out to be an 'education' on the pros of Facebook (seems more like a persuasion tool to get her to sign up). Initially, she reacted 'violently' by not wanting to as she could not see the fun of it. They continued to 'advertise' the function of Facebook, its ability to share photos, rear a virtual pet, etc...

Indeed persuasive, the next thing we knew, our dear friend created her own Facebook and was enjoying the 'superpoking' and other applications. Out of curiosity, I asked her about the change of mind, she responded that she did it partly out of curiosity and partly because she realised that a lot of people are using Facebook to 'link' friends up. She sees it as an 'added pressure' to have one since whenever people mention about sharing photos, most of them are using Facebook as an avenue for sharing.

Conformity is classified into Informational Influence and Normative Influence. Informational Influence occurs when people are influenced by others' judgments or rely on others for information to make decision. Whereas Normative Influence occurs when people are influenced by others in order to gain acceptance or to avoid being dislike. In this instance, personally, I view this such a change as both under informational and normative influence. Given the basis that majority of her friends are using it, the level of trust was there and therefore, she would tend to believe that their judgment is right. On the other hand, she would choose to conform and be accepted by friends than to be 'outcast' by her group.

Given that majority of the people are utilising the functions of Facebook to share information/things and connect people, that is probably the direction to take in order to be in sync with the way how things are done in today's society. However, there is always the exceptional group who does not think so.