Floating fears of incompetence Erikson developed the idea of competence as a result of learning adequately to cope with the environment through industriousness and inferiority. The Fear of Appearing Incompetent Scale was published in the 1970s to assess how well this crisis had been managed during the respondent's childhood. The 36 questions place scores into three ranges, indicating self-aware, average, and apprehensive aspects of personality. I believe my score did a good job of assessing my concerns of incompetence, although I may represent a special circumstance that cannot be judged 100% accurately by the questionnaire. I think Erikson and I would agree that my sense of self-awareness and self-confidence is rooted in the relationship between my mother and school administrators. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Fear of Appearing Incompetent Scale is based on Erik Erikson's theory of life's psychosocial crises, specifically the industriousness versus inferiority phase. Erikson theorized that everyone goes through these 8 crises that, when properly resolved by learning both adaptive and maladaptive coping techniques (relying more on positive approaches), establish a crisis-specific core strength. If a crisis is not sufficiently resolved and the ego only resorts to adaptive or maladaptive attitudes, basic weaknesses may arise, this is called poor development. Core weaknesses can be maladaptive, where only positive tendencies are displayed, or malignant, where only negative tendencies are displayed. Between about 6 and 12 years of age the child will enter a period of latency and “forgets, or rather sublimates, the need to “make” people with a direct attack or make them become fathers and mothers quickly” (Erikson, 1950). The outcome of this crisis, along with the three previous crises, depends on others rather than on the child; “the attitudes and behaviors of parents and teachers largely determine how children perceive themselves as they are developing…” (Schultz, 2013) With positive reinforcement and praise, the underlying strength of competence emerges. If development is imbalanced by reproaches, ridicule, and rejection from influential external sources, the child is likely to “develop feelings of inferiority and inadequacy” (Schultz, 2013). Other examples of poor development in this psychosocial stage include narrow virtuosity and inertia. The Fear of Appearing Incompetent scale, created by Lawrence R. Good and Katherine C. Good is a personality questionnaire consisting of 36 true or false questions that measures how anxious a person generally is about appearing, feeling, or being incompetent. The scores are divided into 3 bands; 0-9 (low scores), 13-22 (medium scores) and 23-36 (high scores). It is said that low scorers are unlikely to worry about feeling incompetent; these people are most likely confident, self-aware, and perhaps even “self-actualized,” exhibiting “a high level of self-acceptance and self-esteem” (Good & Good, 1973). Average scorers typically have a balance of confidence and apprehension in their abilities, feeling a mix of competence and incompetence. Those who score high on this personality test generally spend a significant amount of time in fear of their competence (or lack of) in most situations, although some circumstances may produce stronger emotional reactions. These markers usually fear acting spontaneously for fear of the greater risk of making a mistake and struggleto accept each other. The authors noted that scores at the low end of this division could have been those of an average scorer whose self-doubt was temporarily inflated by stress. To score this test, the respondent must compare their true or false answers with the answers given in the score. sheet and note down how many are related, each worth one point. For example, on question number one “I would never worry about the possibility of being judged stupid in some activities” both my answer sheet and the score sheet were false, adding 1 point to my overall score. The total score I received on this test was 9, which puts me in the low scoring category of 0 to 12. According to this personality test I almost never worry about my skills and I don't worry about looking silly or ignorant while I do an activity. As I stated earlier, I scored a 9 on this personality questionnaire, labeling me as a low scorer. This means I am most likely considered confident and know my strengths and weaknesses. The score reflects some aspects of my personality very well, especially in the workplace. At work, regardless of being a new employee in training, I feel very confident in my abilities to get things done and don't like help with a task unless I need it and ask for it. An example of this would be one day when I was working in the laundry room at the Noyer Complex when a coworker wouldn't stop trying to help me. I went from task to task and felt like he was right behind me trying to do whatever I was doing at every turn, which started to really frustrate me. I finally snapped and told him that I felt I could go home if he would do my job for me, resulting in him letting me do my job without interruption. Another example of time reflecting my score would be time spent on World of Warcraft, a game I was very proficient at. I put a lot of effort into this video game and I put a lot of effort into it for a long time. While I could play both combat styles proficiently (Player vs. Player and Player vs. Enemy), I mainly focused on Player vs. Player or PvP, where the interaction between players was higher. Confident in my abilities and very self-confident, I spent a lot of time teaching others or helping others get things they needed, like different currencies. One activity I participated in a lot was called Arena, where you could battle other small teams of players for a certain type of in-game currency. A very confident teenage version of me would trade gold (another in-game currency) to "lead" (win without help) the other participants. Erik Erikson would say that self-awareness and confidence stem from my childhood, particularly around ages 6-12, when I battled the crisis of industriousness versus inferiority. Around this age, I mostly lived with my mother, who pushed me to work hard in school, explore sports, music, a foreign language, etc. I played basketball, soccer, tee ball, learned Spanish and took piano, guitar, drums and singing lessons. At school, I was at the top of my class and participated in organizations such as 4-H and the Environmental Club. My mother's authoritative parenting style was full of love, praise, and encouragement. Erikson stated that “literate people…must prepare the child by teaching him…the broadest possible basic education for the greatest possible number of careers” (Erikson, 1950) and I think he would agree that my mother.
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