Response:
Review several of your classmate's posts and respond to at least two of your peers.
You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion.
Were there any contributions to the field of psychology by your colleagues' chosen theorist that were not included in his or her initial post?
How might these contributions have provided more insight into the contemporary issue being considered? Critically examine and reconcile any discrepancies between your classmate's perspective(s) and the research he or she cited.
Suggest a different theoretical perspective that might align more easily with the contemporary issue identified by your colleague.
One contemporary issue would be homelessness. It's prevalent in society and throughout the world. More common in the U.S., but not forgotten in war torn countries also.
The psychology viewpoint I chose would be personologists studying human behavior. Gordon Willard Allport studied the psychology of traits to demonstrate how people and their traits coincide over their situation.
If we view how people act in their situation of not being able to have a home and the behavior of being quiet, defensive, protective, and desperate. We see there are many of these traits among homeless because of their needs to adjust to their environment.
If we look further William McDougall described people traits that tend to be "like minded".Allport also mentioned how there are 4 groups from Excitable, Emotional, Social Judgement, and inner strength.
All of these characteristics of personality traits from the 4 groups emphasize how the people that have views of the homeless to the homeless people themselves. The preconceived notion that people on the streets deserve to live there because they did drugs, gambled, or are just not smart to get help etc.
Yet the homeless see their problems as a day to day survival mode that they found food, found shelter, and feel shame for society judging them, as well as become emotional because someone would not give them money for food or just drove off to ignore them. Therefore looking at Allport's perspectives on personality traits and his groupings, it is easy to see how easily groups can be explained in clusters of characteristics.
It is easy to make the connection of Allport's theories with today's contemporary society of the social problems of homelessness and how his grouping relates to the matter.