How might The Outward
Bound Process be used in psychology other than treatment?
In order to find out
how the Outward Bound Process model is used in psychology, I felt it would be
good to start at this base of the subject. For this journal, I decided to gather more information about
what exactly Walsh and Golins where originally seeking to convey, this is what
I found. I then was kind of
curious about what these folks looked like, the picture below is what I found. Side-note, Don't get to time warped with these outfits and forget to check that killer backdrop.
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| Victor "Vic" Walsh is third from the left (note cool hat), Gerald "Jerry" Golins is first on the right |
Secondly, I went to a solid reliable
source I was familiar with, my notes from my Social Psychology class with Dr.
Powell. Here is a condensed snip it on which part of my notes I focused on.
The article from the
70s talked about how this social environment is created by a ten group or
primary group. This primary group
has about seven to fifteen people who seek a common objective. Also, a bound and collective consciousness
is present. The size of the group
allows them to have stricter conformity in the group and eventually
participants realize that fighting against the group is less than ideal and
taking a “go with the flow” attitude is imperative for our social being. Those who don’t find themselves a
member of the group might experience self-doubt and having a fear of
rejection.
Another area of the OBP
that relates to social psychology is the idea that the learner finds reward in
solving concrete and manageable problems within a positive peer
environment. The new attitudes and
values allow people to become more likely to tackle upcoming problems. This leads to the social psychology
concept of internalization.
Internalization occurs when behaviors persists after the group is no
longer present. Formally, participants
might have experienced cognitive dissonance, which is a disconnect between
their internal beliefs and statements leading to discomfort. There is now, for a participant, no disconnecting
between these internal beliefs and the external statement. Afterwards, A participant has
demonstrated the internalized gained knowledge with no feelings of guilt or
doubt.
Drawing these points
together, the Outward Bound Process can be used in the research component of
social psychology. It can be used
to further provide support for these theories and continue to expand and further
define these concepts. In conclusion, the OBM has many connections to social
psychology with this blog displaying only a few examples.
To gain more insight on these two Outward Bound founders and see more old photos from other pioneers go here.
Citations:
Walsh, V.,
& Golins, G. L. (1976). The exploration of the Outward Bound process.
Denver, CO: Colorado Outward Bound School.
Powell, C.
(2012). Unit 1: Conformity. Personal
collection of C. Powell, Georgia College, Milledgeville, GA.
Robertson, J. (2012, June) . COBS Pioneers. Retrieved from http://outwardbounds50thanniversary.weebly.com/cobs-pioneers.html
Hey Christine!
ReplyDeleteI loved how you researched Walsh and Golins background... and yes I loved the killer backdrop in the picture as well as the outfits. Ha. I love being able to relate something I'm learning in one class to something I am learning in another class so you bringing in your notes from Social Psychology with Dr. Powell made me pretty excited! I am in Theories of Counseling with Dr. Phillips and the information we are learning about in there is definitely correlating with the information we are reading about in Senior Seminar. The group is very important within Outward Bound and within other Adventure therapy programs. Groups and relationships within people are definitely studied in social psychology. Keep up the good work, I always like looking at your blog because your posts and titles are always so creative.
Christine! I really like the website that you included that all had of those pictures from Outward Bound in Colorado. You do a great job of making your posts interesting to read and to look at! It is so interesting to see the comparison between OB and Social Psychology. There is no way around connecting them because they both involve people interacting with other people. Regardless of where we are, if we are with people we are all usually working towards something. Pretty cool to think that we all want to succeed and as you said, "the learner finds reward in solving concrete and manageable problems within a positive peer environment." OB is a great place to study the social interactions between people! Great job!
ReplyDeleteLeslie
I think it is interesting how you talk about group conformity and how important it is to the group and to Adventure Therapy as a whole. I think that conformity has its place in Adventure Therapy, but it cannot and should not stand alone, otherwise, once those kids go back to their home environment, they will again conform to the people in that area. So, conformity might be a good starting place for some, but the treatment should not stop at it.
ReplyDelete