What other strategies have been shown to work in outside research that maybe the text paid less attention toward?

Remember how the discussion assignments work. You need to respond to one discussion question with an essay of 400-600 words with at least two references. This is due by 11:59 pm (Central Time) on Thursday. By Sunday, you need to submit two responses of at least 75 words to people who, ideally, answered questions other than the one you answered.

Please include the question you are answering at the beginning of the posting. If you notice that several people have answered a particular question, try to answer a different one. The more different discussion topics we have, the better.

Here are the questions for Week Seven:
1. As the U.S. political environment becomes more polarized, this research finds that politics has become more about identity with a particular party or group and less about the issues. Define these concepts and discuss what these terms mean. Which is stronger, identity or issues? What are your thoughts about that? Do you identify more with a party or group or with a particular position on an issue? How about those in your inner circle?
2. What are Psychological Traps? Talk about this social phenomenon and how we tend to invest time and money into activities and social relationships even when they yield a diminished return. What does the research say about why we get pulled into such activities? Are there ways to avoid entrapment?
3. How do we go about increasing cooperation to establish a form of peace? The text talks about several solutions. Please include a discussion of these and how effective the strategies are at decreasing conflict. What other strategies have been shown to work in outside research that maybe the text paid less attention toward?
4. Choose one of the cognitive processes that accompany behavior problems and explain the thought behind it. What are the basic propositions of the cognitive process and how does this result in a problematic behavior? What treatments are available to alleviate the problematic behavior? Do those tend to focus on the cognitive processes or another underlying possible issue?
5. As discussed in Chapter 14, is it mentally healthy for people to have illusions of control over situations, unrealistic optimism regarding the future, and favorable self-other comparisons? Why or why not? This was also discussed at some length in Chapter 2 (The Self), so points of information may be taken from that Chapter if needed.

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