Journal entry

Describe a scenario of when emotion influenced a personal or professional decision in your life to offer instructor some context. Then, answer the following questions:

The scenario Id like to use is finding out my son (at age 13) stole food and drink from a store. He was caught but I didn’t believe it and argued with the shop clerk, after I stormed out and defended my son I later calmed down and realized the shop owner had no reason to lie and my son may be guilty. I went back to my son and told him I was taking I’m back to the store to watch the survalience video and so he confessed. We both went back to the shop to apologize to the shop owner and my son was punished. My ego and my love of my son clouded my logical thinking and assumed he could not be guilty however, when I calmed down I realized this was an opportunity to tech him a lesson.

This journal entry should reflect the concepts of critical thinking.

Did this emotional influence on your thinking exert a positive or negative influence?
Did it help or hinder your thought process?
- If it helped you think more clearly, how so?
- If it hindered your thought process, what could you have done to make this emotional influence a more positive and helpful one?

Consider this example:

You are offered a new job with a huge increase in pay. Your first day will be in two weeks. You are very excited and your mind jumps to all the possibilities of how your life will change with this new opportunity. This weekend you go out and buy a brand new SUV. The next day, after the excitement starts to come down, you find yourself with buyer’s remorse, and worry about being able to afford the vehicle if the job offer somehow falls through.

In this situation, the excitement of the new job and pay potential hindered the thought process, potentially causing additional stress, since you haven’t started the new job yet, or received the new paycheck to confirm that you are able to afford the increased payment for the SUV. An option you could have considered is waiting until you started the job and received your first paycheck to determine if the new car payment would fit into your budget.

Solution Preview

Journal

The scenario refers to a situation where I found out that my son had stolen food and drinks from a store. At first, I was very protective and denied that my son could not be culpable of such actions. However, I later came to a realization that the shopkeeper could not have lied for any reason. In the scenario, my emotional influence had a negative implication or influence.

(280 words)