According to Tom Drake (n.d.), there are six elements in an Epic:

(1)    Plot centres around a Hero of Unbelievable Stature

(2)    Involves deeds of Superhuman strength and valour

(3)    Vast setting

(4)    Involves supernatural and or otherworldly forces

(5)    Sustained elevation of style of writing

(6)    Objective and omniscient (writes as if he knows everything).

Based on the above definition, an Epic applies to Valmiki’s Ramayana mainly because it has all of the above mentioned characteristics. 

According to Valmiki’s Ramayana, there are several times where Rama is shown as a hero of unbelievable stature and possesses superhuman strength.  For example, “The fourteen raksasas fell upon Rama…. the invincible Rama shattered the spears with fourteen arrows decorated with gold.” (Sattar, 2000, p. 247).

In Valmiki’s Ramayana, there are other evidences that depicts the narrative as epic.  For example, the story took place over a “vast setting.  In the text it had showed how Ramayana was living in his Kingdom, exploring past the jungles, and even visiting Lanka.  

Yet another evidence would be that the story involves a lot of supernatural beings such as the gods.  Textual evidence can be found page 638 of Valmiki’s Ramayana, “The fire god rose, carrying Sita in his arms.” (Sattar, 2000, p. 638). 

Throughout the text, we can see that there is a sustained elevation of style of writing; one such example would be in page 499, “the golden monkeys flew…”.  Finally, we can see the narrative knows everything about the story when he switches from Sita’s perspectives to Rama’s perspectives to even Hanuman’s perspectives (Sattar, 2000, p. 499).

However, an epic may not prove apt for the narrative during the several instances when the narrative tries to display Rama as a “human” because it goes against his godly stature and valour.  For example, in page 634 “Go to Laksmana or Bharata or to anyone else who pleases you!”.  We can see that Rama is behaving very impulsively (Sattar, 2000, p. 634).  

Yet another example would be in page 244, “Rama laugh when he heard this speech from Surpanakha…” (Sattar, 2000, p. 244) .  From here we can see that Rama is ridiculing Surpanakha; this act of ridiculing goes against his character of an unbelievable stature and makes him utterly human.

Written By: Yaw Wen Ping

References

Drake, T. (n.d.). Six Elements Of The Epic. Retrieved from https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/engl257/General%20lit/six_elements_of_the_epic.htm

Vālmiki, & Sattar, A. (2000). The Rāmāyaṇa. New Delhi: Penguin Books.

Locus of Control

You will have a high self-efficacy if you believe that you have the ability to complete a task.  For Kobe Bryant, I'll bet a million dollars that he has a high self-efficacy on the basketball court.  Thus self-efficacy is the belief one has for his or her own ability.

Locus of control on the other is the extent where an individual perceive outcomes of whether it could be internally controlled by their own efforts or externally controlled.  He or she will have a internal locus of control if he feels or believe that the situation can be controlled by their own efforts.  A person will have an external locus of control if he feels that the situation is controlled by external forces such as luck.

For example in a test, 

a person will have a high sense of of self efficacy if he feels that he has the ability to ace it.

a person will have an internal locus of control if he feels he will ace it if he puts in effort to study it.

a person will have an external locus of control if he feels that no matter what he does, the teacher might not mark him correctly due to his conduct or other factors such as luck.

A person can also have an internal locus of control and a low sense of self efficacy.

For example, a person with an internal locus of control feels that he will act it IF he puts in effort to study for a test.  

However, he has a low sense of self efficacy because he didn't put in effort for the test.

In conclusion, 

Self efficacy means the belief you have on your ability to complete the task

Locus of control means that the belief of whether you have the ability to control the situation.

In my opinion, usually a person with a external locus of control will generally have a low sense of self-efficacy.
Firstly, they will feel discouraged as they think that they do not have control of the situation and putting efforts are futile.  Thus not having the required ability to aid their confidence.
Secondly, once a person does not have control of the situation, he also will experience a low sense of self efficacy as they do not believe that anything can be done to complete the task.

Locus of Control

You will have a high self-efficacy if you believe that you have the ability to complete a task.  For Kobe Bryant, I'll bet a million dollars that he has a high self-efficacy on the basketball court.  Thus self-efficacy is the belief one has for his or her own ability.

Locus of control on the other is the extent where an individual perceive outcomes of whether it could be internally controlled by their own efforts or externally controlled.  He or she will have a internal locus of control if he feels or believe that the situation can be controlled by their own efforts.  A person will have an external locus of control if he feels that the situation is controlled by external forces such as luck.

For example in a test, 

a person will have a high sense of of self efficacy if he feels that he has the ability to ace it.

a person will have an internal locus of control if he feels he will ace it if he puts in effort to study it.

a person will have an external locus of control if he feels that no matter what he does, the teacher might not mark him correctly due to his conduct or other factors such as luck.

A person can also have an internal locus of control and a low sense of self efficacy.

For example, a person with an internal locus of control feels that he will act it IF he puts in effort to study for a test.  

However, he has a low sense of self efficacy because he didn't put in effort for the test.

In conclusion, 

Self efficacy means the belief you have on your ability to complete the task

Locus of control means that the belief of whether you have the ability to control the situation.

Self Efficacy

Self efficacy, what is self efficacy?

Self efficacy is a an individual's sense of competence that he feels that he has for a task.  People with a higher sense of self- efficacy are less anxious, less depressed, more confident and live healthier lives.  They believe that they are able to fulfill their tasks on hand.

Do you think Kobe Bryant has a high or low sense of self efficacy?

Self-Esteem

A person's self esteem is his overall evaluation of his self worth.


Having a high self esteem influence a person's perception about his abilities.  He may feel good, lok good or even feel smart due to a sense of high self-esteem.  Then again, it can act the other way, a person who look good and is smarter than his peer may also affect his sense of high self-esteem

When it comes to self esteem, an older child with a highly capable younger sibling will feel threatened by his younger sibling to his self esteem.  Relationships in fact motivates self relationships!  Relationships enables surviving and thriving of self-esteem.  When being rejected, our self-esteem lowers and make us more eager for social approval.  This pain motivates self improvement and a search for acceptance.  This is quoted by Mark Leary.  So whether, your self esteem is hurt is on the positive quantum or not, you decide.

Now let's move on to the dark side of self esteem.
People with low self esteem usually have often occur problems in their lives. Such as making less money, abuses drug and are more likely to be depressed.  These factors might be caused by other factors such as poverty and sexual abuse.  In fact people with low self esteem are unable to escape their dark past thus they are more likely to have problems.  It could work both ways..  lowself esteem affects their lives or their lives affect their sense of self esteem..

Unusually high self esteem?
Yes, High self esteem is good, but what if their self esteem levels are too high?
Research and findings have shown that Gang leadrs, teenage men that had sex or even terrorist have unusually high self-esteem..
Now.. why does this suggest?

When high self esteem crosses to an inflated sense of self, which is also know as narcissism, it becomes problematic.  They value more on achievements rather than empathy invoking situations.  Many lack empathy due to their unusually high sense of self-esteem.  Though they are charming and out going, their self centeredness often lead to relationship problems in the long run.  The link between narcissicm and problematic social relations had led psychologist to include it in the 'Dark Triad' of the negative triads.  The other 2 are psychopathy and Machiavallianism..

Now, you know that there are various ways that self esteem can influence a person or affect a person..

Spot-light Effect.

Hey guys, well just before I continue about the self and self esteem.
I would like to share with you guys about the spotlight effect.


Ever had a bad hair day or finding our that you had forgotten about your jean's zippers? Well practically almost everybody have experienced a similiar experience.
In fact, in this kind of situation many of us will be conscious of ourselves even more. Thinking and worrying that everyone has saw what's underneath our zippers or our spikey out of bed hair.
However, as humans it is only normal to commit this spot light effect as we are worried about our self presentation and the impression we leave.
The truth is out of 40 people in a class, less than 10 will take notice of what is actually happening!!

Amazingly, I've tried this and yeah it seems that people are less aware of our mistakes and bloopers than whay we assume them to be.

That isn't me anyway!
So next time, when you found out that you have forgotten about your zippers, fret not! Not as many people as you think had saw what lies underneath!

Myself, Yourself and the elements that the self is made of.

In any social situation, a positive or a negative situation, the most important factor that will influence and affect the situation is the self.  Yourself, myself, ourselves or themselves plays a major part in any situation because it is we who make the decisions and influence what the result will be.  Then again, if only everything is as simple as this..

Put yourself in a prison as a prisoner, given the situation that your civil rights is stripped of and being humiliated 7 times a day, will you fight back or will you conform to your role as a prisoner?  Well for me, I don’t know but how about you?  Will you be displaying what you are thinking right now if you are in that situation?

Thus to try to understand any given social situation, we’ll have to know more about ourselves.  This is why today I’ll be talking about “The Self” and more about what we think about ourselves!

What actually defines self-concept?

The elements of our self-concepts (our beliefs of ourselves) are called self-schemas.  Our self-schemas (how we perceive ourselves) will greatly affect and influence how we perceive, remember, evaluate others and even our processing of information!  If ‘Good Looks’ is our central self-schema, we will tend to notice the way people dress or how they look.  If ‘Athletics’ is our central self-schema we will tend to notice other’s athletic skills.

Not only that, our self-concept also includes our possible selves such as our ideal selves and the selves that we dread to become in the future.  These selves motivate us with a vision of life we long for.  For example, we wouldn’t want to become a beggar in the future right..?

In fact the self consist of

1.       Self-concept

2.       Self- Knowledge

3.       Self-Esteem

4.       Social Self. ( How this actually develops is dependent on the roles that we play, social comparison, success and failure and of course other’s judgment about ourselves)

I’m sure that in most situations, people will definitely predict another person’s behavior or their own behaviors.  Well in fact, most people err in predicting behaviors.  More often, those who are closer to us are able to predict more accurately than ourselves.  One of the most common errors in predicting future is planning fallacy.  It is the underestimation of how long it will take to complete a task.  Thus, the best way to improve self prediction is to be more realistic about how these task took in the past.  We’re not superman afterall, and it’s impossible to travel from Singapore to Malaysia in 15 minutes (This is including waiting time :D).

How about predicting feelings?

Sometimes we know how we will feel and what will make us happy or blablabla.  Other times, we mispredict our responses. In fact, people have the greatest difficulty in predicting the intensity and duration of their future emotions.  This is due to impact bias and our tendency to overestimate the enduring impact of an emotion causing event. 

What is impact bias?

We tend to commit impact bias because we focus on the negative event and discount everything else that contributes to happiness.  This is why we will say, “I think I’m gonna be sad for 10 years when my girlfriend breaks up with me and I’m going to commit suicide if she does that.”. We often forget that there are many other things that could contribute to our happiness at that period of time as well.  For example, what if Megan Fox wants to be your girlfriend after that :D.  Just an example..

Another reason we often mispredict our feelings is because we are neglecting or even ignorant of our psychological immune system.  This tendency to underestimate the speed of our psychological immune system, which enables emotional recovery after negative events is called IMMUNE NEGLECT.

Could there be a cultural self?

Why not?!

In fact different cultural have differing selves, for more individualistic cultures such as America, their selves are more individualized.  They give priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defines their identity to personal attribution rather than group identification.  (Eg. I’m Smart hehehehe)

Collectivism based countries are countries that believes group belonging is important.  The people in collectivism countries usually nurture their interdependent self, where they construct one’s identity in relation to others.

In fact, after knowing so much ‘SELF’, I’m beginning to doubt that I know myself more than anybody in the world.  It seems that there are so much more to ourselves than what we think.

Thus to sum things up

Self-Concept

1.       Sense of Self

·         Self-schemas

·         Possible Selves

2.       Cultural Self

·         Individualistic

·         Collectivisation

3.       Our flawed Self-Knowledge

·         We often do not know why we behave in such a way

·         The differing conscious that influence our decisions and perceptions

·         Impact Bias and Immune Neglect has led us to overestimate the endurance of our emotional reactions to significant events.

I didn’t know myself could be made up of so many elements, do you?

For my next post I’ll be talking more about Self-esteem and the dark side to it.

Stay tune yeaH@~?

HeADING TO BED NAO!

Good Night !

Oh yeah, you guys should catch this 2010 movie called "The Experiment". It's..