Harper School Shootings

This episode really opened my eyes to other things going on in this world. I have always lived in good neighborhoods that have never had any shootings or crimes. These kids in the episode have not only had so many shootings in their neighborhoods but they actually see these shootings, sometimes are the shooter, and they see their friends or family get shot more than anyone should. It is crazy how different of lives people can live. I have never even thought about buying a gun because I would never need it but with these kids it’s a second nature to have a gun and to know how to get one and where to hide one. Harper schools are trying to help these students and take these shooting seriously like how they considered not having the homecoming …show more content…
Just like how you used in the reading about bad drivers and how we would assume the worst, most people assume the worst about gangs and how the people that are getting shot deserved it or that it was a drug related crime. But that is not always the case. Another social psychological principle that operated at Harper schools was Cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance happens when you do something that violates your view of yourself and causes an uncomfortable state of dissonance that motivates a change in either attitudes or behavior. In the school I assume that a lot of the kids have guns because everyone else had guns and they shot people because it needed to be done to save themselves and even if the person didn’t really agree with it or want to they did it anyway. I think this term relates to when a boy in the episode shot his younger brother by accident. Another social psychological principle that relates to this episode is the elaboration likelihood model and how the social worker was trying to help out the student that killed his little brother to be able to cope with it and not have as much