Ryan: Looking from Different Viewpoints
Learning about social psychology concepts and applying them in the real world was instrumental in helping build my career as a crime analyst for the Vancouver Police Department. As a crime analyst, problem-solving skills are essential to carrying out your duties and responsibilities in the unit you are embedded in. There are usually multiple ways to go about solving problems, and in my case crimes. However, sometimes, as humans we can become fixated on only one solution to solve a problem. This can severely impact our ability as analysts to think more clearly and critically about information. Learning about schemas and how each person has their own personal mental structure about other people, events, and ideas has helped me combat this impediment. For example, I, just like any other human, have my own set of schemas that provide the framework for how I perceive and make judgments about the world. Recognizing that other people have different schemas from mine helps prevent me from tunnel visioning on a particular solution that may be unconsciously based on my own personal schemas. Therefore, I try to solve the problem from different viewpoints and engage in strategies such as lateral and alternative thinking to help aid me in the problem-solving process.