Storming Pizza

Hello! I am Lorelai Buford. I will be a junior at the University of Kansas as a psychology major and art minor. The main reason I am interested in studies abroad, and more particularly Culture and Psychology in London, is the ability to learn about psychology in a new light, as well as have the ability to learn about a new country and accept what England offers.

First, we had class in the morning. We learned about Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development: Forming, Storming, Performing, and Adjourning. We related this to the current dynamics our group is going through, that being having mild conflicts amongst each other; this is due to us trying to figure each other out. As we learned, this is the storming stage. Next, we added to our understanding of cultural psychology and proceeded to have multiple discussions pertaining to the ideas we had gone over. Specifically, we discussed what the term "cultural psychology" means, WEIRD samples (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) and how they aren't representative of all humans, and why studying cultural psychology is important to understanding behavior within a global perspective.

After class, our assignment was to do an activity called Description, Interpretation, and Evaluation while being our in London. This activity is meant to combat any inflexible ethnocentrism, and take time to understand what we're experiencing before automatically judging it.

Then some of us went to a bookstore called Waterstones to browse and buy books. I ended up buying two classics, American Psycho and Lolita, as well as multiple books surrounding the ideas of the psychology of serial killers, as well as the psychology of sex and social interaction.

That evening, we enjoyed dinner as a group at Pizza Express.. It’s a British restaurant chain that spouts Italian fare, with some American embellishments. I enjoyed bruschetta, the Vineziana pizza, the house salad, and raspberry sorbet. Overall, Pizza Express was very delicious and I plan on going back! After dinner, we returned to the hotel to carry on our evenings separately until we rejoined the next morning.