Tianyu Sun Psychological Life History Chapters: My Homeland Chapter: My name is Tianyu Sun; I was born in China in 1992.

This chapter would describe my life from birth to eight years old. Important family members and friends would be included. During this time is also when I developed a strong passion for the sport of soccer. Swedish Chapter: When I was 8 years old, I moved to Sweden with my parents because my mom was pursuing her Ph.D. This chapter would be about the major cultural changes that we saw and experienced. American Chapter: After about 4 years in Sweden, my parents and I moved to the great United States of America. This chapter was instrumental in shaping who I am today. It is where I started playing organized soccer, from which I have been through tons of highs and lows. Penn State Chapter: Perhaps, the most exciting chapter of my life to date. Getting accepted and choosing to attend this world class University will play a huge role in helping me reach my future goal of becoming a doctor. Episodes: High Point: As I mentioned earlier, my passion for soccer has made the game a tremendous part of my life and as a result it has lead to many ups and downs. Coming to Penn State, such a large institution with a D1 soccer program, I wasnt sure if Id ever play organized soccer again. But I decided to tryout for the club soccer team, and was delighted to have made the team. Im extremely happy to have accomplished some amazing feats with the team, not to mention, Ive met some of my best friends through this team. Low Point: Before my parents moved to Sweden, an event took place that would have a grand impact on my life. When I was about 6 years old, I was about as happy as a kid can get. I loved my family and loved to play outside with my neighborhood friends. One morning, my father woke me up and my mother wasnt at the house. He told me that everyone is at the hospital because my grandfather has passed away. I had no words to describe the way I was feeling since Ive never felt it before. This was a very significant event in my life because without doubt, I lost some of my innocence on that day and it was perhaps the most hurtful event to have ever happened to me. Turning Point: Growing up in an eastern traditional society, and moving to a very liberal and western culture such as Sweden proved to be a major turning point in my life. The school system was completely different. I wasnt sure how I should act around my peers but I was happy to learn. This event was of major significance because not only did I not know such cultures existed at the time, I was living in it! Also, this event allowed me to get much closer with my parents since we were the only family each other had.

Important Adolescence Episode: Once again, this episode relates to soccer. After graduating from high school, I was not ready to give up competitive soccer. Knowing that I wasnt getting much attention from Division I soccer programs, I wanted to go to a smaller school where I can play. However, my mom convinced me that Penn State was the right choice for me in terms of the ideal education. In the end, this decision has panned out much better than I could have imagined. I am playing soccer at the highest level I have ever achieved, not to mention, Im receiving a second to none education. This is still an event in my life that I look back to and realize how important my mom has been in my short 20 years of existence. Life Challenge: My biggest life challenge so far is to be able to balance the needs to my ambition of becoming a doctor in addition to the time commitments necessary for my passion for the game of soccer. Being at Penn State has proven to be a tough challenge. The course requirements for my major, Biological Sciences and Pre-health Professions, are those that need much attention and energy in order to see success. On the other hand, the only thing that can make me forget about anything that is going on in my life and live purely in the moment is the game of soccer. Being that it is a sport, repetition is necessary and this leads to Club soccer being one of the most time consuming clubs. Although this battle of attention within myself has been going on for quite some time now, since high school actually. However, it seems to have magnified since coming to college. I hope I can master the art of this balance very soon. Main Characters: Not only is this person the strongest, bravest, and smartest person I know, she is also the most caring, loving mother I could ask for. Throughout my whole life, she has always been there for me no matter what the situation. If I could have a nickel for every time that she has lead me to the right decision, I would easily be a millionaire. Lastly, her support for me has been unwavering to the point where it would be difficult for me to imagine success without owing a large chunk of it to her. Perhaps a person that has provided a few of the most negative moments of my life has been my high school soccer coach, Coach Rosensteel. Ive met few people who have a passion for something as strong as mine is for soccer. With that said, my biggest disappointments as a soccer player was dealt to me by this man. My sophomore season, I was cut from the team and was told to try again the following year. Furthermore, my senior season, I was named the starter at the beginning of the season but ultimately benched and saw very little playing time in favor of a junior. Although Ive had many negative feelings about the things that have happened between us, I have to thank him for teaching me the value of hard work. Without him, I wouldnt be where I am today as a soccer player and an individual. Life Theme: Throughout my life, I think a recurring message seem to be to overcome adversity. I understand that this is a sports clich, however, at this point in my life I have learned the importance of overcoming adversity. In ones life, there will be plenty of times where things do not go according to plan. This is when one needs to keep calm and try to search for a reasonable solution. If I can master the art of overcoming adversity, then I would be ready to face whatever life may throw at me in the future. Results of self-assessments and diary: Self Image:

Identity diffusion assesses how much I struggle to integrate the good and bad parts of myself and others; while reality testing assesses how difficult it is for me to distinguish reality from my imagination in what I hear and see. I am not (Z=-0.09) identity diffuse, and I dont have (Z=0.84) impaired reality testing, compared to scores of my peers. However, I have noticed times when I seemed to experience others in split off ways. For instance, when my close friends would do something that would not sit well with me at the moment, I dont see the bad side of them. Sometimes I think that there is no bad side to some of my closest friends. Maybe this could be contributed to my groupthink mentality. I have (R2=0.87) a prototypical profile of interpersonal values, indicating that my responses fit the expected circular pattern. My positive (1.86) elevation score means I have higher values than my peers, and the theme of these values are submissiveness and friendliness (Angle=338). I also have (R2=0.75) a prototypical profile of interpersonal strengths, indicating that my responses did fit the expected circular pattern. My positive (0.55) elevation score means I have higher interpersonal strengths than my peers, and the theme of these strengths are submissive and friendliness (Angle=238). Both my values and strengths are higher than my peers; this is not surprising to me because I was always raised to be respectful and true to my values. The part that surprised me a little bit was that my strengths showed a higher level of submissiveness. I couldnt see myself as a dominant figure in any my groups but I wouldnt have expected the angle to be 238. This may be due to the fact that I am happy with whatever the group is happiest with. And thus I dont really like to take control and enjoy going with the flow of the group. My two highest ego strengths are Hope (an enduring belief I can attain despite uncertainty) and Wisdom (detached concern for life in the face of death). My highest Z-score was for wisdom; this didnt quite make sense to me because according to Erikson, this is supposed to come at the later stages in life. However, I have noticed that I am inclined to talk to my friends about things of deeper meaning in life. So this high Z-score could be attributed to that in comparison to my peers. High hope is what I would have expected. My two lowest ego strengths are Fidelity (being true to your real self, in spite of social pressure to conform) and Love (shared identity, mutual devotion, sex as a bonding experience). A low level of Love at this point in my life is what I expected since I am not ready to share immense amount of intimacy with another person. However, I didnt expect such a low score for Fidelity. This may be due to the fact that I am more submissive in my relationships with friends and my happiness comes from theirs. So I am more susceptible to social pressure to conform. I think I am at the stage of ego identity because I can feel myself still trying to figure out my true self from time to time. Furthermore, I do not feel like I am ready to have deep intimacy with another person so I wouldnt be at the intimacy stage. I have high levels of extraversion, openness and agreeableness, and low levels of neuroticism and conscientiousness. The results of the Five Factor Model didnt really surprise me much as I expected to be high in extraversion, openness and agreeableness as well as low in neuroticism. The only thing that was not expected my low level of conscientiousness. I thought I would be high in conscientiousness because I tend to be a hard worker and follow the rules. Perhaps, I overrated myself in this category in comparison to my peers. In my week-long diary study, I had a positive (+1.52) level of self-esteem, the only time I seem to have a higher self-esteem seems to be when I interact with my family members. Perceiving others as more communal, behaving more communally, and perceiving others as less agentic, as well as feeling happier and more content triggered higher self-esteem. I had a positive (+1.86)

level of pride, which increased when I interacted with my family. Perceiving others as more communal and behaving more communally, in addition to feelings of happiness and content triggered higher pride. For my self-image, factors that were important to me were how communal my interacting partner was as well as how communal I was. I found it interesting that how agentic I was did not affect my self-image. To me this might be due to the fact that during my interactions, I seek feedback either through their body language and what they are actually saying. So usually, my agency score may vary more widely through my interactions. Also it wasnt surprising that my family were important to me in both feelings of self-esteem and pride. Interpersonal Relations: I have a close to average (-0.11) level of attachment anxiety and a slightly above average (+0.69) level of attachment avoidance compared to my peers, putting me in the dismissing-avoidant attachment group. This was extremely surprising for me to learn. According to the model, a dismissive person minimizes the importance of family. Which through my experience and my diary assessment, I know to be not true for me. So Im not sure where this could have came from. I can see that my attachment avoidance is not above +1 therefore it is only slightly above average. I can see myself in the secure attachment group. My style of interactions is Welcomer (E=+0.6 and A=+1.09). This makes sense for me because I see myself as outgoing, friendly and accommodating. This is exactly how I interact with others; I tend to welcome others into conversations or whatever it is that I am doing. And as usual, I welcome new ideas when talking to others. I have (R2=0.85) a prototypical profile of interpersonal sensitivities, indicating that my responses fit the expected circular pattern. My negative elevation score means I have lower sensitivities than my peers, and the theme of these sensitivities or bothers are when others are dominant. I think this makes sense for me since I dont consider myself a sensitive individual. I really think soccer has shaped me to be this way because I had been through many ups and downs during my soccer career. So being less sensitive to the things that hurt me would help me move forward as a player and person. I can see this transferring into my everyday personality. In my week-long diary study, I had positive levels of communal perception that were higher when I interacted with family, and positive levels of communal behavior that were higher when I interacted with family. Seeing someone as more friendly decreased my friendliness, increased with communal sameness. I had positive levels of agentic perception which did not differ across interaction partners or contexts, and positive levels of agentic behavior that did not differ across interaction partners or contexts. Seeing someone as more dominant increased my dominance, inconsistent with agentic oppositeness. As a recurring theme in my life, I tend to always associate my family with high levels of communion in both perception and behavior. I found it interesting to figure that there were no difference with agentic perception and behavior across interaction contexts for me. I think this may be due to the fact that I am still very inconsistent with my agentic values. Also at this point in my life I would have guessed my agentic scores to be slightly lower than where they are now. This is because I see myself as very open and not controlling. Mood:

My style of well-being is upbeat optimist, my style of anger control is easy-going, and my style of impulse control is relaxed. I believe upbeat optimist is the perfect way to describe my wellbeing. I dont get upset that much and I always try to remain positive. By remaining positive in situation it is easy for me to go with the flow of things in a very calm and relaxed manner. In my week-long diary study, I was happy, and this increased when I had interactions with my family. Higher levels of happiness were triggered when I perceived higher levels of communion, and when I behaved agentically and communally. I was content, and this was increased when interacting with family. Higher levels of contentment were triggered when I perceived or behaved communally, but agentic perceptions and behaviors did not influence my angercontentment. Again, my family raised levels of happiness and contentment. I find it interesting however, that in many of the assessments it has been determined that my perception of agency doesnt seem to have an effect on a lot of the topics that I am looking into. I think this might be due to the idea that, like I mentioned earlier, I am still developing my views on perceiving agency. Im not sure if I like to be around people who have high agency or low, furthermore, Im not positive of my own identity in that aspect. Cognition: My style of attitude is progressive, and my style of learning is dreamers. This makes perfect sense for me. As a soccer player, I always strive to better my team and myself, therefore being a progressive is spot on. Also sometimes I do find myself daydreaming, and I can see that I can improve on my level of focus when completing the task at hand. My locus of control is average compared to peers. My master orientation in achievement is average, and in affiliation is average compared to peers. My master orientation for both achievement and affiliation are slightly surprising to me. Average could be where I rank in comparison to my peers, but I expected to be higher in both achievement and affiliation. This is because I do believe I am a very capable person and can achieve important things, so I thought it would be higher than my peers. Also I consider myself as a very outgoing person, that is to say, Id much rather work with someone rather than myself. So I expected this to be higher as well. I do not have (R2=0.22) a prototypical profile of interpersonal efficacies, indicating that my responses do not fit the expected circular pattern. My positive elevation score means I have higher efficacy than my peers, and the theme of this efficacy is in being neutral. As I mentioned in other parts of the project, my stance on being the dominant figure is still unknown to me, therefore the theme of these are close to neutral. Also this high efficacy makes sense to me because again, like I said earlier, I consider myself a very capable person that can achieve a lot. So it makes sense that elevation is high in this category. In my week-long diary study, I have a positive efficacy score, and this was higher when interacting with my family. Higher levels of self-efficacy were triggered when I perceived higher levels of communion, and when I behaved communally. Once again, I felt positively when interacting with my family. They have always been so supportive of me in soccer and school. So when I get this encouragement from them, I feel very capable. In addition, my inherent sense of confidence when it comes to capability might also come from the support I get from my family. Coping Style:

Compared to my peers, I tend to engage most often in neurotic defenses. Three common defenses used were pseudo-altruism (making myself feel good by helping others), undoing (thought to atone for uncomfortable feeling), and acting out (acknowledge emotion, then punish someone). During the diary study, pseudo-altruism occurred when I was experiencing higher happiness and higher self-esteem. During the time, which I was experience higher self-esteem due to a hot streak during the soccer season, devaluation did occur. Since soccer is such a major part of my life when I find success, it seems to affect other aspects of my life as well. So when I was feeling happy and very confident, it made me feel even better when I helped others in small ways such as holding a door open for them or picking up something that someone dropped. Influential Topics: I thought Sigmund Freuds psychosexual stages were very interesting. The idea is that individuals during their upbringing have different stages each characterized by an erogenous zone, such as the mouth or anus. If the child doesnt get enough attention in the designated erogenous zones, then they might develop fixations in order to mitigate anxiety and these fixations may show up later in the individuals behavior as an adult. I think I have seen this at work on television shows as well as real life. When one of my friends acts a certain way, Ive had a tendency to think about what might have happened to them as a child. This has also helped me better understand my personality profile. This is because I can see issues with me today that I might be able to attribute to this theory. It is difficult not to think about Carl Jung especially right after Freud. Not to mention, Jungs work on archetypes really drew my attention. So an archetype is universally understood symbol or term. This idea has answer many questions Ive had such as how do people across cultures know the meaning behind a smile. Also I have had many hunches about things to which Ive had no prior experience. This theory has helped me understand my profile because Ive often questioned my feelings about certain things that I wasnt sure about. Jungs work on archetypes has answered many of those questions. B.F. Skinners development of operant conditioning was one of the most interesting things Ive learned in this class. Operant condition is based off of the idea that learning can take place when there are induced punishment or reinforcement. Positive and negative punishment may prevent an action from happening again, where as positive and negative reinforcement may stimulate the desired action to happen again. I have always wondered the desire for people to learn things. Without even noticing most of the learning that I do are as a result of operant learning. It didnt occur to me that things such as grades and food are used as reinforcement in everyday life. This has helped me better understand my profile for the learning portion of the project. Operant condition has opened up to me how I learn. Another theory that really caught my attention was Erik Eriksons stages of psychosocial development. The idea is that through development, stages are marked with a conflict, such as trust vs. mistrust. If the individual can successfully resolve the conflict this will lead to favorable outcomes. This was very easy for me understand since I was very interest in Freuds psychosexual stages, which is very similar. These psychosocial stages have also helped me understand my own profile better by pointing out the stages where perhaps my conflict wasnt solved. And this as a result has lead to unfavorable outcomes and make up some of my shortcomings today.

Summary of assessment results: In summary, one of the strongest recurring themes in my profile was the presence of my family. In almost all assessments, my family has stood out as the group that has been the most positive reinforcement. And I think it is safe to say that I wouldnt be the same person without them. My self-esteem is integrated, I hope to improve upon staying true to myself even in the face of peer pressure this way I can improve on my fidelity. Also I want to further explore prospects of intimacy, I think that being one of my lowest ego strengths maybe shouldnt be the case. My style of interaction is welcomer and that of wellbeing is upbeat optimist. This does well to illustrate my personality because I am rather out going (high extraversion) and easy going (high agreeableness). So I am very welcoming to new people and new ideas. And I usually mostly see the positive in things. My organization of defenses is neurotic and even maybe a bit immature. I enjoy helping others because that makes me feel good about myself. And this happens more frequently when I am in a good mood myself. The future chapters: I imagine myself in a serious relationship in 5 years. Im not sure if I would be ready to be married in the near future but I wouldnt rule out the possibility. And I hope to still be on track for my goal of becoming a doctor. I dont see myself changing dramatically. Of course, changes to ones personality are inevitable over time and different situations. However, I think my solid values will prevent dramatic changes. The thing that will hopefully change that as I mature, my defenses do so as well. There are an abundance of challenges that lie ahead for me, and I think this keeps life interesting. Professionally, I hope to become some kind of surgeon, which requires a very lengthy and comprehensive preparation process. Physically, I hope to remain in shape and possibly still compete at a high level in the sport that I love, soccer. And lastly, a major challenge for anyone would be to start a family and settle down. My dream for the future is to become one of the best doctors wherever I end up. Obviously a goal of mine is to support my family and live a comfortable life. Also, although I feel I may never pay my parents back for all the things theyve done for me, I want to show them that I truly appreciated everything they have done and that I will never forget it. I hope of help tons of people through my profession of curing disease. As Ive talked to many doctors through my research and shadowing experiences, they evolve the techniques they learn to make it more personalized for themselves, this would allow me to explore my imagination. Ultimately, if I can have a positive impact on the people in my life then I would consider it a success. Identifying narrative themes: The stories of my life tend to be centered on high communion themes. Also through the struggles, I hope they will eventually turn out to be more redemptive in nature. One thing that I look forward to in my life is the search for meaning relationships which is why I tend to be more open to people and ideas.