Blog Post # 13

I think that these studies are very interesting. I find it fascinating how people will conform to the group, as in Asch's experiment, even though they know they are correct. I think most people are afraid to be different or look bad in front of others. This study shows that we as humans are scared of failure. We sometimes lack confidence in ourselves and believe the majority is right, even when they are not. I also thought the Standford Prison Experiment was interesting. Normal, decent people transformed into their roles almost completely, even though it was only an experiment. They almost seemed to forget who they really were and took on this imaginary role. The guards were cruel to the prisoners and the prisoners were fearful and withdrawn from the guards. I think this experiment shows that people can sometimes lose themselves in their work or their leadership roles.
Social influence is like peer pressure. When other people around you change your behavior or opinions according to their beliefs, they are influencing you. I have been influenced by my peers many times in school. For example, if we are working in a group on a project, I will usually go with the ideas of the group instead of my own because I don't want to upset anyone. I am more of a follower than a leader so if other people have decent ideas, I would rather go with them than argue about it. Also, I have been influenced at work. If one of my coworkers says we don't need to do something, I will listen to them and slack off even if it means getting in trouble with my boss later.
If I am supposed to be the leader of the group, I will often try to get ideas organized and stuff, but I don't become overbearing or obsessive about being the head of the group. If I am just a member of a group, I will act normally and follow what the rest of the group says.
The most interesting thing I learned is class was how intense the human mind actually is. I learned about how dreams work and how they usually have some significant connection with our lives. I learned that our memory isn't full-proof and that things tend to get jumbled up. We cannot replay our memory like a movie in our head because holes form in them or they become altered by outside influence. I found a lot of things interesting in this class.

Blog Post #12

According to the book, mental health workers believe that a psychological disorder is classified as something that is an ongoing pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions that are deviant, distressful, and/or dysfunctional. Just because a person is different, however, doesn't mean they have a psychological disorder. Some people simply think in different ways or have a different outlook on life than what is considered 'socially normal.'

I cannot really think of anyone in my life that suffers from a psychological disorder. A disorder I found interesting to read about was schizophrenia. This disorder literally means split mind. People with this disorder suffer from disorganized thinking, disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and actions. Schizophrenic people often babble to themselves about random thoughts that pop into their heads. They sometimes suffer from delusions and usually have selective attention. They also have hallucinations and usually hear voices in their heads that tell them to do bad or inappropriate things. Schizophrenic sufferers may also exhibit improper emotions, like crying when something is funny or getting angry for no apparent reason. Life with this disorder would be very difficult and I would not wish it on anyone. The people suffering from it are often disconnected from reality and act totally unlike themselves. I would hate to have this disorder. Life would be really strange and depressing, in my opinion.

The most interesting thing I read about in the book was the thing about the Genain quadruplets. Twin sisters Nora, Iris, Myra, and Hester Genian are all genetically identical. The four sisters all suffer from some sort of schizophrenia. The chances of any four random people being diagnosed with the disease are 1 in 100 million, yet these sisters all have it.

Blog Post #11

I think that a few of my positive personality traits are that I am optimistic, nice, understanding, easy to talk with, and just a generally happy person. I usually always look on the bright side of everything that happens in my life. If there is no bright side, I try to find one. I like to believe that I am a nice girl and I try to be kind to everyone. I feel that I am understanding because I accept people for who they are and try to understand their problems even if I don't know what they are going through. I think I am easy to talk with because I try to understand people's lives and I try not to judge anyone by things they have done or want to do. I wouldn't want anyone to judge me for my past or my mistakes, so I don't think it's right to judge them. Finally, I am usually always happy. I try to stay in a good mood and I try not to get angry. I think life is better if you can enjoy it and just live it with a smile on your face.
Some negative traits of mine would be that I am reserved, sensitive, and I can be a perfectionist at times. Being reserved is a downfall because I am rather shy around people I don't know and I also keep a lot of my feelings on the inside. I am quite sensitive in every way because the smallest things offend me. I cry easily and can get very emotional sometimes. I feel that being a perfectionist is definitely a downfall for me. I like things to be exactly right most of the time and I freak out when something is different or out of place.

I think I am very optimistic. I always try to look on the positive side of life, and if there isn't one, I'll try to make one up. I think this particular trait makes my life so much better. If you make every experience a positive one, life can be simply amazing. If you live a happy life, I think things will work out better for you.

One thing that changes about my personality in different situations is my amount of confidence. When I am with my family or my friends, I usually have a lot of confidence and I am pretty outgoing. When I get around people I have just met or those I get nervous around, my confidence goes down, and I am less outgoing and more quiet. I think this change is 'adaptive' because when I don't know someone well, I am afraid to put myself out there right away and allow them to see what I'm really like. My friends/family know I'm strange, but I don't want strangers to know that! :) Another thing that changes about me is how reserved I am. There are some people I trust fully with everything and I tell them everything. In a different situation involving people I don't trust, I just bite my tongue and don't really talk at all. I think this is adaptive because when a person does this, they are protecting themselves and their secrets from untrustworthy people.

I have experienced regression, or the return to more primitive behavior, when I was young. My grandma used to babysit me on the weekends sometimes and I would always get homesick and miss my parents. I always brought along my blanket or a stuffed animal to remind me of them. That would help me get through the night, even though I didn't need those things when I was at my own house. I have also experienced displacement, or taking out aggression on an object less dangerous than the one that initially aroused the emotion. If I get in a fight with my parents or siblings at home, I sometimes slam my bedroom door just because I'm mad. And then there's denial, or refusing to admit that something unpleasant has happened. I'm sure everyone has experienced some form of denial in their lives. I will often deny something I did that I am embarrassed of or ashamed of because I don't want to admit to it.

Blog Post #10

In chapter nine, something I found really interesting was the thinking critically article entitled "The Fear Factor--Do We Fear the Right Things?" This article pointed out 4 main points about why we fear things we do. 1) We fear what our ancestral history has prepared us to fear. 2) We fear what we cannot control. 3) We fear what is immediate. 4) We fear what is most readily available in our memory. I think that this article is totally true about our fears. I am afraid of things such as spiders or snakes that put our ancestors at risk years and years ago, even though spiders and snakes are barely dangerous at all today. I fear losing important people in my life because I cannot control who stays and who goes. We all fear immediate threats. For example, a smoker may not fear dying from the cigarettes because the danger isn't immediate. If they are diagnosed with a bad form of cancer, however, they then fear the cancer because it could kill them at any moment. Finally, we fear the most vivid memories. For example, if you witnessed a horrible car crash, you may be afraid of riding in a car even though you weren't before the incident occurred.

I think that I am creative. I love art and could spend all day working on projects once I get into them. I apply creativity to my life everyday. I believe everyone has to use their own creativity all the time. Being creative isn't limited to art or writing, either. Creativity is expressed through matching clothes to wear during the day or redecorating a room in your house. Creativity can be applied to almost everything in life. I think being creatively intelligent is very important because if a person weren't creative, they wouldn't be original or unique. Everyone would be exactly the same if no one possessed any creativity.

I found it interesting in chapter 10 how they talked about the size and proportion of Einstein's brain. It turns out that his lower parietal lobes were 15% larger than other areas of his brain. This section of the brain is a center for processing math and spatial information. The book says that this explains why Einstein was slower at learning how to talk but was so exceptionally smart in math. I found this interesting because I remember hearing somewhere that the size of our brains doesn't determine how smart we are. Apparently, in the case of Einstein, the size of certain sections of our brains can relate to how well we do in certain subjects.

Blog Post #9

I believe that memory is one of the most important things involved in determining who we are as humans. It's important because through memory, we remember who we like to be around and those we don't. We can distinguish between loved ones, friends, and enemies or people we don't care for. I believe that the people we associate ourselves with help to shape us into the people we are supposed to be. I think that life without memory would suck. If we weren't able to make and keep memories, we wouldn't be able to accomplish anything in our lives. I don't even see how we could live without memory because we wouldn't be able to remember how to talk, eat, or even take care of ourselves. We would forget who our friends were as well as our family. I think that Clive Wearing has an extremely tough life. I wouldn't be able to live like that, forgetting everything right after if occurs. I think that Clive's wife is a very brave and strong person for being able to stay with him through everything. It must be horrible for your own husband to forget recent memories that you've made together or even that he is your husband. I don't think I would handle things very well if I were in her shoes. I would get annoyed to have to explain everything a million times and it would be depressing that I would be unable to make new memories with my husband. After hearing about Clive Wearing and his memory problems, it makes me think that I take my own memory for granted. My memory isn't the greatest but it could be a thousand times worse.

After learning everything we have about memory, I don't really look at it any differently. The only thing I think more about now is how lucky I am that my family and I don't have any problems with our memories and that we are all healthy. I do see my memories differently, however, because of what we learned about our memories changing due to suggestion. I wonder how many of my memories have shifted or changed because of my own bias or the opinion of others. I don't really trust my memory anymore at all because of all that we have learned. I did the Penny activity on the Applied Cognition page. You had to choose one penny out of 16 that was what an actual penny looked like. It took me about 6 tries, and when I finally got it, it was just a lucky guess. Obviously I don't pay attention to the little details, just the big picture as a whole. I think our memory as humans is drastically influenced by our environment, opinions, and the opinions of those around us. It's weird how we remember things happening differently than they actually did.

The thing I found most interesting in this section was learning about how our memory is subjective to change. Our memories aren't concrete like a photo album or a book. They change a lot and often times we remember things differently than they actually happened. Also, there is no way to 'replay' memories that we have. Each time we reminisce on an event in the past, our interpretation of that event may change. I found this all very interesting because it is definitely true and I thought it was cool to just learn about memory in general. I can apply this to my life by paying better attention and trying to remember things clearer than I currently do. Memories are very important in defining us as humans and say a lot about who we are.

Blog Post #8

Classical conditioning is a form of learning in which one learns to associate stimuli and anticipate events. An example of classical conditioning is if I got burned by a hot pan, then I would associate hot pans with getting burned. In the future, I would anticipate that touching a hot object would result in pain and probably learn not to do it again. Operant conditioning is a form of learning when a person learns to associate a response and its consequence. They then repeat things followed by good results and avoid things that have bad results. An example of that would be if a person didn't do their homework. The teacher would probably be angry with them and give them an F or a bad grade. The next day, the person does their homework, for fear of getting in trouble again and another bad grade. They then receive a good grade and the teacher is no longer angry with them. The difference between these two forms of conditioning is that classical is when you learn from repeated events and remember not to do bad things in the future, and operant is when you learn to do better from negative responses and thrive upon positive ones. This affects my life because sometimes I make mistakes and have to deal with the consequences. After that, I don't want to do it again. I have also been in situations where things didn't always go right for me, and then the next time I found myself in the same situation, I can anticipate what's going to happen next.

Positive reinforcement is when you increase someone's behavior by presenting a positive situation. An example of that would be that you fail a test in school. The teacher offers everyone who gets an A on the next test some sort of reward. Therefore, you study hard, ace the test, and receive the reward. Your teacher was happy with you, and it makes you want to do well on every other test. Negative reinforcement is when you improve a behavior by reducing negative stimuli. An example of this would be if you don't wash the dishes when you are told, your parents may add on to that with more time-consuming or annoying ones. You will then wish you had done the dishes in the beginning because now you have a bunch more stuff to get done. Punishment is a process that decreases bad behavior. People get punished, they are less likely to do the bad action again. If you break your curfew, for example, your parents may ground you or shorten your curfew for next time. They are punishing you for not listening and now you have to pay for the consequences.

I found learning about associations very interesting. I think it is funny that we associate things that cause us harm together. For example, I once burned myself on a hot pan used for cooking buns at work. It hurt so much and left a huge scar. Ever since then, I have been afraid that I was going to burn myself on that same bun pan. I don't worry that much about burning myself on other hot things as much, however, because I associate the burn with the bun pan. Learning about this more in depth has showed me the associations that I do on a regular basis. I will apply this to my life by remembering to be careful around all hot things, not just the stupid bun pans :)

Blog Post #7

Sensation is how our senses interact with our brains. Our five sense--sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing--all allow us to sense the world around us. Perception is the way we perceive our environment. It is how we organize the information our senses provide us with.

The most interesting thing I learned in this chapter was about Heather Sellers. Sellers had an issue with her perception and was unable to recognize people's faces. She wrote a book entitled Face First that tells about a bunch of awkward moments her inability to recognize faces caused. I thought this whole story was really interesting because I think it would really suck to not be able to recognize faces. A person would have to be reintroduced to someone every time they met. You wouldn't be able to distinguish among friends, family, and strangers. I would hate to have a perception disorder like this. This doesn't really change how I look at life. There's really no way to apply this to my everyday life, except that it makes me realize how lucky I am not to have any weird disorders like this.

I read the article called "Seven Ways Music Influences Mood." This article was about a study done on how music affects our moods. They described 7 ways people use music to improve how they feel: 1) Entertainment-providing stimulation, 2) Revival-to wake up in the morning or calm down in the evening, 3) Strong sensation-thrilling feeling of musical performers, 4) Diversion-provides a distraction from poor thoughts, 5) Discharge-release of emotions, 6) Mental work-takes us to another time and place in the past, and 7) Solace-reminds us of a person we have lost touch with. I found this article interesting because I listen to music almost non-stop throughout the day. I especially like the part about mental work and solace because this is totally true for me. When I hear an old song, it reminds me of the day that I first heard it and the people I was with. Certain songs also remind me of certain people, especially ones I don't talk to that much anymore. This doesn't change how I think about things because I already thought about music this way. I already use this in my everyday life.