Blog Post #13

I thought the Asch’s Conformity, Milgram’s Obedience, and Stanford Prison experiments were all very interesting. Although experiments like Milgram’s Obedience and the Stanford Prison study are no longer acceptable methods of observation, they teach a lot about how human’s will conform to different situations. In Asch’s Conformity experiment, the researchers got people to give obviously incorrect answers by planting others to give the wrong answer. They conformed to the majority rather than saying what they knew was right. Milgram tested to see how obedient people are. In his experiment he had a “teacher” that was told to give shocks to the “student” for wrong answers. Even though the student was in on the experiment and wasn’t receiving shocks, the person giving them believed each shock was more and more painful and that the person they were shocking had a heart condition. Even though many of the teachers did not want to continue much farther than a mild shock, most of them did because they listened to the experimenter. The Stanford Prison experiment shows how people can change to fit into situations - especially when given the role of a prisoner or guard, in this experiment. After a couple days the role playing became very realistic – the guards became sadistic and the prisoners began having stress reactions. The two-week experiment had to be called off after six days because the situation became so intense. All of the experiments show that it’s a part of human nature to conform to the situations we’re in.
Social influence is how we conform, comply, and act in social situations. How we act as individuals can vary greatly with our behavior as part of a group. We tend to mimic others and take on their behaviors too. Once, I was hanging out with a friend of mine when she had strep throat. She was whispering so she wouldn’t lose her voice. Without even realizing it, I started whispering too - even though I could have talked in a normal tone. Another example of my behavior changes within a group comes from when I was a counselor at science camp. There was a karaoke night for the campers – normally I would never get up in front a bunch of kids and sing and dance to music from Grease, but all of us counselors ended up doing it that night. This really shows how social influence can change our behaviors within a group situation.
The most interesting thing I learned in this class was about altruism and bystander intervention in this chapter. When an emergency situation occurs, a bystander has notice the incident, interpret it as an emergency, assume responsibility, and then attempt to help. If there are many other bystanders around, each individual feels less responsible. They may feel like someone else can be the one to help. In situations where individuals see an incident they will be more likely to help because they are the only ones around and therefore feel the most responsible. I think that’s really interesting, but it does make a lot of sense. When I was shopping this weekend, an older boy, who was also blind, had slipped in one of the aisles because he couldn’t see the melted ice and snow. A lot of people were standing around looking at him when my mom and I happened to walk by, but none of them were helping except for an older lady who was trying to see if he’s okay. She found out who he was with and had the store employees page his mother. (He was okay, but a little shaken up). This situation totally exemplifies how most people are less willing to help in group and social situations.

Blog Post #12

According to the book, ongoing patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that are deviant, distressful, and/or dysfunctional are considered psychological disorders. If some acts “abnormally” they don’t necessarily have a psychological disorder. Unless their abnormal behavior is harmfully dysfunctional, distressing, or deviant, their behavior is probably acceptable. A lot of people behave abnormally from time to time and it has nothing to do with a psychological disorder.
I think I may have an undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I can’t eat Skittles unless I can eat them in true rainbow order: red, orange, yellow, green, and violet (purple). I have no logical explanation for why I do this, I just do. It really bothers me if I can eat all of the red Skittles before I eat the green Skittles. A person with a real, diagnosed OCD would experience obsessive thoughts followed by compulsive behaviors. An OCD is an anxiety disorder. Someone with an OCD may constantly think that they left the oven on, but rather than checking just once they will check ten or eleven times. The obsessive thought/worry is leaving the oven on and the behavior is checking to be sure frequently. I think if I had a real obsessive-compulsive disorder, life would be pretty difficult. Having to deal with constant anxiety and distress would make each day hard. Always obsessing over little things and acting weirdly and compulsively would be horrible! It would be impossible to live a “normal” life.
In this section, I thought it was interesting to learn how many people suffer from schizophrenia. I never knew that 1 out of every 100 people suffers from schizophrenia – it’s much more common than I ever realized. I also learned a lot more about the different types of schizophrenia. Some are more severe than others and that schizophrenia can also be genetically inherited.

Blog Post #11

I am funny, easy-going, bubbly, outgoing, hard-working person. I love to making people laugh and meeting new people. I enjoy working hard on projects for school and extracurricular activities but I almost always go with the flow and live life. I consider all of these traits to be positive because they’re the traits that have allowed me to make so many friends and be successful in school and FBLA. Being able to go with the flow just helps in general, especially when things don’t necessarily go they I want them to. I also have an analytical personality. I tend to think about things more than most - sometimes things will bother me for a long time before I say they do. This can be good and bad, but most of the time it’s just really annoying. I’m also stubborn. Once I start something I refuse to finish it, no matter how difficult the task, or how much stress it causes me. If I disagree with something – you’ll know it. And if I don’t want to do something, I probably won’t do it unless I have no other choice.
On a scale of 1-10, I would have to say my optimism level is a 7 or 8. I always try to keep a positive attitude about everything and always hope for the best. I think being optimistic is a really good thing. If you’re really pessimistic you may not be willing to try new things because you’re afraid that things won’t turn out well. On the other hand, being too optimistic can cause more disappointment and let-downs when things go bad. Personally, being optimistic plays a big part in my life. Always believing in the best gave me confidence to run for a state office in FBLA when I was a sophomore. I was scared to death to speak in front of 2,000 people but I knew that no matter what I would benefit from doing it. I definitely wouldn’t have made it to being the state president if I didn’t think so optimistically two years ago. Another role optimism plays in my life is more personal. My dad has had a lot of health problems my entire life and was diagnosed with cancer right before school started. It would be easy to be pessimistic, quit hoping that things will get better and I wouldn’t be as disappointed when things get worse, but being pessimistic doesn’t help him feel any better. By having a positive, optimistic outlook, my family has been able to keep going through all of it. Believing that it can get better makes it easier to deal with.
In different situations, I would have to say that my personality is a little bit different. Or at least, I choose to show different sides of my personality in different situations. When I’m spending time with my friends, I tend to say whatever’s on my mind and tell lots of jokes and use sarcasm because I’m comfortable with them. I hardly ever shut up, actually. When I’m talking with someone I’ve just met I can be a little more shy and tone down my personality because situations like that seem to be more awkward. Also, my personality during class or doing homework can be different from my personality when I’m in class or working. In class, I tend to be less talkative and more serious and focused on schoolwork. After class, I like to have fun and be a little more laid-back. Just because I don’t act the same in every situation, I still have the same personality. It’s important to adapt our personalities because there are certain times when it’s appropriate to show different sides of our personality.
Three defense mechanisms that I use are repression, denial, and displacement. Repression is basically forgetting thoughts, memories, or feelings that are unpleasant or threatening. Denial is refusing to recognize information or events that cause anxiety or stress. Right now, I’m kind of going through repression and denial because I have to write a farewell letter for the FBLA members. I keep forgetting that it’s due soon – my teacher and my parents have to keep reminding me to do it. I think I’m forgetting to do it because a large part of me doesn’t want to say goodbye to all of the friends that I’ve been working with for the past four years. I also feel like the final conference in April is still a long way off and that I still have plenty of time, when in actuality I have very little time to get everything finished. On a different note, displacement is expressing aggression on socially acceptable outlets. Whenever I get really angry and I just want to scream, rather than screaming out loud in front of everyone I scream into a pillow because it’s a little less crazy. If I ever want to hit something, I have a punching bag that I hit instead of hitting a person. It’s a much better way to handle anger.

Blog Post #10

In chapter nine, I learned that animals, such as chimpanzees or monkeys, use gestured languages like humans do. In fact, our language probably evolved from gestured communication like this. I find this interesting because I am guilty of constantly “talking” with my hands. (I even use my hands when I’m talking on the phone). According to the book, using gestures makes it easier to talk about things with spatial content and it makes speaking and hearing easier for both people involved in the conversation because being able to visually represent something allows us to form mental pictures more easily than if we relied on words alone. I also thought it was interesting that blind people will also use gestures – even when they believe the person they are talking to is also blind. It makes sense for deaf people to use gestures too – how else would sign language have evolved? I think it is very true that it’s harder to talk with your hands in your pockets.
The textbook defines emotional intelligence as “the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.” I feel that I am more emotionally intelligent than I am creative because I can often recognize the emotions of my friends and family just by looking at them. A lot of times I can have entire “conversations” with them without ever having to say a word but I will still know exactly what they are trying to say. I can read their faces and their eyes to understand if they are happy, sad, confused, upset, angry, or hurt. Keeping one’s own emotions in check is another characteristic of emotional intelligence, Most of the time I can keep my emotions under control too. Even when something really angers me or upsets me I can keep my cool. In stressful situations I can remain calm and solve the problems without letting my emotions get in the way. I think being emotionally intelligent helps me form relationships with others quickly and it makes my relationships stronger because I can usually relate to others easily. I see how beneficial this is – especially because I frequently meet new people and have to work with complete strangers on projects for FBLA. Being able to quickly become friends helps make the work easier.
I think the most interesting thing about chapter ten was just learning about all of the different intelligences and the different ways psychologists have discovered to measure intelligences. The methods vary a lot, and I think all of them are accurate to a certain degree but I feel like they also have their faults. Some intelligences could really be considered talents and other intelligences are too broad and include many sub-categories. Personally I think Gardner’s theory is one of my favorites because it includes a variety of different aspects of intelligence and it also allows people to have more than one strong point or a “general intelligence.”

Blog Post #9

I think our memory makes up a very large portion of who we are. Many of the experiences I have had in my past have had an impact on who I am today, and being able to remember and learn from mistakes has kept me from making them again. Having to start over from scratch every single day would be very frustrating even though I wouldn’t be able to remember it. However, when I think of Clive Wearing, I noticed that he still knew that he loved his wife and he could still remember how to play music. He’s definitely not the same person he was before, but he is just as intelligent and passionate as he was before. The things that truly made an impact on his life, his passions, stay with him. In some ways he is still the same, and luckily for him he can’t remember starting over each day. His wife, however, can. I think it must be extremely hard to see someone you love struggle over and over each day and it must be so heartbreaking to know that the person you love can’t always recall who you are or ever meeting you. It makes me feel so grateful that I can remember the people and experiences in my life – I’ll definitely try to keep myself from taking that for granted.

After this section, I perceive memory much differently. I used to think my memories could be trusted, but after doing some of the exercises I realized that a lot of details can be lost and sometimes our memories can even altered if we’re strongly convinced that something happened in our past. From the exercises, I also realized that what our brain determines important effects memory too. In one activity, I was shown 16 pennies, each one was different and only one was a correct depiction of a penny. It took me five guesses to get the right one. In most cases, people only need to know that a penny is smaller and different colored than other coins – that’s enough for us to distinguish which coin is which and how much its worth. Knowing which direction Abe Lincoln is facing, where the date and text is located, and what is written on the penny is not necessarily essential information so our brain doesn’t feel the need to store it. Obviously, I should not rely on my memory for some information or details.

The most important concept that I learned was that memory is not something that we can just play back over and over – we can “edit” our memories and so can other people. The idea that memory is imperfect has a lot to do with everyday life – I explains why me and my friends recall events differently and why someone can remember a detail that nobody else can. It could be that the rest of us forget a detail that happened to stick out for the other person or that person is incorrect. The point is that you can’t always rely on what you know and remember. Skepticism has its good points.

Blog Post 8

In classical conditioning, you learn to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Seeing leaves change colors and feeling the temperature become cooler has always been one of the first signs that summer is turning into fall. Therefore, every year when the leaves start to change we expect cool temperatures and a new season too. With operant conditioning you link a behavior with a consequence. Positive response to the behavior will strengthen the behavior. Getting a good night’s sleep and then doing well on a test suggests that sleeping more will help you do better in school, so you keep doing it in order to get the same result. I think classical and operant conditioning has been crucial for humans and animals alike. Conditioning is what has allowed us to adapt to our environments and learn about our surroundings. If I hadn’t been able to learn from operant conditioning I also would not have learned to distinguish between good and bad behaviors. That means I may have never learned that brushing my teeth and flossing every day was a good thing or that having my shoes tied would keep me from tripping over my feet.

In my example for operant conditioning I said behaviors are linked with a consequence, or more specifically positive or negative reinforcements. My FBLA state adviser wants everybody on the team to check their email and respond to emails quickly so every now and then an email will say “the first person to respond to this email and finish the assignments below will receive a surprise in the mail.” Sometimes the surprise is candy or an FBLA keychain. Even though I never know what the surprise might be or which email is going to be the email that has the surprise inside, I still check my email often, just in case. This proves that positive reinforcement strengthens behavior by providing a pleasant stimulus.

Negative reinforcement also strengthens behavior, instead by reducing or removing an undesirable stimulus. Negative reinforcement sounds like punishment but the two are actually quite different. Negative reinforcement removes a punishing event. If I don’t have my homework done on the weekends my parents won’t allow me to go out with my friends. The idea of not being able to see my friends reinforces my behavior of always finishing my homework as soon as possible so I can have fun. If I didn’t finish my homework, the punishment would be staying home.

Punishment decreases the behavior it follows, but it won’t necessarily stop the behavior. Honestly, I have a hard time recalling a time where I’ve been punished. I’m a bit of a goody-goody, but I remember when I was younger that my brother would swear a lot so my parents would spank him and wash his mouth out with soap to get him to stop. Doing this made my brother stop swearing in front of my parents but he still swore in front of other people. My parents were successful in decreasing his behavior of swearing, but they didn’t end the behavior entirely.

Learning about learning has been a bit of an eye opening experience. First of all I’d never really thought about what the definition of learning is. Any time I learn something new I have to link it with a previous experience or something else I have learned or I have to learn by watching somebody else. Now I know that those processes are associative and observational learning, respectively. It doesn’t necessarily change how I think of things, but now I know why I think and learn the way I do. And when I don’t understand something or when I want to change something about myself I can use what I’ve learned to teach myself new behaviors.

Blog Post #7

Sensation is what occurs when our sensory receptors and our nervous system receive stimulus energies from our surroundings. We can sense sights, sounds, taste, touch, and feeling. Perception is organizing and interpreting the sensory information into something more useful. You can sense the smell of flowers but you wouldn’t be able to recognize that you were smelling flowers without perception.

I found prosopagnosia (face blindness) to be one of the most interesting things in the chapter. I find it interesting that some people can not recognize faces – even the faces of their good friends and family. I used to feel bad when I couldn’t always put names and faces together of people I met at leadership conferences, but the thought of not being able recognize of my best friends would be so much worse. It’s one thing to forget someone you only met for a few minutes but to forget a face you’ve known for years is difficult to grasp. I definitely appreciate that I can sense and perceive faces, and I will definitely try harder to remember faces, but I won’t feel nearly as bad.

I also read “The Attentional Spotlight” on Psyblog. The main point of the article was that our eyes could focus on one thing, but our attention could be focusing on another. For example you could be gazing towards the teacher in class, but your attention could be focused on the peripherals of your vision. The blog also examined a study showing that attention moves faster than the eye. In other words, you could notice a detail before actually looking at it, just by using your peripheral perception. Our attention is spotlighted on what interests us instead of just what we point our eyes at. It makes a lot of sense to me. There are a lot of times when we can be looking at a person in the middle of a conversation, but we are more concerned about something else that’s going on around us. In everyday life we don’t always have control over what we’re paying attention to. And sometimes it may seem like everybody’s paying attention when really they’re distracted by something else.