Blog Post #13

Asch's Conformity was a very interesting experiment. These people gave into peer pressure and conformed to the rest of the group. The people in the experiment felt insecure about their original choice. They second guessed themselves and just went with the group. They didn't truse themselves and didn't want to be considered weird by choosing the wrong answer. Milgram's Obedience, to me, showed what people will do to one another under pressure. I was shocked to see how the majority of participants continued to obey all the way to the end. Even though they knew that they were inflicting harm on others, they still continued through the experiment. The Stanford Prison Experiment was shocking to me because I couldn't believe how these people accepted their roles and fell into that role. the guards really surprised me by how they played thier roles and were lost in them. I believe that a rare personality of theirs came through by the role-playing.

Social Influence is when we conform, comply, and change our behaviors in groups. We go along with the "norm" of our surroundings; to go along with the crowd. This again leads to peer pressure. I usually don't cave into peer pressure, however, if my best friend started wearing sweats all the time. I probably would too. I do tend to "follow the group" when it comes to my family. I would follow my family in anything. In one particular instance when I was very young, my family ressured me into singing a song. I didn't want to sing, but I caved into the pressure, and sang for my family.

The most interesting thing I learned in this class is memory. The story of the man who could only remember 12 seconds totally baffled me. His wife deffinately has it the worst with his memory and mood swings. However, his love for his wife, and his love for music he did remember. Overall this was a very good class that I learned a lot in and it helped to explain a lot of things about myself that I always questioned. I now have a new understanding.

Blog Post #12

You know when something is or is not a psychological disooder when someone has ongoing patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that are deviant, distressful, and/or dysfunctional. On page 593 in the book, there is a saying from a mand with schizophrenia. "Voices, like the roar of a crowd came. I felt like Jesus; I was being crucified. It was dark. I just continued to huddle under the blanket, feeling weak, laid bare and defenseless in a cruel world I could no longer understand."

If someone acts "abnormal" they could or could not have a psychological disorder. It all depends on context and varies by culture. In the context of wartime, killing anyone you see as the enemy may be viewed as normal or heroic. In everyday context, killing people you view as the enemy would be illegal. In some cultures hearing voices or claiming to talk to the dead may be viewed as symbolic or special, where as in our culuture hearing voices and claiming to talk to the dead may be viewed as abnormal.

My sister's exboyfriend "Joe" was Bipolar. This was especially hard for my sister and all of us. She loved him but at the times she couldn't handle his mood swings. It was hard for all of us because we hated seeing her get hurt. Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder where the person alternates between feeling hopeless and in a state of depression and being overexcited. People go from being in complete rage to being bubbly. Signs of someone with a bipolar disorder is that they are typically overtalkative and overactive (though easily irritated if crossed); has little need for sleep; and their speech is loud, flighty, and hard to interrupt. My sister is no longer iwth this guy because he cheated on her, but thier relationship was really difficult for my sister. She never knew what mood he would be in that day. My sister is still close with "Joe's" parents but is not close with "Joe".

The most interesting thing I learned in this section was how common Schizophrenia actually is. Just to think that it is like cancer freaks me out. Nearly 1 in 100 people will develop Schizophrenia joining the estimated 24 million across the world who suffer it already. I personally have rarely heard of Schizophrenia and to realize that it is just as common as cancer baffles me.

Blog post #11- Personality

I am an extremely outgoing person who is sociable, friendly, fun loving, and talkative. Sometimes I think I just like to hear myself talk. I am neither organized or disorganized. My room is somewhat organized but I think a little chaos in your life is healthy. I'm not that creative. I have a few creative ideas now and then but I tend to be more conventional and down to earth. Most of the time I'm more concerned with others feelings than my own. I'm very sypathetic, just seeing someone else cry makes me cry, and I do forgive people. Almost too easily. I don't think I could do something for myself without stopping once to consider how it will affect someone else. I'm never really nervous or calm. I tend to be right in the middle. I can be nervous when I speak in front of crowds or meeting new people. Otherwise, I'm calm and don't really worry that much. I also tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. I fall in love really easily and it takes me awhile to fall out of love. My current boyfriend and I have been dating for over a year, and the first time I told him that I loved him was 3 weeks into our relationship. Luckily for me, he didn't freak out and told me 2 weeks later that he felt the same way. I'm not the kind of person who will hold back my opinion. I will tell you my honest opinion. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because I don't want to tell people what I think they want to hear. If my sister is looks big in a pair of jeans(Which is hard for her since she is size 3) I will tell her. But if my sister asks me how she played in her volleyball game, I would tell her she played her hardest and that she did well. She may not be the best but to her, she played well. This of course could never happen. My sister is 21 and literally is amazing at volleyball.

I believe that I am more optimistic than pessimistic. I am optimistic when I look at my life or at little situations. Something good will always happen. If you try your hardest and still loose the game, you may feel terrible but a scout saw you play and sent you a letter to go to their college. I try to look at life as a pathway that needs to be discovered, not an obstacle. I can be pessimistic at times also. My great uncle resently died and a young age. He was 64, but that was still young and he was so healthy. He was out hunting and died of a heart attack. He was the second to die in his brothers and sisters and he was the youngest. I couldn't see how he could die, I looked at this as a punishment to me. I died for no reason, but later I came to realize that Jack died because God needed another angle. We could have used him down here, but God wanted him first. Being more optimistic than pessimistic has impacted my life in a lot of ways. I look at each day differently and try to see what could come next. Each day should be a blessing, not a burdon. This also impacts my life because it allows me to be there for others. When my friends or family are having a tough time, optimism helps to know what to say and to try to make every thing better.

Some triats of mine that can change from situations is how enthusiastic I am and my honesty. At a funeral I am not enthusiastic. I'm usually crying and trying to comfort my friends and family. I may be a little happy to try and cheer them up, but deep down I'm sad too and I just want to cry, not laugh. When I'm trying to protect the ones I love, I'm usually not honest. I'm not going to tell my little cousins and neice that santa doesn't exist. It would break their hearts. I also wouldn't be completely honest if it would hurt someone else. If someone asked me a questiona and by being honest I would hurt their feelings, then I would probably lie just a little because I hate hurting others feelings. Change in our habits benefits us because it allows us to adapt to the emotions and personalitys of those around us. If you swore a lot, would you still be swearing in front of your grandparents. No, you would change your personality for the time being because it allows you to connect with your grandparents on a different level.

When a family member dies, I use the defence mechanism of regression. I find myself wanting to hug my mom and dad when I'm scared. Being scared as a child, I would always hug my mom or dad because they were a form of protection. Now being 18, I still finding my hugging my mom and dad when I'm sad, usually if I'm scared I hug my boyfriend now. When I'm stressing over high school drama, or tests, or even an arguement with a friend, I find myself snapping at my sister or at my parents. This usually causes more trouble because they get mad at me, and then I really get mad at them. Displacement doesn't really help anyone. You find more of reaction formation in elementary school. I remember when I was younger, there was one boy who always pick on me. I thought he was the meanest boy I could have ever met. Come to find out in high school, he told me that he had a crush on me when we were younger. I couldn't figure him out, for so long I thought he had hated me, and then come to find out, he had actually liked me.

Blog Post #10

One interesting thing I learned about in chapter 9 was how we think in images. People can talk to themselves out loud, but even thinking is conversing with yourself. We think about things and doing things without even realizing that we are. Inventors, poets, and even musicians think in images. Einstein saw what he was inventing before he acually invented it. Pianist Liu Chi King is a pianist who was imprisoned in 1958 for seven years. After his release he could still play the piano just as well if not better. He pracitced note by note in his mind every day. Some people like athletes can even watch and this will activate the brain's internal simulation of it. I myself as a softball player can watch the game and think about myself doing it or correcting what I see to make it right. This raises the question, "Is mental practice a standard part of training?" What surprised me was the experiment with the Univeristy of Tennessee women's basketball team. Just imagining making free throws under pressure actually helped them during the game when they had to make them for real. I'll be mentally practicing in all my sports to increase my ability. Even the experiment that was done with students studying habits. I think I'll try seeing myself studying reviewing my notes before tests. I like the point to remember that they put in the book: It's better to spend your fantasy time planning how to get somewhere than to swell on the inagined destination. Instead of seeing myself with a good grade or a paycheck, I'll see myself working on my notes and homework and working hard while at work.

Emotional intelligence is broken down into four emotional intelligence components. They are our abilities to: perceive emotions, understand emotions, manage emotions, and use emotions to enable adaptive or creative thinking. A man named Elliot who had a brain tumor removed sat down with a Neuroscientist for many hours. Elliot showed no sadness, no impatience, and no frustration. He was shown pictures of injured people, destroyed communities, and natural disasters, and Elliot showed, and realized, that he felt no emotion. He knew but he could not feel. Because he was unable to intuitively adjust hie behavior in response to others' feelings, he lost his job, went bankrupt, and his marriage collapsed. Elliot remarried and divorced again. Last report was that he was dependent on custodial care from a sibling and a disability check. I would hate to live like Elliot. Not being able to have emotion, would be life altering. I think that I would't mind not feeling sadness because I don't like to be sad, but not even feeling love or happiness would be a life not lived. For me my family is my life, and if I couldn't beel love for them, or even sadness when someone passes away.... I would feel empty and incomplete. I would always wonder how I could change and actually care. I do believe that I am emotionally intelligent. I have the ability to perceive, manage, understand, and use emotions. I can recogize emotions on peoples faces, whether they are feeling sad ,or super happy, or just want to be left alone. I understand how my emotions can effect the people around me, and how my emotions blend with my friends and families emotions. I can express my emotions when need be. Yes, I do have an occasional outburst but I know when the right time is to have that outburst. I do use my emotions to enable adaptive or creative thinking. When I'm feeling sad or a strong emotion, I write it down in poetry. I keep a little black book near my bed, so when I'm trying to fall asleep and I can't. I think about what I'm feeling right then and write about it. I know my families emotions and they know mine. We get along great and we know when someone needs a shoulder or just needs space. My boyfriend even understands my emotions over the phone and I can understand his. My emotional intelligence impacts my life in a lot of ways and I wouldn't be the person I am today without it. I think it is very important to be emotionally intelligent. Without it you can't understand the world around you. Emotions are every where, and we need to have that intelligence in order to live in this world.

The most interesting thing I learned about in chapter 10 was emotional intelligence. It was odd for me to read about someone who doesn't have emotion. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to not care if someone was hurt, to not care that your child just scored the winning goal, or to not even realize how much someone loves you. You could try to understand but you wouldn't be able to feel anything. That would be the hardest thing, to not have the ablity to love. I would die with out the love from my family and friends.

blog post #9

1. Memory is extremely importnat in defining who we are as humans. It's a form of learning, without it we wouldn't be able to learn. I can remember things I said and did growing up. These things were energetic and revolved around my family and sports. Without these memories I would wonder who my family is and what they are like. I would wonder if I did like sports and if I was any good. If we did not have memory I would not be in this class right now. We wouldn't even have school because no one would remember what they had just learned. We would be living moment by moment and experiencing everything for the first time, every time. Clive Wearing is what other people remember he was. His life is someone else's memory. I think Clive's wife handles Clive's memory damage but at the same time she tries to make hime remember by asking questions and telling him what really happened. He gets mad but she jsut listens and tries to console him rather than get angry herself. She views his damage as a phenomenon. She believes that how he knows he loves her, and how he remembers music is proof that he still has memory. I don't know if I would have handled this the same way. Their love is strong and is true passion, but I don't think I could deal with my husband acting like he's never seen me before, and getting mad at the simplest of things. I'm glad I have my memory. I learn from my mistakes and remember the people who made a difference in my life. My memory could be better, but it could always be worse.
2. Yes, I could be in an argument with my sister, both of us remembering the same event, but each picturing it differently. We both can say we are positive we are right but which one of us is right. Our memories look at certain events both different to each of us. We see what we think happened, not waht actually happened. After reading this section I wonder if my memories of events are accurate or if I made up parts of it. Even after the exercise link, I still wasn't confident in my memory. I remembered little things but I couldn't remember exactly. Even when someone asks me to do something, I have to write it down so I don't forget. I was even surprised at my memory with teh penny exercise on how I remembered what penny was the actual penny. I got it right but I still wasn't completely sure.
3. An interesting concept I learned in this chapter was source amnesia. Source amnesia si that we retain the memory fo the event, but not fo the context in whis we acquire it. Most people have had the event happen where they can recognize someone but have no idea where they have seen that person. Or even hearing something and later recalling that we saw it. This is important because it shows how our memory is susceptible to change. I could hear a loud heavy motor of a truck going by and later the next day swearing that I saw a loud truck go by. Overall this chapter was interesting and made me question my own memory.

Blog Post #8

1)Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. An example of this in my life would be training my dog. My dog likes to run in my neighbors yard, everytime he did this, I would call him back or chase him back, and hit him on the nose. Soon he learned that everytime he went into their yard, he would get punished. Another example is how I got my dog to go to his kennel when I yelled, "Kennel Up!" Everytime I yell this and he goes right to his kennel, he gets a treat. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. An example of operant cinditioning in my life would be my niece. At 1, she had the fascination of hitting people in the face when they got to close. Now 2 1/2 , she is much stronger and her fingers get right into yoru eyes. To stop fer from hitting, her father would put her in a timeout everytime she would hit someone. She would cry and wasn't allowed to get up until she said she was sorry. She doesn't hit people anymore, but when she does, she immediately looks at her dad. The difference between classical and operant conditioning is that classical involves respndent behavior-actions that are automatic responses to a stimulus, and operant involves operant behavior- operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli. This is interesting because both are a way of learning and associations between events or associations between behavior and resulting events.
2) Positive reinforcement strengthens a response be presenting a typically pleasurable stimulus after a response. Negative reinforcement strengthens a response by reducing or removing something undesireable or unpleasent. Punishment is an event that decreases the behavior that it follows. A postive reinforcement in my life is winning scholarship money in horseshoes. When I win and do well I earn scholarship money. Wanting to eran money makes me pracice hard and keep improving. A negative reinforcement would be how I constantly hit the snooze button in the morning. I set four alrams on my phone at 15 minute intervals between 6 and 7 o'clock. This is a negative reinforcement because, as of late, I hit the snooze on my last alarm and end up sleeping in. This causes me to have to hurry to get ready. A punishment would be when I was little my father only gave me one spanking. He gave me one because i talked back to my mother. He only gave me one but I hardly ever talk back to my mother.
3) The most interesting thing I learned in this section was how negative reinforcement and punishement are completely different. I thought this was interesting because I always thoguht punishment and negative reinforcement were the same thing. In the future when I work with kids or animals, I'll try to have negative reinforcement rather than punishment. When i babysit my niece I'll try to reinforce her rather than punish her.

Blog Post #7

If someone would ask me about sensation and perception I would start off by stating their definitions. Sensation is the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. In an easier way, sensation is what we feel through our senses when encountered by things in our environment. Perception is how we interpret our sensation for important objects and events.

The most interesting thing I learned in this section was how hearing is a mojor sense that gets over looked for importance. Our hearing is highly adaptive. As humans we hear sounds best with frequencies in a range corresponding to that of a human voice, and we are sensitive to faint sounds. After hearing a sound, it stimulates receptors in the ear, millions of neurons have simultaneously coordinated in extracting the essential features, comparing them with past experience, and identifying the stimulus.
We hear through the different pressures of sound waves. Our ears transform this vibrating air into nerve impulses, which our brain decodes into sounds. Our ears perceive loudness, percieve pitch, help us locate where a sound came from. Human ears are one of the most intricate and sensitive senses.

The article I read was called, Is Sacrifice In Relationships Related To Commitment and Functioning? This article was about how men and women, and couples in heterosexual relationships, view sacrifice in different ways. One may view it as they are evolving and their sacrifice is linked to commitment. Others view it as a sacrifice associated with depression. This article was interesting because I could relate to it. The states taht a Feminist theory is that women feel they have to make greater sacrifices than men to maintain their relationship. At times in my relationship with my boyfriend, I do feel like this. I feel that if I didn't make any sacrifices and choices, we would never see each other. For my boyfriend, he probably sees his few sacrifices as how he is evolving in our relationship. I like it when he even makes a small sacrifice because then I feel like I'm not the only one trying. However, his sacrifices seem considerably low compared to mine. Reading this, I now understand how he feels and can understand his points of view when it comes to sacrifices. I will try to be more understandable so we can work together in our relationship.