PsyBlog: How Other People's Unspoken Expectations Control Us

This PsyBlog talked about how we immediately conform to how others expect us to act by our looks.  A person who is attractive often times acts more animated.  They did an experiment where they gave the men a picture of a woman.  Half of the men were given a picture of a woman who was rated an 8 out of 10 and the other half given a picture of a woman who was rated a 2 out of 10.  Then, they got on the phone and talked to a woman without seeing her.  If the man expected an attractive woman, the person on the other side of the phone caught onto that and talked more animated and enjoyed the conversation more and vice versa.  

I thought that was really interesting.  I do think that we try to conform to others' expectations of us.  For example, my friends expect me to be funny, so I act funny.  My parents expect me to be well behaved so, for the most part, I try to please them while around them.  My teachers expect me to be smart, my brother expects me to be mean, and so on.  

Video games

I was really surprised at the video game section.  It talked about whether video games teach or release violence.  I have heard a lot of studies about violent video games, saying that students who play video games have a greater chance of becoming violent, but I always thought that it could be that people who are aggressive are more attracted to violent video games.  However, I was really surprised when it talked about the studies that talked about how people with low hostility are more likely to get into fights if they play video games.  They also did studies of nongamers and found that they were more likely to get into fights if they started playing video games.  It was really rather sad.  I don't game myself, but I have nothing against it.  

Blog Chapter 16!

The attribution theory is the theory that we explain someone's behavior by the situation they are in.  For example, at school, especially choir class, I am really outgoing, but at home, I am really quiet and keep to myself.  This is because at school, my friends are there and they get me excited whereas home is nothing new and is rather boring.  

The fundamental attribution error is the overestimation of the influence of personality and underestimation of influence of situations.  As in my example earlier, all of the choir students think of me as extremely outgoing, but that is simply because they see me only in choir.  If they followed me around all the time, they would see that I sometimes like to keep to myself, but am not exactly shy.  

Stereotypes are the generalization of a group that we base our opinions and beliefs on.  There is a huge stereotype that says blondes are dumb, but being a blonde myself, I can see that there is a huge variation in the intelligence of blondes.  

A lot of the time when there are stereotypes, illusory correlation occurs.  Illusory correlation is, in a set of data, seeing the conclusion one expects.  An example would be when people form false associations between the number of membership in a minority group, like Mexicans, and negative behaviors, like gang fights.  We would see that as the Mexican population went up, so did the amount of gang fights, even though there is no relationship between the two.  

Chapter 13- The Big 5

MY RESULTS
Closed-Minded…………..Open to New Experiences (59%)
Disorganized……………….Conscientious (10%)
Introverted…………………Extroverted (89%)
Disagreeable……………….Agreeable (38%)
Calm/Relaxed……………..Nervous/ High-Strung (87%)

I thought that it was really funny how accurate my results were. It showed a lot of my flaws in just 5 categories. Also from looking at this, I saw why I am having such a hard time choosing a career that I believe is right for me. I am so disagreeable that I can't even agree with myself. My dad said that because of this, I should become a lawyer, but I had to disagree, proving that I'm disagreeable, if that makes any sense. Also, my nervousness causes me to think long and hard about what I'm going to do. I once came to a consensus, but because of my disorganization, I can't remember what I was going to do about college. I obviously need to make some decisions, being that it's already my senior year... AAHHH!!!!

Chapter 13 Movie reflection

I didn't really like the Moral Psychology video. I think it took a seemingly simple topic, morals, and tried to complicate it to try to turn it into a scientific, impersonal thing. I have very strong morals and beliefs. I don't think that I think that way because I have gathered together with a group and formed morals as an evolutionary aspect because if it was, wouldn't it be more widly used? I don't want to get into an argument though, so please no nasty comments.
I did really enjoy the human experience video. I liked how they related the personality tests to our everyday life, explaining how Norm applied the tests he took and determined which career he was going to go into. I am trying to choose a career right now and am definitely going to keep doing personality tests to aid me in doing so.

Chapter 13 Reflection

My personality was probably most defined by nature. I am a lot like my parents and siblings but can't think of specific events that have formed me into who I am. I do strongly believe that we can make conscious decisions to change a specific personality trait, which would be nurture. I also agree with Maslow, who said that we have a basic set of needs to be fulfilled. When they are fulfilled we look for self-actualization, or to fulfill our potential. I also believe that our personality, or behavior, can change with the situation, but I still believe that we have a set personality as well that either decides to show itself in these situations or not.

I have noticed that I use a lot of defense mechanisms, especially displacement. Whenever I get home from a bad day at school, I almost always yell at my brother. I regret it later, but I do it again later. It really bothers me. I also have noticed that I use rationalization. If I get a bad grade on a test, I will say things like "everyone did badly" or "that teacher hates me" even though I know it's not true.

Chapter 9 Movie Reflection

My favorite part of the Development of Language video was definitely the part where they talked about how we have to be taught the basic steps of a conversation. It seems so obvious. I mean, a conversation is just two people responding to each other. How would you do that if you had never been taught to wait to talk until the other person is done? What would you talk about? The art of conversation seems as important as the art of language itself. Also, while watching the video, I was suddenly amazed at how smart kids are. We don't give them as much credit as they deserve because we don't sit down and just observe them. Their conversations with others are extremely complex and intelligent for how few of years they have been speaking.

Chapter 9 Reflection

I found this chapter extremely interesting and, better yet, relatable. Our society is a social one and depends a lot on language. There is not a day that goes by without communicating with another human being through some form of language. I really enjoyed the stages of learning language, especially because I have experienced it by watching my little sister, who is now 6, grow up. It was so much fun trying to get her to say single words. We would try to get her to mimic us, causing her to say "Da Da" by about 8 months. It was probably just the second stage, being just babble that resembles household language, but it was exciting. Also, it was amazing watching her language develop from telegraphic speech to full sentences, and it did so in what seemed like days. It went by fast. Now she's reading and writing! They grow up too fast! (I feel like an over-protective mom!)

Chapter 9 opinion of second language

In chapter 9, we learned that it is proven that when learning a second language, it is definitly better to start learning it as early as possible. This makes me wonder why we don't start learning Spanish in school until our high school years. Last year, we hosted an exchanged student from Denmark, and she started learning English and German in fourth grade and barely had an accent and had almost perfect grammar when she came. Also, having already learned 3 languages, it made it much easier for her to pick up Spanish in class and learn Japanese on her own while here. It just seems so much more convenient and I wish that I had done so as well. I wonder why we don't learn languages as early. She had so many more opportunities, having learned so many languages, to travel all over the world. If America is the land of opportunity, shouldn't we have the same chance?

Remembering and Forgetting video

I found the video on remembering and forgetting very interesting, especially the part about the eye-blink conditioning helping to detect Alzheimer's even earlier.  This relates to me because my mom has worked with Alzheimer's patients for a long time and I have seen the stages in which it goes through first-hand.  To detect Alzheimer's early is a big deal.  Although there isn't a treatment yet, it is very possible that if this really is an accurate detection of the disease, that the medicine would be able to develop enough eventually to be able to cure it when caught in it's early stages.  Right now, however, all we can do is exercise our mind in hopes to keep it longer.  

Chapter 8 Blog

Memory is everything.   I always like to say that we should live in the present, but it is our memories of our past experiences that help us make decisions, important decisions.  I remember that, as a child, when I touched the stove top, I got burned.  This memory, although painful, helps me to not touch the stove.  This prevents my hand from looking like a charred hamburger.  Also, moral decisions are impacted by memory.  I remember that last time I lied to my parents, they found out and I was punished, so I try to prevent that now.  This makes me a better human being.  Also, humans are social beings.  We need to communicate and share our feelings with others, especially women.  If a person didn't have any memories of anyone, how would they be able to confide in a friend.  They wouldn't have any friends.  

If we didn't have memory, life would be miserable.  We would live in a continuous state of confusion, and worry.  We would never have a single happy moment.  The bright side is we wouldn't remember being constantly worried and sad.  

Clive Waring lives a miserable life.  However, he isn't depressed.  He is happy most of the time because every minute is as if it is the first minute he is alive.  Everything is new and exciting.  It would be hard to hold a relationship with him however.  

I do think about memory differently now.  I have found that I use the memory techniques a lot more often in an attempt to have a greater capacity for memory.  Also, I have learned to not depend completely on my memory.  Our brains can change them.  It may be hard to almost impossible to recognize, but it happens.  It's mind boggling.  With that said, I do trust my memories to a point.  However, when it starts to impact others, I have to be able to say that my memory might be corrupted.  

The most important thing that I learned is about the eye witness testimony.  This is the idea that the mind doesn't record everything exactly as it happened.  It changes it as new information is represented.  This is important because we have to learn that we can't depend strictly on our memory because we are setting ourselves up for failure.  

PsyBlog: 6 Types of Play: How We Learn to Work Together

This PsyBlog article discussed a rather simple topic.  I was surprised that this was even Psychology.  It talked about how we learn how to play and the importance of play time.  It helps us develop our social skills by developing a sense of self, learning how to interact with other children, learning how to make friends, and learning how to lie and role-play.  For this study, children between the ages of 2 and 5 were observed and their play was categorized into 6 types.  Unoccupied play, that seems to have no apparent purpose, solitary play, when they play with themselves and don't seem to notice others, onlooker play, which is when they look at other children playing, but don't join in, parallel play, which is when the child mimics others activities, but don't join in, associative play, where they play with others rather than toys, and cooperative play, where there is organization while children play together.  What came out of this was that as children get older, their play time develops and they lean how to play more with others.  So, learning to play is learning how to interact with others.  

Television

I was reading the sidebars in our text book and I was taken back when I read the one New York Times 1939 quote on page 321.  It says, "The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued to a screen: The average American family hasn't the time for it.  Therefore the showmen are convinced that... television will never be a serious competitor of [radio] broadcasting."  This was written way back in 1939.  My thought was, "Yeah, why do we spend so much time watching TV.  We complain all the time about how we don't have enough time for this or enough time for that, but we can sit down in front of a TV screen and do absolutely nothing for an hour-long show!"  Just think about all the stuff that we could accomplish within the nine years straight we spend in a lifetime just sitting in front of that stupid screen.  

I find our link to television really disgusting, especially being that we learn so much from it.  There are some really good, educational shows on it, but we hardly choose to watch them.  Instead, we watch action films with a lot of violence, causing us to act in a violent way.  It also introduces stereotypes, which we all say are bad in the real world.  The fact of the matter is, we are wired to learn from what we see and if we are watching TV, we learn bad things.  I say that we shouldn't watch TV anymore.  Ya, right.  We have become accustomed to it.  It is now a form of relaxation.  

Chapter 7

I found the Bobo doll experiment extremely interesting.  I couldn't believe that the kids actually imitated the adult's actions and were more likely to lash out in an aggressive way when angry.  However, I think that the onion breath conditioned stimulus was the most interesting.  It was gross, but interesting.  I can't even imagine kissing a guy with onion breath, let alone be aroused by the smell of onion breath.  It's really disgusting.  

We are classically conditioned to things like our alarm clocks and school bells.  Also, when I was younger, I had a group of birds, specifically Barn Swallows, swoop down at me when I was mowing lawn, causing me to get into a little fender-bender with the lawn-mower that I was on.  Even it was just a bump, I was really scared to see my dad's reactions.  Even to this day, I have a tremendous, irrational fear of birds.   I think that this is also a result of classical conditioning.  

Chapter 6 Blog (I know, late... oops)

I accidentally forgot to do a reflections blog on this chapter... oops.

Some things I found really interesting was the complexity of our senses.  There is so much going on in our bodies in order for us to be able to do what we do.  For instance, for something so small, the eye has so much going on.  It is much more than I would ever be able to understand.  With that said, I found that the sense of touch was the most interesting.  I mean, people have adapted to be able to live without eyesight or hearing, but touch is harder to adapt to.  It is so important for us to be able to feel what is going on around us.  Even as I sit here and type, I realize that it wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the fact that my fingers are feeling each and every key so that I hit the right one at the right time.  I never knew this before, but touch is divided up into four different parts.  I never realized how much there really is to it.  

Why Do People Bother Voting?

This article was strange, but it kind of made sense.  It tried to explain how even though we know that our vote doesn't count all that much when compared to the billions of votes cast, we still vote.  It said that it was mainly because we recognize that others feel the way we do about it and if others decide not to vote, then their candidate won't win.  So, by them themselves voting, they feel that they are making others who feel the same way vote.  It our narcissism that makes us vote.  I disagree that our votes don't matter, because they do.  We should all vote when we come age.  However, this article makes sense in saying that this is why we vote. 

Pain-free

I really enjoyed reading about the girl who couldn't feel pain.  It seems as if pain should be a bad thing, but it can really help us.  I watched an episode of House (my favorite show) this week that was about a girl who had this same problem.  She was in a car accident and that's how she got to the hospital.  At one point in the show, she stuck her hand in a cup full of boiling water and got second degree burns because she couldn't feel it.  She also constantly had to check her fever because she would never be able to tell if she had one or not.  While in the hospital, she had such a high fever that she lost consciousness, but she didn't know it beforehand.  It was really interesting.  Something was wrong with her, but she could tell them where it hurt, so it was a wild goose chase.  They had to check everything.  

Illusions Blog

I viewed the Fourier Analysis, Induced Motion, Use of Visual Information in Art, Effects of Shadow, Vergence Eye Movements, Figural Aftereffect, Color Aftereffect, and Emmert's Law tutorials.  I learned a lot about how the mind can play tricks on us and how our previous beliefs, like the placement of the sun, can affect our perception of a picture.  It was rather surprising how easily my perception of an image changed after having new information.  I also thought it was cool how our minds can remember images we had seen.  These tutorial changed my view of how we sense and perceive the world by showing me how important our beliefs an previous knowledge is to how we perceive things.  This affects me by showing me that I must make sure that I am unbiased when I look at an image and try to only see the facts, although that might be impossible.  

How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation

In this psyblog article, it cited a study done with 51 preschool children who enjoyed drawing. The children were divided into three groups. The first group was told that they would get a certificate with a gold seal and ribbon if they took part. The second group got the same reward, but they weren't told about it until after the activity was finished. The third group didn't receive a reward at all. Each of the children were put in separate rooms to draw for 6 minutes and then their rewards were either given or not given, depending on which group they were in. Then, over the next few days, the children wre watched to see how much drawing they would do on their own. The group that expected the reward beforehand drew dearly half of the amount of time as the other groups and their pictues were rated by judges as being less pleasing.

The article says that this happened because of overjustification. They all liked to draw and were intrinsically motivated to draw because it was fun. When the children received a reward, their motivation changed, making it less enjoyable.

Another reason the article gave was because the reward made us think about unenjoyable activities. We are used to getting money for painful tasks, so when we get it for enjoyable tasks, we think that we shouldn't want to do the task.

This is also said to be true for adults when the reward is money. To a musician, who really likes music, the task can seem tedius when money gets thrown into it. To a student, who really likes reading, may not like reading if it is for school because school assignments are normally boring, so we make the connection that reading must be boring too.

Chapter 5 video reflections

The video from learner.org was really interesting. I especially liked how it talked about how babies aren't helpless. They have traits that help their survival from the sucking reflex so that they can eat, to their cute looks and behaviors that cause adults to want to have kids of their own and to pay a lot of attention to them. Another thing that I really liked was the experiment where the lady hid a little snoopy toy in a model of the room while the child was sitting there. Then, she hid the big snoopy in the same spot in the actual room and told the child to find it. It was interesting seeing how much of a difference that little difference in age made in whether or not they would be able to understand the question and the idea of the little room being a model of the big room.

I also enjoyed the video on adolescence. I can definitely understand and relate to that video. I remember, when I was in junior high, I always got into fights with my parents over the dumbest things. I can definitely see how that is a result from wanting to be your own person and separating from your parents. In general, adolescence is a hard period of life.

Chapter 5 reflections

In this chapter, once again, I learned a lot. For instance, I found it interesting that falling in love is pretty much a matter of chance encounter. I found this surprising because, in our culture, the expression "one true love" is used a lot, but you could have fallen in love with anyone, not necessarily that one person. I also really liked learning about the different parenting methods, such as: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Authoritarian parents are more demanding, permissive more submissive, and authoritative demanding, but responsive. I also enjoied Peaget's Theory. It was strange thinking the potential for mature moral reasoning and abstract logic doesn't develop until we are over 12 years old.

Why Left to Right Punches are More agressive, Powerful, and Shocking

In this PsyBlog article, it talked about how the fact that our culture reads left to right effects how we view other things. For instance, we view numbers from one to infinity laid out from left to right. It was discovered that this even effects how we interpret movement. Objects, such as cars, punces, and soccer player's kicks are viewed as more powerful and stronger when moving from left to right. Another thing they talked about was how stereotypically, guys are viewed more dominant. It is found that in most pictues, guys are found on the left side because that is the side associated with power. Also, if one wants to look more powerful, like posing for a work picture, people tend put their right cheek forward. However, when posing for family photos, they put their left cheek forward, causing them to look more friendly and passive. It was also discovered that in cultures where they read from right to left, this effect was reversed.

I think that this article was really bizzare. After thinking about it, I also noticed that most car commercials have the car moving from left to right on the screne, making them seem more powerful. I would have never made the connection if it not for this article.

Response to videos

I thought that the videos were very interesting. I've never really thought that our personalities and behaviors could be a direct impact of our design and development. They were just always that way, in my eyes, and I didn't really ever question it.

One thing that I found interesting in the video on sexual attitudes was when they talked about gays. As the video said, a fertile relationship is one of a male and a female, so that is what would be passed down through the generations if sexuality is a genetic trait. Our civilization has been around for quite some time. Doesn't that mean that gays would already be nonexistant. The trait wouldn't be passed down, so there wouldn't be any more gays. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with gays. I'm just saying that homosexuality is probably a environmental trait. It is a result of something that has happend personally. Same is true of religion and morals.

Chapter 4 reflections

By reading chapter 4, I realized that I really underestimated the power of genetics. For example, I learned is the fact that when children are adopted, their personalities resemble those of the biological parents. This is even true if the children never met their biological parents. I thought this was interesting because I always thought that personality was formed by nurture. However, the religious beliefs and manners resemble those of the adoptive parents. Another thought it was interesting learning about the theory of evolutionary psychology. I'm not sure if I agree with it or no, but it was strange thinking that our behaviors could be a direct effect of survival-of-the-fittest. Finally, I think that the idea of gender development was baffling. I always thought of men and women as almost two different species because of how we act. However, we are actually more similar than different.

REM sleep

After studying the sleep section and now that I'm doing the sleep and dream study, I started thinking a lot about sleep and dreams. More specifically, the effects of the REM sleep on our bodies. I haven't remembered one of my dreams in a long time. In fact, the last time that I can recall was when I was in third grade. I also am an EXTRMEMLY deep sleeper. It's almost unhealthy. Even when I was a baby I slept really deep. I stopped peeing in my diaper when I was 6 weeks old. My mom said that it was almost as if my bladder shut down at night. I also am really hard to wake up in the mornings. Once, I slept through a smoke detector!!! I absolutly CAN'T wake up on my own. I've tried so many times, and even with an alarm that sounds like a siren, I can't wake up on my own. My mom has to physically remove me from my bed. It's going to make college life really hard. I also am never completely refreshed. I act awake when things are going on, but the second I'm a bit bored, I nod off. I get a lot of sleep at night most of the time too. I normally sleep 9 hours a night. I was wondering if you extremely intelligent people think it's possible to sleep completely through the night with a very little amount of actual REM sleep. I sleep so deeply and REM sleep happens when we are extremely close to consciousness, and that would explain why I always feel unrefreshed when I wake up and why I show symptoms of severe sleep deprivation.

Implicit Association Test

I took the Implicit Association Test concerning race. In my opinion, this test was rigged in a way. Whether they were rigged “consciously” or “unconsciously,” I do not know. I would have felt much better about it, however, had it been they asked the personal questions after we had already received the results, mainly the questions on race, whether we were right or left-handed, and how we thought the results would turn out. For instance, I am a white female. I don’t necessarily consider myself prejudice or as favoring any specific race, but I figure it could be possible. I mean, I haven’t been in any situations where it was put to the test in the real world, but I can’t imagine that I would be prejudice. I go to a school where there is only one African-American family, and other than their three kids, the only Blacks I know are under the age of 7 and adopted. My first round of the test, I had to push the “I” button with my right hand (my dominant hand) if a European-American person appeared on the screen and the “E” button with my left when an African-American appeared. After that, I had to push the button with my right hand if a positive or good word appeared and left for a negative or bad word appeared. Then, the two tests were combined. I used my right hand for any European-Americans or good words and left for any African-Americans or bad words. It was super easy since I was supposed to be using the same hands as both previous tests and was simply a combination of the two but, other than that, there were no other variables. Then they were switched. I was to use my right hand for European-Americans and bad words and left hand for African-Americans and good words. It was easy to decipher the pictures because it was the same as before, but trying to sort the words was difficult because it was completely switched from both of the previous tests. Of course I was going to be a little slower at it. My results came back as moderately favoring whites over blacks. With that said, I don’t think that they tell much about the unconscious mind and even though my test turned out as it did, it hasn’t changed my mind on my prejudices.

I don’t think that the test showed it, but society probably does have an effect on our prejudices and unconscious mind. I could possibly favor whites, having been barely exposed to African-Americans, even though I know consciously that they are no different. A lot of the times in movies, the drug dealers and robbers are big Black guys and TV is my main exposure to Blacks. I don’t think that we know exactly what goes on in our brains because it is so complex. That means that we aren’t aware of our own attitudes and how they affect our actions. I mean, I have heard some people I really consider negative say that they hate it when people are negative. Another example is when someone who refers to Blacks as scary says that they aren’t prejudice.

Because I don't agree with the test, my views haven't really changed.

Consciousness and the 2-track mind

This chapter talked about a lot of different things, all leading back to the topic of consciousness. It talked about different levels and forms of consciousness, like dual processing , the cocktail party effect, selective attentiveness, inattentional blindness, change and blindness. Hypnotics was discussed. Drugs was another topic that it covered. However, what I found most surprising was the topic of sleep. I knew that there were different stages of sleep. However, I thought that you dreamt the entire night. Boy, was I wrong. You actually only dream about forty minutes a night!!! Also, I thought that you dreamt when you were in the deepest level of sleep but it's actually when you are closest to consciousness.

The concept that I agreed with most in this chapter was probably the idea of selective attention. Even while writing this blog entry, I experienced it. My little sister was trying to get my attention so that I could do her hair for quite a while before I even realized that she was there! She was yelling my name, kicking her feet, and waving her hands in front of my computer screen. It wasn't until she put her hand on my arm to shake it that I realized that she was there. I jolted up and about threw my laptop across the room. Immediately following, I had to run to the bathroom because I was so frightened (ok, not really, but it added to the story).

The idea that I'm still unsure about is dual processing. The idea of the conscious and unconscious thoughts being processed on completely different tracks sounds a bit creepy to me. I mean, it makes it seem as if we have this separate life form with its own thoughts living inside our skull and living off of our circulatory system supplied by our heart's labor. Our brain is what makes us who we are. Our brain is us. Therefore, how can our brains hide information, prejudices, and ideas from itself? It just baffles me.

I really like this chapter, in general, although I found some of the topics strange.

Decisions

While doing the worksheet on the different parts of the brain and how we use them while driving, one area really intrigued me. I found out that the frontal and prefrontal lobes (the areas that are used in decision making and recognizing consequences) aren't fully developed until we are about 25. To me, this means that we shouldn't have to make college and career decisions until we are about that age and know exactly what we want to do and what would be the best for us. I mean, it's a big decision and will haunt us forever. If we make the wrong choice because our brains simply aren't full developed, it's not going to be good. That is why I have decided that I am going to live at my parents house until that time. (ok, so not really, but it's worth a shot) :) Who's with me?

Stress

I just finished reading Missy Avery's blog about stress. She talked about how when we are stresses, it seems that illness always follows. I looked into this a little bit and this is what I have found. I haven't made a final decision on what I think it is, but here is a few suggestions.

In the book, it talked about how when you are stressed, the sympathetic nervous system does things like: increases blood pressure, blood sugar, and heartbeat and slows digestion. Things like this (especially the slowing of digestion and low blood sugar) can cause you to feel sick to your stomach.

It could also be that possibly our immune system becomes weak when we are stressed from these reactions in the sympathetic nervous system and we do actually get a virus.

My third guess is that maybe we get so worked up about things that are going on that we have the symptoms of an illness in our heads. Our brains are powerful things and can do that kind of stuff.

The most simple reason I could think of is that it's just in our heads that we get sick EVERY time we are over stressed. It really only happens a little bit, but we only realize it when it does. (if that makes sense)

The Brain and Behavior

I completed the activities "Seeing More Than Your Eye Does," "Ambiguous Figures," "The Three Doors of Serendip," and "Ant Colonies: Social Organization without a director." I found that I learned the most from the ant one. What it did is set up a colony with 25% of the ants as midden workers, 25% as patrolling workers, and 50% as foraging workers. You could remove workers, follow a specific ant, and a lot of other things in order to find out if there was an order to the ants, if one group of ants were different than the others, etc. What I found the most interesting is after doing all of the experiments, I found that there really wasn't a leader of the ants. I thought that was really cool. I think that in todays society, we give specific people way too much power. I think that the ant colonies are one of the most organized societies. We should try to model them in certain areas of life. For instance, there doesn't always have to be a boss over coworkers or a captain of a team. Also, the ants helped each other out and worked where ever was needed. They didn't stay to their specific job.

One thing that I learned in chapter 2 that I found interesting was the amygdala. One thing that has always bothered me is my temper. Now I learned that the reason for my unreasonable temper was the amygdala. I hope that someday there will be a surgical cure for aggression, but until then, I will just blame it on the amygdala. :)

I also found all of the different transmitters interesting, especially the acetylcholine. My mom has worked with Alzheimer's patients for quite a few years now. It was nice to know a little bit about what is going on with the ACh and how they deteriorate with Alzheimer's. There isn't much information about it, so any little bit that is know is intriguing to me.

Finally, I probably found the split brains and hemispherectomy the most fascinating. It's amazing how intricate and wonderful the brain is and how it can adjust the the most bizarre situations. I never knew that it could do that.

thinking critically blog

Where would we be without research? It has contributed to a lot of major things. I'm sure that a lot of research was put into making this very computer and light over my head. However, we also use research as individuals everyday of our lives. We walk into the lunch room and observe those around us to figure out who we would fit in with better and have the best conversations with at the lunch table. Not only that kind of research, but also scientific research contributes to our everyday lives. Where would we be without modern medicine? In Psychology, there is also research on behaviors and actions. For instance, I read an article in PsyBlog that was called Persuasion: The Right-Ear Advantage. This kind of research also contributes to our daily lives. For instance, I learned that language is processed by the left side of the brain. Being the the left side of the brain controls the right side of your body, your right ear is what gives the language portion of the brain it's input, helping you to understand what is being said. In this experiment, they found that if you want to persuade someone, you are twice as likely to get what you are asking for if you say it directly into the right ear. So, by reading this article, I learned how to better my chance of getting what I want from my parents. :) I also learned why I have to hold my phone up to my right ear to get the most out of the conversation although my hearing is better in my left. It was really interesting.

my thoughts after reading Chapter 1

When I signed up for Psychology, I knew that it was going to be the study of the mind, but I didn't realize how much of a science it really is. It has a lot to do with formality and methods. I'm not so sure that studying psychology will effect my life all that much. Of course, I'm only a week and a half into the course and my opinion could change. Being that Psychology has a lot of different theories, without there being a definite truth, this class will just force me to make some definite decisions on what I believe to be true when it comes to this area of study.

One thing that I found really interesting was the idea of the placebo effect because I can see how this is true. A lot of times, things like medication and treatments work because we want them to. Our minds are really powerful and can be kind of deceiving. Hindsight bias was also really fun to study. I tried to unscramble the words for just a few seconds before looking at it and didn't really come up with an answer. However, when I looked at the words behind them, I said, "Oh, DUH!! I knew that." That's when I realized exactly what the author was getting at.

Introduction

My name is Candace Ann Giwojna, but I've been called Candi my whole life. In fact, I didn't even know that Candi wasn't my full name until I was in Kindergarten and I kept wondering why she was calling me by some other kids name. Being that I'm 17-years-old now and a senior in high school, that was about 12 years ago. I currently go to Flambeau High School, but I just moved here from Stanley last year. The move would have to be the one thing that shaped me into who I am today. Before I moved to Sheldon, I was always very uptight, and frankly, not much fun. I only concentrated on my homework, so I also was always stressed out and took everything that happened personally. When I moved, I met some great friends who changed my life. They made me not afraid to be different, loosen up, relax, have fun! I thank them for that.

I always thought of Psychology as the study of the mind. Things like emotions, why we do what we do, and what goes on in the brain in any given situation would be some things that I would expect to learn about in this class. With this said, I would also have to say that it is rather important to study Psychology. We can't do anything without using the mind, so we should know at least a little bit about how it works.