Blog post #12

I believe that psychological disorders are mainly in your unconscious mind that interferes with one's everyday life. In the book, psychological disorders are ongoing patterns of thought, feelings, and actions that are deviant, distressful, and /or dysfunctional. Abnormal is not always dealing with psychological disorders. I think that men that use women deoderant and other products is abnormal but I think that when women use mens deoderant and products it's completely normal. I react differently to other peoples actions, therefore I may be seen abnormaly. Not everyone reacts the same way in certain situations. There is such a high stander in society that it seems that everyone could have a disorder but everyone reacts and thinks differently. In order to have a disorder one needs to really not have control on their reactions in situations that make them sometimes destructive to others. Everyone has an abnormal habit to others some how in some way.

 

I believe that I have a disorder call Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. This disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts and/ or actions. These senseless or offensive thoughts never go way and "haunt" you. I believe I have OCD because when it comes to making my bed, everything has to be perfectly aligned, the blankets can't be touching the floor, and they have to be folded the same amount. If something was wrong, or someone messed it up I will start all over. My parents make me buy my own shampoo and conditioner because I have to have a certain amount of each and it has to be in a perfect circle or I will start over. My room is not always clean, but when it comes to cleaning it, not one thing falls out of place, if it does, I usually freak out, cry and then leave. I can't stand having dry hands, I will constanly apply lotion to my hands until I feal that they are not dry.

The most interesting thing I learned is the diagnoses of schizophrenia is 1 in 100. I didn't expect the ratio to be that high. It is interesting that so many have the disorder and I wonder, how many of these disorders are actually genetic.

Blog post #13

I thought the experiments really showed how people react in different situations. It is interesting that all of the experiments show how people follow others. For example: if someone is given a job they will do that job even if they know that they will eventually hurt someone else. Human nature only needs to think that they are doing something important in order to follow someone without any thought to themselves about what they are doing is wrong.



Social influence is the way people act when even a job or the way they are treated. When someone is given a job that they don’t normally have then they act completely different then any other time. When I am partnered up with someone on a project, I tend to follow them unless I feel that something has to be different. I show my ideas and I do as much as I can to help out or do most of the work I can without problems. I procrastinate a lot. Also when I have to speak to people that I don’t know I can do it but when someone doesn’t tell me to or if I am by myself it is very hard for me to come up with the courage to talk to the stranger.


The most interesting thing I learned in this class is the mind is a very powerful thing. The mind controls the actions you take in situations that you normally would not think of. Your unconscious mind is where your disorders come from and you wonder about all the things that happen to yourself. There are different reactions that people you normally thought wouldn’t do, actually will do in order to obey what someone has told them to do. I also enjoyed learning about Psychological Disorders. There was a lot of thing that I learned about many of them, that I had no clue existed in parts of certain disorders. I have problems with OCD and knowing more about it helped me, it also helped me prove to my parents that I wasn't just going crazy thinking I had OCD.

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. 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 photography and I like to draw. 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 clothes you wear or decorating your bedroom or locker. 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.


In Chapter ten I found it interesting 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.

Memory is very important because it becomes a defining part of who we are. We remember how our actions and learn how to behave through others’ reactions. If we don’t remember, then we can’t determine how appropriate our behavior is. Our memory helps us understand how we feel about eachother Our encounters with other people build our feelings toward them. Each encounter strengthens our feelings for love, hate, fear, sadness, etc. If we can’t remember each encounter and build upon the previous encounters, then we cannot develop any type of relationship or determine how we can act around them. Without memory, we wouldn’t understand our world and wouldn’t know how to interact in it and with everything. We wouldn’t know sadness, sorrow, or happiness because we would not have any memory of what would trigger such emotion. For example, if someone you cared about died, you would not feel sad because you would not remember your relationship and times you’ve shared with them.


In the Clive Wearing situation, Clive really is no one He has no background knowledge to develop a character. He essentially is a new person each day. Clive’s wife is handling his situation with hope and faith. She believes he does remember in his own way and is optimistic that his condition will improve. In my opinion, she handles the situation really well. She keeps a positive attitude and does not show any sad emotions even if deep down she is feeling sad. She is brave and strong to be able to handle the situation like that. If I was in her shoes, I would be very devastated and very frustrated. I don’t know if I would be able to handle the pressure of my loved one not remembering the times we’ve shared. It would be very frustrating to put up with. It's hard to know that he doesn't remember anything, but you know it happened and you have the memory in your head.



This gives me a new appreciation of my own memory. It is something we take for granted and never imagine losing. Even though it gets frustrating to deal with bad situations, I know that I can learn from them. .






I never thought about how memory worked before. I only knew that we remember a lot of stuff even the things we don't want to. I know that my brain works to piece my memory together and is able to pull out pieces of information that my brain has stored during times of need. In this chapter, I noticed episodes of people having memory loss. For example, Aubri will repeatedly tell me stories, then tell me that she doesn't remember ever telling me them. I now see my own memory as bits of data stored in a computer. It is an extremely organized mechanism. Another example is the Human Memory: Recall activity that I took. In this activity, you were supposed to listen to person reading off a bunch of words. After they have been said, you were supposed to write down as many words as you could.  Even though I heard the words called, I forgot to write them down on my paper. There were also a few words I wrote that I heard wrong. During the reading of words, I made the connection that some of the words were fruits, directional terms, names, or money forms. I wrote down a wrong answer even though it associated with the type. For example, I wrote down dime because it associated with currency, but it was not said out loud. This whole process demonstrates that our memory can be forgetful even if you are trying hard to focus and remember something.

Blog Post #8

Classical conditioning is a kind of learning where a person connects two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Behavior can be conditioned by providing an influence that causes a reaction. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control its response. An example, is when a dog hears a bell and starts to salivate because it knows food is coming. He cannot control his salivation because it is involuntary. Operant conditioning is a kind of learning in which behavior is encouraged when followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. Reinforcements increase behavior. Punishment decreases behavior. For example, a child who is praised for doing good work will purposely do good work to get the praise. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control the events and in operate conditioning, the subject can control the behavior and events. In classical conditioning, the response is involuntary and in operate conditioning, it is voluntary. In classical conditioning, conditioning is acquired by associating events. In operate conditioning, the behavior is acquired by associating a response with a consequence.This applies to my life because our animals are conditioned. For example, when my dog or cats pee on the floor they get punished, but when they go outside or in the cat box they get a reward. The punishment may change his behavior.


Positive reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food, compliments, or desired behavior. It needs to be presented after a response in order to strengthen the response. Negative reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. An example of this is, when you pull on a horse's rein, the bit is loosened after the correct stop. Punishment is designed to decrease the frequency of behavior. There can be positive punishment, which is giving an aversive stimulus and negative punishment, which takes away a desirable stimulus.
An example of positve reinforcement in my life is getting a good job and getting the pay for doing a good job, or getting good grades on an assignment that I worked hard on. The intended outcome was to continue doing my homework and chores without complaining.

An example of negative reinforcement is when I constantly get told to do something such as things like scholarships. I realized that if I do them, they will stip nagging about it. The behavior was not doing scholarship applications, the reinforcement was the constant nagging of my parents, and the intended outcome was me doing the applications. An example of punishment in my life was not being able to go on my very first date, because I lied to my mom. The behavior was lying, the punishment was taking away my priviledge of going on my very first date, and the intended outcome was me no longer lying to my mother about boys.



The most interesting thing I learned in this section, is that there are two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to perform a behavior for its own sake. Extrinsic motivation accomplishes a task for external rewards or to avoid punishment. It seems like most education is for extrinsic motivation. Students want to receive good grades as a reward or they want to avoid the punishment of low grades, staying in for recess, or a disappointed parent and teacher. Only when we are allowed to choose can we truly say our learning is from intrinsic motivation.

Blog # 7

Sensation refers to the processes that our sensory receptors and nervous system recieve from various things in our environment. Perception refers to interpreting the information gained from sensation in order to recognize important or meaningful objects and events.



In Chapter 6 I found Sensation and Perception to be very interesting, because it is proven that we can unconciously sense stimuli below our threshold, and without our awareness, these stimuli can influence us. For example, although we are unable to smell something, our body may still react to it, depending on if the smell is pleasant or unpleasant. This can be applied to everyday life by surrounded someone with positive, but yet subliminal, messages in hope to boost their spirits or self-confidence.
I searched for perception and read and article on Psyblog named "How do Emoticons and Capitlisation Affect Perception of Email?" This article explained that forms of communications such as e-mail, texting, or even blogging can decrease the true understanding of the writer's behavior. With increased popularity, several people use capitilisation, punctuation, italicisation, or emoticons to express and convey their emotion. When capitilisation is overused, readers tend to recieve a bold, intimidating, or even angry perception. When emoticons are used, readers often feel a friendlier vibe. This was put to the test by holding a questionaire among college students. The students were asked to fill out a personality questionaire and then read anonymous emails. Although the students' personality also affected how the emails were preceived, the majority students rated the writers that used correct capitilisation and emoticons with a higher likability and those writers that used intense capitilization with a lower likability.
This is interesting because although forms of communication have changed radically in the last couplde decades, people continue to find ways to justify for what is lost by the lack of nonverbal communication. The study also proves that although the way in which a writer punctuates a message may alter the vibe, everyone precieves the message differently. This can easily be applied to everyday life because these forms of communication are an everyday thing. There will always be some confusion when trying to convey a message.

Blog Post #6 part 2

The "Parenting and Adolescents"  video made me think about lives at home. I agree with the video when it says that kids and their parents often make a big argument over some small, insignificant matters. I tend to fight with my parents over many small things. Growing up I have learned a lot, and my teen years have helped me realized a lot of things. It was drama filled and crazy, but a lot of fun.  I believe that I will benefit from all of my experiences and have more knowledge going into the adult world.

 

One thing I found interesting in Chapter 4 was in the section about gender development. A boy in Canada was born and lost his male parts in a circumcision accident and his parents decided to raise him as a girl. As the child grew, 'she' didn't like any girl toys or girls clothing and played a lot rougher than other females of her age. She wasn't interested in boys at all as she grew up. Then, her parents decided to tell her about the accident. The child then decided to become the male he was born as and assumed a new name, David. He married a woman later on but committed suicide shortly after. This is interesting how your body knows what you are, and your mind knows what you are.


In Chapter 5 I found childhood amnesia to be very interesting. It stated that most of us can't remember much of anything before age 3. This is interesting because we have such a great memory of everything else, but can't remember anything up to age 3. We seem to be able to remember things if our parents remind us they happened though.

Blog #5

One thing I learned from reading this chapter was a better understanding of Identical and Fraternal twins. I learned that although identical twins have the same genes, they might not always have the same number of copies of these genes. Also most identical twins share a placenta, but one of three sets has two placentas. I learned that fratnernal twins develop from seperate fretilized eggs and, although they share a fetal environment, they are just the same as a normal sibling to us.
Another thing I learned is how crucial the things we learn from our parents as a child, are to ou life and brain development. Parents who have poor parenting skills and set bad examples are more likely to have poorly judged, or misbehaved children. Those parents who are dedicated and set good examples for their children are more likely to have children who are well-behaved and successful.

I also found personal space is something that differs in us all greatly.  I learned that Scandinavians, North Americans, and the British prefer to have more personal space than Latin Americans, Arabs, and the French. You would assume that personal space would be a personal preferences, depending how how comfortable or affectionate a person was, but it also depends greatly on the culture they are surrounded with. In France, people traditionally kiss cheeks when they meet. You would never see that happen in America on a normal basis.

The video on sexual attitudes was interesting as well. It shows that there are different ways in choosing who you want to be with. The idea that homosexual men tend to get more sexual relations because they are with another man who want the same thing, is something that I never thought about before. The cultural differences of how we chose, doesn't seem to effect people as much as I thought it would.

Blog Post #4

I read the article "What? Me Biased?". It's about how people are subconsiously racist or sexist. In the article, they talk about President Obama, and how people have found him less American because of the color of his skin. The discrimination is not only racial, we also have unconsiously biase opinions on the elderly and women seeking powerful positions. I find this relevent because it shows how we potentially think.  This makes us questions ourselves such as "Do you find yourself having racist or sexist thoughts? And why?"  People think this way everyday. It's interesting to me because we do it subconsiously. It's like you're born with it, or you learn it as you grow up. Being racist seems to be a subconsious thing, but we have to learn it some how. Where is it, that you suppose, we learn this?




I  think no one should be discrimated becasue of their race or sex, we are all created equally so why not be treated equally? There are such things that us as women have the power to do just as well as men, so why be sexist? There are things that African American, Chinese, or Hispanic can do just as well as Caucasion, so why be racist or discriminate? I was surprised that the article was saying people were finding President Obama less American then candidates from the past because he's African American. Something I did like in the article was that it said there's evidence that when people are aware of their unconscious biases, they can overcome it. I think many people don't realize that you act in a certain way until you catch yourself in a moment. You see yourself, and realize you need to change that one flaw. Until we realize that we need to change this, it wont happen. We need to realize that we do things wrong, after they happen. It's like our brain has a delayed reaction. What could we do to help this?

Blog Post #3

The first activity I did was "Seeing More Than the Eye Does." The activity was to close the left eye and look at this cross with the right eye. You were supposed to recognize the black dot on the right side of the screen, but you can't look at it only with prefural vision. You were to start a couple feet away and get closer to the screen while looking at the cross. As you get about a foot or so close to the screen you will notice the black dot disappears for a second and reappears as you get closer.

The next activity was with "Ambiguous Figures." Ambiguous figures have more than just one meaning. For example one of the pictures was of a skull one way and a woman looking in a mirror with her reflection. The purpose of this exercise was to look at all sorts of pictures and see if you can find another meaning.



One thing I learned from completeing the activity was that we don't truely see with our eyes but with our minds. Also that each eye has a blind spot, so that when the other eye is closed the mind will make up something for the blindspot.



This information suprised me because we have been taught that we see with our eyes, and our eyes do things to help our brain understand.  Now when I look at something I'm not just going to look at it, I'm going to wonder if my mind is seeing this, or if it really is my eyes seeing this. 

Blog #2

Research is important because it allows you to investigate things that are relatively unclear. If you don't understand something, you can simply research more about it to help you understand. Research is an important part of life that has helped us in finding great things such as cures.



I read the research article called "The Acceptance Prophecy: How You Control Who Likes You." This article talked all about the 'acceptance prophecy' which says that if you think someone will like or accept you, you act more warm and nice to them. Also, if you think someone will not accept you, you will probably act cold and shy around them, causing them to not you. In this article, scientists tested this and found that when people felt like their risk of rejection was low, they were more friendly and welcome. When the risk was high, they were more quiet and shy. People who thought they would be accepted were more confident opposed to those who thought they would be rejected. I think this article is relative to my life because everyone has to go through the acceptance and rejection stage and we are all afraid of it. We have no way of being 100% positive that acceptance is the answer, but we have to ability to believe that we will be accepted. We shouldn't frown upon this even if we get rejected. Rejection is another part of the 'acceptance prophecy' that we all have to get over.  Acceptance is what we want, rejection is what we may get.

This chapter taught me other things, such as: psychology is a scientific process that allows us to read the human mind more in depth, research is a very important part of psychology because there is much more to be explored.

Chapter 1

Before this class I thought that psychology was the study of how the human brain worked. In chapter one, it not only explains about the human itself, it tells about the history of psychology. It helps to understand the history to better understand how the human brain has changed.

Psychology affects life in many ways. We understand humans and can read their emotions more effectively, therefore helping us to better help someone else.

The fact that psychology, from the 1920's till now, has changed dramatically is amazing. The human brain is increasing with knowledge as the years go and that means more for us to understand. There is more stuff for us to discover about the human and their emotions.

About Me

My name is Marcie Oestreich, I am seventeen years old. I am a senior at Loyal High School. Photography has shaped me as a person because it is something that I enjoy. It gives me an open mind and allows me to capture the things the human eye only see's for a second. Phsychology is important to study because it will better help us to understand the human mind. I think psychology is the scientific study of the human mind.