Blog #16

Its been a fun last few months of psych, I have really learned a lot of new things. I have really enjoyed this class and loved every minute of it. I thought that everything was interesting and I loved learning about it. This class has been super fun and I thought that I got a lot out of it. I love learning about they way we think and do things and I liked learning new things about the human mind that I didn't know before or even thought of before.
After taking the AP test, I felt very confident that I did great on the multiple choice part. There was only a few questions that I wasn't sure of the answer too and there was questions that I just knew and felt strong about. I enjoyed that feeling and think that I did quite well on it. The free response was hard and tough. Some of the things I didn't know a few things, but there was a few that I kinda knew. Overall, I think that I did well on the AP test.

Blog #15

One thing that has been confusing me during the last few test was all of the different perspectives. I wanted to way to compare all the perspectives and remember them. I wanted to find a video so help me study and I found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-kwOvrcYw. I think that this video does a great at being a study tool. It gives excellent examples and then gives you a chance to answer what perspective it is. I think that it really helped me learn the differences and get examples. The video was interesting and I thought that the examples and descriptions of all the perspectives were helpful and I think that it gave me a better understanding of some of the perspectives. I enjoyed the video and thought that it was quite useful. 

blog #14

This week in psych we discussed how authority can have an effect on how people act and do things. Just being told that someone else in higher then everyone else, makes those people feel that they need to fallow the directions even to them. Most of the time it doesn't matter what they are being told to do or how hurtful in can be to some people. If they are being told to do something they will do it because they don't want to get in trouble. I think that having people in charge can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing.

In the video that we watch this week in class it showed "teachers" being told to if an electric shock to "students" when they get a question wrong. The teachers were being told to increase the shock every time. They were testing to see how long they would keep the experiment going and to see if they would stand up to the leader. Most people continued the experiment until the very end and only a few stood up and wouldn't finish. At the end of the experiment they were told that there really wasn't any "students" being shocked. I think that if they really was "students" being shocked that they would be an example of how obedience to authority could be an extremely bad or harmful thing.

On the other side obedience to authority can an extremely good thing. I think that to accomplish a project or to get things done there would have to be a person in charge to oversee what is going on and make sure that everything gets done. If that person wasn't there, it would be hard for things to get done and take longer. Teachers and bosses re another good example of why we need authority in schools and at work. Authority can be helpful and rewarding, but it can also have a bad side and not be so wonderful.

Histrionic personality disorder

      I am the histrionic personality disorder and I cause people to very emotion and dramatic to draw attention to themselves. I make people angry easily, dependent on others, and seductive. My self-esteem depends on others approval. In the DSM-IV-TR I am cluster B under personality disorder, people in cluster B exaggerate their emotions and go to excessive length to seek attention.
      I begin in early adulthood and occur more often in women than in men. The cause of me is unknown, but both genes and early childhood events are thought to be contributors. Histrionic disorder people are able to function at high levels and can be successful socially and work. Symptoms of me are: acting or looking overly seductive, being easily influenced by other people, overly concerned with their looks, overly dramatic and emotional, and Needing to be the center of attention.
      If symptoms are present, a doctor will begin an evaluation by performing with a complete medical history and physical examination. There are no laboratory tests to diagnose personality disorders, the doctor can use different diagnostic tests to rule out physical illness. If the doctor finds no physical reason for the symptoms, they could possible refer the person to a psychiatrist or psychologist, health care professionals who are trained to diagnose and treat mental illnesses.

Blog #13

    Yesterday, in psych we watched two videos on mental disorders. The first one was on two people who had OCD and the second one was on a women who had DID. I watched both of these videos before and they were just as good the second time as they were the first time. I found them both to be very interesting and did a good job and showing how these disorders can have an effect on people's lives.
    I think that OCD would be very hard and scary to live with. I feel that people with OCD have rough lives and I feel bad for them. The video does show very well how having OCD can really have a toll on a people and they life. They have trouble forming and keeping relationships. People with OCD get questioned a lot about the things they do, especial if they repeat the same thing over and over again. I think that would be even harder on them then actually having to deal with themselves.
    I think that having DID would be scary and hard. I think that they video did an excellent job at showing how DID works and how someone who has it will act. I feel that waking up one day and thinking you are someone else would frighting. I think that it would be really hard on the person and their family.
    Both of these video were great and did a great job and showing on OCD and DID effect a person and the people that care about them. It would be difficult and rough to live with either one of these disorders.

Blog #12

My test results for the three personality test are as fallows:

Big Five Test 1:

Extraversion-3-low

Agreeableness-5- High

Conscientiousness-5.2-High

Emotional stability-5.4-high

Openness-3.8-low

Big Five Test 2:

Extroversion-56%

Accommodation-84%

Orderliness-79%

Emotional stability-79%

Openness-39%

Myers Briggs Style Test

Extraverted-11-low

Sensing-12-low

Feeling-38-mod

Judging-33-mod

I think that these test are valid because majority of my results were about the same and fit be well. I feel that they were right on and were really good at judging my personality. I think that the test were well made and useful.

The letters that I got on the MMPI test were ESFJ. Standing for Extraverted, sensing, feeling and judging. I agree with most of these letters and think that they on right for me.

I think that I did great on the lie test because I read that question carefully and really thought about them. I did notice quite a few questions that would fit on the lie scale. Most of them were in the first big five test. There were only a few in the other two test.

Blog #11

This week in psychology we discussed the theories of motivation and I found them to be quiet interesting. We looked at the instinct theory which is behaviors that are rigid patterned and unlearned. The drive-reduction theory in which physiological needs create motivation, such as thirst and hunger. Another theory is the incentive theory that positive or negative environmental stimulus motivate a behavior. Lastly, the optimum arousal theory increases arousal. Another thing that we looked at this week was Maslow's pyramid of hierarchy of needs. His pyramid shows the basic human needs starting with physiological needs and once those needs are met you move up the pyramid to self-transcendence needs at the very top.

With all of these theories I wanted to find a way to look at them in an easier way so I went and found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4flf6XHJUc which I feel does an excellence job at showing all of these theories and explaining them.

Intelligence In Men And Women Is A Gray And White Matter

Men and women have significantly differences in their intelligence. A study shows that women have more white matter and men have more gray matter linked to intellectual skills. A professor at psychology in Department of Pediatrics said “These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior,” Men have about 6.5 times the amount of gray matter and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence. Gray matter represents information processing and white matter represents the networking of connections between these processing centers. This can explain why men are better at local processing, like mathematics and women excel at participating and adjusting information from dispersed gray-matter regions in the brain.

Blog #10

This term in psychology I think that I worked hard, but that I can improve on some of the things that I did. Even though I did all of the readings, I feel that I could have done more to understand the material and spend more time on them. I think that this next term I am going to spend more time on the readings and go over them more, so I can improve my grade and scores. I also think that I might try to study more and spread out my study time for this next them. I am also going to take more of the on-line quizzes to help me. Next term, I want to work even harder and try to improve my grade and study more for quizzes and test.

Blog #9

This week in psychology we read articles on memory. I found the articles to be quite interesting and worth reading. I found out things that I never knew before and I enjoyed reading them. The articles I read were "Forgetting is the New Normal" and "The Many Flavors of Memories". Both of the articles were about ways that can help improve your memory and help you remember more. Some things that were big and they pointed out were exercise, diet, and emotions.

The first article talks about how when you exercise your body produces more neurons and they fired together better. Just walking two miles a day can help improve your memory. You don't need to work out hard core or anything like that; just a little bit of exercise each day can help. This article also brings up the point of your diet and that certain foods can help you remember. Some foods that help are blueberries and walnuts. I am not a fan of either one of these foods, but maybe I will eat them every once in a while.

The second article talked about using drugs to improve your memory and giving people these drugs to help them remember past events. I don't agree with this and I think that it is terrible that researchers are using drugs on people to help with memory. This article also touches on emotions. The more emotion linked to an event the more likely the person is to remember the event in later years. I find that to be very true, if there are high emotions in something whether good or bad the more likely you are the remember the details of what happen.

I found both of these articles to be very interesting and informative. After reading these articles I had a better understanding of memory and ways to help improve your memory and slow down the process of memory loss in the future. I learned some new information; that exercise helps improve your memory and that blueberries can help, also.

Blog #8

This week in psychology we learned about memory. Memory is a very interesting topic and really caught my attention. I found it to be very exciting. I decided to look at video on memory and I found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TausqSK9p9k.

I think that this video was very interesting and did a great job at going through all of the steps of memory.

It did a great job at explaining the steps involved in encoding, storage, and retrieval. It was also really good at explain the different between long-term and short-term memory and how each one of these steps work. It also explain how much and how long information can be storied. It also went a little into chucking.

Blog #7

One topic of the reading that I found interesting was operational conditioning. I find it to be super entertaining and strange. I think that having children do something just because they see someone doing it is fascinating. In the reading it brings up the bobo doll experiment and I found that to be quite interesting and decided to watch a video on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr0OTCVtHbU. This video really shows how a behavior can be shaped just by watching a person do and say things. I found the part when the little girl is in the room with other toys and the bobo doll and starts beating up the doll instead of playing with the other toys. This really goes to show that adults and other person need to watch what they say and do with children around.

Blog #6

Today in psychology we did two demonstrations with the ears. The first one we did was dealing with the vestibular sense that senses your bodies position and movement, including the sense of balance. Your vestibular sense is in your inner ear and uses a sense of equilibrium to determine where your body is: upside down, high in the air, or on the ground. In class we demonstrated this by placing a person on a board blindfolded. Two people lifted the board about two inches and the teacher would say raise the board up, but really he would just move down. We did the experiment three times, but it only worked once. Danielle was the only one who thought she was going up in the air, while the another two knew that the teacher was just moving and they weren't. I found that to be very interesting and weird at the same time. I thought that they would all think they were moving, but I guess not.

Another hearing lab that we did was placing desk about a chair and placing someone in the middle, while the people in their desk would tap a pen. The person in the middle had to guess where they were hearing the sound from. It is much easier to hear if a sound is coming from the left of right, but extremely hard to tell if it is coming from in front of you or behind you. That is because when a sound comes from the front or back they reach your ears at the same time, but when it comes from the left or right they reach your ears at the same time. I find this experiment to be interesting, because it is really hard to tell where a sound is coming from and can be quite difficult.

PSA Blog

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU24YM3mXdE&feature=g-upl&context=G2d101b9AUAAAAAAAGAA

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0uOnUg4Cpk

3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9TBMT5p57c&list=UUc6kTHkUxvPS03cMz5ZA7Zw&index=2&feature=plcp

My favorite video is the second one because I really enjoyed watching it. I thought that they really made an effort making the video and put a different twist on it. I found it to be entertaining and informative. I liked the way they talked about each stage and gave examples of each. I thought that some of the places they used your different and they were really able to make each place sound fun. It really thought that this video was wonderful and amazing.

Blog #5

A topic that I was super interested in this week in psychology was Piaget's stages of development. I found his stages to be appealing and worth looking into. I stages that I found to be the most interesting was the sensorimotor and the preoperational stages. I found two videos that helped me learn more about these stages and demonstrate them.
The first video that I found was on sensorimotor and demonstrating object permanence. Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCdLNuP7OA8&feature=g-hist&context=G29426c3AHTz8VagAJAA The video shows how a child under one will really think that an object is gone and will also lose interested in the object when they think that the object is no longer there. In this video they also show how a kids with a little object permanence will always think that they object is in the same place that they found it before, even if they see that you have placed it under a different cloth. I found this video interesting and thought that it did a great job at showing what object permanence is. I love seeing how children act and playing different games like this with them.
Another video that I found was on the children in the preoperational and their take on conservation. Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtLEWVu815o. This video does and excellent job at showing how kid in the preoperation stage think that that they have more of something just by altering one small thing. I love the part when they move the quarters and the little girl thinks that there are more in the line that is spread out more. I found that to be very funny. I would have to say that the gram cracker part to be very interesting and that young children think that can two think although they only have one and they watched you break it in half.
Both of these video I think are great representations of these two stages and how kids develop from year to year. I love learning about development and learning about the growth of children. I can't wait to try some of these things with my own children someday.

Blog #4

I thought that obtaining ice cube to be particularly easy to do. There weren’t any super hard times, besides maybe when I was at work it was little more difficult but not too hard. I hated lying to my family and my friends and not being able to tell them about my “addiction”.
That was the hardest part of this simulation. I can really see now how addicts can lose the people they care about because they aren’t able to tell them about
what is going on in their life. My actions kind of surprised me because I always had to wait for my family to leave the kitchen before I could get anything to
drink or get ice. My family and friends never noticed any changes in my behavior and never questioned anything that I did. I found that to be very
interesting that no one noticed anything different about me. I am now able to see how parents can be surprised to find out about their child using drugs. I
can really come to a shock to some people when they find out that their kid is
using drugs because they never saw it coming. I think that doing this
simulation was very helpful and made me realize that you may never know if
someone is using drugs or has an addiction to something.

Blog 3

This week in psychology we discussed the relationship between left and right brain hemispheres. We learned that just like right-hand vs. left head dominate, people are left brain or right brain dominate as well. People who are left brain dominate are more logic and organized people and people who are right brain dominate are more creative and see the big picture of things. While trying to figure out which side of our brain we use more each student took two left vs. right brain test. On one test I got strongly left brain and on the other I got in the middle with a 5.6.

In my opinion I think that the second quiz is more reliable and I feel that I am
more in the middle when it comes to using my brain. Although I tend to be more
left brained then right brained. I am an extremely organized and clean type of
person. I can’t stand when things are out of place. When I am solving problems
I use logic but also like to use creativity to make different things. I really enjoy music and creating scrapbooks while doing all of that I would be using my right brain. I may use
both sides of my brain, but more often than not I am a left brain dominate person.

This week in psychology we discussed the ethics in research; I found this topic to be quite interesting and wanted to look more into it. We learned that the guidelines of psychological research with humans that the experimenter needs consent, use deception, and debrief them afterwards. Also the participants should be able to withdraw whenever, need confidentiality, and protection against harm. While searching the internet I found this web site: http://listverse.com/2008/09/07/top-10-unethical-psychological-experiments/. On this website it gave the top 10 unethical psychology experiments. Most of them were really interesting, but the one that stuck out to me the most is number one the, David Reimer case.

David Reimer was a baby boy was born in Canada and when he was brought in for circumcision his penis was burned off. This happen because the physicians used an electrocautery needle instead of a standard scalpel. When his parents visited psychologist John Money, he suggested that they do a sex change. They agreed, but what they didn’t know was that the doctor’s true intention was to prove that nurture, not nature, determined gender identity. Dr. Money selfishly used David as his own private case study. David was then named Brenda she acted like a stereotypical boy and had conflicting and confusing feelings. Her parents never informed her of the accident as an infant. Finally, her parents gave her the news of her true gender when she was fourteen years old and she decided to become David again. Dr. Money reported no more results besides claiming that the experiment had been a success, at the age of 38, David committed suicide.

This experiment broke many rules of ethics in psychology research. For started he never got any consent from the child nor the parents. Dr. Money was being very selfish and wanted to conduct a case study to prove a point. I feel that what he did was extremely wrong and hurtful to David. Which brings me to another rule that was broke in this experiment, protection against harm. What Dr. Money did was very harmful and hard on David and his family. I do not think that it matters if Dr. Money thinks that his results were successful because he has no right to change David into Brenda and make his own case study.

Blog 1

Ever since I took psychology last year, I have found it to be very interesting and I’m really looking forward to this class. I think that psychology is extremely fascinating and something that I am really interested in. During this class I excited to learn more about cognitive development in children, because I found that subject to be my favorite last year. I have always loved children and learning more about the way they think is just super interesting to me. I am also looking forward to learning about the human memory, because that was another one of my favorite topics. I think that this class will be very different from all my other classes because it is more of a college level course and something that I am extremely interested in; psychology is one of my favorite subjects and I really enjoy learning more about it. Ever since I took psychology last year I found it to be something that I wanted to pursue more and more. It is also something I am looking at to continue in the future.

While I was reading the prologue and chapter 1 I thought that the levels of analysis was an interesting topic. Know that the biopsychosocial integrates the viewpoint of the various levels of analysis and seeing the complete picture of how they work together and create someone. Seeing how the biological, psychological, and social-cultural all work together to make up the behavior and mental process is quite fascinating to me. I think that seeing how your brain mechanism, emotional responses and the presence of others can work together to create how someone acts and behaves is strange up really works. Everything and everyone influences your life and how you act. Seeing all the different things that do influence your life and what is in each part is awesome and interesting. I feel that the following picture really shows what each level is made up of and how it creates what everyone is made up of. I found that the whole reading was interesting, but this is something that really caught my eye and I was interested in.