Posted Milgram Experiment to Psych 1001 Section 010 and 011 Fall 2011
I think the most interesting thing we have studied so far is the Milgram experiment. I find it intriguing and disturbing that research subjects could so easily be convinced to hurt complete strangers. Its amazing how people respond so well to authority. Even a strange man in a lab coat was able to order people about to do something they know is wrong. Its scary to wonder what would happen if an entire government was able to control its people in this way. The best example of this i can think of is Nazi Germany. I didn't know that the Nazi's rise to power was such a perfect example of people's subconscious needs to submit to a group or authority. This i believe is why it is so important to study psychology and history. Had people not been educated about the Holocaust it is not so far-fetched to think that something like that could happen again. You can see this in less educated countries around the world. In Rwanda in 1994 a massive their was massive genocide between two very similar ethnicities of people. The majority Tutsi people began killing the minority Hutu people.This happened all because of slight tensions between the two peoples and a rebel movement that sucked people up into it creating hatred and anger. Had the people in Rwanda learned about how easily it is to get sucked up into a group and be forced to do terrible things, perhaps the genocide would never have happened....
Posted Does Money Buy Happiness? to Psych 1001 Section 010 and 011 Fall 2011
It seems that overall rich people are happier than poor people. Is that really true? If so, what aspect of being rich makes people so happy? Could some of the aspects of being rich that make people so happy be replicated in other ways to make poor people happier. Here is a great article on this topic. http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/tim-harford-money_cz_th_money06_0214harford.html The freedom that having money provides is a large contributor to happiness. Not having to worry about whether or not you're going to be able to pay your bills is a huge stressor for some. Also having money gives you the freedom to travel and do more of the things you enjoy. On the flip side rich people generally have more time consuming jobs which many times means less time for those things. It also means less time to spend with family and friends which is the most enjoyable thing anyone can do. People also enjoy having more control over their lives. A higher paying job usually gives people more control over decisions in the work place and they are not constantly being bossed around. I believe that if a poor person could be just as happy as a rich person if they were able to have these aspects in their own life....
Posted Violent Video Games and Violent Behavior to Psych 1001 Section 010 and 011 Fall 2011
After our discussion session i was very interested in the correlation between violent video games and violent behavior. I have pretty much always been had the opinion that video games do not cause violent behavior, at least for kids old enough to play the games. I would say that media violence definatley desensitizes very young children but that is seen in movies, t.v., and video games. But that is not exclusively for video games, it is definately up to the parents to keep children away from violence as much as they can intil they're old enough. Video games already have age appropriate ratings that tell what kind of content can will be showed in the game. If parents still choose to ignore the ratings its is their own fault that they are showing that type of inappropriate content to their kids. I did some research and found this video that i find i really agree with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnWO09q2nnw&feature=related I agree with the psychologist in this video because obviously playing a violent video game would increase aggression at that point in time. It's just like seeing any violent event or getting in a fight, it excites you and scares you and your bodies response is to be more ready to defend yourself. Over long periods though these games don't really make you a violent person, they're more of immediate stressors. People that start school shootings probably play violent video games because they are already angry with their lives. Or itc ould be the fact that pretty much all teenage boys play violent video games, they are a very popular product. Too many people are mistaking correlation with causation when it comes to this topic....
Posted False Memories to Psych 1001 Section 010 and 011 Fall 2011
The most interesting topic so far to me has been the idea that we can implant false memories into someone else's head. I wonder if it is actually possible to implant a significant memory. There seems to be a lot of problems with the idea. I watched these video's where Elizabeth Loftus talks about the experiments she has done to try to prove her theory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il0u2s_WGXA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQr_IJvYzbA While i think these studies are really interesting i feel like they have a lot of problems. In the mall experiment for instance, they had the subject remember something that happened when he was 5. No one can remember that far back very well, its similar to your whole family telling you something that you did when you were a baby. They could be lying we just choose to think they're not. Also getting lost in a big place is a really common thing that happens to almost everyone at least once. Trying to remember that far back his memories probably just got all jumbled and he mixed up the feeling of being lost at one point in his life and being at a mall and with everyone telling him that it happened its not that surprising that he believed it. What i do find impressive is how the subject continually adds details to the story. He really has no idea what he's talking about but his brain fills in the blank spots with what seems logical to happen....
Posted Brain Perception and Illusion to Psych 1001 Section 010 and 011 Fall 2011
One concept we have been learning about that i find interesting is the how our brain interprets what our eyes sense. When we see things, we aren't seeing the actual image, our eyes pick up light bouncing off objects and convert it to electrical signals. These signals then go to our brain which concocts an image of what it believes we were seeing. Our brain is fooled in this way all the time. An example is when you look at a painting of a landscape. The painter purposefully makes objects smaller to give them the illusion of being farther back than other objects in the painting. This simple technique almost completely tricks your brain giving the painting the illusion of having real depth. Below are some examples of different illusions that confuse your brain's perceptions of what it is seeing. http://historygroupnine.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/paintings-by-gustave-caillebotte-2.jpg http://www.moillusions.com/...
Posted Nature Vs. Nurture. How far does Nurture really go? to Psych 1001 Section 010 and 011 Fall 2011
One of the most interesting topics to me that we have been talking about in class is the Nature Vs. Nurture debate. While i think that both have a great deal with how a child develops, I recently read an article that proves to me that the social aspects of a child developing are almost completely due to how he is raised. The article was about children who had been neglected or abandoned by there families and who had basically been raised by animals. It seems that young children our so impressionable that any sort of parenting or family figure can affect how they develop. The article has multiple stories of kids around the age of three surviving and living with packs of dogs. They run around on all fours, bark, and even look for food with the dogs. What's stranger is that the packs of dogs eventually end up accepting the children into their group and become protective. As far as the animals or the children are concerned they are basically the same. This has severe social consequences on the children. They have almost no social skills to communicate with other humans and some cannot even speak. As far as i know most of these children were born completely mentally and physically healthy just like you and me, however because of their upbringing they may never fit in to human society. Here is the article if you want to learn more. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article1061048.ece...
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