May 2012 Archives

The three distinct parenting styles described by Diana Baumrind resonate within all of us--we're all aware of how restrictive or lenient our own parents were, but we have also witnessed friends' parenting styles and even strangers on the street or in restaurants. And as much as we would like to impose our own beliefs on a parent with a screaming child in the aisles of a grocery store, we cannot understand their specific parent/child dynamic and should try not to pass any judgment on their parenting style. My own parents were authoritative when I was younger, but have become more permissive as I have grown. I am extremely grateful to have had structure when I needed it but also the space to become the person I want to be instead of who they want me to be. Over the years, I've experienced my friends' parents authoritarian styles and while structure is beneficial to growing minds, it seems to me that the tighter their grip on the child, the faster they'll run in the opposite direction. Just ask the most popular authoritarian parent, "Tiger Mother" Amy Chua, about her extreme confidence and vigor in restricting her daughters' behavior. She is proud to have called her girls awful names like "garbage" and "pathetic", which is considered borderline verbal abuse in the US, but is commonplace in Asian households. So, even though we may not agree with her methods of parenting, we must accept that all families are different and only they can decide how to best mold their children.

Here's a link to an article about the Tiger Mother, it's fascinating and unnerving at the same time: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

I understand that everybody already knows about this form of art, but i still find the complexity of the illusion astounding. I am talking about sidewalk art. This link (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/01/3d-sidwalk-art-that-will_n_478649.html#s71257&title=Rocky_Road) includes 20 separate pictures of this style of artwork. The artists play with our perception as the obviously two dimensional sidewalk suddenly starts to pop out with a three dimensional image. The images range from elaborate murals to over sized soda bottles. To create these the artist plays with our monocular cues. We know many things from everyday life, such as more distant objects seem smaller, and darker spots are shaded from the light source. Binocular cues are useless because the image is two dimensional in reality.

In the media intelligence tends to be associated with people who are socially awkward and have poor communication skills. The media tries to portray smart people as nerds with no friends while the athletic jocks are dumb and have a lot of friends. This can be seen in the movie Superbad where the smart kids Evan and Mclovin who are committed to attend college at Dartmouth are socially awkward and not popular among their peers. Through the textbook and other resources I have learned that there are intelligence tests that test social intelligence along with other tests of intelligence. This has shown that intelligent people often aren't socially awkward like they are portrayed as in high school and college movies. There are some instances however where people are too smart and have trouble associating with other people because they feel superior. This is actually portrayed well in the movie The Social Network, the character of Mark Wahlberg in this movie feels that he is smarter than everyone including his best friend and as a result has trouble establishing real relationships. I actually feel like the media does a good job of portraying this types of people.

I think that the concepts of psychology that I will remember 5 years from now are operant and classical conditioning. They explain so much about my past and how I've struggled to adjust to school and such. In high school, I took IB classes and was on time to school every single day. I started homework early, and all I did was study all the time. However, I was not able to get a full IB diploma, which felt disappointing. I also didn't make many friends. I left high school feeling pretty burnt out. This is what I would call a lot of negative punishment, making it hard to apply myself in school. But I've learned some great things since I've been in college. It's a matter of trying to find a fit of what's attainable, relevant and timely.

Some other concepts that I found helpful were in the chapter on memory. Learning about elaborative rehearsal, for example, is a helpful way to validate some of the things I've tried as a learner. I think it also shows that the more that language can be used to help reinforce and remember concepts (by assigning names), the more likely we can think to carry out those concepts.

The concept from Psychology that I will probably remember the most in five years is how the mind perceives certain things. Optical illusions have always been an interest to me, and after this class now I know why our minds perceive things in certain ways. Not only optical illusions, but how people can hear, see, and remember things differently. For example, in discussion, when we had to recall the words and basically had a 'false memory' implanted. After learning about this and experiencing it firsthand, I think it will be interesting in the future to see how people respond in certain situations.
I have been in several instances where one of my friends has told a story of something that happened to us earlier. Sometimes they would change one or two details around, and originally I had thought they were just exaggerating. Now I know it probably has more to do with that they had perceived the event and remembered it differently than I had.