Five years from now I see myself sitting on a couch somewhere and watching re-runs of That 70s Show. Some may think that first sentence has nothing to do with this blog post, but it definitely does. When I look back on my time spent on the course Psychology 1001 there will always be that one topic that I will never forget. For me, that one topic is the Big Five Model of Personality, and I found out the other day while watching That 70's Show, that it's engraved in my brain forever now.
After learning about the Big Five Model of Personality it was so much easier to place the name-tags of Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism on each of the main characters in That 70s Show. Each of them is unique in their own way, especially one in particular, Michael Kelso. Kelso is highly extraverted and open to new experiences, and extremely low in the conscientiousness category of the Big Five Model. Kelso likes to try new things and tries to get as many girls as possible, while also getting people to like him at the same time. He also is very irresponsible when it comes to school and in one aspect in particular when he accidentally gets a girl pregnant.
Overall what I'm trying to say is that not only can I relate the Big Five Model of Personality to some television show that I watch every day, but I also feel like I will use this for many other things I come across in my life to try and identify people better. I definitely think that this topic of the Psychology course will stick with me for a long time. If this topic just sprang into my head while watching this television show, then I know it will always be in my mind in case I need it to identify people's trait's in other situations as well.
davi2225: April 2012 Archives
These days, the media try to exploit intelligence in any way possible because they think it is the greatest story ever. One way in which intelligence is portrayed is through the use of many different Hollywood movies. In these movies, each deal with showing a different type of intelligence, as stated by Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences.
I'd like to discuss one in particular that correlates with Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory. The movie that portrays a character of having a high intelligence level is that of Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman as a severely disabled autistic man who has great mathematical/thinking abilities. This connects with Gardner's Intelligence Type, stating that Hoffman's character has Logico-mathematical and Naturalistic abilities because he can remember so much information about books, geography, history, and other living things, while also acting as a human speed calculator at the same time. The movies portray this in a way as if Hoffman's character is a genius so he is better-off. It turns out that that is not true at all. Being autistic is hard enough to live with, and just because he has this level of intelligence does not mean that he can live a normal lifestyle.
The point I'm trying to make is that intelligence in real-life, and how it is portrayed through the media are two completely different things. Even in the book it makes the reference about "Good Will Hunting," and it says how this would definitely never happen in the real world. It would take a person with Will Hunting's intelligence level in the real world a lot longer time to figure out these complex problems that Damon's character figures out in a few days span. So overall, the way the media represents intelligence is not entirely true of how it is presented in the real world. The video above is just an example of how Hoffman's character tries to use his intelligence.
