truel010: April 2012 Archives

What defines who we are? How do people develop their individual characteristics and what influences their behavior?

Psychology and theatre has always been an interesting topic to me. I have always been intrigued in what influenced people's actions and attitudes, and I always found it fascinating how actors can transform into different characters from role to role - sometimes transforming from being the protagonist in one production to being the antagonist in another production. Although I enjoy the whole psychology field, I tend to focus on personality psychology. Thus, I enjoyed Chapter 13: Social Psychology and Chapter 14: Personality the most, along with the corresponding lectures.

One of the topics that I enjoyed reading was the twin studies as well as the adoption studies. After research about twin studies, I found the finding that the environment played a very small influence in adult personalities. There were many examples presented of twins who were raised in different environments, but shared the some of the same personality traits.

Another topic that I enjoyed was the discussion about the Big Five Model of Personality and the personality quizzes/tests that we took for lecture and for our discussion sections. This model is an easy way to characterize people and even fictitious characters.

Psychology is a great field. It tells you a lot about other people. I love analyzing and watching people and this course has helped me to decode some of people's behaviors and attitudes. I will definitely remember what I have learned from this course!

Aggression has always been a popular subject to portray in the media. From guys involved in fights to girls spreading rumors and excluding people, people have had a fascination with this issue. What interests me is the topic of how people become who they are. Is there a biological explanation or is a trait influenced more by the social environment? Aggression is one trait that many television shows and movies depict, such as Fight Club and Gossip Girl. Physically violent behavior is depicted more often in males, while relational aggression (indirect aggression) is more commonly shown in females.

The textbook explains that some scientists believe that higher aggression correlates to higher testosterone levels, but this is under debate since the correlation may also be true in the opposite direction. The textbook also details that female hyenas are more aggressive than their male counterparts. This supports the idea that aggression is related to testosterone levels since female hyenas show higher levels of a testosterone-related hormone, suggesting that testosterone does play a factor in aggression. But what are some other hypotheses that scientists have developed to explain aggression differences in males and females?

An article on Science Daily's website, "Why Men Are More Aggressive: What a Mother Should Know," suggests that the levels of aggression may be caused by the genes that are responsible for the neurotransmitter serotonin. In a study with Rhesus monkeys, a species of Old World monkeys who are known to be aggressive, show low levels of serotonin.

These are only a couple of a number of explanations for what causes aggression. These articles and explanations are all interesting I have is how I believe that aggression can be caused by genes as well as social pressures. However, the cause of aggression is still under research and will likely remain a controversial issue until more results from other studies are presented.