levin395: April 2012 Archives

Psychology has proved to be a very interesting subject and class. I am very glad to have taken it. All the reading and quizzes proved to be very strenuous at times but it was a very fun class. The things I will carry with from this class would have to be first be the first date techniques we learned. Im definitely going to use this in the future. I thought it was funny but very true that having a first date be exhilarating and adventurous to build attraction. The second thing I will carry with me is the stuff about training and reinforcement. I think that it will help a lot in raising kids as well as having a pet. The third and final thing I will remember is the effective ways to learn. I have already applied many methods in my studies and they proven to be extremely efficient as well as effective. I used it for my past two psyche exams and they have helped me a lot. The most effective way I have come to use has been spreading out the studying over more time than just cramming last minute. Studying a little each day or doing one chapter of the study guide each week really helps to achieve the grade you want and I suggest it to anyone who wants to get good grades.

I chose to do the Implicit Associations Test because it seemed very interesting to learn about what I am "bias" towards at times as well as how I think implicitly and to better understand my implicit cognition. I chose to do two tests. These included the Age IAT and Race IAT. Age IAT is described by Project Implicit as "An IAT requires the ability to distinguish old from young faces. This test often indicates that Americans have automatic preference for young over old". The Race IAT is described as "An IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of European and African origin. It indicates that most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black".

The results of my first test, Age IAT stated I had a slight automatic preference for young people compared to old. This did not surprise me and I found it to be a valid statement because I agree with the results. The second test i took, the Race IAT said that I had a slight automatic preference to African Americans opposed to European Americans. I was not very surprised with the results and I agreed with them because I grew up with a multiracial family as my dad was born in Panama and I spent the most time with his family and his parents (my grandparents) who were all African-American. I found it interesting on the results page to learn that most people are more likely to associate the "bad" words on the test with African-Americans and the "good" words with the European Americans. Both tests I felt were valid and were fun to do and learn about. If you have to time to take a few tests I would recommend it.