dunn0384: May 2012 Archives

There were a lot of lessons in psychology that are applicable in everyday life now, and will be in the future. When thinking about the concepts we talk about in discussion and lecture, I often to relate them to my own life experiences, particularly my experiences with horses. My family has owned horses since the 60s and I've been riding since before I can walk and competing since I was 2. Through the years I have spent a significant amount of time training both horses and other riders.
There were some concepts from the learning, particularly operational as well as classical conditioning that I found applicable to training horses. Sometimes it's difficult to be patient, and easy to get frustrated and resort to punishment. According to psychology however, it's better to reinforce than to punish. Even though this is something I already knew from experience, it helps to see it laid out as fact in a textbook. I also enjoyed the social psychology portions concerning social facilitation as well as social disruption, which could be useful when giving lessons and knowing when it's best to take someone aside to learn something privately or when people may benefit from showing a skill in front of others.
Horses will always be a part of my life, as well as training horses and riders, so these are lessons that will absolutely still be remembered and relevant in my life 5 years from now.

Intelligence and IQ were something I hadn't thought much about before reading the chapter. There sere several things the chapter pointed out that I found interesting. I had heard the nature v. nurture debate on IQ/Intelligence but had never fully explored the multitude of factors that affect IG/Intelligence.
I was surprised to learn that birth order and being a "later born" child would affect anything with IQ/Intelligence. I was not surprised to learn that education plays a huge role in IQ/Intelligence.It showed that IQ lowers during summer vacations, which I think is exceptionally relevant as there was just discussion about the University of Minnesota considering switching to a full year schedule. Would the Intelligence/OQ benefits outweight the costs of a grueling full year schedule? Even though students would still be able to opt out of certain semesters for a break, if we ran on a full-year schedule I think most people would feel like they had to commit to a full year. I think a full year could potentially raise intelligence but I feel like there would be a high burnout rate, as well as less time for other activities and opportunities that primarily take place in the summer now. Would it make that much of a difference ro would it just be like now, except taking a semester off, instead of the summer like the majority of students do now?

For some, sleepwalking is a reasonably regular occurrence. 4 to 5 percent of adults and 15 to 30 percent sleepwalk occasionally. While some do mundane things like walk to the kitchen and ope the fridge or go to the bathroom, others go so far as to get in a car and drive or even to have sex with another person. This phenomena is referred to as sexsomnia.
I first heard about sexsomnia at the beginning of this semester when we read about in my criminal justice class. The article, "Sleep, Sex and the Law" by Jesse Bering was informative as well as intriguing. It brought up incidents where that had been rape or sexual assault that had allegedly occurred while asleep, and left the courts to deal with it. The most interesting case was of two French men. A straight employee had invited his homosexual boss over for dinner and after a gratuitous amount of wine, they both went to bed separately, the boss on the sofa and the employee to his bedroom. He woke up in the morning with anal lesions that suggested penetration and no recollection of anything happening. The boss said it was consensual, and after he spent two years in jail, the court agreed with him and he was released. What do you think? Is something like sexsomnia a farfetched scapegoat or a legitimate issue?

The most interesting part of the social psychology chapter to me was the section on prejudice and discrimination. I had always thought that prejudice and discrimination, especially based on race, ethnicity and whatnot, was something that children learned from the people around them over a significant period of time.
Jane Elliot's classic Brow eyes v. Blue eyes study put that notion to rest. Almost immediately after outlining the new hierarchy that whichever eye color was better, the children were hooked. They took almost no time at all debating whether to believe her or challenge it and started to treat it as fact. I was surprised at how easily the blue eyed children stepped up into the dominant role, but I was even more surprised at how passively the brown-eyed children fell into the submissive role. They put up no fight and accepted their "fate." It was also unsurprising, yet still very important to not the difference in performance of the two groups, with the dominant side performing better.
This makes me extremely concerned for the people who still face discrimination today. If we continue to treat some groups as second class citizens who are "lesser" than the white, privileged heteronormative ideal citizen, they may be hindered in their development and success throughout life by way of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we continue to shame certain people instead of encouraging them, who's to say that they have an equal chance at anything?