nashx216: April 2012 Archives

Greetings bloggers,

Today we were asked to reflect on what we will take away from psychology. In response to what will I still remember 5 years from today, ironically I will remember the chapter on memory. Whether it is facts about short term (10 to 15 seconds and 7 plus or minus two items), long term, how we remember, or how our memory network works, I will never forget these interesting facts.
The chapter on memory is also very applicable to our academic careers and lives. I learned many ways on how to improve my memory during psychology. First and foremost, do not cram. I have always crammed for my tests, and although people have told me it was bad, I never truly understood why it was bad so my habits continued. Now that we have learned how our memory network works, I have a greater understanding of why not to cram. Another way that memory is applicable to my life moving forward is I now know that we remember things better that we can symbolize or visualize. I try to attach meaning to items that I want to remember, and it helps me remember them later. These are the reasons why memory is something that I will never forget.

Greetings bloggers,

Today I would like to discuss the need to belong. This "need" comes from our biological need to have interpersonal connections. We seek to socialize, and receive negative emotions when we can not. Stanley Schater's study showed us the people can not stand to be lonely (some quit the study just 20 minutes in!). Because being lonely brings so many negative emotions, us humans are met with this concept of needing to belong. People satisfy this need everyday. Social interaction is sought after by society.
The "need to belong" has played a role recently in my life. Coming in to college, I wanted to be very uninvolved so that I could optimize my academic performance. Shortly after arriving to college, and being uninvolved, I felt as though something was missing. Without even noticing that I was lonely, I quickly joined a few clubs to become involved in campus and boost my social interaction. This differed from my original goal. Joining clubs was going to hurt my academic performance, but my "need to belong" is stronger than my desire to do well in class. So, here I am today, as involved as ever, and I am not lonely for a second of the day. Have you bloggers had similar experiences since arriving to college?

Hello bloggers,

For this blog I would like to dig into the concept of functional fixedness. Because our brain often times identifies objects as having one single purpose, we can fail to see the alternative uses of that object. This is what causes functional fixedness; we have difficulty conceptualizing that one object's purpose can be used for another. The book yields an example of functional fixedness by providing the following scenario: you need to pound a nail in, but you don't have a hammer. Well, the answer is simple, why not just pound it in with your shoe? When our brain processes our shoe, our brain sees it as an object that is used solely (no pun intended) for walking when in fact it could do a perfectly fine job at pounding in the nail.
Because of functional fixedness I am intrigued as to what we miss everyday. Are we using our daily resources to their full potential? It makes me think about what different uses of objects we miss in daily situations. What problems remain unsolved? Even though the answer could be right in front of us. It is a strange concept to think about, especially because we are in the intelligence part of psychology. Is our ability to avoid functional fixedness correlated with intelligence? What do you guys think? Also, can you think of any alternative uses of objects in your life that you missed because of functional fixedness?