Writing #3: April 2012 Archives

Many employers like to use IQ test scores as an indicator of how well an individual will do for the job they've applied for. Is this right or wrong? I think that though IQ testing can be a useful tool for selecting a new worker, it should not take priority over other methods to predict quality job performance.

IQ testing, at first glance, seems like a very good way to decide on who to give a job. There's a slightly positive correlation between IQ score and job performance.

Though there is a positive correlation between IQ score and job performance that doesn't mean that it's a perfect correlation. For all the people that have a higher IQ than someone else and does better at a job because of it, there are some with lower IQ's that would have done a better job. It's similar to those who know how to look themselves good in interviews versus those who get too nervous to do so--just because some people get nervous for them doesn't mean that they wouldn't be good at their job, the same as the person who knows how to make themselves look good wouldn't necessarily do a good job.

IQ scores should be used as one of many methods of predicting job performance. IQ score isn't perfect at predicting a future worker's performance, which is why that error must be balanced out with other methods of prediction.

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?

Nobody really thinks about themselves being affiliated with social facilitation. But when you are at work, such as a retail store you might be lazy and not talk to customers or be folding clothes, but when your boss comes around then you start talking and helping all customers as well as fold clothes and make it look like your doing a lot and have been working the whole time.Which is what social facilitation is, when you do better on simple tasks in the presence of other people. Doing well in front of a boss, or playing a sport better in front of people is also the same thing.

I have always thought of myself as a rather persuasive person; that is, when I need to be. I don't find it necessary to always get what you want and I see the value in everyone doing there own thing. However, when the time comes, and you need to convince people to follow you, there are specific techniques to use. When an organization is trying to get donations from people they can use a couple techniques. They can ask for a little money at first, and then later, when you are apart of their organization, they can ask for more because you will feel more responsible because you are apart of this. Another strategy is making people feel a bit guilty if they do not donate a large sum of money. This strategy would be for a company or a political figure that will need a large amount from many people. If you want me to do what I say I can do, I need to get into office first. This makes people feel guilty if the person loses and will make people donate, in theory. Anther is where you tell the person a super low price, and then when they accept, you start convincing them to add on things. This happens a lot with political campaigns. As soon as you donate, they will keep sending things to you, or when you do decide to donate, they will ask if you would like to donate more, or sign up to donate every month. These persuasive techniques play at peoples minds and can be scary to think about how vulnerable some people are.

After the reading the chapter on Social Psychology there was one thing that stuck with me the most: is there such a thing as genuine altruism? First off I would like to define it as the book does, "in some cases we help others in discomfort primarily because we feel empathic towards them" (pg. 516). In the book they based the outcome of studies on this definition by saying that, "I some cases we seem to help not only to relieve our distress but to relieve the distress of others" (pg. 516). I think that this is a contradiction in itself because a person who is empathetic is one that pretty much feels what the other person is feeling which drives them to help. None of the experiments seem to control for the fact that people may be helping others not because they feel bad for the other person but because they want to stop feeling bad themselves. By the books definition I feel comfortable saying that there is no such thing as genuine altruism becasue although we may feel bad for others we will always be helping them partially to relieve guilt or our shared feelings with them. That's not saying that people aren't inherently good people. There are some who have learned that helping people will benefit them in some way but I don't think that makes the fact that they helped someone any less awesome.

Although many of us would like to believe that birth order has to do with intelligence and personality it isn't that simple. Since researchers have yet to find a strong correlation between the two we are forced to to come up with a simpler hypothesis.

There are many reasons a first born would strive towards achievement namely because they are they are always the first to do anything so they strive to achieve at that and set an example for younger siblings.

Middle children would seem to be diplomatic not because of genetics but because they are often in the middle in fights between the youngest and the oldest. Therefore they must take a diplomatic approach barbecue they are not as big as the older sibling nor are they the "baby" of the family.

The youngest sibling may come off as a risk taker but there are also several reasons for this, the least being genetics. The younger siblings may seem as risk takers but this can be attributed to being the youngest and therefore seeing the older siblings do everything so they know what they can and can't do. Knowing this, it allows them to jump right to the edge because they know from watching their older siblings where that edge is.

And so there are several much easier hypothesis's as to why certain personalities arise based on birth order. It can be easy to say that birth order causes these differences it is much more of a correlation and therefore not genetic.

In the age of the Renaissance, many scientists start to deny the old faith while few of them are accepted. When Darwin discovered the natural selection and writed a book about that, most people still believe in god created animals, and many people still believe that now. The same thing happened when Einstein discovered Relativity, many scientists can not understand that as they believe Newton's theory must be true.It seems that those people are stubborn, while in fact they are just defending themselves. Altering attitudes is much more harder than saying "It is right, and I was wrong.", because you have to understand the new attitude first before accpet it. If we meet a conflict between two cognition, we might consider the old faith more to defend ourselves and do not take the risk. While only if the new concepts keep proving it is ture, our belief could change step by step, and finally agree with the new concepts.Sometimes the peer pressure may help us to change the attitude, but the changing of our attitude is combined with stress confusion, that is why we hate that.

In class we have discussed the Big Five personality traits quite extensively, comparing how each of the five trails looks when examined on its own and when several of the traits are mixed together. We have looked at fictional characters in the cartoon, The Simpsons, to examine each of their personalities. It was after doing these activities that I began to think of other fictional characters to test the Big Five on. In one of my favorite movies, Billy Madison, the main character, Billy says, "No I will not make out with you. Did ya hear that? This girl wants to make out with me in the middle of class. You got Chlorophyll Man up there talking about God knows what and all she can talk about is making out with me. I'm here to learn, everybody, not to make out with you. Go on with the chlorophyll." This quote may be seen as funny to those who know the movie, but if you have not seen the movie, Billy is sitting in class next to a girl, when he disrupts the class hoping to lighten the mood. Through this quote we can infer that Billy has an open personality (he is unconventional in his action disrupting class), we can also tell Billy scores high in neuroticism (care free and relaxed) and Billy may be an agreeable person (he is easy going, yet comes off as disrespectful). Furthermore, it is obvious Billy is high in extroversion (very social and talkative) and also low in conscientiousness (not caring what others think, disrespectful to the group). Bases on this quote, it is apparent that Billy is an unusual character, but as we learned in class, one's personality can change over time, and Billy is one fictional example of extreme personality traits and changes.

There are many tests created to measure personalities and preferences. One thing that can become difficult as more tests are created is to determine which tests are valid and which tests are not. An example of a test that has been created is the IAT test (implicit association test) created to measure implicit prejudices or prejudices that one is unaware of. The test that I took measured how someone felt towards African Americans (black) and European Americans (white). It categorized good words such as happy and bad words such as angry with the people and then switched them to see the results of how many words of each I would categorize correctly. Supposedly the test will determine how someone feels about different races.

After taking this test I was told that I had a strong automatic response toward white people over black people. I believe this was due to the amount of times I put the good words with the white people instead of the black people. However I found the mistakes were due to the categories locations being moved. Although I could have some unconscious beliefs due to media and what goes on around me causing my responses I feel that these tests are not very accurate and that although they could have a some validity they need a lot more refining to be an accurate, reliable test.

Some major ethical dilemmas that are related to genetics are the issues of 'designer babies', genetic testing in the workplace, insurance provided based of genetic information, having kids if genetic diseases are present and terminating embryos with genetics "flaws". These are not the only ethical problems but these are the most relevant within our culture. I am only going to touch on a couple of the genetic issues.
Genes that we inherit from our parents make up every biological aspect of us. For example Intelligence is 40 to 80 percent inherited which is an interesting concept in itself. But the parts of our brain are formed based of the genetic material we are given. This leads to the formation of all four lobes including the smaller parts such as the amygdale, hippocampus and hypothalamus. In a study done by Yaling Yang of University of Southern California shows that pathological liars have less white matter in their prefrontal cortex. This information is astonishing because the lack of white matter is a malfunction in their genome that they had no control over. They are genetically predetermined.
Hopefully in the future we can connect every genetic disorder/disease or biological problem to a particular gene so we can eliminate them from the human genome. But wait lets think about that the repercussions of that. If those particular genetic codes are so detrimental why have they been able to survive within our genome for so long? An answer to that could be that those genes helped prevent diseases that killed many of our ancestors in the past. An example of this is sickle cell anemia which is a genetic disease. People who have sickle cell anemia are resistant to malaria which is a life threatening disease in Africa. If we would eliminate a particular gene in our genome there is a high probability that a disease will come about that could kill many if not all people because we would not have that particular gene that makes us immune to the hypothetical disease.
We must be careful before we start messing around with our genes because dangerous and life threatening situations can arise. Either new disease can kill us, or our insurance companies/court systems can come down on people who might be predisposed to mental/biological issues. Much consideration needs to be given to insure we are making the best decision for humanity.

Hannibal Lecter--the brilliant psychiatrist/cannibalistic serial killer from Thomas Harris's series of horror novels--is a very vivid character who can be analyzed through the lens of the Big Five personality principles.

Openness to Experience:

Hannibal Lecter is very open to new experiences. He is very well-read in many different fields and loves to acquire new knowledge whenever he can. Once could say that Lecter takes this particular principle a bit too far. Lecter's cannibalistic ways, for example, were probably a result of his high openness to new experiences, which in this case is obviously an unattractive and horrifying personality trait.

Conscientiousness:

Hannibal Lecter is a very conscientious man. He is very well-kept and organized. He is also incredibly thoughtful, especially when communicating with others. His murders are also very calculated and well-planned. He is certainly not sloppy when he commits them.

Extroversion:

It's hard to judge whether or not Hannibal Lecter falls on the high or low end of this category. He can be extroverted when he needs to be--he is a psychiatrist after all; his job revolves around talking to others and getting to know them--but he can also be very quiet and reserved. I would probably place Lecter in the middle of this category as he is very flexible when it comes to extroversion.

Agreeableness

In my estimation, Hannibal Lector is very disagreeable. When you think of the atrocities he commits, it's very clear that his actions are simply not agreeable. At the very least, I certainly think his victims would agree.

Neuroticism

With it's meaning in this sense, I would not consider Hannibal Lecter to be a neurotic character. He is very secure and confident when it comes to his emotions and it is very difficult--nearly impossible--to cause him have a break down. He seems to be very desensitized to the things that would cause others a great deal of emotional pain and stress.

Do you agree with my assessment of Hannibal Lecter? Comment below.

Imagine you are expecting a child, and genetics could tell you if your child has a gene for criminality or a gene for novelty-seeking. Would you want to know? Now genetics today cannot tell us if a certain person has a gene for a certain trait, but it does bring up ethical issues. Genetics can be used in powerful ways, from detecting if a child has a disorder to determining paternity. However, if genetics could tell us what behavioral and personality traits we possess there are some implications. Access to this personal information would be important, also how employers, insurance companies, and even universities would react to this information. This type of genetics would lead to many ethical issues of discrimination and abuse of knowledge. Society has access to personal aspects of our lives, but would this type of genetics cross the line? I believe if genetics could ever tell us if we or our children have a gene for criminality or any other trait that information should be kept private between yourself and the doctor. Our genes already shed light on personal information, but I would not care nor want to know about these types of genes. What do you think?

As someone who attended high school in a rural setting and then College in urban settings I have come to really appreciate the benefits of a diverse population. My high school was probably 90% white and it never bothered me, I didn't think I was discriminatory, and at the time would have loved to live the rest of my life in that same setting. That all changed when I started College at NHCC in Brooklyn Park MN. I truly realized how sheltered I had been all of my life. NHCC is a community college with a large minority population and at first this somewhat frightened me. I had believed that I had been raised to be very open towards other races and cultures and compared to some of my high school class mates I really was, but the initial fear I had which took the form of minority stereotypes showed me otherwise. Being compelled to work with people different than myself in classes however showed me how much I liked and now value diversity. I really appreciate the different ideas and views of society that are brought to diverse settings, it has allowed me to expand my own thoughts of how I view the world and what needs to be done to make this country a more equal place to live.

The American Psychological Association report "Dual Pathways to a Better America: Preventing Discrimination and Promoting Diversity" http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/promoting-diversity.aspx gives examples of the problems of Discrimination and Diversity and how to attempt to fix them. Two that really strike me are economic disparity which has in many ways kept racial groups separated in this country, and also workplace diversity in which certain businesses and industries have disproportionate amounts of minority workers. It is my belief that Economic Disparity is the biggest problem in regards to discrimination and diversity. Evidence of this can be seen everywhere especially neighborhoods. For example some of the poorest areas of the Twin Cities such as North Minneapolis and to a lesser degree South Minneapolis have far larger minority populations than places like Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. The fact of the matter is that places like Minnetonka and Eden Prairie require larger amounts of money to live there and places like North and South Minneapolis don't. Yes there is always exceptions and each city has its poor and rich neighborhoods but population wise wealthier cities have larger white populations and smaller minority populations like African Americans and Latino Americans. This separation can also be linked to workplace diversity. Better jobs usually require a better education which often requires lots of money which many minority families do not have. Even though things like scholarships and grants are created to help minority groups it is not enough, proportionately even Schools like the U of M have far fewer minority students than whites. More needs to be done to support diversity and extinguish discrimination but I am doubtful if the country will ever be completely equal to all people. Also as the report shows even those of us who say we are not discriminatory tend to still harbor stereotypical beliefs, why do you think this is and can it be completely answered by Psychology. If anything I am saying makes sense please leave a comment its a subject that is important for everyone in this country to realize is still very much alive, especially with recent incidents like Trayvon Martin.

Birth order seems to be a universally interesting topic. People tend to believe that firstborns are smaller, youngest siblings are much more likely to depend on others, those in between are mediocrities, and the only children are selfish. In my hometown, women prefer boyfriends are the first born children and men like girls who are the youngest of the family. According to recent results of Norwegian researchers, firstborns' average IQ is three points more than the next child of the family while the smallest children are more likely to be more humorous. It seems that the research partly confirms the common believes. However, important alternative explanations do exist. The firstborns enjoyed a period of time to be the only children of the family, and their parents focused solely on them. In addition, the firstborns are usually tutors of their younger brothers and sisters so they may learn better by teaching younger siblings and explaining problems more than once. Also, if the firstborns are doing well, they become role models of the youngsters. As a result, later-borns are under much more pressure when they grow up while their elder sisters and brothers are encouraged and do even better. Furthermore, firstborns are the only children have the chance to go to school and be educated, and as we have studied, education contributes to higher IQ. More researches should be done to make sure birth order, not interaction among children or children and parents, influences personality. Otherwise, the correlation between personality and birth order is an extraordinary claim. Since few scientists replicated Sulloway's finding, the evidence of birth order impact is not enough for now.

Many psychologists find the study of birth order in families to be extremely interesting, and therefore continue to do case studies on the topic. Over the years, it has been hard for psychologists to find consistent evidence proving that birth order really does have an effect on personality. However, according to the article "The Power of Birth Order" by TIME Magazine, research done in Norway and the Philippines have been showing progress in proving that there is a correlation between the two. In the study in Norway, birth order seems to have an effect on IQ and intelligence, showing that first borns generally have a higher overall IQ, about 3 points higher, than that of the next oldest sibling (TIME). In the studies done in the Philippines, scientists discovered that siblings who are born later on typically weigh less and are ask shorter in height (TIME). These are just some of the examples of the differences found between older and younger siblings which scientists are working on correlating with the order in which they were born. There are also the more well known correlations between birth order and personality such as the oldest siblings being smarter or more of a leader, while the younger siblings are more creative and comical. Personally, I can compare a lot of these findings to my own family and the different characteristics I have versus my other siblings. Being the youngest, I tend to relate to if not all, most of these findings associated with the youngest sibling in the family. Is it just coincidence that this happens or are scientists actually starting to find more and more correlations that can be repeated in studies to seem legitimate?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673284,00.html

In this video, the author talks about his theory behind birth order. In sum, he said that the first born children tend to be more reliable, conscientious, list makers, don't like surprises, etc. while the youngest in the family tend to be the jokesters. He then said that the first born tend to seek powerful positions, like President, doctor, engineer, lawyer, etc. I found this very hard to believe. I am the second born and youngest in my family and I would say my sister is more conscientious and a "list maker", but I am more ambitious and have been more of a leader in the community and school than her.

Our textbook says, "Many popular books...claim that firstborns tend toward achievement, middle-borns toward diplomacy and later-borns towards risk taking. Yet virtually all of these claims are exaggerated, because most researchers have failed to uncover strong or consistent associations between birth order and personality."

Please watch the above video and let me know if you generally agree with his statements or not.

While reading chapter 11, I found the topic of eating disorders to be the most interesting. Some people may think that eating disorders are rare, however, they are much more common than we think. I found myself questioning what causes an eating disorder. After thinking about this for awhile, I concluded that possible causes for an eating disorder could be a genetic predisposition of a gene, peer pressure, the influence of the media and/or a combination of both. I believe that someone with an eating disorder must start out with having low self esteem, which therefore could be caused by a genetic predisposition. Also wanting to "fit in" and look like the celebrities in Hollywood could all add to influence this genetic predisposition. But is there a way to know for sure?

In Chapter 14 there is a section about Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality. I found the concept of what he called Id extremely interesting. According to Freud, we all really do have an unconscious part of us that tells us to make “bad” decisions, or a devil on our shoulder. It’s true that what our Id wants us to do, or our urges and desires, may not always be “bad decisions” depending on what our superego tells us in moral or not. This made me think about the differences of “what is moral” among different cultures and people. I have seen the metaphor with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other many times in the media, but when I read this chapter I was really able to understand how it related to the actual battle inside our brain. There has been more than one time I have wanted to do something crazy - like that urge in the back of your mind to strangle somebody who’s really annoying you - but my ego tells me to hold that thought and filter out my aggression in a way that makes the superego more happy. I wonder how many times I’ve had this battle in my head - but I’m pretty sure something like it happens everyday.

Recently, I was at a blood drive organized by one of my friends who is a homosexual male, and he was not allowed to donate blood due to his sexual orientation. Is this discrimination? Why is he not allowed to? Is that fair? In order to make a decision, one needs to see both sides of the argument to make an educated decision. The reasoning behind not allowing homosexuals to donate blood (according to blood banks) is that those who engage in homosexual relationships are at a higher risk of being infected with HIV or AIDS. However, after researching statistics of Americans with HIV, overall, heterosexual men that have unprotected sex with women are equally at risk (about 1 in 5). With this being known, I have to say that discriminating against homosexuals based on the risk of HIV alone seems unjust, because the blood is screened before being donated and used. If the risk of infection was the only reason, why would it matter if the risks are the same? I questioned this myself, and wondered why. Rather than questioning about the gender of their sexual partners, I think the questions should also be asked about if they have had unprotected sex and how many partners they have had to evaluate the risks, rather than using sexual orientation as a basis. Thoughts anyone?

Page 447 of the text states that people prefer faces that are more "averaged" and symmetrical. This goes for more than just how we see people. According to a study of 86 heterosexual, sexually active couples, women have less orgasms is their partner's face is asymmetrical.
So as odd (and maybe slightly awkward) as it may be, women are more likely to have an orgasm with a male partner who has a symmetrical face.

There may be Biological and Evolutionary explanations to this phenomenon.
As I learned in one of my Biology courses, the female orgasm assists with transportation of sperm (via muscular contractions inside of the vagina) so that they have better access to the egg they need to fertilize.

As mentioned in the book, we sometimes see asymmetry and other facial imperfections as clues that our partner's genes are inferior.
We want to mate with people who have good genes so that our offspring will have a better chance of survival. So if women are with a mate who they think posses those genes because of their facial symmetry, then the women are more likely to orgasm and get those sperm over to the egg.

Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000334729580014X

In the ever popular movie, Bridesmaids, the main character Annie meets a cop by the last name Rhodes, who she eventually falls in love with by the end of the movie. In the book there are three major principles that guide relationships, and each of these can be spotted in Annie and Rhodes' relationship. The first of which is proximity, they may have met because Annie was driving recklessly but they ended up hanging out again and seeing each other a lot because Rhodes lived right down the road from her. If she hadn't lived in his area, they would never have met again and wouldn't have ended up falling in love. The second principle is similarity, in the book is says "we are attracted to people that are similar to us". Annie and Rhodes are both fairly equal in attractiveness, they both enjoy humor, and seem to have a lot in common with what they like to do. The last principle is reciprocity, the rule of give and take. We tend to feel obligated to give what we get and maintain equity in a relationship. Annie tells Rhodes a lot of deep hearted information about her relationship with her best friend and how Helen is ruining it. Rhodes tries to tap into Annie's baking world when he goes to buy her all the baking supplies one morning. In the end, Annie and Rhodes end up together like the movie had foreshadowed in the beginning.

The three principles that guide relationships can be seen in many other ways throughout the movie and many other movies as well. Can you think of more examples for Bridesmaids? Or is there another movie that comes to mind?

Something I found interesting from the readings was the table with some president's and their IQ's. It was interesting to me to see some numbers for famous people. Now I wish in knew my IQ so I could compare, but that's not the point of this blog. I got interested and decided to look up some other famous individual's and their IQ's. I found a good list which I attached using a link. I had a good time looking at the numbers seeing who was smart and who wasn't. Not surprisingly the highest IQ's belonged to scientists and philosophers. One that I did find surprising is George Washington at 118. It's amazing to think about someone you learned as a great leader all through school isn't very smart at all. In general a lot of the presidents have low IQ's compared to others on the list. Leads on to think why they are leading our country, maybe we should look at IQ's more in the presidential race. I noticed there weren't a lot of athletes on the list and now I want to see some of their scores. I would guess that they would be a lot lower but it's something else to look up. I also want to find my own IQ...
http://aceviper.net/estimated_iq_of_famous_people.php

Paul Ekman's findings in universal facial expressions and emotions have always intrigued me not only because I'm interested but because of personal reasons too. My grandfather William Ayhan LeCompte was a psychologist and a colleague of Paul Ekman, and he helped Ekman in his research on the universality of expressions. I've always known this, but I decided to do some research on it, and I found an article that William LeCompte and some other psychologists wrote with Paul Ekman. The article is called "Universals and Cultural Differences in the Judgments of Facial Expressions of Emotion." In the lecture and the textbook, Paul Ekman's research in New Guinea to see if facial expressions are cross-cultural is mostly mentioned as a very important finding. However this article I found, further investigates this question and emphasizes in which ways the New Guinea research had problems.
The New Guinea research was not duplicated in other studies, and the expressions were artificial. The New Guineans were told to look sad like their child died, or look happy as if something good happened. The expressions weren't very accurate.
That's why Paul Ekman and my grandfather William Ayhan LeCompte and more psychologists further researched the universality of emotional expressions by showing 18 pictures to people from 10 different cultures and countries: Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Scotland, Sumatra, Turkey, and United States. The majority of people agreed on the expressions. This study is actually a lot more accurate and well-planned than the New Guinea study. This research provides a lot more evidence for the universality of facial expressions, and it actually proves it.

Here is the link for the article in case anyone wants to check out: http://www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Universals-And-Cultural-Differences-In-The-Judgment-Of-Facia.pdf

Divorce between two parents can be an extremely hard and stressful time. Not only is it traumatic for the adults in the situation, but it can be especially trying for the children. In the past, reports have claimed that the long term damage on kids with divorced parents is very high. However, recent reports have shown that this is not completely true. As a child whose parents divorced at age 4, I can say that the negative effects that I have experienced are minimal. Both of my parents were adamant about keeping their conflicts under the radar, so it did not upset or distress my sisters and I. Therefore, I think the actual reason children are affected negatively does not have to do with the divorce itself, rather the conflict between the parents before the divorce. However, one thing that could come into play is if the divorce results in one parent becoming uninvolved. This could do major damage to a child's emotions, because both parent's play major roles in a child's development.

According to the textbook, it is an undeniable truth that physical attraction is important when choosing our romantic partners, but it's especially important to men, as a survey suggests that they pay more attention to looks in women than women do in men. Perhaps this is the reason why we can think of the fairest beauty in history such as Cleopatra of Egypt or Yang Guifei of China, but none comes to our mind when thinking of the most handsome men in history. Instead men, who are recorded and adored through history, are the bravest men who conquered and ruled the world. So when we talk about beauty standards, mostly the focus is on women.
Although beauty standards seem to converge into one big criterion since the impact of western culture expanded over the world, there are still unique and intrinsic beauty standards left within ethnic minorities. They can be very strange but I want to point out that the reason why I'm introducing them is not to judge or compare them with today's criteria or ethics. Karen, an ethnic group of Myanmar, is well-known for the women stretching their necks by putting on several metallic rings around their necks. So the woman with the longest neck is considered the fairest. As cervical vertebrae are detached from one another because of those thick metallic rings, women can't move their heads around. They can only look forward. So those women are expected to maintain chastity, as they can't look elsewhere. In China, women used to wear foot-bindings, because those who have small feet were considered beautiful. Foot-bindings, which prevent women's feet from growing, also seem to be related to chastity. Women wearing foot-bindings are unable to run away, so they have no choice but to stay with their husband for life.
Beauty standards are not fixed but change depending on the society's value. For it is a reflection of the society, it gives lots of information about what people wanted and expected.

Contrary to the popular belief, people around the world find "average-looking" people to be the most attractive. According to our psychology textbook, these "average" faces have more symmetry, which is a strong indicator for psychical attractiveness.

Although it is hard to go against scientific evidence and the results of experiments, I still am undecided as to whether this information is true or not. To a certain point, I think that many people can agree on who is and who isn't attractive. Specific qualities, such as a good smile, good skin, or muscularity, all help people appear more attractive...and I wouldn't consider any of those as "average" qualities. I also like to think that, for the most part, I do find the unique-looking women more attractive. I have had many debates with my friends on whether or not a certain girl is attractive, and I usually find myself having largely different viewpoints on these women. So, I still lean towards the "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" belief.

What I find most disappointing is the fact that physical attractiveness does have a strong correlation with success (Jobs should hire those who are the best-suited for the job; not the best-looking! ugh..)

In my mind, there are two main reasons backing this correlation.

1) People who think, or know, that they are good-looking will have more confidence. People always prefer those that have confidence over those that don't.
2) People who are attractive will have a better chance at getting hired for jobs that require them to be seen. Media-related jobs will obviously want someone who people want to look at. For example, many professional sports interviewers are young, good-looking females. The head managers know that males are watching and will pay attention more to the interview if the female is good-looking.

These are my personal opinions, and I am no expert. But by the brief research I just did on Google, I would say that scholarly articles agree with me more often than not.

Although I don't think it's fair that people get hired based on their physical attractiveness, I do think it makes sense.

What do you think?

We humans would like to think we have a firm grasp on the truth. Unfortunately we do only slightly better than chance, about 55% of the time we are correct, when it comes to deciphering whether or not someone is telling the truth. Perhaps even as you are reading this, you are thinking to yourselves, "This can't be right, I'm excellent at deciding whether or not someone is lying!" Unfortunately though, "there's typically little or no correlation between people's confidence in their ability to detect lies and their accuracy" (Ekman, 2001). Have no fear; the polygraph test is here to save the day! Or is it?

The polygraph test, more commonly referred to as the lie detector, is supposed to be able to tell whether or not people are lying. It's an excellent concept that in the end falls short. By gauging levels of arousal, such as blood pressure, respiration, and skin conductance, it ends up doing better than chance at detecting lies. Better than chance is alright, yet it often times convicts innocent people, and occasionally will let guilty people go free. In fact, an individual can be trained in less than half an hour on how to "defeat" the lie detector test. Results show that half or more of these people end up actually being able to deceive the polygraph test. Perhaps we will never be able to know 100% whether or not someone is telling the truth or lying. Were you surprised by how poorly people are able to detect lies, or perhaps by the fact that the lie detector isn't the fail proof method that pop culture makes it out to be?

Since the turn of the 21st century, there has emerged a new, exciting branch of psychology called "positive" psychology. The basis of this psychology is that focusing, honing, and changing a person's outlook on life, in a positive way, will make people healthier mentally and physically. Proponents stress that is long as a person has a good outlook on everything, their life will be good. But is this just a fad? Many other psychologists argue that this it is, according to the book, and that it can also hurt some individuals. These psychologists say humans are complex creatures, and there is not just one fix for everybody, because everyone is different. I tend to agree both ways. I think it is always healthier, and better, to have a positive outlook on life. A person is happier, and it seems that people that have this outlook always do better and achieve to their highest potential, while being happy which is the most important part. On the contrary, sometimes having too good of an outlook makes a person unrealistic at times, even to the point of being delusional. Without having a realistic outlook, a person can be living a lie, or very bad things can happen; even if they are happy and think everything is ok. But thanks for reading, hopefully i can get some comments, appreciate it.

http://www.positivequotesaboutlife.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/positive-quotes-about-life.gif

While reading Chapter 10 I found the various parenting styles to be quite useful to learn, and they all were very understandable. I especially was interested when reading about contact comfort. We are told that the reason children are attached to their mother more than their father is because the primary basis for the attachment bond is nourishment like milk and food. In most cases it is the mother that provides these nourishments, therefore, that is who they are more attached to as a child. After reading this i found it to make perfect sense, and figured it was a big reason why i am so much more attached to my mom than dad.But then we later go on to read about Harry Harlow and how he overturned the assumption. Applying his findings from his research study on human primates and how a simple touch can be reassuring was very intriguing to me. Growing up whenever something bad happend the first thing i would do was turn to my mom, and i believe many of us can say they did the same thing. If my mom was on the couch watching tv or in her room laying down i would always just go cuddle next to her and that simple action would make everything better. Half the time my mom didnt even ask because she knew i just needed her next to me. I always thought it was just because she was my mom and her presence alone was what did it, but now i realize it was her motherly touch.

Many of us know this famous song lyric from the intro of Sir-Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back (or in part of Drake's The Motto). But, have we ever noticed that we make these kind of judgements all the time? As mentioned in our psych textbook, we all have been guilty of people-watching at least once in life, you know, to pass the time while we're sitting around.¹ And we conjure up statements like "Wow, look at that guy's hair," or, "Dang, that girl has some cellulite!" Most of the time we get pretty mean (admit it) because we know that the passerby will never hear us, but, do we ever consider that these people know that they are being judged? That their self esteems have been dropping, causing them to take high-measures to fight battles against the views of their peers — and sometimes only creating new battles for themselves? For example, many struggle with weight gain and obesity and at times can lead themselves down the path to bulimia nervosa (bingeing and purging to lose weight) or anorexia nervosa (excessive weight loss and irrational perception that one is overweight).² Some research has shown that these disorders of extreme weight loss and weight gain can be blamed on genetics, but is that really the case? Other research states that we are highly influenced by the media, looking at images of insanely thin celebrities or looking at websites that provide "Thinspiration."³ So who are we to blame? Our genes? The media? Both? Neither?
Ready, set, discuss.

References
(1) Lilienfeld, Scott. "Chapter 11: Emotion and Motivation." Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2011. 433. Print.
(2) Lilienfeld, Scott. 436.
(3) Lilienfeld, Scott. 434-437.

When reading the part in chapter 11 of the textbook that describes eating disorders, I couldn't help but think instantly of an episode of Dr. Phil that I had previously watched. The episode is called "Deadly Thin" and I've attached a link to the first part of the episode. Aimee is anorexic and bulimic and weighs in at only 60 pounds. She has suffered from an eating disorder for sixteen years. This is a very severe case of anorexia and bulimia. Aimee constantly restricts her caloric intake, but when she does eat, she binges and purges, often purging up to 150 times a day.
Watching Aimee's episode really opened my eyes to how severe eating disorders can get. I had a family friend who was once hospitalized due to her anorexia, but I have never before seen anyone as thin as Aimee. I can't imagine living my life the way she does. All of her thoughts are about food and calories, planning out what she will eat and how she will get it out of her body. It would be so miserable to eat a few bites of food only to purge it a minute later and continue to do this several times throughout just one meal. Eating disorders are very serious and I think that this video really depicts the emotional toll that disordered eating can have on those who suffer from it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PLDBITfHYA&feature=relmfu

I bet you did not know, that Americans spend about $750 million a year on self help books, as well as a whopping $1 billion a year on motivational speakers, all in hopes to boost happiness levels. You would think that with how much money we sink into this cause, Americans would be the happiest, and most positive humans on the face of this earth. However, there is still a large portion of our society that chooses to create excuses which block their journey to complete happiness. Some common sayings that people have come up with are "people on the West Coast are the happiest, because of the warm climate", "happiness declines with age", "if I was rich, I'd be ten times more happy" or "I haven't had the opportunity to have a job like that, where I am able to travel to Europe". It seems to me, that with these excuses, people are trying to make it seem like they have a disadvantage compared to others when it comes to happiness. In my opinion, happiness is available to everyone no matter where you live, how much money you have, how old you are, or what experiences you have partaken in, in your lifetime. Being happy is a state of mind that you, and only you are in control of.

When you read the textbook it talked about how there are three main parenting types, authoritative, passive, and authoritarian. In the book, it described the three as just right, too soft, and too hard, but my question is whether or not the parenting styles have as much of an effect on their children's personalities as much as the children's innate temperment? For example, my brother and I were brought up in the same house, with the same parents, and the same parenting styles, but we have completely different personalities, ways of thinking about things, and doing things. For example, I am very organizied, want to go to law school, have done well in school, and am able to keep track of my own financies, appointments, etc. My brother, on the other hand, is extremely unorganized, is going into theater, has done well enough in school, and has a hard time handling his own financies and appointments. So, if parenting styles have such an effect on the child's temperment, then why do children brought up in the same parenting style grow up to have such completely different personalities? Clearly, the child's temperment must play a bigger role in the child's personality development than the parent's parenting style. Obviously, there are exceptions to everything and maybe I've had the exception experiences, but I'm interested to see if my experience is similar to other people's experiences.

I have watched the show "Lie to Me", and have found it really interesting. The book talked about its basis in Paul Ekman's work and its inaccuracies. The basis is the idea of body language and micro-expressions. I personally am a terrible liar, so pretty much anyone who knew me would be able to tell. According to Ekman's work, most people have certain split second expressions that show what they are feeling. The study of micro-expressions can be valid at times, but others, especially with people on drugs, with certain psychopathic disorders, or those who have had facial surgery, even the best trained readers have trouble. Due to what the book calls, barely better than chance accuracy, I decided to look into a more scientific way of lie detection. After reading in the book about the use of fMRIs to test for lie detectors, I went looking for myself. I saw a video about the use of fMRIs. The speaker said that across the board, there is more mental activation when lying. One of the areas of the brain that is activated is the prefrontal cortex. The speaker said that the technology his company uses is for sure effective for people from 18-50 (older than 50 have not been tested). One of the things that I wondered about was how accurate this test was for people under 25, since we learned in class that 25 is about when the prefrontal cortex of the brain (site of thinking, planning, and decision making) fully develops. Many tests are difficult to judge the validity on due to human ability to manipulate and rehearse what they are going to say.
http://sackler.nasmediaonline.org/2011/uk/laken/laken.html