November 2011 Archives

I believe the most significant concept I learned from psychology is cognitive economy. Cognitive economy is the short-cut for us to mobilize as less resource in mind as possible to solve the problem. It is one of the most adaptive abilities possessed by human beings. If I can be sure about the answer at an 80% confidence level within few minutes, why should I bother to spend another one hour to demonstrate that it is 100% true? Instead, I can apply the extra one hour to do other tasks and make my life more efficient and colourful, such as inventing a machine, sending someone to the moon and so on. Although sometimes cognitive economy encounters difficulties on the reliability, overall it efficiently meets our needs on daily life. On fields requiring high level of accuracy, we have computers to work on these non-creative and time-consuming tasks.

Furthermore, cognitive economy also motivates creative activities. For we are misers on thinking, it is so boring for us to do the same thing time after time. So we just apply tools and invent machines to save our time and energy on reasoning. For me now, there is no need to worry about any spelling errors in this post. The word software itself corrects the errors.

The concept in psychology that will remain with me from this class is Piaget's different stages in childhood development. From my experience with my own childhood and watching my siblings and younger cousins grow up, I can think of many instances where different stages of development were obvious.
Piaget's four stages of development are: the Sensorimotor stage, the Preoperational stage, the Concrete Operations stage and the Formal Operations stage. The Sensorimotor stage takes place from birth until the age of about 2 years and is "marked by focus on the here and now." Basically children's knowledge, thinking, and experiences come from their physical interactions with their surrounding world. The Preoperational stage is from 2 to 7 years of age and is "marked an ability to construct mental representations of experience." So things like playing pretend, basically using language, objects and drawings as representations as ideas, are evident at this age. The Concrete Operational stage is from 7 to 11 years of age and is characterized by the ability to perform mental operations, but only for actual physical events. Basically this is the age where conservation concepts and sorting toys and other things become regular behaviors. The final stage is the Formal operations stage that happens after age 11 in which abstract thought, logic, and hypothetical reasoning are present (Lilienfeld 373-374).
The stage that I have the most memories of was from the age of 7 to 11 years old, so the Concrete Operational stage. I remember constantly sorting my toys and lining up the good-guy action figures across from the bad-guy action figure. I also remember seeing this development in my siblings as well. My little sister, in fact was the one who exhibited these aspects the most. She was constantly sorting her dolls and continuing to play pretend. This is why I feel these concepts will stick with me after I'm done with PSY1001, because I have experienced them myself and have fond memories of those experiences.

Ironically enough, maybe because of the availability heuristic, I believe I will remember the concept of conformity from psychology forever. Conformity is all around us almost all the time and that is why I think I will remember it the most. In five years, I see myself with a job and a significant other. Conformity will be a part of my life, maybe even more than it is now. Conformity plays a significant role in my life today. For example, I usually want to go out to eat at different places than my friends or family but I'm usually outnumbered for a different restaurant. I can tell you that I always choose to go eat with the rest of the group because nobody wants to eat alone. In five years, I will probably end up doing the same thing if a group of guys are going to lunch and if I have a wife or a girlfriend, it hurts to say that I will probably end up doing what the others want but conformity is a reality. Conformity will be a part of most people's lives as long as they live and it will be a part of mine too. That is why I think I will remember the concept of conformity for five years and probably forever.

There are many concepts in psychology, many of which are vague and have no concrete definition. One the main concepts in psychology is personality It boggles my mind how there can be around seven billion people on Earth, and each person has their own personality. A concept I will remember five years from now or maybe even longer, is personality and the ideas behind it.

The Big Five takes all the describing words in a language and packs them into five categories. If you know four of the five scores of someone, the other unknown category score allows for an extremely large range of different personalities.

There is evidence that personality is hereditable. I've always thought of myself as the opposite of my family members, which seems to be true at the surface. Looking at my family, I realize that I have many similarities to them in the way I act.

Some behaviorists believe that personality is just a subconscious survival instinct. They believe people feel they are in control, but in reality they are acting out of instinct. Personality being genetically influenced makes this viewpoint very plausible. This idea scares me, because I like to believe that I am in control of my actions; even if sometimes I, like many others, blame my wrong actions on others.

Personality is a blurry concept with many factors that make it hard to make a pinpoint definition for it. It is a fascinating topic with many opposing viewpoints.

As I sat here thinking about what part of psychology I would remember years from now many things came to mind. I know I would remember everything about disorders and addiction, since people in my life, including myself, have experienced these things. I know I would remember the things about romantic relationships because as a young woman I of course am interested in romance. The one thing that stuck out above all the others was the theories and ideas behind happiness. I have spent many years trying to find this elusive idea. For the past five years I was convinced that if I was just skinny enough, if I just lost three more pounds, then four, then five, that smile would finally appear. That didn't happen though. Instead I found myself constantly in and out of treatment centers and hospitals. Finally last winter it got so badly severe and I was so malnourished and refusing treatment I was legally committed to a treatment center for six months. Trust me, I was the opposite of happy. You would have thought that at 70lbs. I would have been thrilled, but I was just the opposite, I was miserable. I had nothing in life but my eating disorder. After learning about happiness I can see why I was so miserable. While there is no clear cut theory on happiness or what makes people happy, researchers have some idea. They say that marriage, friendships, and college make people happy. While being too young for marriage, I was out of college and had virtually no friends (its hard to even have a conversation at that stage of the disease). They also say that religion, being republican, and exercise help with happiness. I was certainly getting enough (obsessive) exercise, but my religion went pretty much out the window. And while I'll NEVER be a Republican ;) I think that even having things in the world you care about politically make a person happier. Gratitude, giving, and flow are the final three that research has found give people a sense of happiness. I had none of those. Now, after six months of treatment and six months of being at a "goal weight", I can finally say I am happy. I do things for others, and am grateful for the things others do for me. I can concentrate and get into a flow when I'm doing things I love, or when I'm studying. I have made new friends and have rebuilt friendships. I am in college and loving it! I go to church again and exercise regularly, but not excessively. And while I'm still a Democrat, I think I am the happiest I've ever been. When, in the future the going gets tough and I want to go back, I think remembering what really makes people happy, not weight or money, will serve me well. I read an interesting book awhile ago called the Happiness Project. I would encourage others to read it as well, it kind of goes along the same lines as this. Here is the website : http://www.happiness-project.com/

In five years from now I think I will remember the concept of the Strange Situation study done by Mary Ainsworth. In her study she decided on infant attachment styles by seeing how an infant reacts when its' parent leave him/her in a room with a stranger, and then also how they respond upon the parents return. She concluded that there are four main categories infants will generally fall into. The most common is secure attachment in which the infant becomes upset when its' parent leaves and then becomes content when they return. Another is insecure-avoidant attachment which the child is indifferent with parents departure and has little reaction for their return. Insecure-anxious attachment is when the infant panics when their parent leaves then has mixed emotions when parent returns. Disorganized attachment is the rarest and is when the infant is inconsistent with their reaction responses (Lilienfeld).
Children is one of the interest areas I truly enjoy learning about and I am looking into a career that involves being able to work with them on a day to day basis. For this reason I found her study on a child's attachment style to their parents very fascinating. Recently in the past years many of my immediate cousins have had children of their own and after learning more about the attachment styles I can identify and understand why some of them could care less if their mom or dad leaves them to play with unfamiliar people while others make a big fuss about their parents leaving them.

The concept in psychology that I think I will remember five years from now is the two-factor theory. This is because it practically taught me how to make the boy that I like to feel more attracted to me. From the Psychology: From inquiry to understanding text book, two-factor theory proposed that emotion is produced by an undifferentiated state of arousal along with the attribution of that arousal.
This theory is then strengthen by a classic study conducted by Schachter and Singer (1962) in which adrenaline is used as the attribution of arousal. From this study , I learned that I can make the boy that I like to be more attracted to me by increasing his adrenaline so that he will be more excited when his is with me. For example, he will feel that I look more attractive to him after riding a roller coaster with him or after playing bungee jumping with him rather than sightseeing with him in a flower garden.
My understanding is further verified by the test conducted by Dutton and Aron (1974) in which they had proven that male will feel more romantic emotions when passing through a woman on a swaying bridge rather than on a sturdy bridge.
All in all, the two-factor theory will be one of the concepts in psychology that I will remember five years from now as it taught me ways to attract people.

An emotion, defined by the book, is a mental state or feeling associated with our evaluation of our experiences. Primary emotions are a group of seven mental states that are cross culturally universal. These seven emotions are happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, and contempt. In many peoples' minds, happiness is definitely the most important of all the emotions. If a person wants to have a good life, they need to have happiness. Happiness is one of the most universal feelings a person can have. People all over the world experience happiness every single day. Some researchers even believe that happiness may serve evolutionary adaptive functions. One of these concepts is called the broaden and build theory. The broaden and build theory is very simple. The broaden and build theory states that happiness makes a person more likely to think openly. The happier a person is, the more likely they are to see "the big picture." A research was done with doctors to test this theory. A group of doctors was given a bag of candy before diagnosing someone, while the other group was not. It was shown that the doctors who received the candy were more likely to make the correct diagnosis. Researchers believed that the bag of candy put the doctors in a better mood, allowing them to think more openly about diagnosis. They were then able to consider alternative diagnostic possibilities. This is true in most people's lives. The happier a person is, the more likely they are to seek out opportunities. Happiness is the key to an open mind, and a successful life.

An emotion, defined by the book, is a mental state or feeling associated with our evaluation of our experiences. Primary emotions are a group of seven mental states that are cross culturally universal. These seven emotions are happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, and contempt. In many peoples' minds, happiness is definitely the most important of all the emotions. If a person wants to have a good life, they need to have happiness. Happiness is one of the most universal feelings a person can have. People all over the world experience happiness every single day. Some researchers even believe that happiness may serve evolutionary adaptive functions. One of these concepts is called the broaden and build theory. The broaden and build theory is very simple. The broaden and build theory states that happiness makes a person more likely to think openly. The happier a person is, the more likely they are to see "the big picture." A research was done with doctors to test this theory. A group of doctors was given a bag of candy before diagnosing someone, while the other group was not. It was shown that the doctors who received the candy were more likely to make the correct diagnosis. Researchers believed that the bag of candy put the doctors in a better mood, allowing them to think more openly about diagnosis. They were then able to consider alternative diagnostic possibilities. This is true in most people's lives. The happier a person is, the more likely they are to seek out opportunities. Happiness is the key to an open mind, and a successful life.

In this section, I found the lecture on attachment style the most interesting. It really made me wonder which style I am, and which style my boyfriend is. I googled "attachment style" and found a quiz I could take that would tell me mine. Here is a link to the website. It only takes about 5 minutes to complete the survey. http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl

I fell into the "secure" quadrant, which I figured I would. The test just repeated a lot of the same questions, so I don't know how truly accurate it is, but it was still fun to take. I really want to make my boyfriend take it, to see if we are compatible. I think that everyone is a combination of all three types of attachment styles, and so I liked that this website plotted my score on a graph that allowed me to fall somewhere in between.

I thought it was really interesting during the lecture when he said that parents of the "anxious" group of people were parents who tried to be good parents, but often didn't do as well as they wanted because they were really young or 1st time parents. That reminded me of my boyfriends situation, and the paragraph about "anxious" people seemed to fit pretty closely with him. I think it is very interesting that how you are treated as in infant will so clearly determine how you act when you grow up. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but of the people I've talked to, this falls pretty right-on.

I think now that I know this information I will try even harder to be a good parent when the time comes. Of course I always planned on being a good parent, but now that I've learned about this I will always be sure to attend to my child right away when they cry, and not to make them figure it out by themselves like I might have otherwise tried. Although I love my boyfriend very much, sometimes I wish he wasn't so insecure about our relationship while I feel just fine. I don't want my children to be insecure when they grow up, and of course I want them to know they are loved.

One very popular myth, especially in elementary level classes, is that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the moon by the naked eye. The claim originates from a book written in 1938 and was based on the projections of the author, not actual observations from space since that was not possible at the time. So at the time that the myth was actually created there was no way to falsify the claims made about being able to see the Great Wall from space or the moon. The rumor further persisted since it was a very easy visual tool to use for teaching when describing the size of the wall. Once satellites and spacecrafts were put into use in the 1950's this claim was very easy to disprove. Actually according to the snopes article, some of the astronauts actually had trouble distinguishing the Great Wall at high altitudes, not even as far away as the moon. However I had not actually heard that this claim was false prior to reading the snopes article. This shows the high prevelence of popular rumors, despite the claims being falsified. It also shows the importance of claims being able to be falsified at the time they are made instead of at a later period in time when they have been able to be spread and thought to be true.

Psychologists argue that there is the existence of multiple intelligences. The book defines that, as having different domains of intellectual skills. General intelligence (g) only defines one component of intelligence. I would say that having multiple intelligences is important because a human's brain has room for many different skills. I am a junior in college with all the education I went through, I have yet to know what other types of intelligences I can acquire. Experience can also contribute to intelligence in my opinion because you learn things from it. Gardner explains it as "frames of mind", is like how people think differently about the world. I can be example of having multiple intelligences; I usually score high in mathematical, interpersonal, and naturalistic intelligence, but the fact that I haven't experienced life in the real-world trying to test my abilities I have more things to learn. I wonder if intelligence has to do with how much information can a person intake and be able to excel in? Can intelligence just be defined in as only one's mentioned through the chapter? Can there be intelligence we are not aware of that exist?

Some of my most vivid memories from when I was a child deal with learning new skills like riding a bicycle, learning to roller blade, or even learning to play piano. All of these tasks required a lot of help and guidance from my parents before I could develop and proficiency of my own. For the bicycling, I needed training wheels, on roller blades I needed a parent to keep me balanced, and for piano I needed the kids' piano bench so I reached the keyboard properly.
All of the devices are examples of what is referred to as scaffolding. A term borrowed from building construction, scaffolding is defined as the process for constructing a learning environment for a child in ways that guide them to behave as if they've learned before they have. This structuring of the learning environment is done by the parents or caretakers of the child and is strongly based on social and cultural factors of the family (Lilienfeld 375). Historically, this theory of cognitive development was developed by Russian researcher Lev Vygotsky right around the same time Gene Piaget was developing his theory (Lilienfeld 375). Basically, the theory explains that as children become older and more experienced with their environment, more and more of the parental support or "scaffolding" can be removed. Thus, with the example of training wheels on my bicycle, the training wheels eventually came off when I got good enough to not require them anymore. The same is also true for roller blading and my piano practice.
Can you think of an example when your parents had to help support you before you could be independent?

Recently in discussion and lecture we discussed the Big Five traits. The Big Five traits consist of openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. If you want a description of each of the traits, here is a link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits.

A person is not just one of these big five traits, everyone is a combination of each of the traits; more or less of each of the traits. It seems to be this combination is what makes everybody unique.

There are many personality tests out there, but here is one that I found right off of google.

http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/info/

I believe the big five traits are important to psychology because without them we would have a difficult time organizing people with different personalities. Obviously these big five traits can not describe everything about everyone, but they are very helpful understanding the main differences in personalities among different people.

I have not take this personality test i have provided a link to, but I would say I would score high in conscientiousness and agreeableness. I am organized and like things structured and well planned out. I also am very laid back and try to avoid arguments at all costs, therefore I tend to be very cooperative with others.

http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/a/attachment01.htm

Everyone experiences a degree of attachment. The strength of such bonds is very subjective depending on the individual and environment, but nonetheless present. The attachment theory is in regards to the bonds that children form with their caregivers and the impacts of that bond throughout the individual's life. The variations in level of attachment are secure, ambivalent, and avoidant; the degree to which infants and children display these levels is very dependent on the relationship that they have with their parents. The main caregiver provides the child with a sense of security and this solidifies the attachment because it creates a secure base. This is important because we can use what we know about the degree of attachment people have to predict, to some extent, their relationships later in life and could help us gain insight into how critical the role of a parent is.
I can apply the attachment theory to my life, because as a kid, I was very afraid of the dark. My parents were made well aware of my fear when they heard me yelling out at night because I heard a noise outside the house or something like that. Quickly, my parents would run into my room and lay with me until I fell back asleep and I wouldn't be afraid anymore because I knew they were there to protect me. The attachment theory holds true in my situation because I came to rely on my parents more and more for protection and relief from things that were frightening because they made me feel safe, and provided a secure base and a safe haven; and I would strive for proximity maintenance and would demonstrate separation distress if they didn't come. Because my parents were there for me, I was able to learn how to form meaningful and caring relationships, and they also provided me with a sense of reassurance that I would be ok, and these things have helped me greatly with forming past and current relationships with others.

(http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.minddisorders.com/images/gemd_02_img0100.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Thematic-Apperception-Test.html&h=322&w=497&sz=17&tbnid=B90GWM_YpR1qQM:&tbnh=73&tbnw=113&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtat%2Btests%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=tat+tests&docid=NUYuh91NWIifBM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=atvJTqmzNerciQKZ1ZHdDw&ved=0CDUQ9QEwAQ&dur=406)

Thematic apperception tests are a type of projective tests that allow a person to look at an ambiguous situation and interpret them, and then theses answers can be measured and analyzed. A lot of the time these tests are used to determine which psychotherapy treatment would be bests with people who are already diagnosed with mental disorders. The only problem with these tests is that the way they are measured and analyzed can be varied. This is because of the lack of standardization. There are many factors that play into the testing situation some include sex, race, and social class which all affect one's personality. Although this lack of standardization for the TAT test can be bad when judging a more typical case of mental illness, it is better when people are trying to fool psychologists. Since the TAT tests have no normal standard, people are unable to lie about the situation they see in order to give a normal answer. So although the tests lack standardization it does not always a mean that it is bad, but instead it gives this test an advantage to other projective tests. I do believe that TAT tests should become more standardized in the psychology community.

(http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Thematic+Apperception+Test)

There are different opinions as to whether or not children who play violent video games are more likely to be more violent and/or commit violent crimes. The people that say that exposure to violent video games makes the players more likely to commit violent acts argue that real life acts are rendered less meaningful because they are said to be "okay" in the video game. For example, in games like Grand Theft Auto the player regularly commits horrible acts such as robbing banks, evading police and generally just being a menace to society. In addition, players are actually rewarded for these acts.

Those who argue that playing video games does not have an affect on real life violence typically bring up the fact that there are many extraneous factors that are better indicators of violence in children. A few of these are mental illness, a stable or unstable home life and parental influence. Kids learn a lot about what is okay and acceptable in life from their parents, more so than from video games. If they are exposed to or witness abuse on a regular basis they may begin to think that such behavior is acceptable. Undiagnosed mental illnesses could also be a factor in violent acts.

Article: http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson.aspx

In one of the recent discussion sections we had a debate about why Intelligence Tests should or should not be used in consideration of people for certain job positions.
I believe that a general IQ test should not be used alone for these measures. Instead I am in favor of companies using specialized tests that measure certain knowledge for the specific position and personality tests.

First of all, when the IQ test was created, it was intended only to help identify students with special needs in education. The results of the tests would only benefit the students and help them succeed. However, today one score basically can put a big label on someone's forehead and determine their status as a job applicant.

Every company has different demands and expectations of their employees. Because different positions require different personalities, skills, experience and prior accomplishments, the employer can look at those in addition to considering IQ scores.

I've never taken an IQ test, but I have taken the ACT multiple times. Out of the three times I took the test, I got different scores every time with variability in every subsection of the exam. I believe that none of the standardized tests show a full profile of a person.

I believe that personality is also an important factor that can predict success in many jobs. The Big 5 can very much determine success in any job position. For example, if a job requires focusing on details and high social skills, an employer would look for someone with high conscientiousness and extraversion. If a person has a personality that would not match that environment, the probability of success and satisfaction is low.

In the textbook, the author discussed about the undermining effect of extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation. When people receive the extrinsic reinforcer other than their original intrinsic motivation, they tend to lose the original one.

This undermining effect remind me of my high school courses. At that time, all the courses I took were only for the collage entrance test in my country. They seemed so boring to me. And the whole high school years for me were filled with endless tests and miserable learning. However, after that, as I past the final test and enrolled in a collage, one day when I randomly picked up a high school textbook for killing time, I just found it was so interesting. For the following days, I reviewed all my high school textbooks, and found that they were all classic and full of fun. Why I didn't find that before? It would make my high school years much better.

Now I see, because at that time I was so focusing on the extrinsic motivation, the collage entrance test, which let me neglect the intrinsic interests of the courses themselves. The extrinsic motivation undermined the intrinsic motivation. After the rewards from the test had been removed for a long time, the intrinsic motivation just came back.

This experience drives me to think about the education today. The knowledge is defined as the tool to get money and reputation to motivate the students learning. As a result, more and more students tend to see courses as tasks for degree, but not the enjoyment of learning and beauty of the nature itself. It is alarming for this undermining effect, which in fact undermining our motivation for "Driven to Discover".

This is a concept mention in our text (pg 422) that emphasizing positive human characteristics. This concept has gained a lot of critisicm because, as some researchers say, it takes away from "defensive pessimis", which is a strategy of hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. They argue that this view is essential and that embracing simply the positive aspects of life and dealing with reality as it is.

In respect to this perspective, I am very supportive. I think that embracing the "rose-colored" view is very important and can have a dramatic effect on how we live and enjoy our lives. In my opinion, viewing things in a positive way and trying to find happiness in all things gives us a creative perspective and opens us to a lot of possibilities. I do understand that it is important to keep a realistic view of life, but I don't think that being happy and seeing the best in situations necessarily has to take away from a calculative approach.

Being happy is good for your health, you friends and your goals. I make it a priority to see the best and move on in life. I think Positive Psychology is not just a fad, it is a concept recognizing the amazing effect of a positive approach on life. Some have had this down for a long time, but only now do we begin to see what a positive attitude can do for us from a psychological perspective.

So look on the bright side! And please, be nice, it increases your happiness and others!

We all have grown up feeling that it was pretty normal and expected that we would be taking standardized tests. But, are these tests fairly measuring how we are going to do educationally in life? In my opinion, I disagree with the idea that these tests are a prediction of how someone will do educationally. For a quick overview, standardized tests are mainly used for judging success and failure rates in students, teachers, and school systems. Public officials look at these tests to see how a school and education system is doing, and school use these scores to determine how an individual is doing in school and if they are ready to move on in grades and then eventually determines graduation. There are many reasons that I do not agree with these tests. One reason is they cannot test on or prepare for how someone is going to do in the outside, real world. Also, they sometimes can be unfairly judged. There is studies that show that for some people tests can raise their stress level, especially ones that can show this much importance. Because of that tests scores can be lowered due to a person not being able to fully focus on what they are doing. I also don't agree with these tests being used as a main outlook on people getting into a specific college. There are a lot of other factors that can determine how well someone will do in their school work and how successful they will be in their life, and those other aspects are things that I feel should be more focused on. Overall, I feel that standardized tests are reasonable for grade levels 1-4 to mainly determine how well a school/education system is doing but I do not feel that they should be looked at in determining how well someone is going to do later in school or life.

You may not be shocked when you hear that many siblings share similarities, such as similar intelligence levels, occupational styles, and psychological behavioral traits. You may conclude that these strong similarities are due not to similarity of genes but because of how those siblings were raised in the same family household. However, research has shown that genetically identical twins share stronger similarities than generic siblings, and while some believe that this could be due to the fact that twins are generally raised more similar than other siblings, separated twin studies have shown that much of the similarities found in siblings is a result of genetics rather than external environmental factors such as childhood upbringing.

These separated twin studies allow for psychologists to disregard external factors because of the fact that the twins were raised in separate households. Because of this researchers are able to isolate genetics and their effect of life outcomes in twins. The findings are astounding, and there are numerous stories of twins who were separated at birth yet have extremely similar lives. For instance, Gerald Levey and Mark Newman were both separated at birth, and when they reunited they discovered that they were both firefighters, and shared similar personalities. Such research is difficult to conduct because it requires for a situation in which separated twins can be analyzed many years later, yet whenever the research is properly conducted, similar and astonishing findings are seen.

I personally know two older twins from high school who were raised under a similar household, but then were sent off to different colleges having external experiences during a time of great personal development. Despite the great differences in their physical experiences and mental experiences, both twins still have very similar lives, and even now as they are separated I expect their lives to progress in a similar fashion.

The Big Five deals with five traits that measure our personalities. The five personalities are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism; OCEAN. Openness deals with open people who tend to be curious and unconventional. They tend to be open to new ideas. Conscientious people tend to be careful and responsible. Once example would be the ideal college student who studies hard and always turn in assignments. Extraverted people tend to be social and lively. This personality does not describe me instead it would describe someone who enjoys throwing parties and entertaining people. Agreeable people are exactly like they are described as, someone easy to get along with and be around while neurotic people are the exact opposite. They tend to be tense and moody (Lilienfeld 562).
This model I believe is very useful. It describes a huge population and is also used in other countries such as China, Japan, Italy etc. This makes me think that most people have similar personality traits. But there are some places were traits are different even in the United States. Republican states and democratic states tend to have different traits for the people living there as they have different beliefs. Some people might be happy with the way they are and others might want to be more agreeable then neurotic. The people who wish to have different personality traits are in luck because some personality traits "tend to decline from late teens to early thirties" (Lilienfeld 562). Once people hit 30 though traits do not usually change based on studies. One question i have is if you are to move to a different place where traits are a little different then do most people change to those traits or do they tend to keep the traits they grew up with?

We have seen T.V shows such as CSI or Criminal Minds using criminal profile to link the people responsible for the crime. The feeling of suspense when figuring out with criminal profile as it unfolds and reveals to be fallen through or the detectives are a step behind make criminal profiling intriguing. We are kept on our feet thinking what is going on in the detectives minds and what are the next events unfolding within the criminals mind. In the end the detectives usually capture the criminal and bring justice in to the family of the victim. However, what is reality and fiction when using criminal profiling to find possible criminals responsible for the crime and is it effective? The merging of psychology with criminal justice is one way of helping identify and predict occurrences of criminal activities. This merge between psychologist and law enforcement gives more opportunity to narrow the list of possible suspects.

Profiling a criminal gets the law enforcement get into the mind of the criminal themselves which help them catch up from the scene to predict the next move the criminal will act. This is important because "behavior reflects personality"(Criminal Profiling). This help lets investigators start somewhere and eventually catch the person responsible for the action. Although profiling seems to work like a charm on T.V it is not in reality. A study involving profiling was made and given about 2 cases involving murder and rape with participants writing a report on the profile. The trained profilers wrote longer reports but didn't do no better than a non profiler did (Does profiling really work?). This makes profiling like a toss of a coin and unreliable. However, it has its limitation since it is in a lab environment.
I believe criminal profiling is a big help to the law enforcement to help identify criminals and predict their next move. Like what the retired FBI agent said "I think that there is an incredible value added when applications of psychology enter into the mix of what we do" (Criminal Profiling).

References
"Criminal Profiling" http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/criminal.aspx
"Does Profiling Really Work" http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/profiling.aspx

Have you ever wondered if intelligence or personality is more influential in job performance? Based on the article, http://www.divinecaroline.com/22276/107604-which-traits-predict-job-performance, Joyce Hogan, psychologist from the University of Tulsa, believes that personality plays a major role in creativity, leadership, integrity, attendance, and cooperation. These factors are important to have success in future jobs and are also associated with the Big Five. The Big Five Model of Personality does not focus on intelligence but on various dimensions of personality such as Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism; these traits are crucial in predicting success in job performance. For example, if an individual is high in Agreeableness and low in Neuroticism, this could correlate with getting along well with others by not being tense or moody to other employees. Intelligence used to be a key factor in job performance, but researches, stated in the article, believe that the focus has turned to personality.

In the future, the Big Five will be an important assessment in order to get a job as a nursing student. This relates to my life because employers will be looking for high in Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion through their hiring process. These traits determine if individuals can interact with various patients and also get along with their employees.

It is still unclear if personality or intelligence is more influential, but based on the article previously stated, researchers believe that personality may be more important in some cases. Is it possible to determine which one is more crucial? Will researchers and psychologists ever have an answer? These questions will continue to linger after learning about the Big Five Model.

While reading Chapter 14 on Personality, I was very intrigued by the section discussing birth order and its effects on personality. According to the text, birth order as a nonshared environmental factor on personality has been a topic of debate for decades. The book The New Birth Order Book described firstborns as goal oriented, middle-borns as negotiators, and the later-borns as risk takers. These very specific claims were found to be inconsistent when tested, with researchers not finding any strong correlations between birth order and the ascribed personality traits. Frank Sulloway, a science historian, momentarily revitalized the theory about the importance of birth order on personality with his 1996 study involving correlations between birth order and revolutionary scientific theories. The results of his experiment seemed to support the idea that birth order does, in fact, affect personality; it was found that later-borns were between three and five times more likely to favor revolutionary ideas than first borns. However, the boost his study gave to the birth order theory was quickly criticized based on several factors, one of them being that the scientists he was using to help evaluate the people may not have been blind to their birth order. His results have also not been replicated by other studies, which further calls into question his findings.
I was interested in this section on birth order and its effects on personality because it made me think about my own birth order situation and those of people I know. I am the middle child, with an older sister and younger brother, and I do not think that my siblings and I fit the traits that are described for our birth orders. However, I do feel that birth order may have more subtle effects on personality than what has been laid out in this textbook. For the Human Growth and Development course that I'm currently enrolled in, we discussed how birth order may influence personality based on how parenting styles may change as a couple has more experience when raising a second, third, etc., child.

This video is interesting because while it does talk about birth order, it also shows what the textbook brings up a few times: how popular media often oversimplifies psychological concepts and provide single-cause explanations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YstSLxQQqDw

Freud's psychoanalysis studies was one of the major key points in history of psychology. He explained three basic components of the human personality and those three parts exists together form our personalities plus our conscious mind and unconscious mind.
Often times experts describe this analysis as an iceberg. And here is why. Conscious portion of our characteristics interact with the world daily. On the other hand, our unconscious parts is not part of our known selves and stays well below the surface of awareness. These two together are components of our personalities. Discussed quite often, the id, ego, and superego, Freudians claim, compose the personality
Basic instincts like our sexual drive (libido) or aggressiveness is what freudians call the id. The id is like our most primitive impulses, which Freud thinks is the biggest factor of human behavior. According to Freud, pleasure principle is what drives the id and it seeks for constant gratification.
Second portion of the personality is the ego. Not to be confused with the term 'ego,' which is used moderately often in this society, Freud's definition of the term ego describes it as a principal decision maker in our system which we tend to show the world (conscious part). Unlike the id, ego is driven by the reality principle which does not emphasize gratification as much as the id but seeks for an appropriate outlet to solving conflicts.
Last comes is the superego; in easy terms it is just our morality. The thing that we all have and stops us from doing ungraceful deeds! The term superego literally means 'above ego.' I believe Freud's interpretation was that superego is something superior to the ego and it overrides the force ego holds and make us do what believe is to be good and moral deeds.

One important concept in Psychology is the invention of the IQ test, a diagnostic tool designed to measure overall thinking ability. The first intelligence test was created in 1905 by Alfred Binet and Théophile Simon to determine which French school children were too slow to follow "regular" instruction by teachers. In discussion a few weeks ago, we discussed if IQ tests should be used solely to hire applicants for certain positions. I feel that intelligence tests should not be used in any way to choose one candidate from another. Although the correlation between job performance and interviews is only +0.15, IQ tests should not be used to fill that gap because Intelligence tests have many downfalls. For example, they cannot be applied to the general public, specifically those who do not speak the language that the test is in. If the test is in a language that is not native to the speaker, then it will inevitably be more difficult for them, regardless of how the test is written. Furthermore, intelligence tests evaluate how smart one is, but does not test how they process information, or their critical thinking skills. The way someone process information and think critically is extremely important in any job, but that is not assessed through an intelligence test. Also, IQ tests cannot account for other factors such as job performance, social ability etc, factors that are necessary in any type of job. Also, SATs and Acts are types of IQ tests that are supposed to forecast the performance in undergraduate courses. Yet the correlation between these tests and college grades are less than .5, and in some cases, close to zero. If SATs and Acts are poor predictors of academic performance, similarly, IQ tests will be poor predictors of job performance.

The most controversial model Freud has made is his theory on psychosexual development. He believed that the development of our personalities begins all the way back to when we are born. As we grow older, we go through stages called psychosexual. He believed at each stage we are sexually aroused by a specific body zone or erogenous zone. Freud felt strongly that we experience sexual pleasure even from when we are babies. If we were deprived of any "sexual pleasure" during a stage, then we linger in development in that stage a little longer than what is normal.

STAGES
Oral - birth to 12/18months - sucking & drinking
Anal - 18months to 3 years - expelling feces
Phallic - 3 years to 6 years - genitals
Latency - 6 years to 12 years - dormant
Genital - 12 years & beyond - renewal

I think it is important simply for the fact that his theory is hard to grasp with the way we have been raised. The ages of 12 and younger should be of innocence, there should be no relation to sexual pleasures. It's a bad thing to us. But his explanation of each stage is quite appropriate and seems applicable. It is relatable in a way because it really is how we are raised. The parallel connections between our body zones and the sexual name makes sense.

Example from our textbook: Anal - children want to alleviate tension by moving their bowels, but we learn we cannot whenever nature calls. Instead, we learn to control our bowels to where we only alleviate when it is socially appropriate at the appropriate place; toilet. If the toilet training is too lenient or too harsh then the child will regress back to this stage when hit with anxiety. They tend to grow up and have stubborn, excessive neatness personalities. (Lilienfeld P.551)

The idea that body language can help you figure out how a person really feels has been popularized and exemplified in the FOX TV show Lie to Me in which Dr. Lightman runs a company that specializes in determining whether people are lying or not through examining a person's body language and "micro-expressions".

Although this method is controversial and many people find it to be unreliable (as the show itself points out), our textbook points out, nonverbal leakage can be a very "powerful cue that we're trying to hide an emotion". There are however, several studies that provide evidence for micro-expressions revealing when a person is lying. For instance, work done by social psychologist Mark Frank at the University of Buffalo has identified conscious and unconscious cues that can suggest that someone is lying. His research is being used by investigative bodies around the world to detect these almost impossible to control micro-expressions.

Frank spent much time studying under the world's foremost expert in reading facial expressions, Paul Ekman, who conducted research that found many universal facial expressions that correlate to specific emotions. Each emotion is tied to specific movements of muscles within the face and they can be recognized across many cultures. So in a way, Mark Frank IS the real-life embodiment of Dr. Lightman. Of course it could be that Frank and his work were the inspiration for the character and show.

So next time you tell a lie, which statistically will be sometime VERY soon, you better hope who ever you're telling the lie to isn't a master at detecting micro-expressions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060505161952.htm

Scoring in the top two percent of the IQ range qualifies a person for an organization called Mensa. This group offers gets together and exchanges ideas. In order to find out what kind of correlations there are to extremely high IQ Lewis Terman followed a group of extremely gifted (IQ of 135 or higher) young adults into old age. He found that more of the exceptionally gifted had law or medical degrees compared with the general population. He also found that there wasn't a stronger correlation between mental illness and the exceptionally gifted than with the general population. This means that contrary to popular belief being extremely smart does not put you at a higher risk of being mentally ill.

Generally, these exceptionally smart people can't accomplish great things with little effort. In order to become an expert in a particular field there seems to be a 10,000 hour rule. Given that are 8736 hours in a year that is a large chunk of time. It could be that people with lower IQ's don't catch on fast enough and give up before they get close to the 10,000 hour mark. Simply having a high IQ doesn't necessarily make you a millionaire, however. There are many other factors that come into play. For example, being bad with people would make it difficult to excel in a work environment. Also, being able to communicate your idea efficiently and effectively is important in the art of persuasion. Overall, having a high IQ isn't necessary to a successful life, but it sure does help.

Scoring in the top two percent of the IQ range qualifies a person for an organization called Mensa. This group offers gets together and exchanges ideas. In order to find out what kind of correlations there are to extremely high IQ Lewis Terman followed a group of extremely gifted (IQ of 135 or higher) young adults into old age. He found that more of the exceptionally gifted had law or medical degrees compared with the general population. He also found that there wasn't a stronger correlation between mental illness and the exceptionally gifted than with the general population. This means that contrary to popular belief being extremely smart does not put you at a higher risk of being mentally ill.

Generally, these exceptionally smart people can't accomplish great things with little effort. In order to become an expert in a particular field there seems to be a 10,000 hour rule. Given that are 8736 hours in a year that is a large chunk of time. It could be that people with lower IQ's don't catch on fast enough and give up before they get close to the 10,000 hour mark. Simply having a high IQ doesn't necessarily make you a millionaire, however. There are many other factors that come into play. For example, being bad with people would make it difficult to excel in a work environment. Also, being able to communicate your idea efficiently and effectively is important in the art of persuasion. Overall, having a high IQ isn't necessary to a successful life, but it sure does help.

Throughout all of the chapters that we have read in this section so far, I have found the Big Five model of personality to be the most interesting subject. I find it fascinating that we are able to sum up one's personality in five characteristics: Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. In short, the Big Five is five traits that have "surfaced repeatedly in factor analyses of personality measures" (Lilienfeld 562). What I take this to mean is that these are the five most prominent characteristics that we see in our everyday lives and they predict many real-world behaviors (Lilienfeld 562).

I think that the Big Five is an important concept because it can tell us a lot about ourselves. I took a personality test to figure out how I ranked on these 5 characteristics and found that I ranked as follows:
Openness to experience: 24
Conscientiousness: 28
Extraversion: 25
Agreeableness: 34
Neuroticism:25
I definitely see a lot of truth in these findings. It was very interesting to go to the lecture and discuss these findings and see what they meant and how I compared to the general population. I found this link of youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm2vafSHf_U) of a group of three people talking about the Big Five, and they tried to identify how certain celebrities would rank in each. I found it very interesting and a bit humorous! It really made me think about the people in my life and how they would rank in comparison to myself and if there is any correlation. All in all, I found this to be a very interesting topic and I will definitely keep it in mind as I go forward in life and encounter new people.

One strong criticism of IQ tests that have been brought up time and time again is their over-reliance on language. Test takers who are not fluent in the language in which the test is administered are at an immediate and an extreme disadvantage. In addition, subjects who are familiar with the language in which the test is being administered are more than likely familiar with the types of questions that are on the exam. This familiarity may be an explanation as to why people who are unfamiliar with the language do poorly when compared to those who are familiar with the language.

Once researchers, test administrators and psychologists realized that these problems were prevalent, the "culture fair IQ test" was developed. According the Lillienfield text, this test focuses more on abstract reasoning items that don't depend on language. The goal of these tests is to erase the cultural influences within the system.

I agree that thee culture fair test example given in the book is very fair, using explicitly symbols that have no meaning to any specific culture. However, many culture fair IQ tests are not like that. One test that I found online (the link to it is at the bottom of my post) features many items that are questions based on numbers, knowing number order and number value. Also, it includes questions featuring the English alphabet and requires knowledge of their order and possibly knowledge of simple English worlds. This kind of test is in no way culturally fair because it requires a tremendous amount of knowledge of the English alphabet and number system.

I think that Culture-Fair IQ tests are good in theory; but are unfortunately quite difficult to achieve in reality. The only way most people know how to communicate is through a language of some sort - whether it be English, Spanish or Sign Language. In my opinion, trying to create a test that features no language is a feat that is very difficult to master.

Here's the link to the Culture-Fair test I found online! Try it for yourself!
http://hem.passagen.se/dpref/iq/

An important concept that I found to be the most interesting was among the twin studies. In the lilienfeld text Twin Studies is to compare correlations in a trait in two types of twins: identical and fraternal. It is found that identical twin studies are much more interesting because they share two times more the genetic makeup than fraternal twins. This comes in handy when measuring intelligence because it can be known as to whether or not it is passed down through your genetics.

I found this interesting because I can apply this to my own life. I have two older brothers. We all have a considerable amount of time between our births. I have always wondered which one of us has the higher IQ and which parent passed their intelligence onto us. A major factor that I was always aware of was that each of my brothers grew up in different social environments. Does growing up in different times and having different friend groups alter IQ? I have concluded that it is nearly impossible to make this information all be known, but I did find that intelligence heavily relies on genetics. Through the testing of twin studies. in the future it could all be known!

The link below contains an article about twin studies. I found a very interesting aspect of this article. It claims that identical twins raised apart were very similar to identical twins raised together. Furthermore concluding that the social environment does not greatly influence IQ.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/200810/straight-talk-about-twin-studies-genes-and-parenting-what-makes-us-who-w

IQ Testing and Standardized Testing
IQ is a measure of relative intelligence determined by a standardized test. The first intelligence test was created in 1905 by Alfred Binet and Théophile Simon to determine which French school children were too "slow" to benefit from regular instruction. The way in which is it determined is by Mental Age/Chronological Age = Mental Quotient.
Though I have never taken an IQ test I have taken standardized tests like the SAT and the ACT and I find them to be very inaccurate in the achievements of others. It has no way of predicting how great a person's work ethic is or what their college achievement will be in the future. Knowing people like my parents or friends who did not score high in these tests to do extremely well in high school and higher education. I am not trying to say that these tests do not provide somewhat of the knowledge learned by a student and what their success may be in college but it should not be the ultimate decision maker. It should not be the first thing that colleges look at or make their final decision on when choosing a student.
It is important because these tests should not be the ultimate factors in any situation whether it be a college decision or a job. Some questions I still have about these types of tests is who creates them and how do they ensure that they are completely non bias.

Everyone has a different personality. There are no two people who are exactly alike, and there are loads of diverse ways to describe someone. You're exuberant, quiet, shy, excitable, enigmatic, detailed, controlling, aggressive, optimistic, nagging, opportunist, and so on and so forth. While there are many adjectives to explain what a person is like, there is a model in which many people have come to accept as a way to determine how a person is. It is the Big Five Model.

The Big Five Model measures out five different traits: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The Big Five Model is based off of a lexical approach, meaning that if there is a personality trait that is really important to people, it will be used more often in conversation, and there will be more synonyms for it. Everybody scores differently on each level of each trait, and different combinations make for different people. I personally score rather high on all of them except for Neuroticism. I was able to find out my scores through the Berkley Personality Profile.

The Berkley Personality Profile is just one way that people can test themselves though. Another test that is used is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which is the most extensively researched structured personality test. (Lillenfeld, pg 567) While this test is not exactly used to determine how extraverted or open you are, it is most commonly used to assess mental disorders and their symptoms. If you wanted a test that was more for the layman, the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) would be much more appropriate as it is primarily used to test traits such as flexibility, sociability, and dominance.

There are many other ways that one can determine the sort of personality they have. While many are inaccurate, they exist, and many people like to take them as truth. If you search for it on Google, you can easily find many links to hundreds of various personality tests. Chances are many of them have been based off of the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI is a type of personality test that puts takers into four different cateogories: Introversion-Extraversion, Sensing-Intuiting, Thinking-Feeling, and Judging-Perceiving. That makes for a total of 16 different personality types that one can be placed in. I have taken many of these tests in the past, mostly due to boredom, and many times, I have gotten ENTJ as my personality type. While I may have gotten the same result many times over an extended period of time, that does not apply to many people. This type of personality testing is actually not very valid because most people do not score the same personality type when they retake the test months later. (Lillenfeld, pg. 570)

However, none of these tests can claim to be absolutely accurate of being able to determine the type of person someone is. Despite that though, while some (or one) of these tests can not be completely valid, they all give a good general idea of who you are. What my question is though, is are all of these tests necessary? As a human being, do we need to be able to figure out who we are exactly? Or is it better to let it be, and to try to understand ourselves on our own without numbers, explanations, and figures telling us things that could possibly only be restricting?

Standardized testing is a controversial test style for many people. Usually someone will either love it because of the way it is formatted or hate it because of the stress levels. I came across an interesting article that suggests because of both positive and negative aspects, standardized testing can play an important role in the advancement of students' education when used effectively.

Positive aspects:
1) Teachers are guided as far as what to teach students, resulting in better time management
2) Parents can see how their children are doing compared to other students of the same age locally and nationwide
3) Students' progress can be traced over the years
4) Since all the students in a school are taking similar tests, it is easy to compare members of the group (ex. boys compared to girls)

Negative aspects:
1) Teachers might be just teaching the test, that is, teaching the knowledge and/or skills necessary to do well on this one test rather than a complete subject
2) Some schools have cut away recess time in order to prepare for these tests (increased pressure to raise their test scores)
3) Stress on students and teachers, which can result in poor health and a negative outlook towards school
4) Extremely difficult to eliminate all testing bias

For me personally, I am not a fan of standardized tests simply because I feel they don't truly assess a student's knowledge. There are kids that are just better test takers than others and it doesn't necessarily mean that they deserve to go to a certain school more or will have more success in their future schooling. Standardized tests should not be abolished because they do offer some positive feedback, but changes need to be made so a student's and school's progress isn't based solely off of one test. For your viewing enjoyment here is a clip from the Simpsons about standardized testing!

I was reading along in the textbook and was instantly drawn to the Misconception #4, in chapter 11, where the book talks about what makes us happy. Misconseption #4 says that 'People on the West Coast are the happiest". I guess now is an important time to mention that I am a true Southern California Girl, born and raised for 18 years an hour from LA, the beach, and Hollywood. So now you're probably wondering what the heck I am doing at the University of Minnesota?

Story of my life. I get that question from just about anyone who finds out that I am from California. Then I have to explain that California isn't all about hot surfers, glamorous actresses, and sunny skies. It is actually incredibly dirty and disgusting, and super expensive to live in. University of California schools increased tuition 32% last year, and have already increased it 8% this year! There is a statement in the book that says, "Southern Californians are no happier than anyone else, including people in the chilly upper midwest" (425). I think this is extremely important as far as life happiness goes! It doesn't matter where you live or what you live by. There are so many other aspects in life like friendships and college, giving, and exercise that make us happy. I am currently having the time of my life freezing my butt off in the midwest at the University of Minnesota! Happiness is so much more than the location of where we live!

I came across this documentary while I was searching for interesting videos on contact comfort. The videos below do not describe contact comfort, but something I find much more interesting, if not disturbing. The documentary is about a child named Beth who was abused at the age of one (and most likely deprived and abused before that as well). She was adopted into a family along with her brother and they were both described to the family as "normal and healthy." Unfortunately, the family was in for a nightmare.



This case brings up several different topics we have encountered so far in class, but I want to focus on the developmental myths: infant determinism and childhood fragility. For an average person viewing these videos it's extremely easy to say that very early experiences in a child's life are almost always more influential than later experiences in shaping us as adults and that children are delicate little creatures who are easily damaged. It's cases like this that make people believe these myths. However, if you watch all three videos until the end and look for follow-up information you will see that through intensive therapy, Beth has become a "normal" woman. The little girl who at first showed no remorse in her face or voice in the first couple videos finally learned what was right or wrong and at the very end, she was crying. This is not to say she was undamaged by the abuse; clearly she was, but this gives support that these effects can be lessened by intensive therapy and later experiences.

In the 1920's (everyone's favorite psychologist) Sigmund Freud developed a theory of personality. In this theory he employs the ideas of psychic determinism or the assumption that all psychological events have a cause (pg. 547). In his 1923 book The Ego and the Id he described the psyche as having three parts: the id, ego and super-ego. The id is impulsive and seeks pleasure without taking possible consequences into account. The id operates off the pleasure principle or the tendency of the id to strive for immediate gratification (pg. 547). The ego is rational and tries to balance out the irrational thinking of the id. The ego then tries to balances the id by postponing gratification until it can find an apprpriate outlet for a certain behavior, this is called the rality principle (pg. 547). Finally, the super-ego is the moral compass out of the three and bases it's thinking with the ideal in mind.
The author of our book mentions that much of the time the id, ego and super-ego interact harmoniously and only sometimes to the wills of these entities within us collide.

I also found this cool 1990's video on YouTube that details Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfP9AIJA72E

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests have many uses. They can be used to predict educational achievement, help diagnose learning disabilities, identify academic strengths and weaknesses and aid in school placement. One of the best uses for Intelligence tests is to determine the presence of a learning disability. Many people with learning disabilities will display a variance between their Verbal and Performance IQ scores. This is one way that Intelligence testing can be very beneficial.

While Intelligence tests are very useful in certain scenarios, they are also misused quite frequently. Many people assume Intelligence Quotient tests will predict if someone will be able to work in a certain field, get accepted into a certain graduate school or even have a good quality of life. This is one of the downsides to IQ testing. Sometimes, people begin to read too much into the results of a test. In reality, no test is detailed enough to fully predict someone's life. One example of this misuse is when certain races are deemed to be less intelligent than others based on the broad results of IQ tests. In reality, these tests do not take other factors such as poverty into consideration. Additionally, IQ tests do not measure creative ability. Creativity is an important aspect in many jobs.

Article: http://bsnpta.org/geeklog/public_html//article.php?story=Use_Misuse_IQ_Testing

When someone says the word "leader" we think of a very confident, outspoken, and outgoing person. In other words, the person who stands up in front of the class with little to no anxiety, or the person who does not hesitate to speak their mind in a discussion. When someone says the word leader we think: extrovert. However, psychology professor at the Amherst University Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne warns us in her article "Why Introverts Make Great Leaders - Sometimes," not to let their (extroverts) vibrating personality fool us. In regards to picking a leader, Dr. Whitbourne states,
It turns out that your best choice of a leader is more likely to be the quiet and
reticent person who takes a back seat in public discussions. Researchers are
finding that introverts make better leaders than extroverts for one simple reason:
they're more likely to listen and pay attention to what other people are saying.
In other words, perhaps some extroverts have the tendency to be overly concerned with hearing their own voice that they forget to listen to others, when in reality, the concept of listening is essential in group dynamics. Based on multiple observations and research of both him and others regarding personality qualities of effective leaders, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Adam Grant suggests that "leadership by extroverts may come at significant costs." The essence of Grant's argument is simply that extroverted group leaders tend to fail to adhere to the suggestions and concerns of their group members. Such a shortcoming, Dr. Whitbourne writes, "may fail to maximize your group's actual productivity."

In conclusion, Dr. Whitbourne offers suggestions on how one could apply this to one's life:

1. If you're an extrovert, calm down. You may be more sociable and outgoing, but it is important to recognize the more you take control you increase the probability of running down the morale of your group.
2. If you're an extrovert, learn to listen. Listening is key to overall group function and production. You may have valuable things to say, but don't be afraid to open up to the value of the multiple resources surrounding you.

Overall, when choosing a quality leader, it is important to keep in mind the balance between all members of the group.

Works Cited

"Why Introverts Make Great Leaders--Sometimes." Psychology Today. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.

Many of us have either heard of the show or seen the show called "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" and have had the thought, "well of course I'm smarter than a 5th grader..." are you really? Think back to the topics you covered in elementary school, how many of you can still match all of the capitals to all of the states, how about most of the countries in the world and their capitals? As we know, intelligence and memory begin to decline as we get older, varying in degrees depending on the individual, some more so than others. Much of the retention has to do with how well it was encoded or if it was encoded at all, in addition to hereditary and environmental factors as well. In Kelli Picklers case, lets just say she is not smarter than a 5th grader.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqi0DwNLJdM

Very often students compare themselves to other students and say that someone is else is "smarter." Is that really the case? According to Howard Gardner he doesn't believe that. Students all have different ways of learning that works for them but may not work for other students. In this video he says that "education which treats everybody the same is actually the most unfair education." He believes that students should all be able to learn in ways the benefit the students learning. Some students can read material and understand it but other students need to be very hands on. He goes on to say that the teacher should find material and other resources to help with a student's learning style. Something he emphasizes on is that "everything can be taught in more than one way. And everything that's understood can be shown in more than one way." In the book Howard's multiple intelligence types are: Linguistic, Logicomathematical, Spatial, Musical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalistic. In the video he also says that teachers don't need to try to teach students all 8 different ways of learning but they should keep in mind that just because some students are understanding, it's possible other are not. I agree with Howard because for me to just read something and hear it in lecture is not always enough. I need to find videos or examples of what I'm learning so it is more likely to stick in my head.

http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-video#graph3

In discussion a few weeks ago, our class held a sort of debate about whether or not we think that someone's IQ will determine if they will be good for certain jobs. This has been a standing debate in psychology for many years. There are a ton of news articles out there that either agree or disagree with the use of an IQ test. For example, this article talks about how a new study shows that high IQ in childhood may actually lead to later drug use. The article does not explain why this may be true, but just that it has shown correlation in some research tests. This forces me to question the validity of this specific article, but there are still many other articles out there that talk about bizarre IQ correlations.

Based on what our group discussed, I believe both sides of the argument have some truth to them. For example, IQ fails to score creativity, which is essential for some jobs. On the other hand, high IQs have shown to positively correlate with work performance (Lilienfeld et al. 333). Depending on the job and situation, IQ may prove to be a great measure of job performance, especially in high knowledge-demanding jobs. For occupations such as an artist or construction worker, IQ may not matter quite as much and to test IQ would be a waste of time and money.

In discussion a few weeks ago, our class held a sort of debate about whether or not we think that someone's IQ will determine if they will be good for certain jobs. This has been a standing debate in psychology for many years. There are a ton of news articles out there that either agree or disagree with the use of an IQ test. For example, this article talks about how a new study shows that high IQ in childhood may actually lead to later drug use. The article does not explain why this may be true, but just that it has shown correlation in some research tests. This forces me to question the validity of this specific article, but there are still many other articles out there that talk about bizarre IQ correlations.

Based on what our group discussed, I believe both sides of the argument have some truth to them. For example, IQ fails to score creativity, which is essential for some jobs. On the other hand, high IQs have shown to positively correlate with work performance (Lilienfeld et al. 333). Depending on the job and situation, IQ may prove to be a great measure of job performance, especially in high knowledge-demanding jobs. For occupations such as an artist or construction worker, IQ may not matter quite as much as would be a waste of time and money to test.

In discussion a few weeks ago, our class held a sort of debate about whether or not we think that someone's IQ will determine if they will be good for certain jobs. This has been a standing debate in psychology for many years. There are a ton of news articles out there that either agree or disagree with the use of an IQ test. For example, this article talks about how a new study shows that high IQ in childhood may actually lead to later drug use. The article does not explain why this may be true, but just that it has shown correlation in some research tests. This forces me to question the validity of this specific article, but there are still many other articles out there that talk about bizarre IQ correlations.

Based on what our group discussed, I believe both sides of the argument have some truth to them. For example, IQ fails to score creativity, which is essential for some jobs. On the other hand, high IQs have shown to positively correlate with work performance (Lilienfeld et al. 333). Depending on the job and situation, IQ may prove to be a great measure of job performance, especially in high knowledge-demanding jobs. For occupations such as an artist or construction worker, IQ may not matter quite as much as would be a waste of time and money to test.

We may think that we fall in love by coincidence, or perhaps fate, but lately scientists have another explanation as to why we fall in love with the people we do. They say that there are three major components to attraction and love; proximity, similarity, and reciprocity. Proximity refers to physical nearness, which allows for intimate relationship formation. Similarity is the extent to which we have things in common with others (like attracts like). And reciprocity is the rule of give and take, if we like someone and they like us back. This is an interesting concept, and probably holds a lot of truth, but there is another idea that came about by the best selling author Gary Chapman. His theory is that we all have a certain "love language" or a way in which we express our love to others. Those with love languages that match, or that know their partner's language and cater to it are more likely to survive in the long term. He has books upon books about his theory. You can take the quiz even online and find out your language. The quiz is a series of about 30 questions that vary from "I like to be touched" to "When someone helps me with my chores I feel loved." The quiz is measuring five basic ways people show love; words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, quality time, and gift giving. At the end the things you score highest on are the things you value most in the relationship. The whole idea behind the theory is that those of us who value and show our love the same way typically will feel loved when someone else shows us that way, so the relationship is more solid. Take the quiz! It's an interesting insight into your personality and the way you and your partner express yourselves.... you may be surprised! http://www.5lovelanguages.com/assessments/love/

Birth order is something that hardly comes to mind when considering intelligence or personality, but with more studies being done on the subject, is there really a possibility that birth order influences such integral parts of our psychology? Many scientists pose the questions of, is there an impact on a person's IQ or personality by the number of siblings that precede them? In the past, data from such research had been inconclusive, but recent studies have found measurable effects of our position in the family on our IQ and personality. An article which delves deeper into these studies can be found here:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ruled-by-birth-order

It's natural to first respond to these studies with skepticism. There are so many variables, such as family size, social status, and environment, which could play a part in skewing such data. It's important to keep in mind though, that these results aren't concrete, they simply display what the data suggests based on its interpretation.

The data only implies that there is only a small negative correlation between the birth order and IQ/Personality. This by no means destines a person to have low or high IQ or a particular sort of personality. A few questions that were inspired by these studies for me are: What are the rival hypotheses? Does the correlation carry throughout cultures? How much should birth order be weighed when evaluating an individual's IQ or personality? My personal conclusion is that the link between birth order and IQ/Personality isn't quite near worth weighing too heavily.

Defense mechanisms are an important concept to know in psychology. It is essential for psychological health, because they are the unconscious ways to decrease anxiety. There are also many different types of defense mechanisms, such as, repression (motivated forgetting of bad memories), regression (returning to a younger age), reaction-formation (opposite of anxiety), and projection (acknowledgment of negative characteristics of others).
I believe that defense mechanisms are so important to learn about so we understand why we use them. For example someone who is too old to such their thumb may regress back to it when they are under a stressful situation. Another great example of regression is the movie "Step Brothers," two 40 year old guys that like with their parents and they act like they are children. For projection one with paranoia may deep down want to hurt someone and because they don't want to act on these impulses they start to think that other people want to hurt them.

Defense Mechanisms in Movies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRBAU6Yg2A&feature=related

Graphology is one of a widely used projective tests and it is analysis of handwriting in relation to human psychology. This concept is very important because we do handwriting everyday no matter when you sign a receipt or a document. There is the old Chinese saying that :" The writing style is the man." Chinese Calligraphy is an important component of its culture and graphology is easy to be confused with it. Here are some of the examples:
Cursive Hand:

A man of a hasty and careless handwriting style is often good at logics and extrasensory.

Official Script:

A man of neat and tight handwriting style is usually quiet , eccentric and idiosyncratic.

Regular Script:

Those who write simple and straight words are often honest, fair-minded, and upright. They often make good friends but they are reserved and quiet in most cases.

Most Chinese people believe we can judge personalities, motions and even can differentiate genders according to various types of calligraphy. However, according to the video:
The Relationship between Chinese Calligraphy and Graphology
We can prove again the flaws in Graphology. Professor Tian in the video points out, when people learn traditional Chinese styles of calligraphy, people tend to copy handwriting from Chinese predecessors, resulting in the letters they write have feelings of their predecessors rather than themselves. After constant repetition of the exercise, people will get use to a certain style of handwriting which is hardly to reflect any aspects of themselves. In conclusion, according to my research of Chinese calligraphy, graphology is pseudoscience and have low reliability. The question that I am still wandering about is whether a language which has less traditions and constraints on handwriting, such as English, may reflect some aspects of people to some extent?

We have all heard of the myth that money is the primary reason for our happiness in life. Though money makes us happy researchers have stated that we don't endure long term happiness from it. Before we examine the things that makes up happy we first need to look at the misconceptions about happiness. The first misconception is that things in our lives are what makes up happy like our jobs or income. Researchers have found out that these things are not correlated with happiness, but the quality of sleep or if someone was prone to depression or not was a better indicator. Another misconception is that as we get older we are less happy. Studies have shown that in the sixties and even seventies happiness increases. Also as people age they have a tendency to remember, which is called the positivity effect. The last misconception is that people who live on the west coast seem to be happier than other regions of the United States, considering that they have beaches and warm weather. In reality those areas suffer from higher rates of crimes, traffic congestion, and the price of living is higher.

The first thing that makes us happy is marriage. Replicated findings have shown that people who are married are happier than people who are not married. Having more friends increases our happiness than having fewer friends. Having a college degree also increases our happiness than those who don't have one. Religious people have a connection to a higher power and bigger communities, which make them, see life differently. People that are actively involved in excising exhibit more happiness considering that exercise is an antidepressant. People that have more gratitude about life and the things that they are thankful for improve short term happiness. Researchers have found out that when we engage in the activity of giving towards other people it brings us more pleasure.

Nancy Woolf, Laura Namy, Steven Lynn, Scott Lilienfeld.Psychology: from inquiry to understanding. Massachusetts. Jessica Mosher. 2009. Print.

While reading the Lilienfeld textbook, on page 547, I came across the structure of our personality from the thoughts of Sigmund Freud. According to our Freud, our personality is made up by three structures: id, ego, and the superego. The differences in these three cause the differences in individuals.

The first component of the personality structure is the id. Id is the pleasure principle because it looks for an instant sense of pleasure. Id is, according to our text, the "reservoir of our most primitive impulses, including sex and aggression." The id includes many drives like sex and aggression, and these are completely unconscious. Since the id looks for pleasure and is unconscious, the text suggests that the id is the "demon" on your shoulder.

The second component is the ego. Ego is the "psyche's executive and principle decision maker." The ego is conscious because it is your contact with people and situations. Your ego will "delay gratification until it can find and appropriate outlet." This is the means of the reality principle. An example of this can be shown when a significant other breaks up with you. Your id will tell you to act out with aggression, but your ego will make you delay your aggression to another time.

The superego is the last component to Freud's structure of personality. Our book says that the superego is our "sense of morality." The superego is the "angel" on your other shoulder. It helps us to distinguish what is right and wrong. Both the ego and the superego help to suppress the id.

High 5 Yo! The Big Five Model of Personality which are the five main themes that can be found in a majority of people. The Big 5 consists of O.C.E.A.N or C.A.N.O.E (Lilienfeld 562). To be more specific, it's Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Etraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. To break the OCEAN down for easier understanding and remembering, just remember key words. For example, O the definition is within the Openness to experience= OPEN; then as for Conscientiousness= CAREFUL and when your careful, you're RESPONSIBLE; for Etraversion= EXTRA which you could conclude to the fact that it's not normal behavior (calming & relating) meaning behaviors are more LIVELY & SOCIALABLE; then as for Agreeableness= AGREE concluding that people who are more agreeable tend to be easy going and sociable; and lastly, Neuroticism, think of this as the ugly duck because it's definition doesn't sound favorable. Neuroticism is tense & moody= ugly duck!

I think that understanding the Big Five helps you understand yourself better in terms of psychologically. For example, during discussion section, I found out that I was low on extraversion and high on conscientiousness. I was pretty surprise at first and later, I understood why and how the results were like that. Thus, I believe that by understanding the Big Five, you can improve yourself if you want to.

Here is an example of some of the big five traits of personality; in order to see this example, please copy and paste this link into your browser: http://youtu.be/UMfjDt3QQ1E

After watching the example, which of the big five could you identify and with whom does it correlate with?

In Chapter 14, we learned about Personality. Personality is defined in lecture as "Distinctive, characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that uniquely define an individual" (Simpson, lecture, 11/14/2011). The textbook describes 3 broad influences on personality: genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental factors (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy & Woolf, 2010).

Genetic factors are basically the genes an individual inherits from his parents. Environmental factors are experiences of the environment that an individual lives in and what makes him similar to his family. For example, if a family really enjoys sports, then they may require all of the children to participate in sports. The members of the family may be more competitive and aggressive than a family that is not as involved in sports. Nonshared environmental factors are those experiences that make him less like his family. For example, in this same sports centered family, one child may not be athletic. This child may feel left out of family activities or perhaps even not a part of the family. This could cause lower self-esteem in that child as compared to the rest of the family.

An interesting aspect of the nonshared environmental factors is the influence of birth order on personality. Many popular books claim that firstborns tend toward achievement, middle-borns toward diplomacy, and later-borns toward risk taking (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy & Woolf, 2010). Research has not supported an association. But the media has produced many reports that support (or perpetuate, depending on one's perspective or birth order) this idea. I have read that almost all of the U.S. presidents were either firstborns or firstborn sons. It has also been reported that firstborns had higher IQ's than their siblings and most CEO's are firstborns. The theory is niche partitioning. It is the idea that firstborns are more likely to be substitute parents for their younger sibling(s) (Reinberg, 2007). This makes them more independent and responsible. The other siblings must also find their own niche, and they will choose a niche that is a unique addition to the family. As a firstborn, I can relate!

Reinberg, S. (2007, June 21). To the first-born go the smarts. The Washington Post, Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06

Behavioral genetics investigates the nature, origin and consequences of individual differences. Scientists use natural experiments to explore this topic, finding that science is imperfect but generally corrective. In other words, the debate of nature versus nurture applies to behavioral genetics because it examines the influence of nature versus nurture on psychological traits, such as intelligence. Behavioral genetics primarily examines the role of genetics in human behavior. This means that scientists study the effect of the traits in people that were passed down from their parents. However, behavioral genetics is misnamed because it looks at the roles of both genes and environment in behavior.

Behavioral genetics estimates the heritability, the percentage of the variability in a trait across individuals that is due to genes, of a trait. Scientists estimate the heritability using family studies, twin studies or adaption studies. Family studies examine how characteristics run in families. This information can be helpful for estimating the risk of a disorder among the relatives of people affected by the disorder. Twin studies examine how traits differ in identical versus fraternal twins. A single sperm may fertilize an egg to produce a zygote, but sometimes the zygote splits in two. This yields two identical genetic copies, which researchers refer to as monozygotic. In another case, two different sperm may fertilize two different eggs, resulting in two zygotes. Scientists refer these twins as dizygotic, or fraternal twins, because they are not completely identical. Adoption studies measure how traits vary in individuals raised apart from their biological relatives. Children adopted into another home share genes, but not the environment, with their biological relatives.

All of this information is important. Behavioral genetics help investigate the studies that involve why people doing certain things, as well as where these traits have been passed down within individuals. Heritability is most easily measured through family, twin or adoption studies, and these help us study the effects of behavioral genetics.

Sir Francis Galton first coined the phrase, Eugenics meaning good genes. He advocated for positive eugenics which was the sexual reproduction of two individuals deemed to have "good genes" as determined by an IQ test. Against Galton's wishes thou the movement began to take hold and included negative eugenics, the ideas the people with "bad genes" should not be able to reproduce.

Sir Francis Galton

Beginning in the early 1900's and lasting until the second world war, Eugenics became a popular movement in the United states. However there were many problems for Eugenics itself as many of the IQ tests given to determine a persons intelligence were bias in some way. Some individuals were given the test when they came from other countries to the united states not knowing English at all, which was culturally bias.
The importance of Eugenics thou should not be undermined as it was a very important moment in the history of the United States and it shows just how IQ tests can be used immorally. Although Eugenics is in the past it is still important to our future as it is no doubt a movement that can quickly capture the imaginations of people and lead them down a path that we have already seen before. Even with the stigma of Eugenics being the way it is there is still a chance that eugenics can play a role in the future of this world especially with all the new technology available.

Personally I don't have experience with eugenic, however being an immigrant to this country I often wonder if they made take this test when I came to the U.S., would I pass it? That is a question that always sticks with me as I look at how it was used in the early 1900's to test new immigrants that came to the United States. If that sort of thing existed now would I find myself back in my home country instead of here in the United States. I would find it very hard to believe, but with eugenics, since it was very culturally bias and unfair in testing the IQ it is definitely possible that I would of not come to the United States.

The Big Five, I believe, is a breakthrough in defining a part of psychology that is very mysterious and hard to define; defining a person's personality. Every person is unique in some way; different people act differently in the same situations. This is a subject that psychologist have been trying to define for many years.
Languages have thousands of words just to describe personality; many of them describe the same type of emotion. The Big Five put thousands of describing words, of many languages from many cultures, into five categories. The five categories may slightly alter among different cultures, and/or includes more categories. The Big Five, in the United States, consist of: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. In other cultures, openness to experience isn't always used and may be removed; other categories such as religiosity, manipulativeness, sense of humor, motivation, and honesty are just some other examples.
Each of these five categories consists of sub groups formed of other describing words. Ones which we use on a daily basis such as shy, conceited, and tidy are all included.
The Big Five has been implemented in job, schools, and on the internet for personal use. Even the simplest test consisting of true or false questions, with as few as twenty questions, is capable of showing a small aspect of one's personality. An interesting aspect of the Big Five is even if four of the five categories are defined, the one category which is undefined allows for a tremendous amount of variance in the personality of the person who is being described. The Big Five helps categorize peoples' personalities, but there will always be an exception to the rule.

Many tests have been evolving to test for personality over decades. Projective tests emerged as popular tests which experimenters asked participants to interpret ambiguous stimuli like inkblots, drawing of social situations, incomplete sentences. Project tests are influenced by Freud's notion of projection. The tests used projective hypothesis to assume that when people interpret ambiguous stimuli, they incorporate their personality with projection about these stimuli. Test interpreters can later analyze people's response to find clues about their personalities. The Rorschach Inkblot Test is project test developed by Swiss psychiatrist Herman Rorschach in 1920s. The test consists of ten symmetrical inkblots, five in black and white and five in color. The test is widely administered throughout the world each day.

The testers ask participants to look at each inkblot and tell what it means to them and what it resembles to real life situations. Testers then score participants' responses for many characteristics to associated with their personality traits. Testers divide score into four categories including pair response as self-centeredness, unusual detail response as obsessive compulsive tendencies, space response as rebellious, anger, human movement response shows impulse control and inhibition. The test is also useful to detect people with emotional issues in their life or to be narcissistic. Many interpretations of tests seem plausible which can make Rorschach Test to become more popular nowadays.

Despite popularity of the test, there are still controversial issues about the test. The reliability of test scores is unknown. There is also not enough evidence for validity of the test to detect features of most mental disorders or predict criminal traits or behaviors. There are few studies has replicated the relationship between Rorschach test's score and mental illness. There is not consistent association between test score and personality traits. Respondents can also fake the results of the test. Rorschach test has no incremental validity beyond more easily collected data. Even though the test seems fault but can we somehow combine this test with other test such as graphology test to give us better prediction of personality trait of one person? How can we improve the test to not only predict personality trait but also to diagnose and differentiate between mental disorders (schizophrenia vs. bipolar disorder)?

Source: Scott Lilienfeld Textbook (Page 570, 571)

Chances are high we've all religiously watched at least one crime-solving-related television show--whether it's CSI, Law & Order, Castle, NCIS, or, as the link shows, Criminal Minds. It certainly makes for riveting TV: watch the crime unfold, the clues come together, and at the end of an hour, the suspect is found and justice is served. But just how realistic is this crime-solving process?
Since it's Hollywood, we would all do well to take anything they show us with a grain of salt. But in the case of shows like Criminal Minds, there are real FBI profilers whose job it is to crawl into the minds of dangerous criminals. But just how accurate are they?
In the clip from Criminal Minds, Prentiss is demonstrating the art of profiling. Let's take a look at some of the things she says. She first remarks that the police officer is likely a former military officer because he doesn't like disrespect to the chain of command; she notes that although he is right-handed, the marks on his left hand suggest he has a toddler at home; finally, he behaves like a "player" but is ultimately loyal to his wife and wouldn't cheat.
Clearly, the guy she's profiling is impressed. But let's evaluate those conclusions again. Go ahead, take a closer look. When you're watching it on TV, it might be impressive. After all, if he doesn't wear a wedding ring, how does she guess he's married? But taking a second look and breaking down what she says, we can see that while these statements may sound impressive, they aren't as specific as we first may have thought.
First of all, it isn't a shot in the dark to guess that a police officer might have a military background. Secondly, it isn't exactly an impressive feat to point out someone's dominant hand; any one of us can notice that about anyone else just by sitting next to them in class. Finally, throwing out the idea that a thirty-something cop is married with a young child is getting a little more specific, but it still seems like a fairly generalized statement. A lot of what Prentiss is demonstrating here is good attention to detail, but is it really a result of fancy FBI training? Many psychological studies suggest that untrained people can be just as successful at profiling criminals as trained profilers. So why does Prentiss sound so convincing?
The answer is that she was using what's known as the "PT Barnum effect". This is where people tend to accept descriptions that could apply to nearly anyone, or base rate descriptions, as correct. Any one of us could take a stab at profiling a serial killer by saying he's someone with anger and control issues, and likely grew up in a fractured home situation, and we'd probably be right. We're making vague, generalized descriptions based on what we already know about serial killers, and thanks to the PT Barnum effect, the general population accepts these predictions as true because they most likely are. However, they're so general and vague they could apply to pretty much any serial killer in history. But technically, they're "right", simply because they're so vague, so we take them as truth.
So next time you settle in with that bowl of popcorn to watch your favorite crime-solving TV show, see if you can profile the bad guy as well as the police can. No, it's not TV magic--it may very well be a psychological phenomenon based on the words of a circus guy.

The video would make Jean Piaget proud, as it is a clear example of part of his stages of development that he invented. This video clearly demonstrates the idea of Object permanence which is "The understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view"( Lilienfeld 373). In this video you can clearly see this baby is lacking object permanence because when the women hides his toy, the baby seems lost and confused about where it went. He also seems to not really care and acts like he had no idea the toy even existed anymore. Based on Piaget, we can infer that this baby is in the Sensorimotor stage of development and is between a couple months to two years old. This is the stage that Piaget states babies are lacking object permanence(Lilienfeld 373) which in this video you can clearly see. Had this baby acquired object permanence at this time, when the women hid the toy under the blanket, the baby would have known the toy was under the blanket and would have looked under it to find his toy again. This however clearly doesn't show in the video.

The eugenics movement in America was so consequential to world events and the history of the United States that it's a bit frightening and confusing as to how few Americans are familiar with it. The majority of American citizens have never run into the term, probably as a consequence of its absence from the average high school curricula. It is essential that all critical thinkers have a basic understanding of this movement as it grossly misused science to further racist ideology and influenced a worldwide phenomenon.

The real danger of eugenics stemmed from the fact that it gave powerful people a pseudoscientific rationale to carry out the population control programs they so desperately wanted. Under the guise of "science" state legislatures could pass laws to uphold their racist beliefs. The beginning of the 20th century in the United States was a time of great social upheaval. Many impoverished eastern European immigrants were migrating to America; their mass arrival threatened the notion of America as a purely Aryan race. The eugenics movement allowed policymakers to severely limit the influx of immigrants into the country.

While eugenics had a consequential impact in America, it also had implications for other scientific communities as well. Some of the main proponents of eugenics in America were in correspondence with and gave advice to Adolf Hitler. It's unlikely the Third Reich would have been as successful at its aims as it was without the example set forth by the American eugenics movement.

Discussing eugenics raises some interesting questions regarding power. Who should have influence over public policy in America? What factors should be considered when deciding rights such as voting or even birth control? Being ambivalent towards issues of this sort can lead to disastrous results.

Personality is one such field in psychology that I find very intriguing; analyzing, understanding and inferring someone's personality through tests and observations sounds not only interesting but also a very complex task to perform in the field of psychology. Traits are considered to be the bases on which personality is designated. Traits are the characteristics that are enduring and predisposed in nature and influence our behavior across many situations. The three major influences on the development of personality are:

•Genetic factors
•Shared environment
•Non-shared environment

Much of the studies done on this field involve twin studies and adoption studies as it is easier to check all the three factors in these two kind of situations. In twin studies and adoption studies researches found out that both genetics and environmental factors influences the development of a child's psychology.

Twin Studies: Monozygotic twins (maternal) are much more alike than dizygotic twins (fraternal) due to the shared DNAs and physical attributes. However as seen through studies conducted monozygotic twins who have the exact physical attributes do not have the same personality traits even when raised in the same environment. Another study conducted showed the "non-likeliness" of twins who were raised in different environments or were raised differently by the parents thus developing the associated traits through learning and experiences. This type of situation is applied in ABC's popular TV series The Lying Game. Emma and Sutton are maternal twins who were separated at birth, they look exactly alike with the same physical features and attributes but however their personalities vary incredibly. Sutton was adopted by a wealthy family as a baby and thus was given a lavish lifestyle with all the resources a child may wish to have. Thus she had excellent schooling, expensive accessories, and a personality that was nurtured in this rich background. While Emma was given in foster care, running from one home to another and living in poverty and destitution. Sutton is portrays the common high class family girl, spoiled, inconsiderate, "popular diva", mean and irresponsible. She has always been given what she has asked for thus making her incompetent to make a living on her own. However she is very shrewd, smart and callous and makes her way in finding their birth mother. Emma on the other hand is soft spoken, shy, innocent and kind-hearted girl. She cannot take risk like her twin sister and does not have the quality of manipulation like her sister. They can be regarded as complete opposites however complimenting to each other. Furthermore are the experiences of these two girls since childhood which may have caused the development of their personality traits. Sutton being reared in a home with all the necessities in life and being treated like a princess had developed the traits of being bold, getting what she wanted, and manipulating to accomplish her goals, because these were the tricks she had to learn. While Emma always on the run and living in dangerous neighborhoods, had developed a fear of authority and already being a shy girl also could be bold and manipulative as her lifestyle has been coded with being subjugated. Her kindness and considerateness towards others might be a result of her own suffering and thus her ability to understand other's pain.

Apart from these environmental factors, the role of genetics is also shown in this show through Emma's ability to draw incredibly well just like her biological mother. She is unaware of the heritance of this trait but through the TV series this is highlighted showing this dominant trait she had got from her biological mother.

Therefore twin studies and adoption studies are both applicable in this TV series, as the story of these two twins, Emma and Sutton unfolds. So what are your thoughts, does environment factor plays a key role in personality development? Or is genes the answer? Or are you like me, a believer that both these factors play a crucial role in development of personality.

In a family study, researchers are able to examine the extent to which a trait runs or goes together in intact families. Intact families are families where all members have lived together for a duration of their life. Francis Galton studied family studies and he conducted the first family study. Galton discovered that a very smart individual had many first-degree relatives that were also very smart, but fewer second and third degree relatives that were that intelligent. Research has shown that there is a .5 correlation of IQ between brothers and sisters raised in the same family, but only .15 correlation of IQ between cousins. This finding proves that there is a positive correlation with IQ and families. This is interesting because it shows how an environment which you are raised in or even genetics may affect ones IQ.

This applies to my life because even though it has not been tested, I believe that I have a very similar IQ to my brother. My brother and I both were raised together, in the same environment for our entire life. We now both attend the U of M. My brother and I had very similar high school GPA's and ACT scores. This is interesting to me because I think its crazy that two separate people can have such similar intelligence. We were raised in the same environment and have the same genetics so it is evidence that IQ runs within families.

I used the Psychology text book, page 337 to research this topic

Is EQ as important as IQ? A large majority of people would say no, because we have never learned this subject. In contrast, as we have learned a lot of courses to increase IQ, people usually think IQ is more important.

When Dan Goleman came up with the word of "EQ", which means the emotional intelligence of reading personal and other's minds and apply this information, people started noticing EQ. In fact, EQ is as important as IQ. Not only EQ is applied to promote relationship management, but also it is applied in the daily life. For example, a lot of American companies train their employees for increasing their emotional intelligence. The training is trying to help the employees understand what their own emotions are, and listen to their own emotions when they make decisions.

Most research advocates that emotional intelligence can predict job performance better than general intelligence, because high emotional intelligence can reflect personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness and openness to experience, and decrease the possibilities of psychological problems.

As we all know, the characters in the big bang theory. Sheldon, who has 187 IQ, is definitely a genius, but his EQ is pretty low. He does not know how to communicate and build a relationship with others, which set a lot of obstacles in his life.

While studying this ideas, there are questions occur to me that whether IQ and EQ could be exist together on one person. As high EQ makes people use emotion to think too much, emotional thinking affects rational thinking.

A defense mechanism is an unconscious action that is done to minimize anxiety. There are several different types of defense mechanisms. Repression is the most critical defense mechanism, and it is defined as motivated forgetting of emotionally threatening memories or impulses. In contrast to repression, there is denial. Denial is the motivated forgetting of distressing external experiences. Regression is another defense mechanism, and it is defined as the act of returning psychologically to a younger age. Reaction formation is when a person takes an anxiety provoking emotion and transforms it into the opposite emotion. Projection is the unconscious projection of our negative characteristics to others. For example, people with paranoia attribute their unconscious hostility onto others. Deep down they don't want to harm others, and since they can't accept these impluses, they perceive others as wanting to harm them. Rationalization provides a reasonable sounding explanation for our thoughts, behaviors, or failures. Identification with the aggressor is the process of taking the characteristics of individuals we find threatening. The last defense mechanism is sublimation. Sublimation transforms a socially unacceptable impulse into an admired goal. All of these defense mechanisms can occur in our daily life, and most of us don't even notice it. Also, these defense mechanisms appear in a lot of stories on television and in movies. This video shows examples of all the defense mechanisms in many different movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKDGFZ2urfk

My mom told me, that the more frequently I use my brain, the better it'll be. It seems that over these years I used my brain a lot, and I feel good about it. We saw many people around us who are idle came to be somewhat less intelligent, but as those principles of critical thinking suggests, the causation can also be vice versa.

Things can be really interesting and worth debating concerning the issue of intelligence. On the one hand, as the authors in the textbook demonstrate, various researches prove that a great amount of intelligence is due to the heritability, that is the genotype. The data of correlation between identical twins and fraternal twins and even those twins separated and adopted after birth and their IQ clearly suggests this idea, that the genotype is fairly dominant. However, on the other hand, various factors concerning environment of growth also have great impact. The deprivation of enough nutrition, the abuse in the family, the discrimination of peers, teachers and even society, can cause serious physical and psychological trouble to individuals and have obvious influence on their intelligence, let alone those situations in which people contact with materials toxic to their brain like lead and even consume them due to drinking contaminated water and so on. So it seems quite obvious, that the mechanism is about to be genotype supplies a fundamental basis for individual's intelligence, and if the environmental condition is above a certain healthy level for people to grow, the IQ will largely depend on that individual's genotype.
But the thing I'm really curious about is that, how large can we change (mainly means increase) due to the environmental factors for a certain individual. In China, a famous poet and reformer called Anshi Wang in Song Dynasty once wrote a prose telling a story of a genius. That child's forefathers were all peasants without much knowledge, but the child were born with extreme intelligence, as he cried out to his father to order for brush pen and paper and made an poem at age 5 even without exposed to learning literacy. His family was proud of him and showed off the child's compositions everywhere instead of letting him be educated further. When this child, call Zhongyong, grew to adolescence, his advantage over his peers still existed but not as large as when he was an infant. And when he finally grew up, as Anshi Wang wrote, he was just a common people. Though this story might be anecdotal, it does shed light to our understanding about the effect of postnatal factors on individual's IQ development. This is just a tragic example of how large environmental deficiency can draw back individual's intelligence. However, there are also quite a lot examples of someone with okay intelligence finally manage to make great progress due to their consisting diligence, conscientiousness and so on. As we usually consider every person who finally succeed to be of high potential and intelligence at first ( and they won't deny that, -- after all, no one see themselves as fools, normally), it's extremely hard and embarrassing to point out someone famous or successful and say that he or she is a fool. But needless to say, the diligence and a great variety of other virtues do play an essential role in building up someone's intellectual intelligence.
So, mother wins! We should study hard to make ourselves more intelligent. Just joking, but things are certain that, even almost nothing is absolute when we talks about intelligence, we can make our effort to make it better or worse. Despite our capacity to change it is limited, things will go better if we try our best.

For Americans in today's world, most would agree that bigger is better. Everything in our world is getting bigger including cars, houses, buildings, paychecks, and food portions to name a few. This is not always a good thing. According to our textbook, Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding, the portion sizes of the food served on plates in restaurants has increased by 25 percent from 1977 to 1996 in the United States. (Pg 434) This is a ridiculous amount, which is most likely the driving force for our society's obesity problem.

One question that could come up is why would increasing the portion sizes and the sizes of utensils in restaurants cause people to eat more? If you were full, wouldn't you simply stop eating? The answer to this question comes from the internal-external theory proposed by Stanley Schachter. His theory says that the reason that people tend to eat more when there is a larger portion of food present or from larger utensils (bowls, plates, cups, etc) is because they are motivated to eat more by external cues, like portion size and the size of the utensils, rather than internal cues, like the feeling of being full. A great real life example of this can be seen in this video.

As you can see by this video, the people from both groups said they ate enough ice cream to be satisfied, even though they ate different amounts. The reason for this is because they were motivated by the external cues, the sizes of their bowls and spoons, instead of listening to their internal cues from their bodies. So there you have it, bigger isn't always better. If you are trying to watch how much you are eating the bottom line is this, eating small portions from smaller utensils will lead you to eat less.

In PSY 1001, we have read about or discussed two exceptional phenomenons concerning our views of objects. One is the Mere Exposure Effect, defined as "phenomenon in which repeated exposure to a stimulus makes us more likely to feel favorably toward it". (Lilienfeld et al, 414). Another is "proximity"-- physical nearness, a predictor of attraction. (Lilienfeld et al, 444)

Although these seem to be presented as completely separate concepts, is it possible that they have great influence on the other? Watch this video to see an interesting take on this question. Gretchen Rubin, of the Happiness Project, encourages viewers to "Show Up". She mentions both the Mere Exposure Effect and Proximity, as evidence to her claim that seeing others more often, and letting others see us more often will increase our own (and our friends) likability.

In reflection on this concept, these two phenomenon actually seem to run together in an endless cycle. For example, we sit next to the same students each day in class, and are thus very near to them ( proximity). Since we always sit by them, we are exposed to them frequently. Based on these theories, due to our proximity and exposure, we would tend to like these students. In the same way, the students surrounding us would be more inclined to like us.

In conclusion, it seems that the Mere Exposure Effect and Proximity both have great influence on the other. They both heavily affect our tendency to like people, places or objects that we are frequently exposed to and/or near to.

The guilty knowledge test (GKT) was designed by David Lykken. According to the Lilienfeld textbook, this test is an alternative to the polygraph test that relies on the premise that criminals harbor concealed knowledge about the rime that innocent people don't. The GKT measures suspects' recognition of concealed knowledge, not lying. Furthermore, the guilty knowledge test uses multiple choice questions to test for knowledge only a guilty person could posses.

For example, authorities are interrogating a man they suspect of being the killer of a murder case. When using the guilty knowledge test, they would ask the man a control multiple choice question to find the man's normal physiological response then they would ask a multiple choice question such as "what was the murder weapon?" Then the interrogator would read off the choices. The idea of the GKT is that the man will show increased physiological response such as breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure, and galvanic skin response when the correct murder weapon is read. If the man does show increased response when the real murder weapon is read, he is most likely guilty of the crime.

In conclusion, the guilty knowledge test in an effective method used by interrogators to get suspects to subconsciously admit to crimes by using multiple choice questions while measuring increases in physiological response.
Below is a picture of David Lykken, who invented the guilty knowledge test.

The bigger the better? This statement might not be true when it comes to family size. According to the Lilienfeld textbook, the claim that older siblings may have higher IQ has yet to be completely proven, but there may be some semi valid proof involved already.

When a couple has their first child, this child does not have to "compete" with other siblings for any attention. Therefore, they have the advantage to grow both physically and cognitively and expand their knowledge without restriction. However, when another baby shows up in the picture, not only does the first child have to start competing for attention and opportunity for growth in their respective stage of growth, but the new baby must receive the blunt of the first child receiving attention when the baby needs an equal amount of attention, and therefore is set back developmentally, even if ever so much. The more children a family has, the more likely the younger children to not receive enough attention and suffer the effects via mental development (IQ, social skills, language onset).

The textbook states that couples with a lower cumulative IQ do tend to have more children and so, this may be an ongoing cycle where low IQ parents have lower IQ children (both from environment and genetics), and those children, being raised in typically large families, find it socially acceptable to have large families, and continue the cycle. Although the correlation between IQ during the early years of life and adulthood is quite low, the resulting competition of older siblings in later stages of life may stunt those children in more important stages of life and so, this debate has yet to come to completion. Older siblings may very possibly be the ones getting the short end of the stick.

Another topic that involves birth order is the claim that where you are in the birth order lineup contributes to your personality traits. The textbook only touches on this concept and then dismisses it due to some lacks of reliability in experiments. None the less, the concept of birth order determined personality is intriguing and may still be correct or incorrect, so for now, I will still discuss some proposed differences in personality. How do you measure up to the "findings"?

First-born children are said to be "natural leaders", and are picky, precise people. They like seeing things done right. Some first-borns take an alternative route and are known as the "nurturers". They like to take of their siblings. On the downside, they are also known as "bossy", "intimidating", and "know it alls".

The middle-borns are typically claimed to be the "rebels" of the family. They may try to be the exact opposite of their older sibling. They lean toward their peer groups more than family because they feel they " do not belong" in the family due to the claim that their older sibling gets all the glory and the younger sibling gets away with whatever they want, yet they seem just...average. They tend to be secretive as well and not share what they are feeling with just anyone. Being a middle child myself I can actually relate pretty closely with these claims. My two brothers do seem to always be attracting more attention than me and sometimes in my childhood I did feel "lost and forgotten".

The youngest of the family (whether it be the second born or the twenty second) are usually the most social and outgoing. They are less likely to have financial security due to "frivolous" tendencies. They are usually "spoiled" and can twist their parents by the ear and get whatever they want. As mentioned before, even if a second child is technically the middle and last child, they may gain some tendencies from both groups, just as an only child may develop attributes from all three groups.

Although these profiles have not been completely proven to be true, the media and celebrities in the spotlight have backed up these claims by portraying personalities similar to the stereotypes. Only time and advances in technology will be able to tell, if ever, if these statements are actually true, both IQ and personality claims.

Sources: Lilienfeld textbook chapters 9 and 14

http://www.ivillage.co.uk/how-your-birth-order-shapes-your-personality/82286
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/10/earlyshow/living/parenting/main511694.shtml

This United States of America has long been know as the land of opportunity, where everyone can attain his or her dream if they are truly motivated. Its constitution has also stressed their strict values concerning the treatment of each individual equally regardless of gender, race, culture or religion. But, hardly do I hear people advocate for people to be treated equal regardless of their intelligence level. Studies shows that hiring the wrong man for the job impacts the productivity of the company they work for. As a result, many of jobs out there today look at your high school or college GPA as a guide on how well you will do at the workplace, but the question they ought to ask is whether one's intelligence level translates to workplace productivity.
If intelligence is anything to go on, these people doing the hiring might be wrong in assuming that intelligence is the answer. They fail to recognize that the workforce is not all about mentally- taxing work.
For example, I was watching the National Geographic channel recently, and heard of a man who taught himself digital electronics at a very young age. He made a career out of tuning the guitars for the music group 'KISS' and others. However, he moved around from job to job because he did not have the extraversion needed in this high extraversion atmosphere. My point is that people have a wide variety of skills other than intelligence that is needed in the corporate world. Some are great at interpersonal interaction, others good with their hands, others who like to work alone. Instead of relying solely on intelligence to make a decision as to who is qualified for the job, managers should not cast out those with other skills because they are equally as important.

I have a niece; she only wanted to be hold by her mother. She cried if her mother left her with strangers but she also pushed and kicking her mother away when her mother tried to hold her after leaving her for a while. Her mother started to feel worried by her daughter attitude.

At first, I do not know how to explain her behavior as most toddlers did not react like her thus I assumed that she has a sensitive personality. However, after reading the textbook about the attachment theory by, I realized that my assumption is not right. My niece is showing an anxious-ambivalent attachment. This kind of attachment is also known as insecure-anxious attachment in the Psychology textbook. Based on the Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding textbook, insecure-anxious attachment happened when the children reacts to her mother's departure with panic and then showed mixed emotion reaction on her return, simultaneously reaching for her yet squirming to get away after she pick her up. She is preoccupied with her mother availability and always seeking contact but resisting angrily when it is achieved. This explained why she is not easily calmed by stranger as she only wanted the attention of her mother. In this relationship, the child always feels anxious because the caregiver's availability is never consistent. Thus the insecure-anxious attachment fit the description of my niece attitude perfectly since her mother is not always around as she is a working causing my niece to be left alone repeatedly.

In conclusion, now that I know the source of my niece's bad attitude, I will advise my aunt to spend more time with her child as her child is feeling insecure by the separation. On top of that, I will also tell her that the behavior that my niece's had shown is caused by the attachment that she felt with her mother.

Imagine this. You come to America from a foreign land in search of a brighter future. You speak only some words in English, but are only fluent in your home language. Upon arriving in the United States a man approaches you and says, "mandatory IQ testing. Please follow me." You take the IQ test and a man approaches you and tells you two strange words that you have never heard: mentally retarded. You are then taken to a room and sterilized because the immigration officials say that you are, "of bad genes." You learn much later in life that what has been done to you is known as eugenics.

Eugenics was, "the movement in the early twentieth century to improve a population's genetic stock by encouraging those with good genes to reproduce, preventing those with bad genes from reproducing, or both" (Lilienfeld 328). The scenario above was the sad fate for not only many immigrants, but many citizens around 1908. Eugenics was used in the early 1900's as a means of creating a fit population. The fit produce the fit, and the unfit do not produce at all. This was believed to be effective in creating a mightier and brighter population in the United States. It was proposed to be so effective that many states upheld laws allowing for the sterilization based on mental retardation and low IQ scores.

The sad truth about the eugenics movement is that it is seemingly similar to the Nazi's extermination of the Jews in Eastern Europe in the 1930's and 1940's. The sad fact is that the eugenics movement in the United States and in Europe are all to similar. The Nazi's wanted Europe (and eventually planet Earth) to be completely Arian. At the reigns of this movement was Adolf Hitler. He convinced millions of people that the extermination of the Jews, and therefore eugenics, was highly acceptable. Hitler was utterly convinced that the Jews were far too inferior to live on this planet, just like the United States believed that mentally retarded people were inferior. This is the sad fact about the eugenics movement.

So, how could Americans in the 1930's and 1940's have opposed extermination of the Jewish faith when the fact is that eugenics was practiced a short twenty years previous?

For assignment five, I would like to focus on the concept that suggests schooling makes individuals smarter. This makes perfect sense to me because I was always taught to do well in high school, attend a well-respected college, graduate with a useful degree, and finally, go on to get a good job. Schooling was made to make us smarter, right? After reading this concept in the Lilienfeld text, I learned that it could be possible it's the other way around. The text mentions that people with higher IQs enjoy classes more, which could make them more likely to stay in school throughout college. My education has always been a top priority in my life and I was always expected to do well. I would argue that this theory is inaccurate. If I relate this concept to my life, I did well in high school and I plan to do the same in college. If this theory were true, I would have had a high IQ and enjoyed my classes. The problem with this theory is that I didn't enjoy my classes in high school but I still received good grades. The correlation between number of years of schooling and IQ scores is about .6, which is fairly high. I would like to know the correlation between people with higher IQs that go on to extra years of schooling. The book also claims that children's IQs tend to drop by significant amounts during the three months of summer vacation. I know that in some countries summer vacation is only a few weeks long, has America ever thought about looking into a shorter vacation for children?

Why is it that when we see a young girl playing with toy cars, or a young boy playing with Barbie dolls we automatically wonder why they are acting 'unlike their gender?' To what extent does society influence how we see the roles of men and women? The textbook identifies two important concepts: gender role and gender identity. Gender identity is the sense of being male or female, while gender role "refers to the behaviors that tend to accompany being male or female." As I was reading, I liked to refer to this as the stereotypes surrounding men and women. The book talks about children enjoying playing with different types of toys depending on their gender. What was especially interesting to me was that "investigators have observed these preferences in nonhuman primates including vervet monkeys. When placed in cages with toys, boy monkeys tend to choose trucks and balls, whereas girl monkeys tend to choose dolls and pots" (Alexander & Hines, 2002).

That seems pretty interesting to me! The book states how this might suggest that these differences are the result of biological predispositions. I totally fit that stereotype when I was younger; I liked to play with dolls, I didn't enjoy toy cars, and I was more interested in what I would now call 'feminine colors.' However, as I was growing up, I was definitely influenced by my more aggressive friends! One of my friends was an extreme tomboy and whenever I was around her, I was much more aggressive, and much more into "guy sports" (i.e. football). The same thing would happen when I was around my brother often! Does this suggest that not only are we biologically predisposed, but that being around certain people influences our behavior?

The more interesting finding to me is how we treat children! Do we have a certain menu of actions that we order for certain genders and events? Interestingly enough the book states that "teachers also tend to respond to boys and girls in accord with prevailing gender stereotypes. They give boys more attention when they exhibit aggression and girls more attention when they exhibit dependent or 'needy' behaviors" (Serbin & O'Leary, 1975). And what I have run into more and more often is the tendency of American society to be more strict with boys than with girls; "parents tolerate and may even encourage cross-sex 'tomboy' behavior in girls, like playing with both trucks and dolls, more than in boys, who tend to be stereotyped as 'sissies' if they play with dolls" (Langlois & Downs, 1980; Wood et al., 2002). I've run into this perception quite a few times in my life; even certain actions and objects and styles are stereotypically classified as 'feminine' vs. 'masculine.' Do you guys have any thoughts as to why? And how society encourages these gender roles? Or why? And what do you guys think--is this more attributable to genetics or the surrounding society? Personally, I believe that we're more inclined to reinforce and align ourselves with these stereotypes as a result of the environment and society we live in.

Kind, outgoing, funny, caring, or smart; these are traits that may come to mind when asked to describe the personality of yourself or someone else. Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism; these traits probably are not the first characteristics that come to mind when someone asks you to describe your personality. According to Paul Costa and Robert McCrae in our Lilienfeld text, these five aspects of personality are known as the Big Five. The Big Five are said to have an effect on many facets of life including things like grades in school, job success, and possibly type of job.

The Big Five may also have an effect on relationships. In the article "Do Your Personality Traits Affect You?" the effect of personality on relationship is discussed. Some believe that opposite personalities attract, while others say this just is not true. This article discusses couple's happiness based on their personality types. It goes on to talk about how similar or different personalities may affect relationships differently at different points in life, this could be because of different goals at different points in life. According to the Lilienfeld text personality can change over time, but does not usually change after the age of 30 and has an even lower chance of change after 50.

1..2..3..4..5.. What is your Big Five relationship score?

What comes to your mind when you hear the word mental retardation? Many times we said this word without knowing what really is. Mental retardation is a condition, not a disease, also termed as "intellectual disability". People with this condition have an IQ below 70 approximately, have difficulties with dressing, feeding oneself, communicating and other daily life skills. Because mental retardation is a condition and not a disease, there is no cure.

There are about 200 different causes of mental retardation, but one of the most common condition is Down syndrome. This condition is also called Trisomy 21 because is a chromosomal condition caused because of the presence of an extra 21st chromosome. People with Down syndrome are considered to have moderate retardation. The IQ of moderate retardation is from 35 to 29. Some physical characteristics of this condition are flat nose, upwardly slanted eyes, short neck and protruding tongue.

Below is a video that talks about mental retardation, but what I wanted to point is the last part in which says that we need to remember when we say to someone the word retarded because it hurts. These people can have mental retardation, but are as human like us with feelings. We need to be aware to be nice and treat them normal without any kind of fear. I consider them as special humans. What you think about that?

The Big Five model is used to propose that there are five basic personality dimensions which tend to be reoccurring during the analyses of someone's personality. These dimensions are very broad and can range between two extremes depending on the individual. The five dimensions are extraversion: being social and assertive, agreeableness: showing trust and easy to get along with, conscientiousness: very goal-directed and mindful of detail, neuroticism: emotionally instable and tense, and openness: having a broad range of interests and insight. (Lilienfeld)
This method may be a good predictor of many real-world behaviors which could aid in choosing a job, how healthy you are or will be in the future, or how well you are able to get along with others. The Big Five models has been a useful way of regarding personality structure but it has its' flaws. We have to remember that personality is extremely complex and will vary from person to person across these five dimensions. Also it is not universal among different cultures, and additional or different dimensions may be used when looking at personality. An example of how these dimensions are relevant to our personality across cultures is individualism-collectivism. In the United States we fall under the individualistic category which says we focus on ourselves compared to a collectivist culture, like Asian countries, which will focus on relations with others changing their personality traits. (Lilienfeld)

When interviewing for a position, we all want to put our best foot forward. The majority of professional interviews I have experienced were specifically focused on my personal traits or personality.
In general, the primary traits examined are best described by the Big Five Model of Personality. The five traits focused on in this personality model are Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. As you would expect, Openness to Experience generally defines people who exhibit this trait as "open people [who] tend to be intellectually curious and unconventional." Conscientious people "tend to be careful and responsible." Extraversion explains that "extraverted people tend to be social and lively." Agreeableness in people means that people who are agreeable "tend to be sociable and easy to get along with." Finally, Neuroticism defines people who exhibit it as people who "tend to be tense and moody, (Lilienfeld 562).
When thinking about the five different personality traits of the model, it becomes clear that a good candidate for just about any job would rate strongly on traits such as Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. The course textbook even states that "the Big Five predict many important real-world behaviors. High Conscientiousness, low Neuroticism, and perhaps high Agreeableness are associated with successful job performance. Extraversion has [also] been positively correlated with successful job performance among salespersons," (Lilienfeld 562).
I would not be surprised if the interviews I had were constructed to examine these five personality traits. I remember being told that the questions were behavior based and hinged primarily on my past experiences. Have you ever had an interesting or difficult interview? If so, were the questions asked of you possibly about the Big Five?

The 'Father' role has been around since history. Many cultures view the 'Father' as the one who holds the family and decides what's right for the family. The meaning of the role has changed over many years. Being a father has a different meaning then it did during WWII, even just a couple of years like 10 or 20. The head household was held by the 'father' which held the well being of the family. Looking back in the past where the women were suppose to stay home and watch the children, the father was absolute. He held the house with his rein and controlled his family. Now a father is more then just a figurehead with the new coming age. Fathers are more involved with their children progress and even taking care of the children when it comes to it. With both parents working the father role also has been taken down from the only person working to both working. This means the role of the father being the solo family man is no longer solo to as it is shared now with the mother. Income and religion were the basis of the 'father' role back then. Now the father role has begun to merge; however the role of the father still retains the qualities such as making decisions, being the head, and holding a higher position in the family. This keeps the order and the well being of the family. Conclusively, fathers still play a role in family life and contribute greatly towards children success. However the way of doing things and the matter of solving problems within the family are more diverse and are easier since both parenting is becoming more frequent.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/family-parenting/article.aspx?cp-documentid=9617936
http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/style/the-role-of-fathers-with-daughters-and-sons/

The video game industry has grown from its humble starts with Pong and Pac man earning its pay one quarter at a time to a 25 billion dollar industry in a quarter century. Throughout its entire history the question of violence in video games has been brought up. This is highlighted by controversial games such as Doom, the Grand Theft Auto Series, and even Call of Duty. The question is does the amount of violence in video games cause people to act in more violent ways.

The research being done in this area seems to vary between inclusive and a slight correlation between playing violent video games and increased aggression. In laboratory settings after playing a violent video game most participants will have heightened levels of aggression or increased heart rate and blood pressure. This seems to make sense as video games are designed to absorb the gamer into the virtual environment and upon leaving that environment the aggressive tendencies will remain. Were the studies seem most inconclusive is on the long term effects of video games on people. Will gamers that consistently play violent video games in turn go out and commit crimes in the real world, or do already aggressive people gravitate to more violent games. In the end it comes to correlation vs. causation are the video games causing the violent behavior or simply reinforcing behaviors that were already in the individual.

Adults that play violent video games might be less likely to act upon the acts depicted in them, because unlike children they have a better understanding of the difference between the video game world and the real world. Small children on the other hand have a harder time making that distinction. This means that if they played boxing video game they would be more likely than an adult to try and box the next person they see because they don't know that trying to box someone is usually not socially acceptable.

Family is a big thing to many people, but sometimes things gets complicating through history. Being a family everyone has a role, such as the mother, father and kids. Kids responsibilities are to always obey their parents and help them out when needed. The concept I want to discuss is the role of a father. Basically a father is the second person in line to take care of the child after the mother, he doesn't stay by the baby's side every single second. A father is there to play along with the kids mostly physically as they want. The importance of the relationship children share with their father gives them a psychological well-being and adjustment. I can relate this to my father, if he wasn't constant in my life today I wouldn't be the person I am. He is the one who always is there to question everything I do or say so that he knows what steps I take in this life. He is my mentor and role model. He taught me everything I know from the beginning when I was moved to two different countries and learning the languages (English and Arabic). Even though I sometimes (maybe all the time) hate the long two to three hour lectures, I was able to track back to those words to choose things on my own now. The fact that a father's role is really important in a child's life it is true. In many homes today in the United States the divorce rate is high, which means the possibility of the kids being taken care of by the mother is high. When many things such as violence happen with a male teenager the main cause is said to be that there is no father present. In my culture the cause many things is blamed towards the father's absence, which many spend their free time in the coffee shop instead of being home with their children. I say be thankful to who is in your life, there is always someone who doesn't have any family at all.

(http://www.parentsexpert.com/most-popular-baby-names-in-europe/popular-baby-names-in-europe)

1 in 750 infants are born in the United States with fetal alcohol syndrome each year. Meaning the effects that these infants suffer from are low birth weight, small head circumference, developmental delay, facial abnormalities, poor coordination and social skills, and learning disabilities. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading known cause of mental retardation and birth defects, although, it is 100% preventable. Prenatal alcohol exposure does not always lead to fetal alcohol syndrome, but there is no proven level of alcohol consumption that is safe. There is no safe level, because there are many other factors that vary the results such as individual women's ability to process alcohol, age of mother, and the regularity of alcohol consumption. Alcohol consumption is dangerous to the fetus because alcohol passes easily through the placental barrier and the fetus is less likely to eliminate the alcohol from their system therefore leaving a high concentration of alcohol in their system. It has been shown that mother's who drink in their first trimester have children with the most severe fetal alcohol syndrome. Because fetuses are constantly changing and developing, the best way to prevent infants from having birth defects is to not consume alcohol during pregnancy.

(http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/fas.html#)
(http://nofas.org/main/what_is_FAS.htm)

(http://www.parentsexpert.com/most-popular-baby-names-in-europe/popular-baby-names-in-europe)

1 in 750 infants are born in the United States with fetal alcohol syndrome each year. Meaning the effects that these infants suffer from are low birth weight, small head circumference, developmental delay, facial abnormalities, poor coordination and social skills, and learning disabilities. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading known cause of mental retardation and birth defects, although, it is 100% preventable. Prenatal alcohol exposure does not always lead to fetal alcohol syndrome, but there is no proven level of alcohol consumption that is safe. There is no safe level, because there are many other factors that vary the results such as individual women's ability to process alcohol, age of mother, and the regularity of alcohol consumption. Alcohol consumption is dangerous to the fetus because alcohol passes easily through the placental barrier and the fetus is less likely to eliminate the alcohol from their system therefore leaving a high concentration of alcohol in their system. It has been shown that mother's who drink in their first trimester have children with the most severe fetal alcohol syndrome. Because fetuses are constantly changing and developing, the best way to prevent infants from having birth defects is to not consume alcohol during pregnancy.

(http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/fas.html#)
(http://nofas.org/main/what_is_FAS.htm)

Most people today have seen some sort of cop drama on television where a suspect is given a polygraph, or lie detector, test. If they fail the test they are automatically viewed as guilty because, of course, the polygraph test is infallible. If so, then why do most courts in the US not allow the results at trial?

Originally created around 1915 and has since gone under many alterations. Today, the polygraph test looks for changes in blood pressure, rate of respiration, and skin conductivity ( the amount of moisture, sweat, on the subject's skin). These changes are believe to be the product of anxiety caused by the subject lying. Most advocates for the polygraph test claim that the accuracy is around 95%. How do they know this? The levels of increased anxiety could also be related to innocent subjects feeling nervous about failing the test or just high nerves in general.

Below is an interesting video on polygraph tests, and how someone could beat them.

If it is possible to "beat" a polygraph test, does it actually detect lies with the aforementioned 95% accuracy? In reality, polygraph tests yield a high rate of false positives where the innocent are declared lairs, or in criminal cases, guilty. Studies have shown that as much as 40% of "Innocent" subjects can fail the test. From that you could conclude that guilty individuals can probably take the test without failing, making it a poor lie detector. The US Supreme Court does recognize this flaw, but law enforcement agencies still use the polygraph test around the country. Many employers use it as well, as both a screening tool and for investigating theft by employees.

• Should divorce be taught better or introduced more to children in schools at a very young age so that they have a better understanding and are better prepared/equipped if they have to go through it?

The issue of whether or not violent media causes aggression has been a controversial subject among psychologists. From both sides of the issue, it is difficult to find compelling evidence to support psychologists' claims. In Aimee Tompkins' article, http://allpsych.com/journal/violentmedia.html, she has provided miscellaneous facts that do not clearly support her specific claim. For example, "The National Coalition on Television Violence reported there has been a consistent increase in the number of violent themed video games. These games increased from fifty three percent in 1985 to eighty two percent in1988." This data does not illustrate that an increase number of violent themed video games will cause aggression in the future. Tompkins only provides examples that do not have long term evidence, and she does not elaborate on specific studies to prove her claim is correct. The author states that young men have attempted to perform stunts after viewing the television show Jack Ass. This statement is true based on individual's attempt to imitate the show, but this does not mean that these individuals will act out violently towards others in the future.
I believe that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that violent media is associated with aggressive behavior. I agree that children tend to imitate the actions that are seen on the television screen, but I believe this does not correlate to aggression in the future. In Tompkins' article, she states that violent media is not the only cause of violent behavior. I strongly believe in this statement because issues within the environment such as family interactions or visual aggression among individuals can possibly lead to violent behaviors.

Tompkins, Aimee. "The Psychological Effects of Violent Media on Children ." AllPsych Online. Heffner Media Group, Inc., 14 12 2003. Web. 6 Nov 2011. .

Remember the days when monkey bars seemed as high as skyscrapers? When a Barbie was an actual person? Or when your own backyard became an exotic jungle? Imagination is at its peek when you're a kid. Those were the days.
But as a kid, we might not have realized just how much our own environment has influenced our behavior. Whether that be a television program like "Blues Clues" or "Barney" that left us feeling happy or relatively calm, or programs like "Power Rangers" and "Ninja Turtles" that left us feeling more active and aggressive. Looking back on it now, both sides of the spectrum seemed to have the capability to influence a child's behavior for better or for worse.
Today, it seems as if each day another violent video game or television program has its debut, and there is a growing debate in our culture regarding the various effects violence in the media have on the behavior and development of children. The situation is that while the video game industry generates billions in revenue, kids are finding more and more ways to expose themselves to different types of violent messages. Themes like murder, drugs, alcohol, racism, foul language, disrespect of the law, and other violent and suggestive themes can be found in plaguing our nation's youth. In the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's article titled: "Children and Video Games: Playing With Violence," exposure to these types of video games can suggest a consequence of poor social skills, isolation, lower grades, obesity, and most controversial, aggressive behavior. In Miranda Hitti's article "Media Violence Spurs Fear, Aggression in Kids" she writes, "Ideally, producers would be sensitive to the power they wield, and parents would know what their kids are viewing...But in the real world, it can be hard for parents to monitor their children's media habits. With TV, movies, videos, and computer games, many parents don't know what their kids see every day."

http://www.aacap.org/galleries/FactsForFamilies/91_children_and_video_games_playing_with_violence.pdf

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147986,00.html

Although there is much speculation about the various negative effects violence in the media have on children, I believe that it is important to take into account one lurking variable: the amount of influence children have on other children. Perhaps it isn't the violence in a certain television program that causes a kid to be violent, rather, as shown in the Kare 11 study, other children simply wanting to "fit in" by mimicking their fellow classmates. To me, this is important to take into consideration before making the assertion that violent television programs cause aggressive behavior. In the video recording taken of the day care classroom following the Power Rangers program, yes the kids tended to be more active and aggressive, but as depicted, it seemed as if more kids would simply look at what their classmates were doing and want to simply join in the fun. Furthermore, there needs to be a distinct line between "play" fighting (which we all did as kids, especially us boys), and "real" fighting.

Society is so intimately involved in how emotions and sexuality are expressed that it would be difficult to discuss these things without mentioning their interactions. It's also important to note that society has different schemas for different genders. These schemas affect how the different genders "should" express their emotions and sexuality.
In the American society, it's typical to depict women as crazy, emotionally unstable, and illogical. A search in Google yields twice as many hits for the search "crazy women" than "crazy men". However, there is evidence that this depiction is misleading. It has been suggested that this idea is conditioned by society and perpetuated by many people. An article in the Huffington Post give some insight into this which can be found here.
On the flipside of this, men are seen as strong and emotionless. Men are supposed to be the stable shoulder to cry on for women. This is the society which produces songs entitled "Man Ain't Supposed To Cry": link

In addition to how men and women express emotions, American culture also gives its input on different sex's expression on sexuality. Interestingly, this is somewhat flipped of expressing emotions: with regards to sexuality, men are viewed as more sexual than women. In recent years though, female artists who are not afraid to express their sexuality, such as Beyonce and Mariah Carey, have become increasingly visible.

The idea that there is someone out there for each person in the world seems unlikely to be true. No one may ever know the exact answer to that idea but we do know that it is very likely that in our life time we will grow close to many people, whether friendships or relationships that could lead to a lifetime together. Gaining a relationship with someone is sometimes looked at as "fate, " but there are many psychologists who believe that there are reasons behind why we choose to become close with the people that we do, and how that influences the relationships in our lives.
There are three main guidelines that are believed by psychologists that lead to the relationships in our lives. The first guideline is proximity - being physically close to someone. This guide strengthens the idea that people who we are closest to are people that we will usually live, study, or work with. We will usually remember the people who we grew up going to school with, and then later down the road will still be able to recognize these people and will still feel close with them even if a large amount of time had passed.
The second guideline is similarity - the amount and extent of things we have in common with other people. This idea can be easily related to the saying "birds of a feather, flock together." It can also be described to younger teens as the idea of "cliques." We are more likely to become close with people that have the same things in common as us. It could be as simple as favorite foods or music, all the way to educational level and values. Having things in common with others adds to a step in the right direction when we first meet people. If you have things in common, conversations will become easier to start and emotional sides to relationships will start to build.
The last guide that can explain the relationships in our lives is reciprocity - a rule of give and take. Most people are expecting something in return of their own actions. With the idea of reciprocity it is similar to an obligation to give out what we get to maintain that relationship. It is important to maintain this idea because with no reciprocity it can lead to put and end to relationship. Relationships are not a one way street, it needs work and caring from both ends.
After taking a closer look at the relationships in my life compared to the guidelines that were just discussed, I feel that I would have to agree with what these psychologists believe. In each of my relationships I feel I have known each person for a while or I have some kind of connection to my past, that each person is someone that I have things in common with, and also that each relationship has an effort going from both directions.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

When children are very young, their minds are like sponges. They are very easily influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. Children inherit everything from their parents. Everything from how they look to how they behave. Sometimes we inherit things from our parents that are not all that good. This includes health defects that may impair a child's opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes these effects are random, the parents have no way of controlling it. However, other times it can be caused by an environmental factor or something the parent does. A good example of this is fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs is when a child is exposed to alcohol while it is in the mother's womb. The woman engages in an activity that is sometimes harmful to the unborn child. These environmental factors are called teratogens. They are environmental factors that can have a negative impact on a child's development. Sometimes women do not even know that they are pregnant until after the baby's brain development is under way. They engage in these potentially harmful activities because they do not know that they are pregnant; they do not think they are hurting anything. Exposing alcohol to an unborn child can affect the child's life a great deal. Some of the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome are learning disabilities, physical growth retardation, facial malformations, and behavior disorders. The alcohol affects how the fetus' brain develops, and health defects are the result. This occurs when a women consumes any alcohol during the prenatal stages of the child's development. There is no safe amount of alcohol for a woman to drink, anytime she drinks she puts her child at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome. This does not necessarily mean that it will happen, it just means it is a possibility. Research has shown that consuming greater amounts of alcohol greatly increases a child's risk of having fetal alcohol syndrome. It is generally best if a woman stays away from alcohol during her pregnancy.

2 Years after coming to the US, I got to have an experience living with a family with 10-month-old Eva. I basically observed her while playing with her for almost 2 full years during her age of 1 through 3. I was astounded by how fast she was growing and when I visit her every now and then, I still am utterly surprised at her. Infant abilities are amazing and it is especially amazing to see how fast babies can learn the minimalist things. Physically, babies grow incredibly fast. Their large heads gets bigger but as their bodies grow faster than the rate of head, it starts getting smaller and smaller. Babies begin learn how to mobilize and develop motor skills: from crawling to walking and running, EVERYWHERE. Their leg muscles enlarge at a rapid rate and it does not take long for them to begin running after they start walking. Not only running, they begin to do more miscellaneous activities like drawing, opening doors, climbing, and such. As years go by, the biggest change in babies is their ability to talk. Eva started learning words such as ball, dog, and names. These words begin contain meanings rather than simple words. Phrases and sentences are learned quickly after acquiring of words begins. At age 4-5, casual, light-hearted conversations can be held.

As known, infant stage is when acquiring is the easiest for us. They suck information up like sponges and hardly forget things that have already become their long-term memory.

Many parents, especially in this day and age, are constantly fed statistics of how every aspect of the environment contributes to how their child will grow or behave in the future. An example of this that we discussed in the discussion sections of our course is the effect of violent video games on aggressive behavior. There have been numerous research projects done on this issue and the results seem to indicate that there is a slight effect of violent video games of aggressive behavior, but not as profound as headlines can sometimes imply. An article explaining some of these finding can be found here:

http://newmedia.cityu.edu.hk/COM5108/readings/Sherry%202001%20%28VG%20meta%29.pdf

The complexity of this issue isn't difficult to justify because of the cloud of variables that surround it. If there are immediate effects, does that indicate long term effects as well? Was it the games that caused the responses or could it have been a third variable? Could there have been a fault in the experiment? It's incredibly difficult to distinguish the correlation vs. causation of much of the statistics. Because of this, the question remains without a definite, concrete answer. After analyzing several research experiments which attempted to provide some insight to this topic, the conclusion I reached is that there is indeed an effect, but, as mentioned earlier, the effects aren't nearly as drastic as many may believe.

My parents tell me that I was supposed to have been born in April, 1993 but instead came premature on January 31, 1993. I was told that I had trouble breathing and much life support was needed for my survival. My other two siblings as well were premature but had more time in the womb than I had.
By definition of a premature baby most pregnancies last about 40 weeks, a premature birth takes place more than three weeks before the due date. A premature birth gives a baby less time to develop and mature in the womb. The result is an increased risk of various medical and developmental problems, including trouble breathing and bleeding in the brain, later mental and physical problems can arise because of a premature birth.
This is important because many children have later psychological problems due to premature birth. It is important to find the reasons as to why premature birth affects further development of a child and why we have yet to find cures for the diseases which many face. Reasons as to why we are still unable to find cures for development issues is because problems that are not life threatening are not instantly treated. My questions are why is it that it has taken so long to correlate some problems with premature babies and what can we do to prevent such issues from arising.

I found a very interesting entry in scopes on something I had previously though to be true and backed up by scientific evidence. The rumor is that when people die their fingernails, hair, and facial hair continue to grow for several months after death. I had learned about this phenomenon in several sciences classes and had also seen an episode of the HBO show, The Sopranos, where a dead body was dug up with a full beard and long nails, even though the person had died clean-shaved. The reasoning from science class that I had learned was that the systems in the body at controlled hair and nail growth continued to function for a few months after death. The website said that common belief throughout the centuries as people observed this occurrence, was that some type of supernatural forces caused the hair and to grow. However after researching this claim, I found that the theory of Occam's Razor prevailed and there was in fact a very simple explanation for the phenomenon. Dead bodies loose all of their fluids as the decaying process takes place so that while nails and hair appear to grow, it is actually the skin shrinking and exposing more of each. This explaination clearly rules out some far out science that would claim certain parts of the body to continue working or some supernatural forces being at work. However the presence of this myth in media and popular culture it is likely it will continue to prersist despite the rationality of Occam's Razor for the situation.

Have you ever noticed how some infants will kick and scream the moment their parents leave the room, whereas other infants will barely seem to notice? This is because of the different attachment styles that many young infants have, and Mary Ainsworth quantified the four different styles of attachment using her Strange Situation experiment. Within the strange experiment Mary and her team of psychologists presented the mother and a stranger to a young infant, and then removed the mother for a repeated number of trials with different infants. What Mary found is that infants are either upset, indifferent, angry, or confused by the mothers departure.

These four styles of attachment are subsequently labeled as: secure attachment, insecure-avoidant attachment, insecure anxious attachment, and disorganized attachment. I found these findings to be extremely interesting because as a young child I noticed a great difference between me and my brothers in reaction to being separated from our parents. My two brothers would both respond to separation by becoming upset, representing secure attachment which is the style of attachment found in about 60% of infants. I however responded different to separation, reacting with indifference whenever I was separated from my parents. My style of attachment represents insecure-avoidant attachment, which only is shown in about 15 to 20% of infants.

I am curious as to whether or not the difference in my style of attachment as opposed to my brothers has and will result in a different type of relationship being formed with my parents. I feel extremely close to my parents, yet I wonder if my brothers feel even more strongly attached to our parents due to their infancy attachment style. Research has shown that those with a secure attachment style tend to be more well adjusted and helpful than other infants, however my family has not noticed any major differences in me and my brothers current behaviors.

Social role theory is between the roles of a man and a women. A man is seen to be bigger and stronger so they are seen as the providers where as women are seen to be more caring since they are the ones that have the children. We see this today in American society where there are stay at home wives and working husbands.
Many of the house wives you see today are those of financially fit families where they can afford to only have one income coming in which is not very common in most of the American population. The number of stay at home wives has decreased over the decades while the role of men being at the top and being the provider is still in effect today. In the work force it is more common for a man to obtain a higher job status than a women with the same qualifications as that man.I believe this is the case because of the fact that women do bear the children so they may need to take a leave of work one day.
One of the things that I still wonder about dealing with this topic is that since the amount of house wives has decreased dramatically over decades will it ever be switched roles for men and women? Will there be more women in the work force with higher statuses then men in the future or will it always be men as the provider and women being caring and nurturing?

With winter rapidly approaching, some of us are going to begin to feel depressed. This may be due to SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), or just because finals are coming up. Regardless of the reason, it is guaranteed that some students will feel depressed. However, there are some ways to help this. One of these ways is exercise. After exercising, I immediately notice a difference in my mood. Additionally, if I do not exercise for a few days I start to feel worse. Previously I was unsure of why this occurs, but after doing some research I have begun to understand why this is the case.

A study done by Duke University showed that, after sixteen weeks, patients who exercised showed more improvement in their depression than patients who took anti-depression medication and patients who took the medication and exercised as well. This study involved 156 older patients who had been diagnosed with major depression and tracked their condition over sixteen weeks while exposed to one of the three treatments. Eight percent of the exercise group had their depression return, as opposed to thirty eight percent of the drug group and thirty one percent of the drug and exercise group.

So, why is exercise so beneficial to those with depression? There are different explanations for this. One reason may be that those who exercise to help their depression feel more self-accomplishment over their actions than those who passively take a pill because they are actively trying to improve their situation.

Article: http://today.duke.edu/2000/09/exercise922.html

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsyhunger.html

http://www.eatingdisordershelpguide.com/body_image.html

One of the most troubling and prevalent aspects in american culture is eating disorders. They present themselves in various forms, and extend to both extremes of the spectrum; some of the most common ones are anorexia, bulimia, and overeating. There are many causes of these disorders, amongst them, self-esteem, societal pressures, family issues, and the list goes on. But, there is also a somewhat of a biological element to eating disorders. There have been studies that suggest that anorexia is linked with abnormal levels of serotonin in the body. One of the responsibilities of serotonin falls under the category of eating regulation, and abnormal levels of this can skew a person's diet. A common occurrence with individuals afflicted with anorexia or bulimia is a distorted body image; they see themselves as overweight, when in reality they are less than or at a normal weight. Many factors lead to this skewed perception of body image. A main one being how society is filled with ideas of the perfect body image even though these expectations defy reality, but people constantly strive to achieve unrealistic goals and feel that if they do not live up to them, they will not be accepted, emphasizing a strong emotional undertone as a root to this psychological state. Another cause of distorted body image can be traced back to childhood and the way an individual was treated as they were growing up. This reinforces how influential parents and the environment in which a child grows up is, to development later in life. This is very important in my personal life because i have known people who have been afflicted with eating disorders. I am aware of them on a personal level and am also cognizant of the fact that I am only in one realm of the overall situation and that there are hundreds of thousands of individuals who are going through the same things. Eating disorders have become an epidemic due to societal pressures and the idea of the perfect body, as well as more personal factors such as hormones and environment. Perhaps understanding how eating disorders effect the brain, will help get us one step closer to reducing the number of people who fall victim to them. Eating disorders are a serious problem and the psychology of them should not go overlooked and could help further explain and hopefully eradicate them for future generations.

As much as we learn about eating disorders, I don't think people really understand how serious it truly is. Even though there is a higher percentage of the population suffering from bulimia, anorexia is the most life-threatening psychological condition. In high school, I watched plenty of friends "try" to be anorexic. They thought that they would just stop being hungry and lose weight quickly and that they would still be healthy. However, I unfortunately have first hand experience with seeing my aunt who has been anorexic for years. My 55 year old aunt has been suffering from anorexia for a very long time and has a lot of health complications. She weighs near to 90 pounds and would do anything to lose more weight. Because she has been starving herself for so long, she has not had her menstrual cycle for years, and she has lost the chance of having children. Not only that, but now that she is getting older she has a very serious medical condition called osteoporosis. Her bones are so brittle that she has broken bones doing simple everyday tasks that would just leave a bruise on a healthy person. Now that she is older and experiencing a lot of the negative affects from being anorexic she has tried to seek help but she cannot psychologically get better and being anorexic is still a problem. I hope that when people read this they realize that this is very serious, and although you may think it is not that serious it really is. My aunt has been hospitalized over five times just this year due to problems from anorexia and her doctors are concerned that her body is going to give out soon. If there is someone who is reading this that is anorexic, or if you know someone who is, please get help. It has been so hard to watch my aunt suffer for years and now see her life coming to an end by something that she has been doing to herself.

When having a child, one of the numerous things you have to think of is just how exactly you are going to raise your child. There is certainly no shortage of advice from friends, family, and the media and that can make you simply become overwhelmed with so many people probably telling you radically different things in order to help your child be their best. How do you punish your child? How do you reward them? Is there any way to make my child smarter? It definitely would not be difficult to find the "answers" to these questions within any of the many parenting magazines or articles that you can find regarding "proper parenting". There are many different types of parenting with their own advantages and disadvantages. Our textbook covered four particular types.

Permissive: This type of parent will rarely, if at all, punish their children and gives their kids much freedom. "Too kind"

Authoritarian: Very cold and distant with their children, not afraid to use punishment, strict, and usually offers their children with little time for creativity. "Too harsh"

Authoritative: Combining the "best" of the two previous types, parents are not too lenient and not too controlling. "Just right"

Uninvolved: As the title would suggest, the parent pays no mind to their child, having little to do with their kids development.

While these are just a couple of very broad types of parenting, some would seem obviously better than others. But he fact of the matter is, you can't follow everything you may read in a book about parenting and expect to get perfect results. I for one believe that parenting can't simply be learned from a single book. For someone to try to tell you how to raise your child in order to make them develop into "the way they are supposed to develop" is simply ridiculous. Each child and parent will be different so not every technique will be affective . I believe it is more of a collection of ideas and experiences from many different sources that are necessary to help your child develop into a happy and successful person.

The idea of bringing a child into the world, keeping them safe, and teaching them everything they need to know to grow and thrive sounds like a daunting task. I cannot speak from experience, but from what I hear it is no piece of cake. The ideal situation would to be have help accomplishing all of this, but sometimes the world just doesn't work in your favor and this is something I think we all can relate with.

Popular belief is that children that come from nontraditional households are miscreants. It was interesting to find out that science didn't necessarily agree. As of now the effect is still fuzzy, but there is some research that shows a correlation between single parent households and behavior problems. However, there are so many other factors at play such as single mother's tendency to be poorer and more stressed. Due to the lack of causal studies right now we can safely say that having a single mother doesn't mean you will be spending life in prison.

One interesting aspect of nontraditional homes is same sex households. Researchers have found that it doesn't seem to be the sex of the parents, but rather the roles they take on that matter in the child's development. Children from same sex households tend to be generally the same in all aspects of social and academic performance.
This demonstrates that at first glance having two parents rather than one could be having a positive impact on children. So what about children of divorce? One angle that this can be approach by is looking at the severity of divorce. Children of parents who had a lot of conflict before the spilt tend to make it out less emotionally damaged than children of parents whose divorce was very clean. They think this is because the divorce as seen as more of a relief by the children rather than a loss. Being a child of divorce myself this idea was really interesting to me because it fits with my story well. I was young, only 2 or 3, when my parents divorced, but my sister was 7 or 8 and had witnessed more of my parents relationship than I did. I don't remember much of anything, but I'm told before the split my dad spent much more time with me than usual and was very nice to my mom in front of us. After the split I took everything much harder than my sister and had many more behavioral issues. According to this study it could have been because I perceived the divorce as more of a loss than my sister.

All science aside, there will continue to be single parents and hopefully more nonconventional families out there. (VOTE NO ON THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT!) In the end the most important thing is having someone that cares for you and loves you.

The impact of divorce on children is a very complicated and important topic. In our society, divorce is becoming more and more common, and it is important to know the effects that it may have on children. It is a complicated matter to look at because there are so many factors to take into consideration. When researching this subject, it is important to take other things into consideration such as stress, financial situations, etc. It can be difficult to tell whether the outcome is caused by the divorce itself or general effects of stressful disruption in the family. It is also fair to say that divorce affects different children differently. There are many studies out there today that say that divorce does not have a negative effect on children, and there are many that say that it does have a negative effect on children. This CBS interview (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/08/earlyshow/leisure/books/main621798.shtml) shows a woman (Constance Ahrons) who studied the effects of divorce on children and found that there were not many negative effects. On the contrary, she found that many children found that they were better off once their parents got divorced. On the other side of things, the article "What Divorce Does to Kids" from Time magazine (as mentioned in our textbook) shows that there is long term damage caused by divorce.

All in all, the effects of divorce on children will be studied for years to come. In my opinion, it is a very important thing to understand because of the effects that it has on children. If there are negative effects, as a society, we must find a way to minimize these effects.

We have all heard the saying that men are more intelligent than women. Some researchers have reported that men's IQ are a little higher than women, but this claim is controversial and it raises many questions. Most researchers have not been able to replicate this finding leading researchers to conclude that there are no average differences between IQ of the opposite genders. Studies have shown that men have more variable in there IQ score meaning that there are more men distributed with and low scores than women. What researchers do know is that environmental and genetic reasoning play a role in intelligence. The intelligence of women does entail having the ability to succeed more on verbal tasks like spelling then men, mathematical calculations, and being able to sense and recognize a person's feelings. Men on the other hand tend to do better and have more success on spatial ability like matching rotated blocks together. They also tend do better on math problems that require intricate answers. A possible explanation for men's spatial intelligence is that they have more prenatal testosterone than women, but this finding has not been replicated by all researchers. Researchers have told men and women to use spatial imagery to solve some math problems and they were able to conclude that the differences in their math performance were smaller when they both used the same technique.

In this unit, the thing that interested me most from the book was the psychology behind love. I've always wondered what the psychology behind love is, or if it is even possible to explain. It is hard enough to define exactly what love is, which makes it even harder to examine what creates love. I found this article online about the psychology of love:
http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/a/theoriesoflove.htm
After reading it, I agreed with all the proposed theories of what love is, and that there are different types of love. But this article didn't really explain how and why love works. I then read this article: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/handy-psychology-answers/201102/the-psychology-love which I thought was very interesting, but it still didn't explain how love is formed, or why we love the people we do.
Next, I read this article: http://www.2knowmyself.com/relationship_breakups/why_do_we_fall_in_love
which I found interesting, but as soon as I realized that it was written by someone trying to sell me something my opinion changed. Of course someone who wants to sell me a book about how to fall in love is going to claim that love is real and that it is a basic scientific thing.
FINALLY, I found this article: http://www.youramazingbrain.org.uk/lovesex/sciencelove.htm
which I thought was the most interesting of them. This one actually talked about how love affects different parts of your brain, and the chemicals that are acting when you feel "love." I thought that it was interesting that love might just be a chemical thing in peoples' brains, or as the article states, natures way of making sure the human race continues. But after reading all of these articles, I decided that maybe I don't want to know how or why I love someone. Once it is all in explained in front of you, and you know that everything is just a chemical reaction happening in your brain, you still can't help how you feel about someone. Although for a minute after reading these articles I felt pretty pessimistic and down, that quickly faded when I realized that it doesn't really matter how or why you love someone, it just matters that you do.

Last week in discussion we talked about relationships and dating. Our class talked quite a bit about whether or not two people with opposite features and attributes are more likely to be attracted to one another. It seems implausible because, as we learned in class, similarity and proximity are two very important aspects of any relationship. So why is it that in every romantic comedy we see two people who hate each other and have nothing in common eventually realize they are meant for each other? That's what I hope to find out.

According to a discovery health article (http://health.howstuffworks.com/relationships/love/opposites-attract.htm), science has not been able to prove that opposites attract. In most cases, people are looking for a person who is most similar to them. There have been studies done where people rank what they want in a partner and then rank their own attributes. These studies show that those who find themselves attractive seek out an equally attractive partner, those who are wealthy seek out a wealthy partner, and so on. Other studies have also shown that many newlywed couples share many of the same personality traits, such as agreeableness and extraversion. In my own personal life I would have to say I agree with the fact that similarity leads to attraction, and not opposition. My parents both have very similar personalities, my brother and his girlfriend are basically mirror images of each other, and I find myself seeking out partners that are more similar to me. That is not to say I haven't heard multiple stories of couples who were nothing alike and somehow got along perfectly. I believe that different people want different things in terms of relationships, and as long as the couple is happy, opposition and similarity don't really matter.

In chapter 11, the topic of nonverbal cues comes up. Whether we realize it or not, we use nonverbal cues such as vocal inflections, hand gestures, body language, and facial expressions. Talking face-to-face allows for all of these cues to occur, but now more than ever we are relying on technology to communicate with others. Talking on the phone still allows for vocal inflections and change in tone, but takes away hand gestures and body language (although if you watch someone talking on the phone more often than not they still use these cues even though the person on the other line can't see them). However it has become far more common to send someone a text or email than to call them or talk to them face-to-face. Both of these forms of communication do not allow for anything besides words. No nonverbal clues whatsoever besides a few "emoticons" which are sometimes hard to decipher. I would be willing to bet that the majority of students in class have had a situation where they sent somebody a text message and got a completely unexpected response due to misunderstanding. It is extremely hard to interpret emotion through texting and email. Among the hardest to understand are sarcasm and sincerity. It is far too easy for a simple conversation to turn into an argument if someone takes sarcasm the wrong way. It's also far too easy for someone to pretend they are perfectly happy when they really are upset or angry. This article shows why this is a problem among youth are having increasing trouble reading these nonverbal clues in everyday life.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574348493483201758.html

Before taking this class, I used to think that children do not know anything; that their minds could take in very little information. However, after reading the information in the Psych. 1001 textbook concerning child development, I had to reevaluate my train of thought, especially the article dealing with video games and its impact on young children, lets just say I had a change of heart. The three articles included one arguing that violent video games made children more aggressive, and another arguing that violent video games rather made children less violent. Personally, I thought the article advocating that more violent video games resulted in less violent children was absurd. It went against all logic. I thought the 'violent video games causes violent children' article had compelling evidence to back it up. My conviction was further strengthened during the discussion sections. We as a class saw a study conducted with young children.On the first day, the group was exposed a clip from the television show 'Barney'. On the second day, the same group of children was shown a fighting scene from the T.V show 'Power Rangers'. Which show do you think elicited violence in the children? To find out the answer, click on this link . Children really do take in information from their surroundings(models).

The Lillienfield text says that "happiness is largely a matter of comparison", meaning that we measure our own happiness by comparing ourselves to others. An interesting example in the text is that of Olympic medal winners, and which of them is really the happiest on the podium.
Logic says the gold medal winner is easily the happiest athlete; but what about the silver and bronze medal winners? According to Lillienfield, the third place finisher (in the above photo, if it shows up, is speedskater J.R. Celski at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics), is much happier than the second-place finisher, almost just as happy as the winner. The third place finisher is likely looking down, and thinking at least they made it to the podium--after all, they were only one spot away from not receiving a medal at all. So why is the second-place silver medalist (in the photo, speedskater Apolo Ohno) often less happy than the third-place bronze medalist? He's likely not looking down, but looking up at how closely he missed out on the top gold medal spot. He's more likely to be focused on disappointment at the close miss than happiness at a second-place finish. And why? Because much of how we gauge happiness comes from comparison. The silver medalist compares himself to the gold medalist, thinking about things he could have done to move up to that top podium step.
Lillienfield also states on page 426 in chapter 11 that happiness "lies in the pursuit of the prize, not the prize itself." Let's think about that in terms of these Olympic athletes. If happiness is pursuing the prize (i.e., the sport itself) rather than the prize (the medal), which of the three athletes on the podium should theoretically be the happiest? Or should they all be equally happy if they truly enjoy what they do, and the color of the medal doesn't matter?

How we perceive the world, is shaped and formed from when we are born until we die. It is a never ending process of learning new things, and fitting it in with the old through assimilation and accommodation of new information. A large portion of our perception is developed during the time we are children, mainly because we have not learned any of the simple concepts of the world, such as, the Earth is round, and how to interact with others. Jean Piaget was the first to develop a comprehensive method of cognitive development, and he studied how children perceive the world and the thought processes they use. This concept, that a large portion of our cognitive development takes place during childhood, is important because it can help us to understand many problems such as social problems, formed later in life. Children who witness their parents fighting or a divorce may have, problems with commitment, and/or grow up to resent his/her parents. A personal experience of mine is of my five years older brother who was old enough to understand fighting between our parents and be devastated by the divorce. I, at the time, was under a year old, so I was not affected by my parents' divorce. My brother, however, grew up resenting our mother and myself; even though I was irrelevant to the divorce or the fighting. I was present for the bad things, yet I am the opposite of my family members. The slight differences in development times and the choices we chose made my brother and I completely different people with different lifestyles, this supports how important those first years of development are.

There has been a long lived debate on whether a fetus is techniqually a human being, whether abortion is murder. As we read through the chapter on development of humans, we can see that in fact by the time most women find out they are pregnant, the fetus is already developing the brain (18 days after the egg is fertilized). This fact alone in my opinion is enough to say that yes we are developing human beings. Certain debaters claim that "the fetus isnt fully developed yet, therefore it isn't a human being." Yes, well a three year old isn't fully developed either but we consider them human, and killing one in anyone's mind is surely murder. As we continue to look at the rate of development of a child it is astronomical in those first 9 months of being in the womb. The process of proliferation, during the 18th day- 6 month mark, is where the neurons in the brain grow by leaps and bounds (250,000 cells per minute!).
Unfortunately there are many reasons why a fetus may not develop correctly. One of these is teratogens. These are hazardous enviromental factors that the baby is exposed to. Some of the most common are alcohol, cigarette smoking, and X-rays. These can change the growth of the child and brain development and cause other issues such a behavioral disorders. Another reason that a fetus may develop incorrectly is genetic disruptions. This is when a single cell, or family of cells, is copied with an error or break in genes. The third reason for developmental problems is prematurity. This is obviously when the fetus is born before it is in gestation for 36 weeks. There are many risks to this happening. There are the physical risks such as lack of ability to breathe on their own or regulate body temperature. There are also physcological risks like delays in cognative development.
The miracle of life is truly miraculous! Obviously we begin developing as soon as the egg is fertilized, with the brain developing at a mere 18 days! And sadly throughout the next 40 weeks there are many things that could potentially go wrong. If you are lucky enough to experience this miracle without anything going haywire consider yourself blessed.

In Chapter 10 of the Lilienfeld text, there is a very brief section in which the textbook discusses gender identity, and the biological and social influences on gender. As defined by the book, gender identity is an "Individual's sense of being male or female." (pg. 392) It continues on to say that people tend to flock to objects and other people that are more closely related to the gender that they identify with, and that society tends to reinforce gender roles and stereotypes.

The way that the book describes this though is rather limiting, constricting to the gender binary, making gender rather black and white. The Lilienfeld text explains gender in too basic of a way, even for an Introduction to Psychology textbook. As someone who has spent several years reading about gender identity, and being involved in the transgender community, it is important to point out that gender is a lot more complicated than that, and it should be explained in depth.

Let us start by redefining gender Identity. According to University of California, Davis, gender identity is

"A person's internal sense or self-conceptualization of their own gender. Used to call attention to the self-identification inherent in gender."

To further explain, there are many more genders than just male and female. There is in fact a whole spectrum in which many people belong. I know of people who identify as male, female, genderqueer, omnigendered, transgender, two spirit, and so on and so forth. Gender also does not equal sex nor sexual orientation. Your sex is based on your genitalia, whereas your gender is based on what you feel your gender is, and your sexual orientation is based on who you're attracted to.

Your gender expression also does not determine your gender identity. One should never assume that just because someone dresses, acts, and appears a certain way, it does not mean that they should be fit snugly into one category. If someone looks more masculine, does more masculine things (or at least deemed masculine by society), that does not always mean that they identify as male, and vice versa. This also points to what the Lilienfeld text said in terms of biological influences. While there is a strong basis for those to do things that more fit their gender identity, it still undermines the fact that not everyone fits into those sorts of molds.

The book also failed to mention people who are intersex,

"People who naturally (that is, without any medical interventions) develop primary and/or secondary sex characteristics that do not fit neatly into society's definitions of male or female."

Those who are intersex are often forcibly assigned a gender at birth (often times the wrong one), who then later on in life transition to the gender that they feel more comfortable with.

The discussion could go on for ages because gender is most definitely not black and white, and is probably one of the most colorful things you could come across. Like an onion, gender has many layers. It takes time to understand, and to wrap your mind about it. It's complicated, and should never be talked about in any other way that isn't.

For those reading who need a better, and more detailed explanation of any terms, or of the gender spectrum, here is a creative, and very informative comic: https://roostertails.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/sneak-peek-queer-101/

The most common eating disorder in America is bulimia nervosa and affects between one and three percent of the population, with the grand majority being women. Bulimia is a disorder characterized by the vicious cycle of bingeing and purging that its sufferers go through. First, a person with bulimia will engage in a binge, which is simply overindulging in highly fattening foods over a short period of time. After the binge, they may experience feelings of guilt and anxiety about the large amount of food they have just consumed so will "purge" the food, either by self-induced vomiting, laxatives, or excessive exercise. This binge-purge episode may be followed with a plan to follow a strict-diet, which ultimately leads to increased hunger and a preoccupation with food. This mindset sets the stage for another binge, and so the cycle starts all over again.

In chapter 11 of our books we learned about polygraph testing. The book mentions that the Polygraph was born in the 1915 and I found that the Polygraph as we use it today has changed little if not at all since the 1930's. This got me thinking, how is it we still use a system that hasn't changed in over 80 years to test something as intangible as truth? Our book mentions that the "polygraph is biased against the innocent" and in 1998 the Supreme court decided that polygraph tests were not admissible in court. So I wanted to look into further into how a polygraph test works:
The lie detector test measures the upper and lower respiratory system, blood pressure and electro dermal skin conductants to determine if a person is lying. Basically, the idea is that if the person is lying there will be a spike in activity in these areas indicating that the subject is lying. But really, the polygraph measures many emotions like nervousness, embarrassment and anger and these emotions can register as a false positive on a test. To make matters worse the polygraph administrator more often than not is looking to get a confession and will pressure the subject or preface a question with "Now this is a personal question", which honestly would make me nervous before they even ask the question.
So here is a link to a video I found on how to pass any lie detector exam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjMhNGyDyQ

There are many different ways in which people raise their children. Some parents are very strict with rules and limitations for their kids. Other parents are very permissive of just about any behavior their children exhibit. Thanks to Diana Baumrind's work, three major parenting styles have been identified.
1. Permissive Parenting: This style describes parents who tend to be "lenient with their children, allowing them considerable freedom inside and outside the household. They use discipline sparingly, if at all, and often shower their children with affection," (Lilienfeld 388).

2. Authoritarian Parenting: This style describes parents who "tend to be strict with their children, giving their children little opportunity for free play or exploration, and punishing them when they don't respond appropriately to their demands. They show little affection toward their children," (Lilienfeld 388).

3. Authoritative Parenting: This style describes parents who "combine the best features of both permissive and authoritarian worlds (of parenting). They're supportive of their children but set clear and firm limits with them," (Lilienfeld 388).
A fourth style that was identified after Baurmind's work was the Uninvolved Parenting style. These parents ignore their children, paying little to no attention to any behavior of the child, either positive or negative.
The study performed by Baumrind was of Caucasian middle-class families in the United States, so these parenting styles may not apply well to other ethnicities and cultures around the globe. I can say from personal experience, because I am from a Caucasian middle-class family, that these parenting styles are fairly accurate to what I have seen. I suppose if I had to pick, I believe my parents used the Authoritative style of parenting. They had plenty of rules for my siblings and I, but they also let us have quite a bit of freedoms. For example, every day after school, they made us do our homework. However, after the homework was done, we could go play with friends or play video games, or anything else we could want to do.
It is noted in the course text book that these parenting styles tend to apply more to and individualistic culture, like that of the United States, as opposed to a collectivist culture like that of China. I think it would be very interesting to see what parenting styles would be observed of countries other than the United States and see if they are consistent with the already established styles or not. Do these styles fit your parenting or how you were raised?

All of us who are familiar with the video game world and consider ourselves to be "gamers" have the friend who takes the game way too seriously. The slightest in-game mishap and suddenly their controller is being thrown at the wall followed by an onslaught of curse words, followed by a frustrated silence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2WH9J5n3sE *WARNING - Harsh Language*
There is a lot of evidence proving the negative impact of violent video games influencing violent behavior. Many studies have been done on the impact of violent video games on both children and adults, and what many of them show is that there in fact is a correlation between these violent video games and an increase in aggressive behavior. CNN did a study on violent video games and their overall impact and this is what they found:
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-11-03/health/healthmag.violent.video.kids_1_violent-video-video-games-game-genres?_s=PM:HEALTH

In lecture, we talked about emotion. Specifically we talked about treating disorders associated with negative emotions such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (ptsd) and phobias. Some of these treatments include exposure therapy for phobias. I will also briefly go over those same negative emotions that are involved in drug addiction and withdrawal.
The first disorder or group of disorders to look at are phobias. Phobias are any type of fear that generally causes avoidance and/or panic. They are a common type of anxiety disorder. Another common feature of phobias is that they are stimuli-specific. This means that one could be afraid of certain animals, a perfect example is arachnephobia or the fear of spiders. Others are afraid of being in certain situations, an example of this would be agoraphobia or fear of open spaces. Fortunately, such fears can be treated.
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/phobia_symptoms_types_treatment.htm
One effective form of treatment for phobias is exposure therapy. It combines the aspects of behavioral and cognitive psychology in order to successfully treat phobics or those afflicted by phobias. The therapist tries to get the client to retrain their brain by exposing them to the triggers that cause their anxiety. These triggers can be photos of the stimulus or any items related to it. Let's say you had a phobia to cats. The therapist will start out by presenting pictures of catsto try to get you to realize that there s nothing to be afraid of, that they do not cause any danger. Then next is the virtual reality simulation, where they place the clients in that situation where they encounter the source of their irrational fear. So this means, you would be meet face to face with a virtual cat, the expression"face your fears" is taken literally here. When faced with the cat, your brain would have made the association that cats are harmless and you would no longer look at them with dread. Gradually, with the use of Pavlovian conditioning, they learn not to be so anxious and fearful of that stimulus, in the case of the above example it would be cats. Though the fear is diminished, it is not forgotten. Self-help therapies and strategies may work, it all depends on the individual.
http://www.anxietycoach.com/exposuretherapy.html
Another disorder we will look at is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a mental condition caused by a traumatic event. Such events may include: the breakup of a relationship, but the most common is soldiers who take part in combat missions. This disorder is also associated with severe depression and abuse of harmful substances like drugs and alcohol. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety and constant thoughts about the particular event. PTSD can be debilitating, it can prevent one from going about their everyday life. These flashbacks form what are called flashbulb memories, they keep occurring because they strengthen episodic memories due to a high state of arousal in the brain.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/DS00246
Treatment for PTSD involves both medications and psychotherapy. Medications one could take to cope with the symptoms fall into these four categories. Antipsychotics are taken to cope with emotional outbursts and insomnia. Then there are antidepressants, these can help with depression and anxiety. Another benefit is they can assist in improving in concentration and in insomnia as well. Anti-anxiety medications also help with these symptoms. Finally, a drug pracocin helps by blocking a adrenaline-like chemical in the brain called norepinephrine which has an indirect connection with PTSD. It has been found to successfully suppress nightmares.
Out of the many types of therapy one could take to help cope with their PTSD, here are three specific ones. Cognitive therapy is a type of talk therapy that can help you identify any cognitive patterns or ways of thinking that are keeping you stuck. An example would be perceiving everyday situations in an negative or inaccurate way. Exposure therapy uses the similar techniques to treat this disorder and phobias. This even includes those afflicted with PTSD like soldiers, by placing them in a virtual reality program such as a "virtual Vietnam" program. Finally, there is eye movement and desensitization reprocessing (emdr) combines both exposure therapy with a series of guided movements of the eyes that help the subject process traumatic memories. One could also undergo group therapy which helps when you want to converse with others who are going through similar experiences.
Along with these disorders, drug addiction and withdrawal has some negative emotions associated with them. With drug addiction, one builds a dependence to their drug of choice. The cause for this is that drugs and alcohol hijack the reward system in our brains, which makes the rewarding feeling last for a short time, but the negative emotions linger on. Then with the arrival of withdrawals, such negative emotions are felt like depression and anxiety. The sooner we treat these and other disorders, the better off those afflicted will be. In conclusion, these such disorders have a huge impact on our emotional well-being.

In Chapter 10, we were introduced to Lev Vygotsky, a Russian researcher. In contrast to Piaget, Vygotsky's cognitive development theory focused on how social and cultural influences guided development. Piaget focused on a child's physical interaction with his environment, whereas Vygotsky focused on a child's interaction with his social and cultural environment.

Vygotsky developed a term called the zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development is defined by our textbook as the "phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction." The zone of proximal development is a range. The bottom of the range is the level of tasks that a child can perform on his own. The top of the range is the level of tasks that a child can complete independently. Inside the range lies the zone of proximal development (tasks that a child can complete with assistance from an adult or a more experienced child). A child can progress through the range by use of scaffolding. Vygotsky developed the term scaffolding within the context of the zone of proximal development. Scaffolding is the term used to describe how parents help their child by providing a structure that helps him become able to independently complete the task on his own. As a child learns a new task, parents gradually remove the scaffolding until the child learns the task.

I think that Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is compelling and research has shown that it is extremely valuable in education, specifically curriculum development. Research has shown that it is better to identify what students can do with assistance, instead of what they can do independently. This allows for tailoring curriculum to each child's specific needs and as a result, helping him reach a higher level of achievement.

I also like how Vygotsky valued the role of other students in education. He did not specify that only adults could best teach children. He specified that a student's peers could also teach a child. In the video below, a child teaches his brother his multiplication tables:

http://youtu.be/qSSVgrxdpM0

In 1993 a prestigious journal Nature published an article about a study that revealed that college students, who listened to Mozart piano sonata (click HERE), performed better on a reasoning task compared to a group of students who listened to a relaxation tape. Eager parents, who have been looking for ways to quickly boost their kids' intelligence, clung onto this study and soon a popular belief about improving intelligence with classical music was born.

This finding ignited a birth of a multimillion-dollar industry, which markets intelligence-improving products towards kids and their parents. The parents are willing to pay any price to put their child ahead in today's competitive society and make them more successful. In 1998 Georgia Governor added $105,000 to the state budget to allow each newborn to receive a free Mozart cassette or CD. I believe this overwhelming reaction was caused by the belief that people can finally control and influence intelligence directly through their own simple actions (as opposed to accepting genetics and building on the environmental causes).

This finding sparked such a response that the people did not even consider thinking about the finding statistically and verifying its results immediately. Replicating the study was difficult for other researchers because many of them could not find the Mozart effect at all. And those who found it claimed that the magnitude of the change was very little. The original study also revealed nothing about long-term effects and the effect of classical music specifically. The emotional arousal produced by the classical music could have easily been produced by any scary story. The boost in alertness has a very short-term effect and leaves no mark on general intelligence.

I believe that Social Role Theory is an interesting and important subject to learn about. The social role theory is the variables that help decide men's and women's preferences in a partner. This is a concept that helps us understand why people are attracted to different types of people. Some people maybe be attracted to men or women that play traditional roles in a relationship. For example, a woman may be attracted to a man that is a provider and has a position that is higher in status. These are women that won't there significant other to care for them as a protector and a financial provider. Whereas, a man may be attracted to a woman who cares for the child and is more of a homemaker. Also, a man/woman may be attracted to a woman/man who is of equal financial or position status as them.
Even though, men and women have become more equal today, there are many people that are attracted to someone who holds more of a traditional status. Personally, I am both traditional and modern. I am attracted to a guy who can protect me and is financially stable. Although, I am not a woman who would stay home and be a homemaker/child care provider. I also like to be financially stable and I feel that the house work and child care should be a shared job between males and females. Everyone has different variables in what they are looking for in a relationship that help them choose a partner, which is what the social role theory helps us understand.

In the emotion chapter in our textbook, it goes on to talk about the social influences on interpersonal attraction: proximity, similarity, reciprocity, and physical attraction. All of these definitely make sense in order to have a working and lasting relationship.

Proximity is how close you are in terms of location. It seems as though that relationships start between people who sit by each other in class, next-door neighbors, or even live close to each other in the dormitories. This may be the reason why long distance relationships are more likely to fail. As of recently, long distance relationships have been made easier by FaceTime and Skype.

Contrary to the popular belief that "opposites attract," similarity is the next key to interpersonal attraction. Wouldn't you rather go on a date with someone to a place where you both have fun? Plus finding things to talk about would be way easier. On top of that, settling disputes may be easier because couples understand each other more and know what the other is thinking.

Reciprocity is the third ingredient. This pretty much deals with the "give and take" of a relationship. I'm sure this has happened to many of us where we find out someone likes us and we tend to like that person back. The person that is liked may end up acting more likable to the other individual, according to our textbook.

Physical attraction is the first thing we notice in another individual, and it is the last part of the social influences of interpersonal attraction. This is pretty self-explanatory in that we try to hook up with people that we find physically attractive. I think a lot of people claim to only look for what is on the inside, but indeed a lot of what we look for is also on the outside. Our book even says, "we judge books by their covers."

With the acceleration of the divorce rate in the United Sates over the past decades, American family life have resulted in many changes and children have suffered most from the consequences of divorces.

According to "divorcerate.org", it was reported that the divorce rate in America is 50% and 25% of the children from divorce did end up with having serious psychological, social and academic problems. These statistics are serious enough to make people pay more attention on the psychological health of the children who live in divorced households. I realize 3 people around me who live in divorced family: my cousin and two of my best friends. From what I observed, they did have something different from people who have perfect family. My cousin is hard to have stably romantic relationships and has some bad hobbies such as gamble. All of them are less confident and sometimes aloof comparing to other people and I think that are all because they are starved of affection since the divorces of their parents. Here is a video well demonstrate "the 12 sorrows your kid did not choose" when "you choose divorce":
Effect of Divorce on Children
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BL33VN34bQ
This video expresses children's feelings deep in their mind and allow parents who want to choose divorce to understand their children's sufferings. It is parent's responsibility to consider their children rather than making the selfish choice. After doing these research findings, I gained a greater awareness of the bad consequences of divorces and I am still wondering what are some of the ways to make parents who want to choose divorce to realize more on the bad effects on their children.

The cohort effect represents the similarity among a group of poeple due to the same events experienced during their developments. This effect is quiet important, because the environments of developments between generations of people differ a lot, which can dramatically interfere the evaluation of the development outcomes in research.

In my homeland, China, with the intensive economic development and social structure changes, this cohort effect is quiet influential. For example, my father and my uncle who were born during the famine in China from 1958 to 1961 shows deficiencies on physical development, especially on height. But as the generation raised during the development of economics, my cousin and I are both more then fifteen centimetres higher than them. And the same effect doesn't show on my mother and her generation, who were born after the great famine.

Furthermore, the social contexts of different generations differ a lot. In China, people like to sort themselves to different groups as 70s, 80s and 90s(born in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s). The 70s are marked with conformity, diligence and good luck of encountering the start of the great development of society. While 80s are also diligent. But with the inflation and more fierce competition, they are recognized as the generation facing the unpresedented social pressure. Then the 90s, born during the most developed time in China, are more individualistic and confident.

With the great impact from the cohort effect, researchers need to carefully eliminate the possible confounding variables to draw conclusions about the human development.

Popular psychology literature tells readers that divorce often causes a serious emotional toll on children. In 2000, Time magazine featured a story that explained what divorce does to children, and this story was sparked by a 25 year study that Judith Wallerstein did of 60 different families.

This article reported that the effects on children from divorce are enduring and worse than what parents think. It explained that many years later, children of divorced parents had difficulties with establishing career goals and stable romantic relationships; however, there was one problem with this study. Wallerstein did not include a control group of families in which one or both of the parents had been separated from their kids for reasons other than divorce (i.e. accidental death). From her findings, we cannot conclude whether the effects on the children are a reflection of divorce, or if they are a reflection of stressful disruption in the family.
Better designed studies have shown that the majority of children survive their parents' divorce without long-term emotional damage; however, it has been proven that there is a relationship between the severity of conflict between the parents before the divorce and the effects on the children. If parents experience mild conflict before the divorce, there are actually more severe effects on the children compared to parents that have intense conflict before the divorce. Although a majority of children are fine after divorce, some children seem to produce negative effects. For example, a study was done where researchers compared the children of identical twins, only one of whom had been divorced. Children of identical twins who'd divorced had higher levels of depression, substance abuse, and poorer school performance, compared to the children of identical twins who had not divorced. Overall, all of these findings suggest that although divorce does not have a long term effect on most children, there is still a chance that it could exert negative effects on some children.

Cognitive changes in Adolescence basically deals with the time in human development when we are neither a full grow adult or a child. In this time we are cognitively going through a lot changes as we are experiencing many adult activities that we hadn't faced before in our childhood. This activities carry risks with them and if they are not carefully navigated they can lead people in to bad situations and potentially life threatening situations as well. Since our frontal lobes don't fully mature until late adolescence and early adulthood, adolescent youth are more susceptible than most to harmful activities. Also during adolescence the limbic structures of the brain involved in social rewards become more active meaning that adolescent youth are more likely follow a group of friends into certain harmful activities such as doing drugs and drinking alcohol. Adolescent behavioral issues can also be credited to the what is called a "personal fable" in which teenagers feel a profound uniqueness and that they are living out a story that others are watching.

I believe that this kind of research is important because it looks at an issue that has yet to be fully understood and treated. If this could be researched a little further I believe we can come up with better ways to keep adolescence better occupied and less harmful to themselves. Personally I have gone through this time in my life without any major incidents, but I have known friends who have made the wrong decision and payed the price for it. One example in my life where adolescent youth actually affected my families life is when in the middle of the night some group of teenagers used BB guns to shot at car windows in the neighborhood including at my mom's car.This is an example of a group activity done by most individual when they are adolescents, they're testing authority and taking risks.

Are you a young woman? Have you ever been told that someday, you'll grow up and marry your father? Or are you a young man and complained about your mother and then was told all young men eventually marry their mothers. I've been told this tidbit of information so many times I've lost count, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes AND the more it confuses me. There are traits about my father that I love and there are traits that I hate. This notion that we marry our parents fascinates me and is becoming ever popular in scientific research. A psychotherapist from Berkeley, California named Elayne Savage states that we tend to find love with people like our parents due partly to the familiarity factor. Savage also contends (with anecdotal evidence) that this familiarity factor may extend past personality traits to physical and intellectual ambition as well. This notion reinforces the idea that "like goes with like" that was discussed in our textbook.

My question to this idea is what influences our choosing: nature or nurture? The research says we tend to pick mates that are similar to our parents because of a familiarity factor, but is this a nurture or nature factor? A few days ago, I was at work when this discussion came up. The more I thought about it, the more it interested me and I started to develop a little bit of an experiment in my head to help dissect the cause-effect relationship in how we choose our mates. If I was to create an experiment, I think I would begin a longitudinal study using adopted children. These children would have to have been adopted as very young infants (so they would be relatively unaffected by their biological parents lives [nurture]) and have adoptive parents who chose not to tell the children that they were adopted. It would be my assumption that if a child knew they were adopted that would also come with some kind of contact between them and their biological parent(s). Even a few pictures or letters could taint the study. Throughout the child's life, we could document all of their romantic relationships. Personality, physical and intellectual traits of the child's partners would be compared to that of their adoptive and biological parents. If we see a stronger correlation between the prospective partners and the adoptive parents we could state that the "familiarity factor" is due to nurture. And vice versa if the child's partners more closely match the characteristics of their biological parents.

I think this could be an interesting study and I also think it could help shed light on the way we choose our mates. Obviously there will be exceptions to all assumptions and therefore following a number of children would be necessary.

One day I will know if I married my father, but it would certainly be nice to know now. It would definitely narrow down my search a little bit! Love will never be completely able to be pinpointed, but knowing a little bit more about how are mates find us would be a window into a part of our brains that we've never gotten to see before.

Nowadays, many people can lie easily to one another. People don't even notice that their friends or partners are lying to them because a liar tries to create illusion to make us to believe that whatever a liar says is always right. If we fall to a liar's trap, we are more likely to agree with whatever they said. How do we detect whether someone is lying or not? A polygraph test is a lie detector techniques which base on the assumption of Pinocchio response ("a perfect physiology or behavioral indicator of lying" (Lilienfeld textbook, p.419). It measures anxiety, blood pressure, respiration, skin conductance, and amount of palm sweating. A polygraph test assumed that suspects will experience a high level of anxiety when they confronted with questions expose their falsehood. Polygraph test is given in a form of yes no questions for suspects to answer. There are three types of yes no question including relevant questions, irrelevant questions and control questions. If the suspect's automatic activity is higher in relevant questions than irrelevant and control questions, polygraph test turned out to be "deceptive". Otherwise a test is "truthful".

Polygraph test is important in a way that it helped US federal government agencies (CIA, FBI) to interrogate suspects and screen new employees. It helps us to measure nonverbal behaviors in which we can't examine directly by our eyes. Based on those nonverbal behaviors, we can determine whether someone is lying or not. A test also applied to me in a way that when I told a lie to my parents, I usually get cold in my hand and worried about the consequences that I will get after lying to them. They asked me questions that resemble questions in polygraph test and with my nonverbal behaviors, they know that I was lying to them but they still forgave me afterward. Polygraph test in security screening is to identify individuals who present threats to national security.

Despite usefulness of polygraph test, there are still some biases against a test. A test can give high rate of false positives which it labels innocent people as guilty. Another problem with a test is it sometimes measures arousal instead of guilty. A test also gives high rate in false negatives which it labels guilty people as innocent people. As science becomes more develop and creates more innovation, we need to invent methods that can give better results in detecting lies. The question challenges to most scientist is how do we develop method to give better result in detecting lies (more than 50% accuracy)? How do we use polygraph test to protect innocent people and punish people who commit crimes?

In the process of human development, Judith Rich Harris claimed that peers' influences are more important than parents' influences. While growing up, I find out that I spent a lot of time in staying with my peers rather than parents, because within one day I had to study at school with my peers for at least 8 hours. For the time I stayed with my parents, we only stayed together for dinner, if they were busy, they had to eat outside. In this way, we did not have time to communicate. So I think peers influence me much better than parents.

According to the theory of Harris's, "most environmental transmission is "horizontal"- from children to children rather than "vertical"-from parents to children." Parents always care about the external condition of children, such as score of the exams, the health condition, friendship and so on. However, they ignore the internal condition of children, such as the psychology of the children. In the part of human psychological development, Peers communicate with each other about their real thoughts, which can reflect their emotion and thinking. For example, different generations have different ideas, parents cannot know exact thoughts of their children, so children are willing to talk to the peers who really understand what they are thinking about. And the peers can give suggestion from their perspective.

While studying this ideas, there are questions occur to me that parents serve as role models who provide guidance and structure. Whereas peers are so young that they do not have enough experience to judge and comment. In some extent, parents' influences make more guidance and direction for children than peers' influence.

Remember when you were a still a little kid and watch Power Rangers or relating shows, and acted out what you saw? I know I did and I'm sure most of you have acted out what you saw in t.v shows or etc. when you were younger. I think that this topic is relevant because TV violence can negatively effect children on a number of levels and it's important to understand this in order to prevent such behaviors. In my experience, I have little cousins who loves Power Rangers, Batman, and etc. to the point where they run around beating up each other. Basically, imitating the good guys who beat up the "bad" people. This clip will demonstrate the philosophy of media influence: http://youtu.be/-n9G71q04E8
Then in a psychology experience, I found out that after watching shows such as Power Rangers, I'm more aroused compare to shows like Barney.
Media violence have been found to influence children to act out aggressive behaviors and may led to future crimes. Then again, there are other evidences to falsify this claim in which media violence is correlated to aggressive behaviors found in children.
In my opinion, I think that media violence is correlated to aggressive behaviors in children most of the time because of my own experiences and observations. What do you think about media violence and its effects on children's behavior? Why?

This experiment conducted by Harry Halow shows us the concept of contact comfort. The definition of Contact Comfort is "The positive emotions afforded by touch"(Lilienfeld 386). As you can see in the video, Harlow has a scary monster that he has built that has all of the characteristics that will scare a baby Rhesus monkey. These include loud noises, moving parts and big glowing eyes. When he exposes the monster to the monkey you can see the monkeys reaction as he freaks out and almost instantly runs to his fake terry cloth mother. Whats interesting about this is in the cage, the monkey has both a terry cloth mother that is soft, warm, but doesn't have nourishment and a wire mother that doesn't have cloth and is wire, but has nourishment. Harlow wanted to test whether the monkey will go to a figure that offers nourishment, which was the scientific basis at the time, or a figure that offers comfort. After his results you can clearly see that the monkey preferred to go the the figure that offered more comfort than the one that just offered nourishment. You can also see near the end of the video how the monkey seems to want to stand up to the machine instead of cower away. This also shows that he feels safer around the terry cloth figure because he thinks it will help defend him against the monster. This is what Harlow name Contact Comfort and changed how people view how we attach onto figures such as our parents.

Learning about those theories on human development, I came to wonder, why China seems to have an abundance number of those strongest high school students as well as young adults but seems to still have a huge gap in the process of chasing its target competitor the U.S. It's such a general question, and I'm clear that as a Chinese international freshman student I have little knowledge and say on western cultures and even don't have enough insight about my own culture. But I'm still writing this and hope that I could shed anything new to this complicated issue.

According to Erikson's theory, there's a series of 8 stages in human development. From the first one "infancy" all the way to the last one "aging", each stage is related with a certain struggle. And I found that although when it came to me I felt that there were much more problems about spoiling children, divorcing, abusive behaviors and poverty that are related to those early stages in China, it could be just due to the availability heuristic because I knew more about my home country instead of any other places. So albeit there are certain differences in the "infancy" and "early childhood" stages, these are not the critical point that makes things lose control.

But the crisis, the true turning point come when our Chinese children rush into "adolescence". During this certain stage, the struggling issue we have to face is "Identity versus Role Confusion", which is all about achievement of a stable and satisfying sense of role and direction. In this stage, we are to figuring out perhaps the most fundamental questions, which are who we are, and who we want to be. But the reality is that just at the point we come to adolescence, we go to our secondary school and thus have to be confronted with a huge amount of academic stress if we would like to go to a better high school and then a good college, to pursue a comfortable future life, according to the stereotype our society builds. We have to endure the stress exerted by parents as well as our school teachers. And our attempts to explore who we are, like trying different roles, doing things we've never tried before, or developing brand new interests, are in most cases, suppressed by our parents and teachers. So accompanied by even harder course work, we Chinese adolescence have to survive both the smothering academic stress and the chaos of our identifying our personal identity. Some of them are obsoleted because they do not pass through. But it is not optimistic for the survivors, because very few of them really "survived" this period in which they not only overcome the academic stress but also figure out the question of who they are. These adolescences with fortune generally become elites, and many of them immigrate into countries like the U.S., which is a sad truth, from my personal perspective. The rest are not that lucky, because they have to step into the next stage "Young adulthood" and face new coming struggles with their former one in the stage before haven't been finished. And as some evidence suggests, "individuals who don't successfully negotiate the early stages of development, like identity versus role confusion, experience more difficulty with later stages than do other individuals." And from my opinion, that's the start of the ruin of most people in the generation.
China needs to benefit from talents, but it came to manufacture talents. And if this situation doesn't change, just like a factory that keeps making redundant unserviceable accessories, there would be a crisis.

According to healmyPTSD.com, "70% of adults in the U.S. have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives. That's 223.4 million people."

In our lives, many of us will experience events that will bother us or disturb us, even scar us or debilitate us in some ways. But what if there was a drug that could help lessen the impact of that life-changing event? Help us move past it and move on with our lives, where some of us seem to be stuck forever?

In psych class, Professor Gewirtz mentioned a drug called D-cycloserine (DCS), a beta-blocking drug, which is an antibiotic and has shown some results when used in experiments concerning traumatic events. People taking this drug during experiments experienced a faster extinction rate or experienced faster results with exposure therapy.

In one study, the antibiotic was given to paramedics on the job, the control received a placebo. After time both measured their stress levels (I think) and it was discovered that the paramedics taking DCS had a significant reduction in stress as compared to the control group.

What if we were to give this to patients after experiencing a traumatic event? I feel that if we were to utilize this drug to help patients move on from mental experiences and emotional memory the results could be significant.

Although further research is needed, imagine a world where the lonely and hurt, who are trapped in an emotional memory that they can't escape, could be free and happy, moving on and no longer chained by things from the past.

A common held belief is that culture influences emotions in people, i.e. various cultures would have a different set of emotional presentation to stimuli. However standard emotions such as happiness, sadness, fear, surprise and anger are universal, and a stimulus generates the same emotions in people. Thus emotion is in fact a product of biological bases, but if we remember clearly different cultures do respond to different stimuli differently.

In Venezuela, South America, people often greet each other my planting a kiss on the cheek, male or female. Coming from an Indian background, I was startled when I was first greeted in their common held manner. This shows a difference in cultural norms, but this display of respect and emotion was regarded as polite by me, but in front of people from my own culture I had to pretend that it was not okay to greet one another in such manner. Even though both the parties felt respect towards each other, one party had to mask it with another emotion. Therefore even though these common emotions exist across cross culture it doesn't mean that "cultures are identical in their emotional expressions". The theory of display rules plays a key role in explaining this different mode of emotional expression. Display rules are cross-cultural guidelines for how and when to express emotions. Therefore culture doesn't influence emotion itself, but however influences the "overt" expressions. Thus our culture frames us in such a way that we learn to display what emotion at what time. For example: there is a universal held notion that males should not cry, moreover should not cry in public as they are displayed as powerful and emotionally and physically strong human beings. While it's alright for a female to cry because she is portrayed as a fragile and emotional human being. This notion is quiet common among various cultures, and therefore even though males might be emotional while hearing the news of the death of a close family member, or touched by a sensitive action of his child, he is less likely to display this emotion.

So coming down to common questions, is it healthy to pent up good or bad emotions and not display them? Does culture truly integrate in our mode of expression? And if so, differing from our culture on the basis of emotional expression might lead us to become an outcast? Can it be a cause of misunderstanding between people, as not displaying of a certain emotion can be taken as not feeling it? Most certainly emotions seem to be complicated.

Motivation in my own words is having a desire to get a task done, whether that is finishing a blog post for pysch class, cleaning up your room, or going for a run to stay in shape. The tasks all require you to have a certain drive to want to get them done; yet so many people lack that certain mindset to finish projects. They put off their tasks or projects until right before the deadline and then finally decide to do them. Why does that happen?

I would have to say that most people need the pressure of a deadline or similar cut off to motivate them enough to actually get to work on their task. In other words, they lack motivation. Why is it then that some people always seem to have things done early before the deadline? Do they have their own motivational speaker that they listen to every morning? They probably don't, but they do most likely have something that is motivating them such as getting good grades in order to get accepted into graduate school or becoming successful in life.

I know for myself if I simply lack the drive to start a paper or study for a test I need something to get me pumped up. I need something to motivate me. What usually works is this video I found on YouTube about a year ago. It always gets me started on whatever task is ahead, including this one.

Even though you probably don't realize it, motivation is a natural thing that occurs in all people. We are all driven, to some degree, to obtain necessary things to live such as food, water, and shelter. Without a certain level of motivation we would all die. We wouldn't have the desire to obtain the things essential to live. Think of that the next time you go to get a glass of water. You can thank your natural motivation for keeping you alive, and maybe your own motivation for helping you get this blog done on time.

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Remember the good ole days when The Rugrats was the show that everybody watched? I do, but only vaguely. I was a relatively good child that never got in trouble. Then one day my mom noticed that I had suddenly started acting out, mouthing off, and being nasty to my older brother. She didn't know the reason until she sat down one day and watched The Rugrats with me. As it turns out, I was behaving exactly like Angelica and mimicking her awful behavior. From that day on, I was NEVER allowed to watch The Rugrats again!

Kidshealth.org states that kids who view violent acts are more likely to show aggressive behavior and TV characters often depict risky behaviors, such as smoking and drinking, and also reinforce gender-role and racial stereotypes. This relates to the topic that was discussed during discussion last week--that violent video games increase aggressive behavior. One of the articles we discussed stated that, "the brains of violent video game players become less responsive to violence and this diminished brain response predicts an increase in aggression".

As children watch more and more television, they become more comfortable with the behavior being depicted on the screen--whether good or bad. As I watched Angelica lash out and bully her family and friends, I began to see it as a behavior that was acceptable; and therefore, started acting the same way. This is obviously the same phenomenon that we looked at during discussion when we watched Barney and the Power Rangers. Whether it's a TV show or a video game, chances are children are going to slowly start to mimic the behavior that they are custom to watching.

While growing up, I think that it is very important to have a father figure present in you life. The role of a father is different in many ways than the role of a mother. Children rely on both their mothers and fathers being there to support them while growing up. Fathers are less attentive toward their babies than mothers are and fathers will spend less time with their babies than mothers will. However, when fathers play with their children, they play more physically and involved than a mother would. It has been studied that children will play with their father over their mother any day. Children will benefit in the long run if they have a close relationship with their father. When a father is around their child, he is a very beneficial male influence on that child. When just a mother is raising a child, she finds it difficult to play a male role of a father.

I think that the role of the father is very important because their influence on their child will teach them so much throughout their life, even if they don't realize it. The child will benefit more when having a father figure around than just a mother. While growing up, my father played a huge role in my life. I remember playing many activities around the house, going to different sporting events, going on vacations and having a very close relationship with him. This was an important part of my life because I think that my mother would have had a difficult time trying to fill this role. If my father wasn't part of my life, I'm not sure if I would have ever experienced these type events. Thats why I think that it is very important to have a father part of ones life.

Anorexia nervosa is a worldwide eating disorder in which someone has a constant obsession with their weight and stresses over not being thin enough. Even though they are underweight they still believe their body image is not perfect, and will continue to lose weight by starving themselves to achieve their image of perfection. Anorexia is more common in women than men which is mainly caused by the impression society has influenced in young women, that the only way they will look good is if they are a certain size.
One of my relatives who suffers from anorexia will always complain about her body image even though she is completely skin and bones. She takes dieting to the extreme and with the onset of any weight gain, in her case she is a compulsive exerciser so it's actually caused by gaining muscle, she will get depressed and lose her gained weight by decreasing intake even further.
Psychologists who treat people with this disorder found that the individuals see themselves as fat and about 85% perceive their weight as above what it actually is. Throughout the course of their severe dieting they with lose between 25%-50% of their body weight causing them to have a bony and fatigue appearance. The symptoms that arise with anorexia are hair loss, fainting, loss of heart tissue, lanugo, low body fat, loss of menstrual cycles, bone deterioration, low body temperature, iron deficiency, and constipation. Life threatening conditions are associated with anorexia nervosa if it goes untreated. The victim is likely to die from heart failure due to their body shutting down completely.

Long time ago, when I was in high school, I received a love letter from a boy who turned out to be my classmate. He was sitting beside me for the past one year and started to become attracted to me. I should say that this is all thanks to the principle of proximity in where physical nearness becomes the predictor of attraction. Since I have not yet attracted to him, we decided to get to know each other better. We started to exchange letters and in each letter he would write about his liking and disliking, his dreams and also about his family. But still, I was not able to get myself to like him.
One fateful day, I saw him reading one of my favorite comic books and I suddenly feel attracted to him. He never told me that he likes to read comic books and when I asked him, he said that reading comic books is uncool. Nevertheless, I never knew that falling in love would be that easy but now that I have learned psychology, I realized that I only attracted to him only because we have similarity with each other. From that day onwards, as we talk more about our similarities, we started to become closer to each other.
Now that we were going out, I tried my very best to maintain my relationship with him. Sadly, he did not hold his end. Our relationship was lack of reciprocity or the rule of give and take. I felt that he never do anything to maintain our relationship. After two years holding onto the broken relationship, I decided to end my relationship with him.
From my story, I realized that my love life follow the three principles of attractions which are proximity, similarity and reciprocity. Since I failed at following the last principle, my relationship ended. But still, I am sure that I will be able to have better relationship by using the three principles of attractions.

We've all seen it happen-- a mother leaves her baby, and the baby immediately breaks down into tears. Surprisingly, this common occurrence has been heavily analyzed by psychologists, using "The Strange Situation". This laboratory experiment focuses on the responses of the child to the departure of the parent, and the reunion with the parent. Based on these responses, the child is placed into one of four categories.

Interestingly, culture plays a huge role in the categorization of children's attachment. In the United States, the majority of babies are placed in the "Secure" category, meaning they cry when their mother leaves, and are elated upon her return. However, kibbutzim Israeli babies have a higher rate of being placed in the Insecure- Anxious (ambivalent) category. In this category, the infant is extremely distressed upon the mother's departure, yet greets her with resentful feelings upon her return. This can be attributed to culture differences. These Israeli children are not often exposed to strangers. Thus, rather than reflecting an odd parental bond, this difference probably is caused by increased distress at the arrival of the stranger. Similarly, Japanese babies are placed more frequently in the Insecure-Anxious group than are American babies. Again, this is probably due to cultural differences. Japanese infants are rarely apart from their mothers, unlike American babies. Also, the entire Japanese culture values individual independence less than America culture, possibly suggesting that the babies do not usually expose themselves to new situations.

In summary, the Strange Situation can give researchers an idea of the types of attachment, and the frequency of types of attachment often correspond with culturally defined expectations. In an interesting way, the merits and disadvantages of different parenting styles of lifestyles could be examined through the use of The Strange Situation.

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In the American society today, the pressure to be thin is worse than ever. On billboards, in magazines, on television shows, all the Hollywood starlets face the pressure to be thin. By them being thin, they put out the thought to impressionable teenage girls that being thin is the only way to success. This has led to an astounding number of young girls, women in adulthood, and even some males to become Anorexic.

Anorexia is not simply an attempt to be thin, but a psychological disorder that develops into an obsession. Some people believe that anorexia is just the avoidance of food, but anorexia can take many shapes and forms. Some people don't eat, while others are fascinated with food to the point where they meticulously measure out everything into distorted portions, believing that they are eating healthy and nothing is wrong with them, but are unknowingly starving themselves down to nothing. Someone with anorexia may even resist the pleas of their family to become well again because they truly believe that nothing is wrong with them.

This psychological abnormality has yet to be pinpointed down to a certain cause, but scientists believe that it may be genetic and that a gene at chromosome 1p may have something to do with a person's susceptibility to the disorder, but it still needs to undergo more intensive research. However, the nature vs. nurture effect may fall into place here as well. By society pressing "thin" onto everyone in it, this disorder may be completely environmentally affected.

The physical outcome for someone with anorexia may be severe health issues, such as low bone density, small muscle mass, cessation of a menstrual cycle rendering them infertile, and other susceptibilities like heart attacks. This attempt to be thin can have its problems, but the one good thing about it is that there is help. Psychologists around the world have dedicated their studies to helping victims of anorexia recover and lead a healthy life.

How do I know so much about this topic you ask? Well, I was one. For a year and a half in high school I was anorexic. I didn't eat anything that I didn't know the calories of, and I hardly consumed more than 1000 calories a day. By the time I was brought in to treatment, I weighed 112 pounds. I am 5'9. My original weight was 150 pounds. I looked awful. However my wonderful psychologist showed me that there is more to life than being skinny. I needed to learn to love myself for who I was inside, not a number on a scale. And that is what the psychologists are doing for all who seek help now. Hopefully advances in technology will help scientists pinpoint what exactly causes this disease, and how to eradicate it before it even begins.

sources: lilenfeld book, MedicineNet.com

Have you heard about eating disorders? Bulimia nervosa? Many people have heard but do not really know what it is about. Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder that is affecting our society deeply within the past years. People especially women have this disease that consists of eating large amounts of food and then purging or vomiting it. This causes a drastic quick weight loss. These people have a feeling of guilt after eating so they self-induce vomiting. Sometimes diet pills and too much exercise are involved. Then it becomes a vicious cycle with anxious feelings, temptation and an out of control dieting. According to some statistics, 50% of people suffering from bulimia recover, while 20% continue to be bulimic and 30% show some improvement.

The video below is a great example of the consequences of what bulimia nervosa can do to yourself. It is really important that if you think you have a problem search for help and support. This is a disease; you cannot resolve it by yourself. This must be done before it's too late. We must raise awareness and not get carried away by appearances or what magazines, TV shows and media present. Sometimes being comfortable in your own skin is the best way to feel happy about your body. There are some websites that support this conduct and other eating disorders. What do you think about this? Do you believe present day society is thinking correctly? Aren't our health and welfare the primordial thing it should be concerned about?

One of the most over hyped effects related to infant development is the Mozart effect. The Mozart effect states that if babies listen to Mozart's music, they would be more intelligent. However, the original study, from Nature magazine, studied college students not babies, and the study only said participants showed increased reasoning immediately after listening to the music, nothing long term.
The media twisted this study and applied it to babies. Toy companies went wild selling Mozart CD's and cassettes. It even went so far that the Governor of Georgia added $105,000 to the state budget allowing for ever infant in Georgia to listen to a free Mozart CD.
This effect is fraud in many ways. First, the original study had nothing to do with babies or long term intelligence. Next, other researchers findings failed to replicate the results showing babies that listened to Mozart had increased intelligence, which violates the replicability principle. Lastly, other research showed that playing Mozart music compared to a passage from a scary story yielded similar results. Conclusions were that anything that increases alertness will increase short term reasoning.
In conclusion, the media can and often will twist and overhype studies. The Mozart effect is a false claim that people wanted to believe and thus fell victim to the confirmation bias when in reality it has nothing to do with babies.

Imagine this: an eight-month-old baby girl begins to trill her own consonants and babble constantly to the sound of her mothers voice. This little girl continues to grow, and with this age comes a larger vocabulary. With each new word this precious little girl speaks, her mother responds positively and perhaps teaches her yet another new word. Now, imagine this: a little girl living in the city of Los Angeles is tied to a potty chair day in and day out. The only interaction she has with her mother is when she ties her to her crib at night. This precious little girl never babbles or trills. Nor does she even learn to speak.

Sadly, the ladder of these two stories is the sad truth. This story belongs to a girl named Genie. Genie was discovered at the age of thirteen in her Los Angeles home. She could not speak a word of English, and she had the mannerisms of a three-year-old. The sad conclusion of this story is that Genie was never fully integrated into society. Her behavior and language did progress, but at a much slower rate than that of what it needed to be. She will forever be mentally slowed not by mental defect, but by uncaring parents.

The case of Genie proves just how important language and behavior development is in a child. Genie's mother and father never spoke words to her, nor did they let her learn how to behave as a human. Behavior and language at a young age is observationally learned through parents. Babies learn to babble because it is what they hear. Further more, Genie proves that there is a critical window for language learning. Children learn their native language easier at a much younger age than Genie was when found. This is why Genie could not and will not ever learn the way she should have.

It can be assumed that most people familiar with the video-sharing website YouTube have seen or at least heard of this popular video It is one of the most watched YouTube videos of all time, and in fact it can teach us a lot about the psychological development of infants.

In only 56 seconds viewers see a range of emotions displayed from Harry, age three, and Charlie, age one. In the beginning of the video, Harry shows happiness and is playful with his younger brother. Charlie displays interest in Harry's finger and turns his head toward his brother when he hears him talking.

Once Harry sticks his finger in Charlie's mouth, he is content but quickly his facial expressions show surprise and then fear and pain once his finger is bitten. Charlie then laughs at the camera, probably imitating his father's facial gesture as he was laughing while videotaping this. The viewer can see that Charlie is fixating on his father's eyes as he is videotaping. After watching this video one can see the broad range of emotions and reflexes that infants are capable of expressing.

I would like to focus on Parenting Styles for this blog post. Parenting styles are basically the variety of ways guardians choose to raise their children. As we have learned in chapter ten, there are four major styles of parenting including Permissive, Authoritarian, Authoritative, and Uninvolved. Permissive means to be very easy on your children and show them a lot of love while Authoritarian means to be very hard on your children and show them little love. Research shows that a balance between these two styles is the best way to raise a child and this style is know as Authoritative. Authoritative styles show that kids who are raised this way have the best social and emotional states as well as behaving in the right manner. This research in parenting styles is very significant to our age group because we can relate it to how we were raised. Also, some of us may be parents in the next decade and it won't hurt to understand a little bit about parenting before then. Personally, Authoritative parents raised me and I had very little behavior problems as a child. This research applies perfectly to me but surely it can't apply accurately to everyone. One question that comes to mind is, how much more successful is the Authoritative style than the others? Obviously uninvolved parents won't be very successful but I have many friends that had Authoritarian style parents and they turned out just like me. Finally, I would like to know how these styles relate to other races and ethnic backgrounds because Diana Baumrind's research is based on Caucasian middle-class families only.

Here is a youtube video relating to parenting styles. If you have ever heard of the SuperNanny, she tries to help parents find a style that works for their family. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu7nEHDCGPg&feature=related)

The Cannon-Bard theory proposes that an emotion-provoking event leads simultaneously to an emotion and to bodily reactions. In other words, this theory states that certain events lead a person to both feel and react a certain way. The founders of this theory suggested that the thalamus is the part of the brain that triggers both an emotion and bodily reactions. However, Cannon and Bard were probably wrong about this because later researchers showed that parts of the limbic system, including the hypothalamus and the amygdala, also play key roles in emotion.

This theory is important because it attempts to explain that an event leads individuals to feel a certain way, thus having a reaction to that particular event as well. An example is when someone sees a bear while hiking through the woods. Seeing the bear would trigger the emotion of fright and fear, and also trigger running away at the same time.

I can think of several examples from my life that support the Cannon-Bard theory. When I do not do as well as I had hoped on a test, this causes me to feel sad or depressed, as well as causes me to cry in certain cases. However, in this case it also may trigger another set of emotions and reactions, and that is motivation and to work harder. When I do not do well on a test, my initial reaction is being extremely unhappy, and sometimes this even causes me to cry a little; however, not doing well on a test also causes me to have a stronger motivation to do better on the next test, causing me to work even harder. On the contrary, when I do well on a test, I feel really happy and excited, thus causing me to smile.

This video explains three theories of emotion, and the first theory it talks about is the Cannon-Bard theory. It gives the definition, and also shows two examples of the theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnTUvHZgumo

Konrad Lorenz identified a significant theory known as Imprinting. Lorenz discovered that when a gosling hatches from It's shell it follows around the first large moving object it see's. Once a gosling has imprinted on something or someone, it becomes largely fixated on it, and is unlikely to follow or bond to anything else (Lilienfeld). Lorenz discovered that Imprinting occurs in a very short thirty-six hour period after hatching. Studies show that gosling will imprint to any large moving objects, such as large bouncing balls and boxes on wheels. Luckily ninety-nine percent of the time it's their mother goose.

I find imprinting to be an important concept due to the nature of humans, Humans are intelligent enough to not have such a strong imprint as geese. Although there is research showing that young babies have attachment to the person who cares for them, It is not attachment to the first large moving object they come across.

I am most interested in imprinting due to my personnel experiences I had years ago when I was in the first grade. At my elementary school it was a tradition that every first grade class gets to raise gosling from the beginning stages of birth. The eggs would sit in an incubator for weeks as the class builds with anticipation for the day the gosling will hatch. To our surprise the goslings hatched after school hours when my teacher, Mr. Rodman was the only one around. To our surprise the gosling had imprinted to him, anytime he was in the vicinity to the goslings they would follow him like mother duck. This had always been a surprise to me until recently when imprinting had come to my attention.

Funny video of duck imprinted to dog...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGBqQyZid04

Pictures showing imprinting....
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n14/experimento/lorenz/lorenz3_p.jpg

http://www.familycourtchronicles.com/glossary/attachment/geese-imprinting.jpg

Google IQ and hundreds of websites are found, all promising to "fast, free, and accurate." But, we do not need these tests; we all know we're smart, right? After all, we did get in to the University of Minnesota. But who's the smartest here? While looking around a lecture hall most could, (with help from a considerable amount of bias) somewhat easily, pick out the 'smartest' and not so smart of the class. Some would base their conclusions on who was taking notes or logged off Facebook; others would decide based on gender, race, or socioeconomic status. This topic is very controversial, for obvious reasons. According to our Lilienfeld text, there is very little difference in IQ between men and women. Men and women do, however, differ in who is best at specific mental abilities. For example, men tend to be better at tasks that require spatial ability, while women excel at verbal tasks. Race is possibly the most controversial topic in discussing what affects IQ. This topic remains especially controversial because according to our text, some races do have higher average IQs than others. Socioeconomic status has also shown an effect on IQ. Those with lower socioeconomic status tend to have a lower IQ, possibly because of low intellectual stimulation or even poor nutrition. While IQ trends may seem discouraging to some, there is a positive. Although IQ is correlated with school success, it is not the only factor. Intellectual curiosity, mental energy, and perhaps most importantly, motivation and effort, have important roles in life outcomes. In planning for spring semester classes, remember: IQ + effort = OUTCOME!
What will your outcome be?