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.
marzu003: November 2011 Archives
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.
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.
