The concept in psychology that I think I'll remember five years from now is the video about autistic children. I absolutely fell in love with its idea. I could not believe that with consistent attention, those children got so much better and the evidence was so obvious. They were a mess before and it seemed they were not even aware of their surroundings like their parents and even food. I am still amazed at how much better the children acted with positive reinforcements. It also seemed that the best reinforces were based off of love, like a smile or a hug. Another item from this class that will stick with me will be the discussions about perception and going through the many different pictures of illusions.
I loved how some sidewalk chalk artist would draw completely 3-D images on the 2-D streets. I did so many double-takes because I could not see how it was actually on the ground. The artists were very amazing. I think it is cool how we know how our brains are flawed. We get "tricked" when we see things that don't make sense. We all perceive differently which makes life different for everyone. I liked connecting what we learned in the book to how it applies to the real world.
schw1319: April 2012 Archives
I took the Implicit Association Test, called the IAT, and my results were interesting. First of all, this kind of tests determines if you personally associate one topic with another. This was mentioned in the chapter 13 reading of social psychology. In the book, people were associating happy vs bad words with the faces of black vs white people. The book found that most caucasians that competed the test associated the happy words with the own group (white) and associated the bad words with the out group (black). This test is used to determine quick and implicit decriminations. Because I knew what this test was testing for I think I had an unfair advantage of knowing too much before I took the test.
First, I had to fill out a survey addressing a number of things about myself like my religious views, my ethnicity and so on. Then another survey came up that asked me various questions about how I feel about the future and the past. I am an anxious person so I always worry about the future. In questions about the future I answered, "feels worried about," "is anxious for" etc. For questions asking about my past I answered,"enjoys most," "past fun memories" etc. Then I actually took the test. When a happy word or a past word (yesterday, last year) was present I would hit one button and when a sad word or a future word (tomorrow, next week) was presnt then I would hit a different button. This seemed easier to me because I have more happy memories of the past (associated together) and more anxious feeling to the future (associated together). Then they switched the topics around: this button for sad or past words and this button for happy or present words.
MY FINAL RESULTS: Your data suggest little to no automatic association between Future and Happy.
I did not expect this because I do really get anxious about the future, a lot. One problem I had during the test was that I was suppose to go as fast as I could and that distracted me from getting the right answer all the time.
For those who want to try this out the link is: Implicit Association Test How did you do? What were your results? Did you think the test correctly describes you? The test only took me FIVE MINUTES so it won't take long.
