What I would like you to do for this homework is to have some fun and find some websites of a topic that interests you and post it here as a comment. At this point I am not as concerned with exactly how you compose the actual post for this activity. I am more concerned that you have a meaningful experience searching out and learning about your topic.
Thanks.
For this assignment I chose to research eating disorders. This is a topic that hits close to home and is something I think is a very serious issue today. I also thought that this topic went along well with the reading. This disorder has an antecedent, behavior, and a consequence. I think that these links explain the ABC's of eating disorders well in writing and through video.
http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/nutrition/eating_disorders.html#,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_8Wy_q8o4A
I'd like to research Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I know a little bit abou tit and would like to learn more. I have a few rituals of my own to avoid bad days/events.
Overview including symptoms, causes, etc.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/obsessive-compulsive-disorder/DS00189
It suggests that strep throat is a possible cause of OCD. Weird.
Examples of OCD:
"The Aviator"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ucqimdau8
"As Good As It Gets"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DCWslbsNM
This clip gives you an idea of what goes through a person's mind when dealing with OCD impulses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq_6rL46VTc&feature=related
I have decided to research the benefits of promoting positive self-esteem in youth. I find this topic extremely interesting. I've done a lot of research on the topic in the past, and I am aware of the strong influence that a child's self-esteem can play in his or her future. I think there is a fine line between heightening a child's self-esteem in order to help him or her be confident in the future and creating a narcissistic generation. I think it is important to realize that this line does exist, and work to prevent the negative and promote the positive. I've attached a link to a site that is a good overview of self-esteem, as well as a couple of links to well known organizations that have created sub-divisions for the advancement of self-esteem. I've also attached a link that shows the benefit of heightened self-esteem.
Self-esteem overview:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/4h-fact/0008.html
Organizations:
http://www.dove.us/#/cfrb/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/13925-self-esteem/
Benefit of heightened self-esteem:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070521152452.htm
After buying an application for my iPod touch on personality types, and having it accurately describe me after a short survey, I became enthralled with the concept. While searching for information about the I found out that Carl Jung created the theory. There is a website below that describes Jung's theory and includes information about the personality types of well known people. If you're not up for reading a lot, feel free to watch the youtube video below. Michelle does a great job of explaining everything.
This is the link for the application. It describes the sixteen different types and theory:
http://www.personalityapps.com/Personality_Types/Theory.html
Famous people:
http://www.carljungtypes.com/
I'm Not Crazy... It's Just My Personality Type by Michelle Villalobos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-XhqtbPtNk
One of my new years resolutions that I made for myself and has failed miserably was not biting my nails anymore. The thing that frustrates me is I have no reason to bite them and I really want to stop but I can't seem to. And then I realized how hard it seems for people to break habits in general and I really would like to know why and what can people start doing/thinking to make them break their habits. So I am looking into why people can't mentally break habits and a thing or 2 on how we (or I) can change it.
(These are links that have suggestions on why habits are mentally hard to break)
http://ask.metafilter.com/35415/Why-are-habits-so-hard-to-break-even-for-a-moment
http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/4230.html
Depression is very common on my mother's side of the family. I do believe it is genetic with my own family's history. Although I know much about it, I believe there is always something new to discover with it. As I was searching the web for the "psychology of depression", I came across the idea of light therapy. I find it rather interesting as I do agree that light does affect mood. The idea of light therapy is new to me and if you are interested to find out more about it, you need to read these articles. The first article introduces depression and the science behind it. In this article, I discovered the idea of light therapy. In the second article, it tries to sell light therapy methods and gives test results. If you scroll down farther, it will explain its theories of depression and being bipolar and why light helps balance these out.
http://www.hotfrog.com.au/Companies/Light-therapy/DEPRESSION-Understanding-the-science-behind-depression-and-how-our-moods-are-affected-14321
http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/LightTherapy.htm
Throughout my college career, I have come to find out that when I study or am bored, I like to snack. I have also found that many of my peers have the same problem. I have also heard a lot about people who are overweight eating because they are bored or are used to eating when they watch TV, are on the computer, etc. I thought it would be interesting to research this topic a little further.
Here is a website that talks about eating as a habit and some things to do to change your old ways:
http://www.freeweightloss.com/article3.html
And another website that discusses the same things:
http://www.allsands.com/health/weightweightl_wvn_gn.htm
It's interesting to read about their suggestions!
I found this article on depression while reading news on NPR. Since this is Behavior Modification I figured it was only fitting. The article points out an alternative way to treat depression in children.
Emotional Training Helps Kids Fight Depression
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122526518
I am interested in the affects of alcohol abuse in young adults and how it affects violent behaviors.The research that I found viewed violence in the home and at bars. I found that violent incidents of drinking played a role but it did not appear to be a direct cause of the violence although the two seem to correlate together. Correlation does not determine causation. I have some knowledge on intimate partner violence because of a class that I have taken but we did not review much about the affects of alcohol on the violence in the relationship. Research on intimate partner violence demonstrates a high rate of violence and alcohol use by one or both partners. More research needs to be completed before making assumptions. All researchers can do now is make comparisons.
Here is a link to review the findings.
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh284/191-194.htm
I am very interested in parenting styles and the idea that parents can use behavior modification techniques to motivate children to behave a certain way. I did some googling and found an article that examines four different parenting style definitions that have evolved since Diana Baumrind's original definition of three parenting styles.
Parenting Style and Its Correlates
http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/ceduc/parentingstyles.html
I think parenting styles fit very well in our Behavior Modification class because they go along with the idea of an Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence. What behavioral patterns has a child developed in response to something their parents say/do? What consequences (positive/negative reinforcement or punishment) does the parent provide when the child behaves in a particular way? How could the parent change their initial behavior(s) to possibly motivate the child to behave differently?
I also found a fun little quiz online for those of you who either are a parent or would like to "pretend" to be a parent and see what parenting style you demonstrate. :)
Parenting Style Quiz
http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/quizzes/l/bl_prnt_style.htm
I am interested in ADHD because a few of my cousins have it and there are a lot of studies about teachers diagnosing children with it when they may not even have it. A main reason for this is so that the child is not disruptive in the class and so that the teacher doesn't have to deal with it. A large controversy of ADHD is over medication, and since most medications are stimulants it can be scary for children taking them on a regular basis. Below are some websites that discuss this controversy and some information about what ADHD is.
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/356.lesser/adhd_controversies
http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/learning/adhd.html
I am interested in working with children/victims of abuse or trauma resulting from crimes after graduating, so I decided to look up PTSD for this assignment. As a psychology and criminology major, I am hoping that having both backgrounds will assist me in working with victims of crimes and helping them deal with the disorders that can result from these crimes. Being a victim of crime can be an antecedent for developing PTSD. The links posted below give an overview of the disorder and its components.
This link describes PTSD, how it develops, risk factors for it, and how it effects children:
http://ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_children.html
This link is about the possible damaging effects of PTSD on children's developing brains. Researchers interested in this topic measured hippocampal volume and cortisol levels to see the possible effects.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/64484.php
I decided to do some research on positive thinking and how it can effect behavior and emotions. Positive thinking has had many definitions, but the articles that I looked at just referred to thinking about things in life that or positive, and also optimistic thinking when evaluating one's life. The first article I found discussed an experiment done with elderly people. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199705/the-power-positive-thinking
The results were that they could remember positive words better than negative ones. This could give us a glimpse into how to better help elderly people remember things.
The second article discussed positive thinking in general.
http://www.usnews.com/health/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2009/06/24/positive-psychology-power-of-positive-thinking-is-psychologys-latest-focus.html
It specifically focused on how people could do better at work if they used positive thinking techniques. This shows how behavior could potentially be influenced or changed by simply encouraging the use of positive thinking. In this article, it was interesting because positive thinking was more defined as being proactive and initiative. The employees who performed better were those who did tasks before asked and persisted even when they became challenging.
I am interested in how parenting styles differ and how parents must change or modify their parenting style when they have a child with a disability. I have worked in-home with many families with children with disabilities for several years and all the families I have worked with have taken a slightly different approach to parenting. It would be interesting to find out how and why they have chosen to take the parenting path that they have.
This sites gives some introduction and some helpful hints as well.
http://www.googobits.com/articles/p4-2752-raising-a-special-needs-child.html
This site is more like a blog itself, a site for parents to join forces, share and support each other.
http://www.our-kids.org/
For many years I have been interested in working with children who have been sexually abused. Since starting to work at a treatment center for teenagers I have been involved in the lives of many kids who have been victims. Because of this I have chosen to get information about the effects of child sexual abuse. I have done research in the past on both short and long term effects as well as effective treatments for dealing with these effects. I will be giving links to sites with just the basic information about the effects and not go into too much detail
This first link is from the American Psychological Association and gives great information about exactly what child sexual abuse is, who the perps are, and what the effects are. http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/brochures/sex-abuse.aspx#
I found this article from the child trauma academy. It gives both short and long term effects and the percentages of victims who suffer from the effects.
http://www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/sexual_abuse.asp
This last website was started by a women who was a victim of abuse herself. It has stories of other abuse victims as well as statistics on all forms of abuse. There is a lot of great information here.
http://www.child-abuse-effects.com/
The topic that I choose to research is Depression. It seems to me that there are a lot of advertisements for antidepressants and the idea depression is common is portrayed in many of the ads and media in general. However, there have been many studies that have indicated that part of the effect of antidepressants is due to a placebo effect. Therefore, I have provided a link below to an article from the University of Connecticut's website which talks about the placebo effect and breaks down the percentages that are due to a placebo and which are actual drug effects. The information and statistics are pretty interesting considering the number of American's who are on antidepressant medications.
http://advance.uconn.edu/1998/981005/10059813.htm
Although I have no connection to Dissociative Identity Disorder, I have always found it fascinating. This assignment gave me a chance to explore definitions and examples that I probably wouldn't have looked at otherwise.
Since I am an Interpersonal Communication major, I had to take Technology and Human Communication as a class. While we were talking about Twitter as a method of communication, one girl started talking about a person she knew with DID. Her therapist was able to track her different personalities on Twitter daily to see what kind of progress she was making. What a productive way to use the technology we have today!
The following are some web sites I used to gain more knowledge of DID.
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?page=2
http://www.medicinenet.com/dissociative_identity_disorder/article.htm
I decided to do my research on teen sexual activity and pregnancy. There are the obvious behaviors that are the causes of pregnancy. As students in junior high or high school, we are educated on the prevention of pregnancy and abstinence. Sex Ed is one way of trying to modify today's teens' behaviors.
This website is an example of how we, as a nation, are trying to educate our youth about safe sex.
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/
Another behavior and decision that comes with being sexually active is what to do if you or your partner becomes pregnant.
This site gives information and statistics on teen pregnancy, as well as the options teen parents are presented with.
http://www.pregnantteenhelp.org/
Multiple/dp/0786889780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263835329&sr=8-1
The book is about a man with 19 different personalities. I had taken an Intro to Psych class in high school, but we only briefly covered Dissociative Identity Disorder ( http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder ) and were told that DID was the rare find of Psychology. After reading the book, I wanted to know more (I won't lie either- this book sort of pushed me in the right direction to researching my Psychology major).
After researching, I found clips on youtube of actual people with DID. The Three Faces of Eve was made into a movie, but this clip is actually Eve. (Also, I love that the interviewer is openly smoking a cigarette.. Oh how the times have changed)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDkk6Qs8Vr0
I know the subject is a tad cliche, but I can't help but love it.
Being as this is supposed to be about a topic that interests me, and I'm hoping to utilize this class while coaching, I am going to link some interesting websites about philisophical and statistical football analysis and discussion. These websites no only go into X's and O's, but also use statistics to delve deeper into the sport (discussions include spiking the ball to stop the clock and how often you should try to convert on 4th down), and apply all sorts of mathematical, economical, and other spins to the game of football.
http://smartfootball.com/ & http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/ - I've seen this blog referred to as "Coach porn" before.
http://www.advancednflstats.com/ - Really interesting breakdowns of statistics and trends, adds an even more analytical point of view to both short and long term decisions.
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/ - Wall Street Journal Numbers Guy. Touches on all sorts of areas (topics include politics, sports, technology, science and money). Probably the most widely appealing URL I linked in this post, often uses statistics to open your eyes to an entirely new way of thinking. Does a great job of debunking myths and drawing attention to illogical actions that seem to be so common.
I would also like to use this class in connection with coaching. Modifying an athlete's behavior can be the difference in success or failure for an individual or a team. Those websites are very interesting to look at and they make some interesting points. I have a website I will look up later that talks about the economics of football and coaching habits!
While I am not currently a coach, my father was a HS football coach for as long as I can remember so that is pretty much where my passion comes from. That also has led to my interest in sport psychology. From athletic performance, confidence, etc., there are many behaviors that take place on the field or on the court that can be modified based on certain other behaviors and actions.
In the article below on economy of sports, it talks about a coach's decisions within the game of football. Now one would think the coach's decision most times would maximize his/her team's chance to win. However, as the article shows, this often isn't the case as their behavior/decisions depart from what gives them statistically what gives them their greatest chance to win. For instance, while most coach's choose to punt the ball on fourth down, the numbers show coach's should actually go for it in a majority of situations. It also talks about the numbers concerning teams' behaviors and approaches on other occasions such as first down, second down, etc. as well as field position and decisions on field goals/touchdowns.
I would suggest taking a look at the link below. If it doesn't work type "David Romer do firms maximize" into google and it should be one of the first links.
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~dromer/papers/PAPER_NFL_JULY05_FORWEB_CORRECTED.pdf
Why are coach's so conservative or why do some of these behaviors occurs when statistically they aren't maximizes their chances to win?
Chris from the smartfootball.com blog I posted earlier actually talks about this sort of thing quite a bit (his postings have become much less frequent over the past 6 months or so, I think he's sort of stretched himself too thin, he's a contributer at a lot of places online).
The Colts/Patriots game in November was a time where this topic really flared up. I loved Belichick's decision to go for it for a number of reasons. It showed almost god-like respect for Manning (which, honestly, he probably deserves). I think it was Belichick basically saying "We know that if Peyton gets the ball, he's going to score. So we are either going to put this game away right now and not give Peyton a chance to beat us, or we are going to give him a shorter field (which should increase the odds of a TD) and more time, and hope Peyton scores fast enough that we get the ball with some time to score." Really, that decision also applied the pressure on the Colts O to drive down and score. Even discounting what the statistics say about the benefits of going for it on 4th down*, the play would have earned a 1st down had the pass been more accurate or even if the official would have given Faulk a little more credit for his forward progress. Not to mention the fact that you are showing confidence in your offense.
The decision was a sound one, and the reason more coaches don't make those decisions was exactly what you saw in this situation: backlash if you fail. Belichick has more job security than just about any coach in the NFL (and also has a reputation of doing things a little bit less traditionally), so he can afford to take risks like this. This is the point addressed at Smart Football (I'll try to find the article and post it later in this post). Basically, if you attempt to convert a 4th down and fail, its seen as a "risky decision", and the blame falls all on the coach for making a poor decision. These situations stick out in your mind, and when the front office guys are deciding to extend the contract of a coach, situations like that could easily be the proverbial "straw that breaks the camel's back". Not to mention the immediate reactions you are forced to deal with in the post game press conference, on talk radio, etc. by people who either A) are salivating over a story to write about in the paper, or B) have no idea what they are talking about.
On the other hand, if you play it conservatively and kick the field goal (even if it doesn't statistically make sense) then you are given a pass. All of a sudden, it wasn't your decision that cost them the game. The focus becomes things like "Well, if only the defense had held.", or "The bounces just didn't go your way." Nobody remembers it when the coach just decided to "Do the 'smart' thing," and "take the points when you can get them," even when it doesn't make sense.
My focus is officially shot right now, I can't believe I was typing this instead of paying attention to the Saints/Vikes game. Here are the links to the 2 blog posts on Smart Football discussing Belichick's decision, I haven't read them since November so hopefully my summary was fairly accurate.
Immediate reaction: http://smartfootball.com/game-management/belichicks-decision-to-go-for-it-on-4th-and-2-from-his-teams-own-29
After a few days of reflection: http://smartfootball.com/grab-bag/some-thoughts-about-thinking
*Which I think are sort of skewed in the first place; the 4th down conversion percentage should probably be higher than you would expect initially, because if you are going for it on 4th that means you are losing and need to score. This is a situation where defenses will usually play soft D and settle for giving up 1st down yardage instead of risking giving up a TD. Another factor skewing this statistic is because teams will often go for it when they have confidence in their team's ability to convert. As with any statistic, if you can throw out your samples with low odds (in this case, an example would be "4th and 12), your conversion statistic is going to go up.
Well, since this topic should interest me, I thought I would look into a new, alternative form of therapy. Video game therapy is a fairly new concept and I definitely have an interest in looking deeper into it. I do not like the stigma that video games currently have. I play video games and feel that they can help people if used correctly.
This site explains what games you should play based on your mood.
http://www.pointsincase.com/articles/video_game_therapy.htm
*note* This article does contain some harsh language.
Video game therapy to lower anger and frustration levels.
http://www.platformnation.com/2009/10/05/video-game-therapy/
Video game therapy in anti-bullying.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/11/11/virtual-game-therapy-helps-child-victims/9474.html
I wanted to follow up on a treatment for depression that was briefly talked about in my bio-psychology class last year. Several studies have reported that depriving someone who is clinically depressed an entire night sleep, will temporarily recover from their symptoms. Depression symptoms usually return the following night. This method can be used to jump start the effects of antidepressant drugs. Our behaviors can induce physical changes in the body.
Some links with info on the subject.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19576267
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T4S-3X5GN5D-1&_user=724663&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000040479&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=724663&md5=abbc1931ce9d6833dc110162a3d63929
I would like to do some research on psychology and cancer. I have been interested in how having good mental health in dealing with a disease (specifically cancer) can impact your outcome of your health during and after traditional medical treatment. I was diagnosed with a chronic form of leukemia 5 years ago. Along with the traditional form of medical treatment, I also signed up for anything and everything else that I thought would help me. I sought out a good counselor and I'm sure she had a huge impact in the success of my overall health!
I still need to find more websites.
www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200003/mind-over-cancer