Topics in the News?
What I would like you to do is to start applying what we are learning in class to real world matters. Some might ask, "What good is learning psychology if we can't apply it to real world matters?" So that is what we are going to do with this topical blog assignment.
What I would like you to do is to either go to NPR (http://www.npr.org/ ), the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ) or any news site listed at the bottom of this page (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ listed in their news sources) and read, watch, or listen to something that is interesting to you and relates to what we have been learning in the class.
Please respond the blog by BRIEFLY telling us in essay format:
What your topic is and what the piece you chose was. Why you picked it (what made it interesting for you) and what did you expect to see. What did you find most interesting about the piece
Next discuss IN DETAIL how it relates to the class using terms, terminology, and concepts that we have learned so far in class. Include definitions.
Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in psychology.
Make a list of key terms and concepts you used in your post.
Let me know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
I decided to present and find some more information about the subject of cognitive maps. Cognitive maps by definition are a series of psychological transformations that an individual uses to help make an understanding of their environments. Individuals use psychological transformations to help them encode, store, and decode information. Cognitive maps are never complete, some feature are left out or distorted to the individual. These features are usually completed and sorted out when and individual comes across certain features that represent those distorted features and fix the spatial behaviors. Cognitive maps are simply a method that we has individuals use to help understand and encode or decode spatial knowledge about our environment. Cognitive maps help us to accumulate and construct spatial knowledge which helps our “mind’s eye” to create and visualize images to help us recall and learn more information.
Cognitive maps are very important to many areas of study. Cognitive maps are helpful in areas such as anthropology, psychology, studies that deal with disabilities, computer science and geography. Cognitive maps help us to create such things as spatial knowledge and set up locations for landmarks and locations for places to be placed. Cognitive maps from individuals can help geologists find places or even learn where a good place for a new location should be placed. Individual’s cognitive maps help us to make organizational decisions and designs. Cognitive maps are helpful in creating new technologies, especially computer technologies.
http://omni.bus.ed.ac.uk/opsman/oakland/inst18.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_map
http://intraspec.ca/cogmap.php
My topic addresses the idea of psychiatric myths and whether or not psychiatry is working. I chose this because a lot of the questions asked within the article are ones that I myself have had in the past (e.g. Are psychiatric conditions nothing more than labels for normal behaviors?) I found it interesting that the article took the approach of identifying the concerns and the questions rather than just bashing on those who oppose or who have questions about psychology and psychiatry.
This relates in some way, shape, or form to everything we have been learning in our history class. The idea of whether or not we are actually understanding mental disorders enough to diagnose them or if it is just a simple matter of someone being ‘behaving abnormally’. The article debates whether the diagnostics and processes we use in psychology are equivalent or in line with those used in other medical fields. The author states the fact that the brain is the most complicated organ in the body and that it is still going to take quite some time to understand and get things right. As with any form of trial and error learning, the process I believe psychology is going about to solve problems, there are going to be ERRORS. I am sure that earlier psychologists whether they were gestalt, comparative, behaviorist, psychoanalysis, etc., expected us to probably completely understand the brain by now. Even though technology and brain scans have come miracuously far since the time of Skinner, Freud, and Hall, we are still nowhere close to having all the answers to the make-up of the brain and all of the problems and issues that come with it.
Terms: psychiatry, psychology, mental disorders, trial and error learning, gestalt, comparative, behaviorist, psychoanalysis, Freud, Skinner, Hall, make-up of brain
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nada-logan-stotland-md-mph/psychiatry-myths-and-myst_b_840852.html
The topic I chose to discuss is bullying. I chose to discuss this topic because it is a problem across the world today and I believe some form of bullying has been around forever. What I found most interesting about this piece is how bullying is so public yet so few people do something to stop it. The news article I found mentioned things I was expecting to read. Such as, there were numerous kids involved, school faculty, and that this all happened without being reported.
I connected this news article to Chapter 8 in our book about Henry Goddard’s Binet testing. These tests would measure a persons’ mental age and based on their outcomes they would classify for a certain category. Idiots would score at one or two; imbeciles would be between a three and a seven, feebleminded people would be between an eight and a twelve. Although these terms are looked at negatively today, during that time they did not mean the same thing. I think Goddard had good intentions going into his study and he created history by recognizing that not everyone has the same mental abilities. By placing people into categories, this created segregation between people. Goddard believed that intelligence was inherited and represented in a fixed quantity. Due to this belief, he spread the word that you should only reproduce with those who have “good” genes. I made the connection between this news article and bullying because when Goddard created categories for people this could be when bullying became more common. Those who belonged to a “bad” gene pool would most likely be made of. Similar to today when someone is unique and does not quite blend in with the crowd they are often looked at as different which can lead to bullying.
Terms: bullying, Henry Goddard, Binet testing, idiots, imbeciles, morons, feebleminded, fixed quantity
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/29/texas.bullying.suit/index.html?hpt=T2
An article I found is related to Clark Hulls drive reduction theory. It is an article over monkeys and how they are being tested to see if they can understand the concept of quantity. Monkeys were shown two different plates with a different amount of raisins on each plate. Apparently, whenever the monkeys were asked to point to the plate with the most raisins, most would point to the incorrect plate, but then they could eat the raisins. Their judgment was impaired because the food was a reinforcer which reduced the drives of being able to think logically. They were only thinking about the food, and not the question. But when they were shown the same question, but with pebbles instead of raisins, the monkeys showed greater results in understanding quantity. The pebbles were obviously secondary reinforcers(inedible), that relate to the primary reinforcers(food) which affected the performance of the monkeys. In a third experiment, the monkeys were shown the raisins again and were rewarded in they picked the correct plate. Soon they learned that the food was the reward and therefore most of the monkeys pointed at the correct plates. I think this ties in with the drive reduction theory because the reinforcers affected the drive of the monkeys being able to distinguish the amount on each plate.
Terms: drive reduction theory, primary reinforcer, secondary reinforcer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9439000/9439825.stm
The article I chose to read was written during Women’s History Month. It discussed the progress that women have made over the decades in America. This relates to the history of psychology because women were not commonly thought of as scientists. They were often not allowed to enter college or to perform research. The few women that were permitted to conduct research came from unusual circumstances.
Mary Whiton Calkins was considered a woman pioneer in psychology. She performed research on association and studied under Munsterberg. She developed a procedure referred to as paired-associate learning. She paired a color with a number. She then paired that same color with a different number and showed it to the participant three times. She then measured which number came to the participant’s mind when they were shown the color. She found that recall was enhanced by for factors: Frequency, vividness, recency, and primacy. She also contributed to psychology through her theoretical contribution of self-psychology. She argued that psychology could be the study of mental life but that psychology would always keep the central fact that “conciousness always contains an element of the self”.
Another prominent woman psychologist was Lillian Moller Gilbreth. She was a pioneer in the applied area of psychology called industrial psychology. After her husband’s death, Gilbreth developed the field of ergonomics. This was the study of how systems and products can be made more efficient for human use. She redesigned everyday items to make them easier to use. She also helped people who were physically handicapped become more productive citizens. These contributions from America’s women psychologists are a part of the progress that women have made through out this country.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kanani/women-in-america-report_b_841466.html
This article was one that really suprised me. On NPR.org this article discusses the amount of looting and theft in japan after the tsunami. What is really suprising is that in other countries when there is a natural disaster you see people busting down store fronts and grabbing tv and such. But in Japan they see little of this. in fact while the reporter was asking questions at the police station a women walked in to return a found wallet that had been washed away, money in it and all. The reporter wrote that the Japanese speak of their culture of shame, haji, which frowns on committing an act that would disgrace one's family. The Japanese see and treat everyone as family. They have each others back, where in the US it is basically everyone for themselves.
This relates to psychology by realizing the mental process and mental training makes us who we are. In a community that treats people like family, shame and disgrace keep people from making decisions that put shame to the family. If someone has no care in the world they are more likely to follow through with crime and bad things. They say that killers, and other criminals have mental issues that do not seem to have remorse for the things they have done. By nature and nurture as well depending on how and where someone is raised changes their thought about crime and other choices differently.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/31/134996688/in-japan-scenes-of-much-destruction-little-looting
The article that I chose was "More on the criminal brain: Nature vs. nurture" I've always found nature-nurture debates quite interesting. A lot of what is thought to cause criminal behavior is thought to be environmental factors-- like socioeconomic status and poverty level. However, recent research shows that our genetics may actually influence whether or not we inherit criminalistic behaviors.
Even though biology consists of 50% of the make-up of this behavior, environment plays just as important of a role. It is important to remember that our environments can change our brains. For instance, falling in love, getting engaged, or getting married may make us happier and calmer and there fore change our brains and steer us off the track of possible criminalisic behaviors. So it is important to remember that if our biological make-up may show us that we are prone to this behavior, it is not destiny.
In a study that was talked about during the article, a group of randomly assigned three year olds were selected to take part in an enrichment program which encluded more physical exercise, educational activities and two and a half more servings of fish per week than their peers. During a follow-up at age 11 the children showed signs of more mature brain functioning, and at age 23 they were 36% less likely to be involved in criminal behaivior than their peers. Therefore, omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and oils, as well as excercise and learning activities may lead to less aggressive behavior, boosting brain power, and combating anti-social behavior.
I found this article to be very interesting because within psychology, and throughout the years there has always been a consistent debate about what causes certain behaviors- and whether nature or nurture plays the bigger role. It's interesting to see such traits where both nature and nurture play an equal role, because we may have more control over them in that sense.
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/28/more-on-the-criminal-brain-nature-vs-nurture/
I read an article from the Hunnington Post about overeating. This is an issue many American’s are faced with. The article explored why this is such an issue. Many associate eating with pleasure, because lets be honest, we all enjoy food. Individuals are able to eat to escape emotions. The article explained that many over eaters have at least 15 triggers for eating. Believe it or not this ties into concepts of Classical Conditioning we have been talking about in class. In this scenario food would start out as an response to hunger. Food is something we each need to survive (it begins as an unconditioned response to triggers). It is inevitable that each individual will experience times of stress or un wanted feelings this (this begins as an unconditioned stimulus). In some scenarios when the individual is having feelings of stress or is experiencing one of the 15 triggers (Conditioned stimulus) they learn over time, that food can make these feelings go away temporarily, so they eat to cope with their feelings (Conditioned response). They learn that this relieves stress from whatever trigger they are attempting to cope with. Eventually they are conditioned to eat whenever one of their triggers strike. The article goes on to talk about ways to “de-condition” food by facing your emotions and dealing with your triggers.
TERMS: Classical conditioning, Conditioned response, Conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/morty-lefkoe/why-do-you-keep-eating-af_b_826864.html
My topic this week is about the effects of the use of ecstacy. This article gives some information on how ecstacy is believed now to not cause brain damage. I found it interesting because it appealed to my thought process on hard drugs. No, I have never done ecstasy or plan to but I find it interesting how it cannot harm the brain. I expected to see a lot of jibberish about how now days people are saying that drugs don't effect you, legalize marijuana, etc. I actually found it really interesting because it gave some facts on how much money the NIDA has spent testing this. Also I find it amazing that they tested in on people, and went as far as to check their hair samples to make sure they weren't lying about taking ecstacy.
This relates to class in many ways. The first way that this study relates to the class is the study itself. Psychology and tests have been done on ecstacy before but, as stated in the article, they knew it needed fixing and when NIDA funded it, the Harvard medical group jumped right on it to correct and further examine the testing just as psychologists have done before. Another way that it relates to class is perception. While on ecstasy, people's perception changes on things and also alters their cognitive thinking. It is a drug that alters your thinking which also relates it to earlier tests such as conditioning and what ways you are able to think. Ecstasy is by no means a safe drug, but has shown now to injure the brain. Ecstasy can also relate to psychology by memory. While doing something on this drug, memory can me more altered. They do this with people with post traumatic stress disorder. It almost erases their memory and gives them a state of peace or sense of learning. The learning part is also in relation to psychology because by using ecstacy people with the disorder and maybe those with struggles could learn without all of the other things on their mind.
terms: cognitive, thinking, brain, ecstacy, memory, learning, conditioning
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/20/ecstacy-doesnt-damage-the_n_825704.html
The article I chose from npr was about how prairie dogs communicate with one another. I chose this article because I believed it was related to generalization, differentiation, and comparative psychology. The article was about Professor Con Slobodchikoff doing research on how these rodents call out or essentially "speak" to other prairie dogs. The research has shown that they call out different tones based on what type of other animal/human comes into their environment. He found by listening to these tones in the lab that the rodents had distinct languages even to the point that they could tell the difference between a dog and a coyote. The prairie dogs also used different tones when communicating about human characteristics such as shirt color and height. Tests were also done to show that they could make distinctions between different shapes.
This research was so interesting because of how shocking the findings were. It is crazy how these little rodents can make such specific distinctions between other animals and even the different colors of shirts the humans were wearing! I was definitely not expecting these results when starting to read the article. It amazes me hearing about what animals are actually capable of doing and I know that there is much more that could be studied.
This article relates to the topics of generalization and differentiation. Generalization is the tendency for a response learned to one stimulus to occur after the presentation of a second stimulus similar to the first. Differentiation is being able to distinguish between two stimuli. Because the prairie dogs know to call out a warning signal through communicating when various types of predators enter their territory, they are generalizing. They know that these types of animals are all ones that may be harmful to them and so they call out to warn and protect their population. This relates to differentiation as well because their language becomes very specific for certain types of predators. They can even distinguish between a dog and a coyote and have different tones in their call for each one.
This article also relates to the topic of comparative psychology as well. We are constantly studying animals in order to relate them to us as humans. There is so much to learn about animals and they are so interesting. In this case, we can understand now that some animals may have more of a communication capability than we thought before.
Terms used: generalization, differentiation, comparative psychology.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/132650631/new-language-discovered-prairiedogese
It's the anniversary of America's first policewomen. On April 1, 1908, Lola G. Baldwin was sworn in as a Female Detective in Portland, Ore. One of Baldwin's main tasks was to look after young women drawn to the city looking for new opportunities. Baldwin and her officers policed environments they believed bred corruption, including the many amusement parks, dance halls and saloons around town. I think this story relates back to when we talked about American Pioneers and Mary Whiton Calkins and her fight for a better education for herself and women. She wanted to overcome the stereotype of women not being as smart as men or able to do the things they could.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/04/01/135052184/its-the-anniversary-of-americas-first-policewoman
I read an article from Huffington post about women who call themselves "controlling". The article said that more and more women, who are intelligent and power driven are calling themselves controlling in many situations. For example, it is not uncommon for women to say "I try not to be so controlling" after they voice their opinion or concerns on matters.
I think this relates to our class because we talked about the women's sphere, and how women we're not allowed to get degrees but we're allowed to attend schools as an "observer".
I just think it's interesting because just a few short decades ago, women had no voices in a man's world. Now that we have voices and are allowed to express our concerns and do something about, we feel as if we are abusing it.
I think it's interesting that psychologists like Titchner and Watson believed in letting women be in the classroom but never really advocated for their rights.
terms: titchner, watson, women's sphere, women's rights
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tara-sophia-mohr/women-stop-calling-yourselves-controlling_b_842737.html
The article I read was about how as overall unemployment is decreasing the unemployment for the African American community is rising. There is a 15.5% rate of unemployment for African Americans and a 7.9% for white workers. This makes me think of how in the early days of psychology all of the men telling/publishing their ideas were the majority – white men. As Galton so wonderfully put it anyone who wasn’t a white, British male had little to offer the world. Sadly, by looking at this article and seeing how even now in 2011 minorities are getting fewer opportunities than white people seem to be having. In the past African Americans were criticized about not having high intellect, and by the increase of unemployment it is like our society is sub-consciously saying this again.
Terms: Galton
I read in article in the npr website talking about the man who dreamed he was a beetle. One part of the website said that Tom (the beetle man) was wondering what the beetles were but had his hands full, popped one in his mouth and was startled when it suddenly hurled a hot wad of something against his inner cheek. I was very confused when I found out that Charles Darwin performed the same exercise many years before. Is that just a thing that scientist do, or is there different elements involved? I found this to be somewhat related to Skinner’s radical behaviorism. He goes on and talks about the behavior of organisms and how they react. He is best known for developing the distinction between classical and operant conditioning and for investigating the latter. In doing so he created the Skinner box, which was an experimental chamber in which the rate of some response is recorded continuously by a cumulative recorder. Like many other scientists, Tom was a very unusual man. He said the older he got, the more difficult he found it to experiment with them in ways that kill them. He became very attached to his beetles as they would live in his experiment as up to 3 years sometimes, often giving them names. When dealing with the psychology part of it, Skinner found goals that were to the prediction and control of behavior that would occur through an experimental analysis. Operant condition occurs when behavior is shaped by its immediate consequences; for example when Tom was sprayed with a really hot wad of substance from the beetle.) If the consequences are positive, the behavior occurring in a specific environment (Tom’s Lab) is more likely to occur in that environment in the future.
This was actually a really interesting article about something very illusive- the perfect murder. Two lovers, Collin Howell and Hazel Stewart murdered their spouses in an effort to be together. The murder was planned and passed off as a suicide pact between the spouses. No one questioned it, and no one was looking into it whatsoever. It wasn’t until twenty years later that Collin Howell, as the rest of his life was going down the drain, confessed to the murders. Had he not confessed he would’ve gotten away with it.
This can relate to the history of psychology because as I was reading the chapter, and writing my blog I kept thinking about how Freud was so obsessed with sex. He felt it was the root of absolutely everything. My (business major) boyfriend pointed out that sex is a very natural part of life, reproduction, etc, and how did I know that Freud wasn’t right?
Well I still don’t think a lot of his theories are a bit over-sexed to be realistic, but it’s interesting how a primary reinforcer, or basic need, such as sex drives a lot of crime, and can do a lot to the psyche. All the crimes committed out of passion, all of the hours spent thinking about sex, tending to relationships, trying to find a suitable partner. How these can mess with the head. Perhaps in this aspect Freud wasn’t so off in his findings. I would say that after reading the entire chapter, a lot of the things he talked about made decent sense. His defense mechanisms were all legitimate, and a lot of childhood sexual abuse is said to be pushed into unconscious, however not every young child is abused. I think that someday it would be interesting to really get into Freud’s ideas and his psychoanalysis and see how it can be tweaked and applied to life today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12733348
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/connectomics-_n_847404.html
The article that I chose for this week is about a group of scientists whose goal it is to map all of the connections of the brain and simulate them all in a 3d computer model of the brain. I chose this article because it combines both computer modeling (a computer model of the brain would be cool to look at) and psychology and other sciences. This Article deals with many of the things that we have gone over in this class. Once we've connected all the neurons in the brain, and then have figured out what all of the different neurons do, i believe that a new psychology will emerge, which would be studying the specific connections in the brain instead of studying how the brain as a whole works. Another interesting part of this would be if they were to find a reliable way to map everyone's brain, instead of just a single one, that way we'd be able to learn how brains develop, along with what connections cause differences in people. Using this they could also potentially find out how our personalities are made.
Are U.S. Rhetoric, Action In Libya In Line?
The title of this article is ‘Are U.S. Rhetoric, Action in Libya in Line’? I chose this particular article because I think it gives us a good look at behaviorism in the political sphere. This article took a look at what the U.S’s goals were for Libya. It looked at things such as if we oust Gadhafi then we will specifically be responsible for putting the country back together again, like Iraq after Saddam Hussein. It also looked at how we had basically sided with the rebellion because we are propping the rebels up with military and financial support. This puts us in a tricky spot when the UN resolution says that outside countries are simply there to help protect civilians. I think that this article is a good example of some key aspects of behaviorism.
I think that if we stretch it enough that we can make some connections between our involvement in Libya and operant conditioning. The very definition of this phrase, operant conditioning, is named so because the behavior operates on the environment. An important thing to take note of is that regardless of when, what, or how a specific action is taken and action has none-the-less been taken. It is how we deal with this said action that determines whether or not the action will be continued or reinforced in the future. Our behavior in past events is shaping our current attitudes and methods in dealing with conflict in various areas of the world. We have acted as big brother in the past to the underdog nations and we will continue to do so in the future. We do this for our own gain. We did not do much in Rwanda or other African countries because we have little to gain. In the Middle East we have a whole lot of interest. As a result, just like B.F. Skinner discovered, we can manipulate whether a particular action will be repeated again. This can be done with positive reinforcers like adding a positive stimuli, or negative reinforcers by the removal of an unpleasant stimulus. Looking back at Iraq one theoretical reason that we went there was to secure oil for our own personal benefit. This can act in both a positive and negative reinforcer. It is positive because we gained oil and negative because it reduced the high price of gas in the U.S. In addition to this we were perceived as the good guys for ousting a horrible, tyrannical leader. One could argue that this was additional positive reinforcement because it gave us a morale boost in addition to gaining tangible oil. All of these events and reinforcers can be attributed to our operant conditioning and further involvement in the Middle East. I hope that eventually this behavior will become extinct and that this behavior will go unrewarded for a time. I am all for helping out other countries, but why must there always be strings attached.
Terms: B.F. Skinner, operant conditioning, extinction, negative reinforcer, positive reinforcer, extinction
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/30/134979662/are-u-s-rhetoric-action-in-libya-in-line
Latent learning is learning that occurs without any immediate overt expressions of the learning. Tolman was able to illustrate this with his famous rat maze studies. He had three groups of rats that he would put into mazes. One group was rewarded with food at the end. The second group had no food, and the third had no food for a series of days but had food introduced after several days of maze running. This third group performed just as well as the first group, showing that they had learned, and they were willing to show it for the incentive. Latent learning is used as an argument for recovered memories. These are predominantly used in child sexual abuse cases and sparks a huge debate as to the accuracy of recovered memories. Recovered memories are repressed memories that were buried because of severe trauma in an individual’s life, and these memories can be “recovered” through therapy. Many believe, however, that these are “implanted” memories by lawyers and Psychiatrists who take existing knowledge and form it to memories that help their case, and that are actually believed by the subject or the victim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_learning
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/dissociative/a/dabaterec.htm
https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/dce24a98e9f73ba785256d270039a9del0f7b6c08f04976de85256d2b0055f