What I would like you to do is to find a topic from section chapter 5 that you are interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find a youtube clip that illustrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Please use 3 or more quality resources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say what your topic is, b) how exactly it fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
Additional instructions: For each URL (internet resource) you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
I chose to look into Darwin and his theory of evolution and how that turned into a way of thinking among psychologists, known as functionalism. This approach to evolution focused on the examination of the function and purpose of the mind and behavior. This was related to Darwin’s theory of evolution in that it examined human behaviors and mental processes in terms of how they serve to adapt the individual to a changing environment. I find this interesting because it really starts diving into psychology’s roots and how people thought. Darwin came from a very religious society and came up with a different theory on why things were the way they were, rather than attributing everything to God. He essentially defied everything society believed in and stood for.
Functionalism can be looked at from two different perspectives, it can look at how different systems work together as the system is running, or it can refer to how the mental process functions in the evolution of the species. This is very different from structuralism, also popular at the time, in that structuralism focused on how each piece functioned on its own. William James was a huge proponent of functionalism and argued that:
“…mental life is a unity that flows and changes,” while structuralists believed “that consciousness can be broken into constituent parts”
Functionalism sought to understand the function of the mind and how it can help a person adapt to its surroundings. It was also interested in understanding behavior by first looking at the person’s motivations and needs.
Functionalism is imperative to the state at which our education system is at today. Functionalism emphasizes individual differences and according to John Dewey, children should learn at the level in which they are developmentally prepared. Today we would never think to try and teach a third grader calculus and we usually assume that a college student should understand the basics of algebra. This is due to Darwin’s theories leading to functionalism and how a person’s mind develops over the years. Two functional psychologists, Galton and Cattel, worked to establish different mental tests. This started testing in the school systems, which divided the students into different intelligence groups.
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/structuralism.htm
I used this site to learn more about functionalism and how it is applied to the structure of education today.
http://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2009/01/theory-of-functionalism-in-education.html
I used this site to learn more about different functionalist beliefs and the different places that it came from.
http://www.psych.utah.edu/gordon/Classes/Psy4905Docs/PsychHistory/Cards/James.html
I used this site for information on William James and the functionalist ideas in comparison to the structuralist point of view.
I chose to write about Darwin’s Evolution of Emotional Expressions. I think it is interesting how facial expressions are like a language of their own; certain expressions can cross all verbal language barriers. Since this chapter discusses Darwin and his theories, emotional expression fits. While doing research I discovered that many scientists are using this theory to look at humans responses to stimuli.
Darwin started his experiments by looking at infants, the insane, sculptures, and common animals. Darwin thought emotions are universally the same and don’t differ across cultures. Darwin found two principles which guided the evolution of expression: First are serviceable associated habits and second antithesis. Serviceable associated habits are, according to Darwin, same expressions would occur if similar states of mind are induced. Antithesis is the body’s tendency to produce opposite responses to opposite stimulus.
In the recent past, the 1960s, researcher Paul Ekman set out to prove Darwin’s findings wrong. In order to do this he went around the world showing pictures to different people, the only problem was the majority matched emotions to the proper pictures. He then decided to study populations of the world that wouldn’t be influence by popular culture; since their responses would be learned not universal across cultures. Still Ekman found the same results and eventually came to the conclusion that emotions are universal. However, he found one exception, the difference between surprise and fear was hard for people to see. I think this is because for an instance surprise can be sensing fear. For example surprising someone for their birthday; the initial response is fear from the shouts and added people.
Through this and other studies researchers have found facial expressions to be a form of communication. However, somewhere in the history of humans man learned how to manipulate emotional expressions to achieve a desired outcome. This type of acting allows for a desired response without having to actually feel the displayed emotion. The audience has also shown to play a role in this play acting scenario, but at this time it is unclear exactly how.
http://www.miradaglobal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1103:las-emociones-tambien-se-heredan&catid=30:sociedad&Itemid=34&lang=en
I used this link for additional information on Darwin’s Evolution of Emotional Expression as well as some information on Paul Ekman.
http://www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Universality-Of-Emotional-Expression-A-personal-History.pdf
I used this URL for information on Paul Ekman’s study on emotional expression.
http://www.neuropsychologycentral.com/interface/content/resources/page_material/resources_general_materials_pages/resources_document_pages/neuropsychosocial_factors_in_emotion_recognition.pdf
I used this site for information on how facial expression is a form of communication.
One of the topics I found really interesting was Darwin’s education. I was curious too see how his childhood, education and experiences would lead him to discover the theory of evolution that has changed the way many people approach science and religion.
When I Wikipedia searched Darwin, it provided very detailed and in depth information into Darwin’s childhood, background, education and special interests. There were a lot of things that I learned that often times are not mentioned. I am always curious about the journey to the discovery rather than the actual discovery.
In one website I came a crossed when searching about Darwin, I found a fact about an ailment that Darwin suffered from as an adult. On December 14, 2009 a Doctor by the name of John Hayman, who is an associate professor at Monash Univerity in Melbourne, Australia suggested that Darwin was a sufferer of an inherited disorder called "cyclical vomiting syndrome". It is related to migraines and is usually and ailment of children. It stems from genetic abnormalities. Sufferers of this disease typically have symptoms of migraine headaches, severe abdominal pains, and anxiety and skin irritations. While this doesn’t pertain directly to the chapter I feel that this is very important. Often chronic illness can be a major factor is ones feelings, thoughts, and ability to function in life. It would be interesting to see if he truly did suffer from this ailment and how he dealt with it?
When I read in various articles on Darwin many of them refer to Darwin’s fondness of gardening as a child and his father’s encouragement to continue his gardening. I find it very interesting that something as simple as gardening may have been a contributing factor in his interests and discovery in naturalist sciences, evolution and the other major contributions he made to the sciences, and psychology.
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96feb/darwin.html - I chose this website because it talks about Charles Darwin as a naturalist.
http://www.aboutdarwin.com – This was an interesting site I found that provided and interesting fact about an ailment that Darwin may have suffered from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/whttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin%27s_educationiki/Charles_Darwin's_education – I choose this website because it gave lots of in depth and detailed knowledge on his education and why he chose what he did to pursue.
My guess is that most people would choose to research Charles Darwin. He is probably a great person to research. However, I wanted to research Conway Morgan's Cannon. This fits into the chapter because it contrasts George Romanes method involving anecdotes. I was interested in this topic because Conway Morgan seems like one of the little people with a large contribution. If he was, not than why is he in our textbook? I think that his work should be appreciated.
His work with observing animals directly is another way of breaking down the mental process of animals. I think that many animals have a higher level of thinking we just have a difficult time understanding how it works. Morgan's method differs from his mentor George Romane. Romane also worked with comparative psychology. His aims were to find out more about resemblances between human minds and animal minds.
Morgan says, "If there are multiple explanations available, the least complicated one is most often the best." What I draw from that is people sometimes think further than they should to come up with the best answer. I could not find that much information about Conway Morgan, however his quote helped me refer to an old phrase that can be shortened to a kiss. Keep it simple stupid!
http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch08_animals/morgans_canon.html
I chose this site because it gives information on Morgan's work with his animal observation and his methodology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Lloyd_Morgan
This source gave background to Conway Morgan and gave an intro to his work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ2V5LuShgc
This video is a short video that reinforces what Morgan studied and how he went about it.
I was most interested in The geology part of Darwin's interest. Catastrophism and uniformitarianism were interesting to me because learning about how people viewed geological events in the past is important to understand. The church ran a lot of teh information that was given out to people and they wanted them to believe that geological changes occur with big catastrophies because God wanted it. No questions were asked, most just accepted that the Earth was the way it was because God wanted it like that. This is important to the chapter because it shows how things evolve form one scientist to another and how people can help change others views.
Up until around the 18th century, people believed that geological changes were due to huge catastrophies, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, floods etc. These catastrophies were believed to be sent by God and thats the reason why things changed, nothing "evolved" God just made it that way. This was the main belief that people held until the 18th century. One of the main catastrophies was Noah's ark and the flood. This would have been an example of catastrophism. It happened because God had it in the plan and it was needed.
Charles Lyell and James Hutton proposed a new idea how geological changes happen over time. Their view, uniformitarianism was that the uniform laws of nature were resposible for geological changes. And that exisiting processes that was forming the Earth now was how it was formed in the past. Everything happened gradually, opposing the idea that changes happened drastically due to one weather event or catastrophy. Hutton showed how soil formed by rocks and erosian over time, not just all of a sudden. This view that things evolved and changed over time was hard for a lot of people to understand, especially the church because believing in this view was going against God in their opinion.
http://www.allaboutcreation.org/catastrophism-versus-uniformitarianism-faq.htm
This website showed the differences between catastrophism and uniformitarianism and compared them both.
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/uniformitarianism.html
This is where I got most of my information on uniformitarianism and how it developed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophism
This is where a lot of the information on catastrophism came from and how that was just what people believed because the church told them to. And how catastrophismists felt about uniformitarianism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKcSU80qvTE
A fun little clip about Lyell and Hutton explain their theory fo uniformitariansim. Funny and informative.
While reading chapter 5, there were many key terms and ideas that stuck out to me. I was very interested in natural selection and the struggle for existence. These are some of Darwin's ideas that I had heard of in the past. There was, however, a section in chapter 5 that described some of Darwin's work that I had never heard of. I found the section called Darwin on the Evolution of Emotional Expressions very intriguing. Our textbook states that the theory of the evolution of emotions was originally to be published as a chapter in The Descent of Man, but was published as its own book entitled Expressions of the Emotions in the Man and Animals. The principle of serviceable associated habits explains how some of the facial expressions that we still use may have originated from useful bodily functions. An example of this would be sneering at someone that disgusts you. When we think of sneering, we think of looking at someone with half-closed eyes. According to Darwin's theory, this is because the person is not worthy of looking at. Another way that we may sneer is someone is to slightly lift our upper lip. This expression may have originated from showing our canine teeth, in preparation to fight. This also shows that humans and animals do share common expressions. While researching further on the World Wide Web, I found more information about the two other principles of the evolution of emotions. One of these principles is antithesis, which is the opposite of a serviceable expression. An example of this would be shrugging your shoulders. This is done out of habit and expresses the opposite of confidence. Confidence, such as posing your body in a manner to appear bigger to an opponent, is useful. Shrugging your shoulders is not. The third principle is what Darwin called the direct action of the nervous system. An example of this would be tapping your toes or fingers. This is due to the nervous system reacting to the excitement of a situation. There was one piece of information that I found online that was particularly interesting. According to one source, a blind person would make the same facial expression in regards to emotion that a sighted person would make, due to the evolved human body and its response to these emotions. Also, I found that certain emotional responses evolved faster than others. Primal emotions, such as fear, date back to premammal ancestors. Other emotions, such as a mother’s love for her children evolved from early mammals. Social emotions, such as guilt, evolve from social primates. While I find some of Darwin’s theories difficult to fully believe, this is one that made complete sense to me. I am interested to know more about the evolution of emotions. Are our reactions to situations changing how future human beings will react in similar situations? Does evolution have an end date? Is it all part of our process?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
(this site was useful in finding out more about Darwin's Evolution of Emotions)
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2010/05/24/the-evolution-of-emotion-charles-darwins-little-known-psychology-experiment/
(our textbook did not describe any of Darwin's research regarding the Evolution of Emotion. This site did)
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/emotion.html
(this site broke down very specific emotions and how they could have traced back to our ancestors)
I am a drama queen. Although not only am I a bad drama queen, but I’m a good drama queen too. Not only do I freak out about the little things, but I also get very excited about the little things. So I’m an emotional person all around. So to read in chapter five that Darwin was one of the first scientists to explore the psychology of emotions.
One of the studies I read about was Darwin’s search for universal emotions. He conducted this single-blind study in his own home. He had photographs of people showing certain emotions through their facial expressions and had his guests say what emotion they believed the photograph to be portraying. Certain facial expressions received unanimous characterizations from the guests, such as happy, sad, and fear, where as other pictures had multiple answers for what emotion it could be conveying. Darwin did this study in response to an experiment Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne conducted. Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne’s studies were included in Darwin’s book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals.
Through this website, it got me thinking more about Darwin’s published work on emotions. He came to this thinking through errant thoughts in his notes on evolution for his earlier writings. After having a bizarre dream about death, Darwin really focused on human behavior and how it ties in with family life. As I talked about in the paragraph above, one of the main points Darwin makes in his book is how basic emotions are universal; race, gender, age, etc. do not change what happy, sad, or scared look like on one’s face. He also had many photographs and illustrations in his book to help reiterate his point.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2010/05/24/the-evolution-of-emotion-charles-darwins-little-known-psychology-experiment/
This site contained information on Darwin’s little psychology experiment he did pertaining to emotions.
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S220.htm
This URL provided insight and detail into The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expression_of_the_Emotions_in_Man_and_Animals
This website helped explained how Darwin first became interested in the psychology of emotions as well as talked about how he started his works on emotions.
• One of the thing that interested me most from chapter 5 was Francis Galton and how he set out to find out if intelligence was inherited or not. He had money, he didn’t need to make a living, so he spent his time exploring and learning and this is what most drew me to him. He didn’t focus on just one thing either, but many different things including geography. He had a famous background and family, being cousins with Charles Darwin. He coined the term “nature vs. nurture” he produced over 340 papers and books throughout his lifetime and was also Knighted in 1909. Such a random variety of accomplishments. I wanted to learn more about his Hereditary Genius writing and some of his other widespread findings. In particularly, he was convinced that success was due to superior qualities passed down to offspring through heredity. His book, Hereditary Genius (1869), outlined this hypothesis and utilized supporting data he had collected by analyzing the obituaries of the Times newspaper, where he traced the lineage of eminent men in Europe. Galton would even go so far as to advocate human breeding restrictions to curtail the breeding of 'feeble-minded'. I am amazed by how widely varied he was in his studies, with another major thing he did was being the first to seriously attempt to chart the weather on an extensive scale, and in it also the author first established the existence and theory of anticyclones. This is very impressive to me. He went to med school initially and ended up making some world changing discoveries. Instead of sitting around with his money, he took advantage of having the money and the opportunity to explore, and took it to the max! Very cool. I would someday like to read Hereditary Genius and possibly one of his later memoirs.
Brief overview of Francis Galton
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/galton.shtml
http://www.nndb.com/people/247/000098950/
Great video overview of his life and successes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufqOe0_pres
I decided to do my research blog on Darwin’s zoology. It’s kind of a break from the everyday mind and body of psychology that is normally talked about, plus I really like animals. I think it’s important to start off with what is zoology.
Zoology, according to Wikipedia.com, “is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct”. Zoology can be broken down into five different areas of study, such as: anatomy, animal behavior and physiology, zoography, behavioral ecology, and other various “taxonomically”.
Darwin was not the first person to look into animals or zoology. Zoology was first looked at way back when Aristotle was around (around the sixteenth century). Aristotle and a man named Galen started to study animals in the ancient times of Greco-Roman. There wasn’t much research on animals back then but it started to gain popularity during the Middle Ages. A Muslim man named Albertus Magnus was the new face in Zoology at this time. After his time it went into the Renaissance times. Europe had transformed zoology a bit and started to study organisms. Before Darwin came along, people believed that over time species would change and evolve into other species, like humans and apes. Of course, this idea was ignored highly do to religion. Darwin finally comes into play in 1859. Since Darwin was working with his theory of evolution, animal seemed to come into play. It wasn’t until his book Origin of Species that Darwin’s Zoology really took off.
During his voyage, Darwin collected many different planets and fossils, along with animals of course. He took what he had and placed them into five different categories: Birds, Fish, Mammalia, Reptiles, and Fossil Mammalia. This is also how his book was published (in five different parts, the same as the ones listed).
To my surprise there really isn’t a lot of information out there about Darwin and Zoology. I would have liked to find more information on this subject but most of it is about how book is got published instead of what he found and learned along the way. I guess the best way to get the best information on Zoology is to simply read his book.
http://www.helium.com/items/381666-history-of-post-darwin-zoology --> this is an add-happy wed site :/ even with the adds everywhere it did provide me with some information.
">http://ouhos.org/2010/08/12/darwins-first-and-rarest-work-the-zoology-of-the-beagle/--> I got very little information from this site. The biggest thing with this site is that it shows some parts of his book, mainly the animal drawing.
">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoology--> this site is where I got the definition of zoology and the background of it before and after Darwin.
I went to class on Tuesday and watched part of the movie covering the Scopes Monkey Trial. I found this movie to be very interesting, as I had not known much about it to begin with. I found it incredible that there was so much debate about Darwin’s theory of evolution that it became the first radio broadcasted court trial. Once I finished reading the chapter, I began to look up more cases in which the theory of evolution created public controversy. I also looked up how the law was handling the controversy involving teachings in school. Finally, I looked at how modern media was reacting to the controversies.
Controversy of Darwin’s theory began as early as 1860, just a few months after the theory had been published. This debate was called the 1860 Oxford University Evolution Debate. It was one of the first times that religion and science were involved in a public debate. Other debates that have been made famous include the Scopes Monkey Trial, the Epperson Vs. Arkansas trial, Lemon Vs. Kurtzman, McLean Vs. Arkansas Board of Education, and most recently in 2005, Selman Vs. Cobb County School District.
These are just a few of the most popular debates regarding evolution being taught in schools. Most, if not all, of these cases involve individuals feeling as though evolution should not be taught in schools. In the 1960’s, a law was passed that banned teaching creation science, and government bodies and school boards no longer had the ability to ban the teaching of evolution.
Once the laws had been passed that it was mandatory to teach evolution, the trials then turned to teaching creationism along with evolution. Recently, the trials have involved making students do critical analysis of the theory of evolution because it is just a theory.
Because of this law, many parties have attempted to pass the teaching of scientific alternatives to evolution. These include concepts such as intelligent design.
Intelligent design argues that living systems are so complex that they could not have evolved purely by evolution through natural selection and instead must have been directed or designed by an outside force, most likely God.
Modern television shows, such as The Big Bang Theory and Family Guy have had episodes that include segments involving debates or standpoints of creationism and evolution. President Obama noted Charles Darwin’s birthday as a day that should note dedication to science. After this statement had been made, people began questioning Obama’s religious beliefs. President Bush and Sarah Palin are other individuals who have made their position in the debate public. This year, the opinions of the presidential candidate’s stances on evolution have also been documented.
Evolution was a very inspiring scientific discovery, however it challenged what people believed as being the “truth.” Because of this challenge, I think the theory of evolution will always be a debated subject.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1105/darwin-debate-religion-evolution This page gave me a lot of information about the basis of debate over Darwin's research.
http://pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Evolution-A-Timeline.aspx This website was very helpful. This links to just one of the pages that I used. Other ones from this site were called Social and Legal Dimensions of the Evolution Debate in the US and The Religion, Science, and Education Controversy. This was the site that I used to most.
http://www.thediscussion.net/1860_oxford_evolution_debate/encyclopedia.htm This gave me background information on what the Oxford Debate was.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html This site gave me more information on intelligent design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHex9GDQ2S0&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL5yplRHE9g&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFsB1Jk1OQ0 These videos gave me a visual of modern day usage of evolution and the controversy of evolution vs. creationism.
http://www.eduinreview.com/blog/2011/08/presidential-candidates-stances-on-evolution-and-intelligent-design/ This site shows the presidential candidates views on evolution and intelligent design.
I wrote previously about Darwin’s Expressions of the Emotions and how I wondered if we (humans) had a bias concerning how ‘unique’ and ‘noble’ our emotions are, when compared to animals. It seems like we still cling to beliefs that will mark us as different by kind, not just by degree - allowing us to presume a certain moral superiority to other animals.
When we see animals exhibiting behavior that appears to indicate emotions, we often (generally) depreciate it as ‘mere instinct’, or ‘mere mimicking’ of human behavior. I’m not trying to argue that it’s not; the question that I have is, are our own human emotions really that much different?
Descartes argued that animals -lacking the faculty of reason- are mere machines that act solely on instinct. Darwin, on the other hand, suggests that, while we may have added levels of meaning and nuance, at root human emotional responses are also instinctive. By drawing comparisons between the behaviors (expressions) of animals and humans, he shows that humans are simply another type of animal - and one whose behaviors are as deeply rooted in its primitive past as any other.
Within a few hours of birth, human babies show a preference for face-like objects and will mimic the facial expressions that they see. Is this learned behavior, or the result of evolutionary instincts that will help bond the helpless infant to its caregivers? And if instinctive, is it a peculiarly human instinct?
The articles that I read weren’t especially informative or helpful. The apology generally offered for this was that, even though we believe that animals display emotional behavior, the fact that they can’t use language to describe those emotions to us precludes us from ever knowing (scientifically) whether this is true or not.
That seems like BS to me. We are willing to accept animals as analogous to humans when studying various aspects of physiology, behavior or cognition; yet when it comes to studying emotions, we choke. Why should that be? If we can allow that a conditioned response in a dog provides insight into human behavior, why can’t we use human behavior to provide insight into the interior life of the dog? (Seriously, the dog in that video looks guilty as h*.)
Kristina Bjoran argues that we don’t want to believe that animals feel emotions the way we do - because if we did, we wouldn’t be able to treat them the way we do. Lori Gruen quotes Jeremy Bentham to make a similar point: “...the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” This position squarely bases the moral consideration of animals on their ability to experience an emotional state. But is this a position that we are comfortable with? The relative dearth of research concerning animal emotions suggests that it is not.
Bjoran, Kristina, "Animal emotion: When objectivity fails", 04/28/2011
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/04/28/animal-emotion-when-objectivity-fails/
Summarizes the argument of whether animals feel emotions.
Gruen, Lori, "The Moral Status of Animals", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/
Summarizes arguments concerning animal emotions as the basis for moral consideration.
Darwin, Charles, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Project Gutenberg: New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1899
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1227
Darwin’s description of face-recognition in newborns.
“Emotion in animals”, Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_in_animals
Scientific debate over the occurrence of emotions in animals.
Benoit, Anthony G, "Emotion and Motivation" (Course Outline), Revised 4/24/02
http://environmentalet.org/psy111/motimotion.htm
Describes emotion as a motivating force.
Bridgeman, Bruce, Psychology & evolution: the origins of mind, 124-132
http://books.google.com/books?id=0Zim5e65ij4C&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=facial+recognition+baby+evolution&source=bl&ots=_ypc7eo7d2&sig=gwTnAnocjRyv-zVI8tlxKnk0L4Q&hl=en&ei=Zc6ETtuAGcrKsQKv_anLDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Describes the evolutionary relationship between face-recognition in newborns and the reactions of caregivers.
"When and Why a Baby Smiles", from The Parent Review
http://www.parenthood.com/article-topics/when_and_why_a_baby_smiles.html
Describes face-recognition in newborns.
Bower, Bruce, “Faces of Perception", 07/07/2001
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_1_160/ai_76929776/
Describes face-recognition in newborns.
“Jambo the Gentle Giant Jersey Zoo Boy Fell into Gorilla Pit”, uploaded by karenjohnstonuk, 12/04/2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-CMxMv34_A
Demonstration of an animal displaying ‘human’ emotions.
"Denver Official Guilty! Dog Video www.facebook.com/guiltydog", uploaded by foodplot, 03/08/2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ISzf2pryI
Demonstration of an animal displaying ‘human’ emotions.
"hilarious talking dog video", uploaded by wheelfunrentals, 01/10/2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFsR772EByQ
If animals could talk, what would they say?
I did my reading activity on Chapter 6, and Dr. Maclin said it was okay to continue being out of order and do the topical blog this week on Chapter 6 as well. I chose to do my topical blog on the James-Lange theory of emotion. It fits into the chapter because it was the first theory on emotion to be put forth in psychology, and one of psychologists it was named after, William James, produced the first American psychology textbook. I found it interesting because of the segment describing how a person can make a face in the shape of a smile or frown, and feel the difference in their emotion, obviously only to a certain degree. I also found it interesting because it was the first theory that had attempted to explain emotion.
In developing the theory, William James and Carl Lange worked on the theory independent of each other, but arrived at the same conclusion eventually giving them both equal credit in history for the theory. The main idea shared by James and Lange was that emotion did not begin with the conscious experience of an affect. They both proposed that bodily and behavioral responses in emotion were prior events. The theory states that when a person is presented with an emotional stimulus, the person feels some sort of physiological arousal, which causes a psychological emotion to be experienced. James described emotion as the feeling of bodily changes which follow the perception of an exciting event. For example if a person hears a loud bang like a gunshot or car accident, the person's body will go into "fight or flight" mode in which the physiological changes such as adrenaline being released in the brain and heart rate increasing. The brain will recognize these physiological changes as ones that happen in response to a frightening event, and it will then activate the “frightened” emotion in the person. The sequence would be as follows: event, arousal, interpretation, resulting in emotion. James and Lange couldn't actually test chemical responses in the body in reaction to an external stimulus, but James did offer one piece of experimentation that he felt supported his theory. James said that if a person who was “absolutely anesthetic inside and out” responded to a stimlus thant this type of person would respond to the stimulus without feeling the accompanying emotion, proving that emotions do not precede the physical reaction, and emotions do not cause people to physically react. Psychologists who followed saw some problems with the James-Lange sequence of events and began to develop their own theories. The Cannon-Bard theory suggests that the given stimulus evokes both a physiological and an emotional response simultaneously, and that neither one causes the other. The Schacter-Singer theory explains it as an event causes physiological arousal, but that you must then identify a reason for the arousal before you label the emotion. The most recent theory, the Lazarus theory describes that when an event occurs, a cognitive appraisal is made, consciously or subconsciously, and based on the result of that appraisal, an emotion and physiological response follow. Although there is no absolute proof of how emotions come about in our minds and bodies, it is positively known that it is a biological and chemical reaction in the body.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/james_lange_emotion.htm - This site does a nice job of showing the sequence of events in a categorical order which helped me understand the James-Lange theory more easily.
http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/James-Lange_Theory_of_Emotion - This site gave some background information on James and Lange coming up with their theories independently and how the theories were similar which I found interesting. The site also thoroughly explained the theory with a couple examples.
http://maddieruud.hubpages.com/hub/Emotion - I knew there was more than just the James-Lange theory of emotion from other psychology classes, and while the site is brief it is concise and gives examples of the other three emotional theories.
The topic I am choosing to do more in depth research on isn’t necessarily in the chapter itself but easily relates to it. The topic I am choosing on Social Darwinism. The reason I am choosing this topic is because we are talking about this subject in another class and I would like to broaden my intellectual perspective on this topic.
First and foremost social Darwinism stems from Darwin’s idea of natural selection. This is the idea that the strongest and most fit of a species are most likely to survive and reproduce. Social Darwinism is the application of this principal to society. The arrival of this idea occurred in the 1870’s in England and the United States. The conflict between social groups expressed in social Darwinism theoretically produces the evolution of society.
The first person to use the term social Darwinism was Joseph Fisher in 1877. There are several researchers who are related to the use of social Darwinism. One of these researchers is Herbert Spencer. Most of his views that would be thought of along the lines of social Darwinism were published long before the term was ever coined. Spencer stated that humans are animals in a biological sense therefore Darwin’s theory would apply in that sense. His second point is that over time societies have evolved and changed as well therefore society would evolve and change similar to an animal. These thoughts set the basis for the theory of social Darwinism. Walter Bagehot took this thinking and made his own theories based on when people work together to create strong groups those groups of people are more likely to survive. Another researcher Benjamin Kidd rationalized social Darwinism as the way a society should evolve and how we should have the ability to direct its evolution. This though was only the beginning of how social Darwinism began to be exploited becoming increasingly unethical.
These ideas spawned the founding of eugenics. This form of science would target a certain race or population and use the best genetics available to improve it through selective breeding. Eugenics soon lost its backing however due its ideas being adopted by Nazi Germany in WWII. Hitler’s master race was to be a product of eugenics and the selective breeding of his Aryan race. Other problems with social Darwinism included justification for war, land seizure and economic stratification. The biggest problem with social Darwinism is that we are for the most part trying to impart things that happen naturally in a wild environment into our human society.
I think what we should learn most from this theory is that we need to take some sociological theories with a grain of salt. Yes the theory makes sense, the most capable humans will be the most likely to succeed in society. We need to learn to just leave it at that and not try to change society so that the only the strongest can succeed or breed. That thinking is way too extreme and morally wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism used to gain general info on the topic
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml used for a more modern perspective on social Darwinism
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/library/lra-socialdarwinism.html used to gain information on the researchers of social Darwinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics used to gain a broad understanding of eugenics.
In chapter 5 I found Darwin's Evolution of Emotional Expressions very interesting. This topic fits into the chapter because this chapter is primarily on the origins of species and evolution. Emotion fits into this perfectly because the facial features of one that are portrayed during emotion can psychologically tell us the mental state of the being. I am very interested in this part of the chapter because this looks at emotions from a different perspective.
To start with, a little background information on Charles Darwin: Charles Darwin was born February 12th of 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. He was born fifth of six children and was son to very wealthy parents. They held the occupations of society doctor and financier. He became famous for proposing a theory of natural selection, and theorizing that all species of life descended from a common ancestry. Darwin studied at the University of Cambridge. Darwin voyaged on the HMS Beagle to study life, and most importantly he studied at the Galapagos Islands. There he observed species and how they can vary from one another simply by living on opposite sides of the island.
This particular section of the book starts out with a quote from Darwin. "The bristling of the hair under the influence of extreme terror...can hardly be understood, except on the belief that man once existed in a much lower and animal-like condition". What Darwin is trying to explain is that possibly emotions have evolved with a person due to their ancestors and the positions they have been put in, in order for survival. In this case, the quote may be saying that man once was creature, since animals such as dogs and cats will experience hair rising during a defensive moment due to fright.
Darwin then talks about the problems with this study. It is of great importance to observe another, since it would be difficult to observe ones self during a reaction of emotions such as fright. One method that Darwin proposed was the study of children and the insane. This method would then classify the precise patterns of emotional expression. As a result, Darwin noticed that the emotions in children and the insane are more intense and their features could be easier classified. A second method that Darwin decided to use was galvanization. Galvanization is used to shock or stimulate a person/animal with an electric current. In this case, Darwin wanted to observe which muscles were involved in each emotional expression. This was done by touching the surface of the skin with electrodes and seeing the stimulation produced in well known muscles. Darwin later concluded that laughter involves multiple sets of muscles.
With the theory that emotional expressions being the result of evolution, Darwin proposed that these expressions must be the same around the world. On his voyage of the Beagle, Darwin took note of the different facial expressions of people from different cultures. He asked questions such as "when a man sneers or snarls at another, is the corner of the upper lip over the canine or eye tooth raised on the side facing the man whom he addresses?" Another question asked was,” Is contempt expressed by a slight protrusion of the lips and by turning up the nose, and with a slight expiration?"
The last method that Darwin decided to experiment with was the study of animals. This study involved three basic principles: Serviceable associated habits, antithesis, and direct action of the nervous system. Serviceable associated habits generally stated that the body functions and reaction of the animal served purpose for survival. Darwin believed that these expressions were inherited. Antitheses state that emotions are just the opposite of each other. For example, when two dogs are getting into a fight, one may be submissive, and the other dog posing to make itself look bigger and dangerous to the dog. Darwin stated that these animals are opposite in expression. Lastly, direct action of the nervous system is when emotion is strongly affected with physiological arousal.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/galvanization
Used this website a lot for various definitions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
Used this website to get some background information on Charles Darwin from his earlier years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGFG1da8qo4
This YouTube clip relates to what Darwin was trying to study. It is about an Orangutan at a zoo. They stimulate the monkey to get various reactions out of it, and then observe them.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889984/
This link talks about how researchers have related the emotions of monkeys to the emotions of humans.
I really enjoyed reading about C. Lloyd Morgan’s “canon,” the law of parsimony, so that’s what I chose to research more about. It seems like a no-brainer that we should think of animal behavior in the simplest terms possible, but he was able to find evidence to support it. He made it actual science; other scientists like Romanes used anecdotal evidence to claim animals were much like humans.
The canon was first published in his book Introduction to Comparative Psychology in 1894, the same year his colleague George John Romanes died ironically. The famous line is located on page 53. He states, “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.” This means that an animal’s behavior should be explained with as little mental capacity as possible. There was a good example on one of the websites I found, saying that when a can opener opens a can of cat food, the cat will come running. By using Morgan’s canon, the cat heard the sound and has been conditioned to learn that food is associated with the can being opened. If one had thought cats had a higher mental capacity, the cat would know that the can contains food and the can opener opens the can.
He actually did not call it a canon in his first book, but instead called it a “basal principle.” He also had a modified version of this phrase in his 1903 edition of that book, stating “In no case is an animal activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psychological processes, if it can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale of psychological evolution and development.” He wanted to dismiss the concerns that the phrase "psychical faculty" is too similar to the area of faculty psychology.
The canon is very similar to a line of thought called Occam’s Razor used in science. This idea says, “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” This means that a phenomenon in science should be explained with the simplest ideas as possible. I actually found a lot of contradicting information regarding Morgan’s canon. Some sources I found said the canon has been misinterpreted, and that he did not mean that there was parsimony. Some said that he derived the canon from Occam’s Razor itself.
http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch08_animals/morgans_canon.html - This website gives basic information on the canon.
http://htpprints.yorku.ca/archive/00000017/00/MCWeb.htm - This resource gives background to the canon as well as many reasons why it has been misinterpreted.
http://www.answers.com/topic/c-lloyd-morgan - This site has a biography of C. Lloyd Morgan, and explains his canon.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html - This resource gives an explanation of Occam’s Razor.
This chapter was had a lot of interesting topics on which I could write my blog post. Although Darwin’s work on the origin of species is the most known, and the most popular theory proposed by him, I was interested in another topic ie, the studies and findings conducted by him on the topic of emotions. Darwin was interested in examine the universality of emotions among various populations as he was interested in the physical and biological foundations that might play a role in the expression of emotions. Since this chapter is about evolution and similarities among the various traits as the biological functioning of humans, this topic is relevant to the chapter.
Firstly, Darwin tried to support his idea that the way different population identify various emotions is similar. He conducted a study in which he tested his hypothesis by collecting responses by showing various pictures of different emotions portrayed in the picture to people from different backgrounds. The responses collected by him supported his initial theory, therefore the interpretation of emotions and expression was universal. Another important aspect that I found out about Darwin’s approach was that the emotions were not just limited to human Beings, but other living things possess emotions as well.
The next study conducted by Darwin was on the facial expression and the use of these expressions to convey the emotions. This idea proposed by Darwin was not researched or stressed by him the time he proposed it but later became and important area of study for other researchers.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2010/05/24/the-evolution-of-emotion-charles-darwins-little-known-psychology-experiment/
http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/emotion/theories.jsp
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/05/the-feeling-person-understanding-emotion/
Looking back on this chapter the topic of Galton and Eugenics stood out to me more than anything else. What really stood out to me was that people bought into Galton’s idea of positive and negative eugenics. I believe that it is probably best that some people do not have children but, I also think that there was a flaw in the way Galton wanted to go about figure this out. The thing that scares me the most is that this push to control who the population was made up of through Eugenics did not stop with Galton.
It was very interesting to see that some very important people in America were in favor of positive eugenics. Those individuals in favor included Alexander Graham Bell and also Theodore Roosevelt. Planned Parenthood was also a product of eugenics. It was created with the intentions of providing contraceptives to help prevent poor immigrant women from reproducing. I am not quite sure how I feel about these things that were done based on eugenics but, there are definitely some things that were done in order to “improve” the population that I do not agree with at all.
In Germany Eugenics was taken to an entirely new extreme. Due to the belief that society was changing because of the pollution of races, the Nazis set out to rectify the situation. Some of the individuals who were targeted were the mentally handicap, homosexuals, and other degenerates. The Nazi killed some people and sterilized others.
I do not think taking away the freedoms of people in this way should have ever been done. I also feel that the concept of Eugenics is something that can be said to have changed the world forever. I know today that there are still individuals who would love to keep certain individuals from reproducing. It is a great thing that in most places they are unable to obtain enough power to do so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#United_States – Learned about some Americans supporters of Eugenics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton#Heredity.2C_historiometry_and_eugenics
-Learned more about Galton and his thoughts on Eugenics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FstIAD6S8hI – Talked about the Nazi views and goals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics -Also talked about the views and goals that the Nazi’s had
Darwin and the theory of emotional expression, was very interesting and made an impact on modern psychology. Facial expression is not something people typically think about, because it just seems so natural. When an infant is upset they do not smile, but they make sad faces even at birth when no one has taught them what muscles to move to make certain expressions, it is just natural. If someone says something funny, I do not think about moving my facial muscles to make a smile, it just happens naturally, and can sometimes be out of my control. Darwin argues that this natural movement to facial muscles serves a purpose, so now it has become natural to us, due to survival of the fittest.
Darwin gives some reasoning as to why certain facial expressions are useful, which are called serviceable traits. Darwin says an example raising an eyebrow when surprised to allow the eye to more freely. Other expressions Darwin did not get an explanation for, but states that this probably had some function for animals, and now we still have the trait, but it serves no functional purpose. His explanation for this was that a divine being would not have created an aspect of humans that does not have a purpose. This statement could be viewed two ways, one as a biased excuse, or as a good explanation. Personally, I view this as a biased excuse, because I do believe that God is the divine creator and created everything for a purpose.
Antithesis is used to counter-act the serviceable traits. For example a cats hair stands on its back making it appear bigger in order to scare off another animal, or when they assess the situation as being dangerous. Darwin says that this is a way for communication clarity.
Darwin’s Principal of serviceable association habits is interesting. Something such as laughing is not learned and when it is authentic it cannot be controlled. Darwin states that this is a release of nervous energy, and that is why it occurs. Darwin argues that this helps to maintain balance within an individual. These sounds like it could be plausible and laughing comes out in bursts sometimes, which seems as though it is an emotional release.
There are portions of this theory that I agree with, however, I do believe that God created humans and emotions are natural because God created us that way. I know my argument does not have scientific data to back it up, but Darwin is also just making assumptions without scientific data for this theory. It is an interesting theory, and it is important to psychology because emotions are a big aspect of the clinical psychology field, and it is important to have some basis of why we express emotions in certain ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion
http://www.psychophysiolab.com/uhess/pubs/HT09.pdf
http://www.pitt.edu/~kschmidt/schmidtcohn01.pdf
My favorite thing to read about in this chapter was the section on Douglas Spalding and his research on a concept called "imprinting." I remember learning about it in my high school psychology course, but I couldn't recall many details about the idea or its origins. I'm sure many people my age know the word "imprinting" only from the Twilight movies; however, the actual research on imprinting is much more interesting than vampires and werewolves. Imprinting and its history fit into this chapter in that the section was all about animal instincts and Douglas Spalding, who was one of the main "founders", if you will, of imprinting.
The theory of imprinting is used to describe any type of phase-sensitive learning (learning in which there may be some sort of critical period). The term is most often used to describe the phenomenon in which animals learn the characteristics of a stimulus. That stimulus is then said to be "imprinted" upon the animal. That having been said, the writers of the Twilight saga weren't so far off (silly as it may seem)! According to the popular films, imprinting is the involuntary mechanism by which shape-shifters (werewolves) find their "soulmate." This actually does relate back to the general definition of the term. They may have been referring to the idea of sexual imprinting, when a young animal learns the characteristics of a desirable mate. Interestingly enough, there is supposedly also a REVERSE sexual imprinting phenomenon, known to us as the Westermarck Effect. This effect occurs when two people live in close proximity during the first years of life; they soon become desensitized to later possible sexual attraction.
However, the definition that is probably most known is that of filial imprinting, when a young animal acquires its behavioral characteristics from a parent. These animals imprint on their parents, and then continue to follow them around. This phenomenon was first discovered by Douglas Spalding, reported it occurring in young domestic chickens. It was later "rediscovered" by Oskar Heinroth; however, it was highly popularized by Konrad Lorenz, who initiated the well-known gosling research. He showed imprinting working on incubator-hatched geese, who, just hours after hatching, imprinted upon Lorenz himself. Later, Lorenz was often seen being accompanied by these goslings who followed him everywhere as though he was their mother, proving that many animals imprint on the first moving stimulus they see after being born.
Though Douglas Spalding was the one mentioned in this book as having discovered the concept of imprinting, I think he is probably of less importance to studying psychology than is Konrad Lorenz. It's true that he did a lot of great research on animal instincts, but he really wasn't the one to make imprinting universally known and recognized. The fact that three different researchers are associated with the concept of imprinting goes back to chapter one, when we learned about multiples. Spalding's work is little known to us nowadays - I had never even heard of him - so it's interesting to me that the book chose to speak in detail about him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)
This has a lot of EXTREMELY useful information about the concepts of imprinting, as well as the different types of imprinting and its history.
http://twilightsaga.wikia.com/wiki/Imprinting
This is just a silly site that describes the Twilight movie's idea of the concept of imprinting. It may seem irrelevant, but it actually makes a lot of sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Spalding
This was a (very short) biography of Douglas Spalding and his work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UIU9XH-mUI&feature=related
This is a very cute video of Konrad Lorenz, his research and history, and his goslings that imprinted on him and constantly followed him around.
I was inspired by the movie we viewed this week to examine evolution in a school context. William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist, would have had Biblical creationism taught in our schools, but this movement has mostly died out. Due to a widespread interpretation of the establishment clause that would render Biblical creationism unconstitutional, the newest trend in creationism has been to challenge evolution's ability to account for intricacies in nature. This newest approach is called Intelligent Design (ID), and the aforementioned principle upon which it is based is called irreducible complexity.
I want to briefly examine some of the reasons ID has been (rightly in my estimation) kept out of public schools.
To begin, what do ID advocates believe?
"The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection" (intelligentdesign.org). They also assert that ID is not creationism, and that it is not religiously motivated (it does not specify *who* the creator is, after all).
In essence, it boils down to an assertion that natural selection does not account for the development of certain features of the natural world (the eye, the bacterial flagellum, etc). In apologetics, this is known as the Teleological Argument for the Existence of God (also known as the Argument from Design).
Judge Jones, who presided over a court case involving ID in Dover, PA, had some problems with this: "To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions" (Wikipedia).
Judge Jones argues that the lack of validity of one science (assuming for the sake of argument that Darwin's theory is not valid) is not a point in favor of an alternative view, especially not one that is both untestable and religiously motivated, such as ID.
An additional problem for the Intelligent Design movement is its rather obvious socio-political, religious motivations. In fact, there is documented evidence of this in the form of the "Wedge Document", which spells out a five year plan for the renewal of Christian values and thought in public and scientific discourse. Here is an excerpt from the introduction of the document:
"Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature." (evolutionwiki.org)
So it seems to be an open-and-shut case. Regardless of whether or not natural selection can explain "irreducible" complexity, ID is not a scientific theory (I think it can, but I am no biologist), and has no place in public school classrooms.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District/6:Curriculum,_Conclusion#H._Conclusion
This is the conclusion to Judge Jones's decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, which involved attempts to put Intelligent Design into classrooms in Dover, PA.
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html
This site lists responses to common claims of ID advocates. Some apply directly to claims from my next source.
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/
This is the Discovery Institute's ID website, which I used to draw some arguments that ID proponents make.
http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Wedge_document
This is a wiki page about the Wedge Document, which includes the text of the document itself.
For this blog I decided to write about Darwin’s Evolution of Emotional Expressions. This is because I am a very emotional person, so I thought to obtain more information about this would benefit me. This chapter was overall very interesting but was very long. I had found out that on my father’s side all of us kids are very emotional and sensitive.
Many people are able to hid their emotions within their facial expressions, this is how the expression “the eyes are the window to the soul” come into play. Charles Darwin researched the facial expressions which had a major impact on the field in many different areas. Darwin argued that human facial musculature and expression have evolved to communicate information to receivers in order to change their behavior. I felt like this was true but that the same time facial expressions can be misread by many different people. Charles wrote a book about his evolution. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
For Darwin emotion expressions not only originated as part of an emotion process that protected the organism or prepared it for action but also had an important commutative function. Darwin had no doubt in his mind that the expressive behavior that he described was part of the underlying emotional state. Darwin himself did not define emotion but he took it to another level. He came up with three principles.
First the principle of serviceable habits which states the useful expressive habits acquired during the course of experience are genetically inherited by offspring. Next was the principle of antithesis. With this principle Darwin was able to state that some expressions look the way they do simply because they are the opposite of a serviceable one. The third principle was the principle of the direct action of the excited nervous system on the body. This is where some expressions occur because the nervous system needs to discharge excess excitement. An example would be laughter as a quasi-convulsive movement that discharges an overflow of nervous energy that was induced by either physical or psychological tension.
http://www.psychophysiolab.com/uhess/pubs/HT09.pdf
This site went into detail about the principles which I found to be very interesting and was allowed to get a better understanding about what all Darwin was trying to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expression_of_the_Emotions_in_Man_and_Animals
I was able to read more about the book that Darwin wrote and get some insight to things that he meant. Along with the structure of the book.
http://www.neuropsychologycentral.com/interface/content/resources/page_material/resources_general_materials_pages/resources_document_pages/neuropsychosocial_factors_in_emotion_recognition.pdf
This site gave me information about Darwin and his arguments, along with Ekman’s views as well.
For my topic of interest, I chose the theory of evolution and natural selection. I wanted to dive in more deeply just because I’d taken an evolution course before and wanted to brush up on my knowledge!
An interesting point of the theory of evolution is that death is NECESSARY for evolution to occur. If species did not die, the weaker or less beneficial characteristics would never leave the gene pool. Also, humans would have to evolve just as other species did (we are not special or exempt from evolution).
Another interesting point I found: All life would be presumed to be related, from fruit and flowers to humans and caterpillars. We all essentially bloomed from the same life forms millions of years ago. http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/ (Link to a breakdown of Darwin’s theories – extremely informative!)
The theory of evolution is perhaps one of the most supported theories simply because of the sheer amount of physical evidence he collected in his time. He showed that prior species were ancestral to certain species today, and that we can watch evolution happen even today. Humans are responsible for evolution when breeding animals and plants to specific characteristics and purposes.
Vincent Grey discusses Darwin’s impact and Natural Selection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=412eIt3F_R4&feature=related. Very interesting and useful little chat that covered all of the main points.
Darwin admitted that if a scientist could show a creature so complex that it couldn’t have formed with slow, successive alterations, then his theory would be sunk. That might explain why the focus of Creationists have moved to Intelligent Design – they’re trying to find that complex being.
Perhaps my FAVORITE find of this week was this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8. It addresses many of the concerns with evolution such as the misconception that evolution means that there was no divine intervention to begin life. Evolution does NOT have to do with the beginning of life on Earth, but it helps explain the small, simple changes in the species SINCE life began. It really has to be watched, though. It also talks about mutations and genetic drift.
While this seems like a biological or genetic topic more than psychological, the human brain is a complex machine that has evolved to function the way it does today, and our society has ‘evolved’ as well.
For this week, I wanted to do some more research on Darwin’s evolution of emotional expressions. A lot of chapter five focused on Charles Darwin, his life, his theories, and overall contributions to psychology. I found the section of emotional expressions to be very interesting because all of us can relate to it and know what it means to show emotions. However, Darwin didn’t just study human expressions; he studied the emotional expressions of animals as well.
I liked the way Darwin opened up his book, “Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals” by pointing out that “for humans, things such as the bristling of the hair under the influence of extreme terror…can hardly be understood, except on the belief that man once existed in a much lower and animal-like condition.” I found this interesting because there are many suggestions that are made that relate humans to animals, but I have never heard of relating the two to emotional expressions. Darwin’s work looked at facial expressions in humans and animals as well as making an attempt to point out similarities in behavior. The ultimate goal was to prove his theory of evolution by doing research on emotional expressions.
Darwin believed that emotional expressions were not only a part of the emotion process that protects and prepares organisms for action, but he also believed that they were an important communicative function. He considered emotion expressions to be an expression of an inner emotional state. Darwin was able to conclude that expressions were universal by sending out surveys to various parts of the world. He simply asked the receiver to report on the expressions they observed in the place they were located. However, the problem isn’t between emotions among humans, it’s between humans and animals; which many people do not feel that animals can show emotions. The reason there is an issue is because we can’t just simply walk up to an animal and ask them how they are feeling and for this reason of not verbally receiving an answer many people think it is impossible for them to have emotions.
The result of Darwin’s study of this subject led to the formation of three general principles. The first principle is serviceable associated habits, which is noted as the most important. This principle simply states that certain complex actions are of direct or indirect service under certain states of mind and whenever the same state of mind is induced, there is a tendency through the force of habit and association for the same movements to be performed. The second principle of antithesis Darwin explains that ‘when directly opposite state of mind is induced, there is a strong and involuntary tendency to the performance of movements of a directly opposite nature.’ Finally, the third principle he called the direct action of the nervous system. He described ‘that certain actions, which we recognize as expressive of a certain states of mind, are the result of the constitution of the nervous system, and have been from the first independent of the will, and, to the large extent of habit.’ Each of these principles were discussed in Darwin’s book along with discussing the means of the expression of the emotions of animals and humans.
Darwin’s work turned out to be the first scientific investigation into this matter. I found the different parts of his investigation into emotional expressions to be very interesting. However, there is so much information dealing with emotions that it is difficult to just find one area of interest. Darwin’s research and findings really set the stage for further investigation into emotions. I had also read about how emotions is one thing that is still hard to define. Even after over a hundred years, there are still many questions that are left unanswered. This just goes to show how new psychology still is and how there is much more work to be done in order to answer the questions that are, for now, unknown.
(I have talked with Dr. MacLin about week six and week seven and why they are late. He said to get them done when possible and turn them in. I just thought I would make a quick note letting you know and I apologize for the inconvenience)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion : I liked this website because it gave more of a background to the reasoning for Darwin studying emotional expressions.
http://www.psychophysiolab.com/uhess/pubs/HT09.pdf : I liked this website because it explained emotional expressions in greater depth and provided extra information on others who have engaged in the same type of research.
http://www.neuropsychologycentral.com/interface/content/resources/page_material/resources_general_materials_pages/resources_document_pages/neuropsychosocial_factors_in_emotion_recognition.pdf : I liked this website because it talked about the basic principles Darwin established and gave examples that helped me better understand each principle.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279921/ : I liked this website because it elaborated more on Darwin’s principles as well as discuss facial expressions, which I found to be something I would like to look into more.