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?" "Are we learning from the past or are we simply repeating our mistakes?" So that is what we are going to do with this week's 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/ ) there are some good news source links at the bottom of the following 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 about the history of psychology. Write an informative response to the article. How you go about it is largely up to you, however it must read as though a college student half way through a semester of class wrote it. Correctly use the terms and concepts we have been reading about in your response.
When you are done, copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the sources you used.
Let me know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
The article I found is titled “The Secret to Genius? It Might Be More Chocolate?”. When I first read this title, I thought “wow, what a ridiculous comparison”. Chocolate is always talked about on the news for having some sort of health benefit, and then on the other hand we are told not to consume too much because it is not healthy. I compared this study to the previous chapters we have read about intelligence testing. So, when I read this I thought, well I will give it a shot. I was slightly biased going into the reading because I thought it was highly ridiculous, so I didn’t take it very seriously. However, the information that I found is rather mind-boggling.
Franz Messerli is a cardiologist at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York. He was asked to peer-review an article on the substances found in tea, chocolate, and wine that seem to slow down or even reverse the mental effects of aging. He came up with a crazy thought that if eating chocolate could boost a person’s brain power; may it also do so for a whole country? Messerli, being a native Swiss, noted that his country has the highest chocolate consumption in the world. He also noted that his country has the highest per-capita numer of Nobel Prize winners. He instantly saw a connection, and began research. Now, up until this point in the article, I was thinking that this is all a joke and certainly much be a random coincidence. When I continued reading about the data that was found, I thought maybe this guy isn’t so crazy after all. Messerli used 23 countries for his study, and what he found was a neat linear plot on his page. Not only did he find a very significant correlation between the chocolate consumption and the number of Nobel Prize winners, but the probability that the distribution was due to chance was tiny. Now, I know this is not scientifically researched data that is going to be published next week, but he does have a good start. I applied this article to what we read about in the last chapter about intelligence testing. First off, Messerli came up with a completely ridiculous idea: chocolate makes people smart. This is the same as in the chapter we read: you can determine how intelligent someone is by just looking at them. Each of these ideas seems ridiculous, but without other ways of determining whether or not they are reliable, we would never know. Throughout the history of psychology, we have come up with some pretty outrageous ways to determine a person’s intelligence. Certainly the idea of looking at someone to determine their intelligence is not the way to go about it, but Messerli’s study does have some hope. Also, I think we could also compare how we learn (such as in Binet’s work), to how chocolate makes us smarter (if it truly does). I know that studying the cognitive processes of a child with a learning disability is much different than studying how chocolate affects us, but the concept of studying how we actually get smarter could be compared. This study really grabbed my attention because I thought this would be just another ridiculous way of someone trying to test our intelligence. This is probably what people back in Binet’s time thought as well! And it is just that: another way to determine how our intelligence is attained. Although we do have valid and reliable measures to test intelligence today, I think looking at topics like this study is interesting and important as well. We not only are interested in how to measure someone’s intelligence, but how they acquire that intelligence. Though this article does not exactly correlate with what we have been studying about the history, there certainly are comparisons that can be made between the two.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/12/162733830/the-secret-to-genius-it-might-be-more-chocolate
I read the article “Here’s the Scoop On Cat Poop Coffee” I was intrigued by this article, but at the same time grossed out. The article discussed how the coffee is actually made of animal feces, and how it is mainly a luxury of the wealthy since it costs ten dollars a cup, and 60 dollars for a four ounce bag of beans. It had also discussed the disparities between the developed and underdeveloped worlds, which I had related to the concept of social Darwinism discussed in the previous chapter.
The author of this article went on to explain how the people that are making the coffee for consumers are making one dollar a day, while we pay three dollars a day for coffee. Using the social Darwinism theory, these workers making little to no pay would be considered the weaker people that didn’t have what it takes to survive in our every changing society and economic world and would also be considered “unfit”. On the other hand, the people that are able to purchase this so-called luxury would be considered stronger and had the ability to survive in the changing world. However, it was argued that because of this unfair ratio of labor payment and cost of product we as consumers should be paying more for coffee in general. This argument contradicts what social Darwinists believe. Social Darwinists believe that the government and “fit” people should not help out people deemed “unfit”. They believe that they’re a failure of society because they were unfit, and if they were to be helped out by people that could it would just promote the belief that being unfit is okay. These unfit people would just reproduce and create more unfit members of society. As the book stated, this concept of evolutionary fitness “became a means of rationalizing the huge gap between the rich and the poor” (Goodwin, 2008) so that those who are considered superior would stay superior and vice versa.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/20/161478954/heres-the-scoop-on-cat-poop-coffee
I started looking through the NPR website and came upon the topic of banned books, and specifically banned books week. Although this may not correlate with psychology as directly as some other topics I do think it bares a striking resemblence to the scopes monkey trial that we saw a documentary on earlier this year and also the concept of presentism vs. historicism that our history book talked about as psychological concepts in the very early chapters of the book.
The first thing I wish to point out is the concept I was very interested in mentioned in the book called Wissenschaft which is the concept used by Wundtz in his education where you were basically free to learn about what you wanted and to research your own interests was encouraged versus having to fit your interests into those of your professors like it is today. This concept related to the concept of banned books because I believe that today's education is largely based off of things that at one place or one time someone decided whether it was right or wrong and this opinion happened to change the whole demenor of education or the way it was presented. Today we use a lot of books in teaching students, and we tell children what and when to read them. I personally believe this is wrong. Although teachers may find it important to read some classic works of literature, many of the untold stories of history are in the books we are no longer allowed to read, or are discouraged from doing so. These untold stories could lead to a bigger idea that a child or adult may have that they wouldn't have otherwise and who knows what could become of it! They should be able to use the concept of Wissenschaft to move their thoughts without any fear of rejection, this also goes for the books that they read.
The second concept I thought related to this topic that was mentioned in the NPR talk was the thought that the community is also represented through their local library and the books that it offers. This is the basis of many people's arguments for banning certain books. People fear that if their community's persona is damaged then people will transfer these feelings to the people themselves possibly. This twisting of social perceptions is something that does no boad well for books.
The last concept I thought of when hearing this talk was about the concept of presentism vs. historicism that the book talked about in the very first chapter. People need to make sure to look at these classic books from a historicism point of view so that they can feel what it was like for the author to write during the time period that it was written. Instead many people only see what is wrong in today's standards and find these books offensive in the eyes of people today, which could lead to a lot of great books being misinterpreted.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14982752
I decided to go to NPR’s website and found an article called “How Stereotypes Can Drive Women To Quit Science.” This article was written by Shankar Vedantam in July of this year. In this article we can psychology being used to help find out why women are not advancing as far as men in other sciences like mathematics, engineering and technology. Women used to be kept out of of the high ranks of psychology but now that is no longer the case. It seems while psychology has made advances in gender equality other scienes need to catch up and psychology is being used to help facilitate this.
One reason psychologists think this gender difference is happening is because of the Stereotype Threat which happens when “people are worried they might confirm the stereotype by performing poorly, their fears can inadvertently make the stereotype become self-fulfilling.”
One way psychologists are studying the disparity is by following women scientists around with an ear piece that records 30 seconds every 12 minutes. This way they can observe the women to get a better clue as to why women are dropping out of the sciences at these high levels.
One thing they noticed was that the women seemed to lose confidence and even some intelligent presentation when speaking to male colleagues. Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia doing this study explains "For a female scientist, particularly talking to a male colleague, if she thinks it's possible he might hold this stereotype, a piece of her mind is spent monitoring the conversation and monitoring what it is she is saying, and wondering whether or not she is saying the right thing, and wondering whether or not she is sounding competent, and wondering whether or not she is confirming the stereotype." When speaking to men the women in the study were worried, distracted, sounded less intelligent but this did not happen when talking about leisure or non-work related topics. Also when the females talked with other women the stereotype was not activated and this did not change their behavior. “It was the combination — women talking to men, and women and men talking about science that activated the stereotype threat.” When asked, most scientists thought they would not be affected by the affect but the studies suggest otherwise.”
This article not only showed how psychology has let women advance while other sciences are lagging it also shows how psychology helps women. These studies being done to remedy this problem are also examples of how psychology can be applied to do good in the world. It is a long way from the old lab procedures to these new technologies and ideas of how to study human behavior. This is just one of many examples of how psychology is being used to solve social issues.
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-why-women-quit-science-jobs
I find these topical blogs to be more challenging but I think I found a topic that relates mildly to chapter 3 in our book. This article is about how treatment for Alzheimers may need to start way earlier than it has been, maybe even years or decades before the symptoms of the disease start to appear. Scientists met at a Neuroscience meeting New Orleans earlier this week to discuss how this process could be possible. In the article John Morrison discussed that “by the time an Alzheimer’s patient is diagnosed even with mild or moderate Alzheimer’s there is very, very extensive neuron death.” Once those neurons die, he goes on to explain, that critical brain circuits involved in memory and thinking are gone forever, he explains that doctors and neuroscientists need to intervene before there is extensive neuron death. Sam Gandy explains that “ It’s possible we’ve tested things and discarded them prematurely, now that we can see the changes in the brain that underlie Alzheimer’s, we really should re-evaluate some of the things we looked at.” Unfortunately, no one has a clear idea as to when they should start treatment on those patients. Lori Beason-Held has studied participants that have undergone periodic scans that measure function of certain areas in the brain, she says, “our study has discovered changes in the brain that occur up to 11 years before any symptoms occur.” She continues to explain that treatment would need to start even earlier, as early as 20 years maybe. Although this has become a hot topic among neuroscientists, a lot of ethics have to be considered. There are a lot of risks to be faced, especially trying to treat for a disease that the patient may not even have, or is known to have at the point of treatment.
So how does this interact with Chapter 3? In the book it explains that Descartes developed a model of the nervous system functioning as he sought answers for the mind-body question. His ideas fired imaginations of others and during the course of a few centuries, our understanding of the nervous system grew. Many of the advances from this idea helped the medical community to try and come up with solutions to the problem of brain and nervous system damage. Without the ideals and imagination of Descartes or other scientists in the field at the time of the eighteenth century, who knows where we would be in the field of neurology or neuropsychology.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/10/17/163093866/treatment-for-alzheimers-should-start-years-before-disease-sets-in
After going through NPR’s website I stumbled upon an article about the teenage brain. The title was Teenage Brains are Malleable and Vulnerable. After reading this article it reminded me about Darwin and his theory of evolution.
There are several different aspects within evolution that apply to the article on teenagers and the advancement of brain functions and the shaping of mental processes. According to the article this is an important time in the development process which has enormous opportunity chances. Two studies have shown that teenage brains are literally shaped by experiences early in life. This time period could be referred to as the “critical period” which is a period during a limited time when events can occur that usually result in some type of transformation. The studies showed that teens are more likely to learn behaviors during this time than any other due to sensitivity of their reward system in their brains. One of the tests that they used could be classified as a differential psychology study. Of the 113 men studied, men that suffered a bout of depression were less responsive to rewards compared to those that didn’t have a bout. This is one way they showed how individuals differ in their particular behaviors. Brain scans have shown that it is very important to treat problems such as depression in teens because it could have a long term effect on their cognitive growth and decision making. During the teenage years the brain structure is starting to understand certain things like social intentions, beliefs and desires of others around them and in turn learn how to react accordingly. Darwin had a principle called the serviceable associated habits. This principle stated that certain complex actions are of direct or indirect service under certain states of the mind, in order to gratify certain sensations the past reaction is produced due to habit. During some of these studied when points were involved teenagers actually took longer and were more accurate than adults when providing their answers. They were more sensitive to reward than the adult group. This to me seems that actions, results, and choices early in life definitely shape the same aspects later in life due to learned habits. These teenagers mental states are molded early based on the experiences they go through. Certain actions later on could be a result of previously learned experiences. Functionalism could play a part in the brain functioning of these teenagers. How they perceive their mental state at the time could be the purpose for their actions that follow. For example, the study that involved 113 men who were monitored for depression. The men that had an episode were less likely to respond naturally or in a positive manner. This could determine the amount of effort given. It could also show the rate at which some give up and some take strides forward depending on their mental states. Within an individual’s lifetime (post teenager) these learned habits could cause success or failure due to learned responses as teenagers. This article showed how important it is to be positively reinforced and nurtured by their caregivers during the critical stage of life. Even though the general theory of evolution wasn’t related in this article several of Darwin’s principles, terms and ideas can be applied to this modern day study of the developing teenage brain.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/10/16/162997951/teenage-brains-are-malleable-and-vulnerable-researchers-say
I decided to simply search "IQ tests" on the Huffington post, I came up with the article and corresponding video "Marvin Wilson Execution: Texas Puts Man With 61 IQ To Death". This may not be the most scientific or typical article to look at, but it raised a lot of thought provoking questions. In 2002, the Supreme court ruled those who are deemed to have a diminished mental capacity don't fully understand their actions. While I watched the video, the "experts" seemed a little callus, even this man's own attorney. At one point she compared his intelligence to her cat. This man, Marvin Wilson, scored 61 on an IQ test, any score under 70 or 75 is considered to be mentally "retarded" (their words, not mine). About 7 minutes, 40 seconds into the video, the man leading the interview pauses the discussion to clarify that the judge in this man's trial saw that he was fully aware of what the man had done, but made his decision based off of the character Lenny from John Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men", who also elicits traits of intellectual disabilities. I guess this led be to think about a few things, is the IQ test just a number that needs to be objectively or subjectively used, especially in the court of law. While the sole basis of determining whether someone is intellectually challenged isn't based solely on IQ tests,there are other factors. Texas, however seems to have left that decision up to the judge instead of evidentiary assistance. However, Wilson seems to have methodically murdered this other man, which may support the idea that he was fully aware of his actions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/marvin-wilson-execution-texas_n_1753968.html
After searching BBC News I came across an article that linked intelligent quotient (IQ) scores to levels of happiness. The study discussed in the article virtually claimed that higher IQ scores are associated with greater wellbeing and that lower IQ scores are associated with unhappiness. However, this study also highlighted ways to prevent lower IQ scores, therefore, lowering unhappiness. This article relates to the most recent chapter covered in this course (chapter 8), which discusses how the IQ test came to be.
For instance, Lewis Truman believed that the IQ test would “go far toward insuring that every pupil, whether mentally superior, average, or inferior, shall have the chance to make the most of whatever abilities nature has given to him”. This quote taken from chapter 8 of the text can be related to the present article because it is linking IQ testing to happiness and providing ways to improving IQ scores for those who are “inferior”, which in turn is also providing them with the chance to make the most of their abilities. Another way to apply this article to what I’ve learned in this course is realizing that without the creation of the Binet-Simon scales and without Goddard translating them and introducing them to America and without Terman standardizing those same scales, the IQ test wouldn’t even exist. It is important to recognize the contribution they made, and as this article illustrates, their contributions are still relevant today. Although not all of them agreed about every aspect of IQ testing, they all recognized the importance of it and that it did serve some kind of purpose. I realize IQ testing today has changed since then; however, it is those who first created the idea of intelligence testing that continue to inspire present changes. All in all, I think a topic like IQ testing is a good example of how the history of something lives on and how something created in 1905 still serves a purpose today – and is still prevalent in research.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19659985
The article I found was called Teenage Brains Are Malleable And Vulnerable, by Jon Hamilton. The article was written on October 16th of this year, so very recent. I was first attracted to this article because of another article I have recently read about teenagers and court cases. The article I read was how the Supreme Court has made a ruling that if a person under the age of 18 has created a very severe crime, as in murder, they can not get the death penalty. They made this ruling because they believed that children’s brains are not fully developed until adult hood and so when they commit these crimes they are not fully processing the consequences of their actions because their brain is not fully developed. However, this article disputes that theory. This article gives a couple different studies that show how teenage brains can think through their choices instead of acting impulsively. One study had adults and teenagers play a game where they got points for correctly answering questions about the motions of dots on a screen. While they did this, researchers measured activity in brain regions involved in decisions and rewards. They found that when lots of points were at stake, teens spent more time studying the dots than adults did and brain scans showed more activity in brain regions involved in making decisions. Other studies showed that the brain is shaped by experiences early in life. While reading this article, I was thinking about when we read in chapter three about psychologists studying the brain and the different parts of it. By continuing to study the brain, we are able to come up with this evidence and (in the article I read about court cases) decide what is fair and right to punish these teenagers. In chapter three, it talked about the clinical method and studying people with disorders pertaining to their brain. With the research we are doing today we can also help these people. We are able to study their brain activity in different parts and find out why they act the way they do. This continued research is fully beneficial for everyone to make our society better and it shows how far we have come since the very beginning of research on the brain.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/10/16/162997951/teenage-brains-are-malleable-and-vulnerable-researchers-say
The article that I read was called "The Many Faces of Affirmative Action" by John A. Powell. This article innitially caught my attention, because of the discussion that we had on affirmative action in class in relation to "Hereditary Genius" and "Social Darwinism". I first would like to say that affirmative action is the addmition of minorities into colleges and tech schools in order for them to better their life. In this article the process of the State of Texas' affirmative action plan is identified and then goes on to say that that the University of Texas has another "affirmative action plan" known as "The Top Ten Percent Plan". This plan is not intentionally an affirmative action plan, but instead affirmative action is an effect that comes out of carrying out the procedure.
"The Top Ten Percent Plan" involves the automatic admission of students that are in the top ten percent of there graduating class. This leads to affirmative action in places like Texas (and would do so in other places in the country) because of segragation of schools in the area. This is due to districts in school systems of course. People living in a certain location are going to live by people with equal standing (social, economic, racial, ect.) and will then go to school nearby causing that school to have a higher population of a certain race, economic status, etc.
In my opinion I find this to be a very fare and just way of intituting affirmative action. Why? Because those students in these particular schools that are trying and making the best out of whatever situation they are in are the ones that are benefiting. My problem with affirmative action is the fact that when it comes down to making a choice between a majority and a minority that have similar abilties often time the majority is choosen simply because of that reason, which is obviously not fare by any means. With this for of affirmative action those individuals that are at the top of there class and are showing dedication to their studies are the ones that are being rewarded, no matter what their race, etc. is.
There is of course some problems with this plan.
One of the major ones comes into play in places like Iowa were there is very little variation in the population. Without the differences in the population then "The Top Ten Percent" plan doesn't work because there is very little minorities to "be segregated" into there own schools causeing the plan to fail.
All of this as I mentioned can be related back to the ideas of social Darwinism, Hereditary Genius, and women and minorities in psychology that were discused in earlier chapters of the book. I would like to mention the dedication and will power of those individuals that defide the odd and were able to make contributions in a field were they were not welcome all without affirtmative action. This shows that anything is possible if you want it bad enough and put your heart and soul into it, which gives me hope that someday I may be able to make a contribution to society as a whole.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-a-powell/university-of-texas-affirmative-action_b_1971046.html?utm_hp_ref=college
I chose to look around the NPR website and found the article ‘Mississippi Queen: My Race Wasn't A Factor In Homecoming Title’ by Mark Memmott. The article is about a girl named Courtney Pearson who was just elected the 2012 homecoming queen at the University of Mississippi. What is significant about this is that Courtney was the first African American homecoming queen for the university. It is easy for me to relate this back to history in general, but also the history of psychology because of the racial factors that are present. I am so grateful to have grow up in a generation that has allowed me to not judge another person by the color of their skin, and even though racism still isn’t completely out of the picture, it has decreased a large amount as history progresses into the twentieth century. Chapter six of our textbook begins with the nineteenth century when women, but especially minorities faced barriers when trying to become educated. We all know that the civil war was an issue between the north and the south and that the south consisted of slave owners and heavier discrimination and segregation, so it is even more ironic to me that this African American homecoming queen is from the southern state of Mississippi. After the slavery era, whites continue with the idea of their intellectual superiority over blacks and didn’t just consist of African Americans, but foreigners in general. In chapter eight, Henry Goddard’s intelligence testing of immigrants proved his biases of the mental inferiority of immigrants. We often don’t think about many ‘first white people’ of something there is, but yet Francis Sumner was the first African American to get a PhD in psychology and Courtney Pearson is not the first African American to be elected homecoming queen at the University of Mississippi. The reason why this is significant with the history of psychology is because of the stereo-types and perceptions that people hold in their environment and how those have changed. The fascinating thing about this article is that none of the students were even aware that Courtney was the first and said they didn’t vote for her because she was black, but because they thought she was deserving. What was weird was that she was only assumed to have won because of her race and criticized for her weight from people outside of the university who did not go there. Her bigger size and the color of her skin was not even a thought in the minds of her fellow peers who knew her personally. This brings up the unfortunate idea that many people make judgments based on their fear of the unknown. I think psychology is a mixture of nature and nurture by how our history of passed down perceptions affect our current perceptions as well as our environment determining perception. As time goes on, I believe that society becomes more liberal and less traditional than our previous generations in history. I may be biased as a younger less traditional person, but I think this a good thing especially for the study of psychology because I think the subject requires open-mindedness and being skeptical of the traditional values passed on to us.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/18/163151766/mississippi-queen-my-race-wasnt-a-factor-in-homecoming-title
The article I selected is entitled, “Sitting for long periods ‘is bad for your health.’” I picked this article because it is something that is discussed a lot, mostly because we make children sit in classrooms for around six hours five days a week. In fact I remember us have a very brief discussion about this. There are some schools that instead of having the students sit in chairs and bounce on round exercise balls in place. This is also the type of thing a psychology would be interested to research into. In fact the research on this was done at colleges, at Leicester and Loughborough Universities. These scientists took a look at eighteen studies that used around 800,000 different people. They found out that there is harm done to people who sit around a lot even if they also exercise regularly. But yes, the burst of exercise is beneficial, it just does not out way the bad from sitting all day long. It is not clear from this study necessary how much time you should be limiting yourself to, but those who sat more had higher risks of diabetes, heart disease, and death. They found that there is a negative correlating between being sedentary and low levels of glucose and insulin resistance. There is not enough research yet in order to determine why this is and how it happens. For those who have desk jobs, they suggest taking walk during breaks or having a standing meeting. The interesting thing I found about this article is that the scientists do not have the answers to all of the questions yet. I feel like this is part of what of our professor is trying to teach us all of the time. We need to learn to have questions and that it is okay if you don’t have the answers. Also, we talk a lot about psychologists, Binet, who think we should focus on people individually. While Binet was looking at intelligence testing, the same still applies with this study. Each person has a different risk of getting diseases, but as a whole sitting too much has had a negative effect on health. So, it is important for individuals to reevaluate and see if they need to start being more active or convince their bosses to have standing meetings. We need to be people to see the benefits and as psychologists get them to change their behaviors.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19910888
After reading the article, “Out Of The Binder, Into The Kitchen: Working Women And Cooking,” it brought me back to chapter six that discussed the challenges women faced in the 19th century at receiving a higher education. Although the article placed a spotlight on women and cooking and the book discussed women pursuing education, both discussed the expectation that the public still holds on women and household chores.
Recently, presidential candidate, Republican Mitt Romney has been getting backlash from the public on his comments about women and their responsibility in the home. Even though there are for more women than in the past that are working, there is still a guilt trip put on mothers to provide a dinner for their family at the end of the day. So, why is that? The article suggested that since stronger family bonds are considered to happen over a sit-down family dinner, then pressure is put on the mother to make that happen. But why does it have to be the woman’s duty? Well, that is still a question many wander about.
Women in the past were made to either choose between a career and a family because it was just too much for them to handle both. Now, if a woman is going to have a career and a family, there is still this ever present pressure to clean and cook for her family even after a ten hour work day.
I don’t think this expectation will ever disappear. Even though there are many more modern day thinkers that believe household chores and cooking can be done by either parent, there are still traditional views that will hold through the centuries that women are responsible for such tasks.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/17/163091281/out-of-the-binder-into-the-kitchen-working-women-and-cooking
The article I read about on the internet was about how children are developed directly affects life expectancy and expected developmental qualities. This study reminded me much of what we learned about John Dewey and his work with what characteristics and skills children should be learning. This Study primarily focused on age and families socioeconomic status. The study stated that when a child is nurtured correctly which included being read to, cuddled, and played with by their parents the results are not only affected in the classroom, but it also relieved stress later in life. The difference between a poor and a rich family’s life expectancy in males was 10 years and a woman’s was 6 years which was quite astounding. They proclaimed that it is so very important to work with children at a young age as far as bedtimes and reading books to develop a correct learning environment. It was also very interesting to see correlations between social and cognitive development in children being not only related to health, but also a number of government officials showing there concern in England. They proposed ideas such as books to lower income families and even new programs. This study reminded me a lot of how we discussed in class that work done in history such as Dewey’s theory on development in children directly affects the future with a study like this. I also enjoy the fact that there are so many articles that can be associated to psychology in one way or another.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12423543
While I was reading this week’s chapter, I became very interested in intelligence testing, so when I got to the NPR website, I simply searched intelligence testing and found something that really stood out. The title of the article is “Children Succeed with Character, Not Test Scores”. The article covers a book written by Paul Tough called, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. Tough argues that a child’s success can’t be measured by IQ scores, standardized tests, or vocabulary quizzes. He believes success for young people is about how they build character. Many scientists and psychologists are really challenging the idea that IQ and other tests scores are the most important thing in predicting a child’s success. Many believe character strengths and noncognitive skills are at least just as important for a child’s success. Tough also has a strong opinion on the parents’ role in their child’s success. He believes that once children reach middle childhood and adolescence, there needs to be less parenting. Parents need to let their children fall down and get back up and really challenge themselves. Also, parents need to let their children fight their own battles. Another important factor Tough believes plays a role in this is through education. He thinks the schools focus too much on the testing and not enough on skills like grit, perseverance, and curiosity.
I think Paul Tough brings up a lot of great points. In schools, sometimes it seems like they’re more interested in getting good test scores, rather than seeing their students grow and develop socially as well. Being educated and having a good IQ is obviously a good indicator of intelligence, but I’m not sure what it means for success. Building character, personality, and charisma are also very important for one to be successful. However, I still believe IQ and other test scores are more important in determining a child’s success. If parents and teachers do the right things, then the children should build character as well. For children, school is usually the first opportunity for them to thoroughly succeed at anything, which can lead them to want to succeed at other things like: music, sports, art, etc. With motivation and devotion, realistic success can be achieved in anything.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/04/160258240/children-succeed-with-character-not-test-scores
In the HuffingtonPost article “Animal Intelligence: Dolphins, Dogs, and Elephants Smarter Than Some Realize,” there were many interesting facts comparing them to human behavior or thoughts. After reading about Thorndike’s animal interest in chapter 7, I really wanted to learn more about certain animals like dolphins and dogs. Most people think that monkeys and apes are the closest to humans, but now, more people are recognizing that dolphins and dogs have very similar behaviors and brain function. However, dolphins do not have the same physical aspect as a humans brain, but they use their brains in high functioning of reasoning and conscious thought.
“You do not have to be a primate to be smart,” one of the best quotes of this article mentioned. Dolphins can be trained and have the capacity to think like humans. One of the most interesting facts about dolphins is that they can recognize themselves in a mirror and comprehend feelings and health of other dolphins.
Dogs also understand human communication and can empathize. Which is why humans and pet dogs connect on a different level. Animal intelligence has always been on my mind, because of my love for animals. Psychology and Zoology play a huge part in understanding and relating animals to humans. Researchers and zoologists can work together to test or question Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Also, learning about different species helps us understand past experiments that were done on dogs, rats, cats, and birds. Evolutionary theory plays a huge role in understanding concepts of animal intelligence and comparing it with humans.
Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment can also show how cats and other animals besides monkeys use transfer information in escape situations, like humans. From past mistakes in experiments, modern day researchers can use their errors and ethical issues to advance on new information on animal intelligence.
The article I read, shows that even though most believe monkeys have the equivalent intelligence as humans, evidence shows that dolphins, dogs, and even elephants use similar intelligence.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/animal-intelligence-dolphins-dogs-elephants_n_1624367.html
The article I found interest in comes from the BBC News Magazine and is titled, “Should people accept that pressure is a fact of life?” The article looks at people, from normal students taking an exam to professional athletes competing in the Olympics, and looks at the factor that stress plays on performance. Now days much is done to try and alleviate stress from people’s lives. Mantras like, “It’s just another test” or “it’s just another race,” are becoming more and more popular. The point of interest taken in this article was whether we should try to eliminate stress or just accept it as a part of life. To do this they looked at what are the primary factors that cause us to fail in high pressure situations. What the study found was that when we are put in high pressure situations we begin to use our conscious mind instead of our “subconscious which is more efficient.” To demonstrate this, the article gives the example of an easy task like walking. When we are walking to class, it is easy and takes almost no thought at all to perform, but when there are a lot of people watching you, like at a graduation ceremony, all of a sudden walking feels awkward and you have to concentrate harder and are more likely to stumble and mess up. Same goes for all other tasks, from math equations to shooting a basketball. As pressure goes up the more we think about what we are doing and the more likely we are to fail. In order to reduce this pressure the best solution is to become familiar with what you are going to be dealing with. For example, when getting ready for a really hard test, get used to the lighting of the room and the way the professor words the questions and be prepared to cover any annoyances such as bringing ear plugs to block outside noise. If you familiarize and prepare yourself for the situation along with studying for the test, then your stress will be much lower and you will be able to perform at your highest level.
I thought that this article on stress tied into the chapter, mainly with immigrants at Ellis Island. These immigrants were in a very high pressure situation, they were most likely tired, hungry and confused. They had been on a ship for many days and now they were being ordered around and asked questions and told to take tests all with little or no explanation as to why. Let’s look at this situation from the perspective of how to perform at your best. First, familiarity with your circumstances, there was no way for any of the immigrants to prepare for what was going to happen. They had no idea of what the process was and no one bothered to explain what was going on. Second, familiarity with your task, most of the immigrants in the early 1900’s probably had never had any real need to learn how to read let alone the opportunity. On top of that they were expected to answer difficult questions in a foreign language to their own under the close surveillance of strangers. Nothing about the immigrant’s opportunities suggests the possibility to lower pressure, most were probably in the highest pressure situation they would ever be in, so it is not unreasonable now to look back and see why 80 percent of immigrants scored at or below “moron” level on the IQ tests. I think that the primary message we need to remember from this is that pressure is a part of life, but there are ways to reduce pressure and if we expect people to perform at their best we need to make sure that they are equip with the tools to manage this pressure.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17874450
It was pretty hard to find an article NOT about politics with the election coming up. I did however find an article titled “The Truth about Emotional Affairs.” Although in a broad sense, this article related to some of the things that we’ve learned from the book. The article was about the thought processes that people have about nonphysical emotional affairs. It presents both sides of the story, the person in the emotional affair, and the spouse. Thoughts that the person in the affair experience are typically similar to “I’m not doing anything wrong, we don’t do anything physical.” These people think that extramarital affairs are fine as long as there isn’t anything sexual going on. They believe that they haven’t betrayed their spouse at all because they have been “faithful” and it should pose no threat to the marriage. The article brings up an argument that the simple act of leading their spouse to feel threatened is betrayal. The author states that a marriage is based on mutual caretaking, and when one spouse leads the other to feel threatened or betrayed, it poses a threat to the marriage.
It also describes the thought processes of the spouse. The spouse may feel threatened because they feel uncomfortable with the relationship. They may have constant thoughts of their spouse kissing, touching, or having sex with the individual. After these thoughts are in the mind, any small clue may lead this person to become more suspicious. The person becomes angry and might engage in activities that they normally wouldn’t, such as snooping, reading emails, and looking at credit card bills. If the person discovers anything more than work-related, or any late night phone calls, that person may become even more suspicious than before. It mentions specially that the person’s heart may begin to beat fast and they may begin to sweat, which is something we learned in James-Lange theory of emotion. When this person confronts their spouse about the issue, the spouse may feel as if they are overreacting. The article denies that is the case.
I believe this relates to our textbook readings in a few different ways. One way that it relates is that this jealousy may be a biological function determined by natural selection. I would be very interested in the Darwinism point of view on this topic. It’s possible that jealousy is a natural response when a “threat” poses itself. Maybe our bodies are predisposed to be jealous, in order to be aware of someone attempting to “steal” our mating partner. It would be interesting to find out whether animals feel the same feeling that we know as jealousy. The James-Lange theory of emotion states that experiencing an emotion will lead to a bodily reaction. In this case, it was heart beating fast and sweating. These are bodily responses when someone feels threatened. Furthermore, the article relates to Titchener’s structuralism. He was interested in conscious experience. In particular, he was interested in the emotion DURING the experience. I think a very interesting experiment, (although would not be approved due to ethical issues) might be to measure the physiological responses of a person while being told that their spouse is having an affair. Just as Titchener viewed it, the experience during the experience is much more REAL. After we’ve had time to think, our emotions have already changed. This article showed that we have come a long way in terms of thought processes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-weinerdavis/the-truth-about-emotional_b_1958709.html
I found an article on NPR from October of 2011 concerning a program called Mental Health First Aid. The head of the program is a man named Brian Gibbs who is director of public education for the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare. Gibbs tells the audience that while in the workplace we are taught to recognize the symptoms of things like heart attack or choking most are not taught to recognize the signs and symptoms of an emotional crisis. The course is 12 hours and does not diagnose or treat, instead the program instructs learners to assist and comfort. They use the acronym ALGEE: A- Access for risk of suicide or self-harm; L- Listen in a non-judgmental manner; G-Give reassurance; E- Encourage professional help; E-Encourage self-help and other strategies.
This program is being implemented in the workplace to assist employers on addressing the issue of mental illness in the office. Many times the stigma of mental illness keeps people both from getting help and also makes others hesitant to offer assistance. What often happens is that if people are not sure how to respond they tend to avoid the subject. The idea is that the more we are able to communicate about an issue the more we are able to provide support.
This was a good example of the use of Psychology use in the work environment to increase productivity. As employers are encouraging various health issues and fitness, this is another way they can support the wellness of employees. By implementing this support the workplace is more constructive for all.
I also found this to be encouraging in looking how far our society has come in the treatment of mental illness. When we look back at how the mentally ill were treated even fifty years ago, this program being implemented is really nothing short of miraculous.
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/10/141153308/mental-first-aid-how-to-help-in-an-emotional-crisis
When I copied from my word document the url link was on the second page.
I figured since our last chapter dealt a lot with intelligence, I’d stick with that topic. The article I found in relation to what we’ve learned in class so far was titled IQ Isn’t Set in Stone, Suggests Study That Finds Big Jumps, Dips in Teens. Although this article was from October 2011, it made a lot of good points. The article states that ever since the IQ was born, there have been skeptical opinions on how accurate it can score a person’s intelligence. They asked the question if the scores stay consistent over time or if they can change. Researchers did a study on British teenagers between the ages of 12 and 16 and repeated the test for four years. They found their scores improved pretty significantly on the IQ scale. They mention that many factors come into play for why the teenagers’ IQ scores changed and one main factor was their educational environment. To conclude the article, there is a quote from by a professor of developmental psychology that says, “It should caution all of us against assuming that one low IQ score, at one time, is capturing all that an individual is capable of”. Basically, he means one test score does not determine how intelligent a person is and it cannot predict a person’s full potential.
This article reminded me of Dewey and progressive education. As mentioned in the text, Dewey wasn’t a fan of the conventional approach to education which was all about having strict discipline, drill and practice. He talked about how we should create an environment in school where kids can roam and think creatively on their own. He was all about active learning. I wonder if Dewey’s style of learning would generate positive outcomes in regards to IQ scores. I would like to think it depends on the student and what approach to education works better for them. I do think Dewey would be very against the whole idea of having a test score define our intelligence. Intelligence is such a broad spectrum and we learn every single day. I know the IQ test can be more common sense knowledge based and we could draw conclusions to how intelligent a person is in that sense, but again it depends on the student. I have friends who lack a little of common sense, but make up for it in book smarts. I would be afraid to take an IQ test because I think I would let that score, that number, define me.
I did like reading that your IQ score can change over time and it’s not ‘set in stone’ as the article says. But it’s also puzzling to think about because if the IQ test is more common sense knowledge, can you learn common sense over time? Guess I’d have to take the test to find out.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/10/20/141511314/iq-isnt-set-in-stone-suggests-study-that-finds-big-jumps-dips-in-teens
From the BBC I listened to an interview with the author of a new book that discusses statistical prediction. His name is Ned Silver and he is a statistician and a writer for the New York Times. His book is titled: The Signal and the Noise. From the title it seems as though he might be discussing signal detection theory, but if he does it was not clear from the news story on the BBC.
I picked this news item because trying to predict behavior is what psychology does, in part. And the history of psychology is in a way a history of trying to get better at predicting behavior, for example, going from relying on anecdotal accounts of animal’s intelligence to trying to test their abilities with experiments as Thorndike did.
Ned Silver discussed making predictions about presidential elections because that’s what the pollsters and media are trying to do right now. He compared the problems in election prediction with the problems in predicting baseball outcomes and in weather forecasting.
He makes the point that we have a lot of data on individual baseball players and a lot of data on elections - but that elections are dynamic. Things are constantly changing, so predictions become more difficult. We have improved our weather predictions because we have greatly expanded the amount of data that we collect. Weather forecasts for the next 48 hours are very reliable but, as the days in the future increase, the predictions become less reliable. This is partly because whatever errors are included in the data get compounded as the days advance.
He noted that most polls now include a reported margin of error. Many did not do so in earlier times. Very often the results of the polls are within the margin of error, but the media reports them anyway. They usually even report the margin of error but then still go on to treat it as though it doesn’t matter.
The program didn’t really give a clear idea of the thesis of his book. But it seems to be: how do we separate the real knowledge in prediction from the noise in the prediction of events. He did say that earlier October polls in presidential elections are usually very predictive and things don’t change much. It will be interesting to see if that is true this year. It seems that we often hear reported that no one has ever won without (fill in the blank here)…..….But then they go on to win and we never hear how that was possible.
One thing he didn’t discuss, but maybe it is covered in his book, is an important point from the history of psychology and one that we went over many times in my course in social psychology. That point is: when you are making predictions about human behavior, instead of about natural events like the weather, you are dealing with the problem of reactivity. People can react to your prediction and change their behavior because of the prediction -- something the weather never does.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19982180
One topic that has really caught my interest in the past few chapters is the concept of eugenics. Eugenics is the idea that society should take steps toward improving its genetic material. I find this topic interesting, because I had no idea how common it was and still is today. Before reading these chapters, I only knew about Hitler’s eugenics movement during WWII, so I think that it’s crazy to see how popular it actually was. I found an article from the Huffington Post discussing the stereotype of LGTB people and Jewish people being mentally immature. The author relates these stereotypes back to back to Francis Galton, and got me thinking how it can relate to other psychologists that we have covered. This article came about, because Pope Benedict XVI expressed his thoughts that gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are not fully developed human beings because they do not embrace Catholic law. He says that the LGTB community poses a threat to the institution of marriage, because they are flawed. The author goes on to show how others have shared similar ideas about LGTB’s, as well as the Jews. One thing that shocked me from this article was how the author used an example of a doctor examining lesbian women’s genitals. This doctor reported that all the lesbian women he examined had an abnormally prominent clitoris. This relates back to chapter 5 when we were talking about Darwinism. According to Darwin, the better traits will succeed and get passed on to future generations. This physician is saying that the prominent clitorises of the homosexual females he examined were inherited through Darwin’s natural selection. This article also touches upon Francis Galton and his theories about eugenics. Galton wanted to control human breeding, and make a highly gifted race of men by encouraging certain people to reproduce. He also argued that people with undesirable traits should be discouraged from reproducing. This relates back to the article where LGTB and the Jews were undesirable.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-j-blumenfeld/overlapping-stereotypes-of-lgbt-people-and-jews-as-developmentally-immature_b_1925888.html
The article I read is titled Does True Love Wait? Age of First Sexual Experience Predicts Romantic Outcomes in Adulthood. It describes a study done by Paige Harden at the University of Texas who wanted to determine if the age of first sexual initiation in adolescence had an effect on long-term romantic outcomes. Using data from a National Adolescent Health Study, she was able to organize the sample into groups based on Early, On-Time, or Late initiation. The Late group had more success in Academics and had a higher income level. They were less likely to be married, but the ones that were married had less relationship problems.
Imagine if someone from back in the day heard about this study in the future! In their historicist perspective, they wouldn't understand why this study was even being conducted! This is also an extremely personalistic study. It focuses on personal factors rather than factors from the environment.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121017131845.htm
I read an article called “Out of the Binder, into the Kitchen: Working Women and Cooking.” It talked about the debate on Tuesday night and a comment that was made by Mitt Romney. Now, I didn’t have a chance to watch the debate myself, but I have heard people talking about it, and seen articles on the internet about it, but this article said that he made a comment about women in the work place, “binder full of women.” Apparently this isn’t the first comment he has made towards women like that. This comment must have set many people off, because when I go to these websites I see a lot of articles that are talking about his comment at the debate about a “binder full of women.” He had a comment when he was governor when someone asked him to talk about pay inequalities at work places, about changing a lady who worked for him to give her more flexible hours. This article talked about how people still expect women to do the cooking, and it gave the statistics of men compared to women doing the cooking and cleaning up after words, and the gender divides and what is socially acceptable.
This article made me think about chapter 6 and our discussion in class about how women were not equal to men and still today how there is that stereotype of the “men’s duties” and “women duties” . In the text it talked more about how women shouldn’t continue school after they hit puberty, because “too much mental activity after that stage could retard the development of their reproductive organs.” And both the text and the article used the term “women’s sphere” which is the idea that a woman is pictured as a wife and a mother. This article made me think back to the book how it told that women were considered to be “intellectually inferior to men.” It also relates to how the evolutionary theory went on to make the variability hypothesis which was an idea that members of a species were different from each other and it is a “natural selection to do its work.” In class we talked about how women were not considered to be equal to men, and I think that this comment made by Mitt Romney could have set many people off, especially those women who are out in the workplace making a living. I also think that it is stereotyping all women to becoming a wife and mother. Some women don’t want to have children yet society would picture that to be unacceptable.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/17/163091281/out-of-the-binder-into-the-kitchen-working-women-and-cooking
The news article I choose to talk about was from BBC News and titled, “Creativity closely entwined with mental illness”. This particular article struck me as fairly interesting because I have heard the saying, “writers have messed up childhoods/lives” on multiple occasions. This article is trying to say that research has found that writers in particular are twice as likely to commit suicide. Supposedly, they are also at greater risk for having some sort of mental illness diagnosis as well.
I found this article to be very eye opening. I think that the reason so many writers are good at what they do (writing) is because they tend to be very emotional and in turn, it shows in their work. If writers tend to be emotional, then surely they are in some form or another, possibly distraught. However, emotional writing is good reading is it not? It makes me feel really bad that writers are twice as likely to commit suicide, because I see them as such creative and compassionate minds at work. I hate to think that their writings may be fueled by emotional pain.
In conclusion, the article basically says that we shouldn’t look at all mental disabilities with a negative outlook. It mentions that people with mental issues tend to be better at focusing and directing their attention to their work. Thus, being more creative. So, can it be said that people with mental disabilities are not really disabled? I think as a society we have come to label people who are different as being disabled in one way or another. What if they are the ones who possess the powerful directed attentions to create masterpieces in the forms of art, music, and novels?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19959565
I read an article called “Health Benefits Of Breakfast: 7 Reasons Not To Skip Your Morning Meal”. I was drawn to this article because I am an individual who loves breakfast, but also doesn’t get a chance to eat it. I also wanted to look into more information about Breakfast and how it related to the brain. Everyone always says that Breakfast is important for brain functioning and that if you eat breakfast on a day when you have a test, you will have better outcomes. For these reasons, I thought that the article sounded really interesting.
When looking at the article I noticed that one of the pictures is of a phrenology chart. The words around the picture state that if you eat high-energy foods that are healthy for you at breakfast time, you could help boost your short term memory. I think that it’s interesting that breakfast seems to correlate positively with memory. The article bases this information off of a study that consisted of 13-20 year olds. The study had 319 teenage participants. The study itself was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. When all is said and done, the phrenology picture does not make sense for the captions around it, however, it did succeed in drawing my attention. I also appreciated how this article directly related to the brain and ways of improving the processes of the brain, such as “short-term memory”.
The article also talks about concentration. It states that concentration can be hindered if someone eats the wrong things for breakfast. For example, a high-calorie breakfast can hinder concentration. It is interesting that this article talks about the effects of different food or meals that we eat and their effects on concentration and memory. In a sense, it’s looking at the behavioral aspects of memory and concentration in relation to food consumption. I think this is very interesting! It is also a growing subject as nutrition was not as highly considered to be an aspect of knowledge in the past. However, many psychologists were raised in very strict practices or raised their children in a very strict way. Diets may have been included in this strict lifestyle in which certain foods or sweets may have been eliminated.
I like that the article addressed the effects of food on the brain. I think it would be fascinating if another field of psychology was created. This field could be “nutrition psychology”. It could look at the effects of various foods on the relative cognitive abilities of individuals. I really enjoyed this article and found that it connected a few topics with the psychologists and research discussed in previous chapters of our book.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/health-benefits-breakfast_n_1968248.html?ir=Healthy+Living#slide=1643866
The article I chose to write about I found at the Huffington Post website under the business section titled “Rust Belt Fatalism: Why Psychology is Important in City Making” by Richey Piiparinen. Because the end of chapter 8 focused on the application of psychology to the workplace I thought that this article would be a good example of how psychology can be also applied across multiple contexts and used to improve and compliment other disciplines. This article details the problems and negative thought processes associated with the urban decay prominent in the area of the country known as the ‘Rust Belt’. After defining this issue the author goes on to explain how the collapse of industry as the center of cities has led to a conditioned fear response characterized by the ‘fight or flight’ epidemic in these post-industrial cities such as Detroit. Offering a solution to this problem of the fear of loss inherent now in the culture of the Rust Belt Piiparinen suggests that this reaction must be framed in the psychological context to be remedied. He uses quotes from psychologist Jim Taylor to illustrate how the fear response is not the problem due to the fact that the eradication of fear is impossible, but through education and reconditioning the people of the Rust Belt must be able to confront fear more effectively and react constructively.
Overall, I thought the article was a bit vague and spent more time capturing the aesthetic of angst with a lengthy illustrative introduction and punk rock song lyrics (I’m not kidding) than providing any substantial psychological viewpoint about city planning. The title of the article is very misleading in itself; it offers no city planning insight at all, but is more of a cautionary tale about what can happen when an industrial city loses its main source of employment. The psychology portion of this article comes in as the author explains how the population of post-industrial cities in the Rust Belt have come to respond to a conditioned fear of loss by either moving in ‘flight’, or ‘fighting’ the urban decay by acting out in violence, and that this response must be corrected. The article however doesn’t elaborate specifically on how to go about this reconditioning to fear and leaves the reader with a confusing plea for the consideration of emotion when planning cities. While the article did have its positives, such as the call for education about the cause of the collapse of post-industrial cities and teaching how to appropriately react to fear, it was mostly just an expository piece on urban decay and the consequences of urban sprawl without providing any substantial psychological insight on the topic or supportive data at all. In conclusion, it was disappointing to see that a search of industrial psychology on a news website could lead to an article that is almost completely circumstantial, and could be misleading to those who don’t have a good understanding as to what industrial psychology actually is. I have a bad feeling that these articles are not so few and far between, but sincerely hope that they aren’t as misrepresentative of the field as this one.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richey-piiparinen/post_3533_b_1680129.html