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 decided to read dealt with IQ scores, which actually fits in perfectly with this weeks chapter. The article was about IQ test not only measuring intelligence, but also measuring the individuals motivation as well.
The article started out by saying that an individual who recieves a high IQ score has to have both high levels of motivation and high levels of intelligence. The reason for this being, if they don't have higher levels of motivation and competitiveness then they won't be driven to do well on the test and preform to their highest ability.
This article also discussed the idea of incentives. They threw out the idea that if an individual had incentives they would also preform better on the IQ test. They proved that incentived did in fact increease IQ scores, but they found that incentives increased the scores of those individuals with mostly low baseline scores.
I thought this article was fitting for this blog because I just finished reading the chapter, and it largely talked about Intelligence Testing, and that is solely what this article was about, and how to manipulate, and improve IQ scores. It also informed us that if an incentive is give, the scores are more than likely going to improve.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13156817
Chose to do my blog on an article called “Science & The Catholic Church: A Tumultuous History From Galileo To Stem Cells”. I chose this topic because I thought it related to our class greatly. We have been talking about how religious scientists were reluctant to publish their research because it went against the Catholic Church and they didn’t want the church to reject them. In this article it talks about Galileo and his Copernican view point. I remember learning about him in my Humanities class and I remember that it was really hard on him to have the church turn on him when he came up with an idea that contradicted their own idea. In the year 2000, the Church under the Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology for how they treated Galileo.
Galileo wasn’t the only one that the Church was upset with, but they were also upset with Darwin (which is mentioned in this article) because he also challenged the churches ideas about where we came from and how we adapted. The Church has also been evolving over the years and even though they initially rejected Darwin’s ideas on evolution they now believe that God created a universe where cosmic and biological evolution occurred. This is called the Theistic evolution. This happened around the end of the 20th century. This was a huge step for the Church in my opinion because they had to go out of there comfort zone and original beliefs and try something new.
This article basically talks about how both the Catholic Church and science have been working together and against each other since the 1600s. The point of this article is concerning the research being done in the area of stem cell research. The Church is against this type of research. They also didn’t agree with condom use thinking that the use of condoms is actually making the AIDS/HIV epidemic worse than it already is.
I think that this article really relates to psychology because Darwin had trouble with the Church along with multiple other people throughout history, and this article really shows that it has been happening for a very long time. I think that it is interesting that this article kind of portrays the Church as always being a step behind the world because they were against Galileo’s ideas and then they apologized and accepted it, and they did the same thing to Darwin. It is like science will make a discovery, the Church will reject it, and then either in a couple months or years the Church will accept the findings into their beliefs. I just find that humorous.
Last thing that I wanted to talk about that had to do with psychology have to do with men and women having equal rights. Everyone knows that in the Catholic Church women don’t really play that big of a part. They aren’t allowed to become Pope etc. but in this article a great statement was made. That statement was, “I do hope that this new pope [will recognize] things like equality between men and women. This would absolutely be justified from a science point of view.” I honestly love that line because even in psychology women have had to fight for their right to pursue certain careers. It seems like yet again the Church is one step behind what everyone else has already accepted like equality between men and women.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/12/science-catholic-church-galileo_n_2859063.html?utm_hp_ref=science
I chose to write a response on an article called, “Obama's Brain Activity Map: Good News for the Psychology of Religion”. I chose this article because it has everything to do with psychology along with the history of psychology. This article focuses on the research of the brain and religion. It is important to understand what psychology has done and will do for us. Throughout this course we have discussed how important religion was to the beginning of psychology and how research fueled psychology. Through trial and error research has raised important ideas and facts about many different things.
This article discusses how important research was to the point that President Bush in 1990 initiated the "Decade of the Brain" by making an official proclamation. Quoted from President Bush, “The human brain, a 3-pound mass of interwoven nerve cells that controls our activity, is one of the most magnificent -- and mysterious -- wonders of creation. The seat of human intelligence, interpreter of senses, and controller of movement, this incredible organ continues to intrigue scientists and layman alike." I believe this was important to the history of psychology because mentioned in our book psychology was not as important as it is today. The fact that there was a proclamation established toward the research of the brain was important to psychologist and researchers because it shows that what they’re helping change history.
As I stated this article discusses the important of religion. “For more than 100 years psychologists of religion have been investigating connections between brain activity and religious experience, going back to the pioneering efforts of William James, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.” This article is showing the awareness of people today about the development of psychology for the help of curing diseases and making connections from brain activity towards religious aspects of one’s life.
As of Feb 21, of this year President Obama showed his gratitude and understanding of what psychology does for our society. He made a statement about making efforts to explore the nature of the human brain. Quote form Obama, “Now, if we want to make the best products, we also have to invest in the best ideas. Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy -- every dollar. Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer's. ... Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation. Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race." Obama’s plan is called the "Brain Activity Map" that will coordinate efforts by governmental agencies, universities and private foundations to create a more comprehensive understanding of the brain's dynamic functioning. This will help bring more information to understand diseases and create cures. I really appreciate the fact that people in this society understand the importance of psychology.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-bulkeley-phd/obamas-brain-activity-map-good-news-for-the-psychology-of-religion_b_2782513.html?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science
Intelligence Testing:
The article that I chose to read focused on intelligence testing in the modern world. Although they were created what seems like a long time ago, they are still in used today. However, not in nearly the same way. As a psychology major, when I think of intelligence testing, I'm taught to think of the Stanford-Binet, which is still a very popular test. However, tests creators are busy working hard everyday to test and consider new concepts that they can include in their intelligence scales. That's what this article was able. Although we can credit scientists such as Galton, Binet, and Simon with creating the tests, they are constantly being changed and for good reasons.
Intelligence tests have been through a lot of scrutiny and skepticism over the years and now isn't any different. They have been dished out by some unreliable sources and have recently begun moving away from the focus of creating one, single IQ score. People have instead become reliant on new models of intelligence such as the Cattell-Horn-Carrol. This test emphasizes multiple cognitive abilities. Due to the popularity of this test, there is a new trend now to refer to intelligence as "cognitive ability". There is even becoming a new emphasis in these tests and people push for the intelligence tests to focus more on creativity, which is becoming more and more important in our changing society.
Another point the article put into consideration was the change in the use of these tests. They were originally created in China during the 19th century and then given out in France to be used on school children being tested for mental retardation. We now use them for all sorts of purposes such as scientific determinants. They also test a multitude of factors including heredity, morbidity, mortality, parental social status, and biological parent IQ; as well as correlations between the IQ and other factors. Intelligence tests more commonly are used as predictors of educational achievement, special needs, job performance, and income.
As I look back at the highlights of this article, I have quite a few opinions. I've always been very interested in intelligence testing, although I've never taken one myself. Knowing this, i decided to put "intelligence testing" into a search engine and see what I found. My results were astonishing. There were hundred of intelligence tests that claimed to be able to give you an instant answer on your exact level of intelligence. Yet, it seemed none of them were valid. After looking at the questions for a few, they seemed ridiculous. One of the testing sites was even named i-am-dumb.com. It almost seems like we are making a mockery our of testing for levels of intelligence. But how can we be surprised by that? Intelligence testing has been around for so long and has had a big impact on the lives and careers of certain people, I'm sure. However, why are we not being updated on current test? As a third year psychology major, I had no idea there was such a test as the Cattell-Horn-Carrol. What makes it so much better than that of the Stanford-Binet? What we need to do is focus the tests that we have, but unfortunately the tests are puling away from each other.
I'm also very fond of the point this article made about the tests focusing more on creativity. Machines can do just about anything today and that should scare us more than I think it does. We will someday get to a point were we don't even have to think anymore or be academic, yet a computer will never be able to create art and emotion the way humans do. They can never be programed to sculpt so much emotion and feeling into art such as Michelangelo's "David", for example. Our world is constantly changing and something that i would like to see change is the focus on creativity and its priority in our society.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman/intelligent-testing_b_829620.html
When looking for articles on Huffington Post’s websites I skimmed through the book and stumbled upon many different terms that I typed into the search engine. After typing in several different terms including evolution, maze studies, functionalism, memory, etc. I finally typed in intelligence testing and came across a very interesting article titled: Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism.
Throughout the book we have learned of many different examples on intelligence testing: Galton measured individual differences in sensory responses to measure relationships in ability, also there were many theories like the periodic function/ variability hypothesis that held that women were less intelligent than men, intelligence testing was used in puzzle boxes and mazes, and lastly the main focus of the most recent chapter assigned was mental testing. In chapter 8 we learned how Cattell built off of Galton and really started the movement toward more mental testing, however his tests could not be correlated with academic performance. Following Cattell, Ebbinghaus and Binet/Simon both expanded on this testing and decided to put more of an emphasis on cognitive rather than sensory processes. Following these psychologists was Goddard who translated these tests and brought them to America he believed that mental deficiency was inherited. Next Terman institutionalized intelligence and revised the Binet test which resulted in the Stanford-Binet test. This is one of the best known intelligence tests and it scores a person based on their IQ which is the ratio of one’s mental age to their chronological age.
The main point of this article, like the title says, is to find out whether or not there was a correlation between IQ scores and being prejudice, racist, or conservative. What researchers found was that children who scored low on these IQ tests often grew older and developed these traits. Although it goes on to talk about the debatable validity of these tests the conclusion that they come to is: in a complex and confusing world those who are less intelligent tend to fall back on more conservative views because they are hesitant to change. Change confuses them and messes with their structure and order. When people hold certain ideologies it creates easier solutions and as I learned in sociology, those who don’t have a niche/feel unimportant in the world tend to unite and adopt these ideologies of racist and prejudice just so they feel a sense of belonging.
This was a very interesting study to read about and my opinion is split half and half on the matter. I agree that in some ways these tests may just be coincidence and that if we measured those with higher IQs we may find an equal correlation, to make this even more valid I think that they needed to show the complimentary side of the research as well. However I can see where those with low IQ’s are less susseptible to change; take the older generation for instance. My parents are both very technologically disabled so when there work places talked about implementing iPads and different technologies they were very hesitant and this shows their conservative side in a way: they are afraid of change and want to stick to what they know and are comfortable with. The whole idea of racism to makes sense to me, I can see how those who are less intelligent adapt to these types of ideas to give themselves the feeling of power because they can degrade others and conform to an idea, whereas most others who are more intelligent know better, or at least we like to think so.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/intelligence-study-links-prejudice_n_1237796.html
After reading and listening to a few articles I came across one on the camouflaging of quail eggs. I found it quite interesting to listen to. The article revolved around the Japanese quail and it’s assortment of eggs. The Japanese quail a small ground bird that lays its eggs on the ground come nesting time. The number one predator of this quail is the fox. The thing that caught Karen Spencer’s eye was the amount of variation in the eggs pattern, from one quail to the next. How one female’s nest of eggs would have spots and the next would have none, almost a clear indicator of what female had laid what eggs. What if the pattern had to do with hiding the egg from predators and the females choose to where to lay them according to that pattern? A simple yet testable hypothesis, one that was brought about by Spencer and Lovell. An experiment that involved taken five different colored sand types and placing the sand with quails in an enclosure, and letting them do their thing. To their surprise the quails laid eggs on the sand that best camouflaged their eggs, according to the spots color or the background color of the egg. Lighter background colored eggs on lighter colored sand and dark spotted eggs on darker colored sand, something known as disruptive coloration.
I choose this article for a few reasons, the main one being it was easy for me to relate to what we have learned and read. The first being that of the naturalistic theory, the importance of the environment and the situational forces that shape history. I can relate this article/study to the extent that the environment provided different surroundings for the quail’s to lay their eggs in’ an attempt to protect their offspring from being devoured by their predators, (being the situation). This leads me to Darwin’s theory of evolution which we can derive natural selection from; only those organisms that can adapt to the varying changes are more likely to survive. In this case the Japanese quail are adapting to the different types of environment (nature) in order to preserve and pass on their attributes to the next generation. We can also say, this is in part due to the quail’s instinct. An ability Spalding said required no experience necessary and was a result of direct sensory experience early in life, passed down through genes. On a more resent and knowledgeable note there is the use of a independent variable (five types of sand) and dependent variable (egg color and pattern) in the experiment used above. Which were narrowed down from the term “experiment” and referred to as part of correlational research, all by a man by the name of Robert S. Woodworth.
http://www.psychologicalscience.com/history/2012/12/topical-blog-week-9-due-thursday-2.html
The article I chose to read was “America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA).” I chose to read this article because I am very interested in the way humans and nations handle tragedies such as the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Michael Moore sited the photos of Emmett Till that sparked the Civil Rights Movement and media coverage from My Lai in Vietnam which caused the American public to put a foot down against unnecessary violence and war. In both of these cases, Americans were exposed to grotesque images, evidence of the true horrors that were taking place.
Since then, the government and those in power have gotten smart about keeping the lay public content. We have simply been shielded from the terrible truths of our country by way of media blockage. There were few photos leaked from troops in the War on Terrorism, and it has gone on for nearly a decade. Do we really have any idea what is going on over there?
The tragic massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary is yet another dark side of our violent society that we have chosen to let pass by. Since Columbine, absolutely nothing has been done to protect our citizens from such catastrophes. Since then, there have been over 30 mass shootings. The author believes if we get the images of these events out in the media, people will finally be called to action into doing something to stop this. He believes someone is going to leak the photos from the crime scene or from the few open casket funerals of the young bodies destroyed at Sandy Hook Elementary.
I was very interested to read about this subject. I do not know what needs to be done or how we can, as a society, go about fixing this problem. What I do know is something needs to be changed. We cannot allow this type of violence to linger. Perhaps Moore is right; perhaps all it will take is some terrible images to put a fire under America’s butt. Whatever needs done, we can only hope that we will come to the right conclusion before there is another tragedy like this one.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/newtown-gun-control_b_2866126.html
The article I chose to write about has to do with the rapid increase in the diagnosis of ADHD. It has many people thinking, is something going on health wise or is it something else. The American Academy of Neurology has recently come out against the unethical prescription of drugs to fix it. They say that a lot of people taking these drugs for ADHD are actually healthy.
The article especially speaks out against prescription of these drugs to children. Because there brain is still developing and it is hard to predict how the drug with effect development. It is especially more serious because the child really has no say in whether or not they take the drug. If the parent and the doctor both agree on using the drug, the child has no choice. This puts a lot of pressure on the parents and doctors to be ethical and make the best decision for the child. I am not a parent myself, but other articles I have read have talked about parents not being able to handle the natural "hyperness" of their children because they are busy and work so hard. The drug sounds like the best solution because it is an immediate, simple solution.
Instead of going right to the prescription of the drug, we should attempt to use techniques such as operant conditioning to try and shape the behavior of the child to a more manageable one. These techniques are a natural and proven way to permanently modify the behavior. The only downside is that they take a lot of time and effort. In the long run though, it is the best and most permanent solution. We should educate parents on these techniques when they come to the doctor with these complaints.
This article focuses on one type of drug. It attempts to bring awareness to the issue of ADHD and the high increase in diagnosis over the last couple years. It is not to say that other prescription drugs aren't abused either. I think it is just natural in the society we live in today to take medication for everything. This article should also remind us to not abuse other proscription drugs. Though this issue will not go away anytime soon, we should take more ethical consideration into account when facing them in your own life.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/13/174193454/neurologists-warn-against-adhd-drugs-to-help-kids-study
The article that I chose to do was titled “Is Having a Child a Rational Decision?” through the NPR website. I chose to read this article because when I was looking through the different articles in the NPR website this one stuck out to me as kind of absurd. I had never thought about people really choosing to have a baby as a rational choice, kind of saying, “A baby could be a smart move at this point in life”. Some examples of authors had made points about how having a child is detrimental to your way of living and really having children could be in some people’s worst interest.
A really interesting thing I found about this article was how it compared having a baby to being something you wouldn’t know how you would do or how you would feel until it actually happened to you. An example of this was a story written by Frank Jackson where he gives the story of a hypothetical girl named Mary who has all the knowledge of how the visual cortex of the brain generate perceptions of color and so she knew all about how color was made in one’s brain. Then Jackson turns the story into how Mary had grown up in a cell that was just black and white and she had never seen the color red but had learned so much about colors and the optical effects of those colors. What Jackson is doing is he is playing on how the thought of you don’t know what having a kid is like, or seeing red for the first time, until you experience it for yourself and not just read all about it.
The way I could relate what we have learned so far in psychology would be the ideas of Darwin. The way I would describe this is by human beings wanting to pass on their genetics and overall survive. With this, we can see that humans are pleasure seeking and pain avoiding creatures which is good because if they have these skills they will survive in the world. I never thought about it like this but what if having kids or not having kids was just another survival technique demonstrated by human beings to help them. The thought is that it seems you will have kids or won’t have kids based on your perception of the outcome where it will either help you survive or not.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/11/173977133/is-having-a-child-a-rational-decision
For this week's topical blog assignment, I went to NPR and read/listened to "The 'Nasty Effect': How Comments Color Comprehension." Being particularly interested in psychological findings (rather than the psychologists who discovered them), the word "Effect" reeled me into that specific article. Perception is also my favorite subfield of psychology, and this article was clearly about the way we perceive the world, so that was another reason I wanted to listen to it. Lastly, I found it to be very pertinent. Most people today stay in contact with the world (by means of news and social media) online. It's a modern phenomenon that cannot necessarily be explained by the kinds of theories we read in textbooks. I was interested in learning about something that directly applied to the everyday lives of those in the 21st century.
The internet is a notorious outlet for bullying-- many go so far as to make ad hominem attacks on people for their own pleasure. People are also much more uninhibited online about their opinions,which likely has to do with the fact that the users are completely anonymous and don't have the real-world repercussions of dealing with those with different outlooks in person.
People who see a story online and read the subsequent comments are readily affected by the tone of those comments. For those who read comments with a positive tone, they show no reaction to the story-- positive or negative. However, those who read comments after a story that have a negative tone are much more likely to have a negative perception of the article.
This bias is fed by the fact that we use heuristics to organize our thoughts and perception of the world. Because there is so much to take in and the mind seeks shortcuts to everything-- forming stereotypes and generalizations, we use the tone of other people's comments to form our own opinion of an article we are reading online. Thinking the article through for ourselves seems to be too much of a burden. It's much easier to digest the tone and opinions of others and accept them as our own.
The speaker on this specific talk says that it's important that we control and moderate the "trolls" online. This will affect the perceptions of others regarding the content of the article they are reading. Moreover, those that have genuinely thought an article through will be more likely to comment if these trolls are eliminated. People who have genuine opinions toward a story are less likely to comment when they see jokesters with outrageous comments posting on the same story because they do not want to be a part of that discussion. This whole process spirals out of control-- we repeatedly see those with outrageous opinions posting and clueless readers digesting their tone, while those with genuine interest shy away for fear that they will be lumped into that group of trolls.
I think this talk/article applies to what we've been learning in class for a multitude of reasons. For one, I think that this very assignment is an extension of the "hybrid class" Dr. Maclin is always talking about. When we listened to the TED talk, "School in the cloud", the speaker spoke about the importance of learning about those things that have genuine interest for the person, as they are far more likely to retain that information if they have a personal connection to the information. This kind of learning is driven by sheer curiosity, not a push by an instructor with the threat of a test. With this particular article that I picked out, I would have listened to it regardless of whether I *had* to write a comment on this blog about it.
The learning becomes more pertinent and more genuine in this way.
It also applies because in this last week, we have read in Chapter 8 a fair amount about perception. While this chapter focused mainly on optical perception and illusions, stories like these are just as much about perception-- just on a higher level, referring to the way we organize our beliefs. In general, I think people overlook the importance of perception, relating it directly to our senses. However, perception is all about the higher order functioning that follows our sensory stimuli. We gather our information about the world through our senses, but it is our perception that colors our opinion of it, our beliefs about it, and affects what kinds of things we end up retaining in the long run. In this way, I see perception relating to *everything*, so it can of course be applied to this class.
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/11/174027294/the-nasty-effect-how-comments-color-comprehension
The article I chose to read was titled, Alabama's Governor Signs Education Bill Allowing School Choice. The gist of the article was about the governor of Alabama signing a bill that will give a tax credit to those parents who decide to send their child or children from a failing public school to another public or private school. After reading through the article it seemed that there was more going on behind closed doors with the Democratic and Republican Party, surprising I know, on the legality of the bill being passed. From what I understand the bill started off more as a measure of flexibility given to schools to allow different students in; to a school choice bill. It also seemed that there was a controversy with the bill being worded different once it got adopted, once example is the bill was supposed to state that the schools could pick which students they will and will not accept but the final version had no such statement.
I can see the benefits and consequences to both sides, however I found myself leaning towards consequences and this could be because I didn’t have anyone questioning my thoughts. First off, it doesn’t seem like the most logical solution to the problem of better or fair education. As an assumption, one could assume those people who are going to utilize this bill are the ones who really need the tax credit and really want to better educate their child, but also do everything they can at home; and then there’s going to be those people who just want the tax credit for a personal gain. I understand that’s rude to say but it’s true, some children’s environments are not stable environments to begin with and some people could care less if their child got a proper education and when you think of the cost or transit time to take them to better schooling there can be some major drawbacks. This doesn’t mean that just because of their environmental state that they shouldn’t be allowed a better education, why not opt to bring in better materials or equipment into the school, what if we allowed a tax credit for that district if the school or parents of the school, with improvement. What good is it going to do if you transfer students from a shitty broken down school, to a nice school. You still have a shitty broken down school; it doesn’t just go away, and you’re still going to have students who weren’t allowed into better schools or their parents opted not to take the tax credit.
Another point being what about the schools you’re taking them to, first off did anyone ask the students what they would prefer? Here we have old men and woman trying to pass a bill that doesn’t affect them, they’re not the ones going to school every day. Why not go right to the students and get their opinion, I bet it would bring up a lot more pros and cons also because these kids live that life of poverty or wealth and they will have input that people in legislature don’t even realize.
There’s so many more issues about this bill that comes to mind, and I could take forever to write about it but ultimately I chose this article because it comes back down to education and it reminded me about in previous chapters how the rich were the ones who got to go to graduate/doctoral school and everyone just existed. This article made me also realize of the documentary we watched about learning being obsolete. The overall point of that video was those children in third world countries taught themselves to learn on technology they’d never seen, why not think of these poverty-stricken schools as third world countries and instead of giving tax breaks to the parents; take that money and give the students technology and let them try learning and teaching themselves things. I personally am so much eager to get on an Ipad and be told I can find an article, video, etc then open a text book; even if my assignment either way is to learn about functionalism.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/14/174297267/alabamas-governor-signs-education-bill-allowing-school-choice
The name of the article I chose is “As Global Chains Move In, The Champs Elysees Gets A New Look” on the NPR website. This was the first article I saw and I was immediately hooked. This summer I did Camp Adventure in Europe so I had the opportunity to do some travelling in Europe and one of the places I got to go was Paris. We visited all the major sites including the Champs Elysees. It was a very fun and busy street that defiantly had a charm to it.
In this article it is asking the question, “due to global chains on the Champs Elysees is it losing its charm?” I feel like the answer is leaning towards yes. In fact all over Europe this is kind of true. Europe is such a historical continent but yet there seems to be a McDonalds in most cities and even small towns. I feel like it just takes away some class from the history of it all.
Now to relate this all to psychology; we are changing the face of historical sites with our corporate businesses. We use psychology in our businesses to sell our products. Like in the ethos documentary we have to watch where we spend our money because where we spend our money we give those businesses power; the power to take historical sites such as the Champs Elysees and chip away at its charm.
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/14/174320146/as-global-chains-move-in-the-champs-elysees-gets-a-new-look
Since we have been discussing technology and education I chose to write about Michael K. Powell. The TED of All Things article. The article discusses how technology has impacted youth today. He focuses on two teens. One of which came up with a test for pancreatic cancer and the other came up with a compact fission reactor that runs for thirty years without refueling and is small enough to be built in a factory and shipped anywhere. Both of these kids used the internet to help them develop their projects.
This article proves how well technology has been meshed into today's generation. If this kind of technology had been around during Goddard's period of IQ Testing I can't imagine how drastically intelligence testing would have changed. Terman believed that although some children were better than others at different subjects they should still continued to be educated. That is still true today of course. But what if educators were to teach using computers and the internet? With this technology maybe those who lack in one subject area could better themselves in that area. These kids developed a pancreatic cancer test and a reactor on their own time. What else could this generation do if they were being taught with technology? I'm betting a lot more could be learned, and a lot more advances could be made.
Powell states while discussing the internet, "Until a generation that knows no different takes the reigns and shows us the true power of what we've created, its full potential will be unknown." This statement could be taken in many different ways. However, the way I take this is he already knows that eventually technology will blossom but right now it is stuck in one spot. Until we catch up with is we will never truly know what we can do with it. We have been given something with a lot of potential. Times change, generations progress and we learn to adapt to those changes. It took years before women like Leta Hollingworth could be accepted into society as a professionals. Technology is like the women of Binet, Terman, and Goddard's time. Like everything else in history humans will develop a likeness for this change.
I spent a lot of time looking through articles on all of the three sites suggested to us. Not because I had to but because I kept seeing interesting articles that I had never heard anything about. Of course not everything I read immediately made me think of the lessons I have been learning in my History and Systems class but when I tried relating these articles to the class I began to see connections. In particular one article really seemed to make me think about the conversations we have had in class.
The article I have chosen to talk about is Google Glass. Dr. Maclin introduced us to this new piece of technology, but this article really made the topic of Glass relate to the class. I found it interesting how people are viewing Glass, and why they feel the way they do.
Glass is being viewed as something that only the upper crust of the social class can afford. They are being seen as a primary technological advance that could be seen as evolutionarily important. The reason this is so is because of the Darwinian theory of evolution. Glass fits into evolution because the ones that can afford the new piece of technology that is supposed to make our lives easier will give them the most benefit and allow them to have more success. Just as Dr. Maclin has talked about in class the newest evolutionary pressure comes not from physical genetic changes but how well we can adapt to new technology. The technology is the same as adapting to changing environments which is what evolution is all about.
Another aspect of Glass that is talked about in this article is how Glass is being rejected by the majority of the population. Although most of the population has never seen used Glass or even seen it in person they are forming their own ideas about the product from Google about how un-fashionable the product is. This rejection goes back to the history of glasses themselves. Although glasses provided us with benefits to see better they were originally thought of as ridiculous because of how they made the wearer look. Eventually through early forms of advertisements glasses became acceptable, which is expected to take place with Glass.
The reasons Glass is being rejected is not the only interesting thing about the rejection. The most interesting thing is that like so many times in the past people are rejecting something for a number of reasons. For one they are rejecting it because they do not understand it. The second reason is because they likely are not willing to change the way they are used to living. This new product will likely cause anyone that wants to remain current with technology to change their views and continue to adapt to the newest piece of technology. Glass also has the possibility to make other computers obsolete because they can easily be used anywhere. Glass will likely lead to the end of the smartphone because this way one will not have to carry it around because it will be on their face. We have seen new things be rejected throughout time and eventually when the product has shown how beneficial it can be it is granted the acceptance of the people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bianca-bosker/google-glass_b_2863848.html?utm_hp_ref=technology
The Article that I chose, Neurologist Warn Against ADHD Drugs To Help Kids Study, was from the NPR. I choose this article because it has been frequently related to my life. Midterms week might have brought on this increase in the topic. We all know that there is an area of misuse, and misdiagnosis when it comes to ADHD, but do we know how much of an issue it is becoming. My mother who is a nurse practitioner struggles with this area of diagnosis. The drug is being used as an academic edge, and also leading to misuse by those prescribed to the drug. I have several friends who are prescribed to this drug, and it is a common occurrence that they switch brands or dosage when classes increase or test times are occurring. One thing that the article hits on that I would like to learn more about is the difference of brands, he mentions Adderall as the most risky. It makes me question what the drugs do that are different, and the side effects of each. My mother phrases these medications as prescribed meth. This might be an extreme perspective, but a perspective of someone in the medical field. Another thing that the article hits on is that parents are asking for this drug to help their students in school. Going back to the progressive education era and the categorical development of special needs or talented and gifted. Society is putting this new pressure on students academics. The most common diagnosis of ADHD is in elementary boys, and their brains have not fully developed. The impairment of this medication on brain development isn’t being presented transparently. We talked about the idea of grouping people based on ablity or age in class today, and this is just another example of stressors put on society. One thing that was not brought up in class is the act of No Child Left Behind. What is going on with our education system? People are using drugs to excel or maintain average, parents are enforcing this. It makes me sick! I could rant all day about the education system, however, this is more about ADHD. The second part that I took from this article to apply to what I am learning in Abnormal Psychology. The DSM is a controversial yet highly used manual in the health care field. Using the categorical approach it segregates each disorder with specific criteria. The tasks for ADHD are common in every elementary student. Therefore, when health care providers come across this a patient most likely meets the criterion for diagnosis. I am curious to see what revisions are made in the fifth addition that will appear in May. We started creating scales in the history of psychology for almost every area in the first portion of development and now what has it evolved to. We have scales for measurement, data, intelligence, and more. We created them so early on, it makes me wonder if any were created wrong. ADHD is just on the uproar but in some circles I am sure other things are just as high of a controversy. In chapter eight we learned about the use of psychology developing in each area of study. It is occurring to me that psychology is every where you look and it can all be broken down into simple questions that relate to the history of psychology.
Key terms: Attention deficit disorder, evolution, psychological education, Adderall, DSM, Diagnosis, development, intelligence, IQ deviation,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/13/174193454/neurologists-warn-against-adhd-drugs-to-help-kids-study
I looked through some of the sites that you listed, and tried to find intelligence testing on a couple sites. At first I could not find anything that was worth my while. I then checked out the NPR site and did some research in order to fins an article that was about intelligence testing. I came across an audio tape that was about an author who had written a book about how the idea of IQ testing should not be the only thing that is important in the school system. I thought that his was awesome because it was relevant to what we were talking in class about today. The audio had some key points that we discussed in class in ways that the school system might be flawed now a days. One of the main reasons that he felt that the system might have some issues was because of kids coming out of college are lost because the road was so easy getting there and passing, so he felt they were never challenged. Another point that I felt he was trying to get across is that the school system does not teach grit or curiosity. I sat there listening and thought this is exactly what we talk in class about, so I was agreeing with him 100 percent on that argument. He then went on to talk about this study that he read about rats and their babies. The man had been doing research about psychology and neuroscience for the book he was writing, and came across this study on rats. Anyways, he talked about the study and how attachment might be a way for success in children when they get older. I just wanting to talk about what he said, and my views on what he said along with what we talked about in class today.
I liked the point he made about the school system, and how it might be flawed. I believed in the things that he was saying because I have been through the school system, and could tell you the ins and outs of it. The man made an awesome point about how schools do not teach children grit or curiosity. It is true what he is saying, and understand where he is coming from . The system only teaches us the basics, and how to get good grades, and what we need to know to get to the next grade. Not once when I was in grade school or high school did I take a class on how it was going to be finding a job, or what to expect when I graduated from college. The point that he and I are trying to make is that we are not prepared to do the things in the "real world". Yes, we learn our math, science, history, and so on, but we do not learn how to deal with real world situations. We talked about his a lot in class on last thursday about what we do when we are unemployed. You made an interesting comment about how we can be productive when we are unemployed. We could use our skills that we have to be active in the community such as volunteer work. This is something that college will never teach you. No one knows what to do when they lose their job, and it is happening to tons of Americans around the world. Another thing that the man mentioned, and something that we also talked about in class was this thing called curiosity. You tell us to write about what made us curios while we were reading the chapter. I have not had a class that has made me express my opinion like that, but I have those curiosities all the time while I am reading other material for classes. I think that it is important to be able to express your opinion on certain issues because when you are out trying to find a job or looking for your first job, you are going to need to be curious, you are going to need that grit he is talking about. I think the guy nailed it on the head with this argument, and it just further emphasized what we were talking about in class.
Another one of his points that I found interesting to hear about was the fact that we are not challenged in the class room. The fact that some students graduate from high school or college, and then have no clue as what to do. The fail because they have never been challenged in the classroom. He thought that he was easy to go through high school or college and graduate with a degree. Teachers/system push people through in order to get them out without caring what the person has learned, or not learned for that matter. This relates to what we talked about in class because we thought that the school system was flawed. We said that we did not know what the school system was, but that we should fix it. I sat there, and thought how can we change the system if we do not know what it is? I think that the school system has change dramatically since the start of it, and know it is lost. We do not know what it consists of because it has changed so much. It is not this finally tuned machine that is was when it first started. It has been tampered with to the point that we as a class, and probably society, think that it had been lost. I agreed with this totally while sitting in class, but the idea of changing something that is intangible seemed really hard to me. You stressed the idea of not settling, and thinking of ways to change the system, but I was never on board. The idea of taking down the monster that is the education system just seems impossible. Its ways are so ingrained that it will never change because of its size, and lack of wanting to change. Yes, it might be flawed, but I do not see any drastic changes coming in the future. The man believed that we are not being challenged enough in the classroom which I agree with, but what are some ways in which we can be challenged? I guess I did not get a clear answer from the audio or class today, and was disappointed because I agree with what everyone is saying, but no one has a clear answer for change.
The last major point that I thought was interesting was the one he made about the rats and their babies. There was a study on a group of rats and their moms, and how some rats were licked by their mothers after being held by humans while others were not. The rats that were licked by their mothers ventured from their mothers, and parts of their brains were different from the rats that were not licked by their mothers. The point of this study was to see if attachment had anything to do with the willingness to try new things. The man thought that there was some correlation between attachment and if a person was successful in life. He told a story about a girl that was sexually assaulted as a child, and was not attached with her parents at all, but after enrolling in intensive therapy she graduated high school, and is now going to beauty school. He was trying to prove that once she had a secure attachment she was able to succeed in life. I agreed with what he was trying to say. I might be stretching out on a limb here, but his kind of brings up the poverty vs privilege argument with the Kallakiks. People who live in lower income families might not have the best parents who are attached to their children and vice versa. Whereas a child who grew up in money had loving mother and father that took after them and were securely attached too. The child who was in privilege might be better off in school, and willing to advance themselves. A child who grows up in poverty in probably the complete opposite and might fail in school. I think that this point might have actually gone against his argument. I say this because the whole time he was talking about how experiences give us this grit that the school system can not teach. I sat there listening and thought what better way gain this grit then grow up in a situation that was not as favorable. As bad as hat sounds I believe in what he was saying before the rat study he talked about. Children with these experiences are the ones that succeed after graduation because they have seen hard times, and have had the experiences unlike someone who was given everything.
All over it was a great audio, and I believe it pertained well to what we talked about in class. I agreed with his arguments about grit/curiosity, the flawed school system, and somewhat with the rat study. I wanted to talk about one question before I finish up, and that is why do we care about the flawed school system. While sitting in class I was thinking, and wondered why any of us cared about why the system was flawed. I say this because I was looking around and I saw individuals who had been through the system, and made it out fine. Everyone in the class had graduated from high school, and is now in an elite level of learning. The system could not have been all that bad if you had made it this far. The system has done its job in producing an individual who will graduate with a college degree. I mean is that not enough to ask for? Yes, I agree totally that there is flaws, but why are we talking about change when we ourselves have made it out on the other side? Is it because we have been through it, and do not want other children to experience what we did?
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/04/160258240/children-succeed-with-character-not-test-scores
The article I found had to do with how we act differently online. This article made me think of how the current role of evolution on humans is through technology. Here is a prime example of how our social interactions are being manipulated and changed by the internet. People no longer have to converse face-to-face and are able to virtually say things that they would not normally say. When I read this, I thought of social Darwinism, which applies Darwinist thinking to social behaviors. Because of the way that we are able to communicate has changed, our actual communication skills have also changed.
According to this article, people not only try to control how they are perceived online, but also report lower levels of self-esteem. This constant exposure to a faceless interactive world is proving to be detrimental to social interactions. According to the article, people want to impress their "friends" and thus present themselves differently than how they actually are. One of the main reasons people are able to get away with acting differently online is because it is easier to like or hate an online persona than an actual person.
I liked this article because it shows that we are still evolving and changing. Darwin's theories are not over and done with; they are still happening and affecting humanity every single day.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/facebook-psychology-7-reasons_n_1951856.html
I chose to read an article on Monarch or black and orange butterflies in Mexico. Once covering 50 square acres in Mexico, Monarchs now only cover less than three. This 59% decrease in butterflies began seven to eight years ago. This is believed to be happening because the feeding grounds of the butterflies are becoming fewer. Because of genetically modified and herbicide-tolerant crops, farmers have eliminated the butterflies main source of food, milkweed. Along with the loss of nearly 150 acres of milkweed, the excess heat from previous summers could also be a factor.
This article relates to the sections discussing Charles Darwin and his theories and is an example of Darwin’s struggle for existence. The struggle for existence states that population growth surpasses food supply. This is what happens with the butterflies in the article. There was not enough food to sustain the quantity of butterflies so the population severely decreases. This article also represents Darwin’s the central idea to Darwin’s evolutionary theory—natural selection. The monarch butterfly population is downsizing therefore, the monarch attributes are not succeeding to the nest generation.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/14/174307345/monarch-butterflies-population-falls-to-record-low-mexican-scientists-say
Will men and machines merge?
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121108-will-men-and-machines-merge
Ray Kurzweil: How to Create a Mind
http://singularitysummit.com/videos/ray-kurzweil-how-to-create-a-mind/
The first site is an interview excerpt with Ray Kurzweil, who speaks about the evolution of technology and how technology can be merged with the human brain. In the second link, Kurzweil gives more information about his vision of how the brain microchip will help society. Kurzweil believes that by 2029 humans will have computer chips embedded in their brains which will allow access of all human knowledge and informational guidance. For example, the computer brain will anticipate the host’s questions and offer the information or advice when the host seems confused about a situation. We have talked before about Google glasses, and the first thought that came to my mind during that discussion was: “why not a chip set directly in the brain?” – It turns out they are working on it.
Kurzweil stated that everyone will have access to wealth and resources if we all have this chip. He would like humans to have this unlimited communication capability in order to promote understanding and knowledge across cultures. Kurzweil believes that communication across nations will also promote peace, and he believes that the world will not be in as much competition for resources due to technological capabilities like 3-D printing and an implanted brain chip.
My biggest concern about a microchip implanted in the brain would be the privacy of thoughts. I am constantly hearing about hackers getting into private accounts and accessing information. I would want to be sure there is no way to read people’s thoughts which are meant to be private. I am curious about access of the chip, and if it will be available for all who want one or only to those who can afford it.
We spoke about IQ testing in class today, and I wondered if there would be a situation where someone might get rejected from joining “the Borg” (or Cloud) and if they consider mental incapacity or mental instability as reasons to be excluded. This evolution of technology may not be accepted by all (i.e. the Amish live separately), and maybe the collective Cloud will not accept all the people.
The concept of sharing knowledge through a brain implant is fascinating, and Kurzweil says that, as people communicate through the cloud, verbal conversation will not be necessary. As we discuss ways to improve the education system in class, people like Kurzweil are working to make the education system even more obsolete; sometime in the near future we will access information instantly without having to learn it in class, without having to read anything, and without carrying a cumbersome gadget like an IPad, laptop or phone.
I liked this idea of using a new question for our second paper of the week but finding a topic for this week proved to be surprisingly difficult. I spent a good hour+ just reading a news article, which is something I rarely every do. So it was an interesting to do something different.
I chose to read about the over prescription of ADHD drugs and how people are using them for academic purposes. The people that are taking them and causing a problem are not those diagnosed with ADHD, they are people who are buying the ADHD drugs off of people who have been diagnosed. This can be dangerous, taking medication that isn’t prescribed to you, especially if the negative side-effects can be amplified by another drug that you are currently taking.
I chose this topic because I thought it related to the recent topic of IQ and other intelligence testing. The need to score high on these intelligence tests is so high, that people are going out of their way to spend money and possibly endanger themselves just to slightly increase their scores on a test. The trade-offs don’t seem worth it to me. I wonder if Goddard ever thought that he would make people so stressed out from standardized tests (like the ACT which is somewhat similar to the test he gave ) that they would put their bodies in danger just so they could score a little bit higher.
It’s not just dangerous what people are doing, but just ethically wrong. The problem isn’t just people selling and buying the drugs, it’s also that they have become so readily available because it is very easy to be diagnosed with ADHD. The amount of people who have been diagnosed within the last decade has skyrocketed. According to NPR.org, the number of people diagnosed has rose 24 percent.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD, granted it was well over 10 years ago, but it makes me think how serious the diagnosis is. Am I a legitimate case? Or am I just the start of the rapid increase of diagnoses?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/13/174193454/neurologists-warn-against-adhd-drugs-to-help-kids-study
RB
The article that I chose was over education and extending the school year. In particular, the article focused on the benefits of extending the amount of days of school, as well as the negatives. To some, extending the school year has great benefits for students. Some of those advantages include providing students with healthy lunches for more days out of the year. Students will also have the advantage of being in school longer, so as to cover more material and information in their school year. By extending the school year, students will also be able to enjoy longer breaks like thanksgiving and winter break. All year schooling to some does more harm than good. Specifically, those persons main argument is that children are not meant to go to school for the better part of the year. Students need summer breaks to get away from being overwhelmed and to provide leisure time with family and friends. Children need to get out and play.
I chose this article from because of the discussion we had in class last time. In discussing how the current education system may be flawed, I felt that this article may apply as a new approach to education.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/longer-school-year-will-i_n_2468329.html?utm_hp_ref=education-reform
The topic that interested me was Hugo Munsterberg, who was a pioneer in applied psychology. The first site explains how he was a German-American psychologist and was interested in Industrial/Organizational, legal, educational, and business settings. While still living in Germany his passion for psychology grew after hearing a lecture presented by Wilhelm Wundt. Munsterberg ended up working for Wundt as his research assistant, and in 1885 he earned his PhD in physiological psychology. Two years later, Munsterberg went on to the University of Freiburg and earned a medical degree. His studies sparked an interest in attention processing; how the mind learns, perceives, and processes memory. While still in Germany at Freiburg, Munsterberg was promoted to assistant professorship. There he met William James at the First International Congress of psychology. After becoming friends, James invited Munsterberg to America in hopes that he would tend Harvard University and help in the psychology lab. Munsterberg accepted the offer even though he did not speak English at the time; however, it only took him two years to master the language. His ideas were popular with the young American students and he became a supervisor for psychology graduate students. Munsterberg was influential to many students including Mary Calkins. He was fair, nonbiased, and welcomed both male and female students. Munsterberg’s career was off to a good start, in 1898 he became president of the American Psychological Association, and ten years later he became president of the American Philosophical Association. Munsterberg had a profound respect for America, but Germany was always in his heart that is why he was interested in improving the relationship between Germany and the United States. He believed each culture needed to have a better understanding of the other. Munsterberg’s popularity in America began to decline around WWI, because of his support for German politics. He was against the idea of forming alien parties in the United States; he thought it was, “a crime against the spirit of true Americanism.” He upset many Americans with his political views. Munsterberg’s pro German attitude had many people believe that he was a German spy. Although most of his friends and colleagues shunned him, he still remained at Harvard as a professor of experimental psychology until 1916 when he suddenly died while giving a lecture to his class.
The second site points out a few facts about Hugo Munsterberg. First of all he was considered to be the “Father of Forensic Psychology.” Munsterberg wanted to use scientific research and apply it to the real world. As a psychological scientist and researcher, Munsterberg was interested in studying human behavior, especially a person’s memory when it comes to witnessing a crime. It was interesting to know when it came to the banning of alcohol during the prohibition, Munsterberg tried to point out the psychological affects it would have on the members of society. He even published an article in McClure’s magazine explaining there was nothing wrong with normal alcohol consumption. I think he believed it went against the rights of the people living in a free society, they were not given a choice, and instead it was forcefully taken away from them. Munsterberg referred to the unfairness of the ban as a, “one-sided denunciation of alcohol, repeated a million times with louder and louder voice.” Back then Munsterberg foreseen the negative impact the law would have from a nationwide prohibition, he believed it would become “our greatest danger.”
The third site has an article entitled, “On the Witness Stand: Essays on Psychology and Crime,” it is Hugo Munsterberg’s views on the administration of the justice system and the difficulties judges, lawyers, and jurors have in finding the truth in eyewitness testimony. He explains how in the past brutality was used to force a confession out of a suspect, and today’s modern society focuses on unbiased factual accounts of eyewitness testimony. Munsterberg was interested in using, “scientific means for probing facts attested by human witnesses,” by applying “experimental psychology” and science to the law. He understood, “the first problem for the psychologist was whether the confession of the witness was a chain of conscious lies or whether he himself really believed what he told the court.” With experimentations through testing memory of testimonies Munsterberg found people often get illusions of what they think they are seeing or hearing mixed up with the true facts or biases that distort their memory. Munsterberg called this “power of suggestion” a devastating memory that “plays havoc with our best intended recollections.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_M%C3%BCnsterberg
http://www.visualnews.com/2011/08/25/5-facts-about-hugo-munsterberg-the-father-of-forensic-psychology/
http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/hugo-munsterberg.html
I found an article on the BBC website about intelligence testing and motivation. Researchers have found that in order for people to do well on IQ tests they need to be motivated as well as to having a high level of intelligence. If the person taking an IQ test is smart, but unmotivated, they may perform at the level of someone who is less intelligent. Similarly, if a person is less intelligent, but highly motivated, they may do better than their less motivated peers.
This article relates very well to what we have been talking about in class and reading in the book. In the past few chapters we have been discussing IQ tests. IQ tests have varied over history in their reliability and have had many uses. Francis Galton used IQ tests to determine whether someone was fit to enter the United States or not. More recently, IQ tests have inspired tests such as the ACT, SAT, and GRE.
The ideas presented in this article seem to make a lot of sense to me. If someone is unmotivated, they will not do as well. As a child I remember being given a ton of aptitude tests in school. If I did not know that these tests were important, I might not have tried as hard or done as well on them. I also know that on some days I was more tired and did not do as well. I think that there are a variety of factors that influence performance on IQ tests, which makes them very hard for me to trust. If I can improve my score on a test just by taking it again, does the test really show what it is meant to?
I think that as time goes on we will discover more and more factors that can influence these tests. If we can understand these factors I believe we will be able to better understand ourselves and make these tests more reliable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13156817
I decided to write this assignment on the future of the Boston Marathon, having recently suffered a terrorist attack. The news article that I read was written by a man who has lots of experience with running as a sport. Although he is not a psychologist, he was very intuitive on how this act of terror will psychologically affect the future of this race forever. Although terrorist attacks have shown to have the immediate effect of high levels of patriotism; whenever anything like this happens, politicians make the same statement again and again about how today we are not democrats and republicans, but Americans. With the violent news that almost makes us lose our faith in humanity, we also see inspirational acts of extreme kindness; we see everybody pitching in to help each other, which helps to restore some faith in humanity.
In this article, the author made a good point that even though there will be a 2014 Boston Marathon, these terrorists have forced us to cross "community marathon" off of the list of places where we can feel safe in this world.
Terrorism strongly ties in with psychology, because after an attack there is no proper way for a person to act or feel that is not influenced by terrorism. This is where we look to the media and our politicians who give us some hope that there is a "right way" to act and feel, as though we are saying that the terrorists did not succeed...that they have not affected us. This does not work, because no matter how we react, what they did has influence over how we react. If we decide to ban all guns because of a terrorist attack, then the terrorists have succeeded in taking away our freedom. If everybody started carrying guns because of a terrorist attack, then the terrorists have succeeded in making us paranoid and afraid. There is no right or wrong answer, but we must say to the terrorists that it is not okay to hurt people, or to use fear to get what they want.
http://www.inklingsnews.com/c/2013/04/18/in-the-long-run-what-the-boston-marathon-bombing-means-for-its-future/
I decided to write this assignment on the future of the Boston Marathon, having recently suffered a terrorist attack. The news article that I read was written by a man who has lots of experience with running as a sport. Although he is not a psychologist, he was very intuitive on how this act of terror will psychologically affect the future of this race forever. Although terrorist attacks have shown to have the immediate effect of high levels of patriotism; whenever anything like this happens, politicians make the same statement again and again about how today we are not democrats and republicans, but Americans. With the violent news that almost makes us lose our faith in humanity, we also see inspirational acts of extreme kindness; we see everybody pitching in to help each other, which helps to restore some faith in humanity.
In this article, the author made a good point that even though there will be a 2014 Boston Marathon, these terrorists have forced us to cross "community marathon" off of the list of places where we can feel safe in this world.
Terrorism strongly ties in with psychology, because after an attack there is no proper way for a person to act or feel that is not influenced by terrorism. This is where we look to the media and our politicians who give us some hope that there is a "right way" to act and feel, as though we are saying that the terrorists did not succeed...that they have not affected us. This does not work, because no matter how we react, what they did has influence over how we react. If we decide to ban all guns because of a terrorist attack, then the terrorists have succeeded in taking away our freedom. If everybody started carrying guns because of a terrorist attack, then the terrorists have succeeded in making us paranoid and afraid. There is no right or wrong answer, but we must say to the terrorists that it is not okay to hurt people, or to use fear to get what they want.
http://www.inklingsnews.com/c/2013/04/18/in-the-long-run-what-the-boston-marathon-bombing-means-for-its-future/
After reading the article over intelligence testing, which of course fits well with the chapter given how most of it is over various IQ tests, I decided to branch out and look at the actual intelligence test and see if they were viewed as legitimate to both the receivers and the testers. From both articles I found that, along with seeing how motivation is a factor, what also isn’t taken into account with many intelligence tests is that there is a wide variety of intelligence.
Intelligence is so broad that it simply cannot be broken down into one test. From my article, researchers took in thousands of participants into testing from all ages, cultures and creeds. After all the testing what was concluded is that there is no single uniform of intelligence.
Similar to the article about intelligence tests and motivation, my article says that one needs to be motivated, or at least have a good reason, for it to show good results. It also goes on to say that IQ tests are simply tests that grade the IQ within a certain culture, thus it would be unavailable to others of a different one. In its conclusion it says that if one were to fail an IQ test, then you are simply not good at taking IQ tests. Both of these articles know, and display, an general disinterest in the validity of IQ tests that we have today.
Article that was given:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13156817
My article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2250681/IQ-tests-meaningless-simplistic-claim-researchers.html