http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/us/25mobs.html?src=me

This article talks about what used to be something that used to be a non-violent act, but now in Philadelphia these flash mobs are turning violent.  The police have said that they had enough and they are starting to enforce curfew and hold parents responsible for having their children out late in the city.  There has been five flash mobs this year in the city, more than in any other part of the United States. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100325/ap_on_re_us/us_philly_teen_mobs_1

This article also quoted Temple University professor Frank Farley is an expert in risk-taking and thrill-seeking personalities. He says the flash mobs attract teens because they offer thrills and attract publicity.  Chapter 13 discusses risk taking personality about arousal.  It is more likely that the teens who are a part of these flash mobs  are high sensation seekers rather than low sensation seekers.  There have been findingd that sensation seekers have low levels of monoamine oxidase (Schooler, Zahn, Murphy, & Buchsbaum, 1978). 

Chapter 10 in Reeve (2009) discusses the self:  defining and creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. 

Becoming a fair and pro-social person is generally thought of as part of the quest of defining and creating the self.  However, a recent New York Times article reviewed a study published by Science that studied how large-scale institutions affected fairness.  This article seems to show that fairness and pro-sociality may be more due to relating the self to society.  The article can be found at 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/science/23tier.html?ref=science

The study used three different experimental designs to determine the effect of large-scale institutions, such as markets and major world religions have on fairness.  These experiments were then carried out in 15 diverse cultures across the world.  The presence of large-scale institutions was determined by the percentage of calories that were purchased - the higher the percentage the higher the market integration.

The study found that the greater the market integration in a community the more fair its citizens were.  The participation in a world religion increased punishment for unfairness in a community.  The authors argue that this is because in market society would not work if everyone were only out for himself or herself.  For market integration to be successful the society must have underlying norms to be fair and trusting with people beyond each individual's social circle.  They found that by having institutions like Wal-Mart our communities have actually become fairer.  The researchers believe that our modern pro-sociality is not solely due to innate psychology but also due to the norms and institutions that have emerged over human history.

http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/search.php?p=qsearch&s_gender=1&s_copt=2&i_search=shane&filter_select=1&s_filter=14&=a

Check out the first link, and see what your name means. My name (Jordan) means descendant.

I found an article on personality characteristics or people's names. Let me know what you think.

http://www.articlealley.com/article_590182_27.html

The article talks about how parents actually decide on their child's name by the day of the week they are born.

There is a rhyme about choosing names for personality traits:

Monday's child is full of grace

Tuesday's child is fair of face

Wednesday's child is full of woe

Some cultures have a ceremony for the naming of a new baby, whereas other parents look at names or ones they have heard of and liked.

In Chapter 10 Reeve talks about personality characteristics. Do you think a person's name can make them have a certain personality, such as neuroticism, or how about parents who name their children Joy or June, will they have those type of characteristics just because it is their name? What's your opinion...

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/15/health/la-he-marathon-20100315

This article is about different factors that motivate people to participate in marathons. Some of the information seems fairly obvious, especially to people in this class, but it is still interesting to consider these findings. I found it especially interesting that the reason a person runs can make a difference in if they finish the race. In short, it was the people with high intrinsic motivation who tended to finish the training and marathon itself. It said that "The 75 who did not finish were those most likely to have been motivated by the wish to lose weight or gain recognition from others."

This finding makes sense to me, and I think it fits rather well with our individualistic culture. Many of us feel that it should be up to each person how they want to live, we should not spend our lives trying to please others. It would be interesting to see if this finding holds up in collectivistic cultures. If it would, we could be more confident than intrinsic factors of motivation may be inherently more powerful in influencing whether or not a person ultimately finishes a marathon.

This article mentioned that more and more people are creating bucket lists on which they include marathons. The article said this was a form of extrinsic motivation because it is being done for recognition, but I would argue that it really depends on the person. There are undoubtedly some people who will do extreme activities just to brag about them, but there are others (using the bucket list) who simply enjoy the challenge.

I find it rather interesting that some people do it for loved ones, and I have heard that others still do it for Christ. From what we first read (that  the people with high intrinsic motivation tend to finish the marathons), it would seem that these motivations are extrinsic (being done for the approval of others). I think this certainly does seem true, but there are probably exceptions. If a Christian is doing the marathon as a type of self-imposed penance because they feel guilty about past wrongdoings or because they simply want to make a sacrifice for the Lord, that would probably be intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, if a Christian does the marathon as penance to avoid the fires of Hell, it seems that would probably be a form of extrinsic motivation. In retrospect, this past paragraph sounds somewhat like a bad joke, but I believe it is never the less very true.

Another point which merits attention is about endorphins. Over the past couple years I have read very contradictory "findings" on endorphins. You commonly hear that exercising and physical activities releases endorphins, and others have claimed that the level of physical exertion one must undertake to actually release significant levels of endorphins is dangerously high (with such physical activities doing actually more harm than good overall). I honestly do not know which view is objectively correct, so if anyone else might be able to shed light on this area, I would very much appreciate it.

One final point I would like to write about is that there obviously can be both primary and secondary motivations. The article also mentioned that specific reasons for making the commitment to a marathon may change over time. For example: physical health benefits may become dominant. Although raising money for charities seems to be partly be an extrinsic form of motivation, I really do not believe you can place it exclusively in a single category - there may be elements of both intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation present (recognition from others and feeling happy that you have helped others).   

We see it in movies and TV shows, but is it true in real life? The common stereotype that athletes dominate on the field but they also party just as hard on the weekend it present in our media in today society. But how does the research hold up to this societal perspective? As I look back on my high school and their policies I remember one specific one that was implemented during my sophomore year. This police targeted athletes and the use of alcohol. Student athletes that were caught using alcohol for the first time were suspended from a portion on their sports season. The second offense was suspension for the entire year, and the third was elimination from sports for the rest of their high school time. This gave off the impression that alcohol consumption and athletics were strongly correlated. A study done and presented on ABC's Health website targets this idea. 1300 students were surveyed linking violence, drinking and binge drinking to the competition attitudes of athletes; more specifically this article target competitive, contact sports such as football.  I this study, researches found that men who participated in these sports were more likely to develop violent behaviors that stemmed from the glory, power, and special behavior they were treated to on and off the field by their peer, coaches, and parents.  Researchers argue that these results do not mean men who play football are more likely to drink and demonstrate violent behavior but men that play football in general have more characteristics that lead them to become more apt to participate in these behaviors. These researchers strongly support that football does not cause these behaviors but co-exist with these individuals. Other researcher beg to differ in that parents and coach are neglecting to distil values in these athletes therefore they feel as though the rules do no apply to them eliciting this violent behavior and adolescent alcohol consumption obsession that we see among athletes. This article brought up some very interesting thoughts about the rules and regulation of athletes. After reading this blog and the article did you school have a alcohol policy outline in their code of conduct as mine did? If so, what was it? Also, do you think that completive sports such as football are the cause of this violent behavior that we are seeing in young adolescent men or do you take the stand that this is not a causation correlation but merely a co-existing characteristic overlap and children who are more violent and drawn to alcohol are teen are more apt to choose to participate in competitive and contact sports such as football?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/team-sports-linked-teen-drinking-violence/story?id=9019219&page=1

Why don't we complain?

http://www.smartercarter.com/Essays/Buckley%20-%20Why%20Dont%20We%20Complain.html

I found this article very interesting.  It discussed the reasons why humans do not complain.  One reason could be fear of negative repercussions from peers or the person in which you are complaining to.  Many people have a predisposition to think that complaining is worse than being uncomfortable and will therefore accept being uncomfortable.  I think that if you are nice about the problem no one will be able to say you were out of line, they might even be happy that someone had the nerve to say something.

Another reason why many people may not complain in an unpleasant situation is because of the by stander effect.  If they are uncomfortable or unhappy, at what point will they take it upon themselves to remedy the situation?  It would be at the point when they realized that no one else was going to do it.  Human kind is predisposed to believe that other people will take the lead in situations and therefore, much of the time nothing gets done. 

A third alternative could be because of sheer shyness.  This is the hardest to combat, because it is a trait of the person that is very hard to manipulate.  However, I shy person may be annoyed by a situation but never get to the point of thinking about doing something to change it, therefore avoiding the discomfort of compliance.

The author of this article states that at the point when humans no longer complain, we will become automatons, incapable of feeling.  I wonder what others think of this conclusion.  Does compliance lead to lifeless humans? Is it right to always complain when faced with imperfect situations? 

Color is something that is constantly in our lives that is not really consciously thought about. When watching a professor give a lecture, do you really take the time to think about what color the background of the powerpoints are, or the color of the text? Color is all around us and we cannot escape from it. It has always interested me that people with synethesia (crossing of the senses) can associate colors with emotions, moods, and even sounds. Often these associations are very similar across individuals (within a culture). Is there a reason your favorite color is blue? Why does blue mean sad? Why did you buy a green guitar? Is color culturally specific? I have always been interested in questions like these.

http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/index.html

This is a rather extensive international survey about color including information about associations, preferences, education, and even preferences for online activities. This is a study published in the form of a webpage as opposed to a traditional journal article, which is in view, easier to both view, find pertinent information, and navigate. Color is the hue, lightness, and saturation of any object. Isaac Newton was the first person who laid a scientific foundation about color by showing that a prism could break up normal light into a full range of colors which he dubbed the "spectrum". The spectrum was continuous, but decided to use seven color names by analogy with the seven notes of our musical scale. (Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Indigo, and Violet)

Color is actually much more complicated than I had previously thought; it has complicated mathematical ways to measure it. Light and the creation of colors are also very intricate. After detailing all you need to know about colors, it lays out the methods using clear precise tables and graphs. A number of things were laid out and people were asked to choose what color represented what to them. The first item trust was curious to me, most people said blue at 34% then white at 21%, I definitely would have said white. This was interesting to me because I thought blue represented sadness. Regardless of my take, blue dominated all positive characteristics, and was virtually nonexistent on negative. It is no wonder that blue is by far people's favorite color. Another interesting point was that red dominated fear and terror but also courage and bravery.

Peoples favorite colors weighed in at

Blue 42%

Purple 14%

Green 14%

Red 8%

Black 7%

Orange 5%

Yellow 3%

Brown 3%

Grey 2%

White 2%

A lot of good information is contained within this research, though it didn't have as much emotion/personality connection as the link advertised, it was still an interesting and useful site.

This week for class I read an article about how early child-rearing techniques influenced later, adult personalities. This study used surveys from a 1951 study about mothering techniques and later contacted their children who were now about 31 years old. The results showed a correlation between mothers with strict toilet training and scheduling of feeding and children with high needs of achievement. Mothers who were permissive about sex and aggression had children who were high in needs of power.

This article made me think about how much early childhood experiences really have on our behaviors and if it does affect our different needs in adulthood. Is it even possible to study this connection or are there too many intervening variables between childhood and adulthood? In another class I am taking this semester (Psychological Anthropology) we discussed the differences in child-rearing techniques between American mothers and Gusii mothers. American mothers spent more time looking at and talking to their children while Gusii mothers spent more time holding their child. These parenting styles represented what was important in the different societies; Americans value independence and individualism while Gusii value collectivism and society. So, were the adult behaviors created by the parenting techniques in their childhood? And why does this correlation even matter?

Personally, I have some trouble making this connection. I think it may be because I need more concrete proof of the correlation between the two variables rather than just observations. And even if there was a cause and effect relationship, I don't think it matters that much. So what if a certain parenting technique creates an adult with a high need of achievement, is it really that important that people will either want to avoid that behavior or encourage it? What does everybody else think about this correlation?

Articles:

McClelland, D. C., & Pilon, D. A. (1983). Sources of adult motives in patterns of parent behavior in early childhood.

Levine, Robert A. (1999) Infant environments in psychoanalysis: A cross-cultural view.

I know a lot of people especially girls want to get married someday, and want to find their true love so I researched what motivates us to find true love and found this article which I found very interesting.

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/love-sex/how-to-find-true-love-2051038.html

Helen Fisher the women who dedicates most of her life on How to find true love believes there are four personality types.

"all of us conform to one of four personality types, which are controlled by different chemicals in the brain. These chemicals mould us, and cause us to be attracted to people who complement our personality types (see panel). There is the Explorer, a sensation seeker ruled by dopamine; the Builder, a respecter of authority driven by serotonin; the Director, analytical and ruled by testosterone; and the Negotiator, intuitive and fired by oestrogen. Negotiators need to connect with others on a deeply personal level, are very trusting and good at talking."

What personality type are you? and if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend are they compatible with you according to Helen Fisher?

Your personality has a lot to do with what types of stimuli in the world you seek out and avoid.

Take this brief quiz http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

and then after you hit score it, click on the first link available (type description by Keirsey) and read the description.

How accurate do you think this assessment is?

Notice how the quiz itself is focused on various behaviors. What factors contribute to your motivation to approach/avoid these various situations?

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/deadliest-catch-sig-on-superstitions.html

Capt. Sig Hansen from Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch," discusses the superstitions of fisherman at sea. It's pretty incredible how superstitious they really are. He talks about all kinds of weird things he has become accustomed to that have come a part of his life. He realizes that these are just associations that elicit a rewarding feeling of safety and probably bring him no real good fortune (even though there are some that say you create your own luck), but as he states in the video, he will even go as far as turning the boat around to satisfy this target behavior of his. These superstitous items allow Sig to emit behaviors such as comfort and joy as bad luck or misfortune while fishing at sea would prove aversive to him and his crew. As he states, they have been raised or conditioned to behave this way--whether it's not allowing bananas or horseshoes on the boat or stepping onto a boat with the correct foot. At some point during their adventures or experiences, Sig must have been positively reinforced (perhaps by catching more fish)and associated this behavior with some material object (like his erasors, post-its, or a fishing lure necklace). As he states, they have been conditioned as time passes to check for these superstitions and if everything is not in place,  psychological hell breaks loose on the boat. Here is a good example from the clip to explain why the shipmen were motivated to continuously behave the superstitious way they do:

The antecedent would be the previously demonstrated superstitious behavior of fishing at sea without allowing any suitcases on board

Thus, their behavior-->which was to force the Discovery Channel crew to unpack their cameras and leave their suitcases on land

As a consequence of their positive experience at sea (no misfortune) Capt. Sig and crew are reinforced for their superstitious behaviors of not allowing suitcases aboard. Thus superstition remains unbroken, actually reinforced, and conditions same behavior to be repeated.

In a sense, these superstitious behaviors give them a sense of control over their otherwise uncontrollable environment.  Mentally, Capt. Sig and crew need these objects to satisfy their emotional needs as well as physiological needs (such as cortisol/stress), as the superstitions/charms act as a coping mechanism/calming effect. 

I was at www.askmen.com and saw this title for an article, so I couldn't resist.

As it's part of askmen.com, the article is geared towards providing advice for men - in this instance, particularly straight men.  The article is examining the traits of gay men and why straight women love the gays so much for them.  They talk about clothing style, physical fitness, sensitivity, faithfulness, and fun.

Most heterosexual men's fashion is based on three things: sneakers, wrangler jeans, and a t-shirt.  And while this is fine for us men, women are typically more sophisticated.  They want to be able to talk about their outfits, hair, skin care, etc.  Who is going to provide more to a conversation on hair, a straight guy who puts on a hat until it lies flat, or a gay guy who can compare and contrasts features of different products?

It's harder for women to maintain a set weight for various reasons - partly because their bodies are continuously preparing itself to hold a child each month.  As the article says, " [in] many instances, gay men simply take better care of themselves than we do . . ."  Their gay best friend is, however, someone who will tell them the new ways to lose weight or who will go to the gym with them.

The website tells how an article by the National Academy of Sciences in 2008 describes how heterosexual women's brains and homosexual men's brains are similar - making it more likely that their brains function the same way.  This would explain one reason why gay men tend to be more willing to talk about their emotions than we, heterosexual men, are.

Faithfulness is yet another quality that women love in their gay men.  They don't have to worry about the man leaving them for another woman.  It removes a deep-seated insecurity.

And lastly, gay men are just more fun.  They can comparatively talk about sex with women and give them tips from a guy's perspective on what feels good without being embarrassed.

This can all be explained with a simple answer: the psychological need for relatedness.  Gay men can just relate to straight women on levels that straight men cannot.  However, this is NOT an excuse to not try.

As my mom always says, "try walking in the other person's shoes for a while."  If we straight men try this, I'm sure we can all relate to females much better and avoid unnecessary arguments - because sleeping on the couch sucks!

http://www.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_300/332b_why-women-love-gay-men.html

IMAGINE: You are at Hy-Vee. You just got done working an all day shift at your job and it is 9:00 on a Friday night. When you got off work you had five missed calls from your friends and with each voicemail they left you can tell they were more drunk than the previous voicemail.  You stopped at Hy-Vee to pick up some beer (or your beverage of choice) and want to get to your friends house right away so you can join in the fun.  Instead of this being a quick trip in you are stuck behind a person who has what seems to be a million and one items. We have all been in this situation before. With no other lanes open and the self check out being closed what do you do? Do you roll your eyes in frustration and be aggravated that this person is taking forever? Or do you patiently wait thinking that if it was you with a million and one items you would want the person behind you to be nice and understand.

The difference between these two responses is the difference between type A and type B personality. Type B personality is the most common type. This is someone who appears to be calm and collected under stressful situations. When you think of this person you rarely associate them with yelling or outrageous behavior. Type A personality is someone who is exactly the opposite. That is the person that you don't want to be dealing with if you were in a car accident or waiting in line at Hy-Vee with a million items.

Below there is a link to a personality test that is designed for college students. If you have time I would try and predict which type of personality you are. On a scale from 35-380 pick a number that you feel would represent your personality type. Lower being more type B and higher being more Type A. (this is the scale range used in the questionnaire.) Then follow the link, take the questionnaire and see if you were right! Or you can just take the questionnaire! (Personally I like to guess and see how close I am...probably part of my personality!)

The following link is to a test which determines whether you are type A or type B

http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/TypeA-B-intro.html

The following link is to the definition of type A and type B Personality:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/49520/the_type_a_personality_vs_the_type.html?cat=5

As an introvert (I once scored 95 on an introvert scale) I am usually one to watch others. I have been noticing more and more that my extroverted friends are more likely to go out on weekends and usually make conversations easier and with more people. I have always wondered about the difference between my friends and myself, why do we each act the way we do? In the article "Extrovert V. Introvert: Personalities Hardwired by Neurotransmitters in the Brain" it states that extroverts are motivated by dopamine. Extroverts have a higher tolerance to dopamine; therefore they need to engage in more outgoing activities to have stable levels of dopamine. Introverts on the other hand have a lower tolerance to dopamine, not needing as much stimulation as extroverts to have the same amount of the neurotransmitter. For introverts the parties that extroverts seem to love instead create stress. I have definitely noticed that, for me, parties are not much fun. After only about an hour or two I am begging my extroverted friends to leave. They, of course, do not understand my discomfort and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why they can't seem to get enough of going out.  

So, what about you? Are you more of an extrovert or introvert? Do you enjoy parties or hate them? And do you think the differences in personalities are based on neurotransmitters, or is something else?

http://neurologicalillness.suite101.com/article.cfm/extroversion_v_introversion