Exam 3

This was my worst exam by far. I answered 33 of 50 correctly. I didnt have a study buddy, and my only review was to practice the test online. I never took notes, though i read all the chapters. I recall remembering some questions from the practice tests, and a few things from the reading, but the exam was super duper hard. I usually am not below the norm, but Exam 3 was rough. For the final, i'm going to have a study buddy. I feel like i may not have learned a lot i can translate to tests, but the fact that i've read every chapter has rounded my insight of some things i never would have known about, and now i can have conversations that i wouldnt have had otherwise. I know that grade is important, but if i pass and i still remember everything when i'm 30, you can't fault me for that. That's pure long-term memory right there, rehearsed and embedded thanks to rehearsal.

Chapter 13 - Social Psychology

Chapter 13 – Social Psychology

                Wow, the end of the year is finally here. This is the final blog post for psychology, so I’m going to go down strong. First, I want to talk about conformity because it’s really funny how we think we’ll act differently from the norm, when in most cases, it’s inevitable.

                We are social beings who look to others for answers on how to act appropriately. Mass hysteria breaks out like a domino effect, fear amounting from the susceptible frenzy of others.

                In the 1960’s show, “Candid Camera”, confederates (people in on an experiment) tested complete strangers’ will of independence. The scene was of an open elevator, with 3 confederates standing facing the door. A person, not aware of the experiment, walked into the elevator and faced the door as the other 3 had. All of a sudden, the 3 confederates decided to face to the right, the confused individual was caught by surprise. Eventually, he conformed to also facing the right, completely oblivious to what was going on around him. It’s a funny story, even funnier to watch in real time, but it shows our unconscious need to abide to the norm, how uncomfortable an unsuspecting individual when they’re off course.

                The Asch study measured people’s will to fight conformity. An outsider was put in a room, seated next to multiple other confederates. They were there for a “perception” test, only the game was as indicated:

                To answer correctly would be to say which line lines up with X, and the answer is obviously B. that’s what you might say if you were a victim of this experiment. However, the confederates’ jobs were to answer incorrectly to test the individual’s will. Most people eventually gave in and followed the norm. 75% of the experimentees conformed at least once of the 12 trials. It’s not a very hard test, but staying true to one’s beliefs is the true test.

                On the down side, groupthink is the emphasis on group unanimity at the expense of critical thinking.  Groupthink is really just joining the fray for the sake of belonging, doing something irrational because of the security of a group. In 2004, prison guard soldiers of Abu Ghraib followed orders and participated in the cruel, dehumanization of Iraqi POWs. I’m not going to go into details, but the stuff they had the POWs perform was pretty sadistic, like strip naked, humiliation, and mauled by police dogs. There’s not really justification for the lengths they went to, but I have to believe that some of these soldiers were people that one would never have guessed would torture another person to such extremity. This has got to be because of groupthink, everyone’s cruel actions done in response to other’s behaviors.

                Social Loafing is an interesting phenomenon where individuals become less productive as in groups. This one’s real easy to equate with in high school. In large groups where no one really has a strong opinion or will to lead, it’s assumed that the work load will naturally spread out among the group’s members, and thus, nothing gets accomplished. Imagine two teams playing tug-of-war, the more people that are playing, the less each individual has room on the rope and will not be able to pull with all their strength.



Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia has been nicknamed the “cancer” of mental illness because of its severity, varying cases, and mysterious origins. The name schizophrenia literally means “split mind” implying symptoms of split personalities or disturbances in thought, thinking, attention, language, emotion, and relationships. Unlike other mental illnesses, schizophrenia is not two personalities within a person but one personality that is, plainly put, abnormal. People with schizophrenia have difficulty having a job; in fact a large majority of the American homeless would be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is believed that in the world population, .4-.7 percent have schizophrenia, so it is fairly common. Half of medical patients in mental institutions are schizophrenics. Most of these people were stricken with this illness in their mid to late twenties (typically later in women), but schizophrenia has been known to emerge in those as old as 45.

The symptoms themselves are categorized as either delusions, hallucinations, and cluttered speech. Delusions are withheld, enduring beliefs and perceptions of a world with no reality. These delusions are revealed by false persecutions of the patient. They convince themselves that something has happened, on a whim with no explanation, and hold true to that belief. This could be anything from believing that Russian spies are in hot pursuit as seen in the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, to something more fanatical such as the claim to the known cure for cancer.  Also taken from “A Beautiful Mind”, John Nash’s case of seeing living hallucinations is a very rare case. Most schizophrenics will hear voices, usually ridiculing or urging an action. If you experience inner speech, such as the way most people think, then you’re completely normal. But it is said that this interpretation of inner speech listening is where schizophrenics believe that their inner voice is actually an outside source. Disorganized speech is the final, most common symptom of schizophrenia. Responses to questions and explanations are indecipherable—the sentences don’t make sense, jokingly referred to as “word salad”.

Family involvement doesn’t necessarily cause schizophrenia but the actions of those members certainly expose the symptoms of the disorder. Caucasian American cultures are typically more critical and strive to make those within the household independent. However, in African and Mexican American homes, the environment is much more community based, where the family is the most important unit and needs are met by every individual, honesty and care is supported for those with schizophrenia by living styles.

In the brain, ventricles are the four fluid-filled cushions between brain hemispheres. In schizophrenics, one or more of these are enlarged and ill-proportioned. The decreased size of the temporal lobes, the increase space between the ridges in the brain, over activation of the amygdale and hippocampus are also other brain abnormalities that contribute to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be dealt with indirectly blocking the actions of dopamine receptors within cell neurons, dopamine is the fuel for the schizophrenic mind.

Heritability of schizophrenia is still difficult to determined, but the correlation between monozygotic twins with one sibling already diagnosed as a schizophrenic as well as the probability that a child born from two schizophrenic parents will also have it hovers below 50%.

Chapter 16 – Psychological and Biological Treatments

Women are more likely than men to seek psychological help in the western world, mainly because of the stereotype is that men are enduring and too tough to for medical attention. Even race plays a roll, far less Hispanics and Asians are willing to get help for their illness compared to Caucasian Americans. Perhaps this is because of original family ethics.

Here is where I lose it and talk about what I think, what I’ve experienced as opposed to retyping my notes as a blog post.

A paraprofessional is a person who provides mental health services but has no professional training. My mom is a paraprofessional at one of the elementary schools here in town, and it’s pretty interesting. I’ve accompanied her to work a few times, for an ethnography assignment, and I watched as she as well as the other paraprofessionals as they guided and taught, rather than assisted for every need. My mom dealt with the non-verbal children, who typically suffered from down-syndrome. Most of these children were very slow to reacting and also very stubborn. A little kindergarten boy was in the two-word sentence phase and I sat in as he received help from his speech teacher. She wasn’t a paraprofessional, she had some training, but her role was to teach the children, at their own pace, how to speak. All  kids were at different stages, none were alike in their development. This young boy was still sounding out the consonants of one syllable words, a lot of the times his syllables would clash and mask each other so that his “s” and “th” sounded the exact same. He was eager, he was energetic, but he was excited to have a big, tall, male companion. That’s what I found a lot of times, boys are much more welcoming to other males. Every boy I observed was always interested in me, asking me questions, trying to get me involved, overall adorable! But the young female DCD (Developmental Cognitive Disabilities) students were less welcoming. I think the boys were more used to female paraprofessionals, and the girls were not used to seeing other men than their father or even the rare, male teacher. They always became very shy while I was in their presence, one of the girls would whisper her answer to the speech coach and then, our of the corner of her eye, her blue eyes would flash and dart away timidly.

I like this tangent, I’m going to keep going.

The DCD kids’ peers were very understanding of their classmates, almost too understanding. They would talk slower, trying to tread lightly in order to not alarm, frighten, or offend their DCD comrades. It was annoying to listen to them treat people differently. Every single action was praised and I understand that the mainstream kids were doing this out of hospitality, out of human kindness, but they did it so much, it felt like mockery. Maybe that’s a leap but as compared to the Paraprofessionals who were firm, loving and understanding as opposed to floaty and transparent. The DCD kids probably didn’t know the difference but paras’ exhibited “tough love”, they could show their frustration, exaggerate their sorrow and disappointment when a student became naughty and needed punishment. That’s something learned on the job, the training comes with years of experience. The kids learn and bond with someone who learns from them as well, treats them accordingly and figures out their needs and how to make them grow.

Chapter 15 Psychological Disorders

I don’t think I’ve ever been so depressed reading a textbook- Chapter 15 is all about mental illnesses and nope, I wasn’t very enthusiastic to read about them. I’m the sort of guy who, previous to this class, believed depression to be a state of mind, something that would come and go on a whim, something that could be controlled—manipulated by the individual. That was my precognition, but there’s a lot more illnesses than just depression, I realized.

Here’s a little history quick: The people of the Middle Ages saw mental illnesses as evidence of Satan corroding away at their society and the Malleus Malleficarum, a detailed manual to identify witches, was used to detect earth-born demons. Thousands died of conspiracy, but the Renaissance period was not much better. It was widely believed that an excess of blood was associated with mental illness, so “bloodletting” was the answer—by splitting a vein and letting the blood drip out to as much as 40% of the body’s contents (I’m officially disgusted). Eventually, humanity gathered its wits in the industrial era and the mental ill were cared for within hospitals.

Skipping ahead, something less depressing—did you know that the media likes to associate mental illness with violence? I know, right, the opposite is actually true. I can think of a few, that brother from The Village, or Joker from Batman. That’s kind of interesting- TANGENT. So I’m thinking the reason for this is because, let’s admit it, the whole mental illness thing is pretty clouded, everyone has a different diagnosis and their actions are different because of it, however overall, people who do not understand fear their unpredictable behavior which makes for perfect screen interpretation. Bam- Millions of dollars later, everyone’s a psycho.

Fears, Phobias, and PTSD!
Anxiety is the main drive for every single phobia.  There are lots, and it’s even said that 29% of the entire race will experience an anxiety disorder/phobia at one point in our lives. I’m not willing to doubt that because I cannot stand reading, watching anything medical. Just reading about the bloodletting made me queasy—Phobia defined as a fear of an object or situation that’s greatly out of proportion to its actual threat.  But a phobia is nothing compared to a diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).  Those with GAD are constantly living in worry and spend 60% of their day worrying (not sure how you’d measure that). 3% supposedly have GAD but what’s weird about this is that I cannot go to school and pick out who these 3% are. GAD occurs evidently in the late teens, early twenties so maybe my peers have a few years to go. Agoraphobia is the fear of being in a place or situation from which escape is difficult or embarrassing, or in which help is unavailable in the event of a panic attack. A lot of these people have symptoms similar to GAD and will avoid leaving their house for any reason at all.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is especially unique because it is attained from emotionally disturbing experiences witnessed first-person. Anywhere from 12-20% of returning soldiers claim to suffer from PTSD.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a disorder of conditioned rehearsals of repeated actions that must be done unnecessarily. Some signs and symptoms of OCD are:

·         checking and locking doors and windows, appliances, and electronic controls

·         Creating patterns of objects or rearranging them- dishes, clothes, shoes, etc…

·         Washing and Cleaning things that don’t need to be cleaned more than once

·         Counting

·         Hoarding objects that contain little worldly value

CIS Field Trip

Let's just say that in spite of college being the goal of every high school student, I really am not looking forward to U of M sized lectures. Really, while we sat in on the psych lecture, I watched about 20 kids in front of me play with their laptops. I don't need that luxury in class, facebook is for later. Also, I get nothing out of the lectures anyways, I prefer to read and take mental notes, then post what I liked learning about in my chapter blog. That simple. At the university, i couldnt just go up and ask questions of the professor, because it'd be way too embarassing. In class, I can freely raise my hand, and it's the high school teacher's job to help me to the best of their ability- i like that. However, what i did like about the U of M was the fact that I felt quite a bit older while walkin' around campus. Though, I was kind of saddened to see everyone just walk by eachother, a little depressing. Anyways, the content! Psych in college would be more difficult because of all the distractions, the infrequent classes during the week, and the fact that it's an introductory course, it may not carry as much weight for every student based on college progress. For instance, a freshmen or CIS Senior may regard it highly while a senior who put it off till this year will slack and cross their fingers for a solid grade. Also, the lectureer was god-awful boring, I really hope schizophrenia isnt that important for me passing this class because i couldn't tell you much besides that most homeless people have it. Anyways, that was my experience as a baby college student, I really am looking forward to Morris or UMD or whichever i choose as opposed to the U TC. What i'm really trying to say here, i'd prefer smaller classes, kinda like HS.

Chapter 14 – Personality

Sigmund Freud, perhaps the most controversial man of his time, identified unique characteristics of our personality with a series of theories. Psychic determinism was the observation that every psychological event has an underlying cause. Freudians believe we are “at mercy with of powerful inner forces that lie outside of our awareness. Freud also believed that every event ever committed had symbolic meaning. Nothing was just by mere chance.  For example, if I bite my nails while I work on this blog, Freud would probably say I’m stressed—I may even be displacing my frustration. Then I might say, “yeah, I’m stressed, everyone endures different stressors daily” and he’d be all “No, Marco, I think you have some sexual desires that are going unresolved.” Then I’d say “Woah D-Freud, not so fast. This is a friendly blog here, man.” Anyways, there are a bunch of anxiety defense mechanisms that make situations like this bearable:

·         Repression - the suppression of a memory that is too traumatic, that the witness cannot even remember the experience. This mechanism falls in line with

·         Denial – Forgetting distressing experiences, something is too overbearing that one denies the event entirely.

·         Regression – Psychologically returning to a previous age, sucking one’s thumb under pressure. Can’t say I’ve done this recently.

·         Reaction-formation – Transforming an anxiety-producing experience into an opposite, a hypocrite notion. Our minds would disagree with our actions. Like in elementary school, the girls are always mean to the boys when they have crushes on them would be my example.

·         Projection – Unconscious Attributions of negative qualities onto others. People with paranoia have this, because they think everyone is against them but it is they who will jump the line.

·         Displacement – Taking out loose aggression on an accepted target. Screaming at and punching a pillow are much more appropriate targets for our aggression than on another person.

·         Rationalization – Providing reasonable explanations for behaviors or failures. This one sounds a lot like denial. For example, I’ll rationalize that I didn’t even care about getting an A in psychology when I get a C because I can’t bear that it ever meant that much to me.

·         Identification with the Aggressor – Adopting characteristics of an aggressor. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

·         Sublimation – Transforming a socially unacceptable impulse into an admired goal. Oftentimes, the bad things we do as kids can, in the end, turn out to be what drives our success, because of adolescent interest to start.

·        

Now are you ready for Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality? Here goes.

                Freud believed that there are 3 components of our human psyche, all serving a different purpose in aiding our decision making which forms the basis of our personality- by the choices we make consciously and unconsciously.

·         First we have the id which determines our primal wants and necessities. It’s is the underlying, unconscious power that strives for the self.

·         The ego, you could relate to the frontal lobes, decides everything in the “now” frame. The ego acknowledges the reality principle, the tendency to postpone gratification until an appropriate time, so I guess you could say the ego is our rational—the head, no pun intended, but the chief in decision making.

·         Our morals are guided by the superego. Without the superego, our id would do all our thinking without the factor of morals playing into our decision making. Anytime you feel guilt, you can thank your superego. I feel like the superego is the beauty of being human, because if we did everything on instinct, we’d be nothing but animals. Yikes!

Oftentimes, we’ve been humored by the illustration of our good and bad internals, the angel and demon resting on our shoulder. The angel, the symbol of morality, plays the superego while the demon, with selfish intentions, has to be the id. The confused victim with the decision to make is the ego, the big man who chooses what road to take. Another example is the iceberg: The ego is the peak of the iceberg, the part floating above water, but as we realize that the true mass of the iceberg is below the water, split by the superego and id, the parts that aren’t viewable from the surface. Kind of makes me think that everyone has so much they won’t readily say or act upon.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg with Freud’s theories. I hope my peers have filled in the gaps on their pages.