Chapter 11 Emotion and Motivation

I'm just going to look at Emotion today. Many psychologists believe that emotions exist for evolutionary purposes. We emote so that others know what's going on, expressions give our thoughts away. In the 60's, American Paul Eckman traveled to a secluded area of New Guinea to research emotions across cutlures. He showed the natives pictures of Americans displaying typical human emotions and also did the reverse for college students back in the states. 7 Priamary Emotions stood out: Happiness, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, Suprise, Contempt, and Anger. But sometimes these are too bland to precisely depict our true emotions. Alarm, which is a mixture of fear and suprise, would be considered a secondary emotion.
The rest of that section is terribly boring. Gonna skip some.

Personal space. Public Distance - 12 feet or more. Social distance - 4-12 feet. Personal Distance - 1.5 - 4 feet. Intimate distance 0-1.5 feet. I noticed this at Panera Bread the other day: The round tables are larger, accomodate more people, and imply a more casual setting and i'm definitely seeing a social distance here. The square tables are significanly smaller, personal distance seating. My friend and I sat at the round table, but as we were people watching, lots of older people occupied the smaller seats. Booths are more social, but i think i'd rather go on a date and sit in a booth because they're bigger and more secure, more private. I suppose after seeing said person for a while, I'd be a little more lenient to a 2-seat square table in the middle of the room.

The Mere Exposure effect states that habituation to a stimuli breeds comfort, as contrasting to my heuristic that we're more likely to get bored with something that's repeated. i suppose there's truth to both, depending on the stimuli. Say food, if i had a strawberry smoothie every day after tennis, i'd be sick of em and move onto strawberry milk shakes :) I actually think these things are entirely different. As i reread this section, i'm learning this Mere Exposure effect has a lot to do with what we run into in our everyday lives, the things we don't do intentionally but really how automatic our reactions to frequent stimuli are. This is really confusing to me- but essentially in transists into our own self-perception. When i look in the mirror, i go "damn, that's a good-looking kid." but then i'll see myself in a photograph and totally be embarassed of some flaw. But the flaw is not my ego, it is the fact that i'm not seeing myself as i'm accustomed to. I'm used to seeing my reflection, not an actual image of me so I'm more likely to prefer my reflection to a photo.

Now I'm going to debuff some myths about Happines.
#1 Happiness is determined by what happens to us.) Callin bogus on this one because it's not about WHAT happens to us, it's about the attitude we have towards things. There was a study of 200 college kids, and researchers looked at both ends of the spectrum only to find that both groups led very similar lives in terms of jobs, stresses, and social life. If you're a grumpy person, if you get told you look like a grandma and wonder why you can't get a significant other, it's not because you're life is awful, it's because of your terrible attitude.
#2 - Money buys happiness) To an extent, yeah. Money pays for things which subtracts from stress levels resounding from debt. but what IS said here is that money can't buy happiness, meaning you can't buy enough shoes, video games, or sports cars to be happier than a man who has less and a fantastic attitude. Money's not everything, but working hard and feeling pride in what you do to make that money is a different story. There's nothing wrong with that.
#3 Happiness declines with old age) Happiness actually peaks at about 50-60, only at 80 does it seem to decrease significantly. Younger people may have their youth, but they typically have more stressors to make a living than a 50 year old who's got his or her life on track.
#4 - People on the West Coast are Happier ) I'm a mid-wester, and i'm smellin so much bs from the spray tans, no way anyone can buy validity from this one.

But Marco, WHAT makes us happy? Because, you know, i'm just not sure. -- Oh, i'll tell you
Marriage, lots of deep frindships, college education, strong religion, physical exercise, gratituity (better believe it does), giving, and flow. Time flies when you're having fun? That's the definition of flow, and hopefully we all find it in our work place, this one is probably the most important as far as contributing to our overall happiness. I dont know about you, but i want to love what i do for a living.

There, hows that for the most random blog every. Gratituity and giving attribute to my overall happiness- so you're welcome, i'm thankful that i gave you all this knowledge

Chapter 10 – Human Development

Over the years, psychologists have identified 3 theoretical types of development. Some believe humans follow a stage-like learning process, implying spurts of knowledge gain in within snippets in time. Another is called domain general, meaning all the maturing happens at once while domain-specific entails that skills develop independently.  Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, took a keen interest to the development of children and believed that children were the former, and underwent a stage-like development. Piaget would have seen a child and believed that at that period in their life, this exact moment, they would be developing, perhaps, a social need by talking to an adult. During that given time period, which is undeterminable, that child would learn the most from social experiences. Later, say a few months, that same child might harness some motor skills by increased involvement in athletic activities with other children in a similar stage. If a child had a certain need, he would move on to the next stage of development in order to mature. Piaget exclaimed that children are not miniature adults, but that the two perspectives of either cohort vary greatly in fundamental reasoning due to their limited worldly experience. Equilibration is the maintenance of experiences, combining what is known with what is observed, basically the creation of schemas. For example, children are prone to believe that the world is flat without ever seeing a globe or otherwise. As soon as they do see a globe, they must combine all knowledge that they’ve accumulated into this fact making sense. The two ways that knowledge imprints are by assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the assimilation of knowledge, the acceptance to new stimuli. Accommodation is a way of processing new intelligence so that it coincides with a previous schema.

Piaget’s stages of development are as follows. The sensorimotor stage, lasting from birth to 2 years, involves the development of comprehension of what is immediately available. Out of sight, out of mind. Also the training of basic senses and movement are developed in this stage. Next is the preoperational stage and it lasts from year 2 to 7. Though the individual may not be able to think beyond themselves and their own needs, but can think beyond the present. Those in the concrete operation stage can perform mental transformations but only with physical objects, from 7 to 11. And the fourth and final stage is that of formal operations, from year 11 to adulthood, consists of an expansion of the previous stage. This is the stage of thinking for oneself, a deeper level of processing, hypothesizing and experimenting to solve problems.

 (I personally believe that we can turn ourselves on and off to different intelligences, so yes, his stage like theory makes sense to me, however, it’s a more immediate, more continuous accumulation of knowledge. I feel that this observation describes the stages in school, such as phy Ed, then math, then choir, then science…etc. We activate different parts of the brain for different things, but perhaps knowledge is relative, at least what we learn in school. Social skills take over when we’re not sitting in a desk, and motor skills take over when we’re on a field or court. We aren’t necessarily not in stages, but more perceptible to gaining from those experiences that are vital to us at that moment. We’ll only stop learning when we shut our brains off, when we say “I don’t want to take anything from this”. Given Piaget is true, our stage-like development will never end, we will never stop learning, forgetting is what we fail to encode in the first place.)

Chapter 9 – Intelligence and IQ Testing

So, funny thing, this Chris Langan guy, who you might remember if you’re keeping up with my “Outlier” blog, is the smartest man in the world based on IQ. However, though he has great book smarts, he lacks social intelligence that may have actually put his brain to work outside of his Missouri farm, actually using the brain he was born with.

 French psychologists, Binet and Simon created a test for elementary student placement, hypothesizing that those who tested well, were labeled as higher mental processers. Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin, had a different idea. He thought that those who tested highly on a sensory capacity test, meaning those who could see, smell, and hear things that others could not set them apart cognitively. Simon and Binet were definitely on to something. Psychologist, Charles Spearman theorized that general intelligence, g, “accounted for the overall differences in intellect among people”(Lilienfeld, 320) .Spearman literally thought that intelligence was hit or miss, either you were smart, or not at all. Let’s look at it from a world perspective. Yes, in America, in western culture, sure we look fondly on our student for scoring an A on a whatever quiz. But does that A account for the entirety of their intelligence? Do we not possess other traits to our character that, could in fact, label us as intelligent in other aspects? Howard Gardner hit the mark when he identified the existence of multiple intelligences. This allows us to explain popular musicians, athletes, Chris Langan, politicians, and so on. Gardner’s frames of mind totaled to 8 individual intelligences: Linguistic, logico-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Though this seems thorough, let’s dig deeper. Clearly, this can’t be the complete list. What about humor, or memory? Robert Sternberg simplified Gardner’s concept into a triarchic model, 3 intelligences- analytical (book smarts), practical (street smarts), and creativity. Containing all 3 intelligences would surely result in success rather than all 8 of Gardner’s. Why? Because it’s simple, it’s vague. Langan would have had analytical checked off and a debatable creativity complex, but practicality?  Nah-uh.

Completing the IQ test, intelligence quotient, was required by incoming immigrants during the early 1900’s. This was the version of the test that consisted of many language-specific questions, and for poor immigrants would barely knew how to speak English, this proved very difficult to pass. The strong majority failed the test, and 40% were labeled as mentally retarded, an unjust title for non-English speakers. Finally, the test was reconfigured with many questions relating to pictures, as well as translated into hundreds of language, but not before the Eugenics movement kicked in. 33 US states voted to sterilize those who scored poorly on the IQ test in hopes of slowing the spread of hereditary stupidity. The majority of those sterilized was lower-class America, the Hispanics and Blacks. Even the name, Eugene, sprang from this movement. Parents in the 20’s and 30’s instilled high hopes of positive genes into their baby Eugene, in fact, my dad’s dad is proof of this, Eugene Riley. Cowinkydink? I think not.

Before I go, I should probably tell you how the IQ test works. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot to it. The test will measure something called Mental Age, and whatever that is; it’s divided by actual age and then multiplied by 100 to rid the decimal. What this means is that the IQ test is based on those with similar ages to the test taker. However, you’re probably already seeing something funky with this test. If we continue to get older, wouldn’t our IQ gradually slip? Well, yes, you’d be absolutely right if you said that. After age 16, the tests’ validity starts to whither, and yet we still use the test, mainly because it’s still popular. Thankfully, the IQ test is not required for college placement; we have other tests for that now. I’d prefer not to be gypped out of college for a lousy equation error.

Exam 2 Reflection

Going to be honest, I didn't do as thought as I was going to do- but that happens to almost everyone. Snagged a C+, definitely should have probably taken notes. I really don't think the lectures would have helped at all had I watched them. When  I was checking my answers on the test itself, I would underline the two answers I thought were best, and sure enough, I'd almost always pick the wrong one. I think I can prepare better for Exam 3 by reviewing other chapters weeks before the test. What seemed to work was my retaking of old, online quizzes, and I felt I could breeze through the ones I'd actually apprehended. Right now, I'll be happy with a B in this class, and all these silly blogs have to count for something, my grade will get there, and if not, big stinky whoop-there's other things than psychology in this world.

The Smartest Person I Know...hmmmm

The smartest person I know is influenced greatly by recent interaction, but I’d have to say it’s my dad. I consider him a renaissance man for a couple of reasons. He finally got his Bachelor’s Degree at 40, after working for a company for almost 15 years as a computer programmer and electrician. After he got laid off, he recovered as an engineer/architect. At home, the man fixes everything- he gets things done. My dad figures out problems on his own, he rarely stops to think and improvises well, which I admire. I wouldn’t necessarily give him the credit of book smart (analytical intelligence) but I would say he makes use of his creativity with his quick wit and improvising ideas to solve problems. I would also say he’s practically intelligent. This is all based off of the triarchic theory. I would say that his multiple intelligences might consist, in doses, of logico-mathematical, formerly bodily-kinesthetic, and spatial intelligence. With the g factor, he doesn’t popularize his expertise. Frequently, his family bugs him about fixing there computer, circuitry, machines, etc… Definitely more valued in the Chinese society from our text book J.