Homework PART TWO #10 Kiara Wright

Posted on by
Reply

1 In the context of discussing personality, what does the Big Five refer to?  What is one of the Big Five?  Who authored the theory?

The big five traits are really bipolar dimensions. One of the big five is Conscientiousness the person who authored the theory was Freud.

2 Freud developed the first systematic theory of how human personality was shaped.   What role did he accord to conflict in the process? Give an example of the sort of conflict he identified as being important in the process .

Dr. Freud found out that he could not hypnotize many of them deeply enough to duplicate Charcot’s results. He did not know that people vary widely in their degree of hypnotizability, the ability to follow suggestions offered by a hypnotic agent.

3  Zimbardo and his colleagues, in their textbook Psychology: Core Concepts, suggest that a single theory of personality is unlikely to be adequate to answer all the questions we might have about the subject.  What is the basis for this assertion?

4 How does Freud’s concept of ego defense explain an individual’s personality?

If unconscious desires become too insistent, the ego may solve the problem by ” putting a lid on the id” that is by sequestering both extreme desires and threatening memories deep in the unconscious mind.

5 Zimbardo, when he set up his Stanford Prison Experiment, assessed his potential subjects to a battery of psychological tests that showed that they all had normal personalities, as well as no history of mental illness or violence.  Nonetheless within a very short time both those cast as prisoners and as guards were acting in ways radically different from how they had acted before the experiment began. What does this observation suggest about the validity of theories of behavior based on biological constraints?

The validity was to show the measure of the personality and can show signs of mental illness.

Homework # 9 part 2

Posted on by
Reply

1 Dr Mark Lepper observed that rewarding children for their artistic productions made them less enthusiastic about producing more for him on a second occasion.  He termed this effect overjustification.   Explain
• The difference in response between the two groups of children;

the children’s response in the first group was not to interested in drawing another picture, this is the group that got rewards. The group that didn’t get rewards was more interested in drawing the picture again.

• Why the children who received a cash reward for their efforts were less inclined to participate the second time.

The reward took the fun out it.

2 Harold is zealously practicing the violin because of a strong extrinsic motivation.  What might the external motivation be?

The external motivation might be needing to get better. If he performed in front of people and they like what they hear and clap for him that might have gave him the motivation to keep practicing.

3 The drive-reduction model of motivation has sometimes been referred to as a ‘hydraulic’ model.  What does this metaphor refer to?

The two words have similar meanings. what the metaphor refers to is the behavior of the person. The way the person behaves when motivated.

4 A study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine examined the effect of providing substantial material incentives—up to around $500—to overweight people who lost a certain percentage of their body weight and kept it off for a full year. They demonstrated that the monetary reward increased the success rate of the intervention by twofold. Since the baseline rate of success for weight loss programs is about 1%, that means that the study showed that about 2% of people were successful using this form of incentive. How impressed should we be by the effect of offering money for weight loss?

You can be somewhat impressed because the percentage went up , even though it wasn’t allot it was still good. it shows that the experiment work.

Home Work PART TWO #10

Posted on by
Reply

# 1 The big five refer five personality traits. One of the personality traits are extraversion. Lew Goldberg authored the theory.

#2 id, ego, and super ego have conflicting interests and so identifying which we truly want is hard to determine.

3. Well going back to ego and super ego, we have three voices so to speak in our head that have different interpretations about the reality around us. Therefore understanding each voice is a task within itself.

4. All three ego’s work together to form a whole

5. This tells us that personality is in one part environmental. It turned completely normal people into another character that was foreign to them.

Mid-term paper

Posted on by
Reply

Article # 1: Getting it wrong: Surprising Tips on how to learn

In this article by Henry L. Roediger and Bridgid Finn the researchers mentioned different affective strategies that can be used to help student learn a material better. The methods the researchers suggested contradicted the use of the no errors permits. The no error method basically provided students with correct answer to a problem and repeat this process till the students remembers it. This type of technique is supposed to help the student slowly learn from their mistakes and get the question right. According to Nate Kornell, Matthew Hays and Robert Bjork they believe that it would be better that “learning becomes better if conditions are arranged so that students make errors.” When it comes to people remembering, things they would remember it better and longer if they are given hard questions knowing that they can fail. In a series of experiments that was conducted, it was shown that if students were to make an unsuccessful try to retrieve information before receiving the answer, they could remember the information better than in a control condition in which they are simply to study the information. They conducted another experiment where they have a group students that required to learn pairs of “weak associates,” words that are related in some way. The word that they chose to give them was star-night. So they gave they the students the first word then they were ask to think of the word that associates with it. There was a pretest condition they were given the first word which was star and then was given a few seconds to think of a word that goes with it. The thing about this is the students is just going to think about the first word that comes to mind think it’s right but it’s not. Because they were only given a short time to think about it. They might say bright because of the word star. In the control condition, the students were given the pair to look at for 13 seconds. Because of the little more time they had, some students was able to guess the word. They found out that the students remembers the pairs better if they first tried to think the answer before they were shown the answer. Since they were given such a short time, they didn’t really have time to think about their answer meaning that they most likely get it wrong. But if they were given more time there is a chance for them to get the answer right.

A similar interesting article which can relate to “Getting it wrong: surprising tip to learn” targeted towards youth and providing different learning techniques to learn to bolster schools method to teach. There is a definitive issue of students being left behind in an educational system. With the combined effort of multiple educational psychologist, an experiment is conducted on students in efforts to alleviate this problem. The psychologist went forward knowing that the educational system would have to be corrected in many aspects. There are ten techniques that were applied during this experiment. Some techniques were chosen because of their accessibility, and the other chosen because the techniques students often use. These techniques are elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, summarization, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, rereading, and practice testing, distributed practice, and interleaved practice. In order to make an accurate hypothesis the psychologist applied those ten techniques to four categories of variables: learning conditions, student characteristics, materials, and criterion tasks. The article defines all these variables as the following: Learning Conditions are environmental (I.E alone or in a group), Student Characteristics are age/ability/prior knowledge, Materials vary from simple mathematics to complicated science text books, and  the Criterion Task are tapping memory, problem solving, and comprehension. The information that is provided generalizes the information because of the findings being extensive. Before the article gives results, it gives a disclaimer that the findings are generalized across the different variables combined with techniques. Meaning some techniques could not be properly evaluated. The techniques with the highest utility assessment were practice testing, and distributed practice. Just shy of high utility were elaborative interrogation and self-explanation. The lowest were summarization, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, and rereading. It seems like the psychologist here really done their homework, and made sure they had all variables accounted for. My only gripe is if any of these findings are being properly utilized. I believe it is of the utmost importance to make sure students are provided with an environment that which they can truly grow in intelligence, and not be forced fed knowledge with no retention in mind. So my question is anyone using this information to change the educational system? And if not than why not?

Throughout human lifespan they will always be a period of time that consist of learning. Furthermore, learning is a process that is never ending and human has been finding ways to improve on this process. The researched that Nate Kornell, Matthew Hays, Lindsey Richland, Liche Kao,  and Robert Bjork conducted at U.C.L.A has taken us one step forward towards the improvement of the never ending process of learning. A series of experiments was done to defy the idea that the best way to learn something is to be given the correct answer to a problem and study it. The researchers mainly focused around the concepts that we all learn from our mistakes, and painting a clear images in our mind before illustrating it on paper helps us paint a better picture. They prove their ideas through a series of different experiments which shows that we tend to do better at something if we fail at it first. This idea gives us a fundamental concept to focus on when approaching a problem. Although this methods might raise some questions such as: does not failing at something lowest a person confident to do better. The experiments shows still shows that the retrieval attempt is most effective.

I think the authors in the first article “Getting It Wrong’’ surprising tips on how to learn by Henry L. Roediger and Bridgid Finn give good enough reason and data to support their conclusion in the first experiment, because I believe if you continuously repeat something to an individual they will remember it eventually. I feel like this is the most common way to learn. In Nate Kornell, Matthew Hays and Robert Bjork also give good enough reason because if we would arrange questions so that person can get the question wrong and the reason I believe this is a great method is because for an example you give a 8th grader an easy question he isn’t really learning but if you give him questions that you know he will get wrong not only will he get the questions right from multiple attempts but he will be required to think and he will know why he got it wrong and know what he did to get it correct. The last method is an experiment of time if kids have more time on the test they will have a better chance of getting the problems right on the exam. If you are given a short amount of time you will be thinking at a faster rate and you may end up taking a guess and getting the problem wrong. Out of these experiments I personally like Henry L. Roediger and Bridgid Finn the more you repeat something our brains will process it and sort of have a photographic memory on what was said and what exactly happened. I do think the author provided good enough reasons and data to support their conclusions because the techniques with the highest utility assessment were practice testing and distributed practice. The reason I felt this is a great and successful experiment because students will have a better understanding of what is going to be on the test but also improve their test taking abilities. What I like about the work is that we get to see what a long term change in the student’s grades after using this experiment. The author should have asked what did the students who did not have a practice test do. I will personally go to the first experiment in the article “Getting It Wrong’’ by Henry L. Roediger when you repeat something a person will eventually remember it just like how we know the national anthem we have heard it so many times. The second article would be my backup but it is also great because you will have a practice test see what you got wrong and know why and then be ready for the actual test.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking psychologically

 

Members:

Philippe Paul

Shawn Villeta

Kiara wright

Justin Casiano

Group 9 Mid-Term (Hamza Syed, Ana Bravo, Yann Herve)

Posted on by
1

psychology-mid-term

 

 

 

 

(Professor If The Link Does Not Work The Essay is Below)

Randolph Schutz                                         Hamza Syed, Ana Bravo, Yann Herve

Psychology                                                                                              10/26/16

Midterm Paper

Harm does not only come from a hurtful act, it also come from inaction when a person requires aid. The world was stunned when twenty-nine-year-old Catherine Susan Genovese (Kitty Genovese) was murdered and raped outside her apartment building on March 13, 1964 while thirty-eight people in the building stood watch and did nothing. Another dreadful case of significant inaction occurred on October 27, 2009 when an unnamed female sophomore who was currently attending Richmond High was brutally assaulted and raped by ten men whilst over twenty witnesses stood watch and did nothing. Societies inaction is influenced through several factors ranging from The Bystander Apathy Effect to The Asch Effect. These factors influence the behavior, actions, and judgments made by individuals in society.  Social Psychology has explained and interpreted the causes of such inaction and societies indifference.

Bill Genovese (Catherine’s Brother) gives a personal documentary in “The Witness”, a film regarding the murder of Kitty Genovese. Kitty Genovese was driving home and parked her car at the Kew Gardens Railroad Station parking lot close to her apartment building while she was being following by her assailant Winston Moseley. Kitty Genovese was attacked twice by the same man at the Kew Gardens Railroad and the final time near her apartment building. On March 13, 1964 Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death between three and four in the morning and twice the bedroom lights of bystanders frightened the assailant away yet he came back to stab her again along with raping her. Reported by Martin Gansberg in the Times that Kitty’s screams were heard by dozens of neighbors all of which did nothing to help. Bill Genovese found contradicting reports regarding his sisters murder such that people yelled at the attacker, another held Kitty in her arms and another called the police. This reports were contradicting to the published report in the TIMES which was a very trusted source that made this case a phenomenon worldwide. Interviewed by Bill, Rasenberger (A Times editor who assigned the story) said “If the story had been reported more accurately, it still would have been a two- or three-day, maybe even four-day story, but it would not have been a fifty-year story”. It is considered that many of the witnesses had assumed that there was a drunken argument from The Old Bailey, a nearby bar or that it was a domestic conflict that was playing out in public or that it was some lovers fight but I believe that these are all lies. Thirty-Eight witnesses hearing the screams and witnessing a man rape and stab a woman several times within a long duration of at least thirty-minutes cannot be mistaken for anything else than what it is. I believe that Social Psychology plays and immense role in this inaction which leads me to the Bystander Apathy Effect. I believe that these thirty-eight witnesses were all bystanders who were influenced by a diffusion of responsibility which weakens a group member’s obligation to help and become personally involved. They believed that since the building was full of capable people who heard the screams that “surely someone else” will help. The Diffusion of Responsibility effect grows stronger on a bystander when other people are present which makes the bystander believe that it is not their responsibility to help and that others will. I have observed this first hand when two men were threatening to beat another man in public and a crowd of at least twenty-five people formed. Within the crowd of people, I heard someone say “Someone should call the police” although no one did so and the crowd failed to act. The same thing happened in Kitty Genovese’s case when people who failed to intervene in the murder were observing and conforming to the behavior of other people who were doing nothing. Solomon Asch (1907-1996) developed the Asch Effect which states that the influence of a group majority has a major impact on the judgment of an individual which has become the classic illustration of conformity-(the tendency for people to adopt the behavior and opinions presented by other group members). The inaction of the witnesses of Kitty Genovese’s murder can be explained by the Asch Effect as the majority of the witnesses did nothing, the individuals made an unconscious judgment not to do anything although action was as simple as calling the police from the safety of their homes. Conformity caused the bystander witnesses at Kitty’s murder to adopt the behavior presented by the other bystanders which was complete inaction during the entirety of the crime. Social Roles also had part to play in the inaction of the witnesses in Kitty Genovese’s Murder as a social role defines the behavior that is expected of a person in a certain setting or situation. The thirty-eight inactive witnesses were bystanders who examined their social roles unconsciously and decided that it was not expected of them to help Kitty Genovese since no other person did in the same setting and situation. Another dreadful case which resembles The Genovese Murder shares similar behavior of inaction and failure to respond.

On October 27, 2009, an unidentified fifteen-year-old sophomore who attending Richmond High School was brutally assaulted, beaten and raped by ten men for two and a half hours during the High School Homecoming dance which was taking place in the school gymnasium. Ten witnesses stood around laughing and taking pictures with their cell phones and eventually the crowd number grew above twenty. No one among the crowd called police or alerted a security guard on campus who could have intervened in the situation. The assistant principal of the school had noticed several grown men standing near the scene of the crime whom did not have any identification badges (It was required). The Assistant principal ignored them completely and returned to his job. I believe that situationism which states that the environment can have effects on behavior and social norms at the time of the incident created the conformity that the crowd of witnesses experienced. The witnesses’ inaction may be considered as the social norm of the homecoming party such that a group of men having sex with a sophomore was not necessarily rape but the height of the party and the situationism assumed a party where anyone who called the police would be a party crasher and this created the conformity of inaction. Although these ideas are plausible it is very likely that the inaction of the crowd was caused by the diffusion of responsibility which would have weakened each group member’s obligation to help and become personally involved. The Asch Effect may have also influenced the crowd at the crime scene as the majority of the crowd did not act to aid the unidentified girl, individuals made a judgment not to aid the girl either.

The Murder Case of Catherine Susan Genovese (Kitty Genovese) and the case of rape and assault of the unidentified fifteen-year-old girl both have several similarities and differences. In both cases over twenty people witnessed the crimes yet not one person acted to aid either victims. The Bystander Apathy Effect applied to Genovese’s Murder and the Richmond High Rape since none of the witnesses acted due to reliance on other bystanders to act for them. The Diffusion of Responsibility was applied to both cases as groups in both incidents denied to believe it was their obligation to help since others would have helped in their place. Conformity had played a role in both cases as the thirty-eight witnesses adopted the behavior of inaction due to the behavior of inaction of the other residents in the building and this applied to the Richmond Rape Case where over twenty witnesses decided to adopt the behavior of inaction due to the inaction of the other members of the crowd. Finally, the Asch Effect impacted both groups of witnesses in both cases as the majority of both groups made the judgment not to aid either girls, the individuals left also made the same judgments influenced by the majority. A difference in each case was that the group of witnesses in Genovese’s Murder Case was further apart in separate apartments while the witnesses in The Richmond Rape Case were in a crowd immediately close to each-other. This impacts the witnesses in the Richmond Rape Case in a proprietary way because situationism assumed an environment where the witnesses were so close to each-other that the behavior of a single witness would have a more forceful impact on the behavior of another individual witness. Both cases were phenomenon’s worldwide in society and in Social Psychology.

Harm does not only come from a hurtful act, it also come from inaction when a person requires aid. The Murder and Rape of Catherine Susan Genovese stunned the world due to the circumstances surrounding the notorious case. The situation of the witnesses has been studied in Social Psychology and has been a significant contribution to Social Psychology by giving it a first-rate example of several theories and ideas. The Rape Case of Richmond High School has been a notorious case which could have ending in a more positive manner if social inaction did not spread. Both cases have been prime examples of inaction in society and how it spreads through people unconsciously through several different ways. Inaction of a single individual could impact an entire community and how it acts for the greater good.

Mid-Term group 8

Posted on by
1

Angela Gonzalez 

How does pornography affect our brain?

“Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and relief from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is an addiction, tolerance, and an eventual decrease in pleasure.” (4) Although pornography is seen by many as a ‘healthy’ entertainment, it can become an addiction that controls a person’s life. In the past, factors that made people addicts were considered to be only substances that were inhaled into the body. Thus, pornography wasn’t considered a possible factor of addiction. However, studies have demonstrated that pornography alters the way our reward pathway system works in our brains; making pornography as addictive as any drug. Pornography can drive people to cross their moral limits, as it may change the sexual taste.  Yet, to be able to understand how can porn become an addiction is important to first understand the way our brain works in relation to addiction.

In our brain, there is a reward network, that evaluates anything that brings us satisfaction. After the information is evaluated, it is taken to the reward pathway center where “our sense of pleasure is first produced.” (1) Things like, “food, sex, drugs are all registered as delicious, as something we want more off,” it releases chemicals such as dopamine or adrenaline in our brains and these makes us feel good. (1)  Healthy people are able to control the need of this chemicals in their brain. Indeed, a person that is in control of their instincts and body can per say love sweets, but know that they have to control the intake as it could make them obese. Yet, while a healthy person can wait to satisfy the crave, people with addiction cannot. In an experiment made by the Cambridge University, MRI scans of the brain were made to those that considered themselves to be porn addicts and a control group.  In the experiment what was mainly observed was the reward center of the individuals while seeing strong pornographic videos, and the comparisons between the two groups were astounding.

Although, the reward center of the control group was definitely activated while watching pornography, “the compulsive user’s brain was twice as active, just as addicts responding to drugs and alcohol.” (1) The brain reacts to porn like it does with any other addictive substance, the more a person watches the more need it creates towards it. “Porn offers an endless stream of hyper-sexual images that flood the brain with high levels of dopamine every time the user clicks on a new image.” (1) At the beginning, everything is triggering and the brain reacts to it immediately. Yet, as the brain starts to get used to the images it perceives, the dopamine doses release are not the same. Thus, the brain begins to crave new things that can create the same activation of these chemicals in the brain. Here is where addiction starts, people with this problem create a dependence on porn as it makes them feel good; and they are always looking for more. Sexual addicts begin to explore new things crossing even their own moral limits  combining things like violence and pleasure and much more. (4)

These chemicals and sensations are important as they motivate us, giving a glimpse of happiness to the monotonous lives we sometimes live. Yet, food, drugs or indeed porn become an issue as we create a dependence on them. Thes addictions are most of the times related to intense emotions. Thus, to not fall into this habits that can destroy our life is important to be aware of how our feelings are making us react, and seek for help when there is need of it. Anything in extremes can become harmful for our body and mind.

Bibliography

  1. Porn on the Brain. Perf. Dr. Valerie Voon at Cambridge University. Youtube. N.p., 13 Oct. 2014. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.
  2. How Porn Affects the Brain. Fight the New Drug, 10 July 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.
  3. “Porn Addiction Recovery.” Cure the Craving. Youtube, 7 Sept. 2011. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.
  4. @FightTheNewDrug. “Home – Fight the New Drug.” Fight the New Drug. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.
  5. Hendriksen, Ellen. “Your Brain on Porn and Other Sexual Images.” Scientific American. N.p., 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.

Mitchell Landeros

 
Further Analysis:

Pornography is the displaying of sexual activity intended to stimulate erotic instead of aesthetic feelings. Although it can bring temporary sexual pleasure; what is pornography doing to the brain in the long run? “A recent neurology study found that the more porn a man watched the less gray matter he had in his brain.” [1] Although some may argue that self-pleasure from pornography healthy, it can surely become addicting. “…all addictions create, in addition to chemical changes in the brain, anatomical and pathological.” [2] These changes usually result in the various manifestation of cerebral dysfunction best known as “hypo-frontal syndromes.”

A study in the prestigious journal JAMA Psychiatry showed that men who reported watching porn showed less volume and activity in the striatum (connected to reward processing and motivation). [1] As stated before, some may argue that porn can be healthy. However, the gray matter (intelligence) in males who watch pornography decreased. What supports this statement is the less processing and motivation the men who watch porn have. An additional observation that was made was “connectivity between the striatum and the prefrontal cortex (used for decision making, planning, and behavior regulation) weakened the more porn the men reported watching.” [1] In other words saying men who watch pornography have trouble with their everyday life. With your ability for decision making being weakened, one is unable to function productively throughout the day. Without being able to plan properly, one can easy be late to work, whether it’s public transportation or self-transportation. With their behavior regulation being compromised, they can end up with road range or just another angry subway rider.

Donald L. Hilton Jr. and Clark Watts stated that hypo-frontal syndromes (well known to neuroscientist) are seen in tumors, strokes, and trauma. Patients with traumatic injuries to the cortex display problems–aggressiveness, poor judgment of future consequences, inability to inhibit inappropriate responses that are similar to those observed in substance abusers.” [2] With injuries to the cortex one can make a poor judgment of future consequences which can result in minor/fatal situations such as an automotive accident or an aggressive exchange of words.

From these studies, we can take away that sexual imagery is both not as bad as we think, but probably worse than we think. A moderate amount of pornography might affect the brains of men but don’t seem to affect their mental health. [1]

Bibliography

  1. Hendriksen, Ellen. “Your Brain on Porn and Other Sexual Images.” Scientific American. N.p., 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.
  2. Pornography addiction: A neuroscience perspective

Donald L. Hilton, Jr and Clark Watts1

Development. Titilope Odumuwagun , Zhao Anthony, Jared Wiggins

Posted on by
1

Titilope odumuwagun

Developmentall psychology is the psychology of growth, change, and consistency from conception to death. It asks how thinking, feeling and behavior change through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.Talking about development we have to analyze some concept that affects development. Amongst this concepts is the nature and nurture. Nature play the role “heredity” while nuyure play the role of “environment” . We  can conclude here that  heredity and environment determines ones ability. However researchershas gone gutter to study how the nature and nurture issue works. One of the methods that was used to weight the effect of nature and nurture is the “twin studies”.

To take the “Jim twins” for example, This identical twins were separated few minutes after birth, and they were raised apart from each other. After  39 years their path crossed. At their reunion some  striking similarities in their habits, preference and experience were discovered. for example. Both had identical scores on test of personality, intelligence, attitude and interest. Medically both had high blood pressure, vasectomy, and migrane headaches. Both have been married twice, and their first wives are named Linda suprisinly theier second wives are named Betty. Both leave love notes around the house. Both had owned dogs named toy. Both chew they fingernails, like stock- car racing and dislike baseball. Both do wood work as a hobby.This remarkable similarities between the twins gives one a relative clue about the contibution of nature and nurture. This obvious similarities are as a result of shared heredity in form of genes, since they did not grow up in the same environment while growing up. Heredity effect show up more strongly in identical twins.

Another method that was used to approach nature and nurture interactions involve the “Adoption Studies”. If you adopt a child who do you think the child will resemble most as an adult?. The biological parent ? , The adoptive parent?. This goes in line with the twins studies. The contibution of the biological parents is  the influence of nature, and that of the adoptive parent is nurture. The story of Harry Potter is a good illustration of nature and nurture interaction. He was born to parents with magical powers, but raised by parents without magical powers. His own powers didn’t flourish until he entered the magic supporting environment of Howgwarts school.

Antony Zhao

Development is essential to all humans. It is the growth needed for all young children to mature into adults. In middle school, students learn to better their vocabulary to strengthen speech and encourages positive writing habits. Jason, my 12 year old cousin learns new vocabulary words at school every week. Whenever I come visit, he puts his knowledge to the test. He would ask me if I knew what this word meant or that word. Sometimes if I was lucky, he would teach me a new vocabulary words I’ve never heard of before. To this day, schools help develop student’s speech and writing which is essential to all.

Jared wiggins

People often think newborn have empty brain and do not have any abilities, but the picture has changed. New born naturally locate their food, avoid potential harm, and interact with others. However their abilities are limited l, but enough for survival. As they grow older they learn new things and acquire new skills. Piaget is a genetic epistemology who studied genetic development, in hia work he discussed four stages of how baby grow. first stage he termed the sensor motor, at this stage babies receive stimulus and response to it such as sucking, closing yheir eyes wGen thints get closer. The second stage he termed preparational stage in which babies respond to images, sounds.They are more of symbols rather than motor play, and are more curious about what going on in their environment since they can think without an object and sound being there.The third  stage was the concrete operation. kids tend to have a more orgainized thought and involve in logical thinking. they can also determine if a situation is reversible or not for example ( 2+3 =5, 3+2 =5). And the last stage of development piaget termed as the formal operation, in this stage their thinking is more abstract and they can think of mutiple variables in a systematic way.They could also define a word in different ways. kids at this stage also deal with social concept like justice.

Midterm Project: Memory

Posted on by
1

Fatima bah

Angel Dominguez

Group #7

Article #1

10/25/16

The Memory Illusion by Julia Shaw

Memory is the ability of the mind to store and recall past sensations, thoughts,knowledge, and other valuable things. In the short passage the memory illusion the author Julia Shaw haves us questioning if our memory is really real. She believes that our memory can play tricks on us and we may not be who we think we are, which is really  interesting but also creepy. As stated in the article, Memory Illusion by Julia shaw, “We can come to remember seeing and doing things that never happened, and the sneaky part is that in our minds these errors look and feel just like our other memories. These kinds of memory errors are called “false memories,” and they are the subject of considerable study around the world”. This means that the more you try to remember a certain memory, every time you try to remember what it is exactly that happened, little things are switched up and this is due to the memory distortion as explained in the quote above.  We become increasingly confident in our ability to recollect that certain memory, because we’ve done it hundreds of times before so we can’t possibly be wrong, right? Everybody remember things differently about certain situations that happened,  as such we as humans are prone to having our memories hijacked. There is a show called Brain games, there was an experiment where a woman was put into a jury case and said things that weren’t true about the thief and everybody believed her and took her word for it. Had this been an actual case, the wrong person would have been sent to jail, little things that can be changed up like the color from the coat from red to black, the skin color from light to dark, we all remember things differently and that is memory hijacking.

It’s crazy to think that you can say your name to a dozen people but you’ll only remember the names of the people that caught your eye.  I went through this and I can verify that this is true because, aside from any experiments that they conducted, I have a better track record of remembering the names of the girls who I found to be most pretty or the guys who were funny or interesting. Brains are a funny thing because we remember important details, and toss aside those details that we perceive as meaningless,or in other cases, boring. Memories are easily susceptible to distortion, as stated later on in the article, Julia Shaw conducted an experiment where she created false memories and made about 70% of the people ended up thinking that they committed an actual crime. She also found that, and this really interests me, those that created a false memory even went on to describe smells, things they saw, felt as well as tasted when trying to remembering that particular moment. Of course, this isn’t always a bad thing, without the flexibility of our memories, however easy it is to distort them, can also be a good thing because without that flexibility, we would always be stuck remembering old memories. Having flexible memories allows us to update our memory banks whenever we come across better information,we are able to learn from our mistakes and improve.

Ricardo Condado

Meshal Muhammad

Group #7

Article #2

“Examining Sleeps Roles in Memory

and Learning” by Ashley P. Taylor

Sleep is known to aid memory and learning. Sarah Mednick, a sleep researcher from the University of California, posed the question, ‘What else might be going during that sleep period that helps people’s memories?’ Mednick and her group measured the electrical activity of the brain and heart. They didn’t think that the heart would have a role in the aid of one’s memories. They found a difference of heart beats between those who did well on the test and those who did poorly on it. Rebecca Spencer, sleep and cognition researcher, stated that people focused more on the role that central nervous system (CNS) and ignored the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). People didn’t focus too much on the ANS because this part of the nervous system is responsible of the control of bodily functions that we can’t consciously direct, in this case, our heartbeat. Jared Saletin from Brown University wrote to an email to explain that what the brain and body do during sleep are both important in determining the correlation between sleep and memory. Mednick’s group tested a group of people on the Remote Associates Test (RAT). They were given three words and were asked to come up with a fourth word which related the all of them. There were two groups, one group were able to take a 90 min nap before retaking the test again and the second group had to remain awake until they took the test again. It was concluded that only napping participants who entered REM sleep showed improvements on primed questions. No one improved during novel questions. Other groups have found a relationship between memory and the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system and others found that the more a heart beats the harder it is working therefore causing the participant to be more stressed out. Overall it was found that nappers were found to do better on primed questions.

Elu Saif

Group #7

10/26/16

What is memory? According to the Heald Colleges Edition it defines memory as “the ability to keep things in one’s mind or to recall them at will.” Interestingly I just read two articles the first one was “The Memory Illusion” by Julia Shaw and the other was “Examining Sleep’s Roles in Memory and Learning” by Ashley P. Taylor. Both of them dealt with the topic of “memory” however the first one was strictly based on the author Julia Shaw experience and the second article was research from different sleep researchers from over the world.

 “The Memory Illusion” has a short phrase at the beginning “If you think all of your memories are real and accurate, think again” basically it is saying that if we assume that everything we can remember or recall is true and correct then we need to think twice. While reading through the article it shows how our minds works in terms of the things we recall and different situations we handle mentality. It also states how other people can influence us into something or create a false story and make us believe that it did in fact happen when the person created it on the spot and brought it across like it is real. It also talks about as years seems to go by our memory of a particular event or situation that took place, we start forgetting or leaving pieces  of the story out and we become “confidently wrong” as it states in the article but the way our minds work we still think that we have the perfect memory in our minds.

“Examining Sleep’s Roles in Memory and Learning”  states at the beginning ” Autonomic nervous  system activity during the sleep may help explain variation in the extent to which the behavior aids memory consolidation, a study shows.” The research that the sleep researchers conducted was to find out if a student who learn an assign material,sleep on it if they perform better than a student who learn it then just went and do the exam or test. They referred to the two groups as nappers and non-nappers. From the research that was conducted majority of the researchers said that students who study, sleep and execute perform better than students who just study and execute. This article eventually started to get scientific because it also started to deal with the heart-rate while sleeping. It is also common knowledge that sleeping gives the brain food and also in the article it states that “sleep is known for aid memory and learning. Researchers also explains how different test was given to the two different groups of students and at times when both groups were tested it was both equal and when they made it more challenging the students who took a nap before the test improved at times and sometimes none of the two groups showed improvements.

After reading both articles it showed me how our memory work from different angles and how we think or act can affect our minds. The first article shows how our memory can be full or illusions at times and the second article explained what we do with our body can have an effect on your memories. The second article would of have mixed views seeing that it consisted of researchers from different parts of the United States and also in Europe. To conclude the both articles dealt with memory and it showed it works in different ways.

Group 4: Memory

Posted on by
1

Group 4 Members:

Donato Zevallos, Amanda Martinez, Lauren Pemberton, Gustavo Diaz, Nia McNeill

 

Donato Zevallos: 

Two forms of long-term memory are an implicit and explicit memory. Both of these types of memory that we use are different from each other. Implicit memory is used when we are doing something without much thought and is usually physical, being already learned through past experiences. This means that we don’t really consciously think, we just act. Our Implicit memory is used almost all of the time. From the moment we get out of bed to brush our teeth, shower, and get dressed for school, to entering the building of City tech and pushing the elevator button that will take us to the floor we’ll need to go on, to just knowing our friends and professor’s name. These are all things we do without much concentration and is an example of implicit memory. As for explicit memory; it takes much more focus to perform a task and is more factual than physical. When we conduct ourselves in doing anything that takes concentration and effort we are most likely using explicit memory. We can use our explicit memory for school, to study, do homework or take a test, there all things we do consciously. So although implicit and explicit memory are both long term memory, they’re still different in ways.

Title: The Memory Illusion

Author: Julia Shaw

Date: June 13,2016

 

Amanda Martinez:

Memory can be defined as a system that stores information. Unfortunately, not all information is stored easily. Since humans are cognitive learners, we will only remember selective information. This means we will forget the rest. Amnesia is a type of memory disorder, that causes an individual to permanently forget information or memories. One type of amnesia everyone has experience is called “Childhood Amnesia”. This is the inability to remember the first few years of living. I can use a personal example when I was young I wondered away from my parents in an amusement park and got myself lost. Fortunately, I was found by a friendly couple that helped me find my parents. Although this sounds as if I remember this day well, I actually cannot recall ever getting lost. This is due to childhood amnesia. I may not remember this day because I was too young but my parents will always remember it vividly.

Who: Myself, my parents, two strangers

When: 19-20 Years ago

Where: Amusement Park

 

Lauren Pemberton:

Memory is something we always take for granted. Memory can be taken in from different perspectives. We often use memory without even realizing it. For example, every day we wake up and most likely we do the same thing such as brushing your teeth, eating, walking, putting on clothes. These examples are something that we were taught to do and from then we always remember how to do it. We don’t think of it as a memory but more of something we are required to do every day. Memory tends to be selective especially depending on the person. People often either block out a memory that happened because of how much it hurts while some people remember every single detail and can’t get the images out no matter how much they try. Sometimes a person recalls a situation and although they repeat it multiple times in their head they create an image of what they thought they saw and sometimes they are wrong. Our imagination plays a big impact on our so-called memory.

Title: The Memory Illusion

Author: Julia Shaw

Date: June 13,2016

 

Gustavo Diaz:

As much as we don’t want it to, there are many times during the day that memory fails us. The seven sins of memory are transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Every day when I get home I put my keys on top of my computer desk in my room so I can easily remember to take them with me the next morning. When I walked into my apartment Monday, September 26th my sister was watching the movie The Avengers so I immediately sat down on the couch next to her.  About ten minutes later my mother called my phone and told me she needed help bringing up the groceries, so I threw my keys on the living room couch and went to help her. The next morning as I was about to leave my house for a psychology class I realize that I didn’t have my keys. I walked towards my computer desk and saw nothing, I started checking everywhere and my keys were nowhere to be found. I started to panic when I realized my mind was blank and I had no idea where I had put my keys. This is a good example of Absent-mindedness which occurs when there is a breakdown between attention and memory. My attention went from watching the movie to helping my mother with the groceries so quickly, that I didn’t care to memorize what I did with my keys in that moment.  The memory randomly came back to me hours later while I was on the train back home.

Title: The Seven Sins of Memory (How The Mind Forgets and Remembers)

Author: Daniel L. Schacter

Who: Myself

When: Monday, September 26th, 2016

Where: My apartment

 

Nia McNeill

            “Memory Manipulation,” also known as memory control, is the act in which a person can selectively change or modify their own memories or someone else’s to either make them believe something, suppress certain memories, erase them or give them a sense of nostalgia. In doing this, a person can make specific memories better or just completely dismiss them by filtering them. For example, when I was younger my parents got divorced and of course, for any child at a time like that it’s difficult to deal with. However, my memories lead me to believe that I handled the situation quite maturely, which according to my mother was not accurate. What I remember was when I reassured them that I would be okay and that it’s a part of life and I’m okay with it when in reality there were some instances where I tried to sabotage everything because I was angry. As my mom brought this up I slowly started to remember the truth. I guess it was something I chose to fabricate to make me feel better.

Title: How Easily is Your Memory Manipulated?

Author: John M. Grohol, Psy. D.

Who: Myself

When: 10 Years ago

Where: Home

 

Research Project – Group 9 (Personality)

Posted on by
1

Dr. Randolph Schutz                                                                                                                 (Hamza Syed)    (Tchoumta Tchouffa Yann Herve)    (Bravo Ana L)

Psychology 9/28/16

In Psychology, personality consists of the psychological qualities that bring continuity to an individual in different situations and at different times. According to the psycho-dynamic, humanistic and cognitive theories, personality is a continuously changing process that is shaped by our conscious and unconscious motives as well as our social interaction. According to the psycho-dynamic theories of personality, both conscious and unconscious motivations and the influence of our past experiences are what change our personalities. It is believed that the humanistic theories emphasize that it is our present ideologies and what we believe that is significant are what influences our personalities. Rather than clinical practice, research experimentation in psychology has developed the social-cognitive theories which is based on the idea that personality is influenced by learning and social interaction. A member from this group (Ana Bravo) observed the social-cognitive theory of personality first hand when she had a very shy friend in school and that friend couldn’t make friends due to her shyness. For this reason her (Ana Bravo) friend was thought of as shy and queer by other kids at school. Eventually this friend socially interacted with other kids at school and she became outgoing and sociable in almost any group of kids. Social Interaction influenced her personality positively.

In theory the traits of an individual are more specific characteristics in the personality for example shyness which is inherited and some is learned through experience guides the individuals thoughts and actions under various conditions. Psychologists have developed the five factor theory which uses five traits Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neurotic-ism, and Openness to describe personalities of different individuals. The state of a person is a momentary emotional reaction in a certain situation which persists according to the level of the trigger (Frustration, Arousal, Anger). The character of a person is the overall sense of quality of that person (Honesty, Integrity, Generosity) which is taught or learned through observational learning and can be absorbed anytime throughout an individual’s lifetime. Although character can be taught, the inherited traits of an individual can permanently influence certain aspects of character because that is the individual’s inevitable nature.

Individuals in society make judgments about other peoples personalities in everyday life whether if its to determine friend and foe or to determine honesty and dishonesty. These judgments are part of the Implicit Personality Theory which states that people make assumptions about personality to simplify the task of understanding others. These Judgments are made very often in human interaction due to the fact the the human mind must create a profile through the implicit personality theory and combines traits together naively in creativity to develop an understanding of an individual. A member of this group (Yann Herve) gave an example of how he observed this theory when his friend told him about a girl at work who was rude and selfish based on the attitude she was emitting that specific day. The other day his (Yann Herve) same friend told him a contradicting report about the girl on how she was kind and pleasant because he got to know her better, a judgment made with more information rather that little the initial information he had the first time he met her. These judgments are more likely to be made when an individual generalizes ignorantly for example if you had your heart broken by someone who was attractive but unwilling to make a commitment, you may quickly judge other attractive persons to be “insincere” or “untrustworthy”. It is often the case that when individuals make mistakes regarding other individuals, their judgments are revealed to them as errors. People are most likely to make such mistakes when they make judgments solely based on an individuals state or character at the time since these change frequently. General ideas about personality work to a certain extant in everyday life but personalities cannot truly be interpreted by the regular person.

The Psychoanalytic Theory developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) revealed how hidden in the unconscious part of the mind is the source of powerful impulse, instincts, motives, and conflicts that energize the personality. The memories hidden in the unconscious can only be obtained through special techniques used by trained psychologists which reveal the reason for the subjects behavior or personality.  For example I observed this theory first hand in a matter when my older cousin fell into a depression which was being treated by a trained psychologist. He told of no apparent reason for his depression but the psychologist revealed to him that hidden in his unconscious was the memory of his dysfunctional parents that were always fighting as he grew up. It took time for him to finally make peace with that which was in his unconscious and he now lives peacefully independently. The use of this theory could tell us how an individual would act in emergencies because it would give us the individuals hidden secrets of the mind which would reveal his/her true personality and how it would apply in emergencies. How an individual would act in emergency situations is not assumable since it requires one to know the secrets of the unconscious and true personality rather than a certain state or character of the individual.

When things go wrong explanations based on the character or personality of the people involved typically dominate and this is the effect of the Fundamental Attribution Error. These explanations are almost never accurate at first since information regarding an incident is not equal as different people involved attribute false information or ideas due to ignorance regarding the incident. This does not inform us on what happened accurately because we have contradicting sides and this cannot guide us to do the right thing in unification since what was attributed was indirect and contradicting. In conclusion, Personality can take many forms of character or states but is always truly hidden within the unconscious and it takes the extreme for it to reveal itself.

 

Hamza Syed (Ideas and Contributions)

Compiled several ideas and theories that support the idea of personality being something that is hidden in the unconscious and how people make judgments on individuals in everyday Life. The Psychoanalytic Theory developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) revealed how hidden in the unconscious part of the mind is the source of powerful impulse, instincts, motives, and conflicts that energize the personality. This theory that I researched was most interesting because it brought a sophisticated conclusion that personalities are hidden and can only be revealed through special techniques. For example I observed this theory first hand in a matter when my older cousin fell into a depression which was being treated by a trained psychologist. He told of no apparent reason for his depression but the psychologist revealed to him that hidden in his unconscious was the memory his dysfunctional parents that were always fighting as he grew up. It took time for him to finally make peace with that which was in his unconscious and he now lives peacefully independently.  People make judgments on other peoples personalities in everyday life according to what character they are greeting with or what in what state of behavior they met a person. (These are easily mistakes since true traits may only be revealed in certain extreme situations or circumstances).

Tchoumta Tchouffa Yann Herve (Ideas and Contributions)

Compiled theories and ideas regarding why and how people make judgement on other individuals in everyday life. The Implicit Personality Theory states that people make assumptions about personality to simplify the task of understanding others. These Judgments are made very often in human interaction due to the fact the the human mind must create a profile through the implicit personality theory and combines traits together naively in creativity to develop an understanding of an individual. A member from this group (Yann Herve) gave an example of how he observed this theory when his friend told him about a girl at work who was rude and selfish based on the attitude she was emitting that specific day. The other day his (Yann Herve) same friend told him a contradicting report about the girl on how she was kind and pleasant because he got to know her better, a judgment made with more information rather that little the initial information he had the first time he met her. The five factor theory used by psychologists contains Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neurotic-ism, and Openness as the traits to describe personalities of different individuals.

Ana Bravo (Ideas and Contributions)

Compiled three theories which are used by psychologists to define and explain at a scholarly level what influences and causes our personalities to change and form.  According to the psycho-dynamic, humanistic and cognitive theories, personality is a continuously changing process that is shaped by our conscious and unconscious motives as well as our social interaction. According to the psycho-dynamic theories of personality, both conscious and unconscious motivations and the influence of our past experiences are what change our personalities. It is believed that the humanistic theories emphasize that it is our present ideologies and what we believe that is significant are what influences our personalities. Rather than clinical practice, research experimentation in psychology has developed the social-cognitive theories which is based on the idea that personality is influenced by learning and social interaction. A member from this group (Ana Bravo) observed the social-cognitive theory of personality first hand when she had a very shy friend in school and that friend couldn’t make friends due to her shyness. For this reason her (Ana Bravo) friend was thought of as shy and queer by other kids at school. Eventually this friend socially interacted with other kids at school and she became outgoing and sociable in almost any group of kids. Social Interaction influenced her personality positively.

 

(Professor, please note that these ideas and theories were combined using all our works  to create one unified research project) Thank You