I took two different IAT tests to see the kind of person I am. One was supposed to tell me whether or not I think of myself as being depressed and the other was supposed to tell me my sexual preference. My experience of taking the tests were not that good. I did not trust the tests that were being taken because although they were looking for different things and were supposed to tell me two entirely different things they used the same process to do so. I had to put things into “good” and “bad” categories for both tests and occasionally they would switch what is good and what is bad. It seemed like a good way to go when I first took the test but the second time around I already had experience and it almost seemed redundant. That is why when I got the results I did not trust that they were correct. I think that that is not a good way of testing the kind of person you are because there can be a million different possibilities of what one can be. The results were surprising because they told me that I am a person that I do not really think I am. I do not think that this test can be useful for college students or future careers because all it does is point out how stressed one is and stressing the person out while doing it. It also makes assumptions without having good evidence because putting words into categories will not tell me whether I am straight, lesbian, or bisexual.
All posts by Jocelyn
Week 12 – Option 2
Three things that I tend to do to cope with stress are to talk about my problems, laugh a lot and hard, or to simply ignore it. Talking about my problems is a good way to deal with stress because it allows me to get things off my chest. Laughing a lot and hard is good to an extent because although it makes me feel better it is not something that I can always do because sometimes I might be in an environment in which I will have to be quiet. Ignoring my problems is obviously not a good way to deal with stress because all it does is push the problems away until one can no longer ignore it.
Three things that I can do to better cope with stress are to exercise, use a stress ball, and to sing. Exercising is a really good way to relieve stress because it allows one to use all the negative energy towards something positive and healthy. I believe that using a stress ball is like punching a pillow. It only works to an extent. What if one day I do not have the stress ball or I am in a place where it is not allowed? Things will get ugly real quick. Lastly, singing is a good way to relieve some stress because it allows a person to sing loud which is basically like screaming and it relaxes people. Of course the songs will vary because some people prefer rock songs and others prefer pop.
The website that I looked at says that the best ways to cope with stress are to take care of yourself, talk to others, and to avoid drugs and alcohol. Taking care of yourself includes exercising and sleeping well which is good because if you feel good about yourself you feel more capable of dealing with things thrown at you. Talking to others works only if the person you talk to gives good advice and does not react the wrong way. Avoiding alcohol and drugs is good so that you will not end up depending on them when you become stressed. Although this website gives good tips it does not show a study that demonstrates how accurate and effective the tips are.
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/coping_with_stress_tips.html
Week 11 – Motivation
We can use the Incentive Theory to help push ourselves through times of low motivation. We should use extrinsic motivation by thinking, “If I get good grades then I’ll have a higher gpa and if I keep that up I’ll graduate and get a good job which means a lot of money will be coming my way and I can help my family, etc.” We can also use intrinsic motivation by thinking that if we apply ourselves we will get better grades and that is a good thing and will make one feel better because he or she has fully mastered the material.
I came to Austin College basically because the school gave me a lot of money. The money was used as an extrinsic motivation because the money made me decide to come here instead of another college. An intrinsic motivation I had for coming here was that when I visited I thought the college was beautiful and that the people were nice, so I found myself thinking that I could somehow contribute to this environment. Another theory besides the Incentive Theory that can be used to describe why I came to Austin College is the Arousal Theory. When I came to visit the college I really liked the people, the environment, the food (it was good because people came to visit), and the parties. It aroused me in the sense that I really wanted to have that certain college experience again, which is what also motivated me to come here. By actually becoming a student here I was able to both increase and decrease my arousal because I got to do exciting things that I could only experience here and I also adapted to my surroundings and calmed down instead of going crazy.
I can maintain motivation until I graduate by thinking of Maslow’s Hierarchy because in his hierarchy he describes the certain needs that are essential for our true happiness. I do not believe in the order in which he put things but I do think that they are all important and I feel that as long as I accomplish three of the five needs then I will still have my motivation until graduation.
Week 9 – What affects intelligence
In one of the videos that were shown, black teenagers and white teenagers were put in a room together so that they could take a test. When a certain topic was given, the black kids did better than the white kids, and when another topic was given, the white kids did better than the black kids. This is because the certain topics that were given were based on stereotypes that people have. This affected their confidence about how well they were going to do and it made them have a lower score. I never thought that stereotypes would actually affect people’s performance. I always thought that people can talk shit but I am the one who can prove them wrong.
In another video, all the students in the school were given an exam and in the end the teachers were given the names of five (completely random) students in their class that would succeed in life. The teachers were told not to tell the students and the teachers did not know what was actually going on. After a year when the students took another test, those five students showed an increase in their score. This is because the teachers had higher expectations and that made the students try harder and do better. Other students probably got lower scores because the teacher was willing to accept their low scores because she didn’t believe they could do better. I think that it is unfair of the teachers to help some students more than others because they don’t believe in the others. But at the same time I think it might be an automatic response. I remember having to tutor high school kids. I would help those who tried and did better because I didn’t want to be stuck helping someone who didn’t want to learn. The way children act can also affect teacher’s confidence and conduct towards them.
I could not see the last video because it wouldn’t allow me to.
Most of my teachers believed in me and helped me a lot, which I am very thankful for, but I also saw how those same teachers would give up on other classmates. I think that that was unfair because it would hurt the student’s performance and confidence and future confidence in what they would do (as in whether or not they could get into college or stay in college). If the teachers treated us all fairly and equally we would all have a better chance of succeeding. Maybe the teachers need to take a class where they can be taught that they need to help everyone so that they can see what they are doing. Also, I think that Teachers Union must be terminated because it is protecting bad teachers. What’s the point of having bad teachers if they won’t do their job, will negatively affect the school’s reputation, will lower student’s probability of succeeding, and will just be a waste of money?
Week 8 – Why Do We Need Sleep?
Out of Russell Foster’s three theories as to why we sleep, think that the is the theory that we sleep so that the memory can process what we have done or leaned and so that we can remember things is the most convincing. I think this is the most convincing because Foster describes what it is like to be sleep deprived which means that if we do not sleep, it causes poor memory, increased impulsiveness, and poor creativity. Sleep is also connected with serious health problems such as mental illness and cardiovascular disease. It can also cause a 50 percent higher rate of obesity. All this has to do with brain processing and consolidation because sleeping enhances of creativity and lets the things we have learned go into the long term memory.
In this site, the scientists conducted an experiment to see what our brain does while we sleep. In the experiment participants were asked to put certain words into two categories: animal or objects. The results showed that the brain was still putting things into categories and thinking about what had been learned just before they went to sleep. This site is trustworthy to a point because it does have correct information and a link to be able to read the details as to how the experiment was conducted and how it went but we also do not know if the author’s words are true unless we fully read the experiment from the link that the author has given the reader.
Week 7 – Violent Video Games Make Children Violent
This site states that video games DO make children violent. The author starts by stating that 90% of the children of the U.S. spend their time playing video games and that more than 90% of the children that play video games play games that involve mature content and violence. They created an experiment in which different children were asked questions about how often they played games, what kind of games they played, and what kind of fantasies they have had. This went on throughout their childhood and onto their teen years. The results demonstrated that the children who played violent games had an increase in violent behavior and violent tendencies as well as violent fantasies as to what they would wish to happen to someone they didn’t like. In 2011 a study was conducted in which after a week of daily video gaming, brain scans of a small group of volunteers demonstrated less activity in the regions connected to emotions, attention, and inhibition of impulses compared to the participant that played nonviolent video games. The effect can change, but if people play violent video games more often then it can cause a more stable and permanent change in the brain. You can read the information here: http://time.com/34075/how-violent-video-games-change-kids-attitudes-about-aggression/
This site, on the other hand, does not believe that violent video games make the children that play them violent. They believe that playing a video game in which the child cannot pass the level and advance is what makes them violent instead of its content. There was a study where volunteers played both violent and nonviolent video games that had levels that were manipulated by the researchers. The results showed that the participants showed greater signs of aggression when they played a game in which they could not pass a level for twenty minutes – regardless of whether the game included mature content or not. You can read more information here: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/violent-video-games-dont-make-you-aggressive–difficult-games-do-says-new-study-9246838.html
I think that the first website is more credible than the second one simply because the results and experiment make sense. The one that says that it’s not passing a level that makes one violent is absurd. I mean, OF COURSE not passing a level is frustrating and can make a person violent at the moment but not really towards others. That is my opinion, though. I think violent video games SHOULD be allowed but I think that in order to get them one must be eighteen or older and the person at the register must ask for an ID. Perhaps people will buy them for their younger siblings but that is on them. The government can’t do EVERYTHING for the people. The people need to do something for themselves as well.
Elizabeth Loftus TED Talk
My reaction to this TED Talk are the following things: I feel bad for the guy who was put in jail for raping someone when he was completely innocent and even more that it practically led to his death. I don’t understand how the woman who claimed that she had been tortured and have had her baby cut out of her stomach when she was pregnant say those things when there was no possible way that that could have happened. I think that the military soldiers have been used as experiments for too long and no one does anything because it’s the government; therefore, the soldiers being tortured and thinking the person that tortured them was someone else is not necessarily their fault because they could have been tortured beforehand on another occasion and it got stuck to their memory.
Loftus implied that we can manipulate the mind for positive outcomes such as making someone believe that they live vegetables when they actually don’t so that they’ll be more likely to eat it and enjoy it.
Pros: the person will become more healthy. The have a better lifestyle. The person will be more positive if he believes that good things happened to him.
Cons: The memory is not real. The memory may lead the person to think too much of himself or lose control/become hysterical when he tells people and they don’t believe him.
Although manipulating the mind can be used for good things, I still think that it is tampering with memory. I think that even though the false memory is there, over time the person will question it (if it is something big) because I always think that the truth always comes out no matter what. I think that maybe it would be okay to put false memories in a person’s mind only if they are good ones and if they are super small things like eating vegetables.
Week 3 – You Are Not Special Commencement Speech
If I were to hear this message, I would not take it to heart. Obviously the man does mean to tell us that we not not special because we cannot do anything good with our lives; he means that we are not special because we are all special. I believe that he was saying that we have been holding on to being told that we are “special” and we need to stop thinking in a way that will make you believe you absolutely have to become successful even if it means getting a job that you hate.
What if you want to be a teacher even though it does not pay as much as a doctor? What if you want to be a writer? A singer? An artist? His message is simply that we must let go of that thought and to actually enjoy our lives so that we can reach our full potential. Too many people in this world have been told that they are special so they do not have value for themselves or others.
This message was effective for the teenagers because they were at the Formal Operation level of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development; therefore, the teenagers are able to think abstractly and hypothetically, which means that the students would be able to know what the person giving the speech was actually trying to say instead of taking everything literal. Emotionally some may be hurt but once they stop and think about what it really means then they will understand.
Week 2 – Mythbusters
Overview: The short clip was about comparing whether men or women were better at reading emotions. Both men and women started off strong but later on their guesses became wrong. Men took a longer time responding and choosing the emotion as opposed to the women who saw the picture and automatically stated the emotion. Both genders confused a certain angry face for a sexy/bedroom eyes.
Variables:
- Independent: Different pictures with different emotions.
- Dependent: The emotion that men and women chose.
- Participants: Random men and women.
Critique: Some strengths that the study had was that the faces that were displayed had most of the face covered so that the men and women could only see the eyes of the face that they were seeing. Another strength is that the researchers had tested on multiple men and women not just one of each. A weakness that they had was that only the eyes were left uncovered. This is a problem because it is hard to tell emotion just by looking at eyes which is why the men and women confused the angry face for bedroom eyes. I would suggest perhaps showing the body and how it stands or maybe the hands so that the people could look at body language.
Introduction
I am taking this class because I want to fulfill my requirement and also because I want to know more about myself as well as others and taking this class will help me study how people think and act.
Based on the syllabus three things that I find interesting are:
- Personality Theory: I think it would be great for us to find out what category we would fall into based on our personalities and see how much we have changed.
- Coping with Stress: It’s good for us to know how to cope with stress because we are all stressed here at AC about one thing or another and we should know how to relax.
- Classifying Mental Illness: I have always been interested in Psychopathy and mental illnesses and I think that this topic will teach me more things other than what I already know.
Three things that I do not find as interesting are:
- Sleep: We have already had seminars about sleep and we already know how much time we should sleep. And even though we know what we should be doing we still don’t get enough sleep because it is not one of our priorities even though I should be.
- Stereotypes and Discrimination: I have learned many of the stereotypes and have experienced discrimination many times and have talked about it a lot so I don’t find it that interesting because I already know that it happens and how to deal with it.
- Brain Structures: It’s not that I know the information, it’s just that know I won’t like it because it’s simply not one of the things that catches my attention.
There is no specific question that I wish to answer I just hope to learn lots of interesting new things that I can use in life.
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