IN PREPARATION FOR THE FINAL

Well  I can easily say that it is impossible to study absolutely everything that we learned this year covering the textbook and lectures. Or at least from my opinion. I think that doing the practice test you can get a lot out of it. Each question you can look at all the multiple choice answers and then analyze what each one means, even if that wasn't the specific answer. Then you can think of an example for each, or why that wasn't the correct answer, and what question could have been asked to make it the right answer. I also like to draw diagrams for questions that I think would be useful for, like for me I remember the id, superego, and ego better if I draw a picture of an iceberg. Also, I like to draw out the brain and the different parts. I am so thankful that I did the study guides through out the semester because just skimming over them refreshes me on so many topics. I'm going to be honest I haven't even done half of the study guide for the last chapters because I think it would be more useful for me to just review everything. We recently learned the information so I haven't forgotten it all like the older chapters. Also, I read a whole book on depression for extra credit, so I know that topic down to a T. A lot of mental disorders treatments are the same like schizophrenia, mania, and bipolar all have similar treatments, so that isn't as hard to study for. Again, i'm glad that I didn't cram the night before for all my previous tests because now I can retain the information better. I haven't used Study Blue at all to study, but I might glance over some flashcards tomorrow night. I learned that the more I cram, the worse my results on tests are, so for the most part I'm going to study what I don't know without confusing myself. I finished reading the chapters a while ago so I haven't been learning a lot of new information other then the lectures.  I think I will do decent on the final - as in hoping to pass. No matter how well I do, I will accept it because I put a lot of time and effort into the class and I learned a lot..like I haven't done homework in any of my other classes in weeks.. I could have studied more...as in I should have started studying for this test weeks ago, but with the amount of other things going on in my life, who has the time! Whatever happens, happens..DONE WITH PSYCH FOR LIFE.
But not technically because I see it everywhere I go. Thanks for being an awesome possum teacher Leuthner :)

Chapter 10: Human Development

I think we all want to know how and why we develop into the people we are today. During this chapter I learned that as babies we are more likely to want comfort than nourishment. Contact comfort: the positive emotions offered not only can make someone happy, but can also offer feelings of safety and protection. In the book they talked about the strange situation experiment. There are four different categories: secure attachment, insecure-avoidant attachment, insecure-anxious attachment, and disorganized attachment. Also described in lecture, I am most likely to be insecure-avoidant attachment, which was when the infant reacts to mom's departure with indifference and shows little reaction on her return. These type of people (avoidant) don't depend on others and take care of themselves. I found the Kohlberg and morality experiment to be very interesting, I know that I determine my morality on postconventional morality. I would break any law to save someones life, life is greater than any stupid law. Also, when it comes to parenting when I get older, I am going to take the authoritative approach, but I also am going to let them learn things on their own. I personally think that kids learn the best from a parent-centered or "hard" approach to parenting.  What do you guys think is the best approach for parenting? Also, the Erikson's model of Idenity: the Idenity Crisis is a unique concept to everyone's individual idenity. I think it is correct for some, but not all. I do not believe that everyone goes through all 8 stages.  

Chapter 14 : Personality

My group I was out into was Low Extroversion and High Conscientousness

1. My group thought and acted similar through out the exercise.  We came up with a plan and stuck with it. We had specific and realistic plans that we wanted to do like for exampe; travel to the Great Barrier Reef or the Sydney Opera House in Australia. We all could agree on one place and thought it would be a good idea to have an itinerary and a daily routine. Our group was able to stay on task the whole time and not get side tracked thinking about other things.

2. One thing that hindered or hurt my feelings is my group wanted to split up, which is understandable because our personality type would rather be alone or on our own, but personally I would rather be in a group when I travel to a country I have never been to before! Also, people in my group were in a hurry to pick a place and move onto the next question because they didn't like time stalling. Our group was still trying to decide where we wanted to go when some members were already on to the next question!

3.  "North Korea"...blankly stated that is not my personality type. That group's personality was laid back and looking for the attention of others. I think it was strange that some people didn't have a plan and wanted to arrive at their vacation and just go with the flow. Or how they needed to do all of these things like go tanning before their trip.  Or how some groups were very unrealistic and care free.

4.  If other personality types were in our group, hands down we would all sit there and let them do the deciding because we are more reserved and quiet. We all have our own ideas but if their was someone who wanted their ideas to work I think we would just let them decide because to us - this excersise is unrealistic and if we were actually planning a legit trip we would never go with those type of people anyways.  

Chapter 9: Intelligence and Psychological Testing

1. I think the 2 most important aspects of intelligence that should be measured in an IQ test are the ability to solve real world problems - Practical Intelligence and the ability to understand our emotions and others - Emotional Intelligence. We all live once for what, less than a hundred years? Who wants to be intelligent because they spend their whole life studying and wasting their life away not learning anything but a bunch of numbers and definitions. I think practical and emotional intelligence are important because it is all about the real world - the world we live in. Being practical intelligent helps you to solve everyday problems. Emotionally we all want to live happy and stable lives, that is why I think emotional intelligence is so important. Both emotional and practical intelligence is important no matter what culture, age, or gender.

2. To totally eliminate cultural differences? I think - impossible. No matter what type of test you use their is always going to be one type of culture where it is more familiar to them than others. I think though that there are many ways to almost eliminate it or greatly diminish the differences. One way is to use geometrical patterns having to pick out the last pattern. This test is called the Raven's Progressive Matrices. Another way is to design culture-fair tests that totally eliminate the language- giving no culture a greater advantage because of familiarity of language. In reality, we all know that different cultures are better at different areas of intelligence just by the way their culture acts and behaves. 

Chapter 11 : Emotion and Motivation

There are many theories of emotions. The James-Lange Theory relying on how we result from our bodily reactions implies emotions from what I can see is incorrect.  Cannon-Bard Theory is a theory I agree on because it makes sense that an emotion-provoking event would lead to both an emotion and a bodily reaction. The Somatic Marker theory also makes some logical sense - that we use our gut reactions to determine how we act. Then we have the two-factor theory?? It makes no sense to me, and I don't see how it works in real world situations. I found the section on lying and lie detection very interesting. I did not know that occupational groups like custom officials and psychiatrists do no better job than us at detecting lies. Also, I think we need to find a better way to detect lies because our devices have high falsality rates. Alot of criminals are good liars, how else would they get away with their crimes? I think our whole school should read about the misconceptions of happiness. Like money won't buy you happiness! OR just because soemthing bad happens to you..it doesn't determine your happiness.  I was sad to hear that people on the West Coast are not happier than us Minnesotans... I was planing on moving to California in my later years thinking the sun and beach would bring me a great deal of happiness, I guess I was wrong! I found it amusing to find a whole section on attraction, love, and hate in our textbook. Proximity, similarity, and reciprocity...the triangle of LOVE. 

TEST 2!

That test was bogus! I studied for hours on end and did the study guide and watched all the lectures, I felt prepared for the test and I still did bad! I thought that I understood all the material in detail and could explain it all in my own words. I think that it is alot of information to retain at one time, and when it came down to test time some of the questions were confusing and I drew a blank. For the next test I am going to have to work harder and make sure I start studying TODAY- way in advance..even though I studied alot for the last test. I think I put in the work, but didn't get the results I wanted. One reason is becasue during the state tournament I didn't do any psych....so I had to cram over spring break..but still this class is hard. Thank god for extra credit. What I learned in psych....I am classicaly conditioned to fear our classroom. Everytime I walk in im scared!

Chapter 7 : Memory

What elements played a role in creating Paul's "memories"?
Paul didn't think that his daughters were liars so he thought that what they said was true. All of his sheriffs and friends were his interrogators. He was also placed in an isolated cell where the lights were on nearly all the time because he was under a suicide watch. He was manipulated, hypnotized, and detained. The police told him that if he confessed that he would start to remember what happened. He visualized what happened after praying and would describe what he thought would have happened in third person.
Identify research findings from the Locust Article that might apply to the Paul Ingram case.
Stated in the article, people can be implanted with false memories that never happened under certain conditions. For example a study was shown how people had said that they had seen Bugs Bunny at Disney World because they were talking about it and made it believable and realistic. Bugs Bunny isn't even a Disney character but people were convinced they had seen him. This shows that with the right amount of convincing and manipulating you can get people to remember things that never happened, just like how Paul Ingram believed he committed the crime.
What evidence of his potential innocence was ignored? Why would people ignore this evidence?
The daughter who said that her dad molested her was actually a virgin. He could have never raped his daughters if they were virgins. The evidence was ignored because all over the country people had heard  what he had done and he was already hated, also he couldn't be trusted because people didn't know what to believe. Also, once he confesses there was no way to go back, if he said he did it, there was no going back.
Why do you think Paul Ingram confessed?
I think he confessed because he was under so much pressure and all of his friends and family turned against him and he had nobody to talk to. Also, I think that all along he was trying to be a good father, and he didn't want his kids to get in trouble or have to go to court or jail. He eventually believed what people were telling him because he didn't know what else to think.

Chapter 8: Language, thinking, and reasoning

Reading this chapter I felt like I was in speech class! Alot of the terms we learned about language were similar to the ones we have learned in speech like the four levels of analysis : phonemes, morphemes, syntax, and extralinguistic information..also dialect and arbitrary sentences.  I have always thought that sign language was an unbelievable way to communicate with others. I learned that humans aren't the only species to communicate, animals do to just in different ways like mating and agression. Linguistic determinism and relativity are described as two different things in the book. I thought they were the same?
Regarding the Winter Survival Game:
2. What kinds of errors affected problem-solving in your group? (Failure to Define the Problem? Functional Fixedness? Confirmation Bias? Groupthink? Social Loafing/Group Dominance? Provide at least one specific example.)
 My group did a very good job with functional fixedness, we new to use the objects for more then there original purpose. We knew that the ball of steel wool is extremly flammable and that the whiskey was also flammable not just used for alcohol. I would say our biggest problem is we thought about it too much when we should have used our basic principle of Occam's Razor. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best! Some people in our group were affected by confirmation bias, they only wanted their ideas to be right and they shut out any one elses.
3. If any individual scored better than the group, why was the group not able to take advantage of that accuracy? OR If the group scored better than all members, why was the group better?
I scored better as a group rather than individually because I barely even defined the problem, which is step one in critical thinking. I also would say I was set in a mental set on just trying to find my way back home..when really that is unrealistic in negative degree whether so far away from home. I forgot about the needs of others and thought that my way was right as long as I was warm and safe.

Chapter 6: Learning

This chapter was the death of me...I thought it made sense when I first started reading it..but then everything started combining together and I didn't know what term meant what or what example was for what condition. Classical Conditioning and Pavlov's Discoveries with the salivating dogs were easy to follow with the diagram in the book explaining UCS, UCR, CR, and CS. Then they throw at you acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, stimulus generalization, and stimulus discrimination..like what?? None of those terms make any sense to me especially when they use them again in operant conditioning..are they the same terms or do they have different definitions? I liked reading about the story of Little Albert because I didn't know that fear could be shaped by classical conditioning. The Skinner boxes interested me because they were so much more advanced then the cat boxes made by Thorndike. Under the applications of Operant Conditioning I was confused about the differences between shaping, fading, and chaining. It says that fading is decreasing the frequency of our reinforcement and chaining is a technique in which they link a number of interrelated behaviors to form a longer series. Does that connect to fading or shaping? I dont understand this chapter at all. Someone help me "learn". ;)

Chapter 5 : Consciousness

The first part of this chapter is so interesting...the second part was not so much....I love learning about how our brains work when we sleep.  I always knew there were different cycles when you sleep, but I read that there are 5 different stages and the fifth stage - REM sleep, is where your brain is the most active and you have the vividest dreams. I also was suprised to learn that during each stage your brain's waves frequencies and altitudes differ. Like when you are awake your brain produces beta waves..but when you are in stages 3 and 4 your brain produces delta waves.
For some reason I find learning about the different disorders of sleep very interesting. Except...Insomnia I thought was when you had difficulty falling and staying asleep...and narcolepsy was when you would fall asleep unexpectedly-or when you didn't want to. When I was taking the quiz I got a question about the difference between the 2 and it said

" narcolepsy causes people to have difficulty falling asleep when they want to, while insomnia causes people to fall asleep when they do not want to." That doesn't make any sense to me?? I thought it was the complete opposite?? I am proud to say that I have experienced lucid dreaming before. I actually was screaimg for help in my dream hoping that my mom could hear me and wake me up.  I didn't know if lucid dreaming was even possible until now!

TEST!!

I would have to say I am happy with my score that I got on my psych test. I think coming into this class, everyone makes you really nervous for the tests and says you have to know EVERYTHING. I put in alot of work to prepare myself, but the studying I did was over an accumalated time, I only studied for a couple hours the weekend before. By doing the study guide, reading the chapters, and taking notes I think I was prepared for the test. I was just happy for it to be over. For the next test I am definently going to start doing the study guide in advance! The study guide took me a very long time, but the only thing I used to study was reviewing the questions and understanding them. As long as I keep up with my work, I will easily be prepared for the next test. GO PSYCH!

Chapter 3: Biological Psychology

Chapter 3 really went into depth about the brain, Central Nervous System, Neurons, Neurotransmitters, etc.  I learned what a neuron is - a nerve cell specialized for communication - and how it works and why it is important to our brain. The neurons communicate with each other to help us think and recieve senses. The neuron is made up of multiple parts; the soma, dendrites, axons, synaptic vesicles, neurotransmitters, synapse, and synaptic cleft. What I didn't understand is what is the difference between resting potential and action potential? I think it just means the resting potential of the neuron is when it is not active, and the action potenital is when it is moving. Does the "all or none law" mean that all neurons will trigger at once, or none will? One thing I didn't realize in this chapter was that there are MANY different imaging and scanning techniques for your brain; many I have never even heard of like the PET (Position emission tomography) or the EEG (electroencephalograph). I wonder which one is the best to use? Another thing I learned was that the colorful pictures we see of the brain are not pictures of the brain in action, they are really pictures of the control task minus the experimental task. This is a misconception by many people, not just me! There were three misconceptions about heritability - percentage of the variability in a trait across individuals that is due to genes. I think we all should be aware of the misconceptions because they are ones that many of us fall prey to everyday. 1 - heritability applies to a single individual rather than to differences among individuals. 2 - heritabilty tells us whether a trait can be changed. 3 - heritabilty is a fixed number.  Heritability is important because it allows us to examine the influence of nature and nurture.

Chapter 2: Research Methods

Before I read this chapter I wasn't sure how important Research Design was to our every day lives, but I realized that without it, even the most intelligent people can be fooled.  We all know those people who "knew it all along" - hindsight bias or have the tendency to be overconfident. Hindsight bias and overconfidence can lead us to draw misleading conclusions! It is a good thing the scientific method exists and points us in the right direction. Some examples of research designs are naturalistic observations, case studies, correlational designs, and experimental designs. If I was going to choose one of them to do I would choose an experimental design because it is the only one that allows us to infer causation. I think surveys are a waste of time because alot of people don't take surveys seriously, and the questions are asked in a way that is usually confusing. For example, the match makers we do in school..umm nobody fills them out seriously! It's a good thing the information doesn't have significant value. One thing that I don't completely understand is how to determine the difference between correlation with causation. In the book some unreliable examples were,, "Eating fish prevents crime", "Winning World Cup lowers heart attack deaths", "Housework Cuts Breast Cancer Risk" ...how do we know when the media is telling the truth or not??

Chapter 1: Psychology and Scientific Thinking

In Chapter 1, I read about the basic concepts and history of psychology that we will be referencing through out the whole semester. The six principles of scientific thinking come up in our lives daily; ruling out rival hypotheses, correlation vs. causation, falsifiability, replicability, extraordinary claims, and occam's razor.  I wonder how they decided to name occam's razor?? Out of all of the fallacies I realized that I commit the "Not Me Fallacy" quite often. I think that if it does not have to do with me, it won't effect me..which I learned to be not true. I still am a little confused about the concepts behind the 5 major theoretical perspectives; structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, cognitivism, and psychoanalysis. How do they relate to each other and how do they differ?? I'm excited for the rest of the semester because I think I will learn alot of things that I can apply to real life situations, like detecting pseudoscientific claims!  I didn't realize before how often pseudoscientific claims were right in front of us; newspapers, magazines, internet, TV, billboards, etc. Now that I know I can be a more informed consumer!

My thoughts on psych...

I am nervous because everyone says how much work and time this class takes up, but I am also very excited! I think psychology is interesting and is going to be a fun class where I will learn alot. I just hope I can keep up with everything without being stressed!