Chapter 15 Entry

We often have those friends that constantly do random things because they want to be with the in crowd.  Whether is be drinking, smoking, or gossiping, people often will give in to the pressure of the crowd.  But why is this so?  Chapter 15 explains this question as to why people partake in these things.  The book describes this behavior of our friends as conformity.  Conformity is defines as the adjusting of one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.   

People often give into conformity by normative and informational social influences. Normative social influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval. These people usually want to fit in with a group.  We often fall into this when they go to parties drinking, laughing if someone may be getting picked on, or even clap even if you didn’t like a performance.  The person may not originally be a mean person, but when surrounded by a group, they will usually give in to what the rest of them are going.  Informational social influence is the result from a person’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality. This is usually when our friends may constantly ask us questions as to what to do next. For example, our friends may ask us what to wear, where are we going next, or even where are we eating.

 

Solomon Asch tested this phenomenon of conformity.  He had a participant sit in on a panel of other people who were in on the experiment.  They were asked about the length of lines and which compared with another.  After many trials of the panel answering incorrectly, the participant began to conform his answers even though they were wrong.  The pressure of conformity is very strong, but will people ever be able to comfortably go against social norms?

Chapter 14 Entry

In the last Chapter, we discussed psychological disorders and how they are diagnosed.  After being exposed the various disorders that many people face, I wondered how the people with these disorders go about getting help.  To my luck, Chapter 14 discussed the various ways people receive may help from professionals. A commonly known solution to people with psychological disorders is psychotherapy, which is a treatment involving psychological techniques between a trained therapist and someone that is seeking to overcome personal growth.  Chapter 13 also discussed the many techniques such as psychoanalytic, behavioral, and cognitive.

 The behavioral therapies stood out to me the most! Behavioral therapy consists of learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors. Within behavior therapy is counterconditioning, which is a procedure that uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors.  One form of counterconditioning is exposure therapies, which I found very interesting.  Exposure therapy is when anxieties are treated by exposing people to things they fear.  I found this rather interesting because this was the same technique that was commonly used on the Maury Povitch show.  He would often have a segment when people would come on the show with weird phobias.  Whether it was a fear of birds, frogs, or even jello, these people would come to the show for help.  The starts off with the wrong step which if flooding.  This is when person is bombarded by they object they are afraid of. After much foolishness, they finally go to the therapist for professional help.  The therapist would often use the exposure technique by first showing them a picture.  They would later progress to getting the object into the room and gradually move toward the patient.  They eventually move toward the step of being able to hold the object that they are afraid of.   

In Chapter 13, I learned about psychological disorders.   The book states that psychological disorders are ongoing patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that are deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional.  Depending on the culture, certain deviant behavior may be viewed as normal; therefore diagnosing these disorders is very critical and serious.  People often self-diagnose themselves with disorders when they here symptoms and agree that they are experiencing.  Even though people may feel that they have these symptoms, there is more to diagnosing psychological disorders.   Clinicians classify psychological disorders with a volume called the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.” The DSM-IV-TR, is a widely used system for naming, describing, and classifying psychological disorders.

Chapter 13 also went into detail about various disorders. Who knew that ere were so many psychological disorders?  From ADHD, to schizophrenia, there is a wide array of disorders.  One disorder that stood out to me was post-traumatic stress disorder.  PTSD is an anxiety disorder that is characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia that lingers for four or more weeks after dramatic occurrence.  Many people who have served in the military have been diagnosed from this disorder due to graphic exposure to war or other events.  During this, the limbic system increases vulnerability, by flooding with stress and hormones and repeating of images of the traumatic experience come into consciousness.  Soldiers, as well as other victims of rape, abuse, and car accidents have affected by PTSD.  There is a cure, but others still suffer from the graphic images of their experience.

Chapter 12 Entry

     One topic in Chapter 12 that stood out to me was the section on Defense Mechanisms.  Defense mechanisms are actions used to show how the ego protects itself.  Depending on the situation a person may be involved in, they react differently in a form of defense.  We all have those friends that are famous for their dramatic reactions when confronted with an issue.  We may have the friend who begins to cry like a baby when getting pulled over by the cops or they may go to a corner and sit and pout when stressed.  This person is using the regression defense mechanism.  During regression a person may return to their inner child and perform childlike actions when reaching high levels of anxiety.

     We also may have the friend that constantly talks about the mean girl at school, but still caters to her when she sees her in school. This person is using reaction formation which is a transformation of an anxiety emotion into its opposite.  So even though this person may hat the mean girl, she will still show the opposite emotion when reached a high level of anxiety.

     We all have the alcoholic or pothead friend who may use projection.  This is when they constantly attribute their own unacceptable qualities unto someone else.  They may blame someone for their wrongdoing or try to make another person's situation look bigger than their's.  They may also try to rationalize, trying to make their issue not seem so bad. They usually say things like I’ll keep drinking because it’s something I do publicly, I’m not really addicted.

     On a more serious note, we may have a friend who may have gone through a very traumatizing event when they were younger.  They usually result in defending their self with repression and usually try to forget the event. Thinking about the event could be mentally harmful for  them because they may look at it as if they are reliving the tragedy.

Chapter 8 Entry

     It was like any other day in the fifth grade.  I arrived at school around 8:30am, ate breakfast with friends, and headed off to class before it started at 9:00am.  We were sitting at our desks awaiting our teacher to begin class.  As he was preparing himself to teach, my math teacher came into the room and pulled him aside.  She was in tears as she began to break some type of news to him.  He went to turn on the television, and there I saw what looked like a cool action movie.  A really tall building had appeared to be on fire.  He told us that what was on television was not fake, and that it was happening as we looked at it. He informed us that the building was the Twin Towers located in Manhattan, New York and that a plane had just flew into one of the towers.  My math teacher came back into the room in tears stating that her brother was on a flight to Manhattan, but was not sure if his plane was one of the one that flew into the towers. The class just continued to watch the television still in shock that this was actually happening.  As we watched, another airplane had flown into the other building.  Some of the students screamed and others began to cry.  I couldn’t believe that this was happening.  Shortly afterwards, the news station began to show a man with a turban on his head.  Was this the man that did this?  I was so confused as to what and why this was going on.  The teachers were assembled and conversing in the hallway.  My teacher, came back into the room, turned off the television and said, “let’s begin today’s lesson.”

     This is my flashbulb memory of the events that took place on 9/11. That happened to be one of the most memorable days of my life, even though it was not filled with pleasant events.  It was the first time I experienced something such as that.  I learned that when experiencing a flashbulb memory is a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.  When experiencing flashbulb memories, our nervous system takes a snapshot of everything that is going on. This is why people are able to remember such memories years after their occurrence.

Chapter 7 Entry

     When I was younger, my sister used to be afraid of lightning.  Whenever we would ride in the car in the middle of a thunderstorm, she would always cover her eyes and crouch down in the seat.  This same response happened with every flash of lightning.  When analyzing this situation, I realized that the lightning is not what was scaring her.  It was the loud booming thunder that followed right after the flashes of light.  She was so used to the thunder coming right afterward, that she considered it to be all together. 

     After reading Chapter 7, I realized that she didn’t really have a dramatic fear, but she was just conditioned.  In classical conditioning, a person learns to associate two stimuli with a response.  In the case of my sister, the two stimuli were the lightning and thunder. The neutral stimulus, which happened to be the lightning, originally has no response before conditioning.  (If she was really afraid of lightning, she would jump at the flick of every light switch.)  The unconditioned stimulus which, was the thunder, is a stimulus that naturally causes a response.  This response, also known as the unconditioned response, would be my sister’s flinching and covering her eyes.  The conditioning process happens when the unconditioned stimulus immediately follows the neutral stimulus repeatedly.  This creates the conditioned response to the now conditioned stimulus.  In this case, my sister would automatically flinch when she saw the lightning.  My sister’s conditioning wasn’t permanent and she eventually grew out of it over time.

Chapter 6 Entry

     Since I was younger, I have been fascinated with illusions and how they play tricks on the mind. I remember when I was younger, illusions used to come on the back of the cereal box.  I would be able to look at them and figure out the trick within a few minutes. But I remember an illusion that truly stumped me.  This one illusion in particular, was of an old lady and a younger woman. At the time, I could only see the old lady.  I thought that she looked quite comical and that is what stuck out to me at first.  I went to show my older sister what I thought was just a funny picture, but she could not see it. Instead, she said that she saw a younger woman looking away and a feather on her head.  We both became confused because we didn’t see the difference in the picture.  So to finally solve the issue, we outlined what we saw with a pencil.  After much staring, I was finally able to see the mysterious younger woman that sister saw!  I wondered why was it so hard for me to see the past the older lady.

     In Chapter 6, they discussed sensation and perception.  The chapter went into detail on how our sensory and perceptual processes work together to help us sort out complex images, much like the mysterious picture of the two ladies. In the book, there was a similar image that contained hidden faces, but you were only able to see them depending on the way you perceived the image.  For me, I first saw the older lady because I thought that it was funny.  After seeing that image first, it was harder to see anything past it.  Therefore, I constructed my perception based on my senses of the comical image.

Chapter 5 Entry

     I am reminded of a time when my cousin would come down from Pennsylvania to spend the summer with us.  At the time, he was around six years old and always looked for some type of adventure.  He would often want to play the video game the same time that I was playing.  Since I was younger, I was really passionate about my video games and didn’t want anyone else to mess-up my progress.  So I came up with the strategy of hooking up a second controller to the game console so that he may “play” as well.  What he didn’t know was that the controller was defective and did not work.  At the time, just saw that it was plugged in, and the next step was to have fun.  I was able to get away with this strategy for the whole summer!  I considered it a win-win situation: we were both able to play the video game and have fun.

     The next summer, he came down to visit us again.  And without surprise, we still had the same video game dilemma.  I was still at the age of being selfish with my video games, so I tried my strategy with faulty controller again.  For the first couple of days, everything went smoothly. After awhile, he began to realize that something was different about playing the game.  One day while in the middle of playing the game, he completely stopped and put the controller down.  As he looked at the television and saw that the game was still continuing as I tapped away on my controller. He realized that he was not controlling the game! I began to wonder what allowed him to see the difference in playing the game from the previous summer.

     This answer was explained when I read Chapter 5.  When he visited at the age of six, he was still in the preoperational stage. This meant that he had perceived the getting the controller meant that he could play automatically the game.  The controller was associated with fun! When he came back at the age of seven, he had developed more cognitively and was now in the concrete operational stage. He was able to see that although he received a controller, that did not mean it worked.  He had gained the ability of problem solving and checking things to see if they actually worked.  This is what probably caused him to suddenly pause to check and see if it was actually working.  I find it amazing how the mind works and how fast if constantly changes!

Chaper 4 Entry

     Reading and analyzing Chapter 4 really exposed me to cultural and gender differences and how they have an effect on a society.  Before reading the chapters, I watched a video that allowed me to see how effective a culture may have on an individual.  In the video, an experiment was conducted that explained the gender differences in sexuality.  During the experiment, when men were approached by a stranger they were more likely to sleep with the stranger as opposed to women who were asked the same question.  I often wonder how things, such as the results from this experiment, turn out this way and what makes this acceptable in our culture.  Why would it be viewed as “cool” for men to sleep with strangers but women are perceived as a “whore” when doing do the same act? One double standard that I find amusing is women and men at the movies.  When women cry at the movies, people may find this sweet and endearing.  But if a man sheds a tear during a movie, he is viewed as soft and not as manly. He may have to cover it up by saying something like, “Something was in my eye” or “It takes a real man to cry during Bambi.” But where do things derive? 

     Our society often conforms to things such as this.  They derive from existing beliefs, traditions, and attitudes that are passed down within a culture from generation to generation.  Depending on the culture, certain things are looked down upon which results in certain behavior among individuals.  We often adapt to the customs of a culture and live by what’s acceptable and what’s not. For example, in the book is stated how in Arab societies, heterosexual men often greet one another with a kiss. In America, and other Western countries, this act would not be easily accepted and viewed as homosexual.  Many things are also portrayed all over the media that makes certain this acceptable to individuals.  Many music videos and “reality” television shows show men in a dominant position which basically allows the culture to adapt to what they are exposed to.  But what will happen if a culture is exposed to limited things that will not allow them to form cultural and gender double standards? Would this be possible?