Author Archives: carlyscollege

First Impression: Ch 7

--Original published at Carly's College Blog

Violence in video games has been gaining more and more controversy over the past few years. Most of this controversy being negative, people have been claiming it leads to violent behavior and other issues as well. I think there are pros and cons to these types of video games.  A child’s environment growing up has a strong impact on their development. The easy access kids have to these types of video games brings them into their daily routine at a younger age. Growing up playing violent games, especially with today’s technology, could definitely have an impact on a developing child if their parents are not limiting them or monitoring screen time.

However, I do not think these games just flip a switch and turn a kid aggressive. There are most likely going to be other contributors to a child violently acting out then just the fact that he or she owns an aggressive game. it could be a mental health condition, a family situation, or something else the child has experienced. I read an article one time for a separate class that argued violence in literature also has an impact. Their claim was that it doesn’t turn someone aggressive, but it could change the way they respond to provocation. I could easily see this working with video games as well. A child gets into a disagreement with a friend, are they more likely to confront them and talk, or hit them? Again, for the answer I think it depends on the situation and other confounding variables.

I think that as long as parents are monitoring their child and limiting how much exposure they receive, the video games are okay. I also think their needs be a stronger age restriction because there is simply no reason why young kids need this kind of exposure so early in their lives.

First Impression ch4

--Original published at Carly's College Blog

When it comes to parenting styles, I think it can be hard to pin point just one perfect style. I feel that when parenting, there should be balance between strictness and how laid back to be.

I want to start with helicopter parents. Helicopter parents hover their child’s every move and decision. They need to know absolutely everything all the time and can even become overly controlling. I think this could cause the child to develop anxiety. It could give them a suffocated feeling and cause them to be constantly worried about the decisions they are making and how they are handling every day situations. However, I don’t think parents should be totally laisse faire. There are certain disciplines in a child’s life where I think parents should be more controlling than in others, such as monitoring their child’s school work.

This brings me to the “jellyfish” parent. Jellyfish parents are extremely laid back and let their children do whatever they want. There are no set rules or expectations. although this gives the child an extreme sense of freedom, I think they tend to have a poorer sense of self discipline. They don’t need to meet any expectations, nd without parents giving them some guidance, may not fully understand which actions could be considered “right’ or “wrong”. Lastly, we have the tiger mom. I view this more overbearing than helicopter parents, personally. They strive so hard to push their children to succeed. I think this can even lead to depression in children who are not meeting the expectations of the parent or parents that are putting the extra pressure on them.

Overall, I think having balance and open communication between child and adult is the key to successful parenting.

First Impression 1

--Original published at Carly's College Blog

For my chapter one first impression, I chose the mini myth titled “Do Waitresses Get Bigger Tips When They Have Bigger Breasts”. Being a female, I wasn’t surprised when the conclusion of their experiment was a yes.

While carrying out the experiment, they had Kari work the same three shifts at the coffee shop on three separate days. Each day, Kari wore the same clothes, wig, makeup, and gave the same level of service to all of the customers. The only thing that changed each shift, was her breast size. At the end of the experiment, the days that Kari wore sizes small and medium, men tipped an average of 90 cents making the total about 72 dollars. The day they had Kari wear the triple D, tips from male customers increased by 30% and the total for that day was 92 dollars.

I found one strength and one weakness that each stood out to me. The weakness being while they were viewing the security footage they continuously put emphasis on the way men were looking at Kari and checking her out. While the purpose was to gauge the difference the breast size made, I feel as though they still could have left those parts out. Reacting to men checking her out had no effect on the experiment. The one strength I found though, was how they didn’t exclude the female customers from the experiment, and kept those tips separate. I was a little surprised to see that the female customers’ tips also increased by 40% on the day Kari increased her breast size to the triple D.

Introduction

--Original published at Carly's College Blog

Hello, My name is Carly Patterson and I am a first year psychology major here at Etown. I am a first generation college student and an only child. I live in the Philadelphia suburbs and graduated from Cardinal O’Hara high school, a small catholic school in my area. My approach to this course is to have an open mind about all of the topics we cover over the semester. I have not yet decided which branch of psychology I want to have a career in, so I am looking forward to learning new things in this course. As a senior I took and intro to psych course, but not at the AP level, so I only have a small understanding of the things we will cover. When I hear the word psychology, I think of the brain and its mental processes. The three topics I am most excited for are how to improve memories, classifying mental illness, and mood disorders. These seem the most interesting to me because my final exam in my high school course was a case study where each student had to diagnose the patient in the study, and write an essay on how and why we came to that conclusion. I thought it was so cool and enjoyed that part of class the most. I am least interested in the scientific method, critiquing experimental design, and conditioning. This is mostly because they were covered the most in my high school course and just did not pique my interest as much. I also do not have a specific question in mind to be answered, but to just have a better understanding of psychology overall.