Chapter 3: First Impression

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

For this post I opted to do option four. I chose this one because I have recently noticed the older I get the more different my sleep habits are and they are not changing for the better. I honestly don’t believe my sleep habits are good but they aren’t the worst either. I have grown to be an extremely light sleeper. It is so bad, my cat’s tiny bell on his collar can wake me up through the noise of 2 fans, the air conditioner, and the door being shut and locked, will wake me up. It is getting to the point where I have to put ear plugs in when I am home because the sound of my dad getting ready in the bathroom on the other side of my bedroom wall will keep me awake until he leaves for work. This curse has caused me to lose quite a few hours of sleep at school because of my roommates having coughing fits or because of other students having the t.v. too loud below us. Also, I have problems sleeping when there is light in the room so I have to use black out currents or use one of my many pillows over my face to block out the light. If there is noise and light mixed together I cannot fall asleep. On the other hand, I know if I have less than seven or eight hours of sleep I cannot function throughout the day. This is what is good about my sleeping habits because I will always go to bed when I know I will get the sufficient amount of sleep I need.

I don’t think it is health for students to not be able to sleep through noise or light. It is definitely healthy for students to get no less than 7 hours of sleep because any less than that their body would not be able to recharge correctly. A student should also be able to sleep through some noise, not an amount where the neighbors are blasting music, but enough that the sound of their roommate rolling over in bed doesn’t wake them up. The should also be able to sleep with some light, light the hall light shinning through the door, but not the overhead light shinning directly upon them. Someone with those sleeping habits would have better success with no sleep deprivation than someone with habits like me.

Spotlight #1

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

For my spotlight post I chose to do option #1, how divorce affects children. Going into the research I believed that divorce affects children in a bad way. However, after doing some reading on the articles I have found, I am beginning to believe divorce may be more beneficial for the children than bad. Out of the four articles I have found, only one gives solid argument how divorce is bad for children, one article discusses how there are bad outcomes for the children but how they don’t last long or turn into the good, while the other two give all benefits the children get after going though divorce.

“The Impact of Divorce on Young Children and Adolescents”

This article is the best article to give a negative review on the affect of divorce on children. Throughout the article, the author discusses the impact on children at two different stages of life: childhood and adolescence. Children who deal with divorce during childhood and adolescence have very different reactions. When a child has parents who divorce while they are a still going through childhood they can continuously fantasize their parents getting back together which can make their emotions unstable, especially when parents try to do joint family events because that will increase their hope of the family being reunited but the fact they have to travel between parents rocks that hope making them angry. During the childhood stage, children are dependent on their parents but when the parents are divorced their trust in their parents shakes making them have a tendency to lose that dependence. During the adolescence stage the child has a tendency to become more aggressive towards their parents. This makes them become more independent so they don’t have to rely on the parents because they now see their parents as failing to be able to keep commitments to the family. The adolescents are also aggressive towards their parents because they want to get back at their parents for tearing the family apart.

“Divorce Doesn’t Harm Children-Parent’s Fighting Harm Children”

This article is the most interesting of them all. In this article the authors say divorce itself doesn’t affect children. The parent’s attitude surrounding divorce is what affects children.  When parent’s fight, there is a relief in the child when the parents get divorce. The more the parents fight the more the child will get angry and resent them being together but when those parents divorce the child is relieved they don’t have to deal with the fighting. On the other hand, children who have parents that rarely or never fights in front of them can cause them to resent their parents for blindsiding them or for tearing the family apart. The affects the child have from divorce do not stem from divorce itself but rather the way the parents act in front the children leading up to the divorce making divorce not harmful to the children.

These two articles are reliable because they’re from Psychology Today. Psychology Today is a credible source due to it has articles and blogs written by psychologists themselves rather than people without a psychology background. For the second article, they refer back to “The Truth About Children and Divorce”, which was written by Dr. Robert Emery who is also a credible source because he is a psychology professor. The first article based their information from a novel the author, a psychologist from Texas wrote.

“Is Divorce Bad for Children?”

This article is one that gives both good and bad thoughts about how divorce affects children. In this article the author discusses how most of the bad affects people talk about are usually only short-term and is rarely a long-term outcome. A psychologist at the University of Virginia found that children have anxiety, anger, and disbelief as short-term negative affects which typically disappear by the second year. A study in the article showed children from divorced parents show little to no differences than children from intact families. This article shows more how children from divorced parents who fought a lot adjusted better to the divorce than those who’s parents rarely fought in front of them. This article mainly emphasized there are some negative outcomes but are short and the children are mostly affected by how much their parents fought.

This article is credible because it is from the Scientific American which is a website, similar to a newspaper, that is dedicated to having scientific articles weather about actual science or psychological science. This article uses many facts from studies done by other psychologists as evidence in the article.

“Divorce and Kids: 5 ways Divorce Benefits Kids”

This article not only lists five reasons why divorce helps the kids but they also discuss why those reasons help. The reasons are individually different but they all revolve around how the attitude of the parents and the fighting between the parents affects the children. The happier the parents are going through the divorce the better the children are going though it. This article mainly shows how the children are the product of the environment their parents create for them.

This is a credible source because it is written by someone who works for the Huffington Post which is a news paper similar to the New York Times. The article itself is credible because it is written by a doctor who studies the topic of divorce on children.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/201112/the-impact-divorce-young-children-and-adolescents

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/contemplating-divorce/200911/divorce-doesnt-harm-children-parents-fighting-harms-child

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-divorce-bad-for-children/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/divorce-and-kids-5-ways-d_n_1519485.html

Ch 8: First Impression Post

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

My study habits are usually a little different. When I study, it is different based on which class I am studying for. I will use index cards for classes I have to memorize definitions or dates like a history class. For classes that have open note and book tests, I will spend time sticking post-it notes on pages I know I will need as well as reading over the material once or twice. Adapting my study habits to what the class requires of me to know for the test is one thing I tend to do well. The one thing I do that needs improvement is having noise when I study. I grew up in a house where quiet is nonexistent unless its nighttime and everyone is asleep but even then the cats bell on his collar jingles as he wanders around stiring up trouble. Because of this, I tend to listen to music or have a show I’ve seen a thousand times run on Netflix in the background because it is comforting. To fix the needing of noise so I don’t have Netflix playing, I should start to listen to classical music at a low volume when I study or to get myself used to silence because certain noises can be distracting now matter how often I have heard it.

When it came to studying for the first test I read the chapters and made my own notes on them. Then I listened to the lectures and wrote notes on them too. A day or two before the test I was reading over all my notes at work and home to make sure I understood everything. For the second test, I’m going to make a few changes. I am using the study guides to highlight the topics I need to keep in mind. I also am utilizing the lecture slides to make my notes on there rather than handwriting it all because handwriting everything is time consuming. I will continue to write my own notes with the reading as well as highlight the definitions I need to know.

Chapter 7: First Impression

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

There are many criticism nowadays about video games. More specifically, how violent video games influence people to become violent themselves. There are arguments about how playing first person shooter games can affect the subconscious of children which influences them to be more violent as they get older. I think this is a ridiculous thought. I myself know many people who have been playing violent video games almost their whole lives, most of which are the first person shooter games. Not a single one of them are violent, in fact they are the least violent people I know. But the most concrete evidence I know of show how video games are one of the last things making people violent, are the school shooters.

The U.S. has endured way too many school shootings. The some of the most famous ones are Columbine and Sandy Hook. After the Sandy Hook shooting people across the country swore up and down it was because the shooter played video games which influenced him to do what he did. However, it was later discovered that he never played the violent video games like everyone thought, he just had a mental illness which influenced him to do what he did. In fact it has been determined that most of the mass shooters played little to no video games. If anything, what influenced children to grow to be violent it is the way they are raised or there is a chemical imbalance causing a mental illness. Most of the mass killings wouldn’t have happened if these people had the proper diagnoses and help.

Banning video games won’t help anything. If anything, it would take away most kids outlet. Video games now a days are becoming more life like than ever. With kids turning to video games more it is giving them an outlet to get some of their emotions out. If kids don’t have that outlet anymore they are going to turn to do these things in real life which create a worse situation than there already is.

 

Chapter 2: Neuroscience

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

For this first impression, I chose “Exploring the mind of a Serial Killer”. This stuck out to me the most because I have been interested in criminal shows and have taken a couple of forensic courses in the past year.
Jim Fallon uses this Ted Talk to tell the audience about a research study he was part of. The research study looked at the brains of serial killers. They had given Fallon brains to study without telling him who they were from and then he would look at the different parts to come up with his conclusion. In the ted talk he gave the audience a look at slides of some of the results he had. A couple of these slides showed the common links between serial killers included, damage to the brain, MAO-A gene, and violence in childhood.

The most intersting part was to see how his research ended up affecting his own life. While telling his mother about some of his research she told him about his ancestors that were serial killer. Based on his research and family tree he was influenced to start studying his own children, nieces, and nephews to see how they would turn out.

Jim Fallon and his evidence ia trust worthy because he is a professor at the University of California. He also studied behavior through genes and neurotransmitters for 35 years. Fallon was also able to use his own family tree as evidence to support his theory.

If violence is a trigger of serial killers, does violence in videogames also influence the young minds of future serial killers?

I would do scans on boys of the same age. I would run the same tests Fallon did on boys who have a lot of interactions with violent video games and those who don’t at age 10. From there was can see how videogames trigger the brain. If the reaction is simmilar to those who are serial killers or not.

Chapter 4: 1st impression

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

Each parent as their own way of raising their child. Personally, I have close friends who have a wide variety of parenting styles from extremely strict to parents practically not existing. In all honesty, the parenting style my parents used seems to be one of the best I’ve seen.

From my experience of children having strict parents ends in a rebellious child. Because they have so many rules, the child will do whatever it takes to break some of them because it will make them feel more free. On the other hand, a child who has no rules can also end up being even more rebellious because they are craving the attention from their parents. No rules can make a child feel like their parent doesn’t care because it seems their parent isn’t doing anything to make sure the child is safe.

My parents were always the middle man. Yes we had plenty of rules growing up but my parents also let us do almost anything we wanted. Want to go to the mall with friends? Sure but there is a curfew and we had to tell them if there were any other stops besides the mall. If we wanted to spend the night at a friends beach house for prom weekend we had to have at least one parent there. When we wanted to stay home rather than go to a baby cousins birthday party, we were allowed as long as we told them if we leave the house, who we were with, and had the house locked up. The best rule of all in our house was meant to keep us occupied all year round so we had a chance to get out and have fun with friends while keeping out of trouble. That rule is for us to do one activity or sport every season. Thankfully it wasn’t such an issue since we were interested in sports, marching band, and girl scouts. But if it wasn’t for that one rule I wouldn’t have made the friends I did, who helped get me to where I am today.

When it comes down to it, rules are needed yes. Too many, though, can make a person feel suffocated. Not enough can make a person feel abandoned or unwanted. A mix of both freedom and rules are needed to make a child be the best they can be without getting into trouble.

Research Methods

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

For my first impression post I chose option #2, critique on a Mythbusters video. I chose to do the video about talking on a phone while driving vs. driving drunk.

Off the bat the first thing that catches my attention is the driving course. This to me is a strength because it is a controlled environment which makes it better for the results to determine the surroundings to not be a cause of influence and there is no chance of innocent people being hurt. The driving course also is  weakness because it doesn’t properly reflect a real life situation with the surroundings. To fix this they should have used a set like they do to film t.v. shows so it can accurately give the person the feel of where they would drive while giving safety to civilians not part of the experiment.

The four parts to the test can also be viewed as a strength and weakness. What stands out most as a weakness is the time test because it isn’t an accurate portrayal of a real life situation. I feel as thought that part could have been left out leaving only the three other parts to be tested. The last part of the test which is an accident avoidance challenge is a strength because it is the most accurate part of it all. There are many cases where people, even when sober, can run into a problem where they have to swerve and do the best they can to avoid an accident. The parallel parking can be viewed as a weakness because people rarely use parallel parking or know how to, instead a parking lot should have been used because it is a more common situation.

Lastly, using an older flip phone is a strength. Even though the time this was filmed flip phones were more common than they were today, the concept of having one hand on the wheal rather than a hands free device. A hands free device can be distracting but its not as distracting as trying to talk while driving with one hand at all times even when it should be with two.

Intro Blog

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

Last semester, I became stuck between two options, take 18 credits fall and spring semester or take 16 credits both semesters and take a summer course before the start of my senior year. I decided it was best for my mentality to take the summer course and lessen the work load during the fall and spring. I chose psychology as my summer course because I had taken it my senior year of high school and enjoyed it. I feel this time around the class will be a better experience for me than it was in high school.

When I hear the word psychology, I think of a study of the human mind and how it can affect the behavior. It is hard for me to pick which three topics that interest me and three that don’t because they all seem interesting to me. However, the three I am most interested in studying are: psychological disorders, social psychology, and memory. The three I am a little disinterested in learning about are: therapy, learning, sex, gender, and sexuality.

The one question I have about psychology is, how can I take what I learn in this class and adapt it into my own life by using it to help myself and those around me?