First Impression Post; Week 6

--Original published at marybraun99

I am choosing to do option one, which is the way that I currently study and how I believe that my current study habits should be changed. Currently, when I study I only tend to look over my notes, and skim through the chapters of the book. When I study, I don’t tend to try to answer questions and question what I know – I just try to absorb more information all in one period of time, rather than spreading it out throughout a week or two span of time. I try to squeeze in all of my studying all in one night, which I know is totally not the way to go about studying, however, I have a horrible concentration time, and I can’t switch back and forth between subject well. So, whenever I have two tests for different courses in the same week, I squeeze in and then the other, because my brain (I think) can’t retain information the way that I would like it to.

Now, I think that the correct way to study and memorize things is to spread it out little by little when you first start getting the content that is needed, and then when you are finally done, and doing the final study just do one last look over everything and question yourself, make a study guide with questions to answer, or have somebody else ask you questions so that you can learn what you actually do know, instead of looking over something and just assuming that you know the information.

For the second exam in this class, I have already started reading the book, and looking over notes that we have already taken, hoping that spreading it out little by little, even in between other courses will help me to maintain the information a little better, and the more I look at it, (hopefully) the more I will understand it.

First Impression Week 5

--Original published at marybraun99

I chose to watch the clip relating to BF Skinner, and free will. With operant conditioning, you are either punished or rewarded for your actions. You learn through reinforcements. Relating to Skinner saying that we are not actually free, and it is only an illusion I would agree with. I am currently in a sociology class, where one of the main questions is “How free are we?” We watched the Truman show, which if you are not aware stars Jim Carrey, where he was born into a TV show all about him. He lives in a world that is not even true, his whole world was made by other people, all of his life decisions were made by somebody else. He lost his dad when he was a young boy on a fishing trip, where his father drowned, but nearly 20 years later his dad tries to come back to his life, helping him to understand that his world is not what he thought it was. The water he was in was not real water, which created a fear of water for Truman. When Truman manages to escape from this world, he goes on a boat and gets to the end of the set. One of the producers says “we accept the world we are presented with” which shows us that no matter where we are in life, we accept what is happening. We don’t question the weird things that happen, or the things that seem out of place.

Now, I included this in why I agree with BF Skinner because when you are trained with positive or negative reinforcements, it doesn’t just go as far as the pigeon with treats, but it goes with us with society. If we do something wrong in society we are punished with a negative response, but when we do something positive we are rewarded with maybe more friends, or not being bullied. We are conditioned into how to think. Most people do not look at it this way, but society shapes the way that we act. Most people are different in private than they are in public, which proves that we feel we need to act a certain way in public, but nobody questions why society has put these restraints on us. There is always a reason why we are doing what we are doing, and it is usually never just because WE want to do it, it is because we are hoping to be praised, or get a reward out of it. When people act the way that they do in private in public, some people may look down on them, because that is not how society taught us to act. We were always taught there will be social consequences if you act out in public.

Overall, I agree with Skinner that free will is an illusion, and it is not truly there in our lives. We would need to “break free” from it in a sense.

First Impression Week 3 – Parenting Styles

--Original published at marybraun99

Although there are many different types of parenting styles, only focusing on tiger, helicopter, and the jellyfish styles of parenting, I believe that the best way to parent a child is the jellyfish style. This style of parenting involves a parent who is not very strict with their children and does not over involve themselves in their children’s lives. When talking about helicopter or tiger parenting they are very involved and strict in their child’s lives. When a child has a parent that is over strict about school, or their social life, or every other aspect children tend to become more sneaky, or during their teenage years tend to rebel. Many people may disagree and say that these types of parents do not care about their child when they let their child make their own choices, however, I would disagree that the parents may care, but when they were growing up may have had parents that were over involved in their lives, which caused them to make mistakes and have to become sneaky to avoid being caught and getting in trouble by their parents. Although the jellyfish theory lets the children make their own choices, they are more likely to learn right from wrong, especially on their own because their parents are letting them have that freedom from a young age instead of being overprotective, and when the child goes away to say college, will make more mistakes than the child who was raised by permissive parents.
For example, when I was growing up during my elementary and middle school years I was always able to do what I wanted, I rode my bike across town when I was little, while some other kids weren’t allowed to. I was friends with the kids who had very overprotective parents and were never able to do anything. In middle school they would sit in their houses doing schoolwork for hours and hours on end, when I would be out playing. This went on all throughout high school, but after middle school I became friends with the kids who had parents more like mine. The parents who let their kids do what they wanted (within reason) and were always able to play. Now, granted I did make some mistakes growing up, but I quickly learned and was able to fix my mistakes. Being in college now, I see those same kids who were never able to go out, or have a drink, or do anything besides school work are the ones getting blackout drunk every weekend, and ending up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning because they are no longer under the care of their parents. In college for me now, I don’t drink, and I solely focus on my school work, and having friends that are good for me. Now, I would consider this more because of the ways that we were raised rather than the school we go to, or where we are surrounded.
Now, just because I say that, does not just mean my example. I have an older sister, who is 39. When she was younger, my mom was definitely a helicopter parent, and was super over protective of my sister, because my mom was so young when she had her. Now my sister is taking a different approach with her kids than my mom did with me, and is even more strict. My nieces never go outside, and only talk to each other. One day I am waiting for them to rebel (as bad as that sounds) and wait for them to be the children that never talk to their parents again, because they realize that their mother was keeping them under a rock their whole childhood. This caused my sister to become sneaky, and rebel, and get expelled from college after her first semester. My mom, however, was not overly strict, as some other parents can be.
I just think there needs to be a balance between being too protective of your child and not being protective enough, however, being over protective and trying to protect your child from the outside world is not always the best choice, because one day they will realize what is out their.

Bonus Points – Theoretical Lenses

--Original published at marybraun99

From the perspective of the psycho dynamic theory, Miguel’s problems stem from unconscious thoughts, and desires. He does not know what is wrong with him, but there is something that is deep down in his mind that is creating the root to all of his anger and irritability, which might come from him being a perfectionist when school work is getting hard.

The behavioral theory describes Miguel’s’ inner issues as only behavioral, which is something that is conditioning him to react the way that he is reacting to problems that are out of his control, which he is trying to control, such as being a perfectionist. Since he is a perfectionist, and is struggling with his course work, that could be the explanation from the behavior theory on why he is snapping out, and can not sleep at night.

The humanistic psychology theory describes reality as the way that your perceive, and is all about perception. If Miguel is viewing his coursework as impossible, he is unable to perform it because he is already putting it into his mind that he can not perform the work, and is working himself up, trying to do his best, but creating the perception in his mind that he is already not able to do the work, and be the best he can at all of his courses.

In the cognitive theory, Miguel knows that his course load is a lot, and that he will not be able to do them, it focuses on your conscious thought, rather than behavior, focusing on how you process information, and solve problems. If Miguel can not figure out how to untwist his thoughts, and realize that he is actually able to do his work, then he will continue to struggle, and none of his inner problems will work themselves out as well. If Miguel can figure out how to untwist his thoughts, and realize that if he trains his brain to know that he is able to do the work, he will be able to do better, and be less stressed about everything else, leading to his sleep being improved. If he doubts that he can do anything right, it can start to take a toll on him as a person on a daily basis, which would make his days irritable, and start to affect his conscious thought process, making it harder to process simple information.

If you look at Miguel’s looks from psycho-biology, genetics can play a role in why he is a perfectionist, and the way that everything else falls into place once he knows that not everything can be the way he plans. Maybe his mother or father was a perfectionist, and he got it from them, and they weren’t able to concentrate on other work if their course load was not perfect.

Culturally, Miguel may have been brought up in a culture where he has to be perfect, and if something wasn’t perfect there was consequences to his bad grades, leading him to become a perfectionist, and he is stressed because he believes that there is still the same consequence if he is not perfect on all of his course load, which in turn stresses him out, to where he can not sleep and is snapping out on his roommate.

First Impression Post #1

--Original published at marybraun99

I chose to watch the Myth busters’ video “Do Gentleman Prefer Blondes?” I particularly did not think this was correct, because even though there is a connection to the physical appearance of women, personality plays a larger role in men, but not necessarily in young boys. I think that the experiment conducted was fair, and kept a constant, which was the personality and hair color, and the women that were being used along with keeping the men constant. The independent variable was the different hair colors. I think that it was a fair way to achieve a consensus, although they might have wanted to use a bigger sample size, and test the hypothesis with more than one round. At the end of the first round, blondes were favored, by almost 10% but after two more rounds it was a tie, and there was no difference in hair colors. I think that it was a hypothesis that could be retested to compare results, maybe in different areas of the US, or with different types of men. The results could ultimately vary, depending on the different places throughout the world, especially where blonde hair is a more natural color, such as in Sweden, where a lot of women have blonde hair, with blue eyes. I personally believe that to get more potentially accurate results, there also could have been three different rounds, with three different sets of men, and then three different sets of women, to increase the accuracy, while always keeping one thing constant during the experiment. Overall, I believe that there could have been more research, or more samples, but the samples were tested more than once, and ultimately achieved a tie, which could lead to a fairly accurate outcome.

Introductions

--Original published at marybraun99

Hi guys! My name is Mary Braun, and I’m a first year student here, and I am studying Social Work. Psychology is a part of the core requirements for social work, but I also think it is a very interesting concept, and will probably be minoring in psych, as it is very useful in the social work field. I’m from a very small high school in Northeast PA, but am so excited for the home feel that i achieve here at Etown. I took an online psychology class in high school, because it wasn’t offered as an actual course. It was super interesting, but I flew through it and finished it in less than a month, so needless to say I didn’t get all the information that I could have gotten from it. When I think of the word “psychology” I think of the way a brain is programmed to work, and why it is programmed to work that way, and what can be done to alter the way ones mind is perceived. It’s an interesting concept, because psychology explores so much about so many people, and there’s so much to constantly learn from psych. I think that how to improve memory, and why we forget, Classifying mental illnesses, and Motivation sound the most interesting to me in terms of what we will be learning, and the least interesting I would say would be classical, operant, and observational learning, since I’m already aware of what they are so I feel like they will almost be a review. At the end of this class I would like to have the question answered of Why do some people feel like they are alive, and others do not feel as though they are, and what part of the brain contributes to this section of living. I look forward to having this class and learning more than my previous knowledge on psychology! Have a great semester to everybody!