Author Archives: davidspsy2018

Spot Light Post 1

--Original published at David's Blog

For the first spot light blog post I decided to choose the first option which was on divorce and how it effects children. This topic interest me the most because I wanted to find out if it’s almost always guaranteed to have negative effects on children or little or no effect at all.

“Many divorced spouses are in and out of court all of the time. Family lawyers are fond of saying ‘litigation is recreation for divorced parents.’ There are ugly e-mails, violent phone calls, and frequent trips to family court.” told by Dr. Jann Gumbiner from Phycology Today. This is definitely  never good for the kids. In most situations, children who hear or see violent or inappropriate tendencies from their parents, are then more likely to repeat or imitate the actions of their parents.

“The experience of divorce can also create problems that do not appear until the late teenage years or adulthood.” wrote Hal Arkowitz from Scientific American. This article goes on to talk about the major impact on kids. The most common problem for children in divorce situations is  depression.

Both these articles lay out a clear underline how divorce majorly impacts the kids physiologically. One of the sources was written by a doctor and the other was published on a scientific site. So I believe the article brings up serious matters and are very precedent. This definitely sways me more towards divorce being bad for kids but we will take a look at the other side.

“Children who grew up in high conflict families fared better in their adult relationships if their parents got a divorce.” stated Rachael Rettner of Live Science. I myself have seen this put to practice, when you have parents who constantly fight and argue it greatly i’m pacts the kids. But if the parents split early and fight less the children can develop more properly. With better development comes better adult relationships like stated in the article.

“Staying for the children can seem like ‘the only right thing to do,’ but it is not in all cases.” told by Susan P. Gadoua of Psychology Today. There are too many times when parents believe its the best to stay together for the kids but it only tares the family further and further apart. You can still be a “family” even though your not all together it’s just a different type of family.

These articles manly stress how its actually better to be divorced if you are not in a happy or stable relationship. In the end its the kids who should matter the most not your own personal feelings. Both the articles were written on scientific websites the provide a lot more information about divorce.

To conclude this blog post I will decided on which side I personally think is right. I have gone over these articles and tried to look at both sides to determine the best answer and I have even used my own personal findings in this matter. The side I would go with would be that divorce doesn’t have much effect on the kids. I’m only going with this side by taking in the factor the parents handle it correctly, if this can be achieved children will be less likely to develop physiological problems later in life.

 

 

 

Chapter 8 First Impression

--Original published at David's Blog

For this week I decided to to go with the second option of powerful memories. I chose this because I immediately connected with it. It’s very interesting on how we as humans remember specific events in our lives. Like the example in the prompt 9/11 is a very clear and vivid memory for most people old enough to experience it. The big question is why is this though.

My belief in this is because the specific event impacts you greatly in your life. Like I mentioned before everyone old enough to remember 9/11, remembers it well, and I believe this because it was very impactful if you lived in america. I think this can work with any memory as long as it has a impact on your life weather it was good or bad.

A way to study this idea would be to take a group of people who were part of a impactful event and ask them to retell there story. we would then record there story and save it for a while. Then bring the same group back in a year later and have them tell the same story. We would then compare the two stories together and see if there similar or different. If they were close to being the same the event was very impactful if not the same the event didn’t mean much to that person.

Chapter 7 First Impression

--Original published at David's Blog

For this week’s impression post I decided to talk about option two violence in video games. The claim is that the violence and detail in video games manipulates children in being violent. These accusations are making people crack down on violent video games, from just regulating them to out right banning them. I myself find both of these ideas not necessary.

Personally I play video games almost daily, I think them to be a stress reliever or simply just a way to have fun. Now i’m not going to say video games can’t have an affect on children, I definitely think they can. What the problem is with violent video games go back to the parents and how the teach there kids to understand them. First of all parents need to realize that the violent video games have ratings on them telling you your child shouldn’t play the game till there a certain age. Further more if you do purchase these violent games for you child as a parent you need to explain to them this game isn’t real. Also teach them that if they replicate the actions in the game there are real world consequences.

So do I believe we need to ban violent video games, absolutely not. We need to reinforce the parenting to children who play these violent video games.

Chapter Two First Impression

--Original published at David's Blog

For this weeks impression post I chose to watch a ted talk titled “Exploring the mind of a killer” do by Jim Fallon. The reason I chose this ted talk was because I enjoy trying to figure out what goes on in a psychopathic killers mind. I also enjoy shows like Law and Order where they deal with stuff like this every episode. They try and dive into the mind of a killer and figure out there thought process to solve a case. Things I’d like to know would be do they feel emotion, do they understand there actions, and what got them to this point. Fallon explained that making a killer starts young, if they have to much of serotonin in there system the become numb to it and can’t clam them selfs. He also stated that if someone is exposed to something traumatic when they are young they are even more likely to grow up to be a killer. It would be very interesting if we can do more research on killers brains to possibly find anymore cause of there behavior, or even find a way to stop people from becoming killers early on.

Dose the Placebo Effect Work?

--Original published at David's Blog

Will the placebo effect work on patients with depression? The placebo effect is a well know psychological way of making people fell better or to help them quite a habit they can’t kick. What it basically is is a sugar pill given to patients and it has no effects or anything but there told it does. What then happens is the patient thinks the “drug” is helping them when actually it was there mind doing all the work. I believe if you give a sugar pill to someone who has depression and tell them it will get rid of there depression they will not suffer from symptoms of depression. This may work since this method deals with tricking the brain and depression deals with the brain as well so we may be able to trick peoples brains. To execute this procedure I will need to find people with depression and to find these participants I will put up flyers and post on blogs asking for help in a depression experiment. Once I have the participants I will separate them into two separate groups.  Group one would be the control group where they wouldn’t get a sugar pill and after a week they would report any depression symptoms. Then group two would receive the sugar pill and exactly like group one, group two will record any depression symptoms they had after one week. After the data is collected I will then compare the two groups and see if theres any difference or change.

Getting to Know David Varner

--Original published at David's Blog

I’m David Varner and I come from a small town in Pennsylvania called Bainbridge. Right now I’m a sophomore in college majoring in communications. I currently have a job working at UPS as a part time supervisor. My approach to my intro to Psychology class is to have an open mind and try to learn new things. I chose to take this class to fulfill a required core course. Currently I have no background in the course but i’m excited to learn about it. When I hear the word psychology I think of therapists, even though I know there is more to it than that. The three topics that look the most interesting to me in the course would be, how to make memories, how to improve memories and why do we forget. Topics that look the least interesting would be, the brain: micro-level, the brain: macro-level and obedience. I what to be able to answer my question of what type of jobs come with a psychology major.