Week 9 #2 Emotion First Impression Option 2

--Original published at Noah's Psy 105A blog

Pre-test: I think that I am fairly competent at reading emotions. I don’t think that I’m some kind of super powered emotion reader however. In general I think that I will score well on the test, but I believe that I will struggle a little bit with differentiating the more negative emotions. I think this because I usually am able to tell positive emotions apart well, but when more negative emotions are present I’m able to recognise that they are there but I’m not always able to figure out what specific emotion is being felt by the other person.

Post test:

I scored a 13/20 on the test, which according to the test is about average. I thought I would do a little better and there were a few questions that I made dumb mistakes on. Overall I thought that the test was fairly credible. It’s hosted on an .edu which is always a good sign. One problem I had with the test was how it explained what to look for to identify each emotion after each question, I feel like that could contaminate the results of the test since I was being told what to look for.

I found that anger, happiness, surprise, and desire were the identify. One emotion that i thought was challenging to identify was pride, at first glance it seemed like contempt. I had trouble with embarrassment, which I wrongly identified as amusement. I miss identified sadness with contempt. I miss identified pain, thinking it was shame. I confused compassion with sadness. I miss labeled interest as surprise. I incorrectly labeled sadness as shame. I miss identified embarrassment as shame.

I think that this information is incredibly useful for everyday life. Knowing that I’m not quite as good at reading people’s emotions as I thought I was will be incredibly helpful. Now I’ll be able to hopefully improve at reading emotions so that i can interact with other people better.

Week 7 First response to option 1

--Original published at Noah's Psy 105A blog

One controversial issue in America today is whether or not marijuana should be legalized.

The legalization of marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use is a positive thing. People who oppose the legalization of marijuana claim that it is dangerous and has a negative effect on health. These claims have no scientific research to support them and are therefore inconsequential. It is because of these unfounded bans that there isn’t any research being done. The laws as they are currently written prevent scientist from researching the health effects of marijuana. One proven positive effect that the legalization of recreational marijuana has is it becomes a very profitable source tax revenue. Since legalizing weed the Colorado State government has made a tremendous amount of money off of taxing the sale of marijuana at the licensed weed dispensaries. Legalizing marijuana will effectively reduce, if not completely eliminate, violence and criminal activity related to the illegality smuggling of marijuana. If weed became readily available it would no longer be profitable to smuggle and sell it illegally, the risk would no longer be worth it. The only real negative to the legalization of marijuana is the possibility that marijuana could have currently undiscovered adverse effects on health, but as previously stated under the current laws it is illegal to perform the research that would answer this and other important questions. Because there is no quantifiable evidence to justify the criminalization of marijuana and legalization has plenty of positive effects it only stands to reason that marijuana should be legalized.

In response to @curtisblogxd Week 6 Refinement Post

--Original published at Noah's Psy 105A blog

Your study habits are better than mine, but they could be improved. As we learned in class it would be better for your information retention if you studied every night instead of only a day or two before the test. This strategy might be helping with your temporary familiarity with the subject but it won’t necessarily help with your overall memory recall. Another strategy you could use for studying class material is interleaving the material. This means that you would be switching between subjects every 30 minutes in order to keep everything fresh for the mind. I agree with your statement that you should start studying earlier for the next test. I also struggle with taking breaks that are longer than I want. What I would recommend to help combat this problem is getting a study buddy. Having someone to hold me accountable greatly helps me work more efficiently and keeps me from goofing off. Another strategy that could be employed when trying to study more efficiently is studying in the rooms where you will be tested on the information. This is because of the context effect that we discussed in class. What this effect means is that its easier to remember things in the location we first learned them. If properly utilized these study methods could be very helpful.

http://academicaffairs.arizona.edu/Interleaving

http://www.human-memory.net/processes_recall.html

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Context-dependent_memory