AP PSA Announcement

My favorite PSA was done by Tyler, Corry and Nick. I enjoyed their video because besides being entertaining, it was informative and incorporated outside sources such as a movie clip to display their information. The clip clearly explained programs to enhance the years during adolescence and old age. They were charismatic and traveled to different places around Ashwaubenon to show real places that provide learning programs to grow. I more clearly understood the concrete opperational stage after watching thier PSA. I could understand their voices in the video and they kept their information light and to the point.

Challenging Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget is known for his psychological work with cognitive development throughout the years of a person's life. Today in class Mrs. VanStraten (Mrs. Wollersheim's mother, I apologize for the spelling) came to class and gave us a kindergarden lesson with shapes. We used Piaget's concepts of schemas, assimilaion, and accomodation to sort and find similarities between various sizes and colors of shapes. We knew that round shapes were considered circles. (schema) We then went on to assimilate that squares can still be squares dispite size differences and further accomodated that squares and rectangles both share four sides, but rectangles have two longer sides than squares do thus showing the difference between shapes.

The lesson was very interesting because I realized the way that Mrs. Van Straten taught us shapes must have been very similar to the way I learned to differenciate a circle from a square. To test Piaget's stages of cognitive development I put his theories to the test on the two children I baby-sit. Maxx is a five-year-old pre-kindergarden student and Maddy is an eight-year-old in second grade. According to Piaget, Maxx would fall into the preoperational stage while Maddy would be in the concrete opperational stage. To test Piaget's theories I asked Maxx and Maddy at different times to identify the shapes and colors of the rectangles, squares, triangles and circles. Maxx knew the difference between the colors and shapes but did not take much more interest in them. When Maddy came home from school I asked her to identify the shapes as well and she knew them all easily. When I asked the kids to pick up the shapes, Maxx started picking up all of the shapes with no particular order or method while Maddy sorted each of the shapes by shape, size, and color. I found that Maddy took a logical approach in sorting the shapes in a sequence that made sense to her while Maxx did not come up with a system to put the shapes together. I believe that Piaget's development stages conicide with the ages of each developmental group. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw33CBsEmR4&feature=related explains Piaget's theories by going through each cognitive stage. Maxx's preoperational stage portrays his lack of concrete logic and egocentrism while Maddy being in the concrete operational stage is able to understand chage and can think logically think through math proplems and sequences.

Ice Cube Addiction

       This week pretending to have a drug addiction (with ice cubes) was more difficult than I thought. Putting ice cubes in some drinks were more socially acceptable than others.( i.e. water versus tea) I believe this relates to social situations as well. People who have drug addictions tend to hang around other people with drug addictions because exposing your addiction isn't as socially unacceptable to people who also have the addiction. It was not only hard hiding the addiction, it was also hard keeping the addiction. Not being able to access ice from school made pre-planning necessary. I believe people with addictions also come to stress when their drugs are not on hand. I was able to lie to my parents when I recieved wierd looks for putting ice in my milk and tea. They noticed I was acting differently and my mom even yelled at me for taking a water bottle to school. (She didn't know it was filled with ice.) I have a cold and my mom attributed the germs to the water bottle I brought to school and told me that I shouldn't bring it again. My parents did not assume I was on drugs because I did not have obvious signs of an addiction. Ice cubes are relatively simple and do not cause nearly the amount of effects drugs can cause. I liked the experiment because it was interesting how people would hide their bracelets and how people shared and traded ice cubes like street drugs. Drugs can be categorized as depressants, stimulants, and hallucigens. I believe ice cubes would fall under the stimulant category if given one because they make drinks cold and coldness sends a wake-up call to the brain. True drug addictions can cause permanant brain damage as well as depression, anxiety, and death. After learning the effects of drugs on the brain, I believe that if I would have any addiction, ice cubes would be the best bet.

Neurotransmitters Treating Violence?

     This week I came to terms with the complex messinging system of the body: the nervous system. The nervous system is split between the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system. (The peripheral divides down into sub-groups) but the main focus of this blog is to address neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are special chemical messages that travel accross the synapse to binding receptor sites to pass along messages to various body parts and the brain. There are many different types of neurotransmitters that affect different hormones and feelings ie. Serotonin. I stumbled accross the article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-illuminated/201201/treating-violence-new-antidotes which talks about different drugs used to target neurotransmitters like GABA (an inhibitory neurotransmitter) to reduce the physical acts of violence on aggressive psyciatric patients.
   This article explains how drugs like Haldol and lithium have been around for a few decades and have been used to help lessen agressive patients but serious side effects such as loss in cognation have resulted. Now scientists are discovering which neurotransmitters to target with newly formed drugs to produce the same result in aggression, but provide a safer method to do it. We know that the neurotransmitter serotonin affects a person's mood and an undersupply can lead to depression and aggression. A medication called Zomig is used to lessen the effects of migranes. Zomig was also part of a study to see if it would be an acceptable drug to use in lessening feelings of aggression. By specifically targeting Serotonin 1B receptors, Zomig acts as an agonist and allows more Serotonin to be released causing positive feelings to arise. Zomig still needs clinical tests done to see any and all possible side effects but it can be a positive step forward in treating aggression. Psychology is universal and has many applications in medicine.

Psychological Perspectives Relating to the movie: What About Bob?

I do not think that either one of the perspectives alone would be enough to explain Bob's condition. A psychologist would have to be eclectic and use both perspectives with a case like Bob's.

I find the movie What About Bob to be fairly funny and entertaining. Besides being a comedy, this movie has a relavent scene to the psychological perspectives we learned in class. http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Psych_20___05_Bob_Viewing_Assignment&video_id=78896 In this scene Bob Wiley admits to his therapist that he has "problems." (I apologize there are some inapropriate words bleeped out of the clip while Bob pretends to have turetts syndrome.)  He claims he has problems moving when he is out in public away from his apartment. He uses the term "wierd" to define his actions when he goes out. His "wierdness" that he describes are physical conditions such as hot and cold sweats, difficulty swollowing, and blurred vision. Bob's ultimate concern is that he is afraid of death. His "what if" scenarios throw Bob into a panic to where he believes that if he pretends to have certain medical conditions like turetts, then he knows that he doesn't have that condition so it is a sense of reassurance to him that he is safe. At the end of the clip the author asks which perspective explains Bob's behavior- the cognitive perspective or the behavioral perspective?

Through reading the first chapter and listening to the lecture in class, I learned that the cognitive perspective is defined by studying the thought process behind one's action. It is the way the brain works to account for one's thoughts or actions. I believe that the cognitive perspective would be a good way to explain his behavior. He believed that by faking an illness, he would know that he did not have it. I think by studying how his mind processes his fears would be beneficial to curing his fears. His brain processes uncomfort and disease different from a person who isn't afraid of becoming ill and by studying why his brain makes him think and act the way he does, would be beneficial to help him as well as others who suffer through the same thing.

On the other hand, the behavioral perspective also would be a great way to study and explain his behavior. Behaviorism is the focus of observable behavior of an individual dealing with their response to situations and consequences. By studying Bob's behavior, one may discover why he feels uncomfortable being social out of his apartment and his fear of getting sick. He may have become ill as a consequence of a contagious disease and now believes he is more susseptible to other illnesses. By studying his behavior in different settings could help explain why he acts uncomfortable and "wierd" as he describes himself.

Chapter One: Thinking Critically with Psychological Science

       Through reading the prologue and chapter one of the text, I gained a little background on the history of psychology and the different ways it can be interpreted. I learned that psychologists apply the scientific method to humans to figure out information on how we relate experiences or have feelings. Today's definition of psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. The field's most debated question is nature versus nurture: are we who we are because of heredity? Or are we who we are because of other factors like our enviornment or how we are raised? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26wQgAfTwA4 is a video that explains how both heredity and enviornment play key roles in the development of a person. I wonder how twins seperated at birth would relate to each other once grown. Would they have similar mannerisms and behaviors? Or would they be more like strangers raised in different homes? The text says that biological, psychological and social-cultural influence our behavior. So therefore would the heredity and enviornment influence each child equally? Would the same sex twins act more similar than opposite sex twins? I hope to find out during this class. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15629096 This article is a real application of the twin question because it actually happened. Two twin girls were seperated at birth for a scientific study and reunited 35 years later. Interestingly, the adoptive families were told that the children they were adopting were part of a scientific study but refused to say what the study entailed. Peter Neubauer realized that the majority of the public would be against the study and did not publish the results. The study is sealed up in an envelope and cannot be evaluated until 2066. The twins claim to have similarites, but ultimately realize they are different people who were raised in different homes. After reading the ethics portion of the chapter I realized that Neubauer's experiement seems unethical. To seperate family members at birth without explaining the premise or reasoning is wrong. Part of the ethics of scientific study of humans is to "obtain the informed consent of potential participants and to protect them from harm and discomfort". I do not believe that Neubauer protected the women from harm once they realized they were twins. The article does note that this study will never be replicated.  **This is a picture of the two women seperated at birth.

AP Psych Expectations

My main expectation for this class is to gain an understanding on how the brain processes experiences and why we interpret things the way we do. I am interested in learning why we as humans remember and retain some information easier than other information. I am also interested in learning the differences between genders and how different experiences and feelings relate to each gender. My ultimate goal upon finishing the class is to score a three or higher on the AP exam. I expect this class to be more rigorous than some of my other classes. I know that it will be paced fairly quickly and that I will need to be able to retain information and take good notes.