Final Reflection

During this psychology course we went over and covered many different topics such as the brain, behavior and learning as well as doing tasks like taking an awe walk or going on a gratitude visit. Some of the topics that particularly stood out to me this semester were development, personality, memory, and the final experiential task about positive psychology. For understand development across a lifespan I took the ACE test and that was a very interesting thing and it’s a tool that is really easy to use during a routine check-up. I think that I enjoyed studying personality so much because  was able to take multiple personality tests and compare all of the results. The results that I received were all pretty close to what I would use to describe myself. I also had my boyfriend take a personality test and it was interesting to see his results and how they compared to mine. I enjoyed the memory module of this course because I was able to relate to it on such a personal level because of my grandmother. Then with the memory task I was able to prove a point to my boyfriend because he hardly ever remembers anything that I tell him so in a way I tested him. The positive psychology task was my favorite all semester because I was able to do something nice and surprise one of my favorite people! Overall, this whole class was a learning experience in terms of technology because using a blog was such a foreign territory for me. This class was also a learning point in how a true online class is, I have taken classes where all assignments are done online, but the learning a lectures were in person. As I said earlier that positive psychology experiential task stood out to me the most because I was able to express my gratitude and surprise my favorite coach at her playoff game, so for this task I was to write a letter to someone that you want to show gratitude to and take the letter to them. I felt as if I learned about the course subjects more so when there were videos and not just readings. I enjoyed watching the Ted Talks! This course was fun to take because of the environment different from a traditional  classroom environment. There were so many resources provided as well, instead of reading out of a textbook(my wallet thanks you) the readings, video lectures, and videos from youtube and Ted Talks.

M7 Experiential Task

My Gratitude Visit 

When I read this assignment it made me so excited because it gave me an excuse to go and visit one of my favorite people on this planet. Coach Jones, my high school softball coach, is someone that I will love and cherish for life. She is inspiring and cares for me as if I am one of her own. She moved to a different town right before my senior year of high school, so since she lives farther away I don't get to see her as much as I would like to. When I found out that her team was playing close to here this past weekend I thought, why don't I surprise her and get credit for it for class. I'm not a fan of typing things so I hand-wrote my letter and sealed it in and envelope in hopes to make it more personal. 
I waited until the end of the game to talk to her and give her my letter, so her focus would remain on her team. We stayed talking at the field until mostly everyone else had cleared out because even if we hadn't seen each other or talked in a while we have a relationship where we pick up where we left off. I told her why I was there and she was really glad that she was the person that I thought of when given an assignment like this. She told me that she wasn't going to open her letter until later because of the setting that we were in. Later, that evening after we both had left she texted me to thank me for making the drive and for the letter. 

M6 Experiential Task

Mental Illness Interviews

The first person I interviewed was a close friend and teammate of mine who wanted to remain anonymous, but agreed that I could call her Faith. The interviewing experience was unique in comparison to any other interview I have conducted. I interviewed her while we were on the road traveling to Arkansas and I simply asked the questioned provided, but she did tell me some other things unrelated to the questions. Faith was diagnosed with chronic depression when she was a junior in high school so around 16-17 years old. She told me that her symptoms consisted of feelings of sadness and loneliness, loss and lack of confidence, fatigue/lots of sleeping, and self harm. Some challenges Faith encountered were getting out of bed, avoiding people and social events and was unable to see the positive side of things. But her biggest challenge was going to church because she felt like she was in such a bad place and couldn’t understand why because of her religious beliefs. She tried to avoid going to church all together. Her depression at its worst lasted for about a year and during this time she sought many different forms of treatment such as starting with seeing her regular doctor, she was referred to a counselor and saw that person once every 1-2 weeks, she also talked to a church affiliated counselor and that helped her gain more understanding about her issues with her religion, another form of treatment she had was a prescription medication. The people that helped and supported her the most were her parents, they helped her with treatments and being there for her. Other people that helped Faith were her close friends, boyfriend, and people in a support group that her church counselor set her up in. Something that really worked for Faith was when her family and friends took her out to do things and didn’t allow her to lay in bed or be alone.  

My second interview was very different from my first, but it was much easier than the first because I was more comfortable. The interviewee is significantly older than the first and is a relative of mine. My aunt Lou has suffered from depression for her entire adult life and now she's 53 and she said that is partially due to events that have occurred. In previous years she has talked with a counselor as a form of treatment and she continues to take zoloft for her depression. Some of the symptoms she had/has is sleeping a lot, no motivation and crying outbursts at work or in her car. My aunt said that there were lots of people to help her like her coworkers, friends and her two kids. Her two kids helped to keep her going and not completely give up on everything in her life.

The interviews I conducted were both unique and lead me to gain a better perspective on the two people as well as the illness.

M5 Experiential Task

When I read the word "multiculturism" my mind went away from myself and to most of my friends. My best friend from high school is biracial and she has faced many obstacles throughout her life living in a small judgmental Texas town. Her parents divorced when she was a little girl so she primarily lived with her mother and often felt as if she was more different than everyone else because of the way she looked because of her race. The high school we went to had approximately three hundred students and only five or six of those students came from the same racial background as her. She would often confide in me about how other students or "friends" would treat her differently or not include her things, and now that I look back on it I wonder if it was because of how she looked. As we went through school together I think it bothered her less and less though. She would make jokes about her being black like how shoe couldn't run very fast. She chose not to care about what other people thought of her and just did what made her happy and those qualities also play a role in why we are best friends.

Creating a False Memory and the Serial-Position Effect

My first volunteer was my boyfriend, Kheland. I read him the first list of words and he remembered six out of the fourteen words. He remembered seven out of fourteen words in the second list. He wrote needle from the first list and did not write sleep for the second list. Kheland wrote down the words from the beginning and of the end of the first list and did not write the middle and the same thing goes for the second list.
My second volunteer was my brother, Jonah. I read him the two lists of words and he did about the same as Kheland. Jonah remembered eight out of the first list and six out of the second list. He didn't write sleep or needle and he too wrote mostly words from the beginning and end of the lists and wrote one from the middle of the first list.
My boyfriend was disappointed with how his results turned out, but he actually did better than I thought that he would because he does not remember anything that I tell him and he doesn't have the best memory. Kheland did create a false memory by writing down the word needle when it wasn't actually on the list. He just wrote it because the other words can be associated with the word needle. Jonah didn't create a false memory, but him and Kheland both found themselves using the serial-position effect. They both mainly recalled words from the beginning and the ends of the lists.

Memory

I am all too familiar with memory related disorders because of my late grandmother. The last five years of her life were probably not the best because she was diagnosed with dementia. She suffered from severe memory loss and as time went on she was unable to communicate her needs and take care of herself. My grandmother had thirteen children and was unable to remember who they were and she often confused one of them for another. She had no sense of time and could never remember what month, day or year it was, but she was able to remember things from when she was a young lady. She would as a lot of the same questions too. It was pretty awful watching your family members go through something that is not very treatable. There are clinical trials and medications that can delay the progression and help with the different symptoms of dementia. There are pharmacological trials that happen in phases and they start with testing on a few people and then a larger group. When results are shown an even bigger group is used to get more information. After those stages and it is approved by the FDA the drug is eligible to be sold on the market. They also use clinical trials that have no drug effect at all and those just use placebos and make that patient improve because they believe that they are improving thus improving the quality of life.

Learning

Learning

We all learn and we never stop learning our entire lives. We also learn without even realizing we are doing it. Ivan Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell because they recognized that when the bell was rung food was given to them. The sound of the bell meant absolutely nothing to them until the ring was followed by food every time, it went from a neutral stimulus to a conditioned stimulus. 

On the popular television show  The Office, Jim does something very similar to Dwight as Pavlov did to the dogs in his experiment. Jim reboots his computer multiple times and every time the computer makes a distinct sound and followed by the sound Jim asks Dwight if he would like an Altoid peppermint. After doing that for a little while Jim reboots his computer again and does not offer Dwight and Altoid, but Dwight reaches his hand out expecting Jim to give him one and comments on how badly his mouth tastes without understanding why. Dwight learned that when he heard that sound an Altoid was following it and he learned that without knowing. 

Another example of learning and changing behavior is in the television show The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon tries to train Penny so that she uses behavior that he feels is appropriate. He uses chocolates as a positive reinforcment when she corrects what she is doing wrong. Sheldon predicts to Leonard that he can change her voice, her talking during movies, and other minor behavior changes by the next week.  

People learn everyday without realizing that they are. Say a brand like Adidas comes out with new styles of shoes that look really nice. Celebraties and professional athletes take a lot of liking into the new shoes and they wear them often and begin to be photographed wearing them. Other people who look up to the people in the medias eye notice the shoes and think that if they look nice wearing them that they will too. Those people start wearing them and then people around them start wearing them because the same type of conditioning happens. 

Character Study

I analyzed my boyfriend, Kheland.

 

I asked his parents about his personality when he was a child up until right now and I had him take the same personality test that I took. I also asked him how he would describe his own personality and I'm going to give my opinion on what his personality is like. 

I asked both his mom and dad what he was like when he was little, an older kid, and now. Kheland's father described him as always being fun, laid back, loyal, and hard-headed. His mom used the words adventurous, brave, loving, and hard-headed also for when he was a kid and words she would use now that he is a young adult are loud, easy-going, compassionate, considerate, reliable, giving, and that he has a big heart. I agree with what both of his parents said and then some. 

I made him take one of the personality tests that was offered to us to take because I thought it would result in something interesting. The test was 120 questions and it was based on the Five-Factor Model of Personality. Kheland scored a 6 in openness and I see and understand why that score is so low. He isn't really into trying a lot of new things and he doesn't enjoy going out and doing spontaneous things either. His Conscientiousness score was average. I don't understand this score that he received because he can be lazy and a procrastinator when it comes to school work or getting things done in a timely fashion. He does have goals and obviously does what to achieve them, but does not always go about it in the way that someone should. I believe him to be an introvert and his Extraversion scored proved that to be correct. He is only loud and will only carry on conversations with people that he is comfortable with like family and close friends. This goes along with his openness score and not wanting to go out and do new things. His Agreeableness score was also pretty average because he works well with others to an extent like if he has to for a school project or at work. He fits into the agreeable category well because he also hates being called out on things and hates when he is confronted and initiating confrontation. Lastly, his Neurocitism score was on the high end of average. Kheland does not respond to stressful situations very well and he has a pretty bad temper and sometimes has a hard time controlling it. Seeing that his score was so high is also a little surprising to me because he is usually positive and will try to look at the good side of things and will encourage others to do the same. 

I hope that these pictures give a glance at what is personality is like. Once he has opened up to you he is funny and will constantly have you laughing. He is very caring and protective of his baby sister who is 2 and a half. She has total power over him and he would do anything for her. He is so loving towards everyone. Kheland has some negative traits too like everyone else. He can be very controlling, forgetful, and selfish but I know that he usually means well.

Personality Assessment

Your behavior, thoughts, and feelings are all characteristics that form your personality. Your traits suggest stability and consistency. The most basic traits that stay the same over a period of time are the traits that go to form your personality. The Five-Factor Model of Personality puts five major traits together collectively and we use the acronym OCEAN to remember the five. OCEAN stands for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. People are all different and have different personalities so when testing a person under these categories. Someone might score higher in extraversion and agreeableness, but lower in neuroticism. The five major traits have subcategories because if it were just based off of that one word and that words synonyms than it would not be as accurate, so there are other personality traits that are more detailed and broaden our understanding of personality. 

My scores for The Five-Factor Model of Personality was interesting and I mostly agree with the results that I received. My Extraversion score was 14 and the two highest subcategories were assertiveness and friendliness. I expected this score to be lower because I like be alone and don't get me wrong I love spending time with friends and family I just do not seek out exciting, out-going things. My Agreeableness score was 33 and I scored higher in cooperation and modesty in the subcategories. I'm not really surprised by this score either, I like the peace to be kept and I don't like conflict. My scores for Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were 60 and 61 and that makes these two my highest scoring of the five major traits. The Neuroticism score scares me a little because I think of it as being negative, but its scored on emotional reactivity and how well you respond to stress and how you deal with certain things. I expected my conscientiousness score to be one of my higher scores because I like to be on-time and well organized. My Openness score was 1. I agree partially with this score because I do like to try new things and do new things, but at the end of the day I will take my routine and practicality over flying by the seat of my pants. 

Sources:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm 

Understanding Development Across Life-Span

I expected Dr. Nadine Burke Harris's event to be much more than it actually was. I mean not that it wasn't a big day for her and the people that shes able to help. But the only thing that happened in the day that changed her ENTIRE career was a colleague bringing her a research study, but it happened to be exactly what she needed. The study was done over Adverse Childhood Experiences and things that fall into that category are abuse, parental separation, and substance abuse and every single one of those things effect a child's brain development. That day was so significant to Dr. Harris because it opened up all new doors for her career and healthcare for children. The initial study was performed by two other doctors on 17.5 thousand adults. They asked them questions about adversity and they later named it The ACE test. The test is fairly simple, it contains 10 yes or no questions, and can be performed at any routine check-up or physical.
Dr. Harris uses the simple test when assessing all of her patients because it gives her a better understanding of them and how to treat them better. When a child scores higher on the ACE test she automatically knows that the child will more than likely suffer from other severe health issues later in life. Health issues that could later be developed include lung cancer and heart disease because of the repeated amount of high stress at young ages caused by adverse experiences.
I had never heard about the ACE test until I watched Dr. Harris talk about it and I truly think its a great thing. It's so easy to use and its proven to be beneficial to children presently as well as in the long run. I took the test and I encourage you all to take it as well. I scored a three out of ten and that doesn't mean that I didn't have a good childhood or that I'm going to get a terrible disease, it just tells me that it could be possible because of adverse experiences I did have as a child. My boyfriend's score was 0 and my mother's score was one. If you guys take the test and you don't mind sharing your score comment and let me know because I'm curious.

Sources:
https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime?referrer=playlist-how_does_my_brain_work#t-268280
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

Sensation and Perception

Echolocation

How awesome is it that some animals can use a form of navigation without having to see?

This navigation is called echolocation, and it is defined as sound reflected off of objects.

Echolocation is used by dolphins, whales, bats, and humans are even learning how to do it to get around.

A person who has lost their sight or even someone who hasn't can learn to use echolocation to navigate their way through life as long as the person has normal hearing. The person will use clicks of the tongue, snaps of fingers, or stomps of the feet to the ground to make the desired sound. The mouth clicks are the most effective. Humans who use echolocation can use it to detect obstacles near them and then with more practice and training they are able to detect the distance, shape, material, motion, and the size of what is near them.

I chose this topic and it interested me because it is something that is special to some animals like bats and whales. Almost anything that deals with animals will interest me and I will want to learn about the topic. Bats are not blind even though the common saying, "blind as a bat" says otherwise. Bats are nocturnal and they do most of their flying and hunting at night so like humans they cannot see in the dark. They make a really high pitched noise that bounces off of the bug or the obstacle in front of them so that they can either catch it or not fly into something. When the sounds reach back to them they are able to map things in their vicinity.

Bailey, the beluga whale from the Pixar movie Finding Dory, uses echolocation throughout the movie to help his fishy friends. He is in the aquarium because he bumped his head and his echolocation wasn't working anymore. Towards the end of the movie he has to find a way to get over his issue and use his echolocation to find Dory so that she can return to the ocean. 

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/using-sound-to-get-around