blog blog blog blog

This blog is on an article off pf psyblog called "The Chameleon Effect". This article answered these three questions: Do people automatically mimic others, even strangers? Does mimicry increase liking? Do high-perspective-takers exhibit the chameleon effect more? As it turns out people really do automatically mimic others without being aware of it. I think that by mimicking the actions of the person you are talking to makes you both feel more comfortable thinking that it will be less awkward by acting the same way. Even I tend to find myself shuffling around in circles when the other person moves closer of away. That also answers the second question. People are more comfortable around people like them, so by making the same movements and gestures you create a smooth and unawkward conversation.
One thing to remember is that this is an automatic mimic, that means don't go around mimicking people thinking that they will like you more. If a person mimics too much it gets creepy and instead of getting people to like you it gets them to dislike you.

Psyblog

I read an article about ads for unhealthy foods on psyblog today. Children in the United States, for example, are exposed to at least fifteen television commercials for food each day, remember that is for children and usually children are limited to how much television they watch a day, which makes me wonder how many adults and teens see. By advertising food products, companies aren't only telling you to choose their product over others, but to go and eat it right then. There was a test done on children to see if they would eat more food while watching food commercials or nonfood ones. The results showed that the children who were showed food commercials ate 45% more off the food provided than when not showed food commercials. There was also a test on young adults and it was also showed that one-third more of junk food was eaten. So it might be safe to say that by viewing unhealthy food commercials people are more likely to eat unhealthy. The commercials make you crave what you see and go out to find and eat it. Overall I think that this may be true. I have been known to eat junk food while watching television than when I'm not.

Chapter 13 Blog

My personality is influenced by the environment around me. Everything and everyone around us tells a person how to think, feel, and act. If a person did something against the norm they would be looked and thought of in a negative way therefore making people think, feel, and act how others would like them too. The Humanistic Perspective makes the most sense to me for personality theories. People strive to be the better self and wish to have unconditional positive regard. My parents, friends, and coworkers influence how I act, think, and feel about things. If I was told something was improper then I would stop acting that way. Listening to people talk about others and different subjects influences how I think and feel about that person or subject. I think that in my life so far I have used all types of defense mechanisms at least once. The most recent mechanism I have used was the projection mechanism.
The first video I watched, which was “Moral Psychology”, didn’t really make that much sense to me. All of the references to politics were over my head because I don’t pay attention to politics and don’t understand them. The second video that I watched, “Traits (Human Experience)”, was a lot easier to understand and I could relate to it more. So for me the video on traits was more helpful. I like how in the video it says that you can always change your career even at fifty. The personality tests are really helpful because they show results that you weren’t aware of being true, also they confirm what a person may thing true but have the need to be confirmed by a test.

hmmmm blogging......

There are many times a person feels rejected in a lifetime. Every time you are rejected it hurts and puts you in a bad mood. The good news is that our psychological immune system protects us and our good moods usually come back within the next ten minutes of the rejection. Why does it hurt more when there are many people rejecting you instead of just one? It's because when we are rejected by one person we tell ourselves that the person who rejected us just has a different individual preference for people. When there is a group rejection it is harder to put the blame on the people rejecting you because there are multiple rejections, not just one person's preference.

BLOG!!!!! hehehe...

Everyone has a bad day once in a while and wants to stay home. I remember that as a child I always wanted just one day to sit around at be lazy during the summer instead of doing what my mom wanted me to. Being the person that I am, I obliged my mother and sat outside in the sun to get some fresh air. After a while I went inside complaining about feeling sick. My mother took my temperature, which i knew would be high. By sitting out in the sun I gave myself a temporary fever and got out of a day's work.
There were other times where i felt sick at night and didn't want to go to school in the morning. When I would wake up in the morning I would feel sick when I really wasn't. It was really just my brain telling my mind that I was sick, which provided me a day off of school. So I'm thinking that this is just another of the mind's tricks that secretly grant our wishes.

Chapter 9 Blog

I found this chapter on thinking and language as interesting as the one on memory. If we couldn't think or communicate in any way wouldn't it make us as lost as a person without memory? Humans think all the time subconsciously or consciously. Communication is a major part of our development and we thrive on it. Our ability to think out of the box makes the matchstick problem and the candle-mounting problem possible to solve. Though confidence is good for a person to have I think that it is bad if person becomes overconfident in themselves.

One blog after another.......

This article was called "Friendships Can Depend on Who You Meet First", it debates if the first person you meet in a new surrounding is special. I know myself I consider some of the first people I met special. Sometimes it's like you leach onto the first person you meet so you wont feel odd being alone. When sitting in a new class the person next to you, you may not know and you will want to get to know them and become their friend so you will have a person to talk to in class. This has happened many times to me, when I start a class at school the person who I sit next to I usually start hanging out with and become friends with. According to the article the first people you talk to in a new surrounding you will like them better than the other people.

PSYBLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so I read an article called "Why Left to Right Punches Are More Aggressive, Powerful and Shocking". This article interested me right from the start because I don't really know much about punches. Unfortunately to my disappointment this had nothing to do with punches. Instead it talks about people doing things from left to right. Have you ever noticed that most things are done from left to right? Well most things apparently are. People also tend to look at things starting from the left and look towards the right. This left to right thing affects how people view the world such as by making the left more dominate in pictures. The article tells a lot about the whole left to right deal. Over all this article was weird and interesting at the same time but i did learn that we are bias towards left and right.

Chapter 8 blog time!!

Memory defines everything that we are. We have to remember who we are, what we like, who are friends are and other things. Without our past it is hard to create a future. If we had no memory of the past we would have no idea of who we were or what we were doing. Life would be impossible, long, and confusing at times. If we forget what just happens to us then we will have no purpose in life. Clive has a difficult life to some people but as far as Clive is concerned his life is perfect and just wakes up every few minutes. If you could never remember you can't stay angry and stressed. I now think of memory as more valuable. I can say that I am grateful to forget some things and remember other things. I hope I never have to remember everything or forget everything. If a person could remember everything they would never forget those embarrassing memories or horrible events. I see my memory as a bigger part of who I am, I know that it would be nothing without it. Even with having my memory I don't trust what I remember because sometimes it is just a dream or something that i was told over and over again. Most of the time I can't tell one day from another because they are so much alike. The knowledge of memory distortion is an important concept to understand. If a person didn't understand that memory can be manipulated they would believe everything that they remember. One of the main problems with memory distortion is sending Innocent people away to jail just because someone said that it was them who did it. If we only went off of someones words many more people would be sent to jail when innocent.

How Children Learn the Earth isn't Flat

There are several different ways that children between the ages six and eleven see the earth. The different ways are: a rectangular earth that is flat and you can fall off, a disc earth which is also flat any can fall off, a dual earth is "thought that one 'Earth' is flat which we are standing on and there is another 'Earth' in the sky that is round. Their answers revealed they saw the planet as flat when asked about 'the ground', but round when asked about 'the Earth' ", hollow sphere is where we live inside the earth on a flat area, flattened sphere is the "thought that the Earth was a flattened sphere so that there were areas on the top (and the bottom) where people could live", a sphere the way the earth really is, and mixed models in which models could not be constructed.
Many times the children think that the earth is flat because you aren't sliding all around because of gravity. At that age though they don't know much about gravitational pull so they think it has to be flat. Though they think it is flat they also think it is a sphere. The reason for this is because parents and teachers tell them it is a sphere. With this information you would think that if a child wasn't told the earth was a sphere they would think it was just flat with no distinct shape.

The Truth About Self-Deception

In this study to see how much people lie to themselves, they recruited 38 students and told them they were going to take part in a study about the "psychological and medical aspects of athletics" when really they were tricking them thinking that depending on how long they could submerge their arms in cold water was how good their health was.
This whole experiment is somewhat confusing to what they are doing and thinking. What i understood that those who were told that it shows good health the longer you are able to hold your arm there held it there as long as possible. Apparently some of the students said that the water changed temperature and got warmer which it didn't. Their brain lied to them so that they could stay in the water longer. People easily tell lies to themselves to justify things that they do and what happens in life.

Chapter 7

In this chapter I found the trained rats interesting. It shows that they aren't brainless creatures, but ones that can learn just like humans can. They have to be clever in order to realize that they have to push on a lever to get food. You could use the same concept with a family pet so you can leave them unattended at home and not have to worry about them being fed. I think my parents conditioned my siblings and me to be nicer to each other. If we were nice to each other we were given a penny. When we argued and got into fights we lost two pennies. This made us not fight because back then a penny was a lot of money to us and we wanted all that we got. Through this my parents got their money back once in a while and eventually a somewhat quieter house.