Bystander Effect

I feel as though this happens quite often...like, an every day occurrence. I've been both the bystander and the one looking for assistance from a bystander. The bystander effect is the tendency for someone to be less likely to help another if there are other people present. Why do we automatically assume that the other person is going to help?

In a situation where help is needed and there are multiple people present, there is a diffusion of responsibility. This means that each person feels that they hold little responsibility for helping the person simply because other people are there to help. If there was one individual, the chances of them helping would raise.

Another example that I didn't think of was explained in this article. If nobody else is helping, this is seen as socially acceptable behavior. We assume that since nobody else is helping, help must not be necessary or appropriate.

Collin, Emily, and I did our "Try It Project" on the bystander effect. Diffusion of responsibility was apparent quite a bit. Results also varied depending on the gender of the people, which ties a little bit into the socially acceptable aspect. Girls typically would not help Collin, whereas Emily was helped every time. That may be because they believe that men are perfectly capable of helping themselves. Mr. Dreier is not immune to the bystander effect. He blatantly refused to help Collin when he dropped all his pencils in front of him. Bit rude, don't you think?

Body Language

Social psychology is probably one of the most interesting things to me. How do we interact with people and how do we judge them? Amy Cuddy opens a door into body language. The question she raises is, "Do our non-verbals govern how we think about ourselves?" The answer seems to be, "Yes."

The video is focused on power and how to cause yourself to feel powerful rather than powerless. An opened stance, with arms wide, indicates power. A hunched, closed position indicates a powerless individual (Touching the neck indicates extreme low power). People do not mirror the body language of another person. They typically will pose in the opposite fashion.This is related to gender; women feel less powerful than men. But Cuddy introduced an interesting, effective technique. When you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely to feel powerful. Two minutes in a high power or low power pose can shape the mind.

She also explains power in terms of testosterone and stress. Power is about how you react to stress. The tendency is that the more power you feel, the lower your stress level should be. The opposite is true for powerless feelings.

Bottom line: Fake it until you BECOME it.

What I Need....

In preparing for the AP exam, what I need is to get my lazy butt up and learn how to study effectively. Generally, I'm not really motivated to sit and re-read my notes multiple times in a feeble attempt to remember everything. I tend to study better when I am forced to do so, or when the information and terms are presented in a fun manner. I'm really looking forward to the study groups, because I feel that I could get in some much needed study time with people who are obviously studying the same thing. Teamwork!

I'm mostly concerned about parts of the brain and their functions, and sensory/perceptions. Those topics go a bit more in depth, and I didn't spend a ton of time thinking about them. Just about everything else I feel I can comprehend quite a bit easier.

Now on to a quick little thing on alternative therapies. Do they work? Are they better than traditional therapy? I personally think it has a lot to do with the placebo effect. If a client believes that a certain therapy is going to work, then it most likely will. The article contains some first-hand accounts of alternative therapies. What do you think?

Multiple Personalities

It is assumed that self is the center of personality. But what causes multiple personality disorder, when there is more than just one self? Is self-esteem level a factor?

Each "character" present in multiple personality disorder has their own views and opinions of the world and themselves. Most people with this disorder were either physically or sexually abused as children. The article talks a little bit about disassociation, a defense mechanism.

Personally I think self-esteem does play into the disorder in some sense. Having an extremely low self-esteem may cause them to create another personality that has a higher self-esteem. Physical and/or sexual abuse can cause low self-esteem. Is it possible that abuse is just the underlying cause? Maybe abuse and self-esteem interact.

Of course, not everybody with a low self-esteem has multiple personalities. Same goes for those who have experienced abuse. The question remains, what else could be a possible factor?



Sugru: Challenge Accepted

First hearing about this project, I was certain that there was nothing in my small world that I could possibly fix or improve. I felt that all the good ideas were already taken and posted on the website for all the world to see, so I was forced to think of something brand new. I was experiencing fixation, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective. In this day and age, almost everything has something to improve it, so how could I possibly improve it more? I'm no Thomas Edison.

I went through every room in my house, thinking of things that could be fixed or improved. In the bathroom, you could caulk your bathtub with Sugru, but you could probably just go out and buy caulk, or it's readily available for you in the garage or something. In the kitchen, I questioned whether I could hang utensils up somehow. It didn't seem very practical to me, and you'd probably need a lot more Sugru. With all these little household items, I couldn't think of any unique functions that the Sugru could possibly provide. Functional fixedness was dominating my thoughts.

But the utensil idea got me thinking, what else could I hang up? What never has a place? Sunglasses. I created a hook out of the Sugru that a pair of sunglasses could nonchalantly hang out on. Now they can't be forgotten and broken from sitting on them.

I was feeling a bit more creative at this point, so I thought back to my childhood. What little things bothered me the most? When shoelaces frayed after the little plastic tip broke off from overuse. So I molded some Sugru over the shoelace tips. Hopefully it's a bit more effective than a flimsy piece of plastic.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Before I begin, I have a serious question for Mr. Dreier. How many pistachio colored shirts do you have? Seriously. You should answer this.

OCD is interesting to me because I've always felt that my mom had obsessive compulsive disorder. She cleans the house like it's buried under piles of dirt. Neat freak doesn't even begin to describe her, but she insists that she does not have OCD. To learn more about this disorder, I put my faith in the ever trustworth Google and found this article.

Some of the symptoms fit my mom perfectly, while others do not. Which leads me to believe that maybe she just has a mild form of the disorder. It's not as though she does the same exact thing every day, but she gets extremely anxious when things aren't in their place and spotless. But what exactly causes OCD?

There are parts of the brain involved in fear and anxiety, and scientists believe this is the root cause of the disorder. To learn more about what causes it, click here. Basically, if you have OCD, your brain has difficulty turning off or ignoring impulses from a certain circuit. So, does this mean that the fear and anxiety are amplified, and they aren't able to relieve those feelings until they complete a certain action?

I guess my next question is, if this lack of circuit impulse ignoring could be fixed, what would the solution be? I mean, of course a drug could be a temporary fix, but that means they'd have to take that drug for the rest of their lives, and that's not exactly incredibly exciting. What if a permanent solution could be found?

Shwauby PSA

After careful consideration and many long minutes watching videos, I was able to come up with my top three favorite PSAs.

Nicole, Emily, and Collin
This video was extremely entertaining and held my interest throughout. I loved the creative ideas for Piaget's stages of development. I never would have thought of Chuck E. Cheeses. (Pssst...it's not just for small children (; hehe) The slides introducing each new location helped a lot with knowing where they were in Ashwaubenon.

Zac, Jake, and Jenello
Fine acting. Yes, fine acting indeed. I quite enjoyed this one. Overall, it was well done, except at the Tundra Lodge, I couldn't quite hear what was being said. My favorite definitely had to be at the Lambeau Field. Normally, you wouldn't think that it could contribute in anyway to development, but I was proved wrong. It is true, there is no I in Team....but there is a Me.

Kelly, Marissa, Rilee
The music in the beginning captured my attention right away. It really appeals to an audience. The explanations of each individual place were easy to understand, and it wasn't an overload of information. It's also not too long, so it doesn't really have the chance to become boring. Me gusta (:

The How and Why of Tears

That last test was brutal. I can't say I've ever failed a test before. I literally went home and cried a little bit. So why are there tears when we cry? What causes them? Our eyes are mostly water, right, so they don't necessarily need any more.

There are actually three different kinds of tears. Ones that are always there, reflex tears (like when we get dirt in our eye or are poked), and emotional tears. It's actually been found that tears get rid of hormones in order to reduce our level of stress.

But why, exactly, do we cry? According to William H. Frey, people feel better after crying. Which I guess makes sense, because we cry when we're frustrated or sad or in pain. It's possible that crying gets rid of all the bad feelings through tears. Tears can also be a sign to others that we are in pain or upset, especially before language is developed. It's essentially a form of communication.

Preemie Development

My sister was 3 months premature when she was born. Reading about infant development made me wonder about whether premature babies develop in the same space of time as a baby born around 9 months, or if they even have devolpment similarities at all.

An article that I found about preemie development recommends using an adjusted age to determine the baby's current developmental stage. Since my sister was 3 months early, suppose she is 5 months old now, her actual age would be 2 months old. Using that age, her developmental stage can be concluded. Knowing this, I now know that premature babies develop at a slower rate than babies born on the due date.

This doesn't last throughout the child's entire life. By age 2, they have caught up. This makes me think that there is an increase in developmental speed towards that time.

Genetic Alcohol

I'm interested in why people become addicted to alcohol because many members of my family are alcoholics, my father being one of them. Because he is a direct relation, I found it most fascinating that biological influences can be one of the causes for alcoholism.

In an article about alcoholism and heredity, I found that those born to an alcoholic parent are more prone to alcohol abuse, but that does not necessarily mean that the child will grow up to be an alcoholic. That depends on whether the child starts drinking excessively or not. Also, children not born to alcoholic parents can become alcoholics themselves.
The main theme seemed to revolve around nature and nurture. Social influences can lead to drinking. Those that are more genetically susceptible to alcohol abuse will live a life of drinking if they fall into that social trap.

I have never taken a drink, knowingly, of alcohol in my life, mainly because of my father. I don't have any intention of ending up like him, or any of the other alcoholics in my family. In my opinion, they all live miserable lives. But now, knowing that I am more prone to alcohol abuse, I'm more against drinking than I was before.

Zombies...and How to Kill Them

Assuming zombies exist (Let's be real; we all know they do), how exactly would one go about exterminating them? Something abnormal has happened in their brain, that much is obvious. It's probably difficult to pinpoint exactly what that abnormal something is, though. The questions are: Must they be killed? How would you kill them, if necessary? If not, what could be done to change them?

First, if a zombie absolutely has to be killed, it seems to be more difficult than what's shown in movies. In order to kill them, you'd have to destroy the part of the brain responsible for heartbeat and breathing (although they technically aren't capable of breathing anymore, as they're dead, so to speak). For argument's sake, let's say they do breathe and have a heartbeat. To kill them then, you'd have to destroy the medulla. Simply shooting them anywhere in the head probably wouldn't be very successful, unless you're lucky. Of course, there are areas that would disable the zombie, but not get rid of it permanently.

Now, what if the bullet enters the frontal lobe and decides to take up residence there? Damage to the frontal lobe can alter personality. Is it possible that damaging the frontal lobe of a zombie could change its personality? Could its desire for flesh be reversed; could they be changed into a vegetarian?

This idea could be performed in more humane ways, as if a zombie really cares what's done to it. Neuroscientists could selectively destroy certain brain cells to eliminate whatever is causing the living dead person to crave flesh. Essentially, the brain in a zombie can be changed. In turn, a zombie can change, as well. This is just a theory of mine. Sadly, a zombie has to be found first for it to be tested.

Nature Vs. Nurture

This controversial issue brings up the question of whether we inherit traits that make up our personality and behavior, or if they are influenced by our environments and experiences. Personally, I think there is a mixture of both. Certain aspects of our personalities seem, to me, to be oddly similiar to those of our parents. Others have been developed as we've spent time around our friends and even strangers. For example, the pressure to fit in with the crowd can ultimately change how we act around people. Everybody wants to be accepted, and conforming to the "norm" appears to be the only option for many. By doing so, some amount of the personalities and unique attributes of our peers become part of our personalities, as well. However, there will always be those special traits that we were born with; the traits that are much more difficult to change.
This issue of Nature versus Nurture has been examined with twin studies. In this case, the twins were obviously born together, but then separated and raised apart for much of their life. Their personalities tend to be extremely similar, right down to what their favorite food is. On the other hand, their life histories are completely different because of where and how they were raised. Therefore, they have similarities and differences in their personalities.
Overall, I believe that both nature and nurture have a large effect on the way somebody behaves. It may be that genetics plays a larger role than environmental influences, but these influences play their part, too. I know it has influenced who I am today, because I act much different than I had when I was younger. I was a shy, soft-spoken girl with very few friends. Today, I interact more with people and I am able to express myself in ways I didn't think about before, all because of what I have been exposed to. In contrast, some things never change; I am still that shy, soft-spoken girl that I've always been.