Poxxy's IB Psychology : INSOMNIA

Style of Learning

2007-04-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

The day before, we did a test to see our style of learning. During this experiment we have to choose the word that best fit our personality and the result will show which type of learning style we belong to. There are 4 types of style of learning which is CS (concrete sequential), AR (abstract random), AS (abstract sequential), and CR (concrete random). Surprisingly for me, I belong to the CS group. The reason that it is surprising is because, CS people are usually people who are very organize, order, and also a perfectionist, but I know myself that I'm not at all organize. However some characteristics of CS learning style still suits me. I usually have my own routine and traditional ways of doing things and I rarely stray out of it. It is also very hard for me to work at something in which the direction are unclear or incomplete because oftenly I also looked at specific details when I'm doing my work, and when the instruction is incomplete these details are not available. I also lack skill in the imaginary department as shown from my poor results in art. Last of all, sometime I found it hard to work in group especially with people I'm not familiar with. Even though some of my characteristics are not suitable with this type of learning, but I always ask the questions that most CS people asked such as "When is it due" or "How do I do it"? Considering these facts I notice about myself, I think I belong to the CS group except the fact that I'm not organize, but my way of thinking is still fit with the characteristics of this group.

Meaning

2007-03-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Today we did another experiment on memory. This time we have a competition to remember the word. The competition went like this. First Mr. Peter will tell us 20 words which we have to divide into 2 different categories which is A which is to count the syllable and B which is to state whether the mood is a pleasant mood or an unpleasant mood. The results of the experiment were very interesting because there was a very large range of score from 6 to 19. It is also interesting to see that most of the words that are remembered tend to fall into category B which is to remember the word by its mood. This study linked to what we have learned in that lesson about memory. We stated that external events are input as sensory memory which can then be encoded into our short-term or long-term memory as part of an automatic processing. The memory kept in our short-term memory can be recalled to be use. However there is another stage of memory which is the long-term memory. In order to encode something into our long-term memory, different method is required. This method is called effortful processing which involved rehearsing over and over to encode the short-term memory into our long term-memory.

Method of Memories

2007-03-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today during psychology class we did an experiment to test each of our memory. The main focus of this experiment is to explore each of our short-term memory. The experiment started by Mr. Peter will tell us a combination of number and after he finished saying out the combination then we will have to write it down. Each turn the number on the combination will increase. The contest ends if you get any number wrong in any combination. To calculate the score you then count the number in that combination u got wrong and that is your score. After the experiment we found out that there are many variations in score but the average of our class was 6.5 so most people were a little between +2 or -2 from 7. This show that most of us can only remember things for a short period of time because most of the things we see will be registered into out short-term memory.

Our First Memory

2007-03-13T07:58:00.001-07:00

As we are going to start our study on the Cognitive Perspective, we are asked by our teacher Mr. Peter Anthony to think of our first memory since memory is a big part in this Cognitive Approach. After digging into my memories and some rewinding effort, I was able to come up with one memory which I believed to be my earliest. My first memory occurred around the time when I was about 3-5 years old, it is a picture of myself climbing up the 3 story shelf to get my toy car which is on the highest story of the shelf. However my attempt turns out to be a failure and I ended up falling from the shelf and hurt one of my leg when I was on the second story of the shelf. Because of the pain I started to cry and then my maid which is in the next room come rushing in and saw me on the floor crying holding on to the ankle of my leg. She quickly called my parents, and before I knew it my mom was next to me applying some liquid pain-reliever on my ankle.

After everyone in our class share their memory, we discuss about the psychological idea behind these memories. We come up with the conclusion that our earliest memory should be around 4-5 years old because our brain are not that developed when we are 3 years old to remember any exact detail of the memory therefore the memory before 4 years old should only be a reconstructed idea. We also conclude that most of the time our memory came from incident that have an emotional impact on us and what is even more interesting is the fact that half of the class’s memories are negative while the other half is positive.

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2006-11-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

Existentialism is very interesting because it deals with the undeniable fact of our life and question our very existence as it poses the most important question human ever ask of why are we here? Why are we born?

Existentialism is very deep in meaning as it poses the most important question in which no human being was able to answer. However people have differents ways of apporaching this question, and they have different view on the meaning of their existence therefore there is no absolute answer to this question. Eventhough the answer to this question will remain a mystery, but existentialism also introduced us to the idea of angst, absurdity, despair, anxiety, and death which is the fact of life we can't avoid. These ideas they introduced are very interesting and realistic as it deals with the real human's nature. It is true that no one can escape death as it comes to everyone with equality. It is also undeniable that we all faced anxiety or despair once during the course of our life. So this is what this perspective is about-dealing with the truth of human's life and use that knowledge to create a better understanding of ourself. From learning about existentialism, I hoped to learned more about myself by learning about the human's nature itself first.

What was the historical and cultural context of the learning perspective?

2006-10-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

Learning perspective is the new field of psychology developed to challenge the old psychodynamic theory. It emerged at the beginning of the 20th century and continue to dominate psychology in US until 1950s. During this time, people came to belive that science will be able to solve great questions of the day. This believe led to the discovery of the learning perspective where human’s behaviors can be explain simply by using enviromental stimulus and observing their responses. Behaviorism argued that the old psychodynamic theory view of observing the unconscious is too vague and can not be study scientifically because there are no reliable evidences. However this new learning perspective concentrate their observation on human’s behaviors in different situation and stimuli therefore it is possible to obtain a scientific data. This learning perspective became very popular especially in US as it is a new country and they seek for the disovery of new knowledge. Americans have a very optimistic view of the future and belived that individuals that can overcome barriers and adapt to the changing business situation will be successful. Another reason that behaviorism was very popular among the Americans was because it promised a social reform by stating that behaviors can change depeding on the situation. This idea is very appealing to the Americans mentality as it is a “can do” approach.

Behaviorism was first introduced in 1900s by Pavlov, Watson and Thorndike. These behaviorist focused on the scientific way of studying human behaviors. They study human behaviors by focusing on how the stimuli in the enviroment produced response. However during the 1960s, behaviorism was modified by Skinner, Garcia and also Seligman. They add new insights from the cognitive and biological perspective to the original behaviorism, changing it to the learning perspective.

What Did I learn From my First Essay

2006-09-07T00:20:00.000-07:00

My first essay for IB Psychology HL give me many insight about this subject. Eventhought the score wasn't very pleasing, but it is my first try. At first i was hoping for a better score because I really put in a lot of effort and time into writing this essay. However the IB grading is not as easy as RIS grading. The fact that IB is looking for a specific answer hinder my score. I used unappropiate word to describe Freud's theory which really pull my grade down. The mistake I did was using the word that express Freud's theory in a controversial way which some psychologist would agree, but not the rest. This mistake made my essay weaker that it is suppose to be. After looking at the score for my essay and the mistake I did, I can learn from this mistake to ensure that my answer will be better on the next essay.

2006-08-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

My Opinion of Freud on Little Hans

I really think he is a strange person, maybe a genius. His way of creating theories and thinking is very unique and weird. In this case of Little Hans, he try to solve a mental illness that occured on a 5 years old boy name Hans. Hans have a great fear of horse which Freud try to find out the reason. The method he used in this case is just as strange as himself. He interpret Hans' word and dreams thinking that the boy's dreams are a symbol of something. However the stragest thing was how he interpret these symbol. He compare the horse with load as Hans' mother when she is pregnant and the fear of horse as the fear of the boy's father. Although it his interpretation might be weird, but in the end Freud was able to come to a conclusion on the boy's fear and successfully cure Hans. Looking at his interpretation suggested that his method of thinking is very unique. How did he came up with his interpretation is very interesting and also mysterious, so I conclude from this case that Freud must really be a genius of our kind.

2006-08-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Scientific Method and Psychology

Scientific Method might work well with all kind of science such as chemistry, biology, and physic. However I think there are limitations to the use of scientific method in psychology. Some of the factor in a psychology experiment might be controlled, but it is close to impossible to keep the reactions or the behaviors under controlled as it is stated many times earlier. When the test subject knew that they are being tested, there reactions will change and they might give inaccurate information to protect themselves. Other factors such as self awareness must also be considered during the experiment as we are concerned with our reaction toward the test subjects as well. If these things are not controlled then the result of the experiment might be altered. Although we are aware of factors that must be controlled, but it is almost impossible to keep these factors constant. This is the reason why scientific method might not work in psychology even though some of its theory might influenced Freud in his experiment.

2006-08-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

Best of The Century

1. What have been the major changes in psychotherapy this century?

There are many major changes in psychotherapy this century as stated in the article. Before, only wealthy people can afford to pay to have a weekly seesion with the therpaists which could go on for months or even years without any progress. However as time changes many great improvements have been discovered. One of the most important changes mentioned was the biological and neurological study of emotional disorders that recently picked up speed. This improvement allow distinctly improved medications for some disorders ,and because of these improvement, many more people become more aware of their mental state and would pay more than a thousand dollars to see the therapists every week or month to discuss the problem they have. Now psychology have gained public interest and I think this is one of the major changes in psychotherapy during this century.

2. Twenty breakthroughs are identified. Which 5 do you think are the most important? Justify your answers.

One of the most important breakthrough mentioned in the passage is the first one where they done an experiment on a child. This experiment was discovered by the guy name Piaget where they pour a glass of milk into a wide bowl and the child think that he or she got less milk in the bowl. The conclusion of this experiment showed that human intelligence develops in stages. If we was the same age as the child in the experiment, we would answer the same way as he did. However if we have been tested the same way now, we would know the correct answer right away even without thinking. This showed that when we was a child our brain works almost the same, therefore we might be able to understand the thought of a person by tracing back to their origin and study the development of their thinking as they proceed through their life. This breakthrough is important because it will show us different level of intelligence and what factors or age make them develop those intelligence which might lead to a deeper understading of human’s thought.

Anoter important breakthrough was conducted by Stanley Milgram on the human fear of breaking rules.. The example she gave was that everyone have the possibility to follow the authority to the point of commiting murder because of fear. This experiment suggested that we all feared rules to some extent even if that rule was pointless. In my opinion I think that this experiment is very important and I believed that we all feared rules. All of us live in a society where laws must be obeyed. If anyone break that rules we will be punished and rejected from the society. Because of this we was taugth since we was a child to obeyed the rules and not to break it. This basic instinct of fear can be apply to many circumstances. It is hard to understand people who did things because of fear because fear is a very strong inner-drive that can drive a person into madness. So by understanding the fear of human, we are one step closer to understanding the thought of human.

One of the strangest and most interesting experiment was conducted by Harry F. Harlow. This experiment was done on monkeys. Harry showed that love and care from the mother in the early years was very crucial for a normal and intellectual growth of the baby monkey. Interestingly some evidences showed that this can be applied to human as well. This might prove to be true because we usually see people that didn’t get loved and cared from the parents when they were a child, grew up into a bad person. This might prove to be an important aspect to analyze the behaviours by looking at their past for evidences and other things that might shaped them into the person they are today.

Another interesting discovery was made by Phillip G. Zimbardo in a very famous 1971 stanford prison experiment. In this experiment, students were places with a different jobs. One group of the students were to act as a prisons guard, while the other group was acting as a prisoners. However the experiment was stopped mid-way because it became too dangerous. The reason this is interesting is because it suggested that the society roles can determine much of our behaviour. Staying in any circumstances too long might change your personality as long as your behaviour. In this case, the prison guard must be cruel and mean and these personalities had altered the behaviour of students that acted these roles. Nowaday as psychologists studied into the mind of the patient, they might as well look at the patient’s occupation because their job can alter the personalities and their behaviours as well.

Another experiments was made on human’s creativity. This experiement exposed many mysterious we used to have in the subject of creativity. As research are done we concluded that creativity stem out from our prior knowledge because creativity came from using our knowledge to apply into something new. We can also assume from this experiment that creativity of an individuals is orderly and predictable because as the person grew older and get more training their potential creativity is shown at a greater degree in their output. This suggest that we can understand about the person’s thought by looking at their past knowledge as well.

All of these breakthrough are new important discoveries in psychology made during this century.

2006-08-17T00:10:00.000-07:00

Big Issues in Psychology

Today I did a survey in class. From this survey I learned that I'm very different from the person I think I am. I found out that I'm irrational instead of rational. This really surprised me because whenever I want do something I always think about the reasons and the consequences that will follow my action. From this method of thinking I though I was rational, but I was proved to be wrong.

It surprised me even more to learn that I'm the kind of person that believes in stability. All these years I always believe in changes because change is the sign that we have develop and grown over the year, but again I was proved to be wrong by this survey.

I also learned from this survey that I belived more in nature than nuture to be the factor that shaped us into the person we are. It will be a lie to refuse that I'm not shocked by all of these results because the result of this survey had betrayed all my perspectives I have on myself.

2006-08-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

Why Do We Do the Things We Do?

I don't really know why people do the things they do. To be honest I don't really understand myself sometimes about why I choose to do this or that. I could come up with many reasons that will explain why I choose to do the things I do. However it can be divided into 2 big issues. One of those is the sub-concious, the second is the common sense.

One example I could think of that will explain sub-concious is the action we did everyday in our life which is "walking". When we walk, we don't usually know or realize that we are walking. Infact our brain is thinking about something else. The brain doesn't told you to walk, but you walk because you have been given order to walk by your sub-concious and you act according to that order because walking has become a basic thing you did everyday in your life. So my own definition of sub-concious is the action you take that doesn't require complex analysis from the brain to carry out that specific order.

Another issue that might explain why I do the things I do is becase of my common sense. I won't put my hand into hot boiling water because I know that the hot boiling water will burn my hand and cause tremendrous pain. I think we all shared some similar common senses such as the case of the boiling water I mentioned. However each person common senses might differ depending on our experiences because I think that common senses are shaped by our past experiences. Although common senses might not be the same in every person, but I think that it is a factor that explain why we do the things we do.

2006-08-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Reasons I Decide to Take IB Psychology HL

There are many reasons I decided to took IB Psycology HL. The first and the most simple reason is that the course itself seem interesting and I heard that many students have enjoyed this course. The second reason is that I need another HL subject to fufill my diploma program. However these reasons are just a fragment of a main idea that finally pursuaded me to take this course. Because the course just started therefore I do not have enough knowledge to define "Psychology" in a sophisticated way, but what I know that it is a study of human's mind and everything that make someone the way they are. So by taking this course I will have a better understanding of the human mind and how it works. With a deeper understading of human's mind, I will be able to communicate more logically with other people. Being able to communicate with the others and understand what they are thinking is the most important skill we used in our daily life ,and will still be the most important skill throughout our life both in the present and future. As the quote by a Chinese philosophers thousands of years ago "If you know the others just like you know yourself. You fight 100 times you will still win 100 times." This is the reason why I decied to choose this course.