Culture Revolution

Today we talked about how culture plays a large role in how people act. I think it is very interesting how much culture has changed over the years. What was acceptable even 10, 20 years ago would be seen as strange or weird today. But the interesting part about it is what was acceptable about 50 years ago around the 60s is coming back. Especially when you talk about the music and the clothing of the era. I think that often society will "loop" back into old cultures when the culture that they currently have isn't stimulating enough to their mind. This is why the internet is so big. It offers such a large amount of all different stimuli from all different cultures.

I also think that as things like the internet and online social networks get available to more people cultures will start to integrate into each other and they will "evolve" into a new culture.

Top down

In class we learned about the different theories about emotions and the corresponding physiological effects. We learned that the only top down functioning was any responses that are caused by memories or biofeedback. I disagree with this and think that all responses are top down because they first require the human brain to interpret the input then there is a physiological response followed by and emotional label. You can see this with the way that babies act. If a baby falls over they look at you to see how you respond. If you freak out the baby will start crying because from the way you reacted they interpreted this was the correct way to respond. You can also see this with people that have "mental disorders". Schizophrenics for example may interpret what we see as empty space as a person being there commonly called hallucinations. They therefor have a different response to it.

Motivation Chart

Behavior	Theory	Explanation
A human infant rooting to find the mother’s nipple.	Instinct Theory	This is the infants reflex to feed itself
Getting a glass of water when you are thirsty.	Drive Reduction	This is the reduction of the need for water
Going for a walk when you are worried or restless.	Drive Reduction	This is the need to reduce heart rate and other feedback loops of being worried
Reading a book on a long car ride	Optimal Arousal	Car rides are typically boring so reading a book is more stimulating
Studying hard to pass an exam.	Incentive	Incentive to do well on the test so you can do well in school
Crying when hurt or upset.	Drive Reduction	This is the need to cry to get others attention to help you
Developing a lasting, intimate relationship.	This could be a couple but the strongest one is probably Optimal stimulation	Having a long term relationship is different then all other relationships and is more rewarding in different ways then regular friends are.

Motivated to win

1)The father is probably at the 4th level because of his status in the family and his ability to be competitive without outside motivation. The 3 year old is probably at the 1st level because of his age and need for sleep. The 13 year old is probably at the 3rd level because of her concern of being embarrassed in front of her family.
2)The father would most likely shrug it off if the team didn't win because he is beyond his need for family approval. The 3 year old would most likely not care either as he is still concerned with his very basic needs. The 13 year old would probably be the most set back by a loose because she is still at the stage of trying to gain family approval. This also depends largely on how the family handles the situation by either being supportive anyways or by stressing winning.
3)The Fathers motivation to win is based in his competitiveness and therefore he probably has external motivations. As the worksheet stated he would probably not need motivation. The 3 year old probably doesn't have any motivation to win according to Maslow. To encourage him you would have to introduce an external motivator such as food or a prize for winning. The 13 year old already has internal motivation to win (to get approval from family). You could use this to create fear if you don't win or use this as encouragement.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Schizotypal Personality Disorder is often times seen as a much more mild or a latent form of Schizophrenia. Some of the major symptoms include:

1) Inappropriate reactions to surroundings meaning person usually looks cold or out of place.
2) Odd actions
3) Poor rapport with other usually leading to social withdraw
4) Odd beliefs or magical thinking
5) Paranoid ideas
6) Occasional hallucinations usually auditory

Sometimes this disorder has "evolved" into schizophrenia. There are said to be two types of Schizotypal Disorder Timorous and Insipid.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/schizotypal-personality-disorder/DS00830

ZzzzzZZzzzz....

This week had a lot to do with sleep and it's importance to the human mind. I thought that the brain wave monitoring was very telling about what happens when the mind is at rest. I also noticed that in all the research I have done with sleep, time seems to be the big factor that everyone is looking at. I disagree with this approach because a lot of new research is coming out about the brain wave states that people are in. A lot of people that are good at meditating and can go right into alpha and delta states don't have to sleep as long because alpha and delta states resemble deep sleep. There's even a teacher at Ashwaubenon that does this.

MORE BLOG POSTS! WOOO EDUCATION!

1) Cognition. I use cognition in my everyday life every time I think, talk, or do something.
2)Concept. People use concepts everyday in their life to group similar objects. This is used especially in the high school social setting.
3)Heuristics. I use heuristics to make judgements about things and solve problems. I specific example would be tonight when I go home I could study or I could hang out with friends. I would use heuristics to solve this problem.
4)Insight. An example of when I use insight in my life is when there is a word on the tip of my tongue but I can't quite think of it. Then when I suddenly remember the word that is insight.
5)Conformational Bias. Everyone uses conformational bias all the time. People, including myself, use this the most when it comes to core beliefs such as religion and politics.
6)Fixation. An example of when I use fixation in my life is when I am fighting with my brother about something and I can't see his side of the story.... because he doesn't have one ;)

Conditioning

I think that conditioning really testifies to the fact that humans take in everything that they sense and "create" reality. For example a person comes home from work and has a cig. The person gets a great feeling from getting off of work and the cig may add to it a little bit. The person then needs a cig every time they come home to get that same "high".

I also think that conditioning reviles the basic motivation for every human action. In one way or another get high. I don't want anyone to limit this to getting high off of a drug; it can include this but it is not limited to. Whether it's the good feeling someone gets from donating money, the high that a cop gets from busting a drug house, or the high a terrorist gets out of blowing up a car full of soldiers. While I agree that they are all different highs everyone is just looking for their fix. I just depends on through your life what the highs have been associated to. Say there is a 8 year old that gets a special award for getting good grades. The bigger "high" the kid gets off of it the stronger the association is. This may result in the kid getting much better grades in the future if the trigger (of getting good grades) is strong enough.

Reality is fluid. And humans just learn and react to their reality.

ReAliTy

This week we learned a lot about how humans see reality. This relates to my life because the other day I ran out of contacts. My eyes eventually accommodated to not having the contacts in and my vision got better without my contacts in. I found this unit interesting because it questions a lot of the ways people see their reality around them.

Psa

My favorite PSAs were http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qoY_5mOo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR7-5enn7vY. I liked these the most because they were all really funny and they ran all over green bay to get all the videos they had.

My life and class

I can relate the articles that I read on Alzheimer to my life. My grand-pa may be developing Alzheimer and my dad is freaking out about him getting it. He is doing a lot of things that help prevent Alzheimer such as keeping his mind busy by reading.

Tongue magic

They used the tongue because its a very sensitive muscle. The stimulated neurons in the tongue send impulses to the reticular formation which sends impulses to the thalamus. Those impulses are then sent to the ceriberal cortex then thoughs impulses are sent to the occipital lobe where vision is made.

Booze ain't foodz!!!

The main psychoactive ingredient in most alcholic drinks is ethonol. Ethonol works as a central nervous system depressent. The effects of ethonol depend largly on blood alchohol content. The typical effects are as follows:

50
0.05%
Euphoria, talkativeness, relaxation

100
0.1 %
Central nervous system depression, nausea, possible vomiting, impaired motor and sensory function, impaired cognition

>140
>0.14%
Decreased blood flow to brain

300
0.3%
Stupefaction, possible unconsciousness

400
0.4%
Possible death

>550
>0.55%
Death


The long term effects of to much alcohol are developing alcoholism, cardiovascular disease, malabsorption, chronic pancreatitis, alcoholic liver disease, and cancer. Also Damage to the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. Ethanol is mostly an agonist and alcohol addiction is the biggest obstacle when overcoming its abuse. Detox is only required in very extreme cases.

In short ethonol is a stupid drug. If you are going to do a drug anyways pick a safer one.

Youtube

I liked the youtube assignment because it was very interactive. I also liked it because it let me use a lot of my skills that I usually don't get to use in classes such as creativity and video editing. Don't get rid of this assignment because I think it helps keep more creative people that would otherwise drop the class because of the initial work load.

Expectations

My expectations for this class are the same as they were at the start and I did pretty well on the test so that really didn't change them either. I expect to learn more about psychology than I already know. More specifically I want to learn more about behavioral psychology. I don't expect anything out of this class; the class wont learn the material for me I need to do the learning on my own and If I need help I can ask for it.

WOOO

... Well here we go

Ps. Lexi I'm gonna block you if you follow me :)