Straight Road Psychology

My good friend Chris mentioned to me the other day that the reason subdivisions often times are curved or erratic, is the idea that straight roads make people feel unsafe. With only that to go on I decided to delve a bit into why that is. I have learned that the idea that roads should be curved in neighborhood areas is called coving. The original intent for the practice was to make it so that no houses could look directly into a home across the street or next door. As a side benefit, this can cut the costs of roadway and telephone poles. Rather than have two roads that connect in two separate intersections, (which, might I add are not an incredibly safe part of the roadway anyways) You can have a single winding road that covers the same area. This also forces variety when it comes to home building. A neighborhood can’t have rows and rows of uniform houses all facing the same way, if the front door does not quite align with the street. I am not sure how accurate he was when he ascertained that straight roads make people feel "unsafe." However, I do find it psychologically interesting that people would like to avoid their neighbors knowing their business so much that they invent a new way of designing roads.

Harrison, Rick. A Coved Land Development. Digital image. N.p., 10 May 2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2016. <http://www.newgeography.com/content/005178-designing-suburbs-beyond-new-urbanism>.

C.F.

Who are You?

  A man by the name of H.M was the topic of discussion in my lecture today. Through him we learned the importance of the hippocampus and what its functions really are.
  
  Imagine meeting someone, the general things name, where are you from typical right? Then imagine walking away for a short moment and returning and the person not even remember who you are. That was the life of H.M. H. M was a 27-year-old who suffered from a very severe case of epileptic seizures for many years.

     Neurosurgeon William Beecher Scoville set out to change that. He figured by removing HM’s hippocampus he would stop the seizures. Even though the operation was a success HM suffered a much bigger price. Although he had a chance at a better life he couldn’t remember it. See HM suffered from retrograde memory loss meaning he couldn’t remember anything 11 years before his surgery. Life for HM had stopped at just the tender age of 16. On top of that his ability to form new memories was completely gone. You could meet him and two minutes later he wouldn’t know who you were.

   A lady by the name of Suzanne Corkin had worked with HM for over 47 years and he still didn’t know who she was. Although the story of HM is very tragic it paved the way for many psychological research. Psychologists had a better understanding of which part of the brain was responsible for what. The new findings and facts of memory was astounding.

                                                             
H.M whose name was later revealed as Henry Molasion stayed a positive and happy person despite his condition. Even if he did have to ask Who Are You?  

Hambrick, David "The Biology of the Mind" Psychology 101. Wells Hall, East Lansing. September 26,2016. Lecture.      

                                                                       

Brangelina's Divorce and Psychology

     Anyone who has access to the internet or any form of mass media knows that “Brangelina” has split up. It is said that this split was initiated by Angelina Jolie because of “irreconcilable differences” There are rumors that it’s also because they have different parenting styles and possibly that Brad Pitt is too aggressive with the children. Regardless of what their reasons are, it’s all over the press and as hard as it might be to admit it, we are all a little affected by it.

     In an article I recently read called, “It Makes Psychological Sense If you Weirdly Care a Lot About Brangelina's Divorce” it explains why we care, even if we don’t want to admit it. See, Brangelina have been in the limelight for years and years. Often, Jennifer Aniston (Pitt’s ex wife) gets dragged into the drama and there’s talk of divorce and just a whole bunch of nonsense. I can’t say that I genuinely care about the break up, but it’s prominent enough for me to write a blog post about it. The article explains that we have “parasocial relationships”, which means that we form a one sided relationship from a distance. This term was brought by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in ‘56. They said that when drama was only brought through theater, it was easier to know the difference between the characters the actor plays and the actual persona of the actor. With media, it becomes a continuous interplay. It causes the actors/actresses personas to never truly end and we always see them in between themselves and their characters. 

      This idea is why we can love fictional characters from our favorite shows and when a show ends we feel as if we are losing an actual relationship. The article also talks about a study conducted in 2006 that showed that 75% of young adults had strong attachments to 2 or more celebrities. The participants felt like they shared the same interests as the celebrities and often admired their work ethics. Usually, people will take up certain habits or use certain products solely because the celebrity endorses it. So Brangelina might not be your celebrity couple, there’s one out there that if they do break up, it’s because of your “parasocial relationship” with them.

J.M.

Baer, Drake. "The Psychology of Why You Feel Weirdly Attached to Brangelina." Science of Us. N.p., 20 Sept. 2016. Web. 25 Sept. 2016

Communication by Chemicals

Darlington, Roger. Digital Image.
Wildflowerfinder. Web. 24 September 2016.

     In this week’s post I’ll be sharing more interesting information about communication and behavior of a certain species. Last week it was all about vocalizations as a communication style, but today I am focusing on the chemical communication found in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Also called Thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana is a self-pollinating plant, meaning it doesn’t require insects to help it out.

          
     In my biology class my professor raised a valid question that puzzled me for a while, it was: “If the Thale cress is self-pollinating, what happens when the wind or insects bring different types of pollen to the flower? How does the flower communicate to that pollen that it’s not supposed to be there?” I had no idea how to answer this because like many other people I have never thought about flower pollination in this much detail. After getting to discuss and draw conclusions with our lab groups we then get together as a class and go through our textbook for answers.

          
     In conclusion I learned that pollen grain holds a lot of information and its shape and size is very species specific to different species of plants. The Arabidopsis thaliana uses chemical communication between the stigma and the pollen grain to determine if it the right kind of pollen grain is being presented to the stigma. Other closely related species of plants have similar pollen grains that may initially stick to the stigma but once the pollen reaches a phase inside the flower called hydration, the wrong type of pollen grain will no longer get the job done.

Digital Image. Department of Ecology State of Washington.
  Web. 24 September 2016.

          
     I found this whole lesson very interesting just because I haven’t ever given chemical communication or flower communication much thought in the past. After learning this, I have also been left wondering how plants that don’t self-pollinate decide which pollen grains are the correct ones. I plan on doing further research into this in the future.

A.C.

In the Mind of a Man Who Peers Into Minds (Prompt #3)

Dr. Soulia is a Clinical Psychologist based out of Flushing MI. I reached out to him for a small interview on the nature of clinical psychology, as well as a few questions related to any writing he does in his field. I suppose before getting into it I should clarify what exactly a clinical psychologist does. The focus of a clinical psychologist is the assessment and treatment of a quite diverse assortment of disabilities, addictions, and mental illnesses. This branch of psychology is quite “hands on” often times leading the psychologist into hospitals and clinics.

Dr. Soulia works with a large spectrum of people, from couples, to adults, to adolescents. There is not a particular sway one way or the other. Aside from the ages, the length of time people stay in treatment varies greatly depending on the complexity of the case and the willingness of the patient. Some may require treatment only one time where others could spend years visiting Dr. Soulia. The most stressful part of being a clinical psychologist is the variety of different problems that people may have. As well as the stress that comes from patients who are suicidal and in need of emergency help. It is important to keep in mind how crucial it is that people get the help that they need, often times problems are extremely serious and a psychologist should be seen.

As for the writings of a clinical psychologist, very little is done. Most of the time the only writing done is for files and insurance. When it comes to remembering patients and their problems, Dr. Soulia has no trouble. They are people and because he cares, he remembers. This also could encourage the patient to open up and feel less nervous. On the rare occasion when he does write down clinical notes, they are short and to the point.

It is crucial that a psychologist, much like any career, leaves work at work. Dr. Soulia doesn’t spend his days analyzing body language and tone of the people he comes in contact with. The questions of a psychologist are not canned, they are carefully thought out to encourage a patient to open up.

Finally Dr. Soulia left me with an important message to share with the world. “Psychology is a great field, there are many opportunities.” he said, “It is an important thing to study, even if you don’t have an intention of being a psychologist, because it comes into everyday life.

C.F.

" Murder on the Mind"

   Does anyone know what the Bystander effect is? This was the question asked today in my Psychology 101 class today. In a class with 600 people you would think there's someone bound to answer the question so you don't even bother to raise your hand. This is a perfect example of the Bystander Effect.

" The Bystander Effect" is a psychological research that suggest the more people around to witness a crime the less likely the victim is to get help. The Effect was first researched in the 1960's when a bar owner by the name of Kitty Genovese was sexually assaulted and murdered outside her apartment complex. The people of the complex heard her cries of help many even turned on their lights but no one came to help her.

Social psychologist John Darely and Bibb Latene wanted to know why. We all expect ourselves as humans to help someone in danger if we can, hoping that one day if it were us they would do the same. What happens when your not the only one to witness the crime though? Do you risk getting in harms way or even checking to see if the person is ok? Or is it just not your business?Those were the questions that started the basis of the research and from there many experiments had been conducted in the field and in the lab. After many observations and results they concluded the definition diffusion of responsibility, which is the more people to witness the less responsible we feel to object or intervene in the altercation or situation.

Another reason is pluralistic ignorance. Now what this means is we sometimes make decisions wrong or right based on the actions and look of emotions on the majority of people around us. You ever look around the room before raising your hand that's why. "The Bystander Effect" still happens today and is constantly changing but we as individuals shouldn't just stand there and let it happen, do something don't be just another bystander.

Here is a video demonstrating the Bystander Effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcowGVd6GqY

Hambrick, David " The Biology of the Mind" Psychology 101. Wells Hall, East Lansing. September 21,2016. Lecture.

C.C




C.C

Preconceptions of Psychology (Prompt #1)

     Before even choosing psychology as a field, I always thought of shrinks and the typical “how does that make you feel?” psychologists. Many people I have talked to also assume that. I usually get the response of “OH! You’re going to psychoanalyze your family? Figure out all their problems??” After taking an introductory class, I realized it was so much more than that. There are so many subsections of psychology that there’s not even a way for people to only specialize in just one area. Many psychologists will specialize in one area, but constantly have to pull from many other subfields. They all will overlap eventually. There’s personality, cognitive, behaviorism, psychoanalytic, evolutionary, research, and so many more areas that psychologists study. There are a ton of jobs that you can do with a psych degree that don’t include listening to people's personal problems. There’s research and clinical and a wide range of jobs to offer. I think many people in my field dislike the immediate response from most people that their jobs include “shrinking” people.

     As a reference, I looked at “The Personality Puzzle” Seventh Edition by David C. Funder. It is the textbook I am using in my current psych class, but it has a good introductory about preconceptions. He starts with saying that most people think of psychology as “what people are thinking and feeling under the surface” or “about sexuality, and dreams, and creativity, and aggression and consciousness and how people are different from one another”. He then says that that is wrong and psych is “about the precise manipulation of independent variables for the furtherance of compelling theoretical accounts of well-specified phenomena…” Making the science side of psychology a little more prevalent, which in all honesty I forgot about. I tend to focus on the social science side of psychology and not on the hard sciences. He also goes on to talk about the “psychological triad” which talks about how people feel, behave, and think. Just as I had thought and said prior, he states that when most people think of psychologists they think “first of the clinical practitioners who treat mental illness and try to help people with a wide range of personal problems”. The rest of the chapter goes on to talk about how there are multiple jobs and there are multiple lenses to look at psychology with. (Note: this textbook is a personality psychology book so it’s main focus is on personality and not just a basic introductory book.)

     This textbook was helpful in understanding overall psychology and personality psychology and the opportunities that lie within them. I had had many of the same preconceptions as was noted in the book and I already had understood the variability and range of options in the field of psychology. An introductory textbook may have been better to use, but this one had been extremely helpful nonetheless.

J.M.

Works Cited

Funder, David Charles. "The Study of the Person." The Personality Puzzle. New York: W. W. Norton, 2016. 3-15. Print.

Hypnosis (Prompt #7)

   There is a hypnosis trick for many, and I mean many different problems one could have. The sheer number of results that appear when I type "hypnosis" into the youtube search bar is astounding. Everything from severe depression to insomnia can be cured by watching an hour long youtube video, and those are just the common ones. I attempted an 8:33 second video that was trying to get me to mute my own voice for an hour. (Video can be found here.) 

   My findings were disappointing. I have of course heard the stigmas in the past about hypnotism. "You can't do anything that goes against your morals." "You have to have an open mind to the possibility that it can work." I consider myself a fairly open minded guy, and I have known hypnotism to work in the past, so as for the reason it did not work on me: perhaps youtube videos are not an acceptable hypnotism medium; perhaps the video I chose was too short. I reviewed many of the comments on the video and it seemed to be a mixed bag of people saying that it worked for them or it did not work at all. 

   As this was my first ever attempt at being hypnotized I am not confident that I learned anything. For this study to have any semblance of a scientific study, more research should be done in a more controlled environment. All that being said, there were aspects of the video that seemed to almost work. He attempted to have me fall asleep, I never did. However, I did find that I had no desire whatsoever to open my eyes. He also asked me to say my name over and over again and i would find that it got quieter every time till it was just me mouthing my name. This aspect actually worked extremely well. It happened exactly as he said that it would. 

   I did have a bit of fun with this, I needed a bit of a break and it was a nice way to relax. I would recommend this to anyone that asked. If not for the psychological study, then at least for some alternative entertainment. More on this, probably.

C.F.

Birds' Brains Aren't Stupid

Schomaker, Bill. Digital Image. Audubon Birds.
Web. 16 September 2016.

     This week in my organismal biology class I studied Wilson’s Storm Petrels, a type of bird that spends most of its life on the ocean waters (they really walk on water). An interesting fact that I liked was that they mate for life! Now the question being posed in lecture was “How do mates find one another in such a large colony filled with many other noisy storm petrels?” My classmates and I began bouncing ideas and predictions off of one another and it turned out that just like us humans, the Storm Petrels have their own language that they use to essentially talk to one another. To you and I the Petrels would probably sound the same, but each has their own specific calls that they make. I relate this back to us in the way that we yell the name of the person we are looking for if we lose them in a large group.                                                           

                         Tan, Simon. Digital Image. Wilson's Storm Petrel                  
Oceanites oceanicus.  Oiseaux-Birds.
           Web. 16 September 2016.                        

     I find it very intriguing how similar humans and other species are when it comes to the different ways we communicate and interact with one another. The Petrel call will be different when they feel threatened versus when they are with their mate inside of their burrow. It’s similar to us acting different depending on the situation presented in front of us. Although we are physically different from other species, I believe that communication and behavior is the connecting point for every species.



A.C.