Positive and negative reinforcers affect our everyday lives, and have probably been used on everyone single of us without even realizing it. As we discussed in class, positive reinforcement is presenting a positive stimuli to encourage a desired behavior, which increases the likelihood of the behavior occurring again. Negative reinforcement is increasing a desired behavior my removing a stimuli. It took a little while for me to comprehend that negative reinforcement is not the same punishment. With negative reinforcement the behavior is still increasing by removing a stimuli, but with punishment there is no increase in a particular behavior. While we discussed positive and negative reinforcement, it made me think of a particular example from my childhood. When I was about four or five years old, I played soccer. I really did not like it and would cry before each game. My parents wanted me to explore different activities that I might be interested in and thought that it would grow on me eventually, so they kept me on the team. Before every game, my mom found that if she promised me a new Webkinz stuffed animal, I would play in a soccer game without throwing a fit. So, every time I did well in a game and played without getting upset, she would take me to the toy store and I would leave with a new Webkinz. This is an example of positive reinforcement, by increasing a positive stimuli (a Webkinz stuffed animal), she was able to increase her desired behavior, which was me to be motivated and enjoy playing soccer. I also thought of another example when we were going into depth about negative reinforcement in class. When I was younger and sitting in the back seat of the car behind my mom and dad, I remember hearing the constant dinging from the car because my dad did not put his seatbelt on. He would say to my mom “it’s only a few minutes, relax”, but she was extremely annoyed by the sound and would complain until he fastened his seatbelt. Not only did the annoying dinging of the car force my dad to put on his seatbelt, but my mom’s constant complaining also made him do so. By fastening his seatbelt, the noise stopped, and my mom stopped complaining to him. Before we discussed this in class, I didn’t even realize all of the reinforcements that occur around me each day.
Tag: psych100
Recognizing Mood Disorders
Throughout my life, I’ve known many people with mood disorders. One of my best friends today has been diagnosed including General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Bipolar Disorder.
Anxiety is essentially a feeling of unrealistic or excessive fearfulness. Often times, people get anxiety about the future or current stimuli they’re experiencing. However, in the case of GAD, the anxiety often comes out of nowhere; you’re not able to recognize where the worry is coming from. In order to be diagnosed with GAD, you have to have uncontrollable and persistent anxiety for at least six months. Anxiety can also present itself in other disorders, like panic disorders. This is where someone might experience a panic attack, a minutes-long espisode of dread that can be accompanied by physical symptoms, like chest pain.
I’ve watched her struggle with the constant anxiety, and it can get very exhausting for her. For example, we could be in the car going somewhere, but she suddenly gets too anxious to continue to our destination.
Bipolar Disorder is when a person’s mood will switch between extreme lows and extreme highs. This is formerly called manic-depressive disorder, and it can often be attributed to genetics. In the case of my friend, her mother also has bipolar disorder. My friend will often be very energetic and spontaneous during her “manic” stages and very uninterested and slow in her down stages.
I’ve found that being supportive of friends with mental illness is incredibly important. It helps to not act like you know or understand everything they’re going through, but rather allow them to tell you about their own experiences. It’s important to be knowledgeable about mental health, so that you have a very general idea of what someone might be going through, and can therefore support someone through what could potentially be a time of hardship.
Living in an Authoritative Household
During lecture 12’s discussion, we learned about three styles of parenting: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Each of these styles are quite different when discussing their implementation and general philosophy. With the authoritarian practice we learned that parents tend to impose firm or strict rules on their children and expect that they obey those rules. With permissive parents, they will not say no to their kids. These types of parents will never impose any rules and most likely would tend to their children’s demands. Lastly, authoritative parents tend to be a mix of the two. Rules are set in place and expected to be followed, however, if a child is able to provide reasoning, they could negotiate and compromise with their parents. These types of parents are flexible and responsive to their kids, but they still have a general structure and set of rules that expect their kids to be obedient to.
When discussing these practices, I was caught reminiscing about my childhood and how I was raised. One thing I remember during my childhood was getting punished a lot. Now I know that sounds bad at first, but I will admit I was quite the troublemaker growing up. Along with that, I also remember that my parents, mostly my mother, had many rules, in which they expected us to follow. I believe that my parents imposed many rules on us because they had three kids (each a year apart) to look after and raise at the same time. Some rules that I remember pertained to curfews and time limits for things and since the three of us either enjoyed playing outside with friends, or play video games and toys, it makes sense that curfews and time limits had to be put in place. For example, my brother and I were forbidden to play Wii at all during the weekday, and we were limited to 1 hour on Saturday and 1 hour on Sunday. We even had a small white timer in front of the television in which as soon as the timer went off, we had to stop playing and do something else. If we didn’t stop playing after an hour, we would get grounded for an hour and sent to our room. For the most part, we obeyed those rules until we reached adolescence and after that it was the end of time limits. Another rule I remember was put in place whenever me or my siblings hung out with friends outside or over their house. If my memory serves me right, I think we had to come home around 8pm. We had the freedom of going anywhere around our neighborhood but as long as we told our parents where we were and we got back home before 8, we had no problems.
In general, our parents never let us stay past 8, play excessively, and respect one another. If we did not follow any of these rules, we usually got grounded for an hour or more, or if we really misbehaved, would get hit with a belt. Typical Hispanic parents would punish their kids by hitting them with belts and such, and I remember, just getting threatened to get hit with the belt was enough to get us to behave.
With that in mind, I would say that my parents used authoritarian practices when raising us. My parents were never lenient and willing to negotiate with the three of us and these authoritative practices really show because during adolescence we became more obedient, even if our parents didn’t threaten us with punishment.
Living through Piagets Theory
Learning about Piaget”s Theory really hit home for me. I am the oldest child of three and have witnessed all the stages that Piaget describes. The first stage from birth to two years of age is considered the Sensory Motor Stage. At this point in time children take in the world through their senses along with gaining object permanence. Object permanence is the knowledge that things exist even when they can not be seen. I can remember my brother always wanting to play with the pendant on my moms necklace. To get him to stop she would just put the pendant inside her shirt so he couldn’t see it. Even though my brother saw her tuck it away, since it was no longer visible he completely forgot about it. As time went on and he got older this stopped working, because he gained object permanence, so she would have to take it off completely. The second stage from ages two to seven is called the Pre-Operational Stage. In this time period children learn language but do not understand logic. They are also starting to form a theory of mind but lack concept of conservation. Concept of conversation is the understanding that quantity remains the same despite the change in shape. At this time in my brothers life i can remember unevenly splitting candy with my brother and lying about the quantities (so I could have more) and he would believe me. The third stage is called Concrete Operational Stage which is during ages seven to eleven. At this stage children can now think logistically and understand conservation. This was the turning point in brothers life where i could no longer trick or lie to him because he could now independently think about if i was being fair to him. The last stage called the Formal Operational Stage is from ages eleven and up. During this time period children can think logically about abstract concepts. This stage is thought to being earlier than Piaget believed. Piaget’s Theory is still very influential today and holds a lot of empirical support.
Implicit Memory
For the majority of my life I have been a competitive dancer. Ever since I was about four years old, dance has been a tremendous part of my life. Lyrical and ballet are my two favorite styles of dance. It is fascinating how over the years I have accumulated so many skills in dance, that I can perform them without needing to assert any conscious thought into it. Many things became a second nature to me. At the dance studio I danced at, I assisted one of the dance instructors in teaching jazz choreography to 6th grade girls once a week. I realized when I was trying to teach the girls how to do turns (pirouettes), it was rather difficult for me to explain how to do it step-by-step. It was quite frustrating to me because I truly wanted them to understand what I was trying to teach them and pick it up with ease. I realized during our lecture in class, this was due to procedural memory or implicit memory, meaning performing certain tasks without conscious awareness of previous experiences. For example, riding a bike is very hard to describe to someone else because it requires learning and practice. I have done those turns countless times and I could perform them without putting much or any thought into it, but it was difficult for me to explain how to do them to the girls and all I could do was show them and try my best to describe my actions. I found it quite interesting that even though we can become so good at something and have so much knowledge on it, it can be so hard to teach it to someone else.
Can You tell the Difference between when the Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic Nervous System is Working?
Have you ever stopped and thought about how our bodies and brain just know what to do in certain situations? Well you can thank your autonomic nervous system for playing a large role in allowing our body to work in the way it does. The autonomic nervous system is a control system that regulates many bodily functions like heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, and pupillary action. There are two main components of the autonomic system called the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system controls homeostasis and the bodies rest and digest response. This means that it controls the body’s response while at rest. These neurological pathways are longer and slower. The sympathetic nervous system’s main purpose is to mobilize the body’s fight-or-flight response. This system prepares the body to react to stressful environmental factors. When the sympathetic nervous system is active it results in muscle contraction, increase in heart rate, and pupils to dilate. These two systems do not usually function at the same time. This is because when each system is in action it requires more blood for the organs it has control over. When scared the body will divert blood from the digestive tract to sympathetic nerve functions to be able to carry out muscle contractions or run.
You can probably recall moments that you remember you sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system in action. I can recall a moment last week when my roommate scared me. I walked into my apartment very late at night and did not think she was there. It was very dark and quite as I walked into my room. Once I was in my room, I heard the floor boards creaking and movements in the other room. I got so scared that my palms turned sweaty and I could feel my heartbeat racing. I thought a burglar was in my home. She then called my name and I immediately felt relief. My heart stopped beating hard in my chest and I all my tense muscles immediately relaxed. When I was scared my sympathetic nervous system kicked in which resulted in sweating, increased heart rate, and muscle contraction. Once I realized I was no longer in danger my parasympathetic nervous system took control. This explained why I felt more relaxed and stopped sweating.
This is just one simple example of the parasympathetic vs sympathetic nervous system. If you pay attention to your body throughout your daily life and can probably be able to tell when your sympathetic vs parasympathetic system is working.
Bibliography
Low, P. (n.d.). Overview of the Autonomic Nervous System – Brain, Spinal Cord, and Nerve Disorders. Retrieved from https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/brain,-spinal-cord,-and-nerve-disorders/autonomic-nervous-system-disorders/overview-of-the-autonomic-nervous-system
Parasympathetic vs Sympathetic Nervous System. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.diffen.com/difference/Parasympathetic_nervous_system_vs_Sympathetic_nervous_system
Sympathetic vs. Parasympathetic. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.softschools.com/difference/sympathetic_vs_parasympathetic/143/
Blog Post 1: Peripheral Nervous System
A few summers ago, I started to get more into psychological thrillers and horror movies, despite the fact that I’ve always been very easily scared. Still, something about these types of movies is so interesting to me, so I began to see them in theaters.
I remember seeing a few that were kind of unnerving, like Split and Get Out, but none that really got me. It was when I saw the movie, The Quiet Place, that I was really caught off guard by the suspense and the action. So much so, that I experienced physical symptoms during the movie— and even after.
This connects to the nervous system, specifically the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is what controls many of your “fight or flight” responses. It causes involuntary reactions to “arousing” events by doing things like quickening your heart rate or dilating your pupils.
In my case, with the movie, my heart rate picked up and my teeth chattered completely involuntarily. The scary movie put me on edge, and my sympathetic nervous system responded by triggering these physical symptoms.
The counterpart of the sympathetic nervous system is the parasympathetic nervous system, which also triggers involuntary changes in your body, but in more of a calm way. For example, when the movie ended and my boyfriend squeezed my hand, signaling to me that everything is okay and that it was just a movie, my heart rate started to slow without me purposefully telling it to. I felt more at ease.
Both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are part of a greater nervous system: the Autonomic branch of the Peripheral Nervous System. The autonomic branch is what controls the involuntary, automatic actions that outside triggers may cause. This is different than the Somatic branch of the Peripheral nervous system, which is responsible for voluntary movements, like picking up a pencil.
I experienced the Somatic side of things when I covered my eyes with my hands during the movie or turned my head away.
While it’s reassuring to know that the sometimes overwhelming reactions my body has are perfectly logical, it’s safe to say that I probably won’t be watching a scary movie any time soon.