Author Archives: Hannah Elizabeth Hay

Taste Aversion

Leave a reply

Hannah Hay

Psychology 100

Mr. Wede

4/8/14

Taste Aversion

            Has just the thought of a certain kind of food ever made you sick? Not just in the way that the food is not your preference of choice, but in the way that whenever you hear it or think about it, it makes you feel physically ill? This may seem like a feigned reaction just so you could have an excuse to avoid having to eat a particular food, but in actuality, it can be a response to a bad past experience regarding that food. It has been shown that humans are apt to have an aversion to foods if they become sick afterwards, and is known as the concept of taste aversion. Within my life, I have known multiple people who have taste aversion to foods such as chili, lemons and even shrimp. As for myself, I have run across taste aversion with at least two kinds of food. But the most prominent taste aversion I have experienced would have to be with the common dessert, Jell-O.

It began when I was in the fourth grade and one of the kids within my class was celebrating their birthday by serving out cake and Jell-O. As I sat at my desk and finished eating my cake, I turned towards the to be infamous Jell-O. Prior to this event, I have never eaten Jell-O before, so I didn’t know what to expect it to taste like. As I even took the first bite, I detested the flavor and the strange texture of the Jell-O. Though I disliked the first bite, I decided that I should finish it so that it wouldn’t go to waste. Afterwards, my stomach felt terrible and throughout the whole day I just wanted to go home. Needless to say, the Jell-O did make me sick by the time the day was over. This internal turmoil lasted for two days, keeping me out of school. Ever since that day, the near mention of Jell-O gives me a bad taste in my mouth and the sight of it makes me want to cringe. This is a prime example of taste aversion, because not only do I reject the option of having Jell-O, but I have a bad connotation connected with it because of my past experience of eating it.

So the next time someone at your breakfast, lunch or dinner table turns down eating a certain food, do not simply see it as being picky or rude because it could possibly be that the person has a taste aversion to it.

Source Amnesia

Leave a reply

Hannah Hay

Psychology 100

Mr. Wede

3/13/14

Source Amnesia

            It was summer, there were no classes or anything that needed attending to, so I decided to catch up on some of my favorite television shows that I have never been able to finish on my down time. So, I pulled up my computer and stumbled upon an old television show I used to watch on Nickelodeon called Avatar: The Last Airbender. I began watching the first few episodes and the next thing I knew, I watched episode after episode until the whole series was complete. After watching the series, I searched the web, looking up different things about the show and I found a story written by a fan. The story was about the characters when they were all grown up and what happened to them after the series was over. I dove into the story and read a couple chapters into it, finding it very interesting how the fan was able to capture the characters likeness. A couple months later, I was talking to my friends about how I watched the show and as I was talking, I started talking about what happened to the characters when they grew up. Then, I stopped talking as I realized that what I was saying did not actually come from the show, but came from a story someone wrote. I was amazed how my mind was able to incorporate something that I read to something that I had seen.

Now that I am taking psychology as a course, I have found that this phenomenon is called source amnesia. Source amnesia is when a person attributes an event to the wrong source. This can occur by something we have experienced, heard, read or even imagined and our mind will relate it to another completely separate event. Just like how a story that I read was connected to the television show I watched, though they were two separate events and not at all related. Though I thought I watched the characters grow up and had seen where they ended up, I did not actually watch them grow up from the television show. It was simply my mind correlating the two together because of source amnesia.

Being Jinxed and the Illusory Correlation

1 Reply

Hannah Hay

Psychology 100

1/28/14

Being Jinxed and the Illusory Correlation

            Have you ever done something or said something that you thought ‘jinxed’ an outcome of an event? Most people probably have experienced the common phenomenon of being ‘jinxed’ which is described as “a condition or period of bad luck that appears to have been caused by a specific person or thing” (thefreedictionary 1).  Though it may appear for a sudden turn of events to have been caused by a specific person or thing, bad luck cannot be a factor that leads to the final outcome. Which is why being jinxed is just the same as an illusory correlation, a concept in psychology has been defined as the perception of a relationship where none exist.

            An example of an illusory correlation within the context of being ‘jinxed’ occurred during a Pirates baseball game at PNC park when I was with my father and sister. It was a drizzly summer day at the baseball park, and unlike every game we have been to, the Pittsburgh Pirates were ahead with a lead of 7 runs. The stadium was cheering, and everything seemed to be in the favor of the home team. With every run, we would stand up and cheer, feeling as if the Pirates had become invincible and a home run powerhouse. That’s when my father spoke too soon, and told us that we were finally going to see a winning game. My sister and I looked at my father and scrambled to shut him up, however it was too late. He had jinxed the baseball game. As soon as that very inning was over, the Pirates progress took a turn for the worse. The opposing team managed to make a comeback, scoring more and more runs while the Pirates did not score another run for the remainder of the game. By the end, the total score was 11 to 7 runs, the opposing team leaving us in the dust by 6 runs.

Though we thought what my father said jinxed the outcome of the game, in the end no matter what someone could had said would have changed the final score of the game. This jinx clearly showcases the concept of an illusory correlation because the superstition of a jinx does not have any connection to the outcome of events such as the score of the baseball game. In a populated stadium, the jinx my father said could not have been able to change the performance of professional athletes. Therefore, even if there seems to be a meaningful relation between the two events, there is none.

Works Cited

“Jinxed.” The Free Dictionary. Farlex, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.                

<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/jinxed>.