Monthly Archives: February 2014

Behaviorism

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Behaviorism in psychology is the actions of people that can be observed by others. Since its only depends on the observable behavior, we can relate the environment affect as well. The environment can basically determine the individual’s behavior towards an event, or a reaction. These kinds of reactions can be easily measured and controlled for a scientific experiment, opposed to thinking and emotions. From what I understand, is that behavior occurs in a result of an action that happened in a certain context and the environment shapes it. Watson described the purpose of psychology as: “To predict, given the stimulus, what reaction will take place; or, given the reaction, state what the situation or stimulus is that has caused the reaction”” (1930, p. 11).

I am from Kuwait and we behave according to our history and background in a different way from people in the US. The use of gestures, and greeting others are the most two noticeable differences. For instance, in Kuwait men or women kiss each other on the cheek for greeting, while in the US people will only shake hands especially if they were meeting for the first time. In addition, hand gestures that is used fro stopping a cap in Kuwait is like opening the whole hand to stop the driver, whereas in the US a thumps up gesture would do the work. Moving from a place to another and the process of adaptation will result in a variety of experiences and a wider knowledge will be earned.

In conclusion, even though the person’s background, religion, beliefs, and values may influence that behavior, environment and context are the two aspects that construct the behavior of a single individual. Some people might see their believes or their cultural backgrounds can be applied to one situation, but not for another. That is why wisdom in behaving is demanded.

 

References:

Watson, J. B. (1930). Behaviorism (revised edition). University of Chicago Press.

Nature v. Nurture

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The nature versus nurture debate has been going on for a while.  We see evidence everyday that they both have a huge impact on our life.  It is not nature or nurture, it is both that makes us develop into the person we are today.

When I was in grade school, my best friend’s mother was a divorcee.  Her ex husband had remarried and had other children with his second wife.  I had never met him, for he and my friends mom had been married before I knew them.  However, one day he was in pennsylvania with his new family and I met his children.  They were rowdy, uncontrollable, spoiled little things.  They yelled at each other all the time, and did not consider anything that came out of their parents’ mouths.  I thought this was unbelievable, considering they were my best friends half siblings yet they were so different.

Since these children had been brought up in a deferent place and by a different set of parents, it seems to be a faulty argument.  However, nature is certainly not the only factor influencing how one’s mind develops.  My two cousins on my dad side (they are brothers) could not be more different.  Even though they have the same blood, and almost the same genetics, they have completely separate interests and quirks.  One owns his own restaurant, the other works for a large banking company that sends him all over the world.

So the nature versus nurture argument seems to be an inaccurate way to state these terms.  It is not one or the other, there is a combination of the two in everyone.  The question should not be is it one or the other, it should be how much does either one influence our lives.

Blog 1: Psychoanalysis

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There are many events that occur in a lifetime that can be traumatizing.  The most scaring experiences are those that occur during the time of early adolescence.  Psychoanalysis is the belief that childhood experiences greatly influence the development of a later personality traits and psychological problems.  As a child you look to your parents for guidance and trust them to lead you to the right path.  Throughout my childhood my dad was constantly in and out of my life.  He and my mom did not have the best relationship and being in a household filled with hostility and anger had a huge impact on many aspects of my life.  My parents would always get into fights and then my dad would tell me he was going away on a “long trip.”  The first time he went away I was devastated that I didn’t have a father figure to look up to.  I cried for hours by myself in my room wondering if he would ever come back.

After five or six months my dad finally came back and was sketchy about where and what he was doing over those months.  When I asked if he was going to go on another trip he promised me he would never leave me again and being a naïve child… I believed him.  He managed to stay and be somewhat civil with my mom for the next few months.  They never spoke directly and when they needed a message to be delivered they would communicate through me.  I was a little elementary school girl put in the middle of my parent’s unhealthy relationship.  Not wanting to choose sides of course I would spend time with both my mom and dad, but it was extremely upsetting for me because they would always talk so badly about each other and it was difficult for me to sit there and let my parents vent to me about how much they disliked each other.  After a few months passed my dad once again left on another long trip.  I was more upset than the first time he left because he promised me he would never leave me again and he just got angry with my mom and picked up his stuff and left.

As I got older I realized that this was becoming a pattern and I was starting to become numb to the idea that my dad was going to constantly be in and out of my life and I had no control over it what so ever.  When I came to this realization I put my trust into no one, became self-dependent and shut down my feelings.  After my dad broke his promise to me when I was in elementary school I began to build a wall and refused to let anyone in, especially male figures.  I told myself I never wanted to be in a relationship because I was convinced that relationships were unhealthy and just gave you unnecessary stress.  If I couldn’t trust my dad and have a healthy relationship with him how was I ever supposed to trust any other guy ever again?  Every time I would become even remotely close to a guy beyond friendship I would just shut down and push them away.  I would hurt them before they even had a chance to leave and hurt me.

I believe that the theory of psychoanalysis is correct and that events people experience as children alters their personality in the future.  I know that my dad being an inconsistent figure in my life has affected my personality because I am in a relationship now and opening up to someone for the first time was one of the most difficult things that I have ever accomplished.  My dad gave me extreme trust issues and because of him I pushed away everyone that I became close to.  I am extremely fortunate that I found someone that I was able to open up to and was not traumatized for my entire life.  All though because of my dad I built up a wall that took years to knock down I believe that because of him I found the one person that was willing to stay long enough to gain my trust and break down my wall.

Second Brain

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Have you ever experienced a gut-wrenching encounter? How about butterflies before an athletic event or nausea after hearing of a tragedy or hardship? The gut has been referred to as the “second brain” and has very similar characteristics to the brain. The gastrointestinal system and the brain are intimately connected and that is why our psychological factors, social and mental stresses, and nerves can tear up an individuals’ gut.

A year ago my family and I received a phone call telling us our cousin, Paul, had suddenly passed away due to a heart condition. The feeling I got was in fact gut-wrenching, like my stomach had dropped 100 feet, like I had been continually punched in the stomach. This is because the digestive tract (gut wall) is lined with an interactive nerve complex communication network known as the Enteric Nervous System. This system connects and communicates with the brain, through the sympathetic nerves that pass to and from the gut through transformers. These nerves connect to the spinal cord followed by the brain. The parasympathetic nervous system, which is the division of the Automatic nervous system that calms the body and conserves energy, links to the brain base through a nerve in the upper gut. Between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain the use of chemicals called neurotransmitters are sent as electrochemical messages to one another by way of these nerves. In short, the Enteric Nervous System is influenced by the connection held between the spinal cord and the brain, which allows neurotransmitters, hormones, and connections to the central nervous system.

When you feel it in your gut, its literal, it’s real. Neurotransmitters are chemicals, which enable the transmission of signals from one neuron to another during the process where the ending of one neuron connects to the endings of another, otherwise called a synapse. Due to these neurotransmitters a hardship like a death can cause you not to eat or keep food down. The digestive tract is intimately attuned to a persons state of mind and emotions, therefore the gastrointestinal tract has more receptor sites than our brain and that’s why when we experience a gut-wrenching situation and have butterflies or nausea, it’s a real feeling, not something we dream up. These receptors allow us to feel it first in our guts.

Sociocultural Perspectives

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America has always been known as a “melting pot”, meaning our culture is a mixture of all the other cultures of the world. The reason for this is the obvious; our ancestors traveled from every corner of the world to find a better life in America. Now, America may be made of all these cultures, but over the years they have all sort of molded into one, to the point where we now have some what of our own identity in terms of culture.

Penn State could also be viewed as a “melting pot”, mainly because of how many different races of people we have on campus at any given time. This means that for the average American like myself, coming to Penn State for the first time also means being exposed to the many different cultures of the world. So when I walk down the street, what allows me to become aware that the different actions of people around me is a result of their culture? There is an explanation for this, and psychologists actually study it more than you think. In terms of psychology, this approach is called the sociocultural perspective. What that basically means is, we can create a relationship between social behavior and culture in our head.

So with being able to create that relationship, I am able to identify the fact that some people may act differently, but that is because that is a part of their culture. An example of this would be in Japan, it is proper to greet some one with respect by bowing to them. That is not something we do here in America, so that action may seem strange at first until you are able to realize that cultural custom as being something done there but not here. Sociocultural perspective is a tool we are able to use to not disrespect people of other cultures because they may do some things differently. When it comes down to it, our culture is most likely weird to them too.

Maria Alejandra Parra- blog 1

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As I was searching for personal experiences that would apply to any concept I realized that my parents were using Skinner’s operant conditioning theory all throughout my childhood. B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist and a pioneer in the behaviorist movement. Like any other behaviorist; Skinner was a firm believer that “behaviors can be measure, changed and trained.” (Evans98) Overall behaviorists believe that studying the subconscious mind is too subjective and that your behavior is a result of your own reaction to the environment; therefore, if that environment is controlled then anyone can train any person to do any task despite race, genetic or personality.

Skinner then came up with operant conditioning which includes rewards and punishments to manipulate the environment creating consequences in behavior. There is positive reinforcement; which is when you add a reward to get a desired behavior, negative reinforcement on the other hand is when you take away something undesired in order to increase a desired behavior.  Punishment, however, is a stimulus to decrease an undesired behavior; positive punishment results when an undesirable outcome is presented to an undesirable behavior. Whereas negative punishment is when there is a removal of a desired stimulus to an unwanted behavior.

Having all of these terms clear and understanding how operant conditioning works, it is incredibly easy to see how my parents used both punishment and reinforcement to shape me into who I am today or into shaping my actions as to what I know is right from wrong.  My Parents would use positive reinforcement when I had to go to the doctor; they would tell me that if I didn’t cry when the nurse took a sample of my blood, they would take me to my favorite desert spot and buy me my favorite banana split ice-cream. Likewise, they also used negative reinforcement when they would take away a household chore when I got a good grade on a test. My parents were so great at manipulating my environment to achieve a certain behavior in me that they would also use Punishment. An example of negative punishment is when I would do very badly in school, or when I was belligerent and I talked back to them, they would take away my television privileges until I apologized or brought my grades back up.

My entire childhood was a Skinner box; it was nothing else but both my parents maneuvering my environment and the results of my behaviors to shape my response to them. In this way  using the theory of operant conditioning.

Psychology: The Crossroads of Physiology and Philosophy

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We mentioned in class that psychology is a combination of two other schools of learning; physiology, the study of how living things work, and philosophy, the theories behind why living things behave the way they do.

When I was in highschool, we had a section of our writing philosophy class dedicated to the idea of determinism. In the theory of determinism, every action and decision man makes is determined by his past, determined by every event that has influenced or shaped him in some way. In this theory, everything from why one would want to go to law-school to why one has a strong desire for hot cocoa on stormy nights is determined by past events that have shaped him to “choose” things the way he does. For example, I want to become a physician’s assistant. This is not a random choice, nor is it random in any way, shape, or form according to determinism. I am choosing to become a physician’s assistant for various reasons, all of which have been meshed together in my subconscious and influenced me to make this decision. Maybe it is because my father is a doctor, maybe it is because I get positive reinforcement from my peers when I come to their aid, maybe it is because I have been raised to think I should help others, or because people in medicine are regarded highly. Of these reasons I am not sure, but my choice is not the result of my free will, it is a result of my previous experiences.

This theory was immediately brought to the forefront of my mind when we discussed the theories of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. In the theory of psychoanalysis, early childhood experiences and trauma are believed to influence how a man behaves later on in life, influencing his personality. In the theory of behaviorism, an individual is shaped by how he is nurtured. External stimuli lead the individual to behave in a certain way. Both of these theories strongly relate to determinism. As a strong determinist, I am intrigued by these theories, and believe strongly in both of them. There are many aspects of my current life and of my personality that I can strongly trace back to childhood events and certain definite shaping events of my life. For example, I was a very fat child and got teased and chastised for it. Now, as an adult who is still on the larger side, I can trace a lot of the elements about how I feel about my appearance, how I judge appearance, and how I behave in regards to physical activity and diet back to the events that occurred during my childhood.

Just as play-dough can never return to its original shape once moulded, just as it is constantly changed, shaped, and turned, so too are our minds. Shaped by the past, these mouldings are outwardly projected as our behavior. As predicted by determinism, and as observed and studied in behaviorism and psychoanalysis, our past truly does determine our future.

Nature Vs. Nurture

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The concept of “Nature vs. Nurture” is the opposing views of whether our behavior is pre-determined at birth, or if our behavior is shaped based on things we experience throughout life. When I was a kid, I lived with my grandparents on my mother’s side. I was never in contact with my parents for more than a few weekends out of the month or less. Because of this, I believe that I can make an argument for and against both viewpoints due to the fact that I was not raised by my own parents, but I had enough contact with them to know some of their behaviors.

The term “Nativism” (nature) refers to the belief that our thoughts and ideas are inborn. When I think about this concept, and how my behavior might be related to one of my parents, I have a hard time making connections between us because I wasn’t around them all the time. However, last semester my dad came to Penn State to visit me and had breakfast with me and my girlfriend. When thinking about this assignment, I asked her if she thought that my father and I had any similar personality or behavior traits. When she told me that we seemed to have very similar personalities, I was kind of shocked. She had only spent an hour with my father, and she could tell that we had similar behaviors that easily.

The term “Empricism” (nurture) refers to the idea that our knowledge is gained through our experiences in life. This idea that my behaviors were shaped by the experiences I had growing up with my grandparents is very believable. I am very convinced that some of my behaviors are directly related to the way I was raised. My grandmother taught me to be kind and sensitive to others. Also, my sense of humor is very similar to both my grandfather and my brother. In my opinion, I believe that peoples’ behaviors are strongly related to the people they associate with.

Although I lean more heavily toward the idea that our behaviors are learned rather than being determined at birth, I can see how one could make a case for either view. I would not be surprised if I discovered more similarities between my parents and myself. However, if I spent more time with them, then I may be developing new behaviors from our experiences together rather than finding out if our behaviors are related to genetics.

Nature/Nurture

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This is a long-time argument about what makes people who they are.  Nature is the theory that all traits, thoughts, and ideas are inborn.  Nurture is the theory that traits, thoughts, and ideas are gained by experiences.  Philosophers argued on both sides, but there is scientific evidence now for both.  The lifestyle you grow up in changes you, but DNA also has an effect on your personality, which is inborn.

My personal experiences with nurture/nature relate to me and my brother.  His name is Tim.  He is five years older than me, and it frequently surprises me how similar we are.  During high school, we were both lifeguards.  We both played high school football.  We both did well in the same courses in school.  We also have the same sense of humor, and occasionally laugh hysterically at something others might not even find funny.  I have also noticed that we share similar thought processes.  I cannot really tell for sure if this is nature or nurture.

I believe it is some of both.  The nature part most likely relates to our actual brains.  We have similar DNA, so that must contribute to our success in the same areas of studies.  This also is likely the cause of our similar ways of thinking.  Our experiences and interests, however, I believe are caused by nurture.  We grew up together, and I always looked up to him.  He was five years older, so his choices were more individual.  But when I became old enough to play football, I started because my awesome brother did.  He became a lifeguard, and he convinced me it was the best summer job for students.  So I became a lifeguard as soon as I turned 15.

There is one thing about which I am unsure.  We have very similar senses of humor.  This could be caused by nurture or nature.  It could be nature because our DNA has an effect on the way our brains work.  It could be nurture, though, because while growing up together, we obviously watched similar things on TV, the internet, etc.  There is really no way to know for sure what caused such strong similarities between me and my brother.

Corpus callosum tsb5226

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfGwsAdS9Dc

Epilepsy is a long-term neurological disorder that can cause epileptic seizures.  An option to reduce or stop the amount of seizures is to cut the corpus callosum, which is the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain.  Although cutting the corpus callosum can stop epileptic seizures, the connection between the two sides of the brain becomes more difficult to send information to each other.  Now after the brain is severed, the brains can think independently.

In the link above is a video a egg factory worker Joe, a man with epilepsy who has had his corpus callosum cut to stop the seizures.  They first show Joe being given the task to draw two different shapes at the same time with both hands.  As he is given the two shapes, Joe’s two hemispheres are able to think independently and draw each individual shape at the same time.  With cutting the corpus callosum, psychologists were able to determine that language is held in the left hemisphere of the brain using the experiment to close the left eye and have an image shown on the right side of the computer.  As the word was shown, the left side of the brain responds and tells Joe to correctly say the word.  With attempting the other eye and the left side, the brain perceives the word given but can have the body speak the word.  The special trick with the right brain is that even though it doesn’t know language, it can use the left hand to draw what the word was to indicate to the right side of the brain.

Cutting the corpus callosum really explains the brain into more depth showing how the left side of the brain can show language and giving Joe the ability the desire to explain.  With the right side of the brain, it has the ability to recognize faces.  Joe does not have his epileptic seizures reduced and continues to work in an egg factory, so having his corpus callosum cut does not affect his daily life in the egg factory a negative way.