Author Archives: Amy Louise Wein

Schizophrenia

Leave a reply

Schizophrenia is an unfortunate condition that can appear to start when someone is just a minor, and continue to affect them for the rest of their life. Schizophrenia is “a disease of the brain exhibited in the symptoms of the mind.” Some common symptoms of schizophrenia are disorganized and delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and actions. This disease consists of brain abnormalities, genetic factors that would make someone more prone to developing it, viral infections during pregnancy and psychological factors. There can also be a few different types of schizophrenia such as Chronic and Acute.

I have a relative who has suffered from schizophrenia for most of his life. Over the years I have noticed various routines and thought processes that he deals with on a daily basis. One of the acts that I have noticed is that whenever he leaves his house to go anywhere, no matter for how short or long of a time, he carries around a bag of valuable papers and documents with him such as financial papers, medical papers, and his passport. His reasoning for this is that he thinks someone will come into his apartment and steal these things when he is not there; he is convinced that someone is out to get him. He could be doing something as simple as going to the grocery store for 30 minutes, but still will bring all of these documents with him.

Another act he does is that no matter what season or temperature it is outside, he will always be wearing a very heavy winter parka. He does not have the rationale and mindset of someone without schizophrenia would have to know that in 70 degree weather in the middle of the summer, a winter jacket is just not the norm. He has a fear of always being cold, and insists on having this jacket with him everywhere he goes. Figuratively and literally, this jacket almost acts as somewhat of a security blanket for him, to reduce any fears he may have about the weather or anything else related to it.

Although these situations would not be found in every person who has schizophrenia, they can definitely relate to some of the general problems or actions that someone who does have it, may deal with. These are just a few of the many struggles that someone with this disease would have to live with each and every day. Although it can be very hard to relate sometimes, and we may not ever understand why some of these situations occur, we should always be mindful that the people suffering from the disease are having an even harder time with these things as well.

Serial Position Effect

Leave a reply

Whether you are listening to a speaker, or watching a movie, or reading a book, there seems to be a common theme among most people when it comes to remembering the content of the activity you were taking part in. A common problem is that we tend to remember what the beginning of the speech or book or movie was about, and we remember the end and the overall message of it, but when we are asked to recall the middle portion, and the details that it was comprised of, we seem to be completely stuck. So what is an explanation for this common issue?

This problem can be accredited to the term of “serial position effect” which states that we remember information at the beginning (primacy effect), the end (recency effect), better than we can remember information in the middle. The information at the beginning ties back to our long-term memory, and the information at the end ties back to our short-term memory.

I participated in a program in Washington D.C. a few years ago that was based on the current politics of that time. Throughout the week we had many different seminars that we attended, with various speakers presenting different arguments and power point presentations. At the end of each speaker, we were told to write a follow-up, almost like a critique on what the presentation was about, and our overall thoughts on the matter. I noticed that I started to struggle through these critiques sometimes because I in fact remembered the beginning of the presentation, the end wrap-up comments, but found myself stumbling when it came to remembering the details in the middle of the presentations. I thought this was maybe due to just dozing off a bit during the speeches, or daydreaming a little, but am glad to finally find out that this is an actual concept, and can be justified!

Because of the serial position effect, I was able to accurately remember the information that was presented at the beginning and the end of these speeches, but was not able to recall nearly as much of the information from the middle of the speeches. It is almost like all of the information in the middle just “went in one ear and out the other.” As stated before, this tends to be a common problem with anything such as sitting through a play or reading a book or watching a movie. It is not a bad thing to sometimes only remember the big picture of something, but we should all try a little harder to do our best to not let those details in the middle be forgotten!

Nature vs. Nurture

Leave a reply

The argument of nature vs. nurture can be dated as far back as 300 BC during Socrates and Plato’s time. These Greeks introduced the term nativism (nature) as the idea that our thoughts, ideas, and characteristics are inborn. In other words, we are believed to be born with these thoughts, ideas and characteristics, and that they are already in our genes. On the other hand, Aristotle introduced the idea to us of empiricism, or nurture. He described this as knowledge is gained through experience (senses). Our thoughts and ways are not because of our genetic make-up, but because of how we were raised and brought up by our parents and overall lifestyle.

I believe that my elder sister and I are a prime example of the argument of nature vs. nurture. For our entire lives, we have been brought up by the same parents, in the same household. We attended the same school district, went on the same vacations, had the same household rules- basically experienced all of the same big events and occurrences throughout our childhood lives. So what explains why we have turned out oh, so different?

Hands down, I am a “type B” person and my sister, without a question, is “type A”. Her personality and ways of being fit the structured, disciplined and “black or white, right or wrong” lifestyle. To describe me on the other hand, basically take all of that and turn it around! My personality is very easy-going, go-with-the-flow, and I do not enjoy intense schedules or structure. We are definitely at two opposite ends of the spectrum!

So if essentially everything was the same and equal when we were growing up, what explains the difference in our personalities? In our case, I would have to argue that it is definitely nature. Nature holds true in my situation because even though the majority of our lives were the same, in the same environment with the same upbringing etc, we turned out to be two totally different people with different personalities, thoughts and feelings. If nurture was the case, we would have grown up to have much more similar personalities, and would have the same thoughts and opinions etc. on various topics; there would be not much to distinguish between the two of us much beyond physical appearance.

Nature may not be the case in every sibling’s situation, but it is definitely the case when it comes to my sister and I. Even though our personalities have definitely clashed here or there along the way, I’d say we balance each other out pretty well, most of the time!