Author Archives: Alyssa Ann Dezulovich

Taste Aversion

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The week after spring break, I returned back to school with some fresh vegetables, tortilla wraps, and my favorite Buffalo Light Ranch dressing that I had just recently discovered. As I live in an apartment and do not have a meal plan, bringing back with me these groceries that my parents so generously paid for was a huge bonus. I returned back Sunday afternoon and by dinner time could hardly wait to dig into my new items. I decided a sautéed vegetable wrap with a topping of my newly favorite dressing sounded beyond delicious. Needless to say, after I made it and scarfed it down, I was nothing less then pleased. This pleasure was short lived, however, as the next morning I woke up with terrible stomach pain. I was unable to eat and began to uncontrollably vomit. As it turns out I had contracted the stomach flu from my cousins at home who had also just gotten it.

Well after a long three days of no eating and too much sleeping, I finally felt better. However, I had a dilemma I faced every time I opened our refrigerator, I simply could no longer look at the vegetables or lovely buffalo ranch dressing that I devoured just days before. Every time I did I felt the nausea come over me again. I wanted so badly to crave this food as it was just sitting in my refrigerator going bad, but no matter how hard I tried I could not think of eating it again. It was then that I realized I was experiencing taste aversion, or the idea that humans are prone to have an aversion to foods if they become sick shortly after eating them. Since this was the last food item that I ate before becoming sick, my mind instantly associated the vegetables and dressing with my ill feeling of days prior. I became very sad to know that trying to eat these foods again would be a lost cause for a while and that I would have to throw them away. If only it had been something like brussels sprouts that I ate before getting the flu, then maybe I would not resent this taste aversion quality that we possess so much.

 

Hindsight Bias

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Today, as I walked in the door of my apartment from class, my roommate was singing a song that she had stuck in her head. The lyrics sang, “You’re just what I need” and after singing a few verses she promptly quizzed me to see if I could remember what movie it was from. She tried to give me a few subtle hints such as telling me that it was something I have seen a few times and that I would be mad once I hear what the answer is. Finally after going to my other roommate for help and having both of us stumped, she told us the answer, “Bring it On!”. As soon as she said this, I was instantly saying to her, “Oh my gosh how didn’t I know that!”. Immediately after saying this, I realized I had experienced hindsight bias that we had just talked about in class.

Hindsight bias is a false conviction that the result of an event was predictable. To further this idea, it essentially means that once you know something, it is really hard to imagine your life before you knew that information. In my example with my roommate, once she told me what movie the song she was singing was from, I found it impossible to see how I did not know the movie before she said it. My immediate thought after she told me was that I should have known that, yet this was just an effect of hindsight bias and the reality is I probably would not have ever known where the song was from unless she told me. Hindsight bias has a big impact on our memories and how we construct them. The next time you think to yourself, “I should have known that”, try to remember this concept and realize that maybe you actually should not have.

Sociocultural Perspective

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When looking at modern perspectives of psychology, one of my favorite ones to study is the idea of sociocultural, or how others influence you and you influence others. While it is somewhat of an obvious perspective, I find it to have such a strong influence on people. Even though I also believe that the other six modern perspectives are all important, I find myself relying on this one most often. Many times after meeting new people or learning things about old friends, I will find myself justifying their actions based off of what I have learned about their social factors and culture. I feel that learning about one’s social factors in their life can help tell you a great deal about their behaviors and why people act the way they do.

One sociocultural factor that I truly believe had an impact on me was my mother and her hatred for all seafood. For the last twenty one years of my life, my mom cooked dinner almost every night and had never made a seafood dinner. She hates to eat any sort of fish, cannot stand the smell, and so she also hates to cook it and actually refuses to. Since I have grown up never trying seafood and never having to smell it’s fishy aroma, I also have adopted this attitude. I cannot stand to smell the stench that seafood produces and any seafood that I have newly and recently tried I hate. To be completely honest though, I think a majority of this notion is in my head as it was what I was raised hearing and what became a part of my culture. Some seafood does not have the fishy taste and I still claim I do not like it but often I wonder to myself if that is actually true or if it is just too unfamiliar for me to say I like it? Fish was never a food served at dinner or social gatherings in my culture, so therefore I have learned to never eat fish for dinner or at social gatherings. I do think everyones social factors and cultures have such a strong impact on their lives and decisions, and now I have evidence to blame my mother for being the sociocultural reason that I will not touch seafood either.