Author Archives: Elizabeth Louise Sugar

Fort Hood Shooting

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During this unit, we talked a lot about mental disorders, what they are, and how they are diagnosed.  We learned that there are around 400 mental illnesses and that there are specific definitions and classifications for each to help determine which disorder they should be classified as having.  When we talked about this, part of the lecture was talking about how mental disorders are sometimes used as excuses or as a defense mechanism for a criminal.  Saying that they had a mental disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder, or other mood disorders is attempt to make what they did seem less awful because some of these disorders don’t allow you to feel anything or make it hard for you to determine right from wrong in normal social situations.

The day after the class when we talked about mental disorders and depression possibly being the reason that criminals commit crimes or why tragic events such as shootings occur, I was at the gym and saw updates about the Fort Hood shooting come up on the news channel.  They were talking about how they were investigating whether or not the shooter, Ivan Lopez, had ever been tested or treated for any mental disorders.  They were skeptical that this shooting spree was caused by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or not, but after some investigation, they decided against this being an option because he was only in Iraq on a four-month tour.  They did say that Lopez had been treated for a couple mental issues including depression.  It is very difficult for them to conclude whether or not these mental issues were what drove Lopez to do this awful thing.  It is always challenging to determine if an illness is what drives the people to do what they do.  There have unfortunately been many similar events to this shooting and it’s always difficult to determine what lead the shooters to go through with this.  It’s difficult because labeling a person with a mental disorder is not an easy task, especially if they shot themselves after the shooting or if there was no prior treatment or signs of any illness.

Studying Suggestions

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Learning how to study correctly is something that is very important to do while you are in college.  In order to get and maintain good grades, you have to develop good study habits.  In class we learned about a lot of really good study suggestions and pieces of advice that can be helpful to anyone.  One piece of advice/information that was talked about was attentional blink.  This concept that that switching attentions between different things can be time consuming while you are trying to get work done.  College kids are surrounded by electronics that have social media on them which can be extremely distracting.  Constantly getting updates on your phone, having several texting conversations, checking Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram can make staying focused very difficult which will make getting your work done take much longer than it should.  Even if you think you are just going to quickly text someone back or look something up, it is very easy to get side tracked and spend way more time than you think on that little task.  I have definitely noticed this to be a problem not only with my own study habits, but with my friends as well.  I have tried to study with my one friend for a class that we have together and it is almost impossible because he is constantly checking Facebook or his phone.  It takes us twice as long to get our studying done because he gets distracted and then it distracts me.  When I really don’t want to study for something or something that I am reading is really boring, I am constantly checking my phone.  This makes everything take so much longer and then I get stressed out because I don’t have enough time to get everything done that I have to do for the day.   After we talked about study habits in class, I tried turning off all of my electronics and putting them away while I did homework and studied one day.  I had a lot of work to get done so I decided to try this out.  I was able to get so much more work done and felt like I really understood everything that read and studied.  I also used the method of studying really hard for 30-50 minutes and then taking a short break and this definitely helped me retain more information.  I will definitely be using these study tactics again when I need to get a lot of work done.  I would suggest this to anyone that needs to work on their studying skills to get better grades.

Nature vs Nurture

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The concept of nature versus nurture is something that has been argued in psychology for a very long time.  This idea of nature versus nurture questions whether people’s personalities have to do with the way they are raised and the environment that they have grown up in, or if everyone is born a certain way.  Many different psychologists have argued both sides and each side has different evidence that support them.  Several studies have been done to test the theories and the consensus that has been reached by both sides is that it’s neither nature of nurture that determine your personality, it’s a mixture of both.  One or the other could be dominant for certain people, but for the most part they both affect the way your personality develops.

I know in my life, both nature and nurture have played a part in the development of my personality.  My personality is definitely a good mix of both of my parents, but I share a lot of the same traits with my mother.   We are both very careful and put a lot of thought into things before we do something.  We both share the same ideas and opinions because we think very similarly.  On the other hand, my father and I share some traits as well.  We are both very much “game heads” and extremely competitive and driven.  We work hard in everything we do until we get what we want.  Me having similar personalities to my parents is definitely nature.  Both of their personalities were passed to me through genetics, which supports the concept of nature.

Supporting the nurture side of it, there are definitely different events in my life that have influenced my personality and who I am today.  Different things have created fears that wouldn’t have been fears if the events hadn’t happened.  I am scared of squirrels, but I am also scared of being left by someone I love.  These two things are extremely different, but are fears because of different events that occurred in my life.  I am afraid of squirrels because when I was taking a walk in the woods once and a squirrel fell out of a tree right in front of me.  It flipped over at least 5 times and landed on its feet and starred right at me.  It scared me so much I actually ran away screaming.  The reason I am afraid of being left by someone I love is because of my parents getting a divorce.  They got a divorce when I was a sophomore in high school, so I grew up having two parents that loved each other and that loved me.  All of sudden, one day, that all changed.  My dad left my mom, which completely flipped my world upside down.  This is obviously a much more significant event than the one with the squirrel, but they both had an affect on my personality and my fears.   This supports the nurture side of the argument and helps show that both nature and nurture have played a role in my life.