Author Archives: jzc5523

Placebo Effect

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The placebo effect is something that I feel is commonly heard of, and I believe it is one of most powerful examples of just how influential the mind is. Whenever people say “it’s just in your head” or “it’s all about attitude” when approaching a new situation, I personally believe there is some truth to it. It also ties into the idea that “hope” is a commonality shared by successful psychotherapies (as well as a protected setting and therapeutic alliance, as discussed in Lecture 19). Just having some kind of hope or faith in something is all one needs for an outcome to be better. It is also why, even though I do not consider myself as a religious individual, I believe in the power of religion, the idea of a belief system, and the importance of a spiritual lifestyle.

 

Anyways, the placebo effect is essentially when the expectations can strongly influence one’s behavior. I stumbled into a perfect example only a couple days ago on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGDMXvdwN5c.

 

In this video, Dove takes a sample of women and gives them a “patch” that is supposed to make them more beautiful. Throughout the course of a month, each woman is given an assignment to do a daily video blog while on the patch. By the end of the trial, each woman felt more beautiful than when they originally came in. When they find out that the patch did absolutely nothing chemically or biologically to them, they all realized that it was their attitude all along that made them more confident in how they looked. This confidence and self-esteem was all that was required for them to be happy about themselves. The patch acted as a placebo for this confidence and self-esteem.

 

After coming to college, I noticed that I had been sick more often than I had ever been in high school. Of course, most people’s reactions were because I was living in a stuffy dorm, or I was just not washing my hands enough or something (which is completely false). But another huge factor that kept coming up was stress – a completely environmental factor that was nowhere but IN MY HEAD. So, as stupid as this sounds, when someone sneezes too close to my face or I start to get the early symptoms of a cold, I tell myself that I am confident in my immune system and I have been through enough sicknesses throughout my life that my body can fight this off. It is not my body’s problem so much as my head’s problem of how to perceive a mild, sore throat. Do I blow it out of proportion or do I just let the symptoms pass? So yes, some sicknesses are genuine and I cannot stop them because I just say so, but when I truly believe that I will not get sick, I generally don’t! In conclusion, the mind is a truly powerful thing and can be seen through examples like the placebo effect.

“American” Disorders & OCD

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While talking about disorders in class, one thing that struck me that I have seen in other articles is the statistical fact that in societies like America, it is much more common for people to become diagnosed with some kind of psychological disorder. Some worth mentioning may range from depression (which I feel that everyone knows someone who may be suffering from, whether it is mild or severe) to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In addition, bulimia and anorexia are prime examples of culture-specific disorders that are often seen in American-like societies. In fact, I personally have friends who have serious issues related to every disorder I have previously listed that need to deal with their problem medically as well as psychologically. It is almost sad to see so many beautiful people attack such minor flaws of the self. I can only think of how much time and energy is used up, trying to make an effort to think a certain way or, in contrast, creating large pharmaceutical corporations that gain profit for disorders that shouldn’t exist because of how our society works. Nevertheless, sociologic issues have brought us back to identifying the many disorders we have in class today. One disorder I would like to mention in particular is OCD, or the persistence of unwanted thoughts and urges to engage in senseless rituals that cause distress. Although I only know of one friend in particular who is diagnosed with it, there are plenty of people, including myself, who I feel that have some degree of obsession (that I tend to blame on society but I won’t bother to explain at the moment). For me, I can’t help but crack my knuckles during certain, tense situations. There is no purpose to it but if I fail to crack them at a certain time, pressure to crack them builds up if I think about it too much – sometimes I will crack the same finger over and over until I crack it just right. In another case, my roommate will always check the door if it is locked. I personally think it is ridiculous because no matter how many times she will hear the click of the door lock, she will go back and turn the handle and pull on the door to double check that no one can get in. At this point, I have accepted that it comes with her overcautious personality and if she never felt safe, she would grow to have some form of anxiety disorder. However, she is definitely not the most severe case of OCD I have come across. I’m sure everyone has that one friend who is so meticulously neat, but to have that one friend who notices when one little detail is out of place is a true sign of OCD. Although it is unimportant (and unrelated to psychology), here is why I blame society: first, we are too untrustworthy. Unless you live in a small community where you know virtually everyone since pre-school and the biggest grocery store is locally owned and a 10 minute walk from your house, American towns, like people, put walls and locks up to protect themselves because only a handful of people are worth trusting and for some reason, everyone else is the enemy. Secondly, we have some irrational need for everything to be perfect. With these two ideas in mind, how could we not develop so many disorders?

Memory Construction

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In class lately, we have generally been talking about how our memory works. What I found to be most interesting was when Professor Wede mentioned how the ability to forget is an evolutionary part of thinking. The concept I would like to discuss is about how memory is a constructive process in which missing pieces of information are filled in or filtered in order to make getting information out more comprehensible. In my perspective, this essentially means that we have the ability to build upon or create new memories based off of old, possibly false ones. In contrast, we also have the ability to reflect and give attention to specific parts of old memories. Whenever I catch up with one of my good friends, Katie, I have noticed that we fill in each other’s gaps about things we have done together. We could have both been in the same situation or have been together at the same place at the same time, but I almost always notice things that she has no recollection of and vice versa when reflected upon at a later time. I feel that this is a true example of importance of perspective – more specifically, perspective can also change a memory.

Once again, memory is a constructive process. Because of this, it causes things like the misinformation effect and hindsight bias. Misinformation effect is when the incorporation of misleading information into one’s memory of an event. From the examples in class, a major cause of this appears to be wording. Specific wording implies different things to different people. For me, I had frustrated with what words implied what meanings with my parents, who often speak in Chinese with me. Some meaning gets lost in translation, so when I was growing up, I would unintentionally take things the wrong way because I would remember how the Chinese word was used in one situation and apply it to another, more incorrect situation. The other problem caused by constructive processes of the memory is hindsight bias: a false belief that one could or should have predicted the outcome of an event. This happens often in everyday situation like, “Oh I knew this was going to happen…” or “I was sure she was going to get it!” This past week at my tournament for Ultimate Frisbee, I was sure that there would be multiple complete catches that ended up being drops and then a turnover.

To conclude, memories are powerful in the sense that they are not essentially always true or false. At the end of Lecture 11, I actually wondered whether I would rather have the inability to create any new memories or have the ability to never forget anything (a superautobiographical memory) as mentioned in class. So, even though our working memories are not necessarily always reliable, I have concluded that this more normal option is better than the other two extremes which make it impossible to function in daily life.

Stereotypes – Illusory Correlation

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Since I am Chinese, my friends usually assume that I will get the “Asian glow” if I have drank enough alcoholic beverages. For those of you that do not know what I am talking about – the “Asian glow” is basically when an Asian person becomes visibly flushed or red. This is because of biological reasons to counteract the alcohol. It is unfortunate but incredibly true for me, especially in my face. However, the fact is, this is not true for all Asians and happens in people of other ethnicities as well. This stereotype is an example of illusory correlation, in which there is a perception of a relationship where none exists. Illusory correlations probably occur on a daily basis without our knowledge – stereotypes and superstitions are simple examples. If someone was to read and take into account their daily horoscope, the prediction of their day exemplifies superstition. Other superstition examples may include Michael Jordan’s need to wear his college basketball shorts under his NBA uniform, starting the whole long-shorts trend. Many people have superstitions of what gives them luck, just as the Chinese believe the color red is lucky – being Chinese New Year and Year of the Horse, it is said that if you were born in the year of the horse, you should wear red underwear. More common than superstitions is stereotypes – it is almost human nature to judge someone or stereotype someone to a certain degree when you first meet them because (I personally think) first impressions cause one to think about someone else that you have previously met in your life, making one believe that someone you just met will act a certain way because that person reminds you of another. When looking at these examples more thoroughly, one will notice that there is some kind of fault in such logic – wearing red underwear will not necessarily make you lucky and just because someone reminds you of another, it does not mean that they are the same person in their actions or values. The important idea to take away is that correlation does not equal causation. Illusory correlation causes one to think that because one event has taken place, another event will be the effect, when in fact this is not necessarily true with correlating data.