Tag Archives: psychology

Flashbulb memories, misinformation effect

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When I was in fourth grade, my family and I took a trip to Florida. We visited the Everglades where you can take a bike ride through them and tour the whole area. Along the bike path, there were swamps where live alligators would be. There were even some alligators lying outside of the swamps just inches way from the bike path. They weren’t dangerous unless you taunted them, in fact they hardly even moved. If you didn’t look closely enough you would probably think they were statues. Also along the bike path there were occasionally tour buses that would come that were available for people if they did not want to bike the whole path. Whenever a bus was coming close, all bikers had to pull off the side of the path and make room for the bus to get by. My family and I were only about three miles away from getting back to the car when a bus started coming towards us. The rest of my family pulled off to the side just fine, however, I was the youngest and was struggling a little with my bike. I tried my best to pull over without falling but I just couldn’t balance myself. Before I knew it I was soaking wet with swamp water all over me. Of course I was mad I fell into the water, but I was more concerned about an alligator being in the water with me. Quickly, my mom pulled me out of the water and I was back on land, safe and sound.

To me, this is a flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memories are when an “unexpected event has strong emotional associations for the person remembering it.” Because it has such a strong association, the memory seems to have much more vivid details and I feel like it just happened yesterday. Since it has such a high emotional effect on me that memory also went through automatic encoding which is when information requires less or almost no rehearsing for it to fully be encoded.

Since I’m the youngest in my family, they like to pick on my a lot and of course this story is always everyone’s favorite. Because of that, I have heard this story be told countless times. A possible reason behind me thinking I remember every single detail of this incident is because of the misinformation effect, which is when information heard after the event influence a person’s actual memory of the event. I will hear my mom tell the story and think I am recalling my memory, but really I am just being influenced by her recall of the incident.

*Definitions from Psychology textbook.

Implantation of a Memory in a Friend

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Memory is a tricky thing. It can be hard to know what memories are real, which ones are put in your head from an outside source, and which ones are blatantly false events that never happened. If a person is told a false event happened, they may initially deny it, but after a few days they may claim to remember said event as their imagination creates memories based on what was told to them. As Hyman and Billings showed us, it can be relatively easy to implant memories into a person’s head, especially when they are a trusted source, like a close friend. Or a childhood friend who was a deceptive and sassy little girl who didn’t like to be made fun of, such as myself with my friend April, whom I’ve known since before my memory developed enough to remember.

In sixth grade, I had my first kiss (scandalous, I know) from my first boyfriend in the bus loop at my middle school. April, who still was in the “boys have cooties” stage, saw the whole thing from the bus and I didn’t hear the end of it the whole bus ride home, about how boys were gross and how she couldn’t believe we had already kissed and what that meant for my ‘lip-virginity’… Oh sixth grade, such good times. So before the twenty minute bus ride was half over, I was bored of the questions and, being my sassy self, I quickly came up with a story to come back at her with. “You can’t talk, you kissed a boy in kindergarten.” A blatant lie that caused a confused and concerned look from April, who stuttered out “what – what are you talking about? I never kissed a boy in my whole life, nor do I ever want to.” So, amused by her blank look, I went on to tell her the story of how in kindergarten, Austin, an old mutual friend of ours, was playing at recess with her and dared her to kiss him, so she did; everyone knows you can’t pass up a dare, especially a double dog dare! After I described in great detail my completely made up story, she denied having any recollection of the event, as much as I insisted.

A few days passed until Monday came around, and once again I received a peck goodbye at the bus loop, and once again I got a look of disgust from my best friend. So again I brought up her kiss with Austin, adding even more details, until finally she got quiet and admitted the ultimate defeat. “Wait, oh my God, I think you’re right. I remember now, I was so nervous he would tell everyone! I made him go to the corner of the playground…” From that day on, I never got another judgmental look or eye roll for my scandalous sharing of cooties, and still to this day she believes that was her first kiss. Am I a bad friend? Of course not, I was simply performing a psychology study. I’ll tell her the truth one day. Maybe on her wedding day, in my maid of honor speech…

Illusory Correlation in Sports

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In many instances humans look to outside sources in an effort to explain a relationship between two variables.  Frequently, the relationship one perceives has no connection and in reality is just simply an overestimation of how often an event occurred.  Events such as these are called illusory correlations.   I feel that this phenomenon is especially true in the world of sports.

For example, my dad and I over the past summer went golfing multiple times.  On every single one of our golf outings together he insisted on wearing his sun glasses.  He wore his glasses no matter the sun conditions and time of day: clear, overcast, cloudy, midday, late afternoon.

Neither of us are experts at golf and therefore the results of who would win could be described as random and unpredictable.   However, one day I was absolutely destroying my dad through about 6 or 7 holes out of our usual 9 hole half-rounds that we would play.  He was playing so terribly he had to find something to blame his failures on. So, he decided to take off his sun glasses for the last few holes.

Miraculously, my dad came back to defeat me, staging an incredible comeback.  In my estimation, the comeback was attributed to my collapse over the last few holes and not any improvement in the play of my dad.  On the other hand, my dad believed that the ONLY reason he came back was because of him taking off his sun glasses and thus leading to an improvement in his play.  He could not see past the idea that him taking off his sunglasses somehow was the missing piece in him becoming the next Tiger Woods.

I insisted to him that the comeback and his sun glasses clearly had no relationship at all, citing that he had defeated me multiple times while wearing his sun glasses.   My argument was to no avail as my dad was adamant on the illusory correlation that taking off one’s sun glasses can turn them into a world class golf star.

 

 

Daily Psychology

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Through many years of studying and analyzing the brain, psychologists have discovered that the brain is made up of many parts which control the functional aspects of daily life. Each structure functions in different ways, some controlling the ways we think while others controlling the ways we act. Rather than referring to one single experience which pertains to a few of the main structures of the brain, I’ll lay out a series of examples of how they have been at work today.

 

To start off my day like any other, I first had to wake up. If I didn’t, that would be bad. My thalamus, which plays a significant role in arousal, wakefulness, and alertness, gets me up and about like an internal alarm clock. Another structure of the brain, the hippocampus, is known for converting short term memory into more permanent memory. At this very moment, it is allowing me to remember that I am typing a blog assignment for my Psych 100 class which I must finish soon, rather than letting me sidetrack off to something else in a matter of minutes while forgetting that this assignment was due in less than a day’s time. Stumbling out of bed to go take a shower this morning, I may have ran into a few more walls than usual, had my cerebellum not been on the job. Being one of the most important structures of the brain, the cerebellum is associated with the regulation and coordination of balance, movement, and posture. Luckily, the hypothalamus is there to tell me that I should probably eat something for breakfast, otherwise I would have to wait to hear my stomach practicing whale calls before I got myself some food. Some of the functions which this structure of the brain relates to include thirst, hunger, and emotion. Lastly, my amygdala allowed me to scream like a little girl when I found some weird looking bug that escaped the cold weather by latching on to me, crawling down my arm. The amygdala is most often associated with fear and emotion. Besides the last part, I could say it had been quite a normal day. It is true that I only described a few of the main structures of the brain and their roles in my daily life, but it matters not. The functions of the brain and all of its parts are innumerable, with even more new discoveries being revealed to this day.

 

“Brain Structures and their Functions.” Serendip. Serendip, 1994-2014. Web. 4
Feb. 2014. <http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Structure1.html>.

Surveys and how to correctly create them

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A very common tool used in descriptive research is a survey. Throughout our lives, it’s certain that we have taken at least one survey for one purpose or another. Whether it was at school, over the phone, for an interview, or just for fun, it asked a series of questions. The answers to those questions were either analyzed and you received a score or were used by a researcher to help accept or reject a hypothesis. The purpose of a survey is to capture and analyze attitudes, opinions, or behaviors of people. This may seem simple, but there are numerous conditions that need to be meet before conducting a survey. First of all, the people chosen must be a representative sample of the population of people that is to be studied. For example, if a survey is asking questions intended for adults (over the age of 18) in the United States, it would be inaccurate to administer the survey to only females ages 18-20 in the state of Pennsylvania. All males, females over the age of 20, and adults in the other 49 states are not being equally represented and therefore the results can be skewed. Similar to that idea, there must be random sampling. Each member of a population needs to have the same chance of being selected to take the survey. It would not be a good idea to administer a survey over only land line telephones since many people in the United States no longer have them. People that use only cell phones would not have an equal chance of being selected.

In my lifetime, I have had to create and administer two different surveys in order to analyze feedback. In high school, as part of my senior project, I performed a science project presentation to promote an elementary school science fair. Later in the year, I also had to attend the student science fair, help set up stations, and walk around to ask the students questions about their own projects. In order to see how much the students enjoyed our presentations and how well the parents thought we set up the fair and interacted with the children, I created two different surveys. One survey was specifically targeted toward the students and asked questions such as what their favorite experiment was and how well did they understand the experiments (rating 1-5). All answer choices were printed on the survey so they didn’t have to write anything in, just circle their answer choice. I made sure the questions all had words in which the children could understand. Since I wanted to have a high sample size, I administered the survey to all children participating in the science fair. I then referenced the names on the surveys to the list of students to ensure everyone had participated. My results were definitely representative of the student population since all students participated.

I made a different survey for the parents that asked questions like how well we interacted with the students, if all of their technical needs were satisfied, and how likely they were to have their kids participate in future science fairs (all rating questions 1-5). At the bottom of the survey, I also asked open ended questions such as what they thought we could improve on for next year. One survey was given out to the parents of each child, but only one parent could complete the survey. This ensured that each child’s family was represented, and more importantly, represented equally. It wouldn’t have been fair if two parents of one child completed the survey and no parent of another child answered it. That could have affected the outcome of the results.

Overall, the surveys were administered to a representative sample of the population and random sampling occurred among the parents. It was made sure that all terms on the survey were either simple enough for the different age groups or fully explained. The wording of the questions was also checked to ensure they had only one meaning. Since all of the frequent problems with surveys were taken care of, it was safe to say that the results were accurate. In psychological research, a survey is a quick and easy way to gather attitudes, opinions, or behaviors as long as there is equal representation, random sampling, proper wording, and clear questions.

Blog post #1 Conditioning

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Blog Post #1

Classical Conditioning

            Conditioning isn’t just a great way to make your hair shiny and silky. It is also the way you train most animals, including dogs. It was discovered and named Classical Conditioning by Dr. Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s.

He rang a bell before feeding his dogs. Eventually, the dogs would salivate at just the sound of the bell. They were trained to expect food whenever that bell was rung. In reaction to this they would salivate because that is what they did every single day. Do something the exact same every day for a long enough period of time and that animal, be it canine or human, will expect it without realizing it.

When you get hungry what happens? Your mouth starts producing saliva, your stomach rumbles and/or aches, and your mouth will feel dry. You instinctively want nourishment. It is the same thing with the bell and the dogs. The bell is just the trigger that initiates the salivating to begin.

For example, my family owns two cats. They roam around in my backyard during the day and come in at dusk for the night. The way they are brought inside is by my mother shaking a bag of cat treats on our back deck. They hear the sound of the treats moving around in the plastic bag and come running to her feet. The sound of the bag being shaken is the trigger. That sound lets them know that they will get treats and then go right inside the house. My mother conditioned them to do the same thing every night. They are only given said treats after they are inside and the door is locked. If they do not follow this order then they know they will not get a single treat that night. It happened quite a bit in the beginning. But they have learned since then because they want the treats.

This is just another way to condition someone or something. You train them over a certain period of time to do a certain act and they will be rewarded for it, either by Pavlov giving his dogs dinner or my mother giving her cats treats. It is even possible to condition a human being. They use similar tactics in the military. Though I don’t think quite as nice as getting a treat.

Behaviorism/Natural Observation

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Sometimes in psychology, being able to visually see a particular theory or concept can be tricky, but that is not the case when it comes to behaviorism. Behaviorism focuses on people’s behavior and the way it can change depending on their environment. It is a part of psychology that is more than just trying to examine the inside of the brain and that’s why it interests me so much. You are actually able to see the changes in someone if their environment around them changes rather than having to hook up some crazy machine to test the neurons in their brain. A more modern way of studying behavior is behavioral psychology and that focuses more on punishment and reinforcement and how those things will affect a person’s behavior.

For me, I’ve witnessed behavioral psychology all the time. For all my life up until high school I was a gymnast. Before every competition we would always practice our routines over and over again. After awhile, you start to get tired and seem to not care quite as much. Obviously our coach wasn’t able to watch all of us at the same time so we could get away with slacking a little bit. Towards the end of each workout, our coach would watch each of our routines one at a time. We called these “pressure routines.” If the routine was up to her standards we would be rewarded in someway, and if she did not approve of the routine there would be some sort of consequence. Since we knew we would be rewarded for a good performance, all of our routines suddenly got a little bit better, even though we were all exhausted. There were still times when we had to do the consequence, but for the most part people performed better and their behavior changed.

That example does not only touch on the topic of behaviorism and behavioral psychology, but also naturalistic observation. We knew that when we were being watched, we needed to perform to the best of our ability. However, at the times when our coach wasn’t watching us, we were able to take it easy to give ourselves a break. We wouldn’t slack off every practice, or take advantage of our coach on a daily basis, but there was an obvious difference in people’s performances when the pressure was on and they were being watched. In addition, it wasn’t just being watched that made behaviors change. The entire environment changed and became much more serious since our coach and teammates were watching. Because of these behavioral changes that occur when someone knows they are being watched or rewarded for something, psychologists know to be careful and aware of these things when study people’s behavior.

“Motivated to seek pleasure, not pain”

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Behavior is truly a fascinating concept to try to understand. It has long been the topic of many heated discussions from even the “Pre-Greek” times. Humans are pleasure seeking individuals. It is sad to say it but humans are selfish in terms of their desires. Aristotle stated that concept perfectly and exposed it with his research. He noticed that humans are motivated to seek what feels good to them and place a long distance on what doesn’t. What is incredible about that is that what he thought, holds true even in our modern times. People hate to do what they don’t like doing and that is understandable but because of that, they tend to make extremely impulsive decisions based on what their own desires are. And what their desires aren’t always the best thing for them.

I used to have a friend, we will call him James for the purpose of this story. He was a very devoted Christian who went to church every Sunday, always made sure the things that he did never counteracted with his morals, what you would describe as the “perfect little church boy”. But that was when James was in his younger more naïve years. Once he reached high school, it seemed like a switch just went off in him that was causing him to act in ways that no one has ever seen him act before. Drugs, sex with almost anyone, disrespecting his parents and crazy parties became somewhat of a common lifestyle for James. And whenever someone would approach him about it, he always gave the same response, “I just feel like doing it. It makes me happy, don’t judge me.” I’ve even spoken to him and it is clear that he knows that what he is doing is wrong. He realizes and accepts that and continues to go against all that he is founded on and all that his religion asks of him…all because he “feels like it”.

It seems as though more and more people are just doing anything because they really believe that they should have that right and no one should take away that right. Aristotle’s take on how people behave was a brilliant one but also a blatant one. If you study any person, you can tell that it is their innate instinct to do what they want to do. They don’t want to be held down by rules or people telling them to do otherwise so they go out of their way to rebel and do whatever they were going to do in the first place. It is the way it has been, the way it is now and the way it will continue to be. I am not necessarily saying that there is something wrong with people following their own desires, but it is some of the decisions that people make that really raises the question of if following your desires is always the right thing. People like to be themselves and I get it, but being too vain and disregarding criticism sometimes can lead you to be something you never thought you would be.