The winter months are upon us, for some this could mean you are constantly chilly, for others maybe a state of depression, but, for everyone in State College this means they are once again their palest self. This, along with any other reason to evoke self lothe on your appearance, leads many to believe they are unattractive to the opposing sex. Can that really be true, that just because you believe you are viewed as ugly people are not attracted to you? Or does a person’s personality mean more than their nose and waist size?

There is no denying the automatic sense of attraction a person feels when a very ‘hot’ person of the opposite sex walks by them. Although, research has found that this automatic attraction can be easily swayed by the person’s personality. Professor Viren Swami, who is now a professor of social Psychology at the Anglia Ruskin University worked with his team at the University of Westminster as well as scientist at the British Psychological Society on his study More than just skin deep? Personality information influences men’s ratings of the attractiveness of women’s body sizes. Swami took 2,157 college aged males and gave them a series of women to rate based on their picture, age, body mass index and personality traits. As well as a control group that was only given a picture with an age and body mass index of females. The body mass index of the females varied from extremely skinny to extremely overweight. The personality traits of women varied between being positive and negative for the women.

Swami found that males in the control group that lacked personality traits all had an excessively similar body image that they found most attractive and rated the highest. Although, males that were also provided with women’s personality traits had remarkably varying body sizes and appearance. Even the women with the body image that the males found most attractive received poor ratings if they had a negative personality. Swami’s results show that personality is valued greater than image and attractiveness.

As I looked though Swami’s research I grew more frustrated that his paper lacked definite definitions of positive and negative personalities. Yes, most people in this world see kindness, light-heartedness and agreeableness as positive qualities to possess. Although, when you go deeper and question how people feel about how cheerful or passionate a person is there are varying opinions that different males would have, and then go on to rate different females this way.  I feel that if the study only provided very general personality traits to define the women then the research that Swami found is less valuable. I say this because it is obvious the mostly everyone will favor the personality traits that public opinion admires and stay away from the obvious negative traits. If this generalization is true for the study Swami’s results become more obvious and less credible.

Swami’s study constantly made me think back to the class we explored if males were toxic.  I know that we discussed that there was a sexual arms race between male Bean weevils  to poison each others sperm in a female, but there is still a connection to sexual arms races in humans. This “sexual arms race” of humans is leading both males and females to believe it is necessary to find a ‘hot’ person of the opposite sex and claim them, whether that be for the night, year, or lifetime. Like we said in class this can be very bad for species and is a powerful force that is leading people to question how attractive they are to others.

There was research done prior to Swami’s study that helps to support his results. The Department of Psychology from the State University of New York, Stony Brook and Monmouth University join together for the study Personality goes a long way: The malleability of opposite-sex physical attractiveness. Professor Gary W. Lewandowski and Arthur Aron had 56 females and 22 males rate photos of the opposite sex, distract their mind from the task and then go back and rate the photos again, although this time with that person’s defining characteristic under the photo. When the photos included personality traits the ratings of the opposite sex once again changed significantly.  In this study the researchers compared their results to a “model in which desirability of the target’s personality leads to greater desirability as a friend, leading to greater desirability as a dating partner.” This shows that a person can so quickly be transformed in one’s mind as being attractive with a nice body and face to becoming distasteful with negative personality traits.  

I feel that with two studies that support each other’s findings, additional studies available to me as well as the overplayed 21st century ideal that it is on the inside that really counts the idea of being ugly should be fading away. Although it isn’t, that is why I believe that this study is too broad to cover all male and female beliefs of attraction. It is similar to the idea of marrying for money. Usually a person that has a greater desire for money does not consider personality because they are only concerned about the money. The same could be said for a person that is only in search for a spouse that is “hot”, they disregard a person’s personality traits. For a future study I think that researchers should take into account participants family background, geographic location and socio-economic status.  This way a study will be able to search for correlations in certain locations, with a specific upbringing that affects what a person looks for in a friend and dating partner.

If after reading my blog you still have concerns about your appearance and how it is going to affect you in the fraternity house this weekend I suggest listening to Christina Aguilar when she says “you are beautiful no matter what they say.” My research has found that there is a greater benefit in developing your personality and letting it guide you to being the person you want to be, rather than spending money, time and energy on an appearance that many will glance over.

As I begin to write this blog at 12:29 AM on November 30th my roommate sits 6 feet away from me cramming for the Spanish final she has in 14 hours and one minute, definitely pulling an all-nighter. Roomie is a fool for waiting so long to study. Due to sleep deprivation tonight roomie puts herself at risk for “obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, depression, heart attacks, and strokes as well as premature death and reduced quality of life and productivity.” Sure this all will not happen tonight, but tonight roomie will most definitely be setting herself up for weight gain.

Before science is applied, think about it logically.  Tonight roomie never sleeps, instead she drinks a Starbucks bottled Frappuccino coffee drink which 32 grams of sugar in 9.5 fluid ounces and has consumed a bag of white cheddar Smartfood Popcorn to account for the extra calories she is expending studying. Her coffee drink is as bad as drinking an 8.5 fluid ounce can of coke that contains 28 grams of sugar. Tomorrow she will get another large coffee with high amounts of sugar for a boost. Roomie will also snack more frequently while she does that absolute last second studying, cause if you are munching you are staying awake. Finally after the test roomie is going to indulge in some special treat to congratulate herself on getting through her first final, and I have this hunch it isn’t going to be carrots.  After such a crazy day roomie is not going to go to the gym. She may sleep, or she may watch more Gossip Girl, still distressing from Spanish and finally she will bring herself to do her other work she put off while studying, and again be up late into the night completing it. What a cycle.

Now let us apply science. Matthew P. Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley assisted in publishing the study The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain in the journal Nature Communications. In this study both healthy men and women participants were assigned to come into the lab two times. The first time the participant had a full night of sleep, most likely the recommended 8 hours, and then woke up and ate a piece of toast with jam.  After breakfast the participants were asked to rate how greatly they desired 80 pictures of food. Whatever food they rated the highest, or fancied most at that moment, they were given. Approximately a week later the same participants were asked to come back to the lab for the same procedure, except this time they were allowed no sleep before their morning of breakfast and then rating the 80 pictures of food choices.  The study results showed that after an all-nighter the participants really wanted some calories. About 600 calories more than when they slept. For a college aged female like roomie, that is 30% of the calories she should consume in a day to live a moderately healthy life.

I noticed that Walker’s study states “findings were measured in a group of healthy young and lean participants ages 19 to 21.” Walker only studied a specific age group, would you get the same results outside of this age category? Also, Walkers study only had participants stay up for a whole night. Walker did not include a confounding variable of cravings that would come from stress that roomie is most likely experiencing. I feel it is imperative that a new study address the different variables that Walker’s lacked. The most important variables to include, I think, would be a range of ages, body masses, health conditions and professions or college majors. Walker’s study leads me to question if a already large person would be more or less likely to really indulge due to sleep deprivation as well as if as a person gets older their body becomes less disciplined to over eating after little sleep.

As the night grows on roomie is going to produce more adenosine in her brain, which is what screams to you “I am tired!!” “I have to go to bed!!” Roomie is suppressing the adenosine build up through constantly drinking caffeine.  Although the adenosine is still in the brain and will “degrade communication between networks in the brain.” The brain’s decision maker, the cortical area of the frontal lobe, is not functioning in the same way it would when the body rests, which allows a person to eat lots of calorie rich food, frequently. The amygdala is the part of the brain that tells us what we want, after no rest foods with high calories produce greater activity in the amygdala. So even after a person is completely satisfied the amygdala will not relay this message properly and so a person will continuously eat.

I am now sitting here thinking to myself that I really need more sleep! But, when you realistically think about that, as an over involved college student that has an extreme desire for good grades and a social life, sleep simply cannot always be a priority. Reading articles on websites like WebMD that attempt to inform their reader on how to get a better nights rest have no answers for young adults in our situation.

I propose a study to be done on high school and college students that range in amount of sleep per week. Examine the students that are most effected by little sleep in an attempt to find a way to help them, that isn’t just listing sleep remedies. For example, if students eat certain vitamin rich foods, their body and mind will be able to handle sleep deprivation better.

Through the research I have acquired from my blog post I realize that such alternatives will most likely not be discovered. Right now I suggest that my readers stick to caffeine for short run benefits, and understand that your body can only go so long suppressing the desire to sleep. As for that weight gain issue I am telling my readers that you have to fight with your brain to stay away from calories to have a positive long run effect and live a decently healthy lifestyle, unlike roomie.

After allowing an under achieved 17 year old to pierce two holes into my precious six year old body I have known about my fainting problem.  I cannot remember a time I have gotten a shot, blood drawn, viewed a gory scene, or overheard a tragic story of blood loss that has not sent me plummeting to the ground, unconscious to the world until my body decided it is ready to come back to life. I have always felt it is unfair I will never get to watch Grey’s Anatomy or Nip Tuck, shows my friends adore and binge on. It also fascinates me that my mom, aunt and sister are all nurses and actually look at that horrid sight of blood day in and day out.  I now question why only certain people faint at the sight of blood?

In my earlier post, Ahhhh Spider!, I explored the connection between arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, and our ancient ancestors that were forced to develop an awareness to spiders in order to survive. I research how a certain awareness to spiders has been genetically passed on. It is believed that fainting as well as vasovagal syncope, when the body over reacts to certain triggers such as blood, is also something that we have developed from our cavemen ancestors.

Dr. Fredrick Jaeger is both the Director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Monitoring Lab and Medical Director of the Syncope Center at the Cleveland Clinic. Jaeger has vastly studied vasovagal syncope and believes it is a reflex in certain humans genetics that we automatically trigger as a form of self-preservation when injured.  When you faint your blood pressure and heart rate fall giving your body the opportunity to slow bleeding while also making the body lay vertical, so more oxygen can get to the brain. “If you’re a caveman and another caveman comes over and cuts your arm off, the sight of blood or injury may cause you to faint. So when you’re lying there on the ground, you’ll look like you’re dead to the other cavemen and he won’t cut your head off,” explains Dr. Jaeger on how fainting during ancestral times had its benefits.

Strong debate still exists to determine if this fainting phenomenon has been acquired in all humans. It is easy for me to understand why this deliberation exist and not all scientist feel faiting is passed genetically. My grandfather has been a fainter his whole life, with extensive stories of when he has dropped. My oldest sister Danielle is also known to faint in hot weather and dehydration, but neither of them have ever hit the floor due to the sight of blood or needles like me. So, yes, fainting does run in our family, but for unrelated reasoning.

What often leads the fainting from genetics debate is the possibility of a gene that can lead to fainting. For example the medical journal, Neurology, published a study done by Samul F. Berkovic from the University of Melbourne “that reviewed 44 families that have a history of fainting, and found genetic patterns that could be traced through generations.” Researchers were able to take the results from the families to focus on chromosome 15 which they believe could give an explanation to why so many individuals faint.  “In some families it’s [vasovagal syncope] transmitted as a dominant trait, which means every relative has a 50-50 chance of inheriting it.” Although it is hard for me to not take note that Berkovic said ‘some families’, this leads me to question all other families. If fainting was truly caused by our genetics that were developed by our ancient ancestors wouldn’t it make sense for most humans to be susceptible to fainting? Not just the 40% of people that will faint at some point in their lifetime. I also question this because if fainting was truly a survival technique like Jaeger claims wouldn’t only the strongest survive due to the theory of evolution and those that failed to faint for protection die out.

I noticed Berkovic’s fails to mention details on the families that participated in his study besides their shared history of fainting. I believe it is important to know more about the demographics of these families. Since Berkovic never states that his study was randomized I do not know if age, gender, or socio-economic status could play any role in Berkovic’s results.

Even if genetics truly plays a factor in a person’s likelihood to faint it still doesn’t explain why blood is so hard for people, like me, to stay vertical to.  I think a potential answer is an intense phobia of blood. Hemophobia, despite how irrational it may be, is a learned response on how you handle blood. This could also be due to something traumatic that happened as a child that has left a person scarred. I make fun of how easily I faint from being hemophobic, but to others having this fear can lead into deep depression or similar mental illness.

Science could be observing fainting from the wrong direction.  I have considered reverse causation to possibly provide an answer to why people faint at the sight of blood. What if people weren’t prone to fainting from how anxious blood makes them, which then leads to a decrease in blood pressure and heart rate and then actually fainting. Instead it was that a person is anxious because they have a learned response to seeing blood and immediately fainting? There needs to be greater research into the characteristics of an individual in a family that faints more often than other members, as well as if gender, race and age can be correlated to fainting so that researchers can gain more knowledge into what specifically causes individuals to drop.

Unfortunately, I can not provide my readers with a clear explanation to why blood causes you to faint, or a quick fix to your blood phobia so that you can finally watch Grey’s Anatomy. There needs to be more research done at a greater size to one day provide those answers. Some may see benefits to their fear of blood as never feeling the pressure to go pre-med, or having an excuse to why you will one day accidentally miss the birth of your sister’s child. Although the possible injury and disease associated with fainting is good enough reason to stay far away from blood.

My grandmother Meme, is a constant worrier. She would examine me every time I went out in the winter, feeling uneasy about my wet hair or lack of socks and exclaim the classic “oh sweetheart, I’m getting cold just looking at you!!” and I would always tell silly Meme that she was being ridiculous, although I have begun to think Meme was on to something. As I walk around campus I have seen some reckless college students dress completely improperly I find myself getting the chills and a heavy desire for my winter parka. Feeling cold has to be contagious.

Neuropsychiatrist Doctor Neil Harrison of Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Meme and I obviously all think the same way. As Harrison watched the movie Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, a film about Inuit legends in the Eastern Arctic Wilderness he found himself getting colder and colder. Harrison has worked for many years studying empathy and how humans can share and understand each other’s feelings. So he set out to see if the reaction people develop through viewing someone else cold was measurable.

Harrison created an experimental study with 36 participants who he had connect their right and left hands to a thermistor, a resistor dependant on temperature, with temperature sensitivity. Harrison had them watch videos, each 3 minutes in length, in which someone submerged their hands into either steaming hot or ice cold water. The thermistor registered that after watching the warm videos there was no change in body temperature. Although, after watching the cold videos, participant’s left hand temperature decreased by 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit. For the body to decrease by 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit is a statistically significant number, the significance of the difference can be seen when the body temperature is raised 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit because this is when an individual begins to sweat.  I wondered why there wasn’t a similar results from the warm videos,  Harrison believes that the experiment had only chilling effects because cubes of ice are more obvious to a viewer than rising steam. I felt the author should have also acknowledge the fact that the water could not be blisteringly hot and burn his grad students making the videos.

Harrison concludes that his participants drop in temperature is due to empathy and emotional contagion. Despite the continuing maturing understanding of empathy Dr. Mark Davis of Eckerd College asserts that empathy is what causes emotional contagion, or the mirroring of others’ behaviors and/or emotions. Harrison believes that a fair amount of workplace and personal success can be attributed to “ results from our ability to work together in complex communities – this would be hard to do if we were not able to rapidly empathize with each other and predict one another’s thoughts, feelings and motivations. I personally learned about emotional contagion as a captain of a lacrosse team: the moods of key or popular players dictated how successful a practice would be, how much effort the rest of the team would put forth, and how teammates would treat each other.  So when Harrison contends that emotional contagion is a part of our everyday life, I’m inclined to believe him.

Though I do think, based on the evidence, that there is a correlation between seeing someone cold and being cold, I think more studies are needed. In Harrison’s experiment the only information he gave about his participants is that they are healthy and between the ages of 19 and 26. As someone researching the topic I was unaware of gender, ethnicity or lifestyle. The study also fails to mention, on multiple varying websites used to search the topic, if the study was randomized. I purpose a new study that looks into the variables that Harrison ignores. I feel that the most important variable is age, it could play a serious role into how much emotional contagion affects the body. This could mean that a slight cold that gave a perfectly healthy 20 year old participant a quick chill could give a 83 year old women with a deteriorating body intense shivers and cold sweats. Another possible study design could explore if there is a difference effect from watching a video of someone experiencing extreme cold and then being right in front of someone that is experiencing cold. By having a study designed in such a way researchers could explore if being a close bystander leads to greater emotional contagion. A final possible study design would be to alter where you are taking the temperature of a person. You could take it orally or rectally to see if the hand does not properly represent body temperature.    All of Harrison’s experiment participants were marked perfectly healthy.

Despite the obvious need for more studies to find its extent, it does seem like empathy influences body temperature. Although Meme, Doctor Harrison and I seem to be the only people that these cold effects bewilder.  I have never experienced a Penn State winter that upperclass go on about, but it has been rumored that many young fools battle 3 feet of snow in flip flops and shorts. I hope that you have a hat, gloves and wool socks for the chills those students are going to send you.

In my last blog post, When Dogs Look Like Their Owners, I enlighten my readers on the wonders that surround the similarities between dogs and their masters, describing the studies that have been done to determine it is the characteristics of the eyes that make the pair so strikingly similar. In my blog I left my readers with a few thought provoking questions, one of which was asking if the way people perceive themselves and how they feel they look effects their decision in selecting a dog. Worry no longer, I have found you answers.

It is said that dogs and humans have striking similarities, this could be because you know how you look so well you find the same looks in a dog of your choosing.  One of the things you personally are most familiar with is your own face. I mean think about how often you look at yourself. People enjoy the familiarity of themselves the same way they delight in the same movie endless times, or go to the same restaurant every week for the same meal. This can be described as the Mere Exposure

When a human selects their dog they could be looking for themselves within the animal so that when they bring their new family member home the familiarity of the dog gives them confidence, excitement and trust that they made the right decision.

Scientist Stanley Coren, believed that the phenomenon that dogs and their owners look alike could be explained by the mere exposure effect or familiarity. To test his theory Coren completed the study Do people look like their dogs? at the University of British Colombia in 1999.  He had 104 women rate between an English Springer Spaniel, a Beagle, a Siberian Husky and a Basenji which dog they believed to be the most likeable, friendliest, loyal and intelligent. Coren then asked the women a series of questions about their lifestyle. He also showed each women a series of hairstyles and asked them to decide which one they felt was most like their own.

Coren was able to divide the women’s answers into two categories of short/ long hair that was pulled back and long hair that covered a women’s ears.  The first classification of women with pulled back hair preferred the Siberian Husky and Basenji while the second classification of women with hair that shaped the face and covered the ears had a preference to the Springer Spaniel and Beagle.  Coren believes that these results are caused from the facial characteristics of those certain types of dogs.

An illustration of Coren’s study Do people look like their dogs?

I feel that Coren limited his study by only using women. I believe he should also have addressed that he used women that all come from the same university and share a sense of community that could have effected their answers, the preferences of women and style in the late 1990s, the different effects of dogs and their looks of women and men all could affect the results of his study.

My previous post included the study done by Michael Roy and Nicholas Christenfeld that helped to support the belief dogs and their owners can be connected by their eye regions.  Roy and Christenfeld’s study was actually done in result of Stanley Coren’s.  Researched want to take Coren’s general belief of familiarity and delve deeper. Since Coren’s study focused on hair and face shape researchers sought to find a more specific answer.  The study, which asked participants to correctly match photos of purebred dogs and their owners helped to confirm the results of Coren’s study. Coren’s idea of familiarity was the stepping stone to develop the correlation between characteristics of eyes in dogs and their owners.

I believe there is more to why humans and dogs look similar.  I think it is possible for dogs and humans to conform to each other throughout their time spend together. Although I wonder if there are so many factors that need to be looked at for this to be proven that a certain study would develop the Texas Sharp Shooter Problem. Observing any possible answer till a correlation is found. A possible study to test these questions could be observational.  Study dog owner pairs for a long period of time, having owners of different gender, ethnicity and age as well as dogs of different shape, size and breed. Examine how the pair coexist and evaluate aspects of their relationship. After the allotted period of time determine if any of the pairings experienced any changes in relationship that can be correlated to the pair conforming to each other.

Coren’s work with the mere exposure theory and dog owner similarities showed particular recognizable facial features are what connects dogs and owners. Coren’s work helped develop further research that is mention in detail in my previous blog.

While away at college I have received periodic calls from a wide array of my family. They check in, ask the basic “How is class?” or “How was the football game?” Grandma’s call was different last Sunday, it was a reminder that her beloved Maltese, Maggie, had ascended to doggie heaven 15 years ago that day. Grandma’s lovely call reminded me of a snapchat I received from my cousin of an old photo where Maggie and Grandma are dressed for my parents wedding, and they look like identical twins. This photo lead me to question if dogs do really look like their owner.

Grandma and Maggie pre-wedding in 1988

A 2013 study published in the British Journal, Anthrozoos “Dogs and owners resemble each other in the eye region” was done by Sadahiko Nakajima, a psychologist at the Kwansei Gakuin University of Japan. Nakajima believed it was more than chance that humans and their dog’s resemblance to each other. To test his hypothesis Nakajima took 502 undergraduate students and presented them with two sheets. The sheets contained photos of Japanese men and women ages 20-60 and a dog. The participants had to determine of the two sheets, which had photos of true dog human pairs and which sheet had random people and dogs. 80% of participants were able to determine the sheet that had the dog and their owner.

Nakajima then enhanced his study by modifying the sheets in four ways. One sheet had a black bar to cover the owner’s mouth in the photos, another had the humans eyes covered, the next had the dogs eyes blacked out, and the last sheet contained only the eyes of both the humans and their dog pair. Since people guessed real pairs with the most accuracy when they could see the eyes of the dog and human, Nakajima concluded that the eyes of dogs and humans are what connects .

Example of the sheets Nakajima’s participants viewed

Nakajima’s conclusion stems from the finding that when it was only the eyes of the pair about 80% of the participants continued to correctly identify the dog owner pair. Yet when the eyes were hidden from participants they could only correctly identify pairs with 50% accuracy. The 50% accuracy showed Nakajima that without participants seeing the eyes of the dogs or owners a correct identification was up to chance.  Nakajima’s believes it is the characteristics of the eyes, such as their structure, color, size and amount of movement that cause dog-to-owner

I feel that Nakajima’s study design was well thought out, especially with the addition of 4 modifications to the study. Although even with the modifications it is hard for me to believe that it is the eye region that connects dogs and their humans. I feel this way because features such as a person’s hair, head size, and nose are more distinguishable on a face, to me, than a person’s eyes. A topic often brought up in class is how a variable effects men and women differently. Nakajima’s study states 502 participants, never deciphering if there was a difference in results from men and women. What a gender looks more carefully in a face for could be different, and Nakajima never acknowledged that.

Other studies done by Christina Payne and Klaus Jaffe of Simon Bolivar University and Michael M. Roy and Nicholas J.S Christenfeld of University of California, San Diego in the early 2000s had similar hypotheses to Nakajima and conducted much smaller, corresponding studies that resulted in complementary results. Payne and Jaffe asked their participants to pair six sets of pictures of a dog with its owner. Participants were “more accurate than could be ascribed to chance.”  Roy and Christenfeld had participants determine a dog owner pair by showing them pictures of 45 dog owners, for every dog owner the participant had to determine which of two dogs shown to him belonged to the owner.

Nakajima believes that “if future studies reveal more about what features of the eyes play major roles in perceived similarity, such knowledge could shed light on why dogs and owners look alike.” I believe future studies should focus on the concept of learned behaviors of dogs from their owners and vice versa. Do these behaviors effect the relationship of the pair?  A possible study design to eliminate uncertainty like Nakajima’s study left me with would be a correlational study done over the dog’s life span with the owner.  The study would be observing the amount of time the dog owner pair spent together, and similar emotions felt by the pair. The more similar their emotions are over time would show how their behaviors have changed, or not, through being together. A study should also consider how the owner perceives themselves, and their looks and if that correlates to the bread, size, color and shape of the dog they .

It is probable that other factors result in the similarities I saw in my Grandma and Maggie then just the characteristics of their eyes. Although multiple studies attest to the importance of the eye region.

I will forever be annoyed by the high squeals, quick dodges and feverish jumps of my peers, elders and the youthful when their eyes meet a spider. I will confess that some of them are quite alarming with their long legs and strange hairiness when they confront you, but I have never been the type to run or cry when I encounter a spider. Why is it so common that people have arachnophobia compared to any other creepy crawler? Especially when spiders present no large possibility of harming someone.

Automatically I assumed it was a personal thing among people. Something tragic happened as a child and now you can’t kill a spider, classic! But no. Instead “spiders are an evolutionary-persistent ancestral hazard that humans are especially attuned to”. Consider your ancestors, “during the early evolutionary phases of humans in Africa” lived amongst deadly venomous spiders. Widow spiders, Tarantulas, and Sicariidae had the ability to both kill and immobilize a person for many days or weeks which could essentially lead to death. Spiders created such a deep fear that it was “eventually embedded at a genetic level.” People developed a critical awareness to spiders that was necessary for survival. Only the most alert of the danger were able to survive and evolve.

This idea that arachnophobia is genetic was tested by scientist Joshua New at Barnard University using 252 volunteers. They were asked to examine which line of a cross was longer on a computer screen. For milliseconds the scientists would have objects appear on the screen that were “modern threats, fear irrelevant and ancestral hazards”. Even when the image of the spider was distorted over half the participants were able to identify what it was and where it had appear on the screen. Less than 15% of participants noticed that modern threats and irrelevant fears had appeared on the screen. This study exemplifies how aware humans are to spiders, even when placed next to modern threats like needles that is associated with pain and anxiety.

Say Dr. New is full of nonsense. The possibility that a person has been socially conditioned to have arachnophobia is highly likely. As a child your mother could have run, screamed and jumped on a table at the sight of the spider and through that you were taught an emotional response to dealing with spiders. Also through personal experiences can a person develop arachnophobia. It is said that during your life time you will eat more than a couple spiders during the night. If a person happened to wake up during this occurrence it would be a traumatic experience and this person is likely to develop a large fear of spiders.

Whether this fear is deeply rooted in ones genetics or personally learned it is hard to deny spiders are really hard to look at

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In my beautiful 4 by 4 dorm room sits my bed, laying higher to the ceiling than the floor so my massive amounts of stuff can fit perfectly under. My bed risers have made it so that as I sit at my desk and do homework I look up to my comforter which contains a plethora of blues, purples, yellows, oranges and pinks.  In my 3 weeks of school I have made the executive decision I only like the blue half, and even devoted the energy to turning my comforter so I no longer had to stare at that horrid yellowy pink side.  This whole ordeal lead me to consider why individuals have color preferences, and how we let them shape our lives.

Back at home sits a 2001 forest green Toyota Sienna, so a 15 year old minivan, just waiting for me to buckle up behind the wheel again. Do I like the color? No, but that has no effect on the efficiency gas mileage or safety rating of the car. All of these factors still didn’t stop 16 year old me from demanding I get a different car, no way would I be a forest on wheels. This was because “color preference is a deeply rooted emotional responses that seem to lack any rational basis, yet the power influence of color rules our choices.” (Fields)

These preferences could come from evolution.  Drawin’s theory of survival of the fittest suggests one lives a happy, healthy life style it increases their standard of living. Going outdoors, seeing the bright blue shinning sky “indicates calm weather, which might explain why blue tends to be a favored color across cultures” (Sohn).  Yet consider the trashcan of your throwing up roommate in the middle of the night, or the restroom stall that despite it being an all-girls bathroom someone still failed to flush. Theses yellowish, brownish, oranges universally have little preference.

Karen Schloss and Stephen Palmer graduate students at the University of California looked deeper into the varying color preference trends of individuals by showing participants both red and green pictures that would either appeal or distaste someone. The photos that appealed to the participants ultimately preferred that photos color (Sohn).

In another study produced by the University of California they found that social affiliations such as your schools colors or favorite sporting teams often lead those certain students to prefer the blue and white of Penn State or red and white of Temple.  Color preference is another way of distinguishing individuals socially. Further studies and high school students may be able to eliminate classification of their peers by where they sit in the lunch room (Sohn).

Sohn, Emily. “Color Preferences Determined by Experience : DNews.”DNew. Discovery Communications, 1 Oct. 2010. Web. 17 Sept. 2015

Fields, Douglas. “Why We Prefer Certain Colors.” Psychology Today. N.p., 1 Apr. 2011. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.

Manav, Banu. “Color Research & ApplicationVolume 32, Issue 2, Article First Published Online: 26 FEB 2007.” Color-emotion Associations and Color Preferences: A Case Study for Residences. Istanbul Ku¨ltu¨r University, 27 July 2006. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.

As I trudge through the first weeks of my freshman year I find myself tired, distracted and completely unmotivated, which is a shame being how much my parents are paying for me to go here. It’s hard not to think back to high school when I could do it all, endless club meetings before school then a sport after school for every season. Yet somehow I still managed to get great grades, have a life and be in bed by 11:30 for a respectable 7 hours of sleep.

I decided to look further into my daily production levels in search of a self-diagnosis for my lack of motivation. Sunday evenings are devoted to THON, Monday’s I have soccer, and Tuesday is CommRadio with the rest of the week free for myself.  From my observational study I discovered that I can produce work at such a faster pace with a completely advanced quality on nights that I am forced to allocate my time. Wednesday and Thursday go at a completely different pace. My Netflix rate of press to watch next episode increases, I do little to no work with the classic mindset that Sunday has more hours than the rest of the week, and go to bed in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason at all, let alone a good one.  Yet, what has never made sense to me was the correlation between a student’s productivity and the amount of time their allotted.

It seems I am not the only student that strives under the pressure of school and extracurricular activities.  Starting with student’s first real involvement at the middle school level they learn the proper behavior. Sports and distinguished clubs require practiced discipline and responsibility (Massoni, Erin 2011). When achieving success through four touchdowns or the comeback to win Quiz Bowl answer, students develop a sense of pride and self confidence that you can’t quite feel in the classroom. “Participation in school activities, especially athletics, leads to higher self-esteem and enhanced status among peers, which some argue is deterrent to antisocial behavior.” (Brown, M.D., 2000)

There is no scientific grounding to the correlation between student’s academic successes and their extracurriculars. Although the Total Extracurricular Activity Participation (TEAP) and The Developmental Model researchers have found that “by teaching characteristics, such as a strong work ethic, respect for authority, and perseverance, sports participation develops skills that are consistent with educational values and this help students succeed”().

Although for many students the pressures from school, sports, clubs, college admission and future employers is far too much to handle. There are constantly growing expectations of students to be perfect to attend top tier universities or land sublime internships to lead to the splendid job you have worked tirelessly for. There is believed to be the proper rigorous class schedules, necessary standardized test average and perfect friends and social life. These burdens leave students with both anxiety and depression.  The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA conducted The American Freshman: National Norms in the fall of 2014. Through their study of over 150,000 freshman students nationwide 9.5% had developed feelings of depression and anxiety from the 6.1% reported in 2009 (Eagan).

Is it that these students cannot keep up with how our world is changing, utilizing technology, and the latest social demands? Or have they not found that through involvement comes time management, success and pride? I am working to become as involved as possible… to share with my parents that their working till age 77 will be completely worth it, and so I can achieve my goals, go to bed on time and have fun while doing so.

Bibliography

Broh, Beckett A. “Linking Extracurricular Programming to Academic Achievement: Who Benefits and Why?” Sociology of Education. Vol. 75. N.p.: American Sociological Association, 2002. 69-72. Print.

Brown, M. D. (2000). Science or soccer? — how important are extracurricular activities?

Eagan, Kevin. “The American Freshman: National Norms Fall COOPERATIVE INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH PR 2014OGRAM Cirp at the HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT UCLA.” The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2014 (n.d.): n. pag. COOPERATIVE INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH PROGRAM at the HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT UCLA. Web.

Massoni, Erin (2011) “Positive Effects of Extra Curricular Activities on Students,” ESSAI: Vol. 9, Article 27.

Schwarz, Alan. “Survey Finds Many New College Students Feel Overwhelmed.” The Seattle Times. The Seattle Times Company, 04 Feb. 2015. Web. 09 Sept. 2015.