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It’s the most annoying thing in the world. No questions asked. The worst. Having a song stuck in your head all day, probably not even a song you like! Probably just one line or even tune from a song. But why? Why does a song get stuck in our head and it feels impossible to get rid of it till the next annoying song comes through.

This article articulates how and why songs get stuck in our heads, and really there’s no reason. Great. It goes on to describe that really the reason we get a song stuck in our head is because we recognize the song and probably find the tune catchy enough for us to want to keep singing it, even if we can’t hear it.

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A song may be more likely to get stuck in your head if it was a childhood song you heard a lot. According to this article, it can my psychological. Hearing certain songs can trigger memories and emotions and cause the song to get stuck in your head. Further in the article it talks about how there can be treatments to ‘ear worms’. You can try by singing other songs with different tunes and that could potentially flush out the original song, but then you run the risk of getting the new song stuck in your head. Also light exercise or mind stimulating activities like puzzles could help.

Whether it’s a song you love or hate we’ve all been there. From the research done by experts, we get songs stuck in our head because of exposure and rhythm in our mind, and there isn’t really a ‘cure’ to it other than learning to distract yourself from it.

Every person probably knows someone who has an addiction to something. Whether it be caffeine to drugs, addiction has a wide variety. But why do some people get addicted to things so much more than others? Is it because there is a biological reason causing  a person to have a tendency to get addicted easily, is it innate in them? And if it is why do some people not get addicted to anything at all? Do they not have addictive traits or are they just more resistant to it.

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In this article it discusses how some people believe addiction is a disease that people are born with. Some experts believe it is a chemical within you that causes that addiction and it can be ‘triggered’ when the addiction behavior is first started. Other experts believe addictions form because of their environment. It poses the question of nurture vs. nature. Whether we are born with an addictive trait or we develop it because of our surroundings. This still has experts arguing over which is correct, which in turn causes a delay in finding treatments for addiction. It is also argued some addictions can be from psychological issues, which kind of goes with the nature vs. nature question.

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Furthermore, mentioned in this article is how addiction can be peoples outlet to experience more in life, like an adrenaline rush, but then end up getting addicted to what they are doing. They continue doing these bad habits because it gives them a sense of purpose, but almost always the habit is harmful towards them and by the time the harm sets in the addiction is already far under way.

Addiction can stem from all different types of sources and can come in all different forms. Whether you’re addicting to washing your hands or addicted to shooting heroin, experts are still arguing why it might affect people is certain ways.

Sitting in class listening to our great foreign instructor, Andrew Read, give his lecture I wondered why we all have accents and what makes them. Obviously it’s because of the areas where we are native from and thats exactly my point, why does living in different areas cause everyone to sound different in speaking. Yes, someone might have an accent because they aren’t speaking their first language, but what about British accents compared to American accents? Both countries are known for speaking english so why is there an accent barrier between us? And that question stands for all countries. Even within our own country we have multiple different types of accents, but why?

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Reading in this article it goes in depth about what makes an accent an accent. You form whatever accent you have from your parents teaching you to speak. Based on your ethnicity and where you are living globally has a big impact on your accent. For example, in the article it states that people from Boston have very recognizable accents because of the deep Irish influence that lives there. The Boston accent is then born from a mixture of the Irish people living there and the American accent they are living around. Also with what language they speak influences their “foreign” accent. Germans have very specific sounds in their language that english speaking people don’t have at all in their language. Therefore, when they try and speak anything other than German, they sound like they have an accent, and vice versa for english speaking people.

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Really it just depends on where you grew up and how the people around you speak, which causes you to speak the same. It’s due to your dialect and how you pronounce things. Growing up in the Philadelphia area I always pronounced the word ‘water’ as ‘wudder’ and never thought anything of it till I realized that’s really only a Philly thing to say. There was always that myth that Australians got their accents from drunken British people, when in reality it was just all the mixtures of British accents coming together into one.

Isn’t it weird how society sometimes sympathizes for a criminal when they’re better looking than others? Why are we more inclined to trust someone if we find them attractive? I like to think I don’t judge people by looks but sometimes I find myself thinking differently even if I don’t actually believe it.

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In this article it talks about how attractive people in the public are trusted much more highly than others. They’re held at a higher standard than regular citizens and with that comes responsibility as well. If they disappoint and turn out to be not as trusting as everyone assumed then they let everyone down that much more. Finding people who are attractive more trustworthy is apparently an inherent trait that people have and it might be due to the fact that we think if you’re attractive you are better off socially and financially so it makes that person more appealing towards us.

Conversely, in a separate article it argues that now it is more “average” looking people who are trusted higher than above average attractive people. The article explains how the more familiar a face looks to you the more likely you are to trust it. This mainly applies to culture references, because if you are surrounded by your own culture and people who have similar resemblances you are likely to trust them more. In return, when people find someone very attractive they don’t take into account their trustworthiness because they don’t view them to be on the same “level” as them.

Whether you choose to believe either articles research, there’s no denying people do trust more attractive people, take Ted Bundy for example. He was a violent serial killer of women in the 1980’s. His main way at attracting his victims was to just go up and talk to lone women on the street asking for their help, and because he was so attractive and nice, the women would trust him and comply. Bundy was aware of his affect on women with his good looks and used it to his advantage. This is why everyone has to be aware of “stranger danger” no matter how attractive and trustworthy you might find someone.

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We’ve all been there. Knowing an assignment isn’t due for another few weeks, and although we could get it done and out of the way before hand, we decide to wait till the last minute to really stress ourselves out. But why do we do that? Why put ourselves through the stress of cramming work in when we could’ve just done it when assigned? It’s been a problem people have always struggled with. So my question was is it due to just pure laziness or is there something psychological that causes procrastination in people?

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In this article, a study is described of students who are broken into two groups and one group is told they will do a mathematical puzzle at the end of the their time and the other group would do a fun puzzle. While they waited, both groups were offered to either practice for the puzzle or just play games. The group of students who were considered procrastinators chose not to practice for the mathematical puzzle. This lead the scientists to believe that procrastinators choose to put off work when it is important so if they fail it is because they didn’t try hard enough, not because they weren’t smart enough. Scientists believe it could be a type of coping mechanism to excuse a bad grade to make ourselves feel less stupid. Also in that article, it mentions how people who procrastinate are more likely do to worse on their assignments and suffer more stress and illness.

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Similarly, in this article it states several different excuses procrastinators might use for reasons to not immediately get done their work. Specifically in point three it discusses how the excuse of not being able to perform well and because of that mind set someone puts off their work.

Overall, a big part of people possibly being a procrastinator could be because they feel they aren’t adequate enough to get a good grade so they put it off and are able to use the excuse of not putting in effort. This doesn’t mean to say that laziness can’t contribute to people procrastinating, some people are just genuinely not interested in work and decide to wait till the last moments to actually do work.

Hey everyone! My name is Devon Green and I’m a freshmen in the Division of Undergraduate Studies hoping to major in something in business. I am from a small town 10 minutes outside of Philadelphia, PA. In high school I hated the science courses other than chemistry and that’s mostly because of my amazing chemistry teacher. I knew when deciding what type of major I wanted science was definitely not an option. At orientation when I was scheduling my classes the advisor recommended this class and after reading the description it caught my interest. It sounded more like a psychology class than science. I liked the idea of teaching a science class to a group of students who didn’t plan on majoring in science.I see myself really enjoying this class in the future because I appreciate when teachers make you think conceptually instead of standardly reading the textbook.

Like I mentioned I’m from around Philly so I love going to concerts there and finding cool places to eat and hangout. If you ever find yourself in Philly looking for somewhere to eat and you enjoy sushi I highly recommend the Hai Street Kitchen. They make the best sushi burritos you’ll ever have.