The Effects of Spongebob

Recently, I was scrolling through my newsfeed when an article caught my eye. It was about the detrimental effects of the kid's show Spongebob, and I immediately thought it would be a great tie-in to the things we have been learning in class. The article stated that in a study, it was found that children who watched Spongebob scored much lower on mental function tests than two other groups of kids who had watched Caillou or had colored. The study concluded that fast-paced kid shows like Spongebob can lead to long term attention difficulties and learning problems in children. ( Initially, these findings didn't surprise me, but then again, that's hindsight bias.)
However, upon looking more closely at this article, it became evident that this research was not conducted entirely properly. Even though the children were randomly assigned to three groups (Spongebob, Caillou, and coloring), there wasn't a "completely control" control group- all of the kids were engaging in stimulating activities of some kind, and they were not given mental functioning tests before they engaged in their activities. Also, the study had only 60 kids in it, which is not large enough to be a representative sample of the tested population. The kids in the study were also all 4 years old, and the TV show Spongebob is officially geared toward 6-11 year olds. So, saying that this show causes attention problems in kids is slightly biased because the test subjects were not the age of an average Spongebob viewer. The tested kids were all from similar backgrounds and families, again showing how all the variables in this research were not isolated. The experiment was not repeated after this one test. The show Spongebob is not the only fast paced children's program, and the conclusions of this study seem to say that this show in particular causes these problems, when in reality other studies have been done on fast-paced children's programs, and similar results have been found. In order for this study to be correctly conducted, there should be a random and representative sample from children aged 6-11 to draw more accurate conclusions about this show,the kids should be tested beforehand, and the experiment should be repeated.

Ethics... Or are they?

When performing an experiment there are certain rules that follow the ethic code before and during the experiment.  You have to get consent, cause the the people no harm or pain and debrief them after about what you just did. But is this just a random set of rules? Do they actually help? To psychologist actually follow it or try to get around it?
You have to get consent. Every-time I buy something, fill something out or participate in something on line there always that little box to check. It says check her if you agree to are terms and services. The few times that I actually open to see the term I quickly exited the tap as soon as I saw the 10 pages of tiny words. Aint no body come time for dat! Countless of times I just check of that box with out looking to see what the terms and conditions are. Is that consent? If it says there that they can use my information legally I gave them permission but in reality I didn't. In reality I can be checking that that someone has the right to sleep in my house whenever they want and I wouldn't even know. But is that fair? I don't think so If its the same kind consent used by experiments then that should not be legal. There should be a minimum of how many words can be in those consent forms in order to insure that people are reading it and not just signing it.
Do not cause harm or pain to someone. While doing an experiment many times you don't know the reactions of people. You have no idea what kind of damage you can do to a person. By giving someone a placebo during an experiment can cause that person to not get better! That is causing harm. Most things you are trying is an experiment you don't know the outcome that why your trying it out. If you don't know the outcome then there is no way of knowing that you wont cause harm. You may hurt someone mentally and it will only effect them years after but it still because of the experiment. I think there needs to be a more details then just don't cause harm or pain. There should be specific rules to what type of experiments can be used on people or not.
Debrief the people you just experienced on. This is the only one that I see how if the researcher is a honest person he cant mess up. But its not good enough just to debrief must follow the other procedures as well. They have to make sure to be honest with the people and then debriefing is a great rule.
Ethics are important but complex. While putting on an experiment you have to follow rules. They are important and should be followed. Hopefully they will be even better in the near future.

Cherish It

Man, I miss this class. Best class ever. Cherish every moment you spend in it.

The Physics of Intelligence

The Physics of Intelligence 

Can We Get Any Smarter? 

Title,caption, and ideas come from the July 2011 edition of Scientific American

I wasn't sure that there was anything new and bloggable that happened this past week in class (we mostly just wrapped up the chapter, but nothing that exciting was going on at the end of little old chapter 2), and whatever could have been blogged about was already blogged about. So here I am at 11 something wondering to myself, "What to blog?.." Lucky for me, on Yom Kippur I happened to read (okay, skim) a very interesting article in the Scientific American that has to do with the brain (which happens to be chapter 3! How very timely, Rachel!). Since I had already read the first few units of Chapter 3 I was actually able to understand what was going on- it was really quite exciting. Let me share with you all some insights I learned.

According to this article, humans may be reaching the peak of their evolutionary limit of smartness. As I will go into more detail shortly, there is much evidence that suggests that any tweaks that could be made to potentially make us smarter would hit limits set by the laws of physics (and, therefore, we wouldn't actually be getting smarter because other factors would be slowing down the process). 
It is possible that humans may achieve higher intelligence collectively. That is to say, even if our brains are finished growing evolutionary, our minds can still be expanded outside the confounds of our bodies as we continue to know more and learn more.  
Now... Why We Probably Cannot Get Much Smarter:
Right now our current brain is in great condition...maybe it's even in the best condition it can be. What would happen if we made some tweaks? 
Tweak: Increase Brain size: enlarging size by adding more neurons (remember what these guys are?) increases processing capacity. Trade-offs: Neurons consume a lot of energy. As the brain gets bigger, the axons (another vocab word!) that connect neurons have to become longer.. which will SLOW PROCESSING DOWN. So- is increasing brain size worth it? It slows down processing and costs too much energy.
Tweak: Increase Interconnectedness: Adding more links between distant neurons enables brain parts to communicate faster. Trade offs: The added wiring EATS UP ENERGY (it also takes up space.. just sayin). 
Tweak: Increase Signaling Speed: Could be achieved by making axons thicker. Trade-offs: thicker axons consume more ENERGY and take up more SPACE. 
Tweak: Pack more neurons into the existing space: Shrink neurons, axons, or both. Trade off: If axons or neurons get too small, they tend to fire randomly and SIGNALING GETS TOO NOISY. 

I can't wait to learn more about the brain in class coming up soon. But in the meantime, what do you guys think? 
Thought questions:

• Do you think that we've reached our evolutionary limit, or that our brains can still develop?
• Which of the above tweaks sounds best to you?
• Did you remember any of this stuff from the review?

Don't forget: Neurons are nerve cells and are the basic building blocks of the nervous system.Signals are sent through axons and received through dendrites. 

To be honest here, the whole statistics thing really does not excite me. Quite frankly, anything that involves numbers and calculations make me want to hide in the bathroom and cry. So, I found something that sparked my interest and has nothing to do with mathematical calculations. That is the Hawthorne Effect.

The Hawthorne effect occurs when people work harder and perform better when they know they are being watched as participants in an experiment. The subjects of the experiment may change their behavior when they know they are under surveillance, therefore skewing the results of the experiment. When this occurs, the results of the experiment do not truly convey honest information. Data may come as a result of being watched rather than a result of the manipulated variable.

The Hawthorne effect was first realized during a Harvard University experiment. Researchers were studying the effects of light on worker productivity, and found that the subjects of the experiment worked harder and were more productive because they knew they were being watched by others. The results came from the attention of the researchers rather than the independent variable. Super interesting stuff going on over here. It pretty much speaks to human nature...

P.S. I had a moment today when I realized I'm becoming the hindsight bias police. My dad was telling me that one of his coworkers asked him a technical question about a computer he was working on. My dad gave him the answer, and he was all like "Oh yeah, that's what I thought it was in the first place." Well  then, why did you ask in the first place? HINDSIGHT BIAS!!!!! Yeah, I'm that person.

It's All In Your Mind

The Placebo effect and the Hawthorne effect have been in our lives forever. When we were babies to toddlers our mommies would give us a kiss to make it all better when we got a boo boo. As we grew older, we grew out of the kiss to make it better. It moved on to if you lay down the pain will go away. Then it became medicine makes it better. We believed all these things as we grew up. The kiss made the boo boo stop hurting. Laying down made the headache go away. Medicine, was a gift that could fix our problems.

I think that the Hawthorne effect shows up a lot in school. We say what we think our teachers want us to say. We try and push ourselves to the breaking point to live up to what our parents expect of us. As teenagers, we have to be what others expect us to be. We never get the chance to fully express ourselves, because we're so busy living up to others' expectations of us. We change the way we act because people watch us to see if we're doing the right thing.

A lot of times, when I get scared or something hurts, I get told that it's all in my head. You are just making yourself scared. You are making yourself be sick. Being told this actually gets frustrating after a while. Once you get told it's all in your head enough times, it actually becomes something to be all in your head. You start thinking more actually causing yourself to be scared and in pain. because you've always been told that it's just in your head. I think it's not that good to tell us it's in our heads, because we'll actually believe it at some point.

Smarticle Particles

           So, we have finished another tree-killing packet (just saying most of blogs will probably begin like this) and we have entered into more exciting waters of psychology. While learning about all different types of research that don't give conclusions was fun, I was more interested in experimentation. Apparently, there are all sorts of factors that have to be taken for consideration when doing experiments. The most important thing to do when experimenting is to have an experimental group and a control group. These two groups are highly effective when trying to study the effects of something, such as medicine or social situations. The experimental group gets the experiment and the control group gets the placebo. But what is a placebo?

            I actually learned what a placebo was on September 11, 2009 (weird how that was only a few days ago, except not in 2009, obviously) when The Suite Life on Deck came out with an episode called "Smarticle Particles". And yes I did look that up, I am not a Suite Life on Deck expert. In this episode, for those who don't know, Cody bets Bailey that she won't be able to help London get a B on a test. Bailey takes the bet and decides to use the placebo effect on London, pretending that her perfume makes her smarter. This does not end up working, and London gets a C+, but in the end, its the "Special Smart Lipstick" that helps London get a B+.

            When I found out that we would be learning about the placebo effect in this class, I immediately remembered watching this episode. It is a perfect example of the placebo effect. The actual definition of placebo is "a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient," which is a bunch of words that means just thinking that you are being given help can actually help you. To me, this is one of the most fascinating things about the brain and hopefully we'll be able to go into more depth about why and how it occurs later on.

Dolly the Sheep

Perhaps you have heard of Dolly the Scottish Sheep? Well, Dolly was no ordinary sheep. Bred through the mating of an ewe and a ram, she was a clone, an identical replica of her "mother,"a six-year-old female sheep. Now, you may ask how Dolly was created. Dolly was created by Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, and his colleagues in July 1996. This image may help you understand how she was produced:

Essentially, the researchers used a cell taken from the udder (mammary gland) of a six-year-old sheep in the final stage of her pregnancy. The researchers fused the adult udder with an oocyte that was ready to be fertilized from another sheep. Prior to the fusion, the scientists had removed the nucleus from the oocyte and used an electrical current to combine it with the udder. The key to creating Dolly was keeping the nucleus "silent" so that it stopped behaving like an udder cell and could be reprogrammed to become an embryo. After all this was done, Dolly was born!

Wilmut and his collaborators created Dolly because they were trying to find ways to produce livestock that carried specific genetic traits. Two biotechnology companies funded the research. One, called PPL Therapeutics, was trying to find ways to produce animals that carried certain proteins in their milk. Their theory was that if researchers could develop animals with certain desirable characteristics, they could then clone those animals to produce entire herds that possess the same traits. 

Although Dolly was euthanized due to progressive lung disease and severe arthritis in February 2012, she remains an international phenomenon and legacy. After the success of Dolly, many other large mammals were cloned, including horses and bulls. 

The question that now arises is: how was Wilmut initially permitted to experiment on Dolly, and broadened to a larger perspective, how can experimenters be allowed to experiment on humans? Well, question no longer! The APA (American Psychological Association) has established a set of laws and guidelines that serve to maintain protect human and animal rights in research. 

If wanting to experiment on humans, the experimenter must do the following: 1) obtain informed consent from all participants 2) protect all participants from harm 3) maintain confidentially 4) debrief all the participants after the experiments about what was done, so they are completely informed of what they were involved in. This is especially necessary if deception was used in the experiment.

If wanting to experiment on animals, such as Dolly, there are a set of less stringent, yet still mandatory guidelines that must be followed. An experimenter must protect the animal from harm and the laboratory used must meet certain standards, and is constantly inspected. 

At universities, Institutional Review Boards screen research proposals for experimentation. These guidelines help maintain the ethics in research needed to experiment. 

P.S. If anyone feels compelled to read more about Dolly, please feel free to read this super swell, very informative article:

http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesTopicsGenetics/BC5086E34E4DBA0085256CCD006F01CB

The Placebo Effect

This week in class, we learned about the different types of observation and experimentation. These methods are the basis of all scientific study. Experimentation is the only method of scientific manipulation that can help determine whether one variable causes another. Observation merely observes and documents what naturally happens. In experimentation, the researchers control for as many variables as possible. They leave one variable as the independent variable and manipulate it in order to record what happens to the dependent variable. Additionally, when subjects are selected to take part in the experiment, they are divided into two groups: the experimental group and the control group. The control group is the group used to measure the norms for the dependent variable when the independent variable is not manipulated. The experimental group is the group in which the experiment actually happens; the independent variable is manipulated and the dependent variable is effected. This split is done randomly, also known as random assignment. Random assignment is done so as to eliminate the influence of any confounding variables, such as age, gender, IQ, socio-economic status, and race. Once this is done, the experiment can be administered.

We also learned in class that experimenter bias can have a huge impact on the outcome of the experiment. If the experimenter told the people in the control group to drink their water, the control group would know that they're not receiving the vodka and be confused. If the experimenter told the experimental group to drink the vodka, then the experimental group would try to guess what the experimenters want to see and act accordingly. This is called demand characteristic. To prevent any of this confusion, experiments are conducted using the double-blind method. In the vodka-water experiment, both groups would receive covered cups so that they would not be able to tell which substance they would be drinking. Furthermore, the water would be laced with vodka so that it at least smelled like the real drink. Most importantly, the experimenters don't know what substance they are giving to the people and cannot subconsciously influence how the people act. Double-blind is the ideal method, although single-blind (method) procedures are conducted. In single-blinds, the researcher knows what he's giving but the subject doesn't know what he/she is receiving.

Hypothetically, what would happen if a researcher told a person in the control group that, "this medicine works wonders?" The person would immediately think that they are part of the experimental group and alter their behavior so that it seems like the medicine is working. Their behavior might change, but their bodies might react to simply thinking that the medicine is working. It has been scientifically proven that thinking you are receiving a substance will make your body react to the phantom substance. How cool is that? Naturally, this often skews the control group's results, so it has to be eliminated as a confounding variable. By the way, this is called the placebo effect.

If anyone has ever seen "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and watched the first Quidditch match, you will know that Harry used the placebo effect on Ron. Ron was nervous and didn't even want to play the game. Harry pretended to slip some Felix Felicis (liquid luck potion) into Ron's pumpkin juice. Once Ron thought he had drunk the potion, he acted as if he had. When Hermione, who also thought that Harry had slipped the potion into Ron's drink, confronted him about the illegality of his actions, Harry showed her that he had only pretended to add the potion.

I find it amazing that the human mind can be capable of this. Just thinking that you have done something that will help your performance is enough to make your performance as good as it would have been had you taken the substance. Fascinating. Since our study of AP Psychology is still in its infancy, I look forward to more fascinating truths about how the brain works.

Here's the video link in case anyone was interested. Funny enough, the top comment reads, "Power of PLACEBO."

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0BUXUXceHQ

Yay. Chapter 2!

Mrs. Perl. I'm not going to lie. I'm looking at these notes I have on statistics and they just don't provide me with any inspiration for a solid blog post. I'm not sure how many exciting things I can say about standard deviation, descriptive statistics, or a central tendency. And what about ethics? There's certainly nothing fun about ethics. So, lets jump around a bit.

First, I never actually mentioned anything about the bio-psycho-social analysis even though we didn't focus on that this week. In my defense, though, it was covered on a test that we DID take this week. Basically, this type of analysis consists of analyzing a situation from the biological, psychological, and social perspectives--not just one. You can't just look at an eating disorder and claim it was only caused due to social pressure. You also must look at psychological aspects or see if it was caused by depression or something that has to do with their biology. You have to look at the big picture.
In Government last year we learned about something called the political schema. This means that everyone has a foundation of information in their head that directs new information and determines how they will process it. For instance, a republican will process all information very differently than a democrat would. It could be the same exact piece of information but their opinions and already acquired knowledge will determine how they will process the new information. What I'm getting to is that in politics, although they talk a lot about seeing the big picture, that doesn't happen much because their political schema just takes over.

Okay, now let's talk chapter 2.
I just want to get one thing out of the way first. When we were talking about placebos I kept thinking about this House episode that I watched. Dr. House is on a plane and someone gets really sick. While this person is experiencing all these weird symptoms, all the other passengers are freaking out. House stands up and starts talking about how dangerous this disease is and how contagious it can be. He then starts listing symptoms of this disease and says that if anyone starts experiencing them to notify him because their lives could be at serious risk. He names symptoms like your hands will begin to shake or you'll get dizzy..stuff like that. Anyway, people all start to freak out and tell him that they're feeling dizzy and that they're hands are shaking. House then tells them that none of those are real symptoms and its all psychological (or caused by anxiety).

Well, chapter 2. How exciting. Correlation does not prove causation. You must be careful of your word choice when creating a survey. A case study studies one person in depth. Experiments do not mimic real life. You must control for all confounding variables. If this blog were an experiment to see how long you could read this for without getting bored if you had a lollipop in your hand. Then I would randomly assign a random sample into a control group and an experimental group. Only the experimental group would get a lollipop. Both groups would have to read this blog. The independent factor would be the lollipop holding while the dependent factor would be how long they were able to read this for without getting bored. You could even operationalize this experiment by asking the participant every paragraph how bored they are on a scale from 1-5.

Well, that's my reflection of the past week of psych studyin'.
Have a lovely holiday.

The Recent Past

A lot of what we have talked about in the past week or two in Chapter 2 has been very relevent to my life and mom's life in the past year or so. A year ago my mom decided to take part in a weight loss study.

The study itself was one where they would put a balloon in the subjects' stomaches hoping that it would take up room in the stomach causing the subject to get full faster and not eat as much, thus, lose weight. The thing that really stood out to me about this study in the beginning was when my mom told me that it was a double blind study/experiment. I asked her what that meant and when we learned about it in this chapter it made a whole lot more sense.

She went in on the morning of Sukkot eve last year for the surgery. She had no idea whether or not she would get the balloon because in a double blind study she or the person giving her the information doesn't know. She came home from the hospital with a horrible headache and nausea and I immediately thought, well, she must have the balloon if she is this sick.

Every month for 6 months she would go to the doctor and get weighed in. The pounds were shedding away, but she always lived with the mystery of "do I have the balloon, or don't I?" She could after all have the placebo. Since they didn't know which participants were getting the balloon in the first, they still put them under for a little while to act like some of the subjects were getting it which acted as the placebo. So who knew she could have thought it was there.

In the end, the balloon was indeed in her stomach and she is now a living example of how this study helped people lose weight.

Statistics

Reading and learning about statistical significance pointed out things that many of us would say "well duh, that makes sense" (perhaps hindsight bias?), but things that many of us overlook every day.
Often times I hear about research results and statistics and think that they have to be correct, but after reading this chapter I know that's not necessarily so. It's very easy to make things look like they are something when they are in fact not.

Things like standard deviation help us accurately present and understand results. Sometimes when you have data with many numbers and you have a few high numbers, the overall average is affected. However, with standard deviation we can see how the scores vary around the mean (average). This will help us more accurately read the results.

Another measurement that helps us is statistical significance. Often times in our experiments, despite controlling confounding variables and getting results that make it appear to be that one thing caused another, things can be due to chance. Statistical significance helps gives us a picture of how likely it is that the results occurred by chance. If it is less than 5%, the results are considered to have statistical significance.

I think these things are important for all of us to keep in mind while we surf the internet. There are often articles and websites that show statistics that don't accurately portray reality. We must be very careful and hesitant to believe everything that we read.

Ethics in Research

The APA (American Psychological Investigation) has a strict set of rules involving the ethics of doing research/experiments/testing on people. They require that:

1. All participants must sign consent, and be informed about the nature of the experiment. If the participant is a minor the parent must sign the consent.
2. The experimenter must provide protection from any harm that could possibly happen to a participant.
3. There is complete confidentiality.
4. An experimenter absolutely must debrief participants after the experiment. This means telling the participants exactly what you did while conducting this experiment. It is especially important if the experiment is a double-blind or single-blind procedure.

Clearly psychologists and researchers must take extreme measures in ensuring that their experiments are ethical. It's also important to note that these guidelines are just a basic summary. If you visit the APA website and find the code of ethics, you will see just how lengthy and in depth it really is. 

So we understand the importance of the ethical treatment of humans in experiments. But what about animals? Do they have just as strict guidelines? Are they equally protected? A few years ago I added myself to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) email list. I think it's safe to say that this was possibly the biggest mistake of my entire life. Almost every single day I receive a heart-wrenching email about animals in awful, unthinkable situations, whether it be horse slaughter (please, no!), farm workers drop-kicking little piglets (BUT WHHHHY), and the dreaded topic of puppy mills (brb, gonna go cry for days.) The most recent email contained this horrific message: "When I arrived here, I was devastated. Dogs were sharing a cage with the decomposing bodies of their dead brothers and sisters. One dog may have severed his leg on the cage's wire flooring and was left untreated. Many had seemingly never even seen daylight."  Okay, Lily, why did you just do that to yourself? You knew it wouldn't be good... I never open these emails. The subject line says enough for me. 

It is clear that organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States, and the even more (in)famous organization, PETA, are concerned with how animals are treated. Just a few months ago I received an email from the HSUS urging that I call my US Representative and voice my disappointment at the proposed "King Amendment," which, if passed, could repeal many animal protection laws on farm animal confinement, horse slaughter, puppy mills, shark finning, and more. So what exactly are the guidelines for the treatment of animals used in psychological experimentation?

The APA not only has a code of ethics for humans, but a strict code of ethics for animals as well. First, the APA requires taking multiples steps in ensuring that the research is justified. All non-animal options must be considered, the experiment must be approved by an animal care committee, and the scientific purpose of the experiment must be of sufficient significance. Animals must be cared for humanely and be held in healthful conditions throughout their stay in a facility. Again, like the code of ethics for humans, there is much more involved here. If you're really curious/concerned you can check this link out. It gives you all the information you need and more: http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines.aspx

Therefore, if experiments adhere to the APA guidelines for the ethical treatment of animals, PETA and the HSUS should have nothing to worry about here. Let's hope I won't find an email condemning the APA in my inbox anytime soon. Now, I really should get myself off that email list.. 

BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL APPROACH IS EVERYTHING

Going over my notes, the whole bio-psycho-social approach thing is the first thing that really jumps out at me. The bio-psycho-social approach is everything... but actually.

Biological influences include:

• natural selection of adaptive traits
• genetic predisposition responding to the environment
• brain mechanisms and hormonal influences
• personality, abnormal psychology, and treatment of psychological disorders

Psychological influences include:

• states of consciousness
• learned fears and other learned expectations
• emotional responses
• cognitive processing and perceptual interpretations

Social-cultural influences:

• presence of others
• cultural, societal, familial expectations
• peer and other group influences

Different levels of analysis form an integrated approach that considers the influence of social-cultural, psychological, and biological factors. Each of these three factors are important to consider on their own when studying psychology, but put them all together and you've hit the jackpot! You get a clearer and more developed perspective on behavioral and mental processes when you look at things from each perspective- biological, psychological, and social-cultural. Congratulations, you've just become a psychologist!!

You:

Perspectification (Yes Mrs. Perl, I created a new term)

When thinking of a blog post I was (as usual) at a loss for words. I can talk my head off all day but somehow when it comes to these blog posts I can't think of one thing. I stared at my notes for a good one second an something came to me (which is very unusual). I saw the title of Unit 1: Psychology's History and Approaches and realized that it was such a classic Mrs. Perl title (who knew she wrote our Psychology book). Suddenly all my mind could say was PERSPECTIVE! 

I took myself back to class this past week and thought of all the different approaches to psychology:

Dualists (people who think the mind and the body are separate entities; we're born with knowledge) like Socrates, Plato, and Renee Descartes. 

Monists (people who think the mind and body are the same; we learn through experience) like Aristotle. 

Empiricism which is the view that knowledge is derived from experience and can only be known by observation and experimentation. People who contributed to this belief are Francis Bacon and John Locke. 

Then finally when psychology is really born, with Wilhelm Wundt, we see things like structuralism (wanting to understand the structure of the mind) with people like Edward Titchener and functionalism (concerned with the function of the mind) with William James. 

All of these people and ideas all give a different piece of psychology.

I thought about all the different subfields of psychology: 

Biological psychologists who study the interaction between the mid and the body.

Developmental psychologists who study the development of person from 'womb to tomb.' 

Cognitive psychologists who look at how we perceive, pay attention, our memory, language, thinking, and problem solving. 

Educational/School Psychologists who study teaching, learning, human development, attitudes, and traits. 

Personality psychologists who study persistent traits.

Social psychologists who ponder how de view one another, interact, etc. 

Additionally, I thought about the bio-psycho-social approach, and the importance of seeing each one together as a whole, and not each separately. When looking at each one separately, one misses the whole picture. However, when looking at each affect as a whole - one gets the whole picture.

I thought this was so appropriate being that it is Mrs. Perl's class and that perspective is so important (how classic). I think going into our AP Psychology class it's very important for us all to make sure we're looking at the whole picture instead of just one perspective. It's important to look at all perspectives instead of just one and seeing a very narrow point of view. 

The Dreadful Package of M an M's.

When I was a kid I would always try to pick out the bag of candy that had the most reds or blues in it. For some reason no matter which candy it was those two colors were always the best. I never had the problem with M and M's ( chas veshalam I ate them they are ou-d) but I would with jelly fish and Laffy Taffys. I always never got the good colors. I was always stuck with the yellows and oranges, the colors that tastes disgusting.
One time I was complaining to my mom and I said "Why do they make less of the good colors? Those are the ones that people eat". My mom responded saying it just seems like that but in reality the quantity of all the colors are equal. I never agreed with her.
Friday, August 30, 2013 at around 11:30 was the first time I understood that my mom was right and the "leaders of candy" don't hate me. They actually have a specific about of candy colors per color. It may not be the same amount but you should always get all the colors. They do make the better colors more. However I was right to, you never get the colors you want. When I got my package of M and M's I didn't get any reds or blue. But I should have. They make it that there should have been a percentage of those colors in my bag, but there was not and that's what helped me understand surveys.
Surveys have to be taken by a lot of people to get an accurate result. If you look at one bag of candy you can't see the actual percent of how many of one color is products. However the more bags you take the more accurate it will be.
Surveys are a great way to see how a percentage of people feel about something. People though have to be wary of them because of how inaccurate they can actually be. You can take a survey of everyone in the phone book but you have to realize that's not everyone because there are people that aren't listed. You can go send a survey out to our school but you have to realize some kids wont answer it.
You have to now to take a survey to come out with an accurate results. Strategies to make sure you have the most random and diverse people taking the survey. Understanding how people think so you know how to word a question.
There are many things that need to be thought out before you take an accurate survey. However when you do you can get an amazing result. Just like the candy the main thing about surveys is numbers, the more the better.

The Bio-Psycho-Social and All That

We discussed in class what the Bio-Psycho-Social approach is and why is it significant to get an accurate picture of a person and their situation. This is actually something I always wondered about on my own, and now that we're actually learning about it, so many things have finally "clicked" in my head. I always wondered how people were evaluated, and if they were only evaluated based on a single aspect, i.e. their social characteristics. If this were the case, I thought, then the whole evaluation process would be unfair, biased, inaccurate, and unhelpful. There are so many other significant factors and major aspects that make up a person that by just evaluating them by this alone would not paint a clear picture at all. In fact, only evalutating a person based on one aspect of their lives could even skew the examiner's opinions in the completely wrong direction, and then the evaluation would be more harm than good. In order to really help someone, it is necessary to get a basic, yet thorough grasp of who they are and what makes them that way, and that is only possible through the Bio-Psycho-Social approach.

"WEEEOOOOWEEEOOOO! STOP! HINDSIGHT BIAS!!!"

To my fellow classmates and future psychologists- thank you! Thank you for making me feel like I need to write twelve paragraphs for this blog post. And I will!! 
(Overconfidence, anyone?). 
   
     Our introduction to psychology seemed like way more than an introduction, wouldn't y'all agree? I already feel like I know everything there is to know, but this is far from the truth. There is still an insane amount of information that awaits. And I'm being totally, completely honest when I say that I am super excited to dive in. 
    
     Psychology has always sounded fascinating to me. I want to know why people behave the way they do. I want to understand. I feel like life will suddenly make a whole lot more sense if I do. Obviously psychology can't explain everything, but it can sure help to make a few things clearer. I have said that by taking this AP I'm going to "learn so much about (insert name of complicated person here)!" We shall see whether I understand people more after taking this course. Perhaps I'll be able to address this question in my last blog. 
     
     Shall I get to the facts? Two things in particular that interested me were the ideas of hindsight bias and overconfidence. Hindsight bias is what happens when we look back at something after the fact and believe that it was inevitable. In regard to research findings, hindsight bias can easily occur. When someone is told that something is true based on research, they are likely to believe it. It is easily imaginable, and can even seem like common sense. If you ever hear someone using the phrases "I could have predicted it," or "I knew it all along", cry out, "STOP! HINDSIGHT BIAS!". Trust me, they'll love it.
    
     The second concept we addressed is overconfidence. Overconfidence is natural in humans. We believe that we can easily solve a problem, give the right answer to a question, or behave in a certain way. In reality, often times our expectations for ourselves are too high. Our tendency to overestimate ourselves often affects our sense of judgement.

    These concepts involve forming conclusions based on intuition and personal experience. This can be an issue when tackling a psychological question. Since the tendency to use hindsight bias and overconfidence is incredibly high, formal research is an absolute necessity. 

   Another aspect of psychology that we learned about was the way surveys are conducted. What struck me the most is the fact that the way a question on a survey is worded affects people's answers. The example that was given is the difference between "Are you in support of a woman's right to choose to have an abortion?" and "Do you believe it is right to kill an unborn fetus?" Nobody wants to answer "yes" to the second question, even if they are, indeed, pro-abortion. This just shows how incredibly wary we must be when confronted with statistical evidence. We may not be aware of how a question is worded and how that may have affected, or even mislead the research.

     Okay, so this was a total of eight paragraphs. (And I'll admit, some were pretty short). I mean, duh, I knew it all along that I wouldn't actually write twelve paragraphs. C'mon people.
(Can you say "hindsight bias"?) 

Intro to Psychology

This past week or two we have learned the basics of what psychology is. From the history, to the different sub-fields, it really gave me insight into what psychology is all about what I will be learning about throughout the year. 

We started with the history of psychology dating back all the way to ancient Greece with Pluto and Socrates. They started the era of Pre-Scientific Psychology. Pre-scientific psychology existed all the way through the mid-1800's when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological lab which started the age of Psychology as a Science. People could now experiment with people's behavior and try to find out how the brain works. Up until about the 1960's were were limited, but in 1960 the x-ray was discovered which was a huge bonus in the world of psychological research. People could now look at the brain more closely and see how it works where as before they could only infer from people's behavior. This is what has paved the way for what we define psychology as today, the study of mental processes and observable behavior. 

 Next, we learned about the different subfields of psychology. About every field out there has a psychological element. There are psychologists for for education that test learning disabilities and educational psychologists that come up with different methods of learning for all different types of children. There psychologists who work in the business/corporation field who test different types of marketing based on the population and their thoughts. There are also psychologists who work in the medical field. There are clinical psychologists who work with patients who have mental disorders by using shock therepy and other techniques and then there are psychiatrists who can proscribe medicine for people with mental disorders. 

Learning about the different types of psychologists and the history of psychology made me think of whether or not I want to go into the psychological field. I have always found the subject very interesting and I can't wait to learn more about psychology and the elements around it. I hope that by the end of the year it will confirm whether or not I want to go into psychology. 

Mrs. Perl's Famous Tree-Killing Packets and Hindsight Bias

          This week in AP Psychology, we began learning about different research methods that are used to actually do psychological research. While simultaneously stressing over our first big assignment, we began one of Mrs. Perl's famous tree-killing packets. Before actually studying different research methods, we had to find out why they were needed at all. The answer was one that shall stay with us and annoy everyone else forevermore- hindsight bias. 

   

           Hindsight bias, also known as the "I-knew-it-along phenomenon", is the mistake that is made when trying to form our own conclusions. For instance, if I am walking down the street and someone says, "I hope it doesn't rain," to which I reply, "It won't," but it begins to rain, I'll say, "Oh actually, I knew it was going to rain the whole time". This situation is put under the heading BAD. To help explain this idea, hindsight bias is paired with another problem- overconfidence. We believe that our ideas and memories of events are accurate when in fact they are completely false. We think that we are correct more often than we actually are. So, to recap, I knew the whole time that it was going to rain because I am secretly training to be a meteorologist and I know everything there is to know about weather because I once knew the name of a cloud. This is an example of both hindsight bias and overconfidence. 

           Moving on from my atrocious run-on sentence, we proceeded to learn about the scientific method. This method is used to actually form questions and answer them. In around 6-7 steps, most scientific questions can be asked, experimented, and answered. The scientific method is really used to observe the world and ask questions. A theory is produced based on questioning and background research and a hypothesis with measured definitions is formed. Research is conducted and a conclusion is formed. One of the most important aspects of such a process is to remember that it must be able to be replicated.

          After learning the scientific method, we strolled on over to descriptive research methods. The first method we learned was the case study. This type of research method is used to study an unusual situation and ask further questions. However, when using a case study, you cannot draw conclusions. The next type of research method we learned was the survey. This is a more popular research method because conclusions can be drawn from the results. Surveys use statistical techniques to gather information from a representative group of people that can show the attitudes and behaviors of the entire population. 

    

        Surveys use sampling, which can be dangerous when trying to generalize something for an entire population. The first important rule of sampling is that every person must have an equal chance of being chosen. This type of sampling is random sampling. The second type of sampling is stratified sampling. People are divided into subgroups and then put through random sampling to increase the likelihood that the results will be more representative. Another rule to remember is that word choice matters. The way a question is phrased can have a huge impact on the result. We had a live example of sampling by examining M & M's. By studying the different colors in different packages, we learned that you need a large enough sample to get a more accurate representation. 

        When trying to figure out how I could connect what we learned in class to something in the world, I received a text from an out-of-town friend that said, "Did you see Miley Cyrus at the VMA's?". This gave me inspiration for this portion of the blog. During the VMA's, Miley Cyrus performed her song "We Can't Stop" is an extremely inappropriate way. This has been in the news ever since she performed and people are giving different opinions of it. Personally, I think she has been having a bit of a downward spiral. She started out as Hannah Montana and was a huge sensation for many years. After the show ended, she began drastically changing- not only her style but her music as well. This has been ongoing for many years, now resulting in her revolting performance at the VMA's. 

         When it comes to celebrities, people can be very annoying. One of the ways people show their apparent expertise on everything famous is by predicting who will fall and who will rise. I am certain that many people have been saying that they knew all along that Miley was going to fall. That is exactly what my friend texted me, to which I responded, "hindsight bias!". She was very confused and, unbeknownst to her, very helpful. People believe that they knew all along that Miley Cyrus would come out of Disney with a downward spiral, which I now know is called hindsight bias.

I Knew It, I Knew It!

In this week's Psychology class, we completed our timeline of events that led up to the modern definition of Psychology. From philosophical discussions about the interaction between the mind and the body that occurred in the pre-scientific Psychology stage, to the first psychological laboratory and experiment in Leipzig, Germany, we culminated with the following definition: Psychological science is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Now that we had sorted out this definition, we began to study the Bio-psycho-social approach to Psychology. Each perspective, whether it be Biological or Cognitive, offers a different vantage point to view certain aspects or situations in Psychology. From there, we proceeded further to learn about basic research, applied research, and finally, conducting successful experiments.

One of the topics that held my attention was the question of why it is necessary to conduct formal research. The answer was something that one just wants to cry out: hindsight bias! Hindsight bias, or the "I knew it all along phenomenon," is used to describe the tendency people have to view events as more predictable than they actually are. In retrospect, people believe they could have predicted or even known the outcome. For example, in 1991, researchers Martin Bolt and John Brink asked college students to predict how the U.S. Senate would vote on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Before the Senate vote, 58-percent of the participants predicted that he would be confirmed. When students were polled again after Thomas was confirmed, 78-percent of the students concluded that they had thought Thomas would be approved. 

Hindsight bias, combined with overconfidence, or thinking highly of oneself and our ideas, believing that our methods of actions and recollections are exactly correct, lead us to think that all we need is intuition. This is entirely inaccurate; we think we are correct more often than we actually are. Intuition is necessary to immediately look both sides before crossing a street, but should not and cannot be used to make important decisions. This is why it is imperative that we conduct formal research. Our facts cannot be determined based on our own thoughts; these are not facts. We need to ask questions, study, conduct research, and derive facts from data. 

I think this idea carries immense importance. From studying for a test and overestimating what we know, to clouding our decisions, hindsight bias and overconfidence are extremely dangerous. 

The concept of overconfidence especially applies to the upcoming new year. Oftentimes, when asked to self-evaluate, especially before Rosh Hashanah, we tend to glaze over the significant things we need to change about ourselves, and deem them trivial because we believe they do not need to be improved. However, this cannot be the case. We need to try to examine ourselves further, and not let overconfidence stand in our way of becoming better people.

The "I Knew It All Along" Phenomenon

This week we focused on an introduction to psychology. We went through some of the history of psychology and how the definition of psychology changed throughout the years. We talked about the mind-body debate which centers around the question of whether the body and mind are separate or connected. Socrates and Plato are both dualists, which mean they believe that the mind and body are separate entities so even when the body dies, the mind can continue. Aristotle, however, despite being a student of Plato's, is a monist, meaning he believes that the mind and the body are the same. We talked about Locke's idea of man being born as a clean slate and Bacon's idea of scientific theory. We went through different types of psychologists from personality psychologists to industrial-organizational psychologists. My favorite idea that we discussed this week, however, was hindsight bias mixed with overconfidence. Mrs. Perl explained hindsight bias as the "I knew it all along" phenomenon which is a pretty accurate description when you think about it. Hindsight bias is basically the idea of people thinking that they have predicted a certain outcome accurately after finding out the true outcome of a situation. Overconfidence is the belief that our opinion, thoughts, and opinions are correct. When you put these two concepts together, we are able to conclude that in general, we tend to think that we are correct more often than we actually are.

I remember learning this term over the summer when I was doing the summer work and thinking about how often this occurs in our daily life. This term actually is what made me so interested to learn about psychology. At first when thinking about psychology it sounds like an abstract kind of science about the mind and all these "out there" concepts that would be hard to understand. After reading about the concept of hindsight bias I realized that psychology was more about the "why we do what we do" in the daily lives of humans. Sometime after learning about hindsight bias and overconfidence, I attended Bridge Builders which is basically a program in which you do activities/challenges that teach you about leadership and teamwork while working with a diverse group of peers. At the end of each activity, the group has a discussion about what they think went well, what could have been better, and their overall thoughts about the activity/challenge. At each discussion there would be at least one person, if not ten who would say something like, "It was clearly not going to work because no one was listening to each other and someone was trying to take over...bla bla bla.." Every time this happened I wanted to say, "Hindsight bias!" like we do during classes when these types of situations occur. Of course I didn't though, because then I'd have to explain what it was and I'd get that look that all white kids get during these discussions when they say something about their academic achievements or anything that sounds "too intellectual."

Basically, learning about the phenomenons of hindsight bias and overconfidence changed my outlook on psychology. Before learning about it, I had never given a second thought to it when people make these kinds of comments. Now that I know what it is I notice it all the time and marvel at how psychologists were able to notice this common theme in human behavior. I look forward to learning even more about human behavior and the little things that people do that I hadn't even noticed enough to ask questions about.

Introduction Post

Hello Classmates!
I don't know about you all, but I am genuinely so excited for this class! I have always had ideas about psychology and have been fascinated by the subject, and I am super psyched (ha- I just got that) to see how many of my theories about how people were true and how many of them.. not so much. Of course, I'll probably think something like "I knew it all along" (#hindsightbias), but I probably did know it all along because, let's face it-I did (#overconfidence). 

One of my favorite discussions to have with people is that of nature v. nurture. 

I mean, you didn't need to have taken the first few classes of AP Psych to have been able to sit down with somebody (or stand up, whichever you prefer at the time) and have this debate. As a matter of fact, this very discussion was the first I had with any Bronfmanite (my summer program)-it's a great conversation starter. We can all be our own Aristotles and Platos, which I think is great. How much of who we are is decided by genetics- something out of our reach- and how much of our lives are we in control of? We all like to think we create our own destinies- but to what extent do we and to what extent is it left to chance? On basically that same note- how many things about people transcend cultures and gender? How much of gender differences are influenced by culture and how much is inborn? As much as I'd love to have a whole nature v. nurture debate here and now by myself, it's way more fun having it in person. So I'll move on.

Something similar (to me, at least) to nature v. nurture is the very idea of psychology- science v. philosophy. Obviously psychology is (now) a science- there's no real argument about that. But, depending on the branch of psychology, a lot of it does get mixed into philosophy. Which is why I find psychology so enthralling. This class is going to be so much fun. Yippee hooray. There's so much to learn. I don't know about ya'll, but AP Psych is only the beginning!

I'm going to add a little more substance to this post just in case (I don't have a feel for how much information needs to be here, excuse me), so I'll just put a few opinions on some other matters brought up in class.

• Case studies: You learn a lot about that one individual case, and it might be really informative in that situation, but, unfortunately, no conclusions can be drawn from it.
• Surveys: These ones are tricky. I feel like as a whole these days, we're always looking for statistics on things. And we very easily trust those statistics without really thinking about it too much. However, it's imperative that we do know more about a survey before we buy into it right away, because a lot of factors go into making a good survey, and surveys can often be manipulated or made to satisfy the surveyor's opinion, whether or not it is the truth.