hello my name is... GAD

Hello there, I'm GAD which is short for the long name my parents gave me General Anxiety Disorder. You'll usually find me lurking around when there are highly stressful situations. You may think adults and teens are the only ones that can experience stress, boy are you wrong because I can affect everyone, even children. If you're lucky enough to have me in your genes, your whole family can see me! I tend to like women more than men.. what can I say, I'm a ladies man. People that live with me say that they can't remember a time that they didn't feel anxious. I'm great, I know. If you want to look for me, you have to pay attention to how you feel because if you start worrying or experiencing tension for no reason, or your worries never disappear, then you better have a welcome to my family party because I'm here to stay :]

I'm sorry if you can't concentrate, I just like to make your mind wander. I'm sorry if you feel tired all the time, I just really like to sleep... but other times, I just want to stay awake and party so I'm also the reason why you can't fall asleep when you want to, sorry about that.

 I am an anxiety disorder. Only the best kind! If you want to look me up in a DSM book, you'll have to go to the anxiety disorder section. Hope to see you soon!

my personality sucks.. when i'm upset

My personality tests weren't very accurate from the beginning because before taking them, I found out that I failed a government test. Major fail. So, obviously I wasn't in the best mood while taking these tests which caused me to pick answers I probably wouldn't pick if I was happy.

According to the Personality Inventory test, I'm not very agreeable or open. This I will disagree with because I don't like to argue, therefore I agree. Also, I'm very open, ask me pretty much anything and I'll answer truthfully. I did agree with the North Dakota test results because "At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved." This is so true, because most of the time I am sociable and like to be around others and sometimes I like to be quiet and alone. I don't think these types of personality tests are very accurate because my mood caused me to answer different, which in turn, changed my results on the first test.

Paul Ekman

Paul Ekman was born in 1934 and was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago and New York University. He got his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Adelphi University and became a Clinical Psychology Officer in the Army. His early work involved nonverbal behavior and as the clocked ticked he began to focus on evolution and semiotic frame. He also researched emotion and expressions. Paul is now the Manager of the Paul Ekman Group, LLC, which is a company that makes devices related to emotional skills and is researching to help national security and law enforcement. Articles about his work have been published in big magazines like The Times, Psychology Today, and The New Yorker. Paul has been on several well known tv shows like 20/20, 48 Hours, Oprah, Good Morning America, etc.

Micro-expressions are defined as short involuntary facial expressions. They generally occur when someone is about to start an emotion they don't want to show. All micro-expressions can show you is that the emotion is concealed, but not why. The old tv show Lie To Me used micro-expressions to point out those lying and those telling the truth. When you lie you are trying to not show emotions because they generally give you away so a micro-expression appears.

Reaction

The intelligence tests we had to take today were difficult when they weren't from my era or culture. The Reddon-Simons "Rap" Test was hilarious even though I didn't get very many answers correct. I don't think intelligence testing is fair because I don't know the same "general knowledge" that someone in India knows and vise-versa. People have different intelligences based on where they live because of the different cultures. There are definitely cultural stereotypes and you can see them within each test. For example, the Original Australian Test of Intelligence asks questions about kangaroos and whether you eat or drink water. In the U.S., we drink water and eat food but people in Australia eat both water and food. The Chitling Intelligence Test was created by a black sociologist drawing from black-ghetto experiences and some of the questions clearly shows the ghetto stereotype because of the slang used. Finally, the American/Australian Test of Intelligence makes it clear that it is meant for Americans because of the questions like "why does the states require people to get a license in order to get married?" unless you've studied American marriage laws, you'd probably have to live here to answer this question correctly.

The article kind of made me sad and feel bad for those who are intimidated by stereotypes. I can relate to this article because on almost all standardized tests, there is a spot to fill in whether you're, African-American, Caucasian, Asian, or any other race. Like the article stated, whites don't feel intimidated by this question... I sure don't, I don't see why someone should. Just asking your race doesn't suddenly mean you're dumb if you're not Asian or white. I definitely don't understand how asking you're race would affect test scores anyhow. Wouldn't that make you want to try harder to prove your stereotype wrong than just accept it and fail? The part in the article where she talks about females showing lower scores when told males score higher on a test made me a little mad. If i was told that males scored higher previous to taking a test, I would work my butt off to make sure I score just as well if not better than the males.

my memory is working...is yours?

Working memory is memory that is interacting with the environment. It is the memory that doesn't allow you to concentrate on a boring text book, it's the memory that makes you think "what did I just read?" after getting to the bottom of the page. I found an article on working memory from Science Daily. It was kind of funny for me to read because at the beginning they start off with, "Odds are, you're not going to make it all the way through this article without thinking about something else." They were right! I got though part of the article and then I found myself wondering, thinking about the free response tomorrow, what I'm going to wear to school, what I'm going to say in this blog. When i finally started paying attention to the article again, I was almost done reading it! I went back and reread. In Madison they were doing experiments with people's working memories by giving them each a task to do. This with higher working memory capacities were more prone to start wondering than those with normal working memory capacities.

Heres the article, I hope you like it!
Working Memory

memories you shouldn't remember

This week in class we learned about memory: long-term, short-term, false, deja vu, memory storage, source amnesia, etc..
I found false memory very interesting. False memory is a memory of an event that did not actually happen. People often think of their memories an exact recording of their life events so, naturally, everything remembered must be true. False! Sometimes people remember a event that never even happened. In a video I found, this boy was reading a journal that his family wrote about happenings throughout the years. One of the stories was about how he had gotten lost in a mall when he was 5 years old. He went on to tell the story of what happened, how he felt, and who he encountered while lost in the mall. Little did he know, the story was actually placed in the journal just before he was told to read it, so it never actually happened. He had false memory.

Conditioning...Classically

This week in psych we learned about classical conditioning. According to our text, classical conditioning is a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. In order for classical conditioning to work, there needs to be an unconditioned stimuli, an unconditioned response, a neural stimuli, a conditioned stimuli, and a conditioned response. In the video I found on classical conditioning, the Nerf gun was the unconditioned stimulus and getting mad is the unconditioned response. The maker of the video added in a "quack" every time they shot the Nerf gun. The quack is the neural stimulis because it has nothing to do with a Nerf gun. Eventually, the "quack" became the conditioned stimuli and being mad or expecting to get mad became the conditioned response.

unconditioned stimuli = something that triggers a response automatically
unconditioned response = the automatic response
neural stimuli = something that has nothing to do with the unconditioned stimuli
conditioned stimuli = the old neural stimuli
conditioned response = unconditioned response

Color Blindness

This week in class we learned about the senses and how they work. I chose to do my blog on eye sight, specifically color blindness. Color blindness is the inability to see certain colors in the way that everyone else can.

I looked online for a test to see if you are color blind, I took the test and I am not color blind. Take the test for yourself!

This is a video to test colorblindness:

According to this video, the most common type of color blind deficiency is red/green and it is more common in men than women. there is also the blue/yellow type and the third type is complete absence of color. Color blindness is genetic. There is not a treatment for color blindness, but you can work your way around it.

An Awesome PSA

My favorite blog was the one that Cristina, Taylor, and Tori made. They were very cheerful the whole time, making Ashwaubenon seem like a very happy and great place to live. If I was not a resident here in Ashwaubenon, I would want to move here because they are very persuasive and did a great job at showing all of the wonderful programs and services we have to offer. While informing me of all the interesting activities I can take part in Ashwaubenon, they kept me laughing and I didn't want to change the channel.

Dementia...the sad truth

This week in class we learned about Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia. My focus is Dementia, primarily because my grandma lives with it everyday.

Dementia isn't a disease on its own, rather symptoms that affect cognitive and social abilities enough to affect everyday life. Memory loss is the main issue in Dementia, but just because you have memory loss doesn't mean you should diagnose yourself with Dementia. The memory loss is severe, you are unable to remember names and you are constantly confused as to what is going on around you. Changes in personality and social behavior occur as well.

I found a CBS news video on a woman named Gertrude Buckley who suffers from advanced dementia. A controversial study found that her illness is as deadly as cancer. Researchers found that patients who speak as little as 6 words a day will only live about 16 months and about 40% were in pain. Gertrude doesn't speak in this video, and it is sad to see that people can die from this illness that confuses you the whole time you are living with it.

True Life: I'm Addicted to Ice

My 48-hour addiction to ice cubes was actually really easy to pull off. I never had to lie to my friends because in the past 48-hours I was pretty much house bound due to all the homework I had. My family drinks ice water so when they saw my ice water, so for the most part they didn’t ask questions. That is, until Tuesday morning, my mom, oh so kindly, filled up my water bottle for me before school, but there wasn’t any ice in it. So, while I was filling it up with ice my mom asked why I dumped it out and I said, “I don’t know.” Then, this morning, she asked if I wanted ice in my water bottle again, and I had to lie about putting it in my water bottle in the first place. I didn’t feel bad about lying to her because it was just about ice, if it were something more serious like cocaine I would have a very guilty conscious.

I can see how having an addiction can break up relationships because people can usually tell when they are being lied to, and I know that if I was constantly being lied to, I would stop talking to the person that continuously lied to me. I didn’t do anything crazy or out of the ordinary (with the acceptation of putting ice in my coffee, tea, and apple juice) during this temporary addiction. No my mom didn’t notice a change in my behavior because I drink ice water all the time. However, when I asked my dad if he noticed any changes, he remembered watching me drink iced apple juice and found it odd. I think that it can be surprising to find out your kid is taking some drugs that don’t damage a person physically over time versus other drugs that allow you to see the difference physically over time.

generation x and millennial generation

generation X:These groups of learners like interaction, activity, and multi-tasking. They are non-linear and love multimedia.Xers respond best to training materials with fewer words than those designed for older generations. They don’t need as much as their older—or younger—colleagues and are attracted to pages that provide lots of visual stimulation, such as headlines, subheads, quotes, graphics, and lists.


Millennial generation:This is a powerful generation that has a holistic perspective, anticipates needed change, and has the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances.They will need more supervision and structure than their Xer predecessors. They will look for more attention and structure from the authority figure. Their preferred learning environment combines personal challenge (like Xers), teamwork (like boomers), and technology. In a training room with lots of Millennials, give everyone a task.Millennials are motivated to learn skills and information that will help make their working lives less stressful and will move them closer to achieving personal potential and passions in the workplace.

Born Without a Brain

This week in class we learned about the functions of the brain. I was fascinated by everything the brain and body goes through just to get us to feel a burnt finger, or stubbed toe. Then, I remember seeing a video of a boy named Nicholas Coke who was born with only a brain stem, and somehow lived to the age of two. I found the article on the news station’s website.

Basically, because he was born with only a brain stem, doctors expected him to die within hours of being born, but to their amazement, he lived to be two years old. There aren’t any recent articles about the baby boy, so I don’t know if he passed or not. At the time of this video, he was on 12 medications, 8 solely for seizures.

This is something I didn’t quite understand. Today we learned that a seizure is a result from the chaos of signals being sent, for no reason, from one side of the brain to the other. If baby Nicholas Coke doesn’t have a brain, how can he have seizures?

As I’ve mentioned, Nicholas only has a brainstem. This would mean that he is incapable of talking, seeing, feeling, understanding language, thinking, and developing a personality. The brainstem contains the medulla, pons, reticular formation, and thalamus. The medulla is in charge of heartbeat and breathing, the medulla is keeping Nicholas alive. Pons help coordinate movement, so baby Nick can move, but not a lot. The reticular formation is what controls arousal, and the thalamus is where every thought and action goes so it can be sent to the brain. These two parts of the brainstem aren’t helpful in Nicholas’s case because he don’t have a brain to make them function properly. So, essentially, Nicholas Coke can only breathe, slightly move, and has a beating heart.

Here is the link to the article and video of this baby boy: Nicholas Coke 

Unit 731

This week in class we discussed the psychology research ethics and went over a few unethical experiments. The basic ethics of psychology are consent, deception, debriefing, withdrawal, confidentiality, and protection. Without all or at least one of these, the experiment is pretty unethical. I found the experiments we learned about in class very disturbing but very interesting so I decided to go out and find unethical experiment of my own to research. There was this website I found that actually showed the top ten unethical experiments, however, we went over all of them in class so I looked at the top ten evil human experiments. This is what I found…

During the second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, there was this chemical and biological warfare and development unit called Unit 731. Unit 731 was created by the Imperial Japanese Army and was responsible for some of Japan’s worst war crimes. The commander, Shiro Ishii preformed most of the horrific experiments on Chinese and Russian prisoners. The basics of Unit 731 was to do tests on the prisoners to see how they could deal with the same issue if it came up later with their soldiers. This was, in a way, a created case study. Shiro Ishii would take the limbs of the prisoners, amputate, and sew them back on in a different spot on their bodies. Another test he put the prisoners through was freezing parts of their bodies and then thawing them in hopes of creating gangrene so they know the result if it is left untreated. They used prisoners to see how a grenades and flamethrowers would affect a person if thrown at them. The last major test was to study the effects of untreated diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, plague, and others. After injecting, sometimes they would cut open the victim while he was awake to see what the diseases did to the inside of the human body.

Obviously all of the tests done and the whole unit in general was highly unethical and unnecessary. Unfortunately, Shiro Ishii was never convicted for the horrible experiments he inflicted on the prisoners, but he died at the age of 67 from throat cancer.

More about Unit 731

Shiro Ishii

Bodies disposed after Until 731

Vivisection of a pregnant girl after
being raped

Vivisection of a man infected with plague.

Vivisection is to preform operations on live people or animals. 

There's a First Blog for Everything

I just want to start with saying that I am very excited to learn about psychology, the first reading assigned was very interesting to me and I can’t wait to learn more! I’m expecting AP Psychology to be very difficult on the workload and pace, but I know it will be very interesting at the same time. I’m really excited to learn about what goes on inside of our brains to cause us to act and feel certain ways. I am someone who sits back and watches the reactions of people around me. It is interesting to see how people change what they are saying or how they are reacting to fit with what other people are saying and how other people are reacting. I’m expecting this class to be more difficult than my other classes this semester but I am ready for the challenge!

The prologue introduced where psychology started, and all of people along the way that helped the subject grow into what it is today. It also explained the three main levels of psychology. I learned that each level alone is helpful, but not enough. To fully understand, you must know all three. There are many different subfields of psychology, which makes it a perfect job choice for many people.

Chapter one focused on how psychologists think and the questions they ask when testing the theory. Psychologists use the scientific method to test their theories. First they have their idea that turns into a hypothesis, which requires experimentation and results, providing a conclusion. The best way to conduct an experiment is with a double-blind procedure, when neither the researchers nor participants know who is getting treatment and who isn’t. If the researchers know who is getting treatment, they may see effects that aren’t occurring because they are so excited and want so badly for this new drug to work.

There was a question at the beginning of the chapter about first-born children and if they are more likely to be successful. I always wondered this because I have a younger brother and just in school, I seem to be the more successful one. I found an interview with Dr. Kevin Leman the author of First Born Advantage where he tells about how the order in which children are born affects their outcome in life. Enjoy!