Blog Post #11

My personality is definitely "special." At least I get that a lot. Sometimes I can be very goofy but I know when to be serious. I would say I'm a fun loving person and I like to have a good time. I see myself as easy to get along with. I am not quick to judge and I don't stereotype. I meet all people with an open mind. I am usually shy when I first meet people. After I get to know them, I become talkative. I am always willing to lend a hand when someone needs help, and I am a very compassionate person. I need to have a plan for everything or I just can't sleep at night. I get up and make lists which makes me a pretty organized person. My lists make me responsible and I always get my work done. Although I'm organized in that way, my room is a mess so I don't know if I can really consider myself organized. I get distracted very easily. It takes me twice as long to get a job done because I'll start to do something else. I would say my personality is mostly good and I have more good traits than bad. One of the good traits I have is I'm friendly. It is good because it makes me very easy to get along with, if you take the time to get to know me. I'm almost always nice to everyone, even when they do something wrong to me. I am an easy going person. This is good because I can go with the flow and don't object to much. It also saves a lot of arguments. I am also caring. I take the time to think about how something I do will affect the people around me. If someone has a problem or something they need to talk about I will give advice to help them. Another good trait I have is responsibility. I can be counted on to always get my work done. This is good because people can trust in me, and I won't let them down. I am a forgiving person. This is good for me and for the people who did something to me. It helps me not to hold grudges, and I get over things very easily. It helps to stop the argument with the other person, and lets us go on with our other business. One of my bad traits is I'm quiet. I'm shy when I am around new people and don't talk much. This is bad because it gives people the wrong idea about me. They may think I don't like them and it just leads to misunderstandings. Another one of my bad traits is I'm very self-conscious. I always feel like people are judging me, so I have to be perfect. This is bad because it makes me very hard on myself. Very rarely do I feel like I've done a really good job on something. Another bad trait is I'm very trusting. I trust almost everyone, and it takes a lot before I will start to not trust someone. This can be a good thing, but for me it's bad. It makes me very gullible, which isn't a very good trait. People can fool me very easily just because I think they're always telling the truth.

I am both an optimist and a pessimist, depending on the situation. When it comes to someone else, I am always optimistic and tell them they can do it. If I'm on a team, I'm always cheering on the others. I tell them we can do it and always try and bring them upif we're losing. If we're winning, I encourage them to keep going. Sometimes I am a pessimist when it comes to me though. I always think I'm going to do bad on something. I feel I could be better, look better, or have better things. I am especially pessimistic with my grades. I get good grades, but I always think I'm going to do bad on tests. Although I can be pessimistic, sometimes I'm optimistic with myself. If someone tells me I can't do something, it makes me work harder. I tell myself I can do it, and don't stop until I prove them wrong. I would say I'm optimistic more than I am pessimistic even though I do say " I can't" a lot.

My quietness is one of the traits that varies depending on the situation. When I'm with new people, I feel awkward and I don't talk much. I think I am more introverted than extroverted, but as I've gotten older I'm not quite as introverted. When I was young, I never talked. Now since I've experienced more, I am not as bad when I meet new people. I am not quiet or shy when I'm around people I know well or my friends. I am very talkative and sociable. I actually get told by teachers to be quiet. Another one of my traits that varies is being open or closed-minded. I'm open-minded most of the time. I am always interested in trying new things and having new experiences. I feel like you should try everything you can. You only have one life on earth, might as well live it up. Sometimes I am closed-minded depending on what the idea is and who it's proposed by. I am closed to experiences that would have a negative effect on my future. I have big plans for my future, and I don't want to screw them up. For that reason, sometimes I am closed-minded and I always think things through.

I use defense mechanisms all the time. They help me to cope with whatever is going on in my life. I use displacement, the expression of feelings toward a person/thing less threatening than the true target of those feelings, often. I use it when I'm really stressed out and it reduces my anxiety. When I use it, usually I'll squeeze a stress ball or hit something and it takes out my agression. Another mechanism I've used is reaction formation, or the tendency to act in a manner opposite to one's true feelings. I would do this when I was younger with my crushes. I didn't want anyone to know I liked them, so I wasn't always the nicest to them. You see this case a lot, especially in young kids and adolescents. When I see kids doing that, it reminds me about the days when all the kids my age were like that. When my sister was born I used regression. Regression is relieving anxiety by showing immature behaviors that have relieved anxiety in the past. When she was a baby, I felt like everyone only paid attention to her, so I would act like a baby to so people would pay attention to me. I was so excited when my mom was pregnant but then when my sister was born, I wanted my parents to give her away. I realize now that acting like a baby was a dumb way to get attention. I'm sure almost everyone has done something like this in their lives. I've seen both of my sisters do it and many of my friends when they're siblings were born.

Blog Post #10

In chapter nine, I learned about belief perseverance. It is clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited. The book gave an example with two people who had opposing views about capital punishment. Each person studied the opposite side's views but clung to their own views. I can relate to this. In College English we are writing a persuasive paper. One of the examples we looked at was about capital punishment. The paper listed the pros and cons of it, and I clung to my initial belief and my mind didn't change. The more we come to appreciate why our beliefs might be true, the more tightly we cling to them. Once beliefs form and get justified, it takes more compelling evidence to change them than it did to create them. People commonly form these beliefs in politics.

The book defines creativity as the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. The dictionary says that creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ideas and create meaningful new ideas. The first thing I think of when I think creativity is art and music. Artists and musicians are very creative. They come up with ideas that will touch and entertain many people. I don't know if I would consider myself creative. Sometimes I come up with very creative ideas and other times I cannot think of anything. I really think my creativity depends on my mood and the environmental factors around me. If I am under stress, I have a hard time coming up with ideas. This leads me to get frustrated, which makes coming up with ideas and being creative even harder. When I am creative, it usually has to do with school projects. Sometimes I come up with creative ideas to display something on a poster. I also come up with unique ideas for art projects. Once I get my ideas and creativity started, it is easy to come up with more. The hard part is thinking of an initial idea. Creativity applies to my life mainly in projects and arranging things. I can't think of anything else that I have already used a lot of creativity to come up with. I'm sure in the future, I will use creativity in college and my future career. It is a very great asset to have creative intelligence. You have to come up with ideas or a plan for almost everything you do. You have to use ideas for everyday tasks at home and greater tasks at work. You need creativity to come up with ideas, especially valuable ideas that will work. Creativity is a characteristic that is appreciated by employers. Being creative will also help you to get a job. You can do or say something in an interview or resume that will get you noticed and make an employer want you for a job.

The thing I found most interesting in chapter 10 was savant syndrome. It is a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as computation or drawing. Brain damage may destroy one ability but leave others intact. The book talks about how some people with savant syndrome may have almost no language ability but can compute numbers in their heads as fast and accurately as a calculator. One person the book mentions is Kim Peek. He is a savant who has a great memory. He can read a page in 8 to 10 seconds and remember everything on it. He has memorized the Bible and 9,000 other books. That is amazing! I don't think I have even read 9,000 books, and that's how many he has memorized. It would be kind of cool to have a memory like him. You would ace every test and be able to refer to anything you have read perfectly, in order to prove your point. In some ways I don't think I would want to be able to remember all of that stuff though. He might get confused sometimes just because he has so much in his head.

Blog Post #9

Memory is probably the most important thing that defines individuals as human beings. It distinguishes humans from others. Humans have the ability to learn, retain information, and accomplish new tasks because of memory. Animals have basic instincts which just allow them to live. If we did not have memory, we wouldn't be able to do nearly as many of the things we know how to do. We would be like animals having suvival insticts like knowing how to eat and dress, but we wouldn't be able to work or do anything really productive. We would not recognize people or really know who we are. Everything we do or see would be like our first time doing or seeing something just like Clive Wearing. Clive Wearing doesn't really know who he is. He is confused and thinks he has never eaten, tasted, touched, or smelled anything. He has no regognition of being alive. Clive was a great musician. One day he got a headache that didn't go away. After a few days he started losing his memory. There is damage to his temporal lobes which are responsible for memory. There is also damage to his frontal lobe, which causes him to repeat himself and have emotional outbursts. Now he has a moment to moment memory. After 20 seconds his memory restarts. He thinks he is awaking for the first time. She handles it very well. She is patient with him even when he gets worked up and yells at her. She stays patient and stands by him even though he has no idea who she is. You can tell she loves him a lot. She acts normal with him but comforts him when he needs it. I don't think I would be able to act the same way she does. I would probably lose my patience with him and be frustrated with him. I feel very grateful that my memory is as good as it is. It seems like you only think about your memory when you forget something and are criticizing it. Clive's story makes me realize how thankful I am that my family and I have good memories.

Yes, I think memory works differently. I didn't realize that a lot of our memories have made up details. I also didn't know you could make a person remember something that never actually happened just by asking them about it repeatedly. I do see my memories differently. I don't think they are as accurate as I used to believe, and I think I may make up a lot of the details. I also don't recognize the details on common objects I see everyday. I did the recognition activity, and it took me around 8 guesses before I finally picked the right penny. For these reasons I don't trust all of my memories.

In this section I learned about chunking. Chunking is organizing items into familiar, manageable units and it often occurs automatically. It is important because it helps to remember things. People remember information best when it can be organized into personally meaningful arrangements. Chunking can be used as a mnemonic techniqueto recall unfamiliar material. I use chunking all the time in my Spanish class to help me learn new vocabulary. I also use chunking in all of my other classes to help me learn new concepts.

Blog Post #8

Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. It is a form of associative learning and it was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov. An example of classical conditioning was in Pavlov's experiment with the dog and then tone. During the experiment, the dog began to associate the tone with food so he would salivate when he heard it. Another example is riding a roller coaster and getting sick, and after that feeling sick every time you see a roller coaster. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which one learns to associate a response and its consequence and thus repeat acts followed by good results and avoid acts followed by bad results. It is the increase or decrease in a behavior based off of the consequences. For example, if you study for a test and receive an A, you are more likely to study for the next test. The difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning is operant conditioning deals with behavior modification maintained from consequences and classical conditioning deals with the conditioning of behaviors drawn out from antecedent conditions. The main difference is classical conditioning isn't maintained from consequences. This is interesting and applies to my life because myself along with everyone learns using these two different methods. I study for all my tests because I have learned that I usually will get As if I do, but if I don't I don't do as well. I have gotten sick in an examination room at the doctor, so now every time I go in one, I feel nauseas.

Positive reinforcement is a way to increase behaviors by presenting positive stimuli. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strenthens the response. For example, when we were training my dog to go to the bathroom and he was good, we gave him treats. We also did that when teaching him to listen to us. I believe positive reinforcement works really well because it came up with good results for my dog and when my parents use it on me. If I get good grades, my parents positively reinforce my actions by giving me something or taking me out to eat. A negative reinforcement is a way to increase behaviors by stopping or reduce negative stimuli. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. An example in my life is when I take ibuprofen to relieve a headache or icing when I'm sore. Negative reinforcement increases the odds that you will repeat the behaviors. To me, this concept is a little confusing because when you think of negative, you think of bad things, but negative reinforcement is actually good. Punishment is different positive and negative reinforcement because it decreases a behavior. It is imposing something unpleasant in response to disobedience or a wrong action, in order to stop or decrease that action. When I was little, my parents would punish me by putting me on time-outs. Now, when I disobey, they threaten to take away my keys.

The most interesting thing I learned is how much the media and TV influences what people do. From TV, children learn about bullying, sex, and how to act. The violence-viewing effect leads to desensitization and imitation. Studies show that there is increased agression in those heavily exposed to violent television shows, videos, and video games. It is amazing that about 83% of boys and 61% of girls who are exposed to a large amount of violence in the media were involved in fights. I think that parents shouldn't let their children watch violence and that parents should use locks on their TV to keep their young children from viewing violence. I can apply this to my everyday life when I'm older by not allowing my children to watch violent shows or play video games that are full of violence.