Letter Writing

I'm doing fine in class.  In fact, psychology is one of my favorite classes of the day.  I usually look forward to the class, even on note-taking days. We usually have fun discussions and activities that keep my attention,  and since all of this information pertains to my life, I am endlessly fixated by the material we learn.  I feel like I am excelling in class.  The class is exactly like I expected.  I have learned me some "good stuff".  Outside of class, I am struggling with college applications and scholarships.  They are not very fun, so I tend to have no enthusiasm to get them done.  I hate writing the stupid essays.  The deadlines are coming up soon, so I'll have to do them over the break.  My life is fine! Quit creeping (especially in Target)! 

Now, on, to, Criss, Angel.  Is he fo' real.

The answer is no, of course.  He himself doesn't even claim to have supernatural powers.  In fact, he has offered ONE MILLION big ones to anyone who can prove to be supernatural.  When you said that in class, Mr. Dreier, did you know that Criss Angel actually put up the offer himself????

Criss Angel may be one of the most well known magicians alive today.  He really cannot do magic.  Instead, he is one of the best at misdirection using his voice, hands, and other body parts.  He distracts you from the truth.  If you saw him levitate and believed it, this is how he did it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrkiTO8dgCA&feature=player_embedded

Also, I found a psychotic Christian man that seems to believe that Criss Angel is the antichrist.  It is an interesting read (he had me believing for a second!!).  <-----Not really though.  Here's his website.  http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Wicca%20&%20Witchcraft/criss_angel.htm
This guy is just weird.  He somehow connects Criss Angel and the shirts and necklaces he wears to satanism.  He even brings the dollar bill into the mix.  This is all as believable as National Treasure.

Anyway, for everyone else who doesn't think Criss Angel is the son of the devil, Criss Angel is a master illusionist.  He can't walk on water.  I watched a video that explained how he does it.  Basically, he steps on platforms across the water.  There are platforms that are like bridges under the water.  To make it seem more real, his accomplices swim under him, "showing" that he isn't stepping on anything.  Really, the accomplice swims through a bridge.  And when his shoe falls in the water, there is really just a gap in the glass platforms.  So, I admit, Criss Angel is not real.  Either way, we wasted a good 10 minutes and had a nice conversation about him.  Here's the video: http://www.xploremagic.com/Illusion/criss-angel-walk-on-water-revealed.html

Nature vs. Nurture

First off, the nature aspect is that people do what they do because of their genes.  Behavior is based off of animal instincts.  The nurture side says that we do what we do because of our environment.  It is what we were taught to do by our parents, friends, and other environmental factors.  Like we were told in class, nature determines the range of our skill set and abilities, but nurture determines where we fall on this range.  Still, scientists fight over this issue every day, as not all traits are specifically nurture or nature.  For example, the most argued point in the nature/nurture debate is that of gays.  It is widely known that gays don't "choose to be that way", but where do they get their sexual orientation.  Is it learned or is it inherited. 

Homosexuality was first thought to be a mental disorder by the APA, but it was later removed as such.  Now, the issue is still hotly debated.  Many tests have been run on the homosexual brain vs. the heterosexual brain.  In many tests, parts of the hypothalamus in gay men was almost always double the size of that in heterosexual men.  The same was also true in women.  Also, tests were done on the amounts of androgen in the brain of developing humans.  The theory was tested on rats.  Those who were exposed to large amounts of androgens during development were attracted to female rats, whether the rat was male or female.  The opposite was also true.  If deprived of androgens, male and female rats were submissive and attracted to male rats.  All of this seems to explain sexual orientation as a biological issue.  As more proof, tests have been conducted to find the "gay gene", and it is thought to have been found.

Even with all the proof, many people still think gayness is a nurture issue.  They base their beliefs on the thoughts that the family and close friends determine the sexual orientation.  When the family is not consistent with gender roles in the household, kids become confused and eventually become homosexual.  Too bad their is absolutely no proof for this.

My vote goes to the biological point of view for the issue of homosexuality.

In general, proponents of the nature point of view point out that if genetics had no part in the issue, then fraternal twins would be completely different if raised apart.  This is certainly not the case; in fact, many separated at birth twins exhibit many of the same characteristics. 

The nurture standpoint is headed by John Watson, who raised the term "blank slate".  He worked with orphan children, and famously concluded that if given 12 infants, he could raise each of them to specialize in any area that he wanted, whether it be medicine, law, or technology, regardless of his or her tendencies, race, or talents.

From what we have learned, most characteristics of humans are not strictly due to either nature or nurture.  Instead, it is a delicate combination of both that determines what we will become when we grow up.

Left handers die young

In class, we talked about how left handers die an average of 7 years earlier than right handers.  I was interested why.

According the an ABC article, left handers DO die younger than right handers.  Not only that, but lefties are also more likely to become schizophrenic, alcoholic, dyslexic, and have Crohn's disease, Ulcerative colitis, and have mental disabilities.  Left handers also get into a lot more accidents due to their lack of coordination.  The article makes the point that nature supports survival of the fittest, so why do lefties still exist?

Lefties are special, which allowed them to survive during primitive times.  What they lack in fitness and coordination, they make up for in just being different.  In sports, for example, left handers are odd and sometimes the best.  This means in primitive times, left handers probably won fights against righties more often than they lost.  Lefties were born in a right-handed world, and therefore, they were used to fighting righties.  Righties, though, were probably surprised, and they lost the fight.  The "surprise effect" gave the lefties the advantage.

It is still unknown how people develop handedness (right or left).  Some researchers think it has something to do with genetics.  The most common theory is that handedness is a specialization that is due to language in humans.  Since about 90% of humans have language specialization in the left brain, this corresponds to about 90% of humans having right handedness.  Recently, however, science has shown that this theory is probably wrong.  Handedness is most likely determined by a part of the brain called the KNOB, which is important in motor control.  Either way, the cause of handedness is still undetermined.

Even with all of the problems that left handers may face, including early deaths, lefties also have advantages in life.  They are different, which usually gives them the element of surprise in fights and sports.  Also, studies have shown that lefties are smarter than righties, on average.  Lefties have more people with IQ's over 140 than righties, even though righties make up 90% of the population.  That is a stunning statistic.  Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Benjamin Franklin were all lefties.  So, life isn't so bleak for all the lefties out there after all.

Here's a site with a bunch of facts about lefties.  They were actually pretty interesting.  http://www.burlingtonnews.net/blog/?p=7 

Highlights include...

Lefties are usually more creative (makes sense because their right brains are dominant).

Writing with your left hand was punishable by death in the Middle Ages.

Lefties are 15% richer than righties if both attended college and 26% richer for those who graduated.

Left brain vs. right brain

When we watched the video about the man who had his corpus callosum severed, I was astounded by his abilities and lack there of.  He was basically two different people.  He thought as one person on one side of his body, but he thought completely differently on his other side.  For example, if a word was flashed to the left hemisphere of his brain, he could eaily tell you what the word was.  But, if the word was flashed to the right hemisphere of his brain, he could not say the word.  Instead, he has to draw the word in picture form until he could see the picture in order to say it.  It was like one half of him could not read or say words, it could only draw the word.  The explanation in the movie said that since his left and right sides of the brain were not connected, he could not connect thoughts inside of his head.  Instead, he had to relate everything on the outside of his brain.  It was like watching two different people communicate.  This research and testing on split brained people was fundamental to finding the specific elements that are unique to the left and rights sides of the brain.

While I was finding information about split brain patients, I came across the term "dual brain theory".  This theory states that each side of the brain is independent and has distinct thoughts, personality, ideas, and memories.  As I read through the rest of the site, the theory sounded like a bunch of crap.  There was no evidence to back up the statements.  But, I started thinking about the left and right brains and how different they are.  The left brain is linear, sequential, symbolic, logical, verbal, and reality-based.  The right brain is holistic, random, concrete, intuitive, nonverbal, and fantasy-based.  Here's another short quiz on left vs. right brains.  http://web-us.com/brain/braindominance.htm

I got 13 for the left side of my brain and 5 for the right side of my brain.  What did you get??

Jung, Adler, Horney

Carl Jung had theories about the collective unconscious and archetypes.  Everyone has a personal unconscious, where memories are stored and not thought about.  This is the part of each person's mind that they don't think or know about.  It is the part of the mind that is not accessible in everyday life. The collective unconscious, he said, was the unconscious "mind" of all humanity.  The unconscious mind contains the thoughts and knowledge of all humans.  It contains all thoughts, ideas, religions, and cultures of humanity.  It is, in essence, the ghost of people past, with all of their urges, instincts, and memories.  Archetypes are part of the collective unconscious.  They are the models based on differing but repeating patterns across all human cultures.  There are several human archetypes.  For example, each person knows instinctively what evil and beauty are.  Unconsciously, we just know and have a model for these things.



















Alfred Adler coined the idea of the inferiority complex.  He said that all humans are born feeling inferior because they are helpless and surrounded by powerful adults.  As a child grows, he or she strives to feel superior and powerful through accomplishment.  However, if a child fails to meet certain life challenges, then the child will develop an inferiority complex.  So, every child feels inferior, but only those who fail develop an inferiority complex.  Those people who develop an inferiority complex feel inadequate frequently and have a tendency to get down on themselves easily.

Karen Horney had conflicting views with Freud over the psychoanalysis of men and women.  Horney rejected Freud's idea of penis envy.  She said that he was just picking up on women's jealousy of man's power in the world.  Instead, she said that men had womb envy.  She claimed that men were jealous of women's ability to bear children.  Men need to have their name live on, so they need women as much as women need men.  She believed that men's overcompensation in personal achievement was due to their relatively small part in creating a child.  I think that Freud believed men were superior to women while Horney was an outraged feminist.  Both had dumb, opposing ideas that belittled the opposite sex.

Microexpressions

So, I was watching the Mentalist a few days ago.  It's a show about Patrick Jane, a man who works with the CBI to investigate murders.  He uses careful observations and mental tricks to find clues that no one else can find.  Also, he uses his knowledge of humans to find out if people are lying or telling the truth.  During the last episode, Patrick was showing a murder suspect a house on a lake that belonged to one of the man's enemies.  As he was describing the house to the man, Patrick stopped and looked into his eyes.  All of the sudden, Patrick came to the conclusion that the man wanted the house.  When asked how he knew, Patrick said that when a human sees something he or she wants, his or her pupils dilate.

This got me thinking about our psychology class, specifically micro expressions.  Knowing the micro expressions of humans that tell if they are lying could be useful to just about anyone.  So, I wanted to find out more.

Micro expressions are involuntary facial movements caused by emotion.  Unlike regular facial expressions, you can't cover up micro expressions.  Whenever a person lies, they flash micro expressions that reveal the truth.  However, only a handful of people around the world can read these expressions.  These expressions signify seven basic emotions:  disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and contempt.  They occur in about 1/20 of a second.  I found a link to a micro expression learning tool to test your ability to read micro expressions.  It was made Paul Ekman, a professor of psychology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco.  He has studied micro expressions for more than 30 years and is now considered an expert.  He made an interactive slide show to test your ability.  It's really hard, but I knew 7 of emotions without cheating (holding the corresponding number).  Here's the link.

http://www.cio.com/article/facial-expressions-test

After you take the test, post the score you earned.  I'm curious about how good everyone is.

The seven basic emotions and their corresponding facial expressions are shown on this page.