Pun's IB Psychology HL Blog

2007-04-04T18:18:00.000+07:00

STUDENT LEARNING STYLE

Today, we did a test that can determine our learning styles. Firstly, we have to rank the importance of 4 words in 10 lists. Then we added up the score at the end of the test. Now, we can know our learning styles.

There are 4 styles of learning: concrete sequential (CS), abstract random (AR), abstract sequential (AS), and concrete random (CR)

After I did the test, I found out that I have a concrete sequential style of learning.

Here are my characteristics suggested on the web. http://http//www.csrnet.org/csrnet/articles/student-learning-styles.html http://www.csrnet.org/csrnet/articles/student-learning-styles.html

What Do They Do Best?
Apply ideas in a practical way
Organize
Fine-tune ideas to make them more efficient
Produce concrete products from abstract ideas
Work well within time limits

What Makes Sense to Them?
Working systematically, step by step
Paying close attention to details
Having a schedule to follow
Literal interpretations
Knowing what’s expected of them
Routines, established ways of doing things

What’s Hard For them?
Working in groups
Discussions that seem to have no specific point
Working in an unorganized environment
Following incomplete or unclear directions
Working with unpredictable people
Dealing with abstract ideas
Demands to "use your imagination"
Questions with no right or wrong answers

What Questions Do They Ask While Learning?
"What are the facts I need?"
"How do I do it?"
"What should the result look like?"
"When is it due?"

The result of the test suggest that I'm a CS, and I agree with most of the CS traits suggested. However, there are some characteristic that don't fit me at all. For example, it says that CS would have a hard time working in a group. I rarely have problem working in a group. When I look at the traits of the other styles of learning, I can see some traits that really fit me. I think this might happened because my score for each styles was really close (maybe i'm the hybrid of all styles).

2007-04-01T18:59:00.000+07:00

What is the relationship between memory and selfhood?
The “self” is how we think and act or it can be simply described as our “identity”. What we are – our identity - is shaped by what remember from the past, especially our childhood experiences - how our parents taught us and how close we are to them. The more we remember about our past the stronger sense of self we would have. However, we sometimes forget something that had happened to us through repression and sometimes create a memory of something that had never happened to us. Memory is so soft and malleable. This may be the reason why we feel, at sometimes, confused of our own identity.

What new discovery about memory do you find most interesting?
The discovery that I found most interesting is the one that suggest students to sleep after cramming for exam. I think this discovery has the power to change the world of education. If this is really true, then school should give students a “sleeping break” during day time, so that they can remember what they have studied better. Furthermore, it is also very easy to be applied. The next time I study for my test, would sleep earlier, rather than dragging the study longer at night.

How can some memories become indelible?
Some memories become indelible because our bodies think there is something special in them. Those memories might have some strong emotion or excitement attached to it. When the original event of these memories happened, our body released hormones to regulate our reaction. Now that the memories become indelible, our body can easily recall the event and would release hormones to regulate alike reaction for the similar event that happened.

How can amnesia and repression be explained?
Both amnesia and repression are caused by malfunction of the brain. For us to recall a memory of something, that memory must be processed through a part of the brain called the hippocampus. However, amnesia and repression are different. Amnesia is when the information is never encoded into long term memory. But repression is when the memory is forgotten because it is so painful that our defense mechanisms need to protect us from them. However, repressed memory can be retrieved through time.

Explain the following statement: "Memory is more reconstructive than reproductive."
We don’t really remember things in the way that we can reproduce them exactly as how it is exactly. We reconstruct the memory in the way we understand it and how we think it should be according to our schema. If we were asked to recall something we would just remember the deep meaning and the main points of the event and would probably forget the details.

What new paradigm of memory is now emerging?
The new paradigm of memory sees it as a creative blending of fact and fiction, with us as the writer of those. The way we reconstruct memory is like how we blend the “real” and “unreal” creatively according to our experiences, emotions, and schema.

After reading this article, what conclusions can you make about memory?
The memory has a big impact in shaping who we are. However, it can be easily influenced by our emotions and other external factors that would distort the information or make us forget about it. Some memories are more easily recalled than other. This is because there is something special as strong emotional attachment in them.

“If our identity is shaped by our memories, and if memories are shaped by we reconstruct them, then we can construct our own identity!”

2007-03-15T14:29:00.000+07:00

The Rumor Chain

A QANTAS International 747 that was going to Los Angeles took off from Bangkok International Airport. A passenger near the rear of the aircraft announced that he was hijacking for the People’s Revolutionary Army.
The hijacker then held a 357 Magnum gun to the head of Jack Straw, a flight attendant, and forced him to open the cockpit floor. There the hijacker held the gun at the head of the pilot, Jane Smith, and forced her to change course to Cuba. While the pilot radioed Bangkok to report the situation she suddenly threw the microphone at the hijacker who fell backwards though the open cockpit door and onto the floor.
The angry passengers forced the gun off him and tied him up. The place returned to Bangkok and in a few minutes the hijacker was arrested.

Today’s second experiment is called “The Rumor Chain”. Firstly, Mr. Anthony asked for three volunteers, and asked two of them to go out of the room. Then, he started reading a story of hijacking a plane. The volunteer that was not asked to leave the room had to listen to the story and retell it to the other two volunteers. Each time the story is retold, some information has been lost. However, the first and the last part of the story tend to be very well remembered, as well as the other elements of the story which sounds distinctive such as the Magnum 357.

From the experiment, we can see the following:

Leveling: simplifying material ...We can see that as the story is being told more and more, it gets shorter and shorter. This happens because the person tend to forget the non-important details of the story.

Sharpening: highlight or overemphasizing some material which the person think is important

Assimilation: changing details to better fit the subjects own background or knowledge (schemas)
Eg. Gender of pilot and flight attendant

2007-03-15T14:25:00.000+07:00

All Purpose Memory

Today’s activity is called “all purpose memory activity”. Mr. Anthony read out several words, and we have to remember them. The words said are the following: Bed, Quilt, Dark, Silence, Fatigue, Clock, Snoring, Night, Toss, Tired, Artichoke, Turn, Rest, and Dream. After plotting the result in the graph, we can see that pattern that people tend to remember the first and last words better than the middle ones. This shows the effectiveness of the serial position effect which states that we tend to remember the primary and recency of the list. Furthermore, we tend to remember words which sounds more fancy (semantic distinctiveness) that the others such as the words fatigue and artichoke. Rehearsal is another factor that can enhance our memory. In this experiment, the word “night” was said 3 times, and ten out of ten people remembered it. On the other hand, we can also make up the word that was not on the list because of our schema (memory reconstruction). In this experiment, the word “sleep” was not said out. However, three people had it on their list – showing their imagination of the schema of the bedroom. Lastly, chunking is another technique that might be able to enhance our memory, but in this experiment it didn’t work quite well. Since the participants are not native English speakers, so they are not used to the words Toss and Turn. This causes the results to not be as Mr. Anthony had expected.

2007-03-13T10:12:00.000+07:00

Meaning Enhances Recall

The third experiment was called “meaning enhances recall”, determining the capacity of our long term memory. Firstly, we have to listen to a set of words, which are divided into two subgroups. We have to mentally count the syllable of the word labeled with A, and categorized if the word is pleasant or unpleasant if it is labeled B. As the result of our experiment, the highest score for A was 10, and the lowest was 1. The highest for B was 9 and lowest was 2. The highest total was 19, and the lowest total was 6. The produced the average of 5.09 for A, 7.09 for B, and 12.27 in total. From this we can see that we tend to recall more word that we have attached meaning to it (B) than the one that we didn’t (A). However, the result of two participants of the experiment didn’t follow the occurred trend. After all the experiment is done, Pox, participant who got the highest, told us that he used the method of telling meaningful stories (effortful processing) to himself while listening to those words. From this, we can see that the more meaningful the memories are, the easier it is to be recalled.

2007-03-13T10:11:00.000+07:00

Short Term Memory

In today’s class, Mr. Anthony conducted the experiment to determine the capacity of our short term memories. Firstly, he read out series of numbers in an ascending amount of digits. Each time each series was read out, each student have to try to recall and write it down. After doing this, I can remember only up to 6 digits series of number, whereas the average of the class is 6.5 digits. The literature value of human’s short term memory is 7 ± 2. This shows that the capacity our class is below the normal average. From this experiment, we can see that we tend to remember the first and last part of the information and tend to forget the middle ones. This is because we focused too much in remembering the first couples of digits and tend to forget to remember the upcoming ones. However, we also tend to focus more remember the last part of the information causing interference with the earlier parts of our memories. To improve our short term memory, we should try to visualize the information, remember the pattern, or use "chunking" - grouping into sets of 3 numbers. However, in this experiment number is very difficult to be visualized. Therefore, chunking seems to be the only way that works with this experiment.

2007-03-07T17:49:00.001+07:00

My First Memory

Mr. Anthony lets each of us recall our first memory. Each of the class members need to come up with what they think is their first memory, their age at that time, and their emotions. I recalled the memory of walking back home from a pre-school with my nanny. I remembered it as a sad memory since I need to walk for quite a long distance under the hot sun. After all my classmates report their first memory, we can see from the results that our first memories are constructed around the age of 3-4 years at average. But actually, what we really came up might not really be our first memory since we are neurologically capable to remember things at the age of 5. What we came up with would just be a reconstruction of several events (what you experienced or been told by your family) that we have strong emotional elements attached to it. This shows that our memories are very malleable. What we remember would be a picture of us looking back at ourselves, but not exactly the same since they are not videotaped.

2007-03-07T17:48:00.000+07:00

scrapbook url: mpamaslow.blogspot.com

2006-11-27T19:03:00.000+07:00

Assumptions of the Humanistic Perspective

The humanistic perspective assumed that each person is a unique and inherently good being. One that can understand the person best is he himself. Therefore, behavior must be understood in terms of the subjective experience of the individual. Furthermore, behavior is not determined by either past experience, environmental influencess, or biological factor, but by the choice or free will of the person - our choice are independent from the external factors. To understand the behavior of each unique person, the humanistic perspective thinks that the person should be studied as a whole individual in the context of their lives. Lastly, it assumed that psychology should be meaningful and applicable to all human beings.

2006-11-23T18:32:00.000+07:00

Existentialism

I like the ideas of Existentialism a lot more than the ideas of the first and second force psychology. What I especially like is its ideas of existence precedes essence and the ideas that every person is a unique being. We are the one who really determine who we really are, not our biology or the environment around us. I think these ideas can also encourage people to be independent and love themselves more. I also agree with its ideas on the negative sides of life - anxiety, angst, absurdity, death, and alienation. These are the facet of life which are inevitable.

2006-10-10T23:22:00.000+07:00

What was the historical and cultural context of the learning perspective?

The concepts of the behaviorism were shaped by historical and cultural context of the 20th century. Until the 1950s, it was very popular in the USA due to its simplicity. At this time, considering psychology as scientific discipline had appeared to have reached a dead end. People now tend to believe in the sciences that are observable through scientific experiments. Behaviorism offered simple explanations of behaviors by using environmental stimulus and responses. Combining this with the ideas of social changes – behavior changes according to environment, behaviorism had become appealing to the American mentality and the optimism about the future. The society of the USA has a strong belief in capitalism which based in business environment. Relating this to behaviorism, those who can adapt best to the changing business situations will gain the most profit.
Behaviorism was started by behaviorists such as Pavlov, Watson, and Throndike during the 1900s. These pioneer behaviorists tend to focus on scientific and objective ways to study human behaviors. Observable human behaviors were studied and explained in simplest forms, concerning the responses to the environmental stimulus. Through the 1960s, behaviorism was modified by Skinner, Garcia, and Seligman. Combining these ideas with the new insights from the cognitive and biological perspectives, behaviorism had evolved into the learning perspective.

2006-10-01T20:16:00.000+07:00

Essay 3 Introduction
Sigmund Freud’s classic psychoanalytic theories were modified by the theories of the Neo-Freudians psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Alfred Alder. They were two of the neo-Freudian psychologists who made significant contribution to the better understanding of human behavior. While agreeing with Freud on the ideas concerning the structure of personality and the importance of childhood experiences, they also disagreed with some of his other theories. In contrast to Freud’s theories of psychosexual development, Erikson proposed the theories of psycho-social which focused more on social interaction rather than sexuality. Alder’s theories also contradict Freud’s ideas of drives. He thinks that human beings are driven by the desire for perfection rather than sexuality and aggression. The theories of these Neo-Freudian psychologists contributed the broadening of Freud’s narrow point of view which created better understanding of human behavior.

2006-09-28T18:30:00.001+07:00

Neo-Freudian Essay Introduction
Sigmund Freud’s classic psychoanalytic theories were modified by the theories of the Neo-Freudians psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Alfred Alder. They were two of the neo-Freudian psychologists who made significant contribution to the better understanding of human behavior. While agreeing with Freud on the ideas concerning the structure of personality and the importance of childhood experiences, they also disagreed with some of his other theories. In contrast to Freud’s theories of psychosexual development, Erikson proposed the theories of psycho-social which focused more on social interaction than sexual. Alder’s theories also contradict Freud’s ideas of drives. He thinks that human beings are driven by the desire for perfection rather than sex and aggression. The theories of these Neo-Freudian psychologists contributed the broadening of Freud’s narrow point of view which created better understanding of human behavior.

2006-09-28T18:30:00.000+07:00

Neo-Freudian Essay Introduction

Sigmund Freud’s classic psychoanalytic theories were modified by the theories of the Neo-Freudians psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Alfred Alder. They were two of the neo-Freudian psychologists who made significant contribution to the better understanding of human behavior. While agreeing with Freud on the ideas concerning the structure of personality and the importance of childhood experiences, they also disagreed with some of his other theories. In contrast to Freud’s theories of psychosexual development, Erikson proposed the theories of psycho-social which focused more on social interaction than sexual. Alder’s theories also contradict Freud’s ideas of drives. He thinks that human beings are driven by the desire for perfection rather than sex and aggression. The theories of these Neo-Freudian psychologists contributed the broadening of Freud’s narrow point of view which created better understanding of human behavior.

2006-09-07T14:13:00.000+07:00

What I've learned from my first essay.

I've learn that the IB grading criteria is really tough. I must be very careful in writing. Making only a little mistake can make the content of the whole essay turn wrong, in which, my grade will be dropped greatly. I also discover that some words like "discover, proof and truth" should not be used at all. Lastly, when talking about Freud's ideas, I must use the words such as "seemed to and maybe", because without it my statements will be too strong and their meanings can completely change.

2006-08-30T20:12:00.000+07:00

What I Think of Freud and Little Hans
At this point, I think Sigmund Freud is a very weird guy. I can sense that most of Freud's theories and interpretations are realated to sex. By this, I assume that he is a pervert which might be caused by his family background. On the other hand, he is really smart in the way the he used to cure Little Hans.

Throughout the class discussion, I develop lots of new ideas on Freud. I think that Freud is a compassionate man because he travel to where Little Hans lives in order to cure him.... I doubt how could interpret Little Hans's words and correctly apply it to his theories. Does it really work?

For Hans, I think he's just an ordinary person except his abnormality during childhood. I think that even without Freud, he could be naturally cured through muturation. As he continue to develop his ego, he will be normal like everyone in the society again.

2006-08-22T15:47:00.000+07:00

How Science in 19th and Early 20th Centuries Affected Freud's Ideas
The ideas of Freud were greatly affected by the influences from many pieces of technology and scientists in his times. During much of Freud's life, the dominant technology was steam power. Steam was very common in back then as how computer is nowadays. Hermann von Helmholtz -- the person who introduced the theory of conservation of energy -- was one of the scientists who greatly influenced Freud. In his theory, Helmholtz stated that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. From here, Freud found out that human are driven by “psychic energy”. Moreover, Freud was able to adapt the theories of thermodynamics to explain his theories of psychodynamics. He theorized that human personality is divided into three parts, the id, ego, and superego. Freud had well described his theories by using the analogy of thermodynamics – he mainly compared to id, ego, and superego to the systems of steam engines which include fire, water, and steam. On the other hand, Charles Darwin’s ideas had also been a great influence to Freud’s theories. Through law of nature, Darwin showed that man is a part of nature world. Therefore, it could be studied scientifically. By looking back at the theory of evolution, we can see many several similarities in Freud’s theories of psychodynamics. For example, Darwin suggested adaptation – the change in organisms in order to suit better in the environment -- in his theory while Freud introduced ego – human personality that changed social condition -- in the psychodynamics.

2006-08-19T19:02:00.000+07:00

Assessment 1

The major changes in psychotherapy in this century have been the expansion into the wider group of people who need treatments. During these days, one doesn’t have to be rich to get psychotherapy. Several objects such as books, cassettes, and computer assisted materials – those widely excepted by experts -- are developed in order to help people to get a therapy easier. By being able to reach the masses, lots of people will be cured from psychological disorders. Also, psychotherapists nowadays have better understandings of the multicultural backgrounds of the patients, in which, they are able to develop special treatment methods for each specific individual. With these changes, therapists are able to apply the psychological theories and create their own unique practices. Through these modern advances, psychology will surely be optimized to its highest efficiency.
In this article, twenty breakthroughs were being mentioned.

Firstly, one of the discoveries I found most important was the one of Jean Piaget. In this finding, Piaget was able to show that children are unable to identify the conservation of quantity of objects placed in container with various shapes. From the result of this research, he was able to demonstrate that human intelligence develop in stages, in which, in the early stages, the sense of justice in children was not fully developed. By knowing this, psychotherapist will be able to give various types of treatment which suits the patients from different age groups – this will provide the treatments with optimized efficiencies.
Secondly, Harry F. Harlow’s research had discovered the innate differences in characteristics of males and females – males play rough and female play soft and gentle, but on the other hand females play rougher with their words. Through understanding this, psychologists might give more importance to biological perception, in which, genetics shaped our personalities.
Next, the breakthrough of Robert Epstein in “Capturing Creativity” was able to demonstrate that the creative process in an individual is predictable. By undergoing several training processes, human beings can be more creative which will lead to better performance. As a result, companies would give more concerns on giving out more training to their employee in order to increase their productivity, and indeed, creativity.
The fourth important research in my opinion is Hans Selye’s ways of coping with stress. As most of us know, stress plays a great role in illness, mood, and performance. We believe that the way to cope stress is to find peace. We are wrong. According to Selye, each of types of human beings need specific ways to deal with stress correctly, or else bad effects might follow. For example, some people are better-off busy and hardworking life. If we let them stay in a very peaceful place where there is tranquil environment, it might be even more stressful to them.
The last breakthrough I found important is Judith Rodin’s way to effectively control or lose or weight. I think that this discovery can save many people from getting over weight which might decrease the number of deaths caused by obesity and heart-linked diseases.

2006-08-17T14:11:00.000+07:00

The Big Issues in Psychology

Today, in psychologycalss, I did a survey about my opinion on irrationality(0) vs. rationality(25) , change (0) vs. stability (25), and nurture (0) vs. nature (25). At first, I think I believe in irrationality, change, and nurture. After taking the survey, the result turned out to be almost the same, except that my believe in rationality vs. irrationality had changed.
On the score range bar, I got the results of

17 for a strong believe in rationality
1 for a strong believe in change
8 for a believe in nurture

....According to the results, I have a very strong believe that the people can really change over time through environmental influences and what they experienced during their life time. However, the results also show that I had wrong ideas about rationality of human beings.

2006-08-15T09:33:00.000+07:00

Why do we do the things that we do?

I think we do the things that we do mainly because our thoughts, but also, our thoughts have always been influenced by several external factors such as environments, cultures, and how we changed and experience things through time.

In my opinion, I think the most important factor that shapes our thought is genetics and how we are raised up. We will be able to know our personalities and who we really are from the time we are toddlers to late childhood. We can not change who we really are "internally", but on the other hand, we can be changed "externally" through our life time. We may be influenced by many factors which will cause us to act differently when we are conscious or when we are staying under a certain social condition. In contrast, I believe we can not be changed internally or when we are unconscious.

2006-08-10T11:31:00.000+07:00

Why Psychology

Getting to study in this intensive psychology course will certainly grant me many valuable insights about myself. I hope that most of the things that I will be learning during this course will be really useful in my future life. I expect that throughout the course, I will be able to apply psychological principles in real life situations, in which, it might help me to know others and even myself more – providing me with better social contact skills and several ways to improve myself.

I believe that enrolling in a psychology course will surely help me to communicate better and more logically -- which will help satisfy the people I would be dealing with in the future. Also, each person has unique personalities. In order for me to understand and provide a logical reason to those uniqueness, I decide to study the diversity of people and what they are thinking.
Lastly, I believe that every actions committed by human beings are based on psychology. So...I am here to find the answer.