Archive for ‘The Schools of Psychology (Part IV-B)’

1. Media

2. Tobacco

3. Alcohol

4. Recreational Drug

5. Food Addiction

6. Gambling

7. Prescription Drugs

8. Sex Addiction

9. Shopping

10. Work Addiction

These are the top ten addictions in todays society.

I believe that people use these things as excuses to escape from having to deal with emotional, financial, household, and other problems in their lives. All of these are readily available, and mostly legal substances for adults or anyone to use. But its shown that prolonged or excessive use can lead to a problem with addiction. Some do however have addicting substances contained within them, such as the nicotine in cigarettes. Some are even considered good for you such as work but it is yet again an escape if it becomes too great of importance in your life. Just about anything can become an addiction in your life. There are many contributing reasons out there for someone to have addictions; genes, an early use of drugs, social environment, childhood trauma, etc. but I believe that it is mainly a choice when it comes to addictions. Whether they have a strong enough convictions no matter what they are to lead them away from what pulls them toward addiction. I myself have experienced that pull and was able to stave it off.  I did it for myself and my family, it is a hard thing to do but it isn’t even close to being impossible. I believe that anyone who isn’t able to cast off the chains of addiction just needs to find their cause, it’s just a matter of being strong enough to do it and everyone has that strength within they just have to access it.

http://upcoming.current.com/search?q=10+Most+Common+Addictions+in+America

I really enjoyed all the cognitive value association experiments we explored in class some weeks ago. If used properly, its like mind control. The way Juice was paired with Hitler forever planted a notion of suspicion in my mind, and Danielle is all the more angelic because of her compassionate match. So, really, how much control do we have over our impressions and thoughts? Some common idioms come to mind: you are what you eat, home is where the heart is, and a quote from Mr. Vonnegut: “Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.” The idea has been around awhile, and psychology is now bringing evidence to support the concept of subconscious influence on conscious perceptions. For instance, for all you Bible lovers out there, in 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul suggests we “take captive every thought” and subjugate it to Christ so that we can recognize philosophies contrary to the “knowledge of God.” Also, in Proverbs 4:23, the author commands the student to “guard your heart” as “everything you do flows from it.” Though I often hear this verse from peers in regard to romantic encounters, the context fails to uphold such an appropriation of wisdom. It seems the scripture is explaining the path to a wise lifestyle and contains suggestions for preserving righteousness. Anyway, all of this was going through my mind in class that day (I know, its a lot. what can I say?), and I happened to recall a commercialized idea that applies the concepts presented by the research. It’s easy to find online. If you search “Mind Movies” into Google you’ll find a host of products or suggestions for self enhancing subconscious training through repetition of positive statements about dreams or goals. Cool, right? Well, still during this class period, my incredible mind postulated innumerable possibilities for the enhancement of learning through the tailoring of specific non-conscious stimuli in the learning environment. I’m tired of reading motivational posters. That takes conscious effort. How about we modify the language of instructional pamphlets, train teachers to use positive value enforcing language, and extend recess for all ages (I know, its hard to fathom how that last one relates, but trust me, I spent a whole class period delving into the mysteries of the mind)? I regret that I am unable to list all the incredible possibilities here, as I failed to translate my time-sensitive ideas to a medium before the end of class. But, we all know that a collection of minds supersedes any lone individual, and paired with the priming on the unconscious, I foresee amazing reforms. Basically. I found the possibilities to be exciting.

Hey guys:). I really wanted to see what you all thought of my major paper topic. So I wanted to post a HIGHLY modified version of my paper for you all to comment on:). Enjoy:)
The debate of whether man is inherently good or inherently evil has long pervaded the history of philosophy and psychology. For example, great philosophers such as Socrates and Plato believed in man’s inherent capable of goodness. Later philosophers and psychologists who followed this line of thinking included such well known figures as Rogers and Maslow. In this view of man, the environment is often blamed for the evil that takes place in this world. Therefore, “man can be good if certain conditions are met” (Staub, 1978, p. 14). Moreover, when those conditions are not meet, and instead the environment facilitates evil, man will have a high propensity of acting in evil ways.
In the history of psychology, many landmark studies have revolutionized the conceptualization of evil by providing evidence that normal well functioning individuals can, and will, act in ways that are evil. Studies such as the Milgram experiment, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the BBC prison study lend themselves to the idea that man will turn toward evil under the right conditions. Therefore, man is controlled to some degree by the environment. Moreover, that environment can make the average good man or good woman act in evil ways. Agreeing with both Rogers and the experimenters, this writer believes that man is good by nature, but that the environment can affect and change that nature; therefore, evil is a product of the environment not a product of an individual’s nature.
In conclusion, as stated, what is responsible for evil? The environment, the situation, the conditions, and the pressures found therein. In Ervin Staub’s The Psychology of good and evil: Why children, adults, and groups help and harm others, Staub’s position is grounded in the belief that evil is created by the environment. If evil is a product of the environment it seems reasonable to assume that if one understands how evil is created it can be decreased and instead good can be promoted; this is the exact position that Staub takes. As a result, there appears to be some hope in applying the knowledge of the production of evil to reduce it and promote good. In short, if man is inherently good, as I believe, then we can aid in the production of an environment that will facilitate the good that is already in humanity. Therefore, with hope in the belief that humanity is inherently good, we are left with the duty of taking action to ensure that man is allowed to embrace the good that is at mans core.

One thing that always fascinates me is the amount of people that will tell me how many things they have wrong with them at that certain time. Then the same question always comes out of my mouth, “Did you go to the doctor?” I already know the answer to this question before my friend even tries to justify their reason for why they believe that certain illness has taken over their body. That answer is NO.
As a culture, we have seen how subliminal messaging can affect one’s thoughts and unconscious behavior. I believe the same can be seen in someone’s self-diagnosis of themselves or others around them. For example, the new rave is to buy a self-help book, which explains certain illnesses or diseases by stating which symptoms connect to them. Another example is WebMD. This website gives you the definition of illnesses ranging from asthma all the way to illnesses one in a billion people have ever been attacked by. Doctors go to medical school for several years to be able to recognize these illnesses and still have trouble knowing exactly what it is. Why would someone believe that they can diagnose themselves after simply reading an article on the internet or the new hot book?
The newest episode of The Modern Family shows us a taste of this happening in our culture today. YouTube would not allow me to post a clip of this episode, but if you would like to check it out you can at Hulu.com. It’s season two, episode nine. The scene I am focusing on is when Gloria catches Jay and Manny on the WebMD website. She does not believe Jay has anything wrong with him and states, “You think it here, you see it there, you feel it here!” Later in the episode you find out that Jay actually has acute appendicitis, but he went into the hospital because he believed he had another illness that was complete different from the truth. Check it out and let me know what you think!

When I was in seventh grade speech class I decided what I wanted to do with my life. We were learning about persuasive speeches or something and our teacher introduced Maslow’s theory as a way to help write persuasive speeches by figuring out at which stage your audience probably was. When I learned about his theories, I fell in love with the field of psychology. Then, when I was a freshmen, I revisited Maslow’s theory for a paper. It’s from that paper that I want to draw my thoughts for this post. It seems kind of unrelated to the class, but it’s something that I have wondered about. Granted, when I wrote the paper I was an uneducated freshman who just needed a paper topic and tried to make a somewhat scholarly-sounding paper to just make it by in the class.
The paper was about the intersection of literature and psychology: why people read fiction. I posited that perhaps one of the biggest reasons we read fiction (for those of us who do actually read fiction) is because we can live vicariously through the characters and fulfill the different stages of our needs through the characters of the book. In my paper I said that perhaps this did not apply to the first two levels, since those needs are necessary for survival. Before you read a book you make sure you can eat that day, etc. However, it might apply to the higher level needs. That’s why romance novels are so popular. Perhaps when it is too much effort to fulfill our own needs we turn to a book to fulfill the needs for us.
I don’t know. When it comes down to it, the idea seems somewhat ridiculous. After all, some people read certain novels even after their needs are filled. For example, people in committed relationships still read the Twilight books, so they’re not using those books to fulfill their desire for love. It was just something I was thinking about.

Our unconscious mind relies on previous experiences, on expectations, and on prior knowledge. We have control of the memories and facts that effect our unconscious choices. In the example given in class with the people’s pictures being flashed next to a figure that we had been taught in our history class to be either good or bad, we would then describe the person as being good or bad. Some people would argue that we have no control over how we relate the two picture to each other. I however, believe that we have control over how we view those people and the things that we associate with those people. We have been taught to view Hitler as an evil person who caused a mass genocide, so we would have associated negative qualities with Juice’s picture. But if we had chosen to associate Hitler as a good politician and successful leader, then we would have associated those qualities with Juice. So we do have free will over our unconscious because we chose how we will remember circumstances and people. We can remember the good qualities or the bad qualities and those are what will later play a role in how we judge similar situations.

I was very intrigued by our previous class where each group represented a theory and explained how their theory saw results to each experiment. There are very distinct theories that make up the psychology field. Each has opposite views from the other. But how do you choose which theory to support? Yes you shuffle through your own beliefs and see what fits; but, at least from my experience, there is never just one theory that all my beliefs fall under. I agree with a lot of what the existential theory says, but I also agree with a little bit from behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Does that mean I should support existential as my theory of choice. Another thought I occasionally think about is: since each theory is so different, do many people solely represent one theory any more? In each of the psychology class I have been in since I started college, each professor has said that they use techniques and theories from each major theory. They tend to have one theory that they lean towards, but they pull from other theories, as well. In a sense, it is as if they are making their views “complete” by combining theories to form one. One therapists cannot necessarily be completely successful with every client they see unless they use bits and pieces from other theories besides the one they mainly support. Since it is becoming more common to “complete” one’s beliefs by combining thoughts and techniques from multiple theories, how many people are left who solely represent one theory?

I love Existential theory, no joke.  However, in the post research paper delusion I made certain existential and behavioral jokes that my nonpsych major friends did not find the humor in because they are not as engulfed by theory as we are.  Which is a slight concern because I feel that when we comprehend theory we are more able to help ourselves.  Anyways, back on topic, I love existential theory, the fact that we must come to the realization in time all things end.  It is also a theory that calls us as people to a higher standard in a way.  As Frankl says we must take responsibilty for our actions and not blame others for the way we act.  Coming from someone who survived a concentration camp that is a huge movement.  It is also something that I know I do not practice from time to time. 

Last semester I had a lot of pent up anger and agression towards my family (there’s just a lot of drama that doesn’t need to be talked about but those of you in Child Psyc have heard some of it) so I went to counseling center to deal with the issue, and in a very existential way Naomi pointed out that the only person I can control is myself, there is not a point in being mad at my dad or my mom for the things they do that “inadvertently affect me”.  Which has really made an impact on my life, what do y’all think about personal responsibilty as a counseling technique?

Our last class was very interesting concerning subliminal messages and other stimuli to create some sort of atypical response. For instance, I was surprised that thinking of old people made you walk slower or thinking of what a professor looked like made you score higher on an exam, placement test, etc. Sitting in class I was reminded of an experiment my Greek professor encouraged us to do last year.

Last year ACU had a speaker on “White Privilege” that sparked a lot of conversation and controversy on campus. One of the things this particular professor told us was that we must recognize how we were raised and where we come from in order to fully recognize our own biases concerning race. This recognition will help us deal with our automatic responses and hopefully move forward in such a way as to change ourselves and others for the better. We cannot pretend our past doesn’t shape us. To help us better understand what he was saying, he encouraged us to take a test online. The results were confidential and not revealed to anyone other than the test taker.

The test paired certain good words and bad words with an African/African-American face or a Caucasian face. The test taker was supposed to match the terms as quickly as possible to the “correct” terms. One time through bad words were paired with Caucasians and good words with African Americans while a second time through did the opposite. The pairings were chosen randomly. When I took it, Caucasian was paired with good the first time through and with bad the second time through. A rating was given after the testing based on the time it took to match the questions and the number that were paired incorrectly. The rating was made by comparing the test takers 2 scores. It was not based on comparing the test taker to a neutral group.

I was not surprised with my own results. I grew up in a highly racist family from the south east. My father still flies the Confederate flag and considers Arlington National Cemetery in DC to be stolen property from the North. Though I hold vastly different views from my parents (more particularly my father), I knew my automatic responses would be less than great. However, I am grateful to my professor for the suggestion. I am now aware how strong my innate reactions despite my own opinions. It is interesting how much there is “unconscious” that we are not aware of. I wouldn’t consider myself crazy about Freud’s particular analysis of the unconscious, but I do agree with him that it is important. We must know how we’ve been shaped (maybe more of a behaviorist mindset) before we can live how we believe is right.

Reading through the ideas behind existentialism in the textbook especially those of Kierkegaard, I was extremely pleased with the amount of focus that this school of thought places on the individual.  Kierkegaard modeled at least a portion of his life in relation to this theory as seen in his religious lifestyle.  Kierkegaard converted from Christianity to become a stout follower of Hegel then back to Christianity, but not the institutionalized brand of the time.  HE said that the most “meaningful relationship with God was a purely personal one that was arrived at through an individual’s free choice, not one whose nature and content were dictated by the church” (218).  A central point that Kierkegaard touches on that I believe is extremely relevant today was his idea on prayer.  He said that “rather than having a true relationship with God,” people were simply “praying relfexively and accepting religious dogma rationally instead of allowing it to touch them emotionally” (219).  Especially in the Churches of Christ, prayers have become formulas that people simply plug words into: example “Please bow with me.  Dear heavenly thank you for this day, and thank for (plug in something your thankful for), thank you for this church where we can worship freely, thank you for your son’s death on the cross in Jesus’ name, Amen” or some variation of the type.  What is worse is communion prayers, I might have heard 10 different prayers in my entire life regarding communion and I was raised in the church. Kierkegaard said “without risk there is no faith” (218), and I firmly believe that the Church no longer takes risks, but simply live a life of safe normality.