Rachel Jinkerson's Archive

Our discussion the other day in class over the unconscious and priming was really interesting to me. We learned that people walk slower after they are primed with words related to old people and that people are more aggressive when they see words related to aggression. This made me wonder, how much of our behavior can we attribute to our unconscious perception of visual stimuli? In the field of psychology, it would  be ignorant to believe that one has complete control over their own behavior, but as a person I like to think that I choose to behave how I want to. Yet, experiments on the unconscious show that people are influenced to behave a certain way without even realizing it. How often do we do and say things only because of how we were primed right before we did them? One thing that comes to mind when I think about this is subliminal messaging. The Budweiser ad is just a simple example of messages that you do not realize are there. Subliminal messaging is very interesting to me. How much do these messages prime us for a desired product or sexual behavior? Some of the subliminal messages that I came across looked normal to the untrained eye, but when pointed out the messages for very explicit and almost pornographic. These messages are a cause for concern when you think about how many you see daily. These messages are not only in advertisements, but also in movies and television. Even Disney adds scenes to their movies that are so quick that they go undetected. Knowing that the research shows that priming influences thoughts and behaviors  makes me wonder how much of an affect they are having on me subconsciously. I think the important thing is to be aware of what stimuli you are experiencing. Of course, if you are perceiving stimuli unconsciously then its difficult to be aware of it.

The best part about behaviorism is that it is applicable to our lives today. You do not have to even be a psychologist to understand the benefits of reinforcement and use them to condition people’s behavior. However, it is interesting to me how few of people employ these simple concepts. The clearest example and the one that always comes to mind when I think about reinforcing behavior is child rearing. There are way too many spoiled children in America today. And why are they spoiled? They are spoiled because their parents reinforce their negative behavior time and time again. For example, when mothers take their children to the grocery store with them, the child might ask for a piece of candy. When the mom says no, the child begins to scream and cause a scene so the mom gives them the candy to make them quiet. Now the child knows that if they behave a certain way they will get what they want.  Another example is in the video clip I posted. Veruca Salt is a spoiled child in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In the film, she throws a fit whenever she doesn’t get her way and her father does what ever he can to make her happy. I believe it is mostly the parents’ fault when their children act so inappropriately. They are more concerned with getting their child to stop their behavior at that specific moment instead of thinking about long term effects.  I know it is not always easy to implement what we preach. I hope that some day when I am a parent that I will be able to use my knowledge of conditioning and reinforcement to raise children in a respectful way. Spoiled children grow up to be spoiled adults and these people are usually unpleasant to be around.

Veruca Salt

As I was thinking about perception and apperception, I was reminded of this youtube video Basketball Perception that I had seen a few years ago. Even though I perceived the gorilla on the screen, I did not apperceive it. I did not pay any attention to it because all my attention was focused on counting the basketballs. It is crazy to think that I was watching the screen so intently and focusing on the details that I completely missed a major change in the environment. If you take this simple example and apply it to life, it almost scares me. Am I giving my attention to the wrong stimulus’s? What details of life am I not apperceiving? According to Wundt, apperception is under my control and I will apperceive what I pay attention to. Therefore, I try to remind myself not to give all my attention to just one thing. I think many times people go through life and while they perceive the things around them, they do not actively pay attention to them. For example, every morning I drive to school. I perceive the cars and people on the street, but by the time I get to school I have no real recollection about the drive or the details of it.

While all this may seem like common sense, I think its important not to overlook it. Perception can have a great impact on what we learn, how we organize information, and how we behave in response to what we perceive. Therefore, I believe its important to give attention to a wide variety of environments, people, ideas, etc., in order to broaden our horizons.

Evolutionary psychology is very interesting, yet as a Christian sometimes I struggle with it. As a student, I see the research, read the scientific facts and hear the theories. They seem to make sense and fall into place. Yet, as a Christian I was raised and taught about Creationism and how everything began with God. The story of Genesis accounts the creation of the world and how God in all his majesty made something out of nothing and made man in His image. Genesis 1:27 says “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Are men and women the way we are because that is what God intended for us? Or are do have biological and behavioral differences because we evolved that way? I have been pondering that for a while. It is hard for me to believe that our actions stem from our want to preserve our genes. I believe when you look at life on a genetic level, you take away everything that I value in life. For me the best things in life include love, family, and friendship. Evolutionary psychologists say that men and women are attracted to those who have compatible genes, yet I believe that I am attracted to people based on their personality and heart. I want kindness, compassion and loyalty, not just someone who’s genes will mix well with mine to make children. It is interesting to note though that it was also God’s plan for man to bear children. The following verse in Genesis states “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

While it is hard for me to accept attraction on a genetic level, I find myself believing in the adaptation of species at the same time. I think it would be ignorant to not acknowledge that people grow, learn, and adapt over time. So then I wonder how much is adaption and how much is evolution? Or are they one in the same? Maybe God created man as an intelligent species so that we could change and survive.

\”Tabula Rasa\” LOST

This summer I had the opportunity to watch all six seasons of LOST and while it was entertaining, it was thoroughly confusing. It is interesting to look at the characters from LOST and how they compare and contrast to the philosophers they are named after. I thought it was just Locke who was named after someone, but after looking into it I realized that the writers had a purpose behind the names of their characters.

John Locke the empiricist rejected innate ideas and believed that everything was learned from experience. He believed in tabula rasa, the idea that the mind is a blank slate to be written on. Tabula Rasa is the title of the third episode of the first season. The theme of the episode is that everyone is starting new on the island and therefore is a blank slate; they can be who they want to be. The youtube clip shows the end of this episode where Jack tells Kate that they can start over and forget about the past. Locke the character is not a believer in the ideas of tabula rasa because he believes in destiny and that he was put on the island for a reason.  One similarity the writers added was the character of Anthony Cooper. On the show, Cooper was John’s father and John saved his life by giving him a kidney transplant. In history, Cooper was John’s patron and John saved his life when he persuaded him to have surgery.

Desmond Hume reflects the ideas and characteristics of David Hume in a few ways. David Hume believed that emotions and passions caused their behavior. In the show, Desmond’s behavior is greatly influenced by his emotions. For example, his love for Penny causes him to sail around the world and end up on the island, and his fear of blowing up causes him to push the button in the hatch repeatedly for 2 years. Furthermore, both David and Desmond are Scottish.

After realizing that Locke was named after someone, I wanted to learn what other references were made. It intrigued me to research the characters and ideas behind them. Other characters that are named after philosophers include Jeremy Bentham, Mikhail Bakunin, Danielle Rousseau (Jean-Jacque Rousseau), and Charlotte Staples Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis). I appreciate when writers and artists tie in history and important figures into pop culture. I think it helps keep the past alive and in our minds.

Different philosophical questions also arise from LOST. For example, do people really have a destiny or is there free will? Is there life after death? Does good triumph over evil? Is there redemption? These are just a few tough questions that LOST has made me think about.

1 John 4:9-10

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

What does love really mean? As Christians, we are taught that God loves us unconditionally and we ought to love others as well as God. But, as I think about what that really means, I realize that I have no real understanding of what the love of God actually is. The allegory of the cave can be applied to this fundamental Christian principle, that God is love. Just like the men chained in the cave facing the shadows, I see reflections of God’s love. I see it through the lives of other people, I read the stories in the Bible, I pray to have a relationship, but I still can only grasp a pinch of what God’s love completely entails. Even my own ability to love is only a reflection of the love of God. I cannot even fathom how it is possible to love every single person who has ever been and who will be. And not just to love them, but to love them with such a complexity and wholeness that it consumes you; it becomes the center of your entire being. I love my God, my family, my friends, but I know that I do not love with the entirety that God loves, nor will I ever while I am on this earth. I am stuck in the shadows. I cannot see the real light, only the glimpses and reflections. I am grateful though that I do not really know what the love of God is. I just remind myself that the love of God is probably one hundred times amazing that I can even fathom. It definitely gives me something to look forward to.

Furthermore, in the allegory of the cave, when the escaped prisoner goes back into the cave to tell the other prisoners of the truth he has seen, he is killed. The chained prisoners cannot fathom the truth and so react violently. This is similar to what happened to Jesus. He came as a man to bring the truth and splendor of God’s love to the world and what did we do? We crucified him. It is interesting to me that Plato predicted this scenario a couple hundred years before Christ. I think that shows how wise and timeless Plato’s ideas can be.