Not My Type

The attribution theory is the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

Stereotype is a generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people.

Chapter 10

I think that a lot of people have influenced my personality. My parents, my siblings, my co-workers, and my friends. I have become who I am because of the people surrounding me.
For defense mechanisms I think that I may use denial and projection. If I did something really bad I will usually fess up, but if it is a minor thing I will sometimes blame it on one of my sisters. I know it is really mean, but I think that everyone has done this once before in their lives. I use denail just because somethings I don't want to be true, I don't use it very often because a lot of the things that I could deny are true.

Chapter 8

Memory is very important in defining who we are as human beings. Without memory we obviously wouldn't be able to remember anything. Memory defines who we are. If you are able to remember most things people will probably come up to you and ask you for help, and if you can't remember anything people probably won't ask you much. If we did not have memory life would be crazy. People would be running aroud not knowing who they are or where they are going. People wouldn't have jobs or friends. And probably not family because you wouldn't be able to remember who is in your family. Clive is the same person but without a memory. He wouldn't be able to remember things so he would always be living in the past because he would never be able to remember things from the future.
Now I think more differently about memory because now I don't take it for granted. I am now starting to think about what it would be like if we didn't have a memory. It wouldn't be fun. I also cherish my memories more than I did before because they make me who I am. I trust my memories because they are things that have happened, and I can remember the things that happened in the past.
I found it interesting to learn about deja vu. Everyone one has experienced it and it is interesting to learn about why it happens. I hate when deja vu is happening and I sit there and think to myself, hasn't this already happened before?

Chapter 7

I thought this chapter was very interesting. I was able to learn a lot about learning. It was interesting to learn about the many different types of reinforcements. I didn't know that there was a schedule to follow. I also found it interesting to learn about all the types of conditioning. I never thought of myself as conditioned, but I guess I am. Like when they bell rings, I automatically get up, its just something that I have learned over time. Operant conditioning was also very interesting. When I read about that one I instantly thought about dogs and the electrical dog collars. If they leave the yards, they will hear a sound and if they aren't back to the yard within so many seconds then they will get shocked. After a while they learn that they are no longer allowed to leave the yard otherwise they will be punished.
I used conditoning when the bell rings, when the timer on the stove goes off, when my alarm in the morning goes off. I never realized how conditioned I was to some things.

Chapter 6 Blog

I was able to learn a lot from this chapter, some of the things that I learned were about the eye and how we are able to see things and how an image travels from the eye to the brain. I also learned that feature detectors are nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, like shape, angle, or movement. I also learned that hearing is three-dimensional, and that sound travels at 750 miles per hour. I also learned that pain is when nerves are injured and they send the message to the brain that the body is experiencing pain.
What suprised me about this chapter was all the illusions. It was very interesting to do the assignments with the illusions and see if I was able to see what the people who made the illusions said I would see. It also surprised me that if my eyes weren't relaxed I wasn't able to see some of the other things that were in the illusions.
It was interesting how much eye movement matters. Every little movement with your eye can make something look different or make you think it's moving even though it was just your eye moving. It was also interesting to learn a little about parapsychology. Some of those types of things can like paranormal activity can influence a lot of how people think. Like this weekend I went and saw Paranormal Activity, before I saw this movie I didn't believe in things like ghosts, but now I kind of do.

Ilusions Blog

I thought the illusions were very cool to look at, and I was able to see and learn a lot about the way things can be percieved. The eight blogs that I went to were the snake illusion, rotationg snake, spiral aftereffect, Rogets 'palisade' illusion, freezing roation illusion, biological motion, hidden bird, and hidden figure-dalmation dog.
From the tutorials I learned that things aren't always what they appear to be. In order to see some things you have to really relax your eyes otherwise you won't be able to see the images that are there, like in the hidden figure one, at first I couldn't see the dog then I relaxed my eyes and I was able to see it. I also learned that eye movements do matter. The snake illusion tutorial wasn't acutally moving, but when I moved my eyes it looked the the image was expanding when it really wasn't.
It suprised me that the position of the picture had an effect on the way the picture looked. One of the tutorial's rotated and that made the image look totally different than what it was. It also suprised me how much eye movements matter. Everytime your eye moves it affects how the picture will come across.
It changed the way I percieve things by showing that there is always a different image to something. You may see just one thing, but if you look closer there may be something else under what we originally see.
These may affect they way I look at things on a day to day basis by making me look at things more closely to see if there is an image in it. It may make me look at things from a differenct angle to see if the image can be looked at two different ways than the normal way.

Developing Through the Life Span

I was able to learn a lot in this chapter, one thing that stood out in my mind was Piaget's Theory. His theory showed that children progress through four stages of development and they are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. This theory suprised me because all the stages are the same exact thing that people go through in order to grow up. Like the sensorimotor, all children from birth to age 2 use there senses and actions to learn new things. I also learned a lot about day care attachment. It didn't suprise me that children that went to day care were slightly more advanced in thinking and language. My mom used to do daycare. Some things that happened when she did daycare was the kids would become more attached to her, they wouldn't want to go home with their parents; that happened very often. I think that daycare is go for kids because they learn how to grow and share so when they are older they will be able to carry those traits for the rest of their lives. I also learned about attachment differences. I learned that parents that are more sensitive have infants that are attached to them. I thought it was interesting because it shows that either way you parent it affects your children. There is no right and wrong way of parenting.
I thought it was interesting to learn about the parenting styles. It again shows that there is no right or wrong way of parenting. I'm just glad that my parents aren't authoritarian, they are more authoritative which is nice. I believe that the way your parents raise you will be the way you raise you kids, maybe, it all depends on your beliefs too.