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.

Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity

I found this chapter very interesting, I was able to learn a lot about twins, gender roles, and how cultures affect the way we live. One thing that I learned in this chapter was how cultue and child-rearing has changed over time. A century and a half ago children were taught to be true to your traditions, be obedient, and to respect your parents and people who are older than you. Now they are taught to be true to yourself, you are responsible for yourself, and to follow your conscience. I found this suprising because I didn't think that things have changed that much, yes my parents teach me to be true to myself and all that, but I am also taught to respect my parents and people who are older than me. I also learned that men are more likely to talk to a woman than they are to another man. I found this interesting because I always thought that men talked to men, but I can understand why they would talk to women because women are more nurturing. I also learned that although identical twins have the same genes they don't have the same number of copies of genes, and that is why one twin always seems to get more sick than the other one. I found that interesting because identical twins have the same everything, so I assumed that they had the same number of copies of genes.
In this chapter a lot of things suprised me, but one thing that sticks out in my mind is the whole personal space thing. This suprised me because before I read about it, I never noticed how much some people invade others personal space. I didn't do the test where you talk to someone and get closer to them because I like to keep my own personal space.

Implicite Association Test

I did the test on age. This test determined if you prefered young or old people. The tests were interesting to take, but I think the results are what the people who made the test wants them to be. My results were that I prefer young people over old, but I really don't. I hang out with young people more than old, but I don't have a preference.

Consciousness and the Two Track Mind

In this chapter I learned about selective attention. I noticed that I and many people have that. It affects my life because sometimes I don't know that people or talking to me or didn't see that something happend. It's a lot like selective hearing. I also learned about REM sleep and dreaming. I learned how to know when someone is dreaming because when they are dreaming their eyes move. This doesn't really affect my life all that much because even if you don't remember the dream you still dreamed. Ever since I have learned about this, I haven't been remembering my dreams as much as I could before. In this chapter I also learned about hypnosis, I didn't know that being hypnotized could relieve pain. This again doesn't affect my life, unless I am being hypnotized.
In this chapter I found it suprising that doctors could have someone look at a pictures and without the person saying what they knew which picture the person was looking at without asking. It also suprised me that being hypnotized could relieve pain, I think I would rather have drugs in me to relieve pain than be hypnotized, espically for a surgery.
I agree with everything in this chapter other than the book saying that people dream to fly away memories. For some people that may be true, but for others dreaming about the past may make them think about it more other than letting it go. When I have a dream about the past, and actually remember it, I try to figure out why I would dream about that and then it will be on my mind for awhile. It won't go away until I figure it out or just decide to move on.
Overall I thought this chapter was very interesting it answered a lot of questions about dreaming and how we know that people are dreaming.

Chapter 2 Brain and Behavior

From completing the activites I learned that the brain is a very complicated organism. I knew that the brain is the main reason for us being able to functionin but I never understood what it has to do for us in order to function. What suprised me is how much stuff goes into being able to write or read. There are messages that have to go through the brain just so we can read what we are writing. Or how our brains have to tell our hands to type certain letters on the keyboard. The things that I learned can be applied to everyday life by me doing the things that the brain does. So now when I do something I will be able to understand how I am able to do that and what parts of the brain allows me to do those things. No, it really doesn't change the way I look at the world. I knew the functions in the brain had to do with why we act the way we do. Even if we didn't know all that we know, I think people will still act the way the were meant to without having to think about why.
In this unit I learned about how the brain functions and how messages are passed from one area of the body to the other. Like how the cerebellum lets me turn my steering wheel. I also learned that it is possible to have two brains. When I heard that we were going to watch a movie about a man with two brains I thought it was a joke, but I learned that it is possible to have two brains. Finally I learned that their slight differences between people who write with their right hand or left, other than the obvious differece that they write with different hands. I learned that people who write with their left hands are more likely to suffer from migranes and allergies.