Blog Post #8

Classical conditioning is a kind of learning where a person connects two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Behavior can be conditioned by providing the influence that causes an action. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control its response. An example, is when a dog hears a bell and starts to salivate because it knows food is coming. He cannot control his salivation because it is involuntary. Operant conditioning is a kind of learning in which behavior is encouraged when followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. The subject associates its actions with consequences. Reinforcements increase behavior. Punishment decreases behavior. For example, a child who is praised for doing good work will purposely do good work to get the praise. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control the events and in operate conditioning, the subject can control the behavior and events. In classical conditioning, the response is involuntary and in operate conditioning, it is voluntary. In classical conditioning, conditioning is acquired by associating events. In operate conditioning, the behavior is acquired by associating a response with a consequence. I believe this is interesting because we all have been conditioned whether we are aware of it or not. Even our animals are conditioned. For example, tying up a barking dog, helps the dog associate barking with confinement. The punishment may change his behavior. This applies to my life because I have been conditioned and do the conditioning. I have learned that if i ask often enough, I can cause someone to respond in the manner I wish.

Positive reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food, compliments, or desired behavior. It needs to be presented after a response in order to strengthen the response. Negative reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. An example of this is, when you pull on a horse's rein, the bit is loosened after the correct stop. Punishment is designed to decrease the frequency of behavior. There can be positive punishment, which is giving an aversive stimulus and negative punishment, which takes away a desirable stimulus.

An example of positve reinforcement in my life is getting good grades for doing my homework on time or getting paid for doing chores around the house. In this case, the behavior was doing my chores and my homework, and the reinforcement of this was getting money and good grades. The intended outcome was to continue doing my homework and chores without complaining.
An example of negative reinforcement is when my mom yells at me over and over to get out of bed in the mornings. When I finally get out of bed, she stops yelling. The behavior was sleeping too late in the morning, the reinforcement was the cessation of my mom yelling, and the intended outcome was me getting out of bed. An example of punishment that occurred in my life is not being allowed to go to prom because I sassed back to my mother. The behavior was sassing to my mom, the punishment was taking away my priviledge of going to prom, and the intended outcome was me not sassing back to my mom.

The most interesting thing I learned in this section, is that there are two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to perform a behavior for its own sake. Extrinsic motivation accomplishes a task for external rewards or to avoid punishment. It seems like most education is for extrinsic motivation. Students want to receive good grades as a reward or they want to avoid the punishment of low grades, staying in for recess, or a disappointed parent and teacher. Only when we are allowed to choose can we truly say our learning is from intrinsic motivation. This is interesting because there are countries whose students who truly desire to learn for its own sake, like African nations, who do not give all of their children the chance to be educated. In my opinion, it changes the way I think about jobs. We have a job for money. If we didn't get paid, most people would not have the job they have. I can apply this to my everyday life by accepting that I might not find a job I truly love and intrinsically want to do well at, but can accept the fact that the extrinsic reward is worth it.

Blog Post #7

Sensation is how we receive information from our surroundings. Sensory receptors detect stimuli. Perceptions are the way we organize and understand the stimulus. Perceptions are drawn from sensations, experience, and expectations. They are interpretations of what we receive from our senses.

I believe the most interesting thing is absolute thresholds, which is the minimum amount of stimulus needed to notice something half of the time. I saw something on tv where teenagers can hear certain sounds of cellphones when adults can't. Age has affected the absolute threshold for high pitched sounds in adults. This is also mentioned in the book. This is helpful to know because it seems in schools, teachers hear certain students better than others. The low voice of a male must be at a higher threshold to hear than a whisper of a girl. Boys could learn from this by being more quiet with their voices.

I read the article, Psychology of Magic: 3 Critical Techniques. Magicians use psychology in their tricks. They use physical misdirection, physical illusions and physical forcing with psychological counterparts. Using physical misdirection, a magician also tries to lead the audience to a different solution mentally. They will then look for proof of that solution instead of seeing the real illusion. They also try to fool our attention by using our predicton of how events normally happen. They plan on the audience making certain predictions or having certain expectations for normal ev ents and use those to trick us. Drawing our attention away from the important action is also a way to fool us. When we concentrate on one thing intensely, we fail to see another event that happens in front of our eyes, like an assistant slapping the right card on a window to show which card was picked. Magicians also use mental forcing which appears to give the audience a free choice but is really highly influencing their decision through various techniques, such as holding a card for a longer period of time or making it larger.

This is interesting because, although these tricks don't sound like an intelligent person might fall for them, it seems like they always do. This shows me that I could possibly influence others to make a choice I want them to make even though they may think they are making their own choice. I will be more skeptical when given choices and try to make them without being influenced by others.

Blog Post #6

I learned that my grandpa, Bernie, had a few of the same concerns that some kids have today like acne, and being allowed to date. He studied the same subjects but didn't have any advanced subjects. Some kids work today but get to keep their money and spend it as they wish. I learned that he had a hard working life for little pay. It surprised me that he didn't date in high school like most kids do today. He had an age limit to begin dating, whereas most kids today like myself get to choose when they would like to date. It seemed like a hard life, and I don't think that I would have liked to be restricted like he was. He also appears to have been poor, making his own clothes or receiving hand-me-downs.

My thoughts on the "Parenting and Adolescense" video are that I believe kids don't have any power, and it is true that we need our space. The most irritaing thing to me is when my parents talk to me when I just want to be left alone. Sometimes I just don't have anything to say to them and am not interested in what they have to say. I feel as an adolescent, I have had a tremendous amount of freedom to experiment with who I am and to test my limits. My parents trust me to stay out of trouble and have taught me well. I have earned my freedom. My time as an adolescent has given me confidence to meet new people and try new things. I think as an adult, I will be confident and socialize with many different networks.

One thing I have learned in Chapter 4 is that genes influence personality from the separated twins account. Identical twins were separated at birth. Years later, they were found out to have very similar life choices. This shows that we are destined at birth to have certain characteristics. Nature directs our lives very strongly. Even being separated from the environment does not change how nature expresses itself.

In Chapter 5, I learned that in a specific developmental stage of children, they do not have object permanence. If you cover up an object, they don't realize that it is still there. This happens with babies under 6 months old in the sensorimotor stage. I think that this is why babies have so much fun when you play peek-a-boo and why they are a bit startled when you remove the blanket. Also, when they drop an item off of their high chair, they don't look for it because they don't know that it is moved

Blog Post #5

In this chapter, I have learned many interesting things. First, I learned that identical twins not only share the same genes, they also share the same uterus. I never really thought about this before. When I think of twins, I just think of two people looking the same. I didn’t know that there are so much more than just similar looks that go into being a twin. Although identical twins have the same genes, they don’t have the same number of copies of those genes always.

Fraternal twins aren’t identical. They come from the same fertilized eggs but they are generally no more the same than regular brothers or sisters. I thought it was very interesting to learn that some health related problems could occur in the same twin. There is a more likely chance of an identical twin to get the same health problem, such as Alzheimer’s disease, than it is in fraternal twins. The same goes for a fraternal twin getting a divorce. The odds of the other twin getting a divorce is 1.6 times when having an identical twin get a divorce, there is a greater chance of 5.5 times the other twin getting a divorce. This surprises me because I wouldn’t think genetics has anything related to divorce.

In the video, Evolutionary Psychology and Sexual Attitudes, I learned that women look for men who can be good providers and men look for women who can be good home makers. This changes in cultures where women are more equal to men. Each sex looks for similar qualities in each other.

In the video, Natural Selection and Evolutionary Psychology, I learned the body is a machine designed to preserve the existence of its genes. Animals evolved and those genes that were successful in keeping the animal alive thrived. Humans tend to not focus on gene survival like animals do. They waste more time on unnecessary activities. However, their brains are bigger compared to animals so that one gene trait held strong.