Blogging the Pros and Cons

Personally I have mixed feelings on ‘blogging’ I agree that student centred learning is a good way to learn in some ways because it allows us to be proactive and if people are proactive then they retain more information, but at the same time some guidance would be useful as students do not have all the answers otherwise we would not be at university to learn.

Blogging is a form of a new autonomic learning style whereby people will learn independently and through their own way. Dickinson (1995) suggested that an autonomic learning style would make more highly motivated learners and leads to more effective workers. She also went on to say that a more proactive learning style learn more things and learn better than people who take a more reactive learning style e.g. waiting for teachers to spoon feed them.

Sawmiller (2010) furthers this point by suggesting that blogging increases student interest. A point that I agree with as I feel that I have been allowed to explore areas of interest and choose what I do and don’t write about. Sawmiller (2010) also suggests that it gives students a instant internet portfolio for future employers, a point I also agree with as when asked at interview how I have worked autonomously I can suggest that throughout my modules I have been asked to write blogs it is easy for me to provide evidence of this.

As mentioned however one down side of an autonomous learning style is that it suggests that students are the ‘fonts of all knowledge’ by asking us to provide answers to questions we have not looked at in lectures/ seminars, and we would not be at university learning if there was nothing left to learn.

In conclusion It is suggested by Dickinson (1995) that blogging and student centred learning leads to motivated learners who are more effective this is further by Sawmiller (2010) who suggests that blogging increases a student interest by allowing us to research a topic of choice, and also provides a instant portfolio for future employers. However blogging and an autonomous learning style suggests that we know all the answers as we are teaching ourselves, this however isn’t true because university is there to expand our in depth knowledge through a more old fashioned way of learning.

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REFERENCES:

Dickinson, L. May 1995. Autonomy, Self-direction and Self Access in Language Teaching and Learning: The History of an Idea. Vol 23 (2) 165-174.

Sawmiller, A. July 2010. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas; Classroom Blogging: What is the Role in Science Learning?. Vol 82 (2) 44-48. 

What Motivates people to commit Child Sex Offences?

Recently and for many years previously it has been splashed all over the news papers about the latest man/ woman/ couple to have committed child sex offences, the latest being Ian Watkins who was convicted of the attempted rape of a baby and possessing indecent images and videos, alongside with 2 unnamed women. Not only is this crime disgusting and is taking away a child’s innocence far to early but it would never cross many peoples mind to commit such awful profanities to a child.

Glen, Raine and Schug (2009) found that participants who had been convicted of rape were more likely to have a shrunken amygdala compared to participants who had never been convicted of rape or sexual assault. This shrunken amygdala has been correlated with an inability to make emotional decisions. These results provide initial evidence that psychopaths exhibit deficits in brain regions essential to moral judgment in normal individuals. This is only half the story because biology cannot account for 100% of the reasons why every person commits child sex offences.

On the other hand Hall and Hirschman (1992) proposed a model of sexual aggression against children involving the perspective of Etiology. The model involves four stages; physiological sexual arousal, cognitions that justify sexual aggression, negative affective states and personality problems as motivational precursors that increase the probability of sexually aggressive behaviour. This model is used as a guideline for assessing and treating particular subtypes of perpetrators. However, Ward and Siegat (2008) noticed some problems with this model and suggested that this model does not attempt to explain cases of child sex abuse only sex abuse in general. Ward and Siegat (2008) suggested that there are four main aspects to why people sexually abuse children; emotional regulation problems, intimacy and social skill deficits, deviant sexual arousal and cognitive distortions. They also suggested that child sex abusers have empathy deficits which are part of being cognitive distortions and emotional dysregulation. Then treatment can be finalised based on which of the four clusters the person shows the most deficit in. They further suggested that all sexual offenders exhibit different types of psychological characteristics each one associated with a different cluster. In the case of Ian Watkins it is suggested thatit is possible to build a profile on why he committed such crimes based on his social skills, sexual arousal and intimacy skills.

In conclusion it is suggested that there are many different ways in which child sex offenders commit the horrific crimes that give them a high and destroy the innocence of a small child or in the case of Ian Watkins who tried to have sex with a 6-month baby. It is suggested by Glen, Raine and Schug (2009) suggested that this difference between sex offenders and non convicted participants was entirely biological with reduced activity in the amygdala. Whereas Ward and Siegat (2008) suggested a four part model which encompasses every part of a persons physiological, mental and social abilities, which when weighed up seems a lot more comprehensible as it can be seen from this model that a person can build a profile based on which cluster they fall into. 

References: 

Glenn, A.L, Raine, Adrian, Schug, R.A. 2009. The Neural Correlates of Moral Decision-Making in Psychopathy. Molecular Psychiatry. Vol. 14, 5-6.

Hall, G,N., Hirschman,R. 1992. Sexual Aggression against Children; A conceptual Perspective of Etiology. Criminal Justice and Behaviour Vol 19 (1) 8-23.

 Ward, T., Siegat, R,J. 2002. Toward a comprehensive theory of child sexual abuse: A theory knitting perspective. Psychology Crime and Law Vol 8 (4) 319-351

Fast Food Addictive or just appealing??

What motivates people to overeat? Coming from a person who is a healthy eater and does not scrimp at meal times I know this is an easy trap to fall into but how does over eating become an obsession and how does it rule some peoples lives?

In this day and age it is very easy to see how a person can overeat, media adverts for McDonalds or KFC portray it as something that a family can eat every day of the week and it is very much portrayed as convenience food. Garber and Luster (2011) suggest that fast food advertisements, restaurants and the colours fast food giants use on their advertising all provide environmental cues that can trigger overeating. They also suggest that because most fast food meals are accompanied by a sugary drink e.g. cola or Fanta this increases the sugar content of the meal 10 fold, this increase the likelihood of sugar addiction making a person become tolerant to sugar and not being able to live without it withough withdrawal symptoms.

It is suggested by Glanz, Basil, Maibach, Goldberg and Snyder (1998) who studied a sample of American families eating habits that the most important factor was whether the food tasted good and the convenience of the food offered, the nutrition and weight control elements were secondary concerns. It is therefore suggested by Glanz et al (1998) that the main concern for people when buying food for their family or choosing to eat is the convenience of the food offered and the taste of the food. This ties in with the media aspect because it is suggested that the actual ingredients in fast food are unappetising and unappealing but the addictive ingredients (sugar) tied in with the media campaign make fast food appealing to us and why we want more after eating. However one of the problems with Glanz et al (1998) research is that the research is very subjective because Glanz and his colleagues never met a single participant they used postal surveys and only a certain proportion of these participants actually filled out the questionnaire. This therefore means that the main problem for this study is that participants could have lied which could have drastically changed research findings and results.

            There is also now research that shows that the addiction between fast food and cannabis are very similar and show similar traits (Greviskes 2010). They studied this affect on rats and suggested that the pleasure centres in rats brains were over stimulated from the fast food are very similar to that of a cocaine addicts binge, eventually this effect in the pleasure centres was that great that the pleasure centres became so overloaded that rats needed more and more food to feel normal, in fact they suggested that when the brains pleasure centre was over stimulated by food that tastes good it adapts by decreasing the activity but now we need constant stimulation from this palatable food to avoid a permanent state of a negative mood.

            In conclusion it is suggested that in this day and age it is becoming increasingly easy to get fast and convenient food but this is causing great harm to our bodies and our well being. Us ourselves are not fully to blame for this however as the media has a huge role to play in what motivates us to pick and choose what we eat for tea. 

Motivation in the Real World

Goal setting, achievement orientation, and intrinsic motivation: A mediational analysis.

Elliot, Andrew J.; Harackiewicz, Judith M.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 66(5), May 1994, 968-980. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.66.5.968

Does Listening to Music whilst revising make you revise harder??

I work on the Mantra that music makes me revise and work harder as I can listen to something that entertains me as I work because as I write this I have my ipod plugged into my speakers and I am playing through my hundreds of songs on my ipod thinking it is making me work harder… but is it actually making me work harder?? 

Taylor and Francis (2002) conducted a study into Primary School pupil’s performance to an arithmetic task whilst listening to calming music verses a no music condition, the results show that the calming music did help the pupils to concentrate, but the music affected arousal and mood directly rather than cognition directly. One problem with this study is that the study was only conducted on Primary School pupils so cannot be generalised past Primary School children, so therefore the results are not generalisable to other pupils of different ages. 

On the other hand, Furnham and Strbac (2002) conducted a study into background and office noise on the  ability to complete a reading task. They found that in the presence of any noise the ability to complete a reading task was significantly reduced. But a positive to this piece of research is that the research was conducted on both types of people, introverts and extroverts, so can be generalised to everyone, which is contrary to the first piece of research by Taylor and Francis (2002). 

In conclusion, on the contrary to both pieces of research I personally believe the listening to music whilst revising does help me to revise and that the way a person learns is very personal to them so the studies above can never fully be generalised.  

 

Are Tattoos Addictive??

I was with somebody yesterday who said ‘he had caught the bug, and was now addicted to tattoos’ but is it possible to become addicted to tattoos and which part of the tattoo are people addicted to, the pain or the way it looks on their body. As a person with no tattoos I find it hard to believe that there is an addiction.

A study by Velliquette et al (1998) shows support for the tattoo addiction ideal, that people are addicted to tattoos because of consumer berhaviour, social identity and to move with the fashions of the 21st century. But also concluded that people who get tattoos should have a meaningful tattoo even for the design or the time at which a person gets a tattoo.One problem with this study is that to study this research a questionnaire was used in an opportune setting, therefore participants may have lied to look socially desirable in front of friends or family on their opinions of tattoos. 

On the other hand Vautherin-Estrade (n.d) speaks of the fact that there seems to be no escalation in tattoos and exchanges in tattoos do not lead to or resolve solitude. But one problem with this study is that they studied one person’s relationship with their father so therefore cannot be generalised.

McCarron (2011) studied the negative effects that others will see if a person has a tattoo. They studied that a person will be judged on the basis of Heroin addiction, prisons and race, and found that people with tattoos are more closely associated with heroin addiction and time spent in prison

 

In conlusion personally I agree with Velliquette et al (1998) research because personal experience with people who have tattoos seem to suggest that their is an addiction either to the pain or the design. But also partly because Vautherin- Estrade (n.d) studied only one person therefore it is impossible to ever fully conclude that no correlation between addiction and tattoo’s exist purely from that study.

REFERENCES: Velliquette,A,M., Murray, J,B., Creyer E,H. 1998 “THE TATTOO RENAISSANCE: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF SYMBOLIC CONSUMER BEHAVIOR”, in Advances in Consumer Research Volume 25, eds. Joseph W. Alba & J. Wesley Hutchinson, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 461-467.

Vautherin- Estrade, M. (n.d) Controversies in Children and Adolescents Psychoanalysis; Skin for Thought: reflections on the tattoos of an adolescent patient

McCarron, K. (n.d) Skin and Self-Indictment; Prison Tattoos, Race and Heroin Addiction.

 

The Psychology of Tattoos- Beautiful or Ugly

The recent essay assignment set ‘ugly people deserve to fail’ got me thinking about how we perceive beauty in  the modern world, and got me to one point tattoos, do we perceive people differently if they are covered in tattoos? If this person walked past us in the street would we judge them to be beautiful or ugly from their image?

For example, Hawkes et al (2004) suggested that more than 50% of the population with tattoos are women, but this doesn’t change our apparently shallow image towards them, as the conclusions of this study show that both men and women judge a woman with a tattoo more negatively than the other women in the descriptions. This study shows that even as a woman we can portray negative feelings to other women just because they have tattoos.

Also another study by Raspa and Cusack (1990) suggests that even Psychiatric disorders for example antisoical personality disorders and borderline personality disorders are also linked to tattoos. They also found that drug and alcohol abuse is also strongly correlated with tattoos. Raspa and Cusack also concluded their study with a NB to any physician that finds any tattoo on a physical examination on a person should alert the physician to an underlying psychiatric condition. This is strong evidence for my point that we judge people on their appearance before we know their personality. But there is one problem with this evidence, the research was conducted in 1990 therefore is 22 years out of date in the present day, therefore physicians today may not judge people on such a superficial level, also the correlation between tattoos and psychiatric disorders may not exist so strongly in modern society.

On the other hand, a study by Rooks et al (2000) found that having a tattoo was not related to presenting a complaint to the Emergency Department of a hospital, therefore showing that people with tattoos should not be viewed negatively as they have been shown to present no more negative attitudes than any person without a tattoo.

In conclusion the studies by Hawkes et al (2004) and Raspa and Cusack (1990) show that we view people with tattoos with a rather shallow, preconceived ideal. Also we may judge people with tattoos with  misconcieved ideas as the study by Rooks et al (2000) has shown that they have no more negative ideas than any other person.

REFERENCES: Hawkes,D., Senn, C,Y., Thorn, C. Sex Roles; Factors that Influence Attitudes Toward Women with Tattoos. 2004, Vol 50, 9-10 593-604, DOI: 10.1023/B:SERS.0000027564.83353.06

Raspa, R, F., Cusack, J. Am Fam Physician; Psychiatric implications of tattoos. May 1990, Vol 41, 5, 1481-1486

Rooks, J, K., Roberts, D,J., Scheltema, K., Min Med; Tattoos; their relationship to trauma, psychopathology and other myths. July 2000, Vol 83 (7), 24-27.

Do we conform to others??? (the Psychology of Crowds)

Do we base our behaviour on the people around us?? do we think for ourselves?? or are we scared of what people will think of us if we don’t conform to their behaviours (the norm)??

For example Piliavin et al (1969) studied the effects of helping behaviours on a train, when a confederate collapsed (either a drunk or old man) two observers would count how much time it took for the participants on the train to help, and in one condition a second confederate would help the man get up and in another condition no-one came to help. The results from the study show that people took longer to help when the confederate did not go to help participants took longer to help, but when the confederate helped participants soon came to the confederates aid. Also the type of confederate also played an effect on the  helping behaviour, when the confederate smelt of alcohol and had a glass bottle in a brown paper bag (so appeared drunk) the participants took longer to help or didn’t help than if the confederate was carrying a cane so appeared old.

The results from this study seem to appear that we do conform to crowds and the behaviour shown by most appears to be the norm and we therefore follow the crowd even if this behaviour could be potentially dangerous and not help a person when in trouble, therefore insinuating that we do not think for ourselves so to speak when presented with a situation in which a person may need help.

However, on the other hand, Reicher et al (1997) suggest that a view of all crowds as aggressive and conforming to others is dangerous because this can lead to policing strategies which are dangerous and interfere when no intervention is needed, for example strategies which clamp down on all members and lead all members to perceive the police as hostile will react violently to the policing strategy.

In conclusion, studies seem to suggest that we do conform how others behave (Piliavin 1969) but that such interventions could be potentially dangerous and create a potentially hostile environment for the intervention and the people involoved, (Reicher 1997).

 

References: Stephen Reicher, Clifford Stott, Patrick Cronin, Otto Adang, (2004) “An integrated approach to crowd psychology and public order policing”, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Vol. 27 Iss: 4, pp.558 – 572

Piliavin, Irving M.; Rodin, Judith; Piliavin, Jane A. Good Samaritanism: An underground phenomenon?

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 13(4), Dec 1969, 289-299. doi: 10.1037/h0028433

 

Does the brain make us who we are??

The Brain, our control centre, controlling automotive thoughts, reflexes  and the way we move, but does the brain make us who we are??

Studies have shown that criminal behaviour correlates with brain abnormalities, for example Raine (1997) found that abnormalities in the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and hypothalamus, cause behaviour deficiencies in emotion, empathy and anger control. Raine found this by testing 41 NGRI’s (not guilty for reasons of insanity)  matched with 41 controls, Raine scanned their brains using a Position Emission Tomography (PET) scanner, the participants were kept medication free for 2 weeks before the scanning to make sure any medication didn’t confound the scan. Raine found abnormalities in the Amygdala, Hypothalamus and the Prefrontal Cortex, and concluded that cortical and subcortical brain processes may cause violence in murderers pleading not guilty for reasons of insanity.
Also a study by Gabbard (2005) focussed on research using antisocial and borderline personality disorders. The conclusions from this study were problematic because genes and biology are entwined with environmental factors and are too closely related, but psychosocial experiences may lead to permanent changes in the brain, theory of mind as linked with Autism is a good bridging technique between the brain and environment.

Therefore in conclusion, the link between personality and the brain are inconclusive, but the link between criminal behaviour and processes within the brain can be seen to show a strong link as proven by Raine (1997), but more evidence is needed to prove this link and to develop effective treatments to help people who show signs of these links.

References: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=177446 (Gabbard 2005)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322396003629 (raine 1997)

 

 

 

 

Is a Preferance for colour between the sexes really evolutionary??

It has been ‘discovered’ that colour preference in males and females could be evolutionary and instilled in us in our genes, (The Times 2007) personally I think not, but is instilled in us through the environment in which we live, which cause us to have a belief that different colours symbolize different emotions and feelings.

As stated in The Times (2007) the sample studied consisted of chinese and British students and the chinese students of both sexes stated that they had a preference for the red because they’re culture believes that red is the symbol of luck, therefore this belief is not evolutionary but is because of the way the chinese students were brought up (nurture) to believe that red is a symbol of luck.

Also within British Culture the media and retail businesses advertise that Girls should be dressed in pink and Boys in blue, Businesses also only make blue and red clothes for little boys and shades of pink clothing for little girls up to the age of five. Therefore once again this is not evolutionary or instilled in our genes but is the British conforming to what the media and the retail environment allows. If a longitudinal study was conducted where girls clothes were only produced in shades of blue and boys clothes were only produced in shades of pink, I honestly believe that the results would be entirely different.

Therefore in conclusion I believe that the thought that our colour preferences are instilled in us from evolution are untrue but it is the environment presented to us from the retail environment and the media that causes this belief and our ability to conform to this idea.