My name is Michelle, but my friends call me ‘Chelle (so please feel free to do so.) I’ve been in the psychology program for almost a year, but experienced an upsetting time in my life and had to put it on hold for several months.
However; I just forged ahead into my study habits again. I just finished Lesson 3 of Human Relations.
I’m a 45 year old disabled housewife. I find it totally ironic and absolutely wonderful that even though I hated school when I was younger, I find it awesome and fantastic as a mature adult.
I’ve always had a yearning to learn about psychology, especially forensic and abnormal psychology. Maybe because I’m married to a cop, huh? Anyway, I’m tickled pink to find out that I can talk to others on the student forum that are in the same program and learn the same things.
I’m also thrilled to hear about the Bachelor’s Program and will be checking into how I can transfer to the Bachelor’s Program as soon as it’s available.
Thanks to Paul Goyette for permission to use this Photo.
I just finished reading Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, which is coming out towards the end of August. The book summarizes, in very accessible terms, thirty years of work by John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago and his colleagues.
It’s initially hard to get past the title. William Patrick, John’s coauthor, relates how a friend reading an early manuscript found the word “loneliness” to be disturbing, even more so than “rape,” “murder,” or “death.” This reaction fits perfectly with the major theme of the book–we humans are a very social bunch, and being cut off from other people, as in solitary confinement, might be the very worst punishment of all.
What I especially liked about the book is the constant, seamless integration of what we call “perspectives” in psychology, harkening back to William James. In other words, the neuroscience, social psychology, and cognitive science is all woven together so that you get the big picture. In other writing, John has compared psychology to a symphony, with the different perspectives contributing to the whole of our understanding just as the score, musicians, instruments, and conductor join together to produce fantastic music. He and William have definitely succeeded in bringing this integration to the study of loneliness. Given the all-too-frequent Balkanization of psychology into little subdomains, this approach is refreshing and informative.
Like William’s friend, I found myself feeling sad at times while reading the book. I don’t consider myself a lonely person, as I am blessed by having a close family and good friends. But I know a lot of lonely people, and reading the various case studies brought these people to mind in a vivid way. The sad mood lifted, however, when John would throw in some of his modest and self-deprecating humor, as in his description of his trip to “Grenada.” Enough said. You need to read the book to find out the rest. (more…)
WOW! Some experiment. Now, as to what the experiment teaches or doesn’t teach is the ultimate question.
It has been 35+ years since that experiment was done. There have been loads of changes in the prison system since the Stanford experiment. So, what happens today when you put good people in a bad situation? Well, there are a lot of factors that affect how that good person will react. For example, I know a person who was an exemplary citizen and that individual ended up serving 2 years in a state facility. That person was considered a model inmate, worked in the law library, and when released became heavily involved in criminal law and the justice system.
So, I think that how a person reacts to that environment depends a great deal on how their inner psyche has developed. I do not believe that most “good” people will deliberately injure someone simply because a person in authority has told them to do so.
I have many examples from a life of military and exposure to criminal inmates that debunk that ideology. But, those are simply my thoughts. GREAT video.
Thanks Ryan, this video was really eye opening and scary at the same time! I watched the rest of the programs. Mr. Rushkoff has a few other programs I plan to watch—all seem interesting.
I shared some of the information with my teenager and we had a nice conversation. The new generation is being raised with a weak set of values making them very vulnerable to the marketing by people who don’t care about their well being. The more aware we are of the tricks being played, the more capable we are of resisting and giving them the tools they need at a young age not to be vulnerable to this kind of marketing.
Thanks again for sharing such thought provoking topics.
The insights of cultural/media theorist Douglas Rushkoff are always contemporary and often prescient. He was deciphering the social codes of the virtual psyche, lifestyle, and marketplace before such concepts were formally identified by the so-called “machine.” TheMerchants Of Cool is a brilliant analysis of the incorporation of youth pop-culture that Ruskhoff created while working as a correspondent for PBS Frontline. This is a very entertaining documentary. You’ll learn a lot too. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
Thanks to Boris Anthony for permission to use this Photo.
Marshall McLuhan’s groundbreaking theories on media communications and the psycho-social impact of technological development made him both a very respected and controversial figure beginning in the 1950’s. Seen by many as a prophet of our contemporary media filtered age, McLuhan’s famous “the medium is the message” theory, in which the communications medium itself (microphone, television, computer, letter) is more directly related to the meaning and ultimate impact of a given message than the actual “content” (intellectual/rational meaning) continues to gain depth as the decades pass.
I recently discovered an excellent audio-video archive of McLuhan’s work on the CBC web site. This is a great primer for our psychology students unfamiliar with his work and I strongly encourage you to check this archive out by clicking here. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on McLuhan, a thinker who still truly remains ahead of his time.
Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University Psychology Program
Thanks to Gaetan Lee for permission to use this Photo.
Renowned as one of the most gifted, original, and charismatic thinkers in the world; V.S. Ramachandran is a neurologist with an almost preternatural understanding of the brain’s deepest mechanisms and the nature of consciousness.
Ramachandran’s insights into such facinating enigmas as phantom limb syndrome, synesthesia, and capgras delusion continue to both inspire and puzzle the psycho-scientific community, while his entertaining presentations always promise to dazzle even the most cynical of audiences. Check out the following video from the TED conference. Lose your mind.
Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University
Mind-myth 6: Everyone has heard the idea that our left-brains are logical, verbal, rational and scientific while our right brains are spatial, emotional, intuitive and creative. Like some of the mind-myths covered in this series, there’s a solid grain of truth here but its extent has been wildly exaggerated.
Left side language
The biggest grain of truth is that our verbal powers are concentrated in the left side of our brains. It was Nobel Prize winner Roger W. Sperry who, in the 1960s, first showed that the left hemisphere is specialised for language (Corballis, 2007). He was studying patients suffering from crippling epileptic fits who had decided to undergo surgery to try and relieve their symptoms.
The surgery cut the bundle of white matter - the corpus callosum - that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. Along with successfully treating their epilepsy, these ’split-brain’ patients exhibited some strange new symptoms.
Sperry found that after the surgery patients were unable to name objects with the, now disconnected, right side of their brains. Their left-brains, however, seemed to have retained this ability. This lead him to propose that the left hemisphere is specialised for language.
But this specialisation didn’t mean the right hemisphere had no language powers at all. Further experiments suggested the right hemisphere could indeed still process language, just to a lesser degree. For example, patients were able to point to the written names of objects which were presented to their right-brain, although they found themselves unable to say the word. Click here to read the rest of this entry…
Most famous for his radical theories on language learning and evolutionary psychology, Steven Pinker is a thinker with a vision that tends to provoke strong emotional responses in anyone who will listen. The reason may be rather simple. Pinker analyzes human intelligence from a zero sum perspective in which he meticulously deconstructs the foundations of what’s been established as scientific fact. The following video presentation was made at Google Headquarters. The Google geniuses always seem to bring in other geniuses to make the room smarter. Afterwards, please share your thoughts with the Ashworth Psychology community. Click on the image above to watch this video. It’s good.
Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University Psychology Program
Thanks to Karen Geiger for permission to use this Photo.
I really enjoyed Seth Woolf’s response to Deb’s solid commentary on his previous post. Since we don’t yet have our comments section clearly displayed on this blog, I’ve posted this conversation as an original post for everyone to see and engage. What are your thoughts?
From Deb:
Dear Sir — I believe you have missed the point of what Dr. Phil has been trying to achieve. As young people, typically all of us do not realize the consequences of actions. I can indicate to you that as a owner of a company, these kind of posting would stop me from hiring an individual, no so much as their right to participate in such activity, but in that the judgment of said individual is not who I want representing my company. In short…it is that simple and professionally said individuals are limiting their options later in life, as they age and realize that childhood was not meant for public display.
From Seth:
It is perhaps true that I have “missed the point of what Dr. Phil has been trying to achieve” but, if so, it is because I find his aims pointless. I simply feel the cause and effect of this situation has been confused. If employers look down on such technological behavior and confessionalism, I think it says more about their own bourgeoise biases, and less about the quality of the candidates. More importantly, I would also like to counter your claim that “As young people, typically all of us do not realize the consequences of our actions.” This is a sweeping statement about young people, one which I do not follow. For one, I don’t see “young people” as a definable, homogeneous group. I’m 22, am I a young person? What about a twelve year old in Auswitz? What about an eighty year old with the mental capacities of a person one tenth his or her age? Is it for individuals to decide, society, or who? Similarly, I don’t see how a person, regardless of age, could realize all the consequences of his or her actions. Everyone, again regardless of age, must simply act with what information they have at a given moment. (more…)
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