Topic Presentation

     My topic presentation I did for psychology was on gender differences in the brain and the form of my presentation was a PowerPoint. Men and women are different in two ways; physically the look different, but their brains as well are different. There are differences in the way men and women estimate time, judge speed, and do mathematical calculations, and visualizing objects in dimensions. In all these tasks, both sexes are prominently different. This may be reasoning for the fact males tend to become mathematicians, pilots, guides, engineers, architects, racecar drivers, than females would be. On the other hand, women tend to be better than men in human relations, recognizing emotions are or tones, artistic expressing, verbal language and carrying out detailed tasks. While women and men struggle to communicate with each other and wonder why they don’t think and react in similar ways, science is proving that the differences in our brains may more to do than with everyday interactions.

     I really liked this topic because I had wondered why men and women don’t think the same way in certain situations. Men seem to be more aggressive and forward with everything they do, where as women tend to think about things more and are more gentle. Children are like this also the boys seem to be more aggressive toward things and the girls are gentler. Even the thought patterns are different between the boys and girls. The girls seen to take more time and use different parts of her brain to figure something out and the boys use the same part of the brain, but on the opposite side.

Here is an article about gender differences in the brain.

Factual Report

     The factual report I did for English was on the topic of child death in Africa. The main factors of child death that can be prevented are diseases, accidents and injuries, drowning and other smaller causes. In Africa the rate of child death is higher than anywhere in the world because of less sanitation, less access to medical supplies and the climate. Because of their warm climate and bad sanitation this lets disease and infections easy to acquire. And the fact that Africa has very poor medical attention, the people who are hurt or have disease are unable to get better very easily. These diseases and injuries can also be prevented and or sometimes cured. Africa has the highest rate of injury in the world and half of the annual world child death occurs in Africa. As well Africa is the only continent with rising numbers of children under the age of five. Forty per cent of all child deaths are from accidents or injuries. The last main cause of child death is from drowning or near drowning incidents. Drowning remains the second-leading cause of children ages one to fourteen.

My view on this topic is that there is way too munch death in the world let alone child death. It’s horrible that in Africa they can’t afford to have good medical attention so children are dying because they don’t have it. As well, drowning is preventable and very easy to prevent, but somehow children are still dying from it because people may be too lazy to watch them. Injuries are preventable also, but children aren’t always careful, so they get hurt and have to live with injuries that may not heal properly or may die from the injury depending on the extent of it. It is really sad to see children dying, especially when they can’t do a lot about it in Africa.

Here is a site about problems involving death in Africa.

Interview

     In English we were asked to interview three people. One of the people had to be a parent or guardian, another had to be a teacher whom we respected and the last person we had to chose was a mentor or someone who guides us. We had to ask them two questions, the first being one of their life changing moments and what it taught them. The second question was in their opinion what is the most important lesson to learn in a lifetime. I learnt that a few life-changing moments are when you have your first child. At first you’re not one hundred per cent sure what to expect, but when you have your child, you learn that you will never be alone and that a part of you will always or almost always live on. It also taught me that you have to appreciate everything good given to you and not take it for granted.

     The most important lessons I learned were that you can sit and wait for things to happen themselves, or you can get out of your comfort zone just a little bit and live life to the fullest. I’m quoting the movie Dead Poet Society, and saying “Carpe Diem”, which means, “seize the day”. Another lesson I learned was that it’s okay to make mistakes, because you will get up onto your feet and try again, but you learn from your mistakes what you should and shouldn’t do. This doesn’t mean though that you should do stupid things, but it means it’s okay to take risks. The hardest thing to do is to listen to everything you are told not to do because you won’t learn important lessons.

 Amy had a lot of good information from her interview.

Life Pressures

     Everyday there is pressure and everyone gets pressured. Peer pressure doesn’t have to just be your friends; they can be your parents, your siblings, teachers, co-mates, etc. Life pressures can alter your life. Just because someone is doing something that they think is cool or will get them attention, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. If you don’t like what they are doing then it’s other people’s problems if they get into a troublesome situation. For example, from the movie The Dead Poet Society the main character, the teacher, takes the class of boys outside for an experiment.

     He had three boys walk, and they had no direction in how to walk, they were just told to walk. But what happened was one person started walking and the others followed until they all were going at the same pace with each other. It wasn’t necessarily a verbal pressure, but the boys felt that they should follow the one who had started walking first. Instead of taking their own path at their own pace, the boys followed what they thought to be right and with the rest of their class standing around clapping, they thought they were doing the right thing, even though that may not have been how they wanted to walk. People face many decisions in life and instead of following others, we should travel our own way and accomplish what WE want to achieve.

The actual part where they are walking starts at about 6:34 into this video.

Blog Article Response

Teenage Stress

      One of a parent’s jobs is to prepare their children or any young person/ people for the challenges ahead in adult life. Their job involves helping the young to gain knowledge and limitation of what they should and shouldn’t do. But their job is also to help guide them to be responsible and independent. A part that is also important in teaching is teaching young persons how to deal with stress that they get from daily demands. During a person’s teenage years, they are more susceptible toward home, school, friend, and work stress, and it is more complex, therefore it is the most appropriate time for parents or teachers to help them deal with it.

     This article rings true, in my belief, because when you are a teenager, you start dating, starting to get jobs, more homework and more responsibilities as well. So the stress level is going to be high. You have so much on your shoulders so how could you not be stressed out? The only problem with this is that although it is a parent’s or a teacher’s responsibilities to help the teens with their stress, not all teenagers are willing to have help with it. There is a lot of pressure that builds up during the teenage years and so it may not be fun to get help from a teacher or parent it will help in the long run. Stress leads to a lot of other problems such as drinking problems, suicide, drugs, self-harm, etc. In addition, stress can live with you for as long as you live and I don’t know about others, but I don’t think I want to be stressed out my entire life.

Blog Article Response

     I read an article with the name Stop fretting about children’s play and it instantly caught my attention considering, isn’t that what we always do? We are always looking out for children to see if they are safe or not. In this article, a super nanny WARNS that parental anxiety can leave children to larger hazards indoors. Not letting a child play outdoors, leaves online predators and bullying as potential dangers. It’s stated that there are lots less children unaccompanied out and about or at parks, etc. In 2003, 67 percent of children 8-10 said they have never been to the park by themselves and that 24 percent of children ages 11- 15 neither. There has “been a dramatic decrease in children’s independent mobility over the period of two decades”, said UK study, One False Move.

     In my opinion, this is horrible. Societies are supposed to be protecting their children and by being over protective they are putting their children in more danger. And also, don’t you think it’s a little healthier for children to be outside in the fresh air and doing physical things instead of sitting at the computer or in front of the T.V? To bring up another problem, people complain that our race is really obese. If we didn’t keep children inside the house, the physical activities would help them from being obese. Makes sense doesn’t it? So instead of holding your child’s hand forever, why can’t people let children go to the parks or other places with a friend or more if they are worried, but it’s not healthy to keep them on a leash.

Multiple Intelligences

           These are my results for the multiple intelligence’s test our Psych 20 class took.

      As you can see I am a total introvert and I’m not very good with words. My top three intelligence’s are intrapersonal, Musical, and Visual/ Spatial, although my Logical, Kinesthetic, and Naturalistic score results are just as high. This Multiple Intelligence’s chart is quite accurate. I am, as I said, a total introvert; I love doing projects and lots of other things by myself. I am visually/ spatially intelligent because I enjoy art and images. Music smart. I love music. I also played an instrument for two years. Math is my favorite subject, Logical. I love the outdoors as well. You wouldn’t think so based on the fact that I’m inside most of the day, reading, by myself.

     Because I enjoy working by myself, projects in pairs or groups are not my thing, so if there is a choice of pairs or by myself, I’m usually alone. I enjoy art so I take my time and do a good job of assignments. Math is my favorite subject and it comes somewhat naturally to me. Kinesthetic intelligence’s’ help you in psychology because you are told to look at people’s body emotions. Kinesthetic intelligence’s’ are used in physical Education as well.

Attribution Theory

     The Attribution Theory- the ways in which people label the behavior of others or themselves with something else. It looks at how individuals “connect” causes to events and how this thought perception effects their use in a group. For example “that woman is wearing grubby pants and t- shirt so she must not have a good job or home.” It sounds ridiculous, but not every person would think, “she must be working outside in the garden and needs more supplies and doesn’t want to change her clothing to walk to the store.”

     After watching the video Attribution Error I thought that the one man was right. He was talking about how although appearance shouldn’t matter, but it does.

     A misconception based on how people expose themselves; their appearance or simple body language is an attribution error. Most people think that just because a man may have long hair, spiked or different colored hair and don’t dress to the norm, that they are weird or odd. Wearing a torn up shirt, skinny pants, sunglasses and skater shoes, people will automatically believe that they are broke, dangerous, without a home, gross, or lots of other different labels. It’s the same thing as judging a book by its cover. You don’t know what the book is about, but “it doesn’t look very good or interesting.” We act like this when we compete as well. Instead of saying “that person runs faster than me”, we say “it was my shoes, I’m not used to the track, I wasn’t ready or I got something in my eye”. Or during a test, when someone does better, you say, “the test was hard”, but if you do good and the test is easy it’s “Wow! I’m smart”.

Some errors in the attribution theory:

• Well “he doesn’t look very nice, so he probably isn’t”
• “She looks nice, she’s pretty”
• Judging people on what they are wearing; a man who just stole an outfit is asking for help. He is dressed nice, so he won’t hurt anyone.
• Taking the credit for the good things, but if something goes wrong it’s the other person’s fault.

Amy’s post on the attribution theory is really good.

Video Response- Moral Pharmacist

     In this experiment a pharmacist, a boyfriend and his girlfriend (an innocent looking and a not so innocent looking teen) are the actors. The girl has a legal prescription for birth control pills and she wants her prescription filled, but the moral pharmacist refuses because he believes it isn’t the right thing to do. The conversation between the two gets a few glances, but most of the people around don’t want to get involved. The boyfriend doesn’t say anything, but he’s there for her to lean on. When the girl sits down on the bench, a small number of people slide over next to her to talk to her about the pharmacists refusal.

     The main speech towards the teen is that she is too young to need birth control pills and that if she can’t get the pills at this pharmacy that she could try another one. There were a few women who stood out though. One in particular was consoling the girl and telling her that it’s her right to be able to get the pills, when the pharmacist walks over and confirms that the teen is unable to get them. The woman immediately steps in and tells him, the pharmacist, that he has no right to deprive her of the pills because she does have a legal prescription for them and that his morality should have no effect on whether she gets them or not.

     Out of the people who spoke up a majority of the people agreed with the pharmacist’s decision of not giving her the birth control pills. Even though they knew it wasn’t his right to keep them from her they still agreed with him. The pharmacist may have been doing, in his mind, the right thing to do, but it was the wrong decision because it technically isn’t his decision to make. And for the people to agree with him was the same thing. They were siding with the pharmacist even though they knew he was supposed to fill the prescription, no questions asked.

Amy’s post is similar, but she has a link to a real happening of this problem.

Of Mice and Men

     For those who have never read the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, George and Lennie are running away from a work farm. Lennie isn’t very bright. He has a fetish of touching and petting soft things. He saw a woman’s dress when he was outside working and his initial reaction was to touch it. The woman doesn’t know that that was his intention and she starts screaming. Lennie holds onto the dress because he’s scared and he rips it, making the situation even worse. George, Lennie’s small but smart companion, leads them away from the farm in search of a different place to work. They get to another work ranch and everything is going, for the most part, normal until Lennie makes another mistake.

     After reading the novel, I wondered what would happen to the characters next. George is alone, Candy is still alone as well, Curley’s wife just died, and Crooks is alone and as isolated as ever. All of their dreams have been destroyed and I’m guessing George is going to have to leave the farm. Candy will die alone and unloved, same with Crooks, and Curley has his farm so he won’t be too unhappy. George will have nothing and might end up like everyone else; spending the money they make and then going and getting another job to live another week.

     The ending of the novel was expected and effective. The 1930’s or the Dirty Thirties as they were also called, were times of hardships and depression. For this story to have a happy ending with everyone achieving his or her dreams would be unrealistic during those times. The times were filled with struggles of the weak and the strong as well. Curley, being a smaller person, had to gain some sort of superiority over others because he was small, so he became good at fighting and would take people on and beat them. In order to have power, you had to be either physically strong or mentally strong, so George and Lennie’s relationship was really strong because they had both mental and physical strength. The novel was really good, although I’m the type of person who enjoys longer books.

I enjoyed Mike’s view on the novel.

Video Response- Will You Help a Stranger?

     This experiment consisted of a woman (beautiful and flirtatious blonde vs. a disgusting habit/ quiet woman) on a beach and a man who steals a radio as the actors. The quiet woman lays her blanket out on the sand then leaves it unattended with an Ipod radio on it. She made no contact with the people around her. The man would come around and pick up her radio and leave. Almost no one went after the man although they saw him they possibly believed he was somehow connected to her. It’s said that if you talk to the people around you, they will be more willing to stand up for you. Even just saying “hi” makes someone feel somewhat connected to you.

     Later on the actress played a different character by shaving her legs and doing disgusting things in front of other people, yelling on her phone and blasting her music. Even though they disliked her behavior, when the man came by to steal her radio they rushed after him to get the radio away from him. One man was so mad that he went after the other man and tackled him after getting the radio back. With the blonde, more attractive female, after flirting with one of the woman’s husband, the woman had no problem letting the man run away with her radio. She said to the cameramen that if the blonde was nice and wasn’t flirting with her husband she would have had no problem going after the radio. Although when she wasn’t flirtatious, people went after her radio.

     The less attractive woman was treated a lot nicer and more people wanted to help her instead of the other woman because she was nice and although she was obnoxious people seemed to like her more. It could have been because the blonde was better looking which made her more of a threat. So the theory is, if you are nice to people and you need help, just ask for it. Beauty bias: attribution theory.

Another student in this class, Adam, had a realy good post about this topic and how it may not be the beauty of the women that helps them out, but people being intimidated to help people they don’t know.

Video Response- Shopping While Black

     In this experiment two black women, a sales lady, a manager and a security guard are the actors. The two black women are opposite looking; one is more attractive and wearing nicer clothes and the other is more casual and less attractive. The sales lady is racist towards a black woman who, in her right, is shopping. She is told to leave the store because the sales lady “can’t keep her eye on her” or she’s “seen what people like ‘her’ do”. The sales lady would call the security guard or the manager when the situation got tense and the black woman refused to leave. The sales lady ends up getting attention or looks from some people around her, but most people ignored the fact that she was being absolutely rude and ignorant toward the woman and kept shopping.

     Only a few bystanders had the guts to step in and help the woman. The sales lady would have to drag some of them into the problem to get a reaction by telling them racist things about the black woman when she wasn’t paying attention. Most of the people were really angry with the sales lady for being racist and one was so upset she started to cry. A few people would stand in and try to leave with the black woman. It didn’t really seem whether the woman was attractive or not, some people were willing to help.

     People helped the women out because they saw that they were in a difficult situation they couldn’t get out of so they were motivated to give the helpless women assistance and support with her problems. People are motivated to help others because it gives them satisfaction that they did the right thing. As well people are motivated to help others because they feel that it’s not only the right thing to do, but that it helps the person stand up for their own rights.

Here’s another example of a situation where people were judged by their race. Jordan has a really good post on this topic “Shopiing While Black”.

Personal Narrative

Jonayla Reid 

     My name is Jonayla Reid. I am fifteen years old and I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba. My mother and I moved here, after her English husband died two months ago. We moved from a small town in Mexico. Moving here was supposed to be better for my mom’s job, and me. There are nice people here and the schools are better. I didn’t mind moving so much; where we lived before there were a lot of insects and the heat was almost unbearable. The first day of school I was apprehensive for. I would be one of the only Mexican students there and who knows how liked I was going to be. 

     I woke up on the first day of school like any regular teenager, dreading the end of summer. I towed myself out of bed yawning, as I did my mother called from downstairs wishing me good luck at school. Thanks for reminding me. I dragged my still-sleeping body to the bathroom to clean up. The cool facecloth on my face was reviving. After brushing my teeth, I walked, more awake, back to my bedroom, this time lingering in the doorway to examine it. It wasn’t the largest bedroom, but it was bigger than my previous one. It could fit my double bed and two dressers, although with all the boxes it was difficult to maneuver. It took me twenty minutes to decide what to wear. In the end I settled on my favorite purple tank, a light short-sleeved sweater, and a pair of jeans. With half my closet on the floor, I reached for my new supplies-filled bag, and scrambled downstairs. I knew I was gong to be early, but I had to check in at the office, so I slipped on a pair of flip-flops, locked up, and hesitantly walked out my new door. The school was simply three blocks away, an easy walking distance, and really effortless to find.

     Walking down the street I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I was thinking. Would anyone like me? I hope no one stares at me. As I was thinking about these things I glanced up seeing I was in front of the school, I paused long enough to see people gathered in the schoolyard and at the front doors. I guess I wasn’t exceedingly early. My stomach was fluttering and I’m sure my cheeks started to flush. A group of girls standing at the doors were gawking at me with malicious smiles. I sauntered toward the doors keeping my head down. This was the kind of attention that I did not desire. Inside the school there were several long hallways filled with lockers, leading in differing directions. On my left was the secretary’s office and on my right were the doors to the cafeteria. I ambled towards the office and a pleasant voice asked me if I needed any help. She appeared to be nice. I told her my name: Jonayla, Jonayla Reid. She smiled, rummaged through some papers and handed me a bunch. It contained a map, a schedule, and my new locker number and combination. I left the office in search of my locker. I noticed a few more people showed while I was talking and I was glad they didn’t take much interest in me.

     At my new locker there was another girl motionless beside it. Putting my things in my locker, I turned to her and introduced myself. Her name was Allie Kreeling. We were both in grade ten and took every class together, aside from the fourth. We did everything together and soon became inseparable.

     In English, I looked around seeing that the majority of the class was white, lovely. The white colored people sat in the back, figures, and the others sat together in the front of the room. Allie and I found two unoccupied seats at a table in the middle of the room. I felt eyes penetrating the back of my head but I was conscious not to turn around. I couldn’t focus, finding myself distressing about the people behind me. It was when Allie distracted me that I realized class was over. We walked eagerly to get out of English. On our way back to our lockers she explained who the three girls in the back of the class were. The short, slim, brunette was Sam; she was a best friend with Ashley, who was blonde. Until two years ago they let Kelsey join their group. These three girls were about to make my life miserable, this I knew.

     I didn’t recognize when the three girls came up behind me so as I turned around I crashed into the girls’ personal bodyguard, Kelsey, and dropped my books. People were staring now; great, this was exactly what the girls planned. I picked up my stuff and started to walk away. Sam asked me what my name was. I whispered my name, Jonayla, she couldn’t hear me, so I spoke louder telling her my name. A little too loud Ashley this time asked me, what kind of name is that? The girls giggled and the bell rang so I didn’t have time to reply. These things happened more frequently afterward. The girls would insistently knock into me or interrogate me loud enough for everyone around to hear. I felt horrible now. I went home with their giggles ringing in my ears. I began to believe I wasn’t good enough. How? I don’t know, but it got worse; soon they were threatening me, telling me I didn’t belong here, or if they were me they would kill themselves. I had enough; if they really wanted me to leave then I would. Before fourth period started I left Allie in the hallway confused. I told her she would always be my best friend. Sneaking up to the balcony I was thinking of all the things I should have told my mother, how much I was sorry for my mistakes, but then I thought she wouldn’t care about that, so I kept telling myself; I love you mom.

     The wind felt wonderful in my face, like it would sweep me up and take me with it. With the gravel crunching under every step I took, I neared the edge of the balcony. My worries and all my problems were floating away in the breeze, never to be felt again. I fell weightless standing there on the edge and as my toes gazed over the balcony I closed my eyes and began to fly. It felt wonderful! I would soon see my stepfather and grandmother once again, but then I thought of my mother, oh, my poor mother; this would destroy her. I tried thinking of something less painful, but then it felt worse, the pain was no longer emotional; my body felt like it was on fire. I tried to see what was going on, but I was blind and all I could hear was a murmur of worried voices in the background.

     After what seemed like a few minutes my vision was slowly reappearing, but all I could see was a haze of people around me. The pain increased as I felt someone attempt to lift my arms. In an effort to scream I found my voice lost in my throat. My vision improved now, I looked as best I could, searching the crowd of people for Allie. I saw her; she was curled up into the secretary’s arms crying and at that moment another volt of pain coursed its way through my body. It was almost unbearable until there was nothing: no sounds, no thoughts, just a cloudy darkness that enveloped me. I woke up finding myself in a hospital bed hooked up to machines, and though this would have bothered me, a figure distracted me. There, twisted in a chair, in the corner of the room was my Mom.

Take a look at Amy’s Personal Narrative. It’s really good! Also look at this site about racism in schools.

Critical Response

Iraqi Prisoner Abuse

     After I read the article on Iraqi prisoner abuse I felt appalled. How could such decent people turn into these malicious, tormenters? I mean if people are given the power to hurt or disgrace other people, don’t you think it would be hard to do. I don’t know how others could go on with it, but I personally could not physically hurt or humiliate another without feeling horrible guilt for what I’ve done.

     I read Dielle’s post on the Iraqi prisoner abuse and I totally agreed with what she had to say about the subjects’ behavior. People are influenced by teachers, parents, grandparents etc. So for the people in the experiment I believe they were almost getting kind of a high off of the power.

     This experiment was based on the Stanford prison experiment that we looked at. There were two groups of people, the guards and the prisoners, the guards were given a large amount of authority and the prisoners had absolutely none. The guards became spiteful and used their power for horrid things that completely violated the prisoners. At the end of the experiment it was found that the prisoners had major emotional distress, which required a lot of debriefing. I’m still confused in the fact that people could be so twisted that they hurt people or violate them. This is so wrong and inhumane.

Review of Racial Inequality

     In my opinion racial inequality is a horrible thing because it’s singling out certain races for the reason that they are different than you or their heritage is different than yours. Let’s just face the fact that no one group of people is any lesser than another because of their skin color or their parents skin color. You cannot base one person you see by the color of their skin. It’s like saying, “I don’t like you, because you are wearing pink.” You think it’s different, but it really isn’t, it’s making a judgment before getting to know the person or people. To make it worse kids see this and they believe that the “black doll” is the bad doll and the “white doll” is is the good doll. 

     In this unit I learnt that racial inequality is a large problem in this world and as the world ages there is still going to be racism and inequality, because one person or another or a group of people are always going to think their better than another. Another thing I learned is that some people try to be nice, but because of stereotypes and rumours people become absolutely ignorant to the fact that other races are just the same as others.

Troy had a good opinion about inequality in general. There is also an article by someone else’s point of view, which i found really interesting.