This week in Psychology we learned about psychological disorders. I enjoyed watching the video clips about anxiety and OCD. It gave me a much more understanding point of view about these disorders. To finish up the week, we watched a movie called A Beautiful Mind.
A Beautiful Mind is a true story about a man named John Nash. He attended Princeton and was immediately classified as a social outsider. When attending Princeton, Nash becomes close friends with his so called roommate, Charles. John Nash was a talented Mathematician, and was devoted to finding a new and original theory. Later, John takes a top secret cryptography job for the government and became a professor at MIT. A student of his named Alicia becomes quite fond of him, and they end up getting married. Soon enough, John loses his grip on reality, becomes institutionalized, and is told he has Schizophrenia.
[Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that makes it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences. It also makes it difficult for a person to think logically, have normal emotional responses, and to behave normally in social situations.]
After grasping the concept of Schizophrenia, it is clear that Nash has been hallucinating about Charles as well as a few other characters, and desperately needs treatment. He is then put on medication and undergoes insulin treatments. Then he is allowed to go back home. John did not believe he was mentally ill, so he stopped taking his medication when he got home and continued hallucinating. Years later, John finally became stable again. Then, he perused his dream of creating his original theory at the University of Princeton. John Nash finally perfected his theory, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in economics.
This movie was incredibly intruging to me, and it related to class well. It did a good job introducing Nash's character, then threw us all for an interesting curve, and ended on a hopeful note. The movie kept me questioning my predictions and wondering what would happen next. I think this is an important movie that everyone should watch. It could help prepare us for what possibly could happen as we age. But beyond that, I think this movie gives people with any sort of disorder hope for their future. It is possible to overcome psychological disorders, people cannot give up!
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This week in Psychology, we learned about conditioning; classical and operant. Classical conditioning is a process of modifying someone or somethings' behavior by using a stimulus to get a desired response. Operant conditioning is somewhat the opposite; it is also a process of modifying someone or somethings' behavior, but the shown behavior will result in positive or negative reinforcement to get a desired response.
If I were to relate a conditioning method to my childhood, I'd have to say my brother used the classical conditioning technique on me quite a bit... Unknowingly of course. Anyways, my brother enjoyed shooting his nerf guns at me when we were little. He typically would always call me by one of his lame nicknames, then right when I'd look he'd shoot me. As the years went on, he'd continue his experiments with air soft guns, and those hurt! This example follows the 3 step pattern of classical conditioning like so:
shoot me (UCS) -> feel pain (UCR)
call nickname (NS) + shoot me (UCS) -> feel pain (UCR)
call nickname (CS) -> cringe in pain (CR)
Below is a picture of the modern nerf guns.. thank goodness we weren't kids when these things were popular, or I would have gotten some decent size welts!
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Dear Mr. Dreier,
I'm going to keep this letter personal, and start off by saying one thing... Homework over winter break?! You should understand my point. Anyways, this class is more than I expected. We're learning some interesting things, yet I think we could be learning them in better ways than note taking. On the bright side, I'm keeping a good grade; therefore I believe I'm excelling. Like I said again, Psychology is a bit more than the average class at Ashwaubenon High School. The concepts are deeper and relate able to everyone, so I have learned a decent amount of applicable information. In my point of view, you are one of the better teachers in our school. You make assignments inside and outside of class challenging, yet do able. That's a good thing, although I have a couple suggestions to help your future students succeed. Too much note taking in one day does not help me remember the information. Warning that there is a test tomorrow is enforcing your students to cram studying, which you informed us is not a good study habit. A couple extra credit opportunities couldn't hurt either, plus they would show you what students really care. Lastly, I like how you try spicing up class once in a while to keep us interested, keep it up! Life outside of school is quite boring, I'm not struggling with anything major, but I am quite nervous about my next school year; college. You could give me some tips about Stevens Point if you wanted! To wrap things up, I'll be brutally honest with you. I could care less if Chris Angel or John Edwards is fo' rizzle. Haha!
Sincerely,
Alana
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