(blog 6)
I remember watching a feature on ABC Primetime awhile back called "What Would You Do?" It is a show in which hidden camera are set up while actors set up scenarios to see how people react.
Here is one particular scene that I remember, which reminds me of the discussions we have had about bystander intervention in emergencies. In this clip, an interracial couple is seen in a public park and the man is verbally abusing the woman. It looks as though he could get physical, and the woman looks scared and helpless. It is interesting to see how bystanders react:
I find it interesting that more women stopped to help the victim and stand up to the man. In class we learned that men are likely to stop to help a woman in need. However, I think that in this situation, women will put themselves in the victim's shoes and realize that they need help, while men might not think it's as big of a deal. Another reason that men may have not stopped is because they didn't want to start a fight with the angry man. I think that a man is more likely to help a woman in an emergency if there isn't another man involved.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Impulse Control
(blog 5)
In the 1960's Walter Mischel conducted an experiment about impulse control in children. A group of four-year-olds were given a marshmallow and told that if they waited twenty minutes that they could have another marshmallow. If they ate the marshmallow than then would not get another one. Some children were able to wait and some couldn't resist eating the marshmallow.
This experiment was recreated recently. I found the video amusing!
This experiment studied impulse control, which is considered to be an important part of emotional intelligence. Mischel later followed the progress of the children in the experiment and found that children who had resisted eating the marshmallow were more dependable and had higher SAT scores.
I think that impulse control is very important in everyday life. A person without impulse control it may choose to sleep in rather than go to work or school, get drunk instead of studying for an important test, or cheat on their significant other. They don't seem to think about the consequences of their actions and may live in the moment and forget about the future. It seems to be part of what people refer to as self control.
In the 1960's Walter Mischel conducted an experiment about impulse control in children. A group of four-year-olds were given a marshmallow and told that if they waited twenty minutes that they could have another marshmallow. If they ate the marshmallow than then would not get another one. Some children were able to wait and some couldn't resist eating the marshmallow.
This experiment was recreated recently. I found the video amusing!
This experiment studied impulse control, which is considered to be an important part of emotional intelligence. Mischel later followed the progress of the children in the experiment and found that children who had resisted eating the marshmallow were more dependable and had higher SAT scores.
I think that impulse control is very important in everyday life. A person without impulse control it may choose to sleep in rather than go to work or school, get drunk instead of studying for an important test, or cheat on their significant other. They don't seem to think about the consequences of their actions and may live in the moment and forget about the future. It seems to be part of what people refer to as self control.
stress
I think its interesting how a little stress can help you study and allot of stress can make you shut down. So i propose a study involving brain scans(i assume that stress can be seen on an fMRI)to look at exactly what point that threshold is breached, and what parts of the brain are active. This relates to social psychology.
terror managment theory
My brother turned me on to an interesting theory called Terror Management Theory. The basic outline of which is that "when people are confronted with their own demise they strengthen their own world view, religion politics etc.", these views being their in-group it makes sense that they lash out at out-groups. Its an interesting read.
Smieja, M, Kalaska, M, & Adamczyk, M. (2006). Scared to death or scared to love? Terror management theory and close relationships seeking. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 279-296.
Smieja, M, Kalaska, M, & Adamczyk, M. (2006). Scared to death or scared to love? Terror management theory and close relationships seeking. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 279-296.
explicit vs implicit
I think that there are very few thoughts which can be thought of as either explicit or implicit. For the most part when I think random things just pop into my head. After that there is a period of explicit thought where the idea is usually shot down through a process of rationalization. So i propose that all thoughts are a mix of the two. Except for the implicit thoughts i don't notice because they never actually break the surface of consciousness.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Adolescents, Abandonment, & Aggression
Our recent talks about children with aggression problems got me to thinking about other things that cause children to become aggressive. An adolescent close to me has serious aggression and anger management issues. He has never been a receiver of corporal punishment, but is being raised by his grand-parents because his parents were divorced and neither wanted to raise him. According to this study, children with abandonment issues have higher levels of aggression, depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional thinking.
The 2000 Census reported 4.5 million children being raised by grand-parents. That was 6.3% of all children under the age of 18. This number is on the rise and is undoubtedly significantly higher now. This is a disturbing trend that I was not able to find much concrete research on. Guidance counselors need to be aware of the background of the kids. The guidance counselor that my friends son has was not even aware he was being raised by his grand-parents. Schools should develop programs for grand-parents and guardians that are not the biological parents, to attend to help these children increase their self-esteem and reduce the abandonment issues as much as possible.
There are so many issues in this world today that can cause aggression in children and all people. While one day corporal punishment may become illegal, we cannot govern other situations, such as abandonment, that cause aggresion. It seems as though teaching coping mechanisms to students should be implemented in the classrooms as a regular curriculum through high school graduation. This area needs continual research to find solid and keep up to date programs that can be implemented that will counteract these abandonment issues. Schools and guardians need to be coninuously upgrading their skills to handle these problems.
Griersmirh, D., & Galligan, R. (2003). Adolescent depression and associated psychological distress. Australian Journal of Psychology, 55183.
The 2000 Census reported 4.5 million children being raised by grand-parents. That was 6.3% of all children under the age of 18. This number is on the rise and is undoubtedly significantly higher now. This is a disturbing trend that I was not able to find much concrete research on. Guidance counselors need to be aware of the background of the kids. The guidance counselor that my friends son has was not even aware he was being raised by his grand-parents. Schools should develop programs for grand-parents and guardians that are not the biological parents, to attend to help these children increase their self-esteem and reduce the abandonment issues as much as possible.
There are so many issues in this world today that can cause aggression in children and all people. While one day corporal punishment may become illegal, we cannot govern other situations, such as abandonment, that cause aggresion. It seems as though teaching coping mechanisms to students should be implemented in the classrooms as a regular curriculum through high school graduation. This area needs continual research to find solid and keep up to date programs that can be implemented that will counteract these abandonment issues. Schools and guardians need to be coninuously upgrading their skills to handle these problems.
Griersmirh, D., & Galligan, R. (2003). Adolescent depression and associated psychological distress. Australian Journal of Psychology, 55183.
Quiz 10: Aggressive Driving Results
Methodology
My research on aggressive driving consisted of having participants fill out a 10 question survey about what they would do in certain driving situations. Here are a few examples of the questions that I included:
1.You are late for school or work, and the person in front of you is going 10 mph below the speed limit. You…
a.Get annoyed, but maintain a safe distance behind.
b.Don’t mind, at least they are driving safely.
c.Honk, scream out the window, use rude gestures, all possibly while tailgating them.
d.Drive dangerously close to them, aka “tailgate” them, hoping that they will get the hint and speed up.
2.The stoplight has turned green and the person in front of you has not accelerated after 5 seconds. You…
a.Wait, while swearing or complaining to yourself or the other person in your car
b.Lay on your horn while using rude gestures and swearing.
c.Honk your horn gently to get their attention
d.Wait patiently
3.You are at Wal-Mart on a busy Saturday afternoon and the parking lot is full. You see a nearby parking spot become available and you pull forward towards the spot and put your blinker on, clearly intending to pull in. A black sports car speeds around the corner from the opposite direction and parks in the same spot. You…
a.Stay calm. He got there first, so no big deal.
b.Swear or complain to yourself or the other person in your car, saying how rude that was.
c.Get out of your car and confront the person.
d.Honk and give them a dirty look
Each question has answers that I rated from 1 to 4, as follows:
1. low aggression
2. low to medium aggression
3. medium to high aggression
4. high aggression
I asked 20 college students to fill out this survey, ten of which are males and ten that are females. I then determined their results by adding up how many of each rating each person had picked.
Results
I predicted that males and females would have similar habits of aggressive driving. In this survey, I found that males are slightly more likely to be aggressive drivers, as many previous studies have found. However, most drivers fall into the middle categories. On the extreme ends, females tend to be less aggressive and males tend to be more aggressive.
The above graph shows that the ten males chose a total of:
18 "low aggression" answers
23 "low to medium aggression" answers
32 "medium to high aggression" answers
27 "high aggression" answers
And that the ten females chose a total of:
24 "low aggression" answers
35 "low to medium aggression" answers
31 "medium to high aggression" answers
10 "high aggression" answers
Discussion
Most college drivers that I surveyed tend to choose low-to medium or medium-to-high reactions to frustrating driving scenarios. This means that if another driver makes them angry or if they are in a hurry they may complain or curse to themselves or their passengers, get annoyed, and possibly honk their horn or drive somewhat threateningly. Less claimed that they would be completely calm or that they would risk a serious accident or confront a person directly. It seems that most drivers do show some signs of aggression, but it's usually not extreme.
When I originally decided to do this study, I thought about driving around Butte and being the person who annoys other drivers and taking note of their actions. However, I decided that that could be very dangerous and I wasn't going to risk getting into a wreck. However, I think that it may have been a more accurate study because the reactions that people gave would tell the truth.
My research on aggressive driving consisted of having participants fill out a 10 question survey about what they would do in certain driving situations. Here are a few examples of the questions that I included:
1.You are late for school or work, and the person in front of you is going 10 mph below the speed limit. You…
a.Get annoyed, but maintain a safe distance behind.
b.Don’t mind, at least they are driving safely.
c.Honk, scream out the window, use rude gestures, all possibly while tailgating them.
d.Drive dangerously close to them, aka “tailgate” them, hoping that they will get the hint and speed up.
2.The stoplight has turned green and the person in front of you has not accelerated after 5 seconds. You…
a.Wait, while swearing or complaining to yourself or the other person in your car
b.Lay on your horn while using rude gestures and swearing.
c.Honk your horn gently to get their attention
d.Wait patiently
3.You are at Wal-Mart on a busy Saturday afternoon and the parking lot is full. You see a nearby parking spot become available and you pull forward towards the spot and put your blinker on, clearly intending to pull in. A black sports car speeds around the corner from the opposite direction and parks in the same spot. You…
a.Stay calm. He got there first, so no big deal.
b.Swear or complain to yourself or the other person in your car, saying how rude that was.
c.Get out of your car and confront the person.
d.Honk and give them a dirty look
Each question has answers that I rated from 1 to 4, as follows:
1. low aggression
2. low to medium aggression
3. medium to high aggression
4. high aggression
I asked 20 college students to fill out this survey, ten of which are males and ten that are females. I then determined their results by adding up how many of each rating each person had picked.
Results
I predicted that males and females would have similar habits of aggressive driving. In this survey, I found that males are slightly more likely to be aggressive drivers, as many previous studies have found. However, most drivers fall into the middle categories. On the extreme ends, females tend to be less aggressive and males tend to be more aggressive.
The above graph shows that the ten males chose a total of:
18 "low aggression" answers
23 "low to medium aggression" answers
32 "medium to high aggression" answers
27 "high aggression" answers
And that the ten females chose a total of:
24 "low aggression" answers
35 "low to medium aggression" answers
31 "medium to high aggression" answers
10 "high aggression" answers
Discussion
Most college drivers that I surveyed tend to choose low-to medium or medium-to-high reactions to frustrating driving scenarios. This means that if another driver makes them angry or if they are in a hurry they may complain or curse to themselves or their passengers, get annoyed, and possibly honk their horn or drive somewhat threateningly. Less claimed that they would be completely calm or that they would risk a serious accident or confront a person directly. It seems that most drivers do show some signs of aggression, but it's usually not extreme.
When I originally decided to do this study, I thought about driving around Butte and being the person who annoys other drivers and taking note of their actions. However, I decided that that could be very dangerous and I wasn't going to risk getting into a wreck. However, I think that it may have been a more accurate study because the reactions that people gave would tell the truth.
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