Developmental Psychology

I found it interesting that at age 2 we have learned around 1,000 words and have developed them into our vocabulary. Thinking about it, it's hard to believe that I know 1,000 words now. I know I do, but probably couldn't list them all. We talked about assimilation vs. accommodation and it reminded me of my little cousin. My little cousin is 4 years old. I remember the first person, besides his parents, that he came to recognize was superman. He loved watching him on television and had all his clothing. One day, I was with him and we were watching a cartoon on tv. He didn't like the show we were watching so I changed the channel. There was a blue figure on this channel, who wasn't superman, who my little cousin convinced himself was superman. I thought that represented assimilation. Even though I broke his heart, I had to tell him that the man on tv was not superman. That was the accommodation.

Brain Disorder

Ryan and I were in charge of researching congenital analgia and a lot of questions popped up about the difference between feeling pain and feeling something in general. To be quite honest i'm not really aware of the difference. I understood the part about how they can't feel temperatures but when it comes to pain and feelings, it seemed like there was a fine line. For instance, say you pick up a heavy book. Obviously you know you are holding a book. Mr. Drier said that people with this disorder can feel the pressure of the book on their hands, but can pressure sometimes be pain. Another example is if I'm pressing a person up against a wall so they aren't moving, would they feel me pushing because of course I'm applying pressure but I'm also applying enough pressure to a point where it hurts. I just found the difference between the two wasn't as obvious as we all thought.

Left and Right

After taking in all the discussions this week, I am going to have to disagree with the Left and Right brained theories. I feel that it doesn't make a difference which brained you are to make a decision or view a picture. They say that right brained people tend to see the element of something where as left brained people only see the broader image. I feel like you can train yourself to see the "elements" if you are a left brained person. All it takes is a little more attention in my mind. You can also say the same about right brained people. In the video we watched in class there was a man with two brains. He was viewing pictures of faces made out of fruit, books, etc. His left brain saw the books and the fruit where his right brain saw the face. Couldn't you train your right brain to see just the books. It may not be possible, I don't know, but it seems like you can train a certain half of your brain to do the same as the other half. I know if it was possible it wouldn't be easy, but I feel it can be done.

Theories

The Inferiority Complex theory, explained by Alfred Adler, talks about how one feels they are inferior to others. It is an unconsious thought. One can get these feelings because they know they are actually inferior to someone or they just like to think they are inferior. The collective unconsious, proposed by Carl Jung, does not develop individually, but is inhereted. The contents of the collective unconsious are called archetypes. The collective unconscious is the themes that seem to be existent in all cultures. Superman is a good archetype because it symbolizes all that is good in life. Lastly, Karen Horney talks about how she disagreed with Freud's theory on penis envy. She thought that women were equal to men. She didn't believe that women were more inferior. If anything she thought they were less inferior.

Defense Mechanisms

Today in class we discussed different types of defense mechanisms and examples for each. It opened my eyes to all the different types because the only one I was aware about was denial. It made me watch for the different mechanisms out in the real world. Today in practice, my buddy C.J was making fun of a fellow line mate, J.P. J.P didn't really appreciate what he had to say, so he started fighting back. C.J brought up the time where he missed an empty net goal in the game last friday. J.P knew very well what he was talking about but acted like he had no idea. It was obvious to everyone, but J.P that he missed that shot. The defense mechanism that I found in this argument is denial. J.p is denying that the play he was referring to never happened. The definition in the book says you are in denial to accept the reality of something. In this case, J.P is denying the reality of missing an empty which really did happen.