Court is in Session

On the first day we learned about mental disorders we were told the difference between insanity and a mental disorder. The only difference is the setting. Insane is used as a legal term, while a mental disorder is a medical term.  If a person is charged with a crime they can be found innocent by reasons of insanity. What a court does to determine if someone is legally  insane is they bring in psychologists to determine if the person was aware of their actions when they committed the crime. Someone who is legally insane does not now the difference between right and wrong and therefore can not be responsible for their actions.

 This topic reminded me of the movie and book A Time to Kill. In this movie two men rape Carl Lee Hayley's daughter and right before their trial began Carl shot both of the men. When this goes to court he pleads innocent for reasons of insanity, because he was emotionally traumatized by his daughter's rape that he couldn't tell right from wrong. Even though Carl Lee Hayley did not suffer from a mental disorder, the court found him innocent.   

1/2 a cookie + 1/2 a cookie = 2 cookies????

What I found really interesting this week was Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development. To learn about the stages we watched videos of children in each stage. It amazed me that you can break a cookie in front of a kid in preoperational stage and they think they have two cookies. Also, if you spread the same number of quarters over a larger area they think they have more money. This is all part of the preoperational stage of cognitive development.

Another behavior that occurs in this stage is animistic thinking. This is giving inanimate objects human characteristics. No wonder kids at this age have an attachment to dolls or stuffed animals. When I babysat kids in this stage of development I always ended up playing house or with dolls. I found out that they have a very creative imagination. The most difficult aspect of children in this stage of development is their egocenterism. When siblings started arguing it was always a lot harder to get them to settle down because they can only see the situation from their perspective.

Mental Disorders

The brain is very complex and from what we have learned this week a lot can go wrong. If one part of the brain isn't functioning correctly it starts to fall apart. That is what makes mental disorders so tragic. First of all, you are trapped inside a body that can't interact with the outside world. Also, many of the different mental disorders progress slowly and eventually kill you, because there is no cure. Even though we don't have a cure we know how the disease will progress, which seems worse.

For the project we did this week I learned about Parkinson's disease. It is the most common  Parkinson's is thought to be caused by the lack of dopamine, which helps the brain control the muscle movements. So as Parkinson's progresses you keep losing control of your movements. Walking, talking, and simple tasks become a challenge.   

I remember ... do I?

The topic that interested me the most this week was false memories. Our mind is susceptible to receive false information, which we start to believe as true. The video we watched showed that our memory can easily be altered just by seeing false pictures. With this recent discovery we now know that memoirs and eyewitness testimonies may not be as accurate as we think.

I always thought I had a good memory, but now I'm starting to question it. My family told me stories when I was little and now that I heard them I can picture it and it starts to feel like a memory. I can see the colors objects were, what people said, and how I was feeling. How many of my memories are real?   

Also every time we retrieve memories we change a few details. This reminded me of a teacher I had in middle school. He would tell us stories about his life and each year we noticed a change. For example, he told us he had to jump over a fence to the runway to catch his plane (this was a LONG time ago) and each year we noticed the fence kept getting higher and higher. First, it was four feet then six and then 9 feet. We never thought much of it, we just said he was crazy (we still think he is), but he may not be as crazy as we thought he was.

Championship

As I awoke (reticular formation) my heart began to race (medulla).Today was the day, the day I have been waiting for. I was planning on holding the first place softball trophy (frontal lobe). Before the game I was practicing my batting. Remembering to keep my weight balanced and my posture tall (cerebellum). Walking into the dugout (central nervous system), I could feel the dirt on my hands and glove (parietal lobe).

As a catcher I have to stay aware of where the runners are and when they decide to steal a base (right hemisphere). Also I have to have pitching signs memorized (hippocampus). While I'm catching I am always afraid of missing a ball and costing our team a run (amygdala). We held the other team at 0 for their first at bat, now it was our turn. In the batters box I watch the ball hit the barrel of my bat (occipital lobe), then take off towards first base. Once I am on base I analyze the situation to determine if I should steal second (left hemisphere).

After the first inning the score is 0 to 0, my breath is quickening (autonomic nervous system) and I am becoming thirsty (hypothalamus). With the game tied I started to fidget (somatic nervous system).I just had to tell myself that I can do it and make no errors. It takes more than one person to win a game, but everyone has to do their part. We ended up winning the game 5 to 1. Since we had a previous loss in the tournament we had to play a second game, which got rained out. It was decided that it would be a tie for first place. That night I went home and feel asleep (pons) from a long, successful day.

Super-ego vs. Id, in other words, Angel vs. Devil

This week we have been focusing on Sigmund Freud and his contributions. The topic that interested me the most was his idea about the ego, id, and super-ego. It puts a scientific explanation to the idea that we have a devil and an angel on our shoulders telling us what to do. When we watch movies and the main character has to make an important decision to make an angel and a devil appear on his or her shoulder and they start arguing. In the end the character chooses to do something in between what the angel and devil say they should do. So the main character is the ego.

Sigmund Freud also compared our mind to an iceberg, with the fact that most of an iceberg's mass is underwater and most of our mind is unconscious. This makes a lot of sense to me. Since we don't realize our unconscious desires it relates to us not being able to see the rest of the iceberg that is underwater.

When I have had to make decisions I can see the angel and devil arguing in my mind. For example, my mom needed me to sub on hers and my sister's curling team and she told me I was going to play lead. I wondered why I wasn't playing second, because I am better than my sister, at this point. She told me it was because this was my sister's team and I was just subbing. My id was telling me to say something and complain, but my super-ego was telling me my mom was right and I should just be quiet and listen to her. In the end I decided to play lead and didn't complain.

Assignment # 1

My name is Kelsey, and I am a junior. This past year I joined the girls swim team and I had an amazing time. I was able to meet a few new people, Randi would be an example. Let's just say I wasn't that good when I began, but I made a huge improvement. This means I can swim 100 yards without drowning. I also curl during the winter. Curling is a sport that has ran in my family for a long time. My grandpa coached an Olympic team and my Grandma was on an Olympic team. I don't plan on getting this competitive, but I hope I will become as good as they are. Along with sports I also enjoy reading and am a part of Jaguar Jazz.

I took psychology because I wanted to learn more about human behavior and it is different than my other classes. Through the nine weeks of this class I hope to learn more about why we act the way that we do, how to tell if people are lying, and how the brain works. I know that the left side of your brain is the logical side and the right side is the creative side of your brain. Also, I know about the cognitive development of humans and Piaget's theories from what we have learned in life's issues. We learned about the four stages of cognitive development and the fact that few high school students reach the fourth stage, which is abstract thinking.