Really, honestly, the only way is to run tests because someone really could just be acting weird or have an eccentric personality and not have a disorder. I mean, there's some obvious ways to tell that someone is, but not all of the signs are clear. And to be sure tests really do need to be done. I mean, if someone is hearing voices in their head, than that obviously means somethings wrong. But not everything is so clear cut. If someone acts abnormally that does not mean they have a pyschological disorder, it may just mean that they're acting weird because they're just weird people or have an eccentric personality. It doesn't mean that they have a disorder. But, you can't be too sure until you run tests.
Well I have a friend back in Wisconsin Rapids who has bi-polar disorder. Bi-polar disorder is when basically you feel really good for a while and then you start to feel really low and in a bad mood. That's my summary at least. And well as for experiences with my friend, theres no real ONE experience. It's just hanging out with him in general. It's just so..strange..not be mean. I mean one minute he'll be all fine, all happy and ready to go do a bunch of stuff. Then the next minute i'll turn around and he'll be in a horrible mood and will just sort of sit there. It doesn't make much sense, but then again it's a disorder so it doesn't have to necessarily make sense. But i gotta say it doesn't really make hanging out with him harder. It just makes him a little more difficult to get along with at times.
I think the most interesting thing i learned about is the prison experiment. That was very much a crazy thing to me. The fact that just regular students could become so monstrous. That regular people could realy become so evil. I mean, you look at evil people like Hitler and they seem almost inhuman, and then you look at this and you realize that he was just a regular person, and that ALL people have evil inside them. And under the right circumstances, that can come out. It's a truely scary thing to think about. Truely.

blog post #11

I think my personality is very laid back. I enjoy things that i love, music, friends, family. And i want to do things that makes me happy, which is why for a career im going into stuff music related. I'd rather have a career that i'm happy with than one that i'm not. I'm a very: concerned, caring, relaxed, and understanding person. I am however quite impatient, gullable, and stubborn. For my positives traits i think they all our positive because they help with communicating and dealing with people. Whether it be just with friends or with relationships. They are all important traits to deal with people. Obviously, being impatient doesn't help it much though. And being gullable isn't very good either, since sometimes i can believe things that simply aren't true. And stubborn is obviously negative becaue it means i'm not always willing to meet people half-way and sometimes let people get their own way.
I think I am both optimistic and pessimistic. I am optomistic about some things, like mainly plain life things like relationships, and other things with friends and family and things i enjoy. I am pessimistic though when it comes to school, i don't think very positively about doing homework and dealing with tests and the stress of school.
Well, one trait that might change in a different situation is if i'm in a very awkward situation. Or say i'm in a room full of people I don't know. I wouldn't be relaxed anymore, I'd just be uncomftorable. This helps or adapts because it's sort of unsafe to be completely comftorable with strangers, so in a way it makes you wary of them and distances yourself from them. Another trait that would change in a situation is with being impatient. If I was waiting for someone to get me to go somewhere, and they are late, normally I'd be impatient and crabby. But if i had something to occupy my time, like tv or something, than i'd be pretty patient because I'm not thinking about the person being late. This is helpful because with your mind being preoccupied with something else, you can't think of the person being late and it may even seem to take the person shorter to get there if you are doing something.
Well, one example would be whenever I'm wrong about something. I usually try to deny that I'm wrong, or argue so eventually I may become right. So maybe that would be denial? I don't know what else it could be. Another example is when I may get mad at something and take out my anger by yelling at my brother or something. This would be, i believe, displacement? Not that I'm doing anything really bad to my brother, just yelling at him for my frustrations at other things. Those are really the only examples I can think of right now. I'm sure there was more but I really can't think of any right now.

blog post 10

Well, one thing i did learn in chapter nine is about algorithm and heuristic. Algorithm is a procedure that is methodical and logical. It guarantees solving a particular problem. Heuristic, on the other hand, is a simple thinking strategy that allows us to often make judgements and solve problems efficiently, it is speedier than algorithm but also more error-prone.
I honestly don't think my creativity is really defined in the text book. I guess ventersome, intrinsic and creative would be the best ones to fit. But i don't really know. I guess im just going off the fact that I'm musically creative. But I also think I'm emotionally intelligent as well. Which I think impact my personal relationships in a good way because I really can tell when my girlfriend is mad or when something is bothering her. There's just certain things she does when shes mad or upset that i can instantly know this. But I'm also creative i mean i play drums, im in a band, and i really enjoy art. So I honestly think I'm both. I think it is very important to be emotionally intelligent because in a personal relationship you're going to want to be able to indentify when someones angry or upset or happy or anything. In fact, it's a good thing to be able to tell for all people.
I think the most interesting thing I learned about is just about all of the different types of intelligences and how many different things there are any everything. People can be so different with so many different types of intelligence it's crazy. And really weird to think about.

Blog Post # 9

Memory is extremely important in defining who we are as human beings. We, as far as i know, have the best memory of any species on the planet. Afterall, we are at the top of the food chain, primarily. We can learn, teach, just about do anything. And memory is absolutely essential to human life as we know it. If we didn't have memory, we wouldnt be able to enjoy life as we know it. We wouldnt be able to do anything, to survive. We would miss out on tons of things, from love to heartbreak. All things i feel are absolutely necessary to experience in life. And without memory, we would have NO experiences. Clive Wearing doesn't know who he is. He doesn't have any memory of eating or anything. He basically doesn't know hes alive. His wife is very patient with him, she stays with him and acts calm and normal. Which i by the way think is absolutely amazing, it just shows how powerful a thing love is. I honestly don't know if i could handle it. I mean, i'm somone who does love people very much when i do love somebody. But with someone like that, it would be like not having my girlfriend or wife or whatever anymore. I honestly don't think I could do it.
And yeah, i think i think memory works differently now than i did before, just like everything i learn about in this class. And yeah i see my memories a little bit differently now, to be honest lets just say i definately don't trust them as much as i used to. And i really think the "eye witness" thing i did definately proves this. I thought that guy looked exactly like the guy on the roof. But he wasn't, and thats scary because literally two minutes before i guessed the number i watched the video. The thing i found most interesting that i learned is how emotions affect our memory. If we're excited, we feel it and our brain knows that something important has happened. I think this is important and can be applied to my life because, come on, all teenagers go through so much different emotions that obviously it's going to greatly affect our memories. At our age, i think this is more relevant to our lives than ever.

Well, classical conditionig is where you learn to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. When example is from the office episode we watched, where everytime the computer made a sound the guy would give the other guy a mint. So then, when ever that guy would hear the sound, he would put his hand out expecting a mint. Operant conditioning is basically where behavior is strenghtened by a reinforcer and weakened if punished by a punisher. An example of this would be if a kid got an F in school, and their parents encouraged him saying that it doesnt matter and school is dumbn, then he'd keep on getting f's. But if the same thing happened and the parents scolded him and was punished, hed try harder in school. The difference between the two is with conditioning you learn behaviors just merely by some sound or circumstance that happens at that time. But with operant your behavior is shaped by what an actual person does and how that person affects you. Positive reinforcement is when a behavior is increased with good stimuli. Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, is when a behavior is increased or decreased with negative stimuli. Punishment is something that decreases the behavior that its trying to stop. An example of positive reinforcement is the fact that i get paid for all the A's and B's I get. Promoting me basically to get better grades. Negative reinforcement would probably go back to when i lived in Port Edwards. I wasnt necessarily hanging out with the best people , and because of this I wasnt necessarily into the best things. An example of punishment is that i dont know, i get grounded if I do something wrong? haha thats the best I got. The most interesting thing i learned would actually probably have to be all of these conitionings. The human mind just seems so...simple sometimes to me. I mean, we can condition people to do some things just by a sound or action. It's crazy, to know that all minds on Earth can really be trained so easily.

Blog #6

Well, I actually didn't get to interview anybody (sorry), but I know from previous talks with my grandparents that it wasn't too terribly different from today. I think students' respect for teachers and just education in general might have been a bit higher. But other than that I'd have to say we really benefit by having better education oppurtunitys today. I don't think I'd like to live back then because really we have so many more oppurtunitys to do as kids and as students. We have much more freedom. I sort of agree with the video when it said we go through the same stuff whether we are adults or kids. But I don't know, thats pretty much it. I have enjoyed my adolescence for the most part. There are things I didn't enjoy about it, which is whatever. But my parents have been pretty easy on me, never got on my case too much. And now, as im nearing adulthood, I find myself enjoying life even more: having a wonderful girlfriend, having good control of my diabetes etc. I think my time as an adolesence is going to impact who I am as an adult somewhat, but I won't really know until I totally get out into the world. In chapter 4 if learned about nature vs. nurture, which is interesting because some things we get naturally, such as our eye color, hair color etc. And some things are completely based on our enviroment. Like how we act, how well we respect other people etc. In chapter 5 I learned about how are brain develops, and how as a kid our mind works in figuring stuff out about the world.

Blog #4

Well I watched the video "The Mind-Awake and Asleep". And i learned the counciousness is a very important thing to human beings. Without it we would definately die. Also i learned that dreams are usually mad up of what is in our mind and us trying to make sense of it. It's relavent to me because i really enjoy finding out about dreams and the whole mystery of why we dream and how the brain works. And just how truely powerful it is. Another thing i learned also being the same thing that suprises me the most is how much we do without even thinking about it. I mean, i've always known this. But when i really just sit down and think about it, it really suprises me. I don't think i really disagree with anything because really i don't know too much about the brain and dreams and such. So i really don't have an opinion to disagree with stuff with. Because i truely don't know that much.