Week 6 - Questions

What did you like about the class?

I loved the actual content of the course. I think this course is so interesting that a teacher does not even need to make it anymore interesting for students to really enjoy taking the class.

What was your favorite activity or project?

Personally, I think projects are a bit of a waste of time. Honestly, any true student should not need projects to understand course material. They seem to be for those that are too lazy to study and need to be forced to understand at least some course material. Having said that, I enjoyed the sensation and perception project.

What didn't you like about the class?

Projects projects, projects...and activities...sometimes...see above for a better description of my opinion about projects. I also thought that a lot of the vocab that we took in notes was sort of unnecessary and could have been learned outside of class allowing for more time for the discussion and understanding of the concepts of the class. I think in an AP class, vocab is something that the students should be able to take responsibility for outside of class.

What do you think I should leave out next year?

see above...the projects and some vocab.

Do you have any suggestions or ideas for things I could do next year in AP Psych?

Start doing the chapter at a glance thingys much earlier in the year. They seemed much more helpful then copying answers in a study guide or doing vocab. It forced comprehension and I respected that as a great idea.

Do you have any suggestions or ideas for next semester in AP Econ?

NO PROJECTS PLEASE!!!!!!! I would hate that class if there was a single big project in there. I know it would make it more interesting, but we are not only going to be having major senioritis, but also suffering from heavy course loads. In reality, they would just make us hate the class even more!

Week 5 - Pick something...

Well, I was quite astonished by the amount of corruption in the Field of mental illnesses and medicine. I knew that corruption existed in big business, big sports, and in politics, but I doubted anyone could honestly be so evil as to do corrupt business when people's mental health is on the line. When people will accept multi-million dollar bribes from pharmaceutical companies to withhold findings of the fact that their drugs are useless, you know there are true low life's out there. The world of a person with a mental disorder is something that we cannot comprehend, and for someone to take advantage of these people for the sake of money is someone that not only deserves to go to jail, but also to be looked down upon by every other human being. It is a despicable act to use people that way. I have always considered people of higher education to be those that could look past the material gains of what they do and look at what it does for the people of the world and how it can change how we look at things. Reading this article has disgusted me and completely disheartened me about the human race. It makes it seem like no person can be a decent person when faced with a large sum of money. I say this and at the same time I am thinking that this is a biased thing of me to say. This article is made to show the worst of what has happened and to fit us with a perfect situation to bash the greed of the human race. These particular cases of corruption absolutely disgust me, but I believe that the honorable men and women that have dedicated their lives to helping those with mental disorders far outweighs these acts of greed and self-centeredness. These psychologists should be ashamed of their own actions because they are the ones that understand the implications to what they have done more than anyone else.

Week 4 - Personality

When I took the Jung Typology test, my results show that I am a INFJ, which is also know as a counselor. When I read the description of the counselor, I actually believed that this test could be somewhat accurate. I did seem to fit me fairly well.



My EQ is supposedly 46. The test said this was extremely high, but I drastically doubt the validity of this test, it was a 20 question test that did not have major variation in either the type of questions or the mood of the questions. They were all positive and therefore promoted higher answers. This test seems a bit screwy.





I took the attractiveness test which said that I liked women which are more sexually alluring and those women that seem to not follow the norm. It also says that I dislike fun loving women. This test also came across to me as very inaccurate considering both that I know my standards and they don't match these, and the fact that this test used a single sense, vision, to determine all of this, but in reality we judge people through our interactions with them and all aspects of their personality. This test assumes we can all sum up who we like in a picture, which is assuming many false pretenses.


I took a test on relationships and it scored me as a 3.62 on attachment-related anxiety and a 1.33 on attachment related avoidance. This put me on the "Secure" part of the graph. This supposedly means that I will have longer and stronger relationships. This test actually seemed fairly thorough and legitimate.

Finally I took a test on how criminal I would act in stressful situations and it said I was average...whatever that means. It did not seem like a very reasonable test because it was user biased.

So, over all I feel these tests are biased by the test taker and in reality are difficult to really evaluate seriously. There is a test taking bias because we pick answers based on what we want to precieve ourselves as and not what we truely are. It makes every test very, very difficult to take in an unbiased way.

Week 3 Part 2 - Personality Disorders

Dear Dan,


I am having a great time in college. I am obviously great at it. I have passed all my classes, but for some reason my parents were not very appreciative of my hard work. I know if I continue on this path that I will own a major company in be extremely powerful. On that note, my girlfriend absolutely adores me, and we will obviously have a perfect marraige in my perfect life. I have been waiting for the head of the department to contact me soon in order for us to talk about my unique educational career. It is taking longer than I expected, but he will recognize that I am special sooner or later. I know you are having trouble back home, but I am much too busy to help you right now. Maybe I can be more useful when I become a powerful leader. Until that time good luck.


Your friend,

Bob

Week 3 Part 1 - Emotion Experiment

Pencil in my mouth without my lips touching.



Average Score of 5

Week 2 - Anxiety Disorders Case Study

Case Study 5: A 28-year-old woman is a rising junior executive in her investment company. Her increasing duties require her to make periodic formal presentations to the senior management of the company. However, she becomes intensely anxious at the thought of speaking in public. When she is forced to give a presentation she begins to feel anxious days in advance of the talk and the anxiety increases as the time for the talk approaches. She is concerned that her anxiety will become noticeable during the talk or that she will do something to embarrass herself.





2.) This patient is suffering from Social Phobia.





3.) She needs standard drugs in order to calm herself down and possibly group therapy.





4.) This woman gets scared about social situations where she risks embarrassing herself. She starts thinking about them weeks in advance and this will actually increase her chances of embarrassing herself at the time of the social situation. If she would take drugs to calm her nerves and decrease her fear of embarrassment then she would be fine.





5.) Case Study 1: unknown


Case Study 2: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder


Case Study 3: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder


Case Study 4: unknown


Case Study 6: Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia


Case Study 7: Panic Disorder without Agoraphobia


Case Study 8: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder


Case Study 9: A specific phobia of needles


Case Study 10: Acute Stress Disorder


Case Study 11: Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. He believed that we all repressed unwanted feelings and desires into our unconscious mind. He also developed a theory on how the human mind is organized and works internally. Most people are unaware that Freud suffered from panic attacks and showed symptoms of Anxiety Disorder. In all of his medical evaluations, all he was told is that his symptoms were simply of a nervous origin.

Sigmund Freud's panic attacks actually had a large impact on his career. When he was tired of what the doctor's were telling him, he decided to try and find a psychological reason for his panic attacks. He designed an entire psychological model to try and describe how the brain internalized and maintained anxiety. This became an important and well known aspect of his theories and applied directly to his ideas about the unconscious.

His work has changed how we think of psychology even though they have been mostly proven wrong. He was motivated by these attacks to work even harder on his work to help him understand his own problems.