Archive for February, 2008
The Purpose of Dreams
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychology 101 Saturday, 23 February 2008 01:58 No Comments
Dreams may be the one way that our brain organizes and stores our memories. The time we spend dreaming could be a period when the brain can reorganize and review our day’s events and connect our new experiences to older ones. During dream time, the body is shut down so the brain can do this without additional input coming in or risking the body reacting out the day’s memories. This usually occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, or stages 1 and 2 sleep. It is widely held that people who are deprived of REM sleep tend not to remember what they just learned during the day.
How do dreams start? Do dreams start in our brains? A dream is a form of perception stimulated by some particular sensation. If our eyes are closed and our body’s are shut down, where is the sensation coming from? Can dreams be a form of extrasensory perception (ESP)?
Two main theorists that were prominent in the study of dreams. First there was Sigmund Freud. He believed that dreams were a way to preserve sleep. He was widely contradicted. Carl Jung, an early follower of Freud, later broke away to form his own thinking on a variety of psychological topics. He believed that dreams were a way of helping to develop a persons personality that remained undeveloped while awake. If one was shy when awake, they will be shy while in our dreams.
This contradicts Freud’s ID and Ego theory. The Ego, our conscious state, is the control factor that has the ID, inner desires, under control. The ego suppresses the inner desires so that the only way for it to be released is while dreaming. If our inner desires are so suppressed, our dreams could take on a life of their own.
For example, a successful business person is always busy and on the go. Deep in the mind, they have certain desires, such as being in a biker bar, shooting pool and having a beer with friends. An interesting place to dream about. For those successful business people that their inner desires are so suppressed that their dreams take on a life of their own almost like astral projection, projecting oneself to a place that they really want to be. It is like being in two places at the same time.
Another school of thought that I happen to believe in is that dreams have a sought of problem solving function. By dreaming we work through our issues that we were having trouble with during the day. This probably explains why so many great ideas come about when one was sleeping. One wake up and immediate go turn on the computer and start writing down their newfound thoughts. If we can’t dream, our problems go unresolved, and our stress levels begin to rise which could then lead to self-destruction.
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Describe Hindsight Bias
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychology 101 Saturday, 23 February 2008 01:56 No Comments
When interviewing job candidates, many interviewers tend to be overconfident of their gut feelings about the job applicants. The overconfidence stems from past cases where their hunches have proved right in the past. Maybe a job applicant did all of the right things to present a favorable impression, and the interviewer relied heavily on that favorable impression. This bias causes interviewers to reject applicants that have succeeded elsewhere. This is an example of hindsight bias, or the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.
It is very easy to find yourself criticizing an outcome after it already happened. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, commentators mentioned about why the victims in the second tower did not evacuate after the first plane hit. Whether it is the dot com bubble bursting, a recession looming about, a terrorist attack, or even hiring your next employee, we are all subject to being a Monday morning quarterback, also known as hindsight bias.
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thinking critically about psychology
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychology 101 Saturday, 23 February 2008 01:54 No Comments
All science is based on curiosity, a passion to explore and understand without misleading or being misled. For example, is there life after death? Do ghosts and demons really exist? When it comes to questions related to paranormal psychology there are more skeptics than believers. Some skeptics can turn into believers if they have a first hand experience combined with other evidence of something paranormal. To become a believer in paranormal psychology requires a scientific attitude, which involves curious skepticism to understand what is really going on.
One can acquire the tools needed for researching the topic of paranormal, such as thermal imaging cameras or digital electronic recorders to gather evidence. If something was captured on camera, the researcher would experiment to try and recreate the phenomena. If the phenomena cannot be recreated, you have solid evidence to report that there is something paranormal in the research environment you are investigating.
When dealing with topics such as the paranormal, there will be skeptics. Skeptics can turn into believers if they have a first hand experience. Such crazy sounding ideas do find support when subjected to a scientific attitude. Other researchers can further experiment with the time of day. For example, some researchers in this field believe that most spirits manifest during the early morning hours.
To test this, researchers can use a concept called dead time to try and communicate with a spirit. Dead time is where you turn off all electronic devices and electricity such as lights. The environment should be completely dark and quiet.
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Sexual Immorality
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychology 101 Thursday, 21 February 2008 13:34 No Comments
Several studies by Ames (1997), Gladue (1990), and Meyer-Bahlburg (1995) conclude that there is a critical period in a fetus’ development that predisposes the person to be attracted to a particular sex later in life. This critical period has to do with the brain’s neural-hormonal control system. So female fetus’ that were exposed to testosterone were more like to become lesbians later in life, while male fetus’ that were exposed to increased levels of estrogen hormone were more likely to be gay.
Everything psychological is simultaneously biological.
Related article: Love Won Out
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