Dead Poet Society

There are 5 needs to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and they are physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs.

       The very first need is eating and drinking or any physical need of survival thus is the most basic. An example from the movie “Death Poet Society” is at the beginning of the movie, after Mr. Keating gave his second day lesson (the ripping lesson), Mr. Keating and I believe the professor called “Josh” the teacher who caught Mr. Keating’s student ripping were at the dinner eating food. That is one of the most common needs of physical.

       The second need is the safety need; safety need is the need to feel that the world is organized and predicable; need to feel safe, secure, and stable. Richard Cameron the red headed student, he is the character that needed most security. Unlike many of his contemporary, Richard live with the rules, he feels awkward without rules. At the very beginning of the movie, Richard is the one who held the flag that has “tradition” written on it, and when Mr. Keating asked the class to tear the introduction, he was the one that showed the most uncertainty, even after he started to tear, he used ruler to tear. He also responded the first class with Mr. Keating with the comment of “weird.” All of the above indicated that he needs rule, needs things to be organized and predictable. At the end of the movie, he was also the first to tell the administration, because he wanted the sense of security.

       The third need is the belongingness and love needs, that is the need to love and be loved, to belong and be accepted; need to avoid loneliness and alienation. There are two characters that best portrait this need, and they are Knox and Todd. Todd received the same gift “desk” that he had received from last year, for his birthday from his parents. This indicates that his parent does not care much about him, and his is definitely not pleased with this. Knox fell in love with Chet’s girl friend Christine, and he is not giving up just because she has a boy friend. Knox tried to win her in three scenes; first, he kissed her in the party; second, he went to her school and read poem to her, and third, Knox asked Christine to go to the play with him.

       The forth need is the esteem needs, the need for achievement, competence, and independence; need for recognition and respect from others. Todd definitely fit into this. He has the talent and passion of becoming a writer, but was forced to live in his brother’s shadow to become a lawyer, and his parents is apparently not giving him the recognition of being himself, and care more about his brother and his progress in catching up with him. The examples in the movie are the birthday present, the recognition of talent from Mr. Keating and the last scene in the movie, when he found his self-esteem and stand up to do what he wanted.

       The fifth need is the self-actualization need; the need to live up to ones fullest and unique potential. Neil is the character that would fit into this need. Neil’s life had been written scrip which his father is the author of his life, and everything is father ask and son does format until Mr. Keating came into his life, and he was first time asked to think for him self, and to seize the day. To live up to his fullest potential, he participated in a play, which his father had already decline the request. The end result is that his father is going to send him to the military school, not able to accept the fact that his life will be just a script written by someone else, he decided to suicide (and succeeded.)

Skinner Box Game

Skinner Box or the operant chamber is a box that contains a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain reinforcement, and it will be attached to a recorder. The game I played is called "Dungeon and Fighter." The similarity between this game and a skinner box is that it gives reinforcement to keep players oneline (its an online game). The keyboard (especially the X key) is the bar in the Skinner box. The "Level Up," "Weapons," and "New Move." The differences are that if I want improve the ability of my character then I must invest real money to buy the "armours and suits," which Skinner box does not require investment; to be an advance player I will also need to calculate how to spend the "Skill Points" (these points are needed to learn new moves), the Skinner box does not require much thinking.

I believe the reward style is the fixed-ratio schedules. The fixed-ratio schedule is the reinforcement scedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses. "Dungeon and Fighter" gives out three "revive coin" that brings the character back to life on every log on. The leveling up is also based on how many experiences a character has and that is mostly "calculatable" therefore I can expect to level up my character after I slaughter a certain amount of monsters.

Secondary reinforcer is naturally not a reinforcer, but after conditioning, people or an organism associate this object with our natural reinforcers, and thus gives the similar stimuli to our brain as if it is the primary reinforcer. The secondary reinforcer in this game are the game money, weapon, and the skills. The primary reinforcer is to win the game, or to beat other players, but in order to beat other players, I must have all of the things I listed to strengthen my character. To obtain all of the secondary reinforcers will require a large amount of time investment. (that is why I am not an advanced player)

A possitive reinforcement is to add or give a desirable behavior or object. The possive reinforcements in the "Dungeon and Fighter" are the "level up," "new fancy moves" and the social connection (other well behaved players." These reinforcements are probably the only reasons that I was playing this game, especially those very fancy moves and they can be used to implement other moves. A game with no reinforcement is not worth of playing in my opinion.

Negative reinforcement is to take away something aversive. "Dungeon and Fighter" doesn't take away anything in the game that is aversive. If I have to use negative reinforcement to analyze DNF (the abbreviation) then I guess it took away my boring time (usually the time that I should spend on doing the homework)

Achievemnet motivation is the desire for significant accomplishment, mastery of things, people, or ideas, and higher standard. DNF keeps a record of won battles and lost battles, thus people who cares about this report, would try hard to maintain a higher score. I also like to be better at this game (this game is a action game, so it does require some fast finger work), so I can beat others, the sense of winning is very desirable. However to be better at this game would require players to stay longer online to increase the level and other stuffs.

Remember the Titans

Attribution theory: suggests how we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition.
 Example: there were several good examples; one happened during the game with Eagles(the first game). Coach Yoast’s defense team did do so well, and failed to block out opponent’s player 23. Coach Boone falsely attributed the failure of defense to Yoast’s intention of getting him fire, since he can’t afford to lose any game. However, it turned out that Yoast wanted to win the game just much as Boone did. Another one happened when “Sunshine” took P and Blue (I guessed the names) to one of the local restaurant, but was denied by the owner due to the racial discrimination. P was very angry at Sunshine for embarrassing him after he had told Sunshine that it was not a good ideal to go into the restaurant. P falsely attributed Sunshine’s intention and Sunshine’s acknowledgement. P thought Sunshine knew the outcome already and was embarrassing him on purpose.
Foot-in-the door phenomenon: the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
 Example: Foot-in-the door trick was used at the beginning of the movie by coach Boone, for he wanted to successfully integrate the two races into one team with nothing between them. However, the first approach was not by coach Boone. Every football player who wanted to play will have to stay in the team, so these ensured that both black and white players would have to be on the same team, and that was the first step. Next, coach Boone took them to the camp where they will be bedding with one another (black and white). To increase the intimacy between the team players, Boone stepped another step further, he ask everyone to learn things from another, which according to psychology, the more one knows about each other the closer and perhaps the better the relationship gets. As result of such effort, the team came together. As one of the parent had remarked, “they look like they had been brain washed.”
Scapegoat theory: the theory that prejudice offers an outlet of ranger by providing someone to blame.
 Example: Scapegoat phenomenon was a common scene during the first quarter of the movie, all white players blame on the black failure and the black player blame the white players too. In on occasion, Gerry was blaming Julius for not blocking the opponent team, and in particular, he blame Julius for left him open to the opponents tackle. In return, Julius blame Gerry for not treating the teammates equally and not doing what a captain supposed to do. Yet, in reality, they both took the blame, because they both contributed to the failure of the team work.
Social trap: a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.
 Example: Both black and white players try to stay in the team but wanted other out of the team or at least for the black players they wanted white players to stay out of their way. At the very beginning of the movie, Gerry went up the coach Boone and told him that the team does not need his black players, but was humiliated by the coach. None of the black player nor did any white players wanted to cooperate with one another, especially the defense, they don’t want to protect the quarter back of opposite race. As result, no one wins. After all, they managed to create a double win situation, in which both races learn to respect and love each other.
Ingroup bias: the tendency  to favor one’s own group.
 Example: this was best shown in the open speech done by coach Yoast at the beginning of the movie, when he publicly declared that he will not deign himself to work under coach Boone. His players also supported his action and decided to leave the team if coach Yoast was not going to coach. This phenomenon showed that how good the white players felt bout themselves and how perceive black players and black coach (black people if to be general).

The Colony

There are two psychological subjects I would like to talk about; first the norms, and second the learning process. In the issue regarding norms, I psychological view are social-cognitive perspective and social-responsibility norm. social responsibility is the expectation of one for other to do certain things for others or the group. social cognitive perspective is the observing how behavior is being shaped due to the environment or between people.
First, start with the norms people have in a regular life, things such as washing cloth, taking bath, eating food and relaxing are the basic pleasures of people, and it is also the major factor that shape one's norm. For the shaping to succeed, colonists were first given a heads up about what they are going to to through ( that is in the agreement paper they must sign, thus by agreeing to this, they are persuading themselves to accept the condition and wills to adapt). second step, colonists were taken to be quarantined, where they spent 72 hours in dark and alone; this allowed the colonists' mental process to be altered from how a regular mind set would process, especially when encountered with anxiety, the reaction of altered colonists' mind set would be more likely to be offensive. Such as when they first encountered with the three outsiders, Jim first started the fight (although the outsider's action was very provocative). As colonists were dropped to the designated area, they were told to stay in the area and wait until they are going to be relocated. At first, most colonist do still have the social norms of modern civilization, they looked around for supervise or authority figure to guide them. The first day of the colony was very much of a series of team work. Although no one mentioned, but everyone has notice there is a need to a leader, and many do believe they are the best fit for the position, such as Deville, who said he will be the major contributor to this experiment. Sally also realized that they are working as "all Indians without a chief". Such concern is explained by social leadership, which is a group-oriented leadership. The norms were changing slowly, by the day 5 on the colony, some signs of broken social norms are: Reno not wearing his shirt (perhaps his hobby), Women and Men were sleeping in the same room with only under wears, fighting to protect resource, quarantining members for the imaginary deseases and the consideration of eating the roten pig (George considered it). However there are also signs of not yet switching over of the social norms: Becka washing her hair, Jim washing his cloth, Jim showed the acknowledge that everything is a controlled experiment, George's don't-care attitude and Sian's refusal to touch those roten pigs. So far many of social-cognitive perspective had been shown in how they cooperate, most of them fit together fine, and this also contribute to the changing of norms, because as people around you accepts the condition, you will as well change to adapt. One good example is how George had at first being not so care to a point he cares. Partly result of peer pressure, George learned to cooperate with other and show participation. Social responsibility was examplified in two event, one, when George was looking for a easy way out, Reno got upset, because he is a hard worker, so he expects him to be the same too. second event is when Sally asking who is going to dealt with the pigs, not all hesitated, thus Sally was kind disapointed by people's attitude toward this experiment, she believes that people should be more serious about the condition.
The learning process in the experiment was very obviouse, becasue colonist must first learn to adapt, and as they adapt they are also learing. the give a couple example. One, when George learn how to work as team. In this example, George was having attitude toward the whole experiment (Response). The other team members were upset with him (Positive Punishment), therefore, he learned to survive in a team environment he must change, so later he became involve in projects and show supports to others' work (response to get rid of the punishment or the disapprovement toward him). This is an example of Operan Conditioning. Next one, as colonists were atacked(US) by out siders(CS), they became feriouse(UR), so later when they encounter with Micheal and Amber they also become all aroused and with expectation to have a conflict(CR). This is an example of Classical Conditioning. However, much more of the learning in the wild is based on social learning, in which people learn by observing, imitating, and by being rewarded or punished. Because we are human so classical conditioning do not work too well.

Sleeping Log

My average hour slept in 14 days is about six and a half hours and somehow I have no dreams; not even one. If I must think of something that cause me to have no dream or can’t recall any dream, then my guesses would be either that I slept too little so don’t have much of REM sleep to cause dream or that I didn’t wake during the REM sleep so I can’t recall the dream. The latter one is more accurate I believe. Although I do not have sleep disorder, but I am sure that I have some problem in term of sleeping. My average sleep during the week is about 3.2 hours (not to count the special one) and the average in the weekend is about 10 hours. Even after doing this sleeping log, I still do not know how to increase my hour of sleep during the week, perhaps if I take out all the times that I spent on TV and pick up speed in doing the homework could save me a couple hours, I could think of any better way to save time but these two.

Wild Child

Genie was a girl who was raised completely isolated, that is why she was called the wild child. She was discovered by Los Angels authorities on November 4, 1970 when she was 13 years old. She was kept in her little room, where has nothing but a table, a potty chair and her little bed (according to Genie’s own word, she slept in the potty chair) by her parents ever since when she was born. Immediately after the discovery of her, her father killed himself.  When Genie was first discovered, she had the bunny walk, unresponsive to certain stimulus, and not vocalized. 
 The next day, she was sent to the children’s hospital in Los Angels, where scientists, psychologist, and doctors were thrilled to see her. Genie project started, the project’s main goal was to do research on the how nurture can effect a person, and how she will different from a person who have received full degreed of nurture, such as in behaviors. During the research, scientist had also tried to educate her, to teach her language, but, it seemed as if she could only master vocabulary but not the grammar.
 To do further research and form some personal relationship, Jean Butler became her first foster parent. She observed her in her daily life. At first, she would allow other team members to visit Genie, and do research or to help Genie gain communications skill (Genie also learned to use sign language). Later, Butler disallowed other team members from visiting Genie any more, whether it’s out of protective intension or personal interest, she did admitted that she think Genie is going to make her famous. Due to her over “protectiveness”, investigators believe the quality of care provided by Butler was not enough. Genie was taken to another foster home (scientist).
 She was passed from one foster home to another, she was given a chance to form a long term attachment. Genie project lost funding and scientist lost interest too.
 Another case of wild child happened centuries ago, this wild child is called Victor. Very similar to Genie, they are both uncivilized, have good ability of learning words but not able to form complete sentences, all had a foster parent who did research on them and believed that they will make them famous, they are also found lack of physical sensation in term of temperature. Story of Victor did not end well.
 The study done on Genie is called case study, in which one person is observed and studied to reveal some principles (nature vs. nurture). In both case of Victor and Genie, they are considered by some scientists to be born retarded, but I disagreed with that, because if born retarded, then there shouldn’t be any sign of progress in learning and intelligence, especially when being raised uncivilized. On the other part, Susan, an educator, whose responsibility in the Genie project is to teach Genie to speak. She found that genie had difficulties learning grammar, I believe that is due to her lack of first language. English is not my first language, so when I try to speak, I will unintentionally connect to my first language and then use it as a gate way to the appropriate English translation. So if my first language it to be taken away, then there will be a difficulty of understanding how the English work or how should the language be used. Although Genie was learning her very first vocal language, but to connect with the world, she might have had an unique mental language or something , that is just not matching up with our language, as one of the scientist had put it “ there is a limit of time to apply it ( the language ability).” Her lack of physical usage might have contributed to her bunny walks, just like the “hands” in Dr. Olive’s book. She also lacked of sensation of temperature might be caused by the lack of physical touch.
 Whether the research is ethical or not, I will say it is not ethical. When we do the research or experiments on animals, we justify it by saying that we are sacrificing animals to help mankind, but with the Genie’s case, can we be saying “we are sacrificing a human for the better of the mankind.”? of course no! That is unethical.

2nd Blog

Nature or nurture, the biggest debate in psychology, which can be dated all the way back before the start of psychology. In the section “Hands”, this wonder was put into test again. An old lady, named Madeleine J. in St. Benedict’s Hospital near New York City, she is blind and suffering cerebral palsy. She had been looking after by her family all throughout her life. Her hands to her are nothing but lumps of meat; completely useless. Dr. Sack felt strange about the disability of her hands; because the hands are perfectly fine with the sense of touch and temperature, and cerebral palsy disease rarely affect hands. Later with Madeleine’s permission, Dr. Sack set up a recovery program for her, in which her nurse would try not to feed her immediately, hoping Madeleine will eventually reach out for the food someday due to the impatient. It did at last. In this case, it indicated that the nurture could influence our physical status, cause temporary disability. The disability of Madeleine’s hands are nothing more than under development of the motor cortex in her frontal lobe, which it should be developed way back when she was an infant.

                The President’s Speech, this is about a group of patient who had suffered aphasia, which is the disability in language. These patients react to tones and visual cues more than the words and meaning of the speech. Even with computer voice, some most sensitive patients would still be able to catch the tone. One doctor has compared aphasiacs to dogs in term of superior senses they have with tone. With my understanding of aphasia, the damage region for these people seems to be the Wernicke’s area, this area of brain controls  language comprehension and expression.