Misconception Diary: Brain Myths
I feel that there are so many things about this lecture that showed me that I have many misconceptions about the brain. I am not sure if I can really just pick one misconception about the brain. One of these misconceptions would be the brain may need to grow or get rid of synaptic connections between the neurons. I would never think that the brain would need to lose these connections in order to learn something. I always imagined that the brain would get bigger and stronger with an intelligent person. I don’t know why I have this idea. Maybe it’s because of being taught that smarter animals have bigger brains, or watching cartoons of genius characters having giant brains.
So then how exactly can a person learn by synaptic pruning? Maybe it has something to do with the way the brain is affected by experiences. I can see that it is kind of like knowing bad technique for dance or sports. A person would have to un-learn their bad technique, so that he or she would have to perform the right way and learn the new technique. Apparently, when a person is learning a new skill, and practicing, myelin is grown in the brain. Myelin generated is dependent on the quantity and quality of practice, which is how the brain essentially “re-wires” itself during practice. Our practice “trigger a pattern of electrical signals through our neurons. Over time, that triggers the glial cell duo to myelinate those axons, increasing the speed and strength of the signal,” (Shen, 2013). I think at this point, I am convinced in how the brain learns. It gives me the feeling that I can really learn anything I want to try out. Either way, it normally made me feel as though a person can only do certain things because of inner talent. But it seems as though this is not entirely true.
References
Shen, J. (2013, May 29). The science of practice: What happens when you learn a new skill. Life Hacker. Retrieved from http://lifehacker.com/the-science-of-practice- what-happens-when-you-learn-a-510255025
Misconception Diary: Development Myths
The most interesting concepts in this lecture that I found were the myths about teenage angst and mid-life crises. I can understand that maybe there are many teenagers out there who have good relationships with their parents. But based on my own experiences, there were definitely the good kids who got along great with their parents, and some kids who were very troublesome and did a lot of illegal things. Then, of course, at any point in time, every teenager has complained about his or her parents. I think it may come as waves. I can see though that movies towards teenagers do involve risky behavior and going against your parents’ wishes. A movie like Mean Girls I think is a lot more truthful, however, since the main character acts as a good student, and her different experiences make her act in defiant ways. I think that is more realistic than a movie like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, since that guy is pretty much a trouble-maker all around.
I think the concept of a mid-life crisis has been something that I think scares many people my age. We are all afraid of making mistakes. We are all afraid of making choices that we will impact us so badly that we will end up in miserable jobs. Although, I do know plenty of kids who grew up with divorced parents, so I do definitely see how most divorces happen within the first five years. But that doesn’t mean that people don’t go through mid-life crises at all.
I do know of a couple of people whose parents have split while they were in college. Maybe those parents were re-evaluating their own lives and decided to go after something else that fulfills them. I don’t think really, in the end, that these statistics actually speak for everyone. Some research seems to suggest that a midlife crisis, or something like it, may be real. Basically, “life satisfaction would decline with age for the first couple of decades of adulthood, bottom out somewhere in the 40s or early 50s, and then, until the very last years, increase with age this pattern came to be known as the happiness U-curve,” (Rauch, 2014). And this will happen to successful adults as well. I think many people have existential crises, especially when they are young. Maybe it’s just the older adults make peace with that. But as of now, I will remain cautious about thinking that my life is going to be alright.
References
Rauch, J. (2014, December). The real roots of midlife crisis. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/12/the-real-roots-of-midlife- crisis/382235/Misconception Diary: Memory Myths
I have always been cynical about the concept of photographic memory, and about anyone claiming that they can remember something from their birth. It does not surprise me that these myths came up in this lecture. What did surprise me, however, was how memory is not so reliable after all. The idea that our memory is like a recording makes me want to rethink about so many experiences I have had. Normally, when I feel like I remember something really well, I would believe that I am correct about my interpretation of an event. If a friend remembered something different, I would argue with them about their memory, and just mainly assume that they have a bad memory.
So I can see that long-term memory exists permanently in the brain, and we can have an unlimited amount of stored memories that we share with our friends and loved ones, it may be that I have interpreted those experiences entirely different from them. Sometimes my parents would take me on vacations that I interpreted as boring as a kid, because I was not interested in traveling at the time. Later on, I became more interested and vacationing was a much more pleasant experience. But I can see clearly that my changed perspective on traveling has changed my interpretation of those earlier memories. I would recall details of traveling that I now consider being pleasant, and my parents would be surprised with me. They would tell me that I did nothing but complain the entire time. I don’t remember any of that.
It seems without a doubt that memory is reconstructed. We “have to choose what we do remember – and the memories we most need to hang on to are those which help us to function, feel good about ourselves and survive in our day to day lives,” (Quinlan, 2016). In other words, we alter our memories to make ourselves seem like better people.
References
Quinlan, A. (2016, April 11). How we routinely ‘massage’ certain memories to show ourselves in a better light. Irish Examiner. Retrieved from http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/just-how-reliable-are-our- googmemories-392190.html
Misconception Diary: Consciousness Myths
So many cartoons show hypnosis as something that is magical and automatics. Some will go so far as to show characters being completely controlled by hypnosis. I am not sure how I personally feel about hypnosis. I have seen hypnosis shows. I have seen normal audience members go on stage with the hypnotist. Some of them did not react at all to his hypnosis, and some of them really just got into it and were totally entranced. They would dance when he told them to dance. Or maybe they there actors? Essentially, the argument of the lecture is not that hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness. It is all just social cues and expectations, and imagination.
That makes me think about the concept of hypnotic therapy. That is when a hypnotherapist will put the client into a hypnotic trance, which is more like a position of meditation, and will tell them positive affirmations. It really is just like assisted mediation for emotional well-being. When I look up information about hypnotherapy, it seems to be effective as a self-management tool where the hypnotherapy will help the patient focus on positive experiences and emotions, and can help them to “better understand and motivate a person with autism without exercising control,” (Goodman, 2013). So maybe our idea of hypnosis is really exaggerated, but it could be helpful with other mental health treatments.
I am still not completely convinced that dreamwork cannot be interpreted as being symbolic. Some dreams, I think, are very imaginative, but I think there might be some underlying reason as to why they are. I think that certain worries and anxieties can create imaginative dreams as the person sleeping tries to deal with the issue. Some dreams will be very literal, as if the person is reliving an unpleasant experience with friends, acquaintances, or bad break-ups. As for dreams that predict the future, I am not entirely convinced that this may not be necessarily true. Some people have a tremendous amount of faith, and it really isn’t up to anyone else to tell them that some of their dreams weren’t prophetic. Sometimes, family members will have dreams about loved ones coming to tell them that they have passed away.
References
Goodman, J. (2013, December 2). RIT doctor helps those with autism help themselves. Democrat & Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/2013/12/02/rit-doctor- helps-those-with-autism-help-themselves-/3815563/Misconception Diary: Emotion Myths
The myth of how a positive attitude can stave off cancer is something I have only recently discovered over the last couple of years. I didn’t really think about how a positive attitude can change the result of cancer until I started seeing articles and blog posts about it online. I do agree completely that getting people to think positively when they are going through such a traumatic experience in their lives can be very insensitive, rude, and maybe even abusive. No one experiencing cancer should feel guilty because they couldn’t keep a positive attitude about it.
But some people who are inherently optimistic about their lives can cope with their cancer better than those with a more pessimistic attitude. From the articles that I remember reading, I feel like I remember getting the impression that people who survived cancer will attribute their healing to their positive attitude, as they wrote on their blogs. It is as if the positive attitude for them was a magical cure that can work with the chemotherapy and clear away the cancer. I completely understand that positive thinking actually does very little for cancer patients, and there is no real scientific evidence to back up how positive thinking can help people. But there are some studies that do support the theory. These studies discuss the effects of the placebo effect, as medical researcher Lissa Rankin (2011) puts it: “placebos get people well on between 35-75 percent.” This would be due to “biological mechanisms” that she says are the reason why people tend to feel better from the placebo effect.
So it seems that positive thinking will not cure cancer, but it seems to me that for many people, it will at least make them feel better. Either way, I don’t think making anyone feel guilty that they don’t feel optimistic about their condition is the way to do it.
References
Rankin, L. (2011, November 29). Scientific proof we can heal ourselves. Owning Pink. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.owningpink.com/blogs/owning- pink/scientific-proof-we-can-heal-ourselves
Misconception Diary: Personality Myths
Personality is very complex and very interesting. Kind of like the brain, it is developed through genetics and through experience. But when it comes to the battle between nature and nurture, this is where I try to stay away from making complete conclusions. I think many TV shows and movies will try to touch upon the nature and nurture aspect of personalities. If only a character wasn’t involved with certain people, or if only that character wasn’t like his father, and more. My own parents will talk about my personality traits make me their child. But the way I see nurture is not only parenting, but also the social groups that a person is surrounded by. Why can’t the environment be their entire nurturing aspect? And how exactly can a researcher exactly prove that a trait in a child is really about genetics or really about the way the child was raised? I feel like that is so easily debatable, that it is just a matter of wording.
I feel like attributing nurture just to the parents, or just to the peers really do not look at the personality as a whole. If every person were unique, other people aside from their parents, including their friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, and mentors, would influence them immensely. People also change over time, and their interests and traumatic experiences will also definitely change them. The nature and nurture debate doesn’t really account for certain environmental factors that will shape people despite their parents and friends, such as poverty. But the nature and nurture debate is a “faulty way to think about the situation, because it’s not true that genes do things independently of their contexts. Instead, genes do what they do because of the contexts that they’re in,” (Moore, 2015).
So I am not really convinced that parents are only responsible for the nature aspect and social peers are responsible for the nurture aspect. I think it can be both when it comes to parenting. I think the influence of genetic genes and the way parents behave will reflect on the child.
References
Moore, D. (2015, July 10). The end of nature versus nurture. Interviewd by Nesterak, E. The Psych Report. Retrieved from http://thepsychreport.com/books/the-end-of- nature-versus-nurture/
