Blog Post #13-Social Psychology

I find Asch's Conformity experiment interesting, because it made me stop and think of something I never really thought of before. Would I answer the right answer because I thought it was right or would I just go with the rest of the group? The more I thought about it, and related it to personal experiences, I decided I would go with the rest of the group. It would be kind of like a peer pressure thing. For Milgram's Obedience experiment, I think it was absolutely unnecessary to treat humans in such a cruel and unusal way just for a psychological experiment. I can't even imagine putting another human being in so much pain that they could not stand it, intentionally. I mean, can't people eventually die from being shocked at a really high voltage? Lastly, we have the Stanford Prison Experiment. I think this is an absolutely crazy experiment that never should have taken place. This is even worse than Milgram's experiment, in my opinion. Why would someone intentionally put another in so much pain and anguish, knowing the possible outcomes? To me, this is ridiculous and like I mentioned before, I could never do something to harm another person intentionally-especially just for a psychological experiment. However, it was interesting that psychologists did point out that not every person flipped during these experiments; certain people did remain sane and normal and not totally harmed.



A social influence can be seen in one's conformity (adjusting to one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard), compliance, and group behavior. The book gives examples of normative and informational social influences. Normative include influences resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval. Informational includes influences resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality. I think one instance where I am under "normative" influence would be doing my homework in general, but studying for a test in particular. I do not enjoy settling for anything less than like an A on any school assignments and I sometimes feel as if my parents expect that of me (even though they claim they don't..). If I didn't have my parents as role models, I can definitely say I would slack off more in school and probably wouldn't care all that much. Another example that I can think of being involved with social influences could be when I am voted as a "Team Captain" or "President" of any given club. Normally, I would sit back and watch work being done, give my two sense or help out if asked for it, but remain calm and relaxed. However, when I am awarded a leadership role, I feel it is my obligation to get the work done, and to the best of my ability.

The most interesting thing that I learned in this class is about our personalities as human beings. I find it fascinating that every individual is his or her own person and we all vary in personalities so much that you can never really find two people exactly alike. I definitely think it is a good thing though that we all our separate people. How boring would this world be if we were all alike. I always find a person to be a good person if they are their own person and not afraid of it! Overall though, Psychology has really intrigued me, figuring out how and why we do the things we do as human beings.

Blog Post #12-Psychological Disorders

The book defines a psychological disorder as deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional behavior patterns. Just because someone acts "abornmally" does not mean that he or she necessarily has a psychological disorder. The book states that being different (deviant) from most other people in a culture is part of defining a psychological disorder. Another step in diagnosed a psychological disorder is identifying whether or not this problem causes the individual distress. The last part is if it makes you change your way of life; it makes you dysfunction. The example the book used was that you may have a fear of spiders, and it could make you deviant. However, if it doesn't impact your life, it is truly not a disorder.

Personally, I have never known someone with a psychological disorder. My stepmom, though, watches a certain soap opera (don't remember the name of it!) where a character is schizophrenic. The book describes schizophrenia as a group of severe disorders characterized by disorganized and delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and actions. What I have gathered from this character is that she is kind of crazy. One part of her is a very caring, loving wife and mother. However, when the bad side of her creeps out she goes nuts. When she is her good self (oh, and the two people have different names, too) she really wants help and doesn't want to change into her other self, but it's something she really can't help. I would feel really helpless, and overall worthless, if I had this condition. I wouldn't really be able to control what I was doing or why I was doing it.

I think the most interesting thing I read in Chapter 14 was right in the beginning. On the bottom of page 594, it stated that homosexuality was once upon a time classified as an illness. That's crazy! I mean nowadays, it's truly just a way of life and you hear about it all of the time. It goes to show how the times truly do change. I think that it also shows we have opened up our hearts a little bit more to give, as a society, and not be so judgmental, although there still are some opposers out there. When the book then stated that a study showed that homosexuals do have a higher risk of having a psychological disorder, I can see why. They receive criticism for something they really can't help and they may suffer some horrid consequences because of this.