3 Blogs

Genetic Testing:
I read a blog about being tested for breast cancer genes so that you can eventually cure yourself and not have to deal with the negative consequences that come fro having cancer. There is a law against gene discrimination at work but i don't think that and jobs or insurance companies are going to be honest and non discriminatory.
Twin and family resarch
I read an article about two twins who were seperated at birth and they ended up doing everything the same in life and have similar personalities. This shows that adoptions do not always effect the children in a negative way.
Human genome project
this is a 13 year long project that wants to determne different genes and help those who have genetic mutations that could end up hurting those in their lives.

3 responses to my google reader blogs!

1.combating overdoses and addictions, i think that this is an interesting experiment they are using cocaine proteins to combat overdoses. I don't think that using any drug that involves cocaine is a good idea to help people.
2.pregnant moms who chew on fat pass on habit, this experiment is very interesting because it says that rats who eat the most fat have babies that also weigh more throughout life. This could be a lifechanging situation for all prenant human mothers, because this study states that a mother could prevent having an overweight unealthy child.
3.war developements make kids more agressic\ve, this study shows tat children even in gradeschool show agression when their parent is away at war. These children bite, scratch and lash out because of the lonleyness they feel.

What is the most important Psych. experiment that has never been done?

i think the most important experiment is the Truman show experiment because i think it would be interesting to see the how social norms and Cognitive dissonance would be affected throughout the experiment. I also think that after the experiment was revealed to the subject it would be important to see the reactions and to see if they would try to rebel and be a loner in their actual life.

Outside reasing and an awsomly corny video.

Okay so i read the dopamine blog wail generally interesting it was semi boring but anyway i learned that there are lots of monoamines in our brains. And these monoamines cut up into different groups. Our brains basically make them on their own without any help. Tyrosine is what the monoamies are made out of. Dopamine is being used to cure treat and prevent life altering illnesses like Parkinson's.


The video i watched was called Memorize the parts of the brain. And it was totally awesome The guy who was explaining the mnemonic devices was really funny and you could tell he was recording himself and pausing and stopping the tape any old time he messed up. So FUNNY! But anyway the mnemonic devices actually were very helpful like the example of hypothalamus where he said to think of llamas and a hypo, saying that the hypo would REGULATE the temperature of the llamas. Very good stuff and i will use this info on the next tazer quiz/test.

what chapter 18 has taught me

i now know that social situations offer a lot of opportunity to understand psychology within a single conversation you can be socially influenced by other members of the group.Most of these members are joining in on Groupthink. This is where members of the group desire harmony and agree with the other members. But you may choose in these situations not to Conform in order to keep your views sacred and to make a fundamental attribution error.

personal stories of attraction and conflict

attraction:for me there are lots of cases of attractions in my life and im not ashamed of that but 1 does stick out in my mind when i first started working at Macdonald's i saw this hot kid (who im not naming) and i am still to this day 2 months later all giggly and stupid around him. i hope it wont interfere with my work. lol

conflict: like attraction there are also a lot of cases of conflict in my life this i am not so proud of. i seem to have the most problems in like school project scenarios. Like when a teacher pairs you up with that dumb a** that does nothing. i don't ever just finish the whole project for the 2 of us i will make the other kid do his part. This happened to me last week (again no names) but it does make me really mad that he expected me to do the whole thing myself. So i blew up at him and have a new partner that did her half of the work.

Agression and attraction blog

Aggression: i believe that we are all aggressive in nature. No matter how young or old or our upbringing it is human nature to harm others in either psychological or physical ways. Aggression can be in the form of violence or in the form of words. Some of us make our aggression but with little success i don't think it is bad to be aggressive i only think that sometimes we don't try hard enough to do it in the right way.
Attraction: attraction comes in many different forms for animals the attraction is to who is best sited for breeding purposes. Looks do not matter. But for humans looks are everything it is an immediate thing to see someone you think looks good. We don't even realize that we are doing it. Sometimes personality can also draw you to like someone. Attraction is a common and necessary thing we all do meaning to or not.

Social norm Project

Okay so i want to start off by saying this project ruined my day!! so anyways the social norm i violated was blaming a baby for crying. I have always wanted to do this because crying babies in restaurants ALWAYS bother me, and now i had an excuse for being nasty to a new mother. (go me)! I was at Applebees with my mom for lunch Sunday at like 1, and this lady plops down next to me with her baby in a snugly and orders her food. Then halfway through my meal of Oriental chicken salad the baby like goes into a manic fit and cries for what i swear feels like an eternity. My mom looked at me and was like"try to ignore it hunny" because she knows how i am with children. But i ignored her request and turned to the tired and depressed mother and said (with a lot of attitude) "can you make it be quiet" my mother let out a gasp . But to my surprise the woman just turned around, i know if i were her i would have punched me in the face. I felt invigorated and alive during and before the verbal lashing i guess because i have always wanted to do this. (i should/will be sterilized). But the people around me sure didn't like it my mother grounded me for the rest of the day an i couldn't finish my salad which was punishment enough. So whatever i guess i cant go to Applebees anymore since I'm sure the waiters heard the whole thing.

Video (aggression,violence,and the brain) : Mark had a tumor that was located in the front of his brain. This tumor was pushing down on his hypothalamus. This caused him to be extremely violent and abnormal in his everyday life. After a surgery to remove this tumor he suddenly became a kind and controlled man.

War, Death, and Cognitive Dissonance: In the beginning the families of the thousands of soldiers in Iraq were proud and supportive of the meaning of the war. But after some time has passed they have now decided that they are not supporting the war anymore even though nothing much has changed in Iraq. This phenom in is due to cognitive dissonance. These people are now regreting their past decisions due to the influence of others.

Understanding prejudice study: i took the race and society interview. It was kind of strange it asked some dumb questions that i had no oppinion on. But overall it made me look at our society in a new way. The fact that we even have this survey is upsetting because it means there is STILL prejudice in our society. :(

Zimbardo's Prison Study

How would i have reacted in this situation?I can guarantee that i would have reacted in the same way that these prisoners did. I would have been effected by social influence and i would conform to what the guards and other prisoners were doing. I would be scared for my life and my attitude would affect my actions throughout the experiment.

Most of the guards were upset and disappointed that the experiment was ended early because that was one of the only times that these young college men were in charge and high up in power.
They are used to being told what to do throughout their school career and with their parents. So in this situation they had total control of 9 men. They took advantage of this, even the boys that normally act proper and polite after a few days began demanding multiple push ups and degrading requests to all of the prisoners. This demonstrates the Fundamental attribution error because most of these men were positive before the experiment started that they would never degrade the prisoners, but after only a few hours they became liars.

Abu Ghraib

There is no question that our military and the people who represent us as a nation are responsible for this torture at Abu Ghraib. You can't blame anyone else. Our society is not to blame because if that was the case then everyone would be torturing everyone when they got the chance. These people choose to do what they did and they had the choice to not agree to this mistreatment but they decided to conform to what they were expected to do. And innocent lives were lost.

Okay so this cutie is my baby boy Toby. He is a five year old Pomeranian, in this picture he is floating in my grandparents pool with goggles. (and yes he actually leaves them on) He also has a baby floaty tube that he just sits in for hours. But anyway im blogging about how he influenced me. Before we had this dog animals never meant much to me, but he has made me more caring and a lot more motherly. These skills Toby has taught me will help me to become a better parent. And i LOVE him for that.

Memory and how i plan on using it!

This new information i have learned is going to help me throughout life. I know now that my hippocampus needs to be challenged in order to stay strong. When i study i now know not to do it right before bed and to do it a few minutes before i fall asleep. And i also know that i need to study information more than once in order for it to move into my long term memory.

Online video blogs

Living with amnesia
Different parts of our brains have been reportedly affected by memory loss. When the hippocampus and temporal lobe are damaged old memories stay but new memories can't be retained. All cognitive skills remain . The hippocampus does not hold new memories it only combines with other parts of the brain to create the new memories. LTP is an electrical charge that stimulates new synaptic transmission which is known to be found in the cerebral cortex. The research scientists have done to prove this hypothesis is as follows, lab rats are placed into a round pool and are trying to find a platform hidden in the murky waters. When they find that platform, researchers find that no matter how many times the rat is placed in different areas of the pool they can always find the platform again. But when these rats are given a drug to suppress their hippocampus the rats just swim around in circles because they have no memory of the platform that saves their lives.

Living without memory part 1
Clive wearing had a history of seizures that ultimately caused him severe damage to his temporal lobes and hippocampus. before this accident Clive was a musician with a beautiful voice but now he can't remember something that happens two minutes ago.He writes in his diary that he is finally awake and that he is alive. He constantly checks his watch to make an accurate account of when he is awake. But when an average person looks in his diary they see the same entries over, and over again. He forgets that he had just written the same words two minutes ago. When his wife tries to convince him that he has written the entire diary he becomes embarrassed and frustrated at his disability. Yet some things in his life remain the same, he can still sing and perform with musical instruments as well as be in love with his wife.

The Locus of learning and memory
many scientists have challenged themselves to discover what parts of the brain are involved in memory. One of the first was a man named Carl Ashley. His experiments involved removing parts of the brain to see what effect it had on the patient. He found that removing small parts had not effect at all, but removing large parts caused severe memory problems. His conclusion was that there were more than one parts of the brain that helped to store memories. Another scientist Dr. Penfield stimulated places in the temporal lobe and then removed certain pieces to see the effect on the patients. A lot of his patients had no negative results but some were awake during the stimulating reported hearing and seeing strange things as if it were normal. These studies were never published because Dr.Penfield never had valid scientific proof. But in actuality both men were in a way right there is no store house for memories. everything is biologically stored with help from the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex.

memory articles blog

Infant memory works from very early on:
-experiments have been conducted on infants as young as 8 weeks to see if they have a good memory. using mobiles to test the memory of the child when they kick the mobile moves. The results show that the children did remember that the kicking will produce a pleasant result.
-This research is questionable because there is no way to see if children can remember important information. Or when these children come into adulthood if they can remember their important milestones.
-I never knew that children could have a memory until they were a little older and able to walk and talk, Now i know they can.
-I will apply this when i have children and i will try my hardest to create good memories. And i will also challenge my children's minds so that they will become smarter.
-This is connected to chapter reading because Flashbulb memories are mostly created at this younger age.

Eyewitness Research:
- A lot of the witnesses that prosecutors use to help their high profile cases can be false. Sometimes the questions asked are not theoretically relevant, this can sometimes be overlooked by the jury.
-The research is very conclusive.
- I have always realized that some of the questions asked in high profile cases are sometimes in conclusive.
-I want to be a defense attorney in the future so this info. may help me win a case.
-This connects to the book because explicit memory contributes to a lot of false identities and prosecutions.
Brain size may protect from memory loss:
- The hippocampus was proven to help you grow older without the signs of Alzheimer's disease.
-The research will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Annual Meeting in Chicago which shows that the research must be conclusive.
-I did not know that there were new advances in the prevention or cure of Alzheimer's.
- Hopefully in the future when i grow older this research can let me grow older with a fully intact memory.
- The book refers to the hippocampus as attached to the limbic system structure.

About me

Hello my name is Jessica Tierney and i am 17 years old. I will be 18 November 11th. I moved here recently from Port Charlotte Florida. I do enjoy the school now but it did take me a wile to get used to things. I am a senior this year, my plans after high school are to go to Suny Brockport for Pre- Law i am looking at a few private colleges as well. I have 2 sisters one older and one younger. I have a lot of pets at home. I just started working at McDonalds (fun times). But whatever its money. And thats about it.