Monday, April 24, 2023

How Good Is My Memory?

 Short Term Memory Test:

I got a 5, which is about average according to George A Miller. I think it's on the low end of the spectrum though so I should probably improve my skills. I think this test is pretty valid but I think there should be more tests to see if it actually measures how well your memory is since it only asks you 12 words.


Picture Short Term Memory Test

Out of the 20 pictures shown, I only remembered the butterfly, house, phone, pencil, chair, and rainbow. I don't think this test is that valid because it doesn't even analyze the results for you, but it's a decently good measure to see how much you can remember in a short time.


Memory for faces

I actually got everything right for this test compared to the other tests--I think it's because focusing on the features of the face is easier than remembering 20 different objects that aren't related to each other. I think this test is pretty valid for testing facial memory but the only thing about it is that the features aren't realistic, so it might not be applicable to real life faces as accurately.

Article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230419142759.htm 

I think it's pretty interesting and kind of a breakthrough that scientists could find cells vulnerable to alzheimer's, which gives hope to possibly developing medicine that could counteract the disease.

Friday, April 14, 2023

Social Psych

Theme: School

Compliance

  • A real life example of compliance could be: your teacher asks you to review for tomorrow's quiz. You do it because she asked you to do it, and it's different from obedience since she's not requiring/ordering you to do it.


Obedience

  • A real life example of obedience could be: the AP tells you to put your phone away during class. It is obedience because you do it under the influence of power.


Social Facilitation

  • A real life example of social facilitation could be: your teacher calls you up to do a math problem, and you do better because there's people watching you. 


Group Polarization

  • A real life example could be: students as a group all collectively share the distaste for the phone policy, therefore their feelings towards the administration is more extreme and may be disrespectful. The reaction may be more extreme compared to having just a one-on-one complaint towards them.


Reciprocity Norms

  • A real life example could be: I help my friend with an English assignment once, and he helped me with math homework. It's kind of a mutual benefit thing where you give something in return for something.


Sunday, April 2, 2023

Anything Post


 With regards to the hot topic between the two party system in America, here’s a blog post on the impacts of tribalism.

Tribalism is defined as a “badge of identity” for both sides of the political spectrum. In short, it is a group-centric bias that destroys what the meaning for change is all about. For example, a valedictorian attributed a quote in his speech to Trump and earned applauses and cheering. However, he corrected himself and said that the quote came from Obama instead. The cheering stopped, and even booing ensued. 

How come the same quote with the same meaning received different levels of reactions based only on who it came from? 

This phenomenon is not unique to one party. There’s so many factors that could potentially play into this effect.

1. Conditioning—After opposing the other side for so many years, it’s natural to be suspicious of what they say

2. Bias—We don’t want to admit that the other side is right for once

3. Ad hominem fallacy—hearing irrelevant, personal attacks on the opposing party so much so that you make a choice based on perceived negative qualities other than what they’re actually trying to say

Nonetheless, tribalism is deeply embedded into American politics and it will only intensify as the years go on.


Credits: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/bias-fundamentals/201806/tribalism-in-politics

Dear AP Psych Student...

My advice to you is to always do the vocabulary. There is nothing more important than knowing your vocab. It's an approach-approach conf...