Western Interpretations of Dreams vs. Non-Western Interpretations of Dreams

While discussing consciousness in class today, we came upon the theory of interpreting dreams based on geographical location. It was mentioned that westerners believed that dreams did not hold as much importance over their everyday lives and that non westerners believed that dreams were to be taken more seriously. After leaving class I was wondering how my dreams have influenced my life, having lived as a non westerner. I remembered that the week before leaving for college I had dreams that indicated anxiety about leaving my family and friends, and once I arrived the dreams stopped. I took that as indication that I felt more at home at Salve. Later that day I asked my friend who was born and raised in Texas, a somewhat western place, how she valued the importance of her dreams. She felt that while dreams could indicate subconscious worries, she had never believed they held too much importance over her life. While thios is only one example, I found th concpet to be very interesting.

Twin and Adoption Studies

As I studied chapter 3 for our first exam, one of the areas I was most interested in was the area of twin and adoption studies. These two were very interesting to me because I have 4 month old fraternal twin nieces and my best friend was adopted at birth. When it comes to the twin study, I was very surprised to find out that fraternal twins are no more alike in genetic make up than any two siblings. I always figured in one way or another they were more alike, but not to the point of identical twins. I do believe it will be interesting to watch the girls grow up in the same environment throughout their lives and how they turn out. The results of adoption studies weren't as surprising to me however. The statistics for adopted children is that the correlation of similarities between the children and biological parents are the same as that with the adopted parents. Although my friend has never met his biological parents, I have seen him grow in his adoptive parents' home. He is very much alike them in almost all ways other than his looks. Both these studies were very interesting for me because of how closely I have watched and will watch these situations take place.

The Scientific Approach

Most scientists today use what is known as the scientific approach, which involves forming a hypothesis, gathering data, and reporting the results of the experiment. As I read the section, the experiment of Sherman et al piqued my interest. Because I have an interest in politics, his findings on how we view the opinions of others were rather suprising. I, like many others, overestimated the beliefs of people with opposing interests. Also, because the subjects in the experiment were college students, like myself, I was able to identify with them. His findings have made me realize how very wrong I was, and I feel as though I can be more accepting of opposing views and ideas. To change the way people think about the world is the goal of psychology, and I believe that his experiments have changed the way we will view others in the future. Experiments will continue to grow in complexity in the future, which will open the door to new findings, and, more importantly, new questions.

Operate Conditioning

As we discussed in our previous class, B.F. Skinner often focused on Operate Conditioning. More specifically, he focused on the consequences of behavior and how that effects someone's behavior and actions. Skinner stated that free will is an illusion. In some ways, I do agree with this comment, but only to a certain extent. Often times, children's actions are effected by the consequences of their parents. Personally growing up, if I had thoughts of making a bad decision or behaving poorly, the one thing that would come to mind would be getting in trouble with my parents, and not the fact that what I am doing is actually wrong. Because I was nervous about the reprecussions, I would hold back from the poor behavior. This is where I agree in part with Skinner. Although I wanted to act a certain way, I wasn't allowed to because I knew the consequences of my actions. Growing up, I believe many if not most children feel the same way. In my mind, the consequences from parents effect children's actions more than almost anything else, and this in part takes a little of the free will away from them, however probably in a good way.

Cultural Heritage

One of the seven unifying themes, Behavior is Shaped by Cultural Heritage, affects all of society which everyone can relate to in their own way. One's cultural heritage is invisible.(assumptions, ideals, attitudes and beliefs are not apparent to outsiders). My home town is made up of predominately people of an Asian background. Next time I travel back home, I'm going to consider cultural determinants of my neighbors to achieve an understanding of human behavior. Similarities and differences occur across cultures. It will be interesting to explore the cultural variance and invariance between my cultural heritage and that of my neighbors.

Good to Meet Everyone in Class Today (Sept. 9)

Just wanted to let you know that I really like your responses to the questions I posed in class today.  They were all very thoughtful and, so far, I'm impressed.  I also appreciated the number of people who volunteered an answer.  Keep up the good work.

Welcome!

Welcome to our class blog.  I've made this blog a part of the course because it provides students with an opportunity not only to demonstrate to me that they recognize how the psychology they learn in this course can be used to better understand themselves and others, but also to show other students that they have a lot in common with each other.  Obviously, we can learn a lot about people from the stories they tell.  But perhaps just as important, we can learn something about ourselves from other people's stories.  Check out the syllabus for the guidelines I've asked you to follow when making an entry or a comment on another student's entry.  I'll check into the blog periodically to see what you're up to.  Good luck in the course and let me know if I can help you in any way.