Stress ---> The Dutch Hunger Winter

The Dutch Hunger Winter was one of the saddest human tragedies that happened in 20th century. It was a famine that took place in Netherlands which was at that time occupied by Germans. In winter of 1944-1945 in order to punish the Dutch who didn't want to support and help Germans in Nazi war, Germans made a blockade that cut off food and fuel shipments. Food supplies became increasingly scarce which caused famine to start spreading throughout the country. People ate grass and were trying to survive only on 30 percent of the normal daily calorie intake. More that 4.5 million of people were affected by this famine and they survived only because of soup kitchens.Unfortunately, around 22,000 people died from starving.
Epi­demiologists  decided to study an effect of famine on the birth weights of babies who had been inside of their mothers' wombs during the Dutch Hunger Winter. What they found out was that if a mother was well fed during the pregnancy and was starving and malnourished only for the last three months of the pregnancy, her baby would be very small. On the other hand, if a mother was malnourished and starving only for the first 3 months of the pregnancy and then she was started being fed, her baby would have a normal weight. However, this wasn't the end of their study. Epidemiologists studied these babies and their weights for decades. They noticed that people who were born very small  stayed smaller for the rest of their lives with lower obesity rates than the population. It is really interesting because these people had already an access to food. They could have eaten as much as they wanted, but their bodies never got over malnutrition that happened during their early life. On the other hand, people whose mothers were starving only for the first three months of their pregnancy had higher obesity rates than normal people. These people had also some health and mental problems during their life. What was even more surprising was that even children of these people and next generations had some effects presented from their grand mothers or great grand mothers who were starving and malnour­ished during the first three months of their pregnancy. Epidemiologists concluded that events that take place during the first three months of pregnancy, when the fetus is small and grows rapidly, can have a big impact on the rest of a person's life. This study is an example of how epigenetics works. Epigenetics (above genetics) is the study of heritable changes that occur in gene expression or in cellular phenotype and are caused by mechanism other than changes in the DNA sequence.  It is a mechanism in which cells with the same genetic code express different parts of it. It's important to realize that epigenetics has an enormous impact on human health. Epigenetics helps us to realize that there's a ling  between nature and nurture: "how our environment talks to us and alters us, sometimes forever." The conclusion of The Dutch Hunger Winter study is that environment does affect us and our lives.

The Theory of Evolution & Psychology

1. Theory of Evolution that was first formulated by Charles Darwin says: a) more offspring are produced that can possibly mate and survive, b) individuals have different traits which leads to differential rates of survival and reproduction, c) these trait differences are heritable. In this theory Charles Darwin focuses on natural selection.

2. and 3. It's important to say that both nature and nurture influence organism's trait. Nature stands for a biological influence while nurture stands for an environmental influence. It has been a controversial topic because some traits have been defined by a behavior rather than by physical characteristics. However, all traits are determined by genes working through environment.

4. Social Darwinism talks about the survival of the fittest. It says that people on the top are people who are best suited to existing living conditions.

5. Eugenics: In order to improve human heredity there should be a higher rate of reproduction of desired people and a lower rate of reproduction of less desired people. It basically means the production of superior humans by selective breeding.

6. The problem of eugenics is that it is very unethical and you can't really control the reproduction of all people on the world.

7. Fitness can be described as the ability to reproduce and survive.

8. Genetic Determination means that if something is genetic then it cannot be changed, therefore it's better to not investigate it.

9. A gene that is very common can become a design feature of a human being, which means that this trait is "fixated" and the only way to change it it's through mutation.

10. Canalization happens when a trait is controlled by one of a family of genes that all produce the same result.

11. Punctuated Equilibrium talks about few mutations of genes that can cause a large change in evolution.

12. Evolution created Evolutionary Psychology that provides framework for thinking about human behavior and how it evolves over the time. If observes differences to the way we think about ourselves.

13. Evolutionary Explanation of Behavior: Leopards

All of the leopards have slightly different genes which means that each of them has different lung capacity, muscle mass, volume and connectivity of nervous system fibers. Because of these small differences some leopards are better at hunting, feeding, or running than the others. Leopards that are better at hunting or feeding will usually live longer and reproduce more often than the others. This means that their will make more copies of their genes and then they will pass them on. This eventually will lead to a production of a new population of leopards that will be, on average, faster, or will have better sight than the previous generation.

Prominent Psychologists

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

 
Date of Birth: March 20, 1904

Place of Birth: Pennsylvania, U.S.

Date and Place of Death: August 18, 1990 (aged 86); Massachusetts, U.S.

University: Hamilton Collage (NY) and then Harvard University

Subject of Study: English Literature (he wanted to be a writer)

Field of Professional Study: psychology, linguistics, philosophy

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Radical Behaviorism. It's the philosophy of science behavior. It's a belief that animal behavior can be studied profitably and compared with human behavior, a strong emphasis on the environment as cause of behavior, and a penchant for operationalizing. He believed behaviors are causal factors that are influenced by the consequences.

Carl Gustav Jung

Date of Birth: 26 July, 1875

Place of Birth: Switzerland

Date and Place of Death: 6 June 1961 (aged 85); Switzerland

University:  University of Basel

Subject of Study: medicine

Field of Professional Study: psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Extraversion and Introversion: This human personalities theory says that every person has 2 sides - introverted side and extraverted and that one side is being more dominant than the other. Carl Jung defined extraversion as "an attitude type characterized by concentration of interest on the external object" and introversion as "attitude-type characterized by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents." 

Jean Piaget

Date of Birth: 9 August, 1896

Place of Birth: Switzerland

Date and Place of Death: 16  September 1980 (aged 84); Switzerland

University:   University of Neuchâtel, University of Zurich

Subject of Study: zoology and later psychology

Field of Professional Study: Developmental Psychology, Epistemology

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Constructivism is a theory of learning that depends on way people create meaning of the world through the series of individual constructs; Genetic epistemology is a study of the origins of knowledge; Piaget's theory of cognitive development talks about the development of human's intelligence; Object permanence is a theory that describes that every object continues to exist even when we cannot see it anymore; Egocentrism can be defined as preoccupation with one's own internal world.

 


William James

Date of Birth: January 11, 1842

Place of Birth: New York City, New York

Date and Place of Death: August 26, 1910 (aged 68), New Hampshire

University:  Harvard University

Subject of Study: Pragmatism

Field of Professional Study: Pragmatism, Psychology, Philosophy of Religion

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Pragmatic Theory of Truth: definitions and theories of a concept of truth; the Psychologist's Fallacy, fallacy = it's a form of "similar to me" stereotype; Radical Empiricism: It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations. 

 

Erik Erikson

Date of Birth: September 26, 1849

Place of Birth: Ryazan, Russia

Date and Place of Death: 12 May 1994 (aged 91), Massachusetts

University:   Harvard University

Subject of Study: psychology

Field of Professional Study: Developmental psychologist

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Theory on social development:  this theory explains eight stages through which a healthily developing person or human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. 




Ivan Pavlov

Date of Birth: 15 June 1902

Place of Birth: Frankfurt, Germany

Date and Place of Death: February 27, 1936 (aged 86); Soviet Union

University:  Medical Military Academy

Subject of Study: natural sciences

Field of Professional Study: psychologist, physician

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Classical conditioning: this is a learning in which one conditioned stimulus comes to signal the occurrence of unconditioned stimulus. In Transmarginal inhibition, Ivan Pavlov found out that organisms have different levels of tolerance.

Lev Vygotsky

Date of Birth:  November 17, 1896

Place of Birth: Orsha, Russia

Date and Place of Death: June 11, 1934 (aged 37), Moscow (Russia)

University:  Moscow State University

Subject of Study: law and art

Field of Professional Study: psychology

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: The Zone of Proximal Development: it's a theory that says, there's a difference between what can a person do with and without the help; Cultural-historical psychology focuses on human development to make genetic claims about the function of mind in activity.

 

 

 

 

Anna Freud

Date of Birth:   3 December 1895

Place of Birth: Vienna, Austria

Date and Place of Death: 9 October 1982 (aged 86), London (England)

University:  Cottage Lyceum in Vienna

She became a member of Vienna Psychoanalytical Society.
Secretary of International Psychoanalytical Association.

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Ego Psychology: A person interacts with the external world and at the same he/she responds to internal forces. Psychologists use a theoretical construct called "ego." Anne Freud focused on unconscious and described defenses that are available to ego.

George Armitage Miller

Date of Birth:  February 3, 1920

Place of Birth: Charlestone, West Virginia

Date and Place of Death:  July 22, 2012 (aged 92); New Jersey

University:  George Washington University,  University of Alabama

Subject of Study: history, speech

Field of Professional Study: Psychology, Cognitive Science

 

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: The Magical Number Seven or Plus or Minus Two: It's a Miller's Law which says that the number of objects an average human can hold in his working memory is 7 ± 2.

 

 

 

 

Sigmund Schlomo Freud 

   

Date of Birth:  6 May,1856

Place of Birth: Moravia, Czech Republic (nationality Austrian)

Date and Place of Death:  23 September 1939 (aged 83); London, England

University:  University of Vienna

Subject of Study:  cerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy

Field of Professional Study:  Neurology, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis

Explanation of Theory/Discovery: Psychoanalysis: Freud believed that people can be cured by making conscious their unconscious motivations and thoughts. The aim of this therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences. It deals with depressions and anxiety disorders.

Flashbulb Memory

Flashbulb memory is a long-lasting, vivid memory with  many clarity details of  very traumatic events. This kind of memory is stored for a lifetime. Even though we remember all the details from that particular event we can't really say that the flashbulb memory is accurate. By retelling the event over and over again we are putting some new details into our flashbulb memory and the memory is not the same anymore, but we are not aware of this change. How does this actually work?

Brown & Kulik (1977): Brown and Kulik were suggesting that dramatic events can imprint a powerful impression into your memory. They strongly argued about the idea that there may be some physiological processes that have an effect on the flashbulb memory.

Their aim was to find out if some traumatic event has an impact of flashbulb memory. Procedure: The participants were asked some questions about significant dramatic events like death of Princess Diana or assassination of  President John F. Kennedy. These questions were very detailed. For example: What were you wearing when this terrible accident happened? What they found is that their answers on these questions were very vivid and full of details. 

Brown and Kulik concluded that dramatic and historical events that are retelling  over and over again cause a physiological imprinting on the memory of the event. 

Neisser & Harsch (1992): Neisser and Harsch performed a case study that provided support for reconstruction theory in unexpected way. Procedure: One day after the highly publicized tragedy, the explosion of the space shuttle (Challenger) in 1986, Neisser and Harsch gave some questions like "how do they found out, what time was it" to students about this tragedy. Then after 3 years they asked a new copy of questions to same student and compared the first set questions with another one. What Neissser and Harsch found out is that only 7% of all students perfectly remembered what really happened  68% of students remembered some accurate details put they answers also contained many inaccurate details and 25% of students recalled memories that were completely inaccurate. Interesting was that all of these student were confident about what they wrote. This case study concluding that flashbulb memories are not reliable and they may be ordinary memories. The only difference is the confidence people have in these memories because they are associated with historical, significant events. 
Talarico & Rubin (2003): In their case study they were trying to find out the difference between normal and flashbulb memories. Procedure: In this study people were asked to remember the events of the Word Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Talarico and Rubin were asked questions in 4 different occasions: 1, 7, 42 and 224 day after the attack. These people were also asked to remember some details about the ordinary event that happened around the same time of the attack. Talarico and Rubin findings are that the flashbulb memory of the W.T.C. attack remained very vivid with many details and the participants were very confident about accuracy of their answers. Ordinary memories contained many details as well. The only difference was that these details were less vivid and participants weren't that confident about the accuracy of their answers. Conclusion: The only difference between flashbulb and ordinary memories is the that people feel more confident when they talk about their flashbulb memories than they feel when they talk about ordinary memories. Flashbulb memories of the tragic event are also more vivid than normal memories because people retell the details of the event more often so they are repeatedly rehearsed. 
6 Characteristic Features of FBM: place, ongoing activity, informant, own affect, other affect, and aftermath.
Determinants of FBM: a high level of surprise, a high level of consequentiality, and emotional arousal. 
Emotions: One reason why we think we remember the flashbulb memory so good is because of the emotion. Researchers estimated that we remember emotionally charged events better than normal or boring ones. Flashbulb memories are formed during extremely arousal and highly emotional times or events. 

Treatments for PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop after some very traumatic events and catastrophes. For example; wars, murders, natural disasters, car or plane crashes, terrorist attacks, rape...You and your mind are stuck with fearful memories that make you depressed and scared. Even though it's not easy to get rid of this disorder there are some possible treatments for PTSD. In my opinion the best way is to deal with what have happened to you. You should try to reconcile with it because it helps you to reduce the memory of trauma from your life. Some people try to avoid this memory and find a way to forget that terrible event but actually this makes it even worse.

There are several treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

1. Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy.

This treatment tries to carefully and slowly expose the thoughts and feelings that make you feel sad and remind you of trauma.

2. Family therapy

This therapy tries to create a better relationship with your close family in order to help you to deal with PTSD. It tries to improve the communication and understanding between the family members.

3.Medication 

Medication uses antidepressants to make you feel less sad and depressed. It can also reveal secondary symptoms of anxiety.

4. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

This cognitive-behavioral therapy uses eye movements and other forms of rhythmic stimulation to ''unfreeze'' the brain’s information processing system. This brain system is often affected with PTSD and stress.

                                





                                         Sources: 

"Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)." Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Symptoms, Treatment and Self-Help. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2012. <http://www.helpguide.org/mental/post_traumatic_stress_disorder_symptoms_treatment.htm>.

Autism & Emotions

ASD ---> Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex development disability. It's a neurological disorder that has an effect on normal brain function. ASD is a wide spread disorder which means no 2 people have exact same symptoms.

SOME INTERESTING FACTS:

• - it presents during the first three years of a person's life
• - ASD affects person's communication and social  interaction skills
• - people with autism have difficulties to understand the feelings of other people
• - psychologists estimated that boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls
• - people with Autism have often obsessions
• - it's important to realize that people with Autism have feelings too
• - children with Autism may learn much faster than other children
  
  

 

AUTISM and EMOTIONS:   

People with Autism can become very frustrated with many moments in their lives. They can't express, verbalize, or understand what they feel which makes them nervous and even more stressed. These people need more help to learn how to deal with the upsets of everyday life and more time to learn how to express their emotions and what they really feel.

People with Autism report greater levels of negative emotion in general.

People with Autism have lack of effective emotion regulation strategies. 

Strategies: Reappraisal-reevaluate what just happened

                    Suppression-hiding your true feelings

Memory & Alzheimer's Disease

Gender Differences: 

Psychologists estimated that women with Alzheimer's disease show worse mental deterioration than men with this disease. It mostly affects women's verbal skills. Psychologists explain it as it is due to a hormonal influence. The reason why women have worse mental deterioration than men is because of women's loss of estrogen. Men are more lucky in this case, because they have a greater cognitive reserve which provides protection against the disease process. 

Another difference between male and female gender is that women are better at remembering faces, especially female faces. The reason is that women focus more on female faces than on male faces. In my opinion it's because of the competition. Women also excell in verbal episody memory tasks that include remembering words, objects, pictures or everyday events, and men outperform women in remembering symbolic, non-linguistic information, known as visuospatial processing.

Cultural Differences: 

"Childhood amnesia" is an inability to remember our earliest childhood memories. Believe or not, but our culture shapes how we remember our past and from what year we have our first childhood memory. The way parents discuss the events in children's lives influences the way the children will later remember those memories. People who grow up in a society which focuses on an individual personal history  (U.S) or on a family history (Maori) have earlier childhood memories than people who come from culture that values interdependence. (Asian cultures) 

Angela Gutchess, assistant professor of psychology has evidence that Western cultures  focus more on objects and categories, ­whereas people who come  Eastern cultures focus more on contextual details and similarities and they sort it by functional relationships. For example: Western cultures pair a squirrel with another similar animal (because they are both animals), but Eastern cultures pair a squirrel with a nut, because squirrels eat nuts.