Friday, May 28, 2010

Final Project Update:

The project will be due by the end of the Science exam period on Wednesday.

I will be available to work with you in the Mac Lab (a) On Monday (Memorial Day) at noon, and (b) between exams and after school on Tuesday.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Final Project: Create your own psychology magazine!

You will serve as editor-in-chief of your own magazine, covering topics in the field of psychology. We will begin to develop the content together in class, but you will need to do research and compose your articles, etc. on your own time. We will also spend some time in the Mac Lab to address the graphic design component of the assignment. Remember: This project will serve as your final exam, and thus will be weighted as 20% of your Spring term average.

Requirements:

1. Must be ten pages, total. This includes front cover and back cover.
2. Front cover in magazine style: Dominant photo, title, subheadings, etc.
3. Table of contents with credits to all authors and editorial staff.
4. One-page advice column. You must answer the "readers'" questions based on research and psychological principles.
5. Two pages of relevant advertisements.
6. One one-page editorial article on a controversial topic in the field.
7. One one-page review of a scholarly research article. I will help you find an appropriate article to use for this.
8. One 1/2 page feature on a notable contributor to the field of psychology, past or present.

You may fill the rest of the content with other appropriate content, such as an original cartoon, a book or movie review, product recommendations, relevant news and current events, etc.

Additionally, you may fill up to one page of content with material provided by one of your classmates. However, you may not use articles or content provided from a contributor to fill one of the requirements listed above.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

HW: Theoretically, you should be able to finish your FRQ during class on Friday. So your homework is to complete the practice test the substitute will give you this weekend. Go through all of the questions and answer the ones you believe you know. On the second pass, answer the ones about which you can make a reasonable guess. If there are questions on which you are totally stumped, you should look the answers up in your book, on the internet, etc. The purpose is to start reviewing and to fill in the gaps in your knowledge, so look up as many answers as you need to as an opportunity to study.
FRQ Friday: If you haven't finished reading the chapter on Psychological Disorders, you will need to do so, either during class or over the weekend. Please complete this FRQ and submit it to me via Google docs, due by the time class begins on Monday.

Psychiatrists are faced with the sometimes difficult task of diagnosing and recommending treatment for a variety of psychological disorders. When presented with symptoms, the clinician must make an appropriate diagnosis that is consistent with the DSM-IV-TR. Using the standard definitions of each of the following psychological disorders, give an example of each and discuss the typical symptoms of each.

a. Anxiety disorders
b. Mood disorders
c. Dissociative disorders
d. Schizophrenic disorders
e. Personality disorders

Monday, April 26, 2010

HW: Please read and note card the chapter on Intelligence by Wednesday.

Friday, April 23, 2010

HW: Due Monday.

Read the following three articles and type up a half-page-ish response. I'd like to know where you stand on the controversy, and why. Please submit your response by the time class begins on Monday, either via email or a shared Google doc. (If you use Google docs, please be sure to allow me to both view and edit the document, so I can provide feedback directly.)

The New York Times' Take

NYT Letters to the Editor

Psychology Today Weighs In

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

HW Part I:

Study for the test. Here is the FRQ you should prepare:

A. Samantha has been acting up in school lately. She gets in fights and is failing many of her classes. Her parents are in the middle of a divorce, and she is shuttling back and forth between their houses. What is each of these concepts, and how does it apply to Samantha's situation?

(a) id
(b) locus of control
(c) trait theory
(d) displacement
(e) humanistic theory

Friday, April 9, 2010

FRQ Friday:

I. Five year-old Jessie went to a fire station with her kindergarten class. When she got home, Jessie, who is in the preoperational stage of cognitive development, eagerly told the story of her adventure to her older brother. Describe how the following factors might have influenced the story she told. Be sure to define and provide an appropriate example of each factor.

A. Egocentrism
B. Observational learning
C. Reconstructive memory
D. Schema

II. Time is an important variable in may psychological concepts. Describe a specific example that clearly demonstrates an understanding of each of the following concepts and how it relates to or is affected by time. Use a different example for each concept.

A. Critical period
B. Fluid intelligence
C. James-Lange theory of emotion
D. Presentation of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) in classical conditioning
E. Refractory period in nerve firing
F. Spontaneous recovery

Friday, April 2, 2010

HW over break:

(1) You should have finished reading and note-carding the Development chapter by Wednesday of next week, so this break might be a good time to get a chunk of that out of the way.

(2) Ask your mom about her decision-making process regarding the working/staying at home/daycare, etc. We'll discuss that briefly on Tuesday before we move on to the next section.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Test on Monday on Motivation and Emotion.

Don't forget to review previous chapters!
FRQ FRIDAY! (essay 2)

Explain what each of the following is and how each would function in the situation of a person who lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

(a) Amygdala
(b) Schacter's two factory theory
(c) Cognitive appraisal
(d) Psychological arousal
FRQ FRIDAY!

Ben trains for months to compete in the upcoming Blue Ridge marathon. Explain how the following factors contribute to Ben's experience training and competing in the race.

(a) Drive theory of motivation
(b) Incentive theory of motivation
(c) Biological regulation of weight
(d) Achievement motivation
(e) James-Lange theory of emotion
(f) Endorphins

Friday, March 19, 2010

HW: Do some research on the internet and write a page about any aspect of the debate on homosexuality that interests you. List the websites you visited at the bottom of your paper to let me know where you got your info.

Some sample sources:

APA Position on Reorientation Therapy

National Association of Research and Therapy for Homosexuality

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Hey guys. I'll be back on Tuesday. In the meantime, we're starting the unit on Motivation and Emotion next. So between class Monday and homework Monday night, please read and note card the Motivation section of that chapter. And then we'll talk about it on Tuesday.

See you soon!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

CW for Friday, February 26th: It's FRQ Friday! You've seen parts of the first FRQ below. Now that we've finished the cognition chapter, write the full FRQ essay, covering both the components you did last week and the new components. Also, the second one I made up last night. You'll notice it's autobiographical in nature -- and a true story!

If you finish during class, during in the essay. If not, complete it over the weekend and turn it in at the beginning of class Monday.

HW: Begin working on your Chapter 9 project this weekend. We will use Monday as a "workshop" period to work on your individual projects. You can bounce ideas off classmates, get help from me, etc. If anyone is finished by Tuesday, we can begin sharing them, and we'll finish sharing on Wednesday.

FRQs:

1. In a study, researchers use a photograph taken in a public park to examine how people perceive, learn, and remember information. In the photograph, a woman is standing near a man who is seated on a park bench. The woman appears to be shouting at the man.

Participants int he study are exposed to the photograph for ten seconds and then are shown, each for ten seconds, several other photographs of people interacting. When all the photos have been shown, the participants are asked about what they saw in the "public park" photo. A significant number of participants describe the man as being the aggressor in an apparent disagreement with the woman.

Describe how each of the following concepts helps explain the perception of these participants.


A. Schema
B. Retroactive interference
C. Representative heuristic
D. Confirmation bias
E. Framing


2.
On her first night of her trip in San Francisco (last night) Mrs. Davies woke up with a start in the middle of the night. She had the sensation of been shaken and heard a loud screeching noise. She immediately determined that she had just experienced a small earthquake, and the loud metallic sound must have been the sound of the metal structures in the building flexing as the ground moved! She woke Mr. Davies up to see if he'd noticed. He hadn't. (Lame.) In the morning, she recounted the experience, in response to which Mr. Davies told her he'd "looked it up" on the Internet that morning, and there had been no quake measured in the San Francisco area. Mrs. Davies remains convinced that Mr. Davies is wrong, and that she did, indeed, experience a baby earthquake.

Identify and apply the following terms to the scenario.

A. Inductive reasoning
B. Availability heuristic
C. Confirmation bias
D. Overconfidence

Sunday, February 21, 2010

HW: Remember to bring in your responses to the FRQs we didn't get through on Friday.

Friday, February 19, 2010

FRQ FRIDAY!

1. One of the most useful generalizations in psychology is that "behavior is adaptive." Explain this generalization and then identify each of the following and describe how each could be adaptive.

A. Repression
B. Loss of information from short-term memory.

2. Describe the psychological concept of expectancy or set. Discuss a specific example of how each expectancy or set affects each of the following.

A. Human perception
B. The effects of a psychoactive drug on a human
C. Memory

3. In a study, researchers use a photograph taken in a public park to examine how people perceive, learn, and remember information. In the photograph, a woman is standing near a man who is seated on a park bench. The woman appears to be shouting at the man.

Participants int he study are exposed to the photograph for ten seconds and then are shown, each for ten seconds, several other photographs of people interacting. When all the photos have been shown, the participants are asked about what they saw in the "public park" photo. A significant number of participants describe the man as being the aggressor in an apparent disagreement with the woman. Describe how each of the following concepts helps explain the perception of these participants.

A. Schema
B. Retroactive interference

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

HW: Finish reading the section in Chapter 9 on Language. Also, read this article on Genie. Write a brief response to turn in tomorrow. (Homework grade!) Also, bring in your note cards from the Language unit so far (Homework grade!).

Monday, February 15, 2010

HW: We are starting Chapter 9, Language and Cognition. Please read the section of the text on Language.

Note: We have two and a half weeks left in the winter trimester, and about 10 class periods left. We need to get through two more chapters, so we're going to move quickly through this chapter. Very, very quickly.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

So, folks, yet another snow day delays our Memory test. While I did say that no matter what, we would be testing today, Mother Nature obviously set out to prove me wrong. So. We will have some version of the Memory test whenever we get back to school. If we are back at school with shortened periods tomorrow, we will have a short version of the test. However, if the periods are shortened not only by activity period at the end of the day, but also by a 2-hour delay, we will have the test on Monday.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

An interesting (albeit lengthy) talk by Elizabeth Loftus (!). If we have some extra time, we can watch it in class. If not, you can watch it in your free time.

Remember: Memory Test on Wednesday, February 10th. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor whatever, shall keep us from our test.
Here is a PBS site that discusses the case of wrongful conviction based on eyewitness testimony that we discussed in class. You can navigate through a number of pages to learn about various aspects of the case in question. (Also, an interview from Elizabeth Loftus!)
Here are a handful of sources with information on all sides of the recovered memory debate. There is a lot of information from sources that range from reputable to "huh"? As you peruse each one, if only briefly, see if you can determine for yourself how reliable the source is.

The Recovered Memory Project

False Memory Syndrome

Recovered Memory Therapy

An interesting perspective...

Mrs. Davies hearts Elizabeth Loftus

So... what do you think?

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Interesting: Evidence that you can't necessarily believe everything you hear (even if you hear it from me).

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Review Activities: Chapter 7

Visit this site to review the difference between classical and operant conditioning.

When you feel like you have that down, try these exercises to test yourself.

Then, take the learning quiz here.

Then, browse through the Quizlet website (where users create their own flashcards) and see how much you know about psychology based on someone else's flashcards! You can test out various sets to help review for the cumulative portion of the test.

Make good use of the time you have in class Wednesday. If you come across anything you need help with, stop by and see me Thursday. Good luck!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

HW: By Friday, you should have read and note-carded:

Chapter 7 through p. 235
Reading 9 (p. 65)
Reading 10 (p. 72)
Reading 11 (p. 78)