Why Thought Suppression is Counter-Productive (Extra Credit)

http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/05/why-thought-suppression-is-counter-productive.php#more-6059

This article explores the reason for the thoughts we try to suppress coming back at us. They looked at many tests done, and found something called a "Thought Rebound." That is when the thought that is trying to be surpressed comes back stronger, and happens a lot. One study had some people try to not think about a white bear. The other people weren't told to do anything. They spoke their thoughts out loud, and any time they thought of a white bear they had to ring a bell. The ones trying to not think about the white bear rang the bell twice as much as the others. This is shown to happen a lot. It happens more with emotional memories, as more tests have found. Then it was thought that practice as suppressing a memory made it easier to suppress. This theory was tested and it was found out that that was a correct assumption. Practice makes perfect.

At the end the article ponders why this would happen. To some people it seems like their brain is being disobedient. A theory known as "ironic processes theory" explains that when the brain is told to suppress something, the unconscious checks to see if it is being correctly suppressed, while the conscious is trying to distract itself. Once the unconscious picks up on a signal that reminds it of the suppressed thought, the distraction turns off and the suppressed thought comes back up.

This was a great article, that wasn't just interesting but also comprehendable. It was concise and to-the-point, and I got everything I needed to know out of it. Thought suppression is something I sometimes wonder about, and this article was very helpful in my understanding of the subject, in not just why it happens, but also how it happens.

It is also very relevant to psychology, especially people trying to suppress bad thoughts. A person might be trying to suppress the thoughts, and after reading this article realize that that isn't helping, and try to find something else to do. This is something a lot of depressed people have to deal with. This article also includes a paragraph about how suppressing bad feelings of depression makes them come back stronger, and is therefore unhelpful.

Panic Attacks and Anxiety (Extra Credit)

http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/panic_attacks/anxiety.html

This article explains the different sides of anxiety attacks, such as how we got to have them, why we have them, how they spread to different situations, and how to cure them. It begins by giving us a story about a woman who lived in a tribe, way before technology, who was gathering twigs in the wild. She encountered a bear near a rocky cliff, and was attacked. It was a bad experience, so whenever she was near another rocky cliff, she would have what we now call a "panic attack", a great feeling of unease that made her run away. This story demonstrates that we are not 'man the hunter' as we have been called before, but 'man the hunted', we had to be careful and fearful of wild animals that could attack us, and so we would have panic attacks during times when we encountered a situation similar to one we had previously experienced that was frightening.

Since our brain makes us panic when we come in contact with someone that reminds us of our previous experience, we can have panic attacks at unrational times. This article uses the example of having on in a car, and then having more while being on a bus or train, because they are similar. Even though they don't present the same danger, the situation is still the same in certain ways and so your brain still reacts. This is because we 'err on the side of caution', or are over cautious, because that it how we survived.

I think this article was appropriate and relevant for the world of psychology. It brings new insight into why we have panic attacks, and then wraps it up with ways to cure unhelpful anxiety attacks.

It was interesting and unique and very helpful to me personally.

Multiple Intelligences in Nokomis

My learning style from the multiple intelligences is mostly musical, and Nokomis doesn't really cater to that learning style a lot. We do have a lot of great music classes and everything, but that doesn't reach out to our other classes that are required, like maths and sciences. It doesn't even reach as far as drama club, where we could do things like musicals. Doing a musical came up as an idea for us to do, but we never went through with it, and that upsets me because doing a musical would have been a great opportunity. I love Drama, it's what I'm doing for my major, and using my learning style of musical learner along with that would have helped me a lot.

I remember back during my Freshman year my English teacher would let us listen to music while we wrote journals, and that was always very helpful. Sometimes teachers let us listen to our iPods, but they never incorporate it into their subjects.

The comment I left on: Toy Guns

I get that the article advocates for both sides, but what else do they say about both sides? Like, do they explain why or how gun fuels aggressive behavior? I feel like this article isn't really explained very well to me.

Also, since I don't know who Smith is, I'm not really sure what you're referring to when you talk about his 15 page work.

Memory Experiment

I have given my test subect, I will call her A, four pieces of paper with a short description of the three real memories and the fourth fake memory. The three real memories are: going to the One Act festival for Drama Club Sophomore year, coming to my house for a party, and coming to my house just to hang out. The fake memory is being at her friend's house and making chocolate cheesecake with me and a third friend.

When I gave her the papers, I told her to write as much about each memory as she can. She asked me what to do if she already knew which memory was fake, so I told her to just make stuff up.

When she gives them back to me, I want her to tell me which memory she thinks is false, although I have a feeling she already knows which one it is, even though I tried to make it convincing.

We'll see.

4-2-09: Angela has finished writing out three of her memories, and has figured out that the Cheesecake memory is false. 

The Truth About Compatibility (5)

This article takes the opinions of many different professionals about their idea of "compatibility." It's something not a lot of people can agree about, but it is something that turns up not only in our private lives but also in our public lives. A lot of people seem to have trouble getting love, or holding on to it. This article tries to help.

This article brings up the idea that compatibility between two people is made, not something you're born with. It's something you have to work for. Nancy Slotnick is quotted in this article, saying "I think you can have an even more fulfilling relationship if you respect each other's worlds, and learn a little bit from each other." A lot of the proffessionals say that it is about personality, and not only about having the same personality, but being with a person whose personality is one you can get along with.

This article didn't do much to hold my attention. A lot of stuff on the first page didn't stand out to me as profound or important. It was mostly just the stuff they give you before getting to the meat of the story. And the meat of the story wasn't so great, it was just quotes from a bunch of other people, which also seemed unimportant.

It didn't bring any earth-shattering new ideas to the world of psychology. It's more focused on specific people and the idea of "love" and how some people may define it. It does bring up some new ideas on how to define love and compatibility, but it wasn't something that seemed very important to me.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-3595.html

Curing phantom limb pain with hypnosis (4)

This article uses the case of a woman named "Diane" who had her leg amputated after a traumatic accident, which not only caused her leg to become infected with gangrene, but gave her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on top of that. After the amputation, Diane was feeling what's known as "phantom limb pain". PLP is a pain felt where your amputated limb used to be. This can be very difficult to cure, since the limb in pain is no longer there. In fact, the only reason the pain is felt at all is because the brain doesn't realize there is no longer a limb there.

That's where hypnosis comes in. Through hypnosis, the map of the body that's in the brain can be redone so that it recognizes that there is no longer a limb there. Once this has happened, the pain stops. Diane went under this hypnosis procedure, and it worked remarkably, proving the effectiveness of this method.

This was an interesting article, but didn't seem to be as professional as it could have. There were a few errors in the way it was set up, like some paragraphs being more spaced than others, but overall it didn't take away from the article, and it was very interesting. I had heard of phantom limb pain before, and it always seemed scary to me. I never knew that hypnosis could cure it. It's nice to know something besides a drug could be used.

This article is very important and relevant to psychology. Phantom limb pain is something a lot of amputees can get, and can be really hard to live with. Introducing the idea of using hypnosis to cure it is genius.

http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/articles/phantom-limb.html