Implicit Association Test

This week we were asked to take two tests at Harvard’s Project Implicit website. The aim of the tests, varying from weapons to skin tone, is to determine whether or not you have a bias outside of your conscious knowledge. The two tests I took were “Sexuality (Gay-Straight)” and “Weight (Fat-Thin)” because they are categories of personal interest and struggle.

The tests function like video games. You use your index fingers to press the E and I key, which sort a letter or picture in the center to either the left or right side. These left or right sides are labeled with “Good,” “Bad,” and whatever two conditions are being tested for; in example, the Sexuality test had me sort the pictures and words into “Gay” versus “Straight.” You’re supposed to sort as rapidly as possible. Easy enough.

Throughout the test, however, it steadily got more evident that my subconscious and personality don’t always agree. On occasion, I felt myself instantaneously making incorrect matches, especially when the words were included with the pictures. I’m still unsure as to if this was just me being jumpy or if I really did think that way.

My results, therefore, were quite surprising. For example, even though I felt as if I was slipping up the most with the fat vs. skinny test, I came out as having no automatic preference one way or the other. I credit this to me being more aware of the problem at hand since I’ve always struggled with my weight and self-image. Also, to the entertainment of my friends, I apparently have a strong automatic preference for straight people. Ironic, considering I’m as bisexual as bisexual can be and an avid supporter of the LGBT+ community. I guess my conservative upbringing has more influence than I previously thought. This was (a) mind blowing and (b) slightly alarming.

I guess what we know about ourselves is just the tip of our psychology’s iceberg.

I’ve Got Personality!

FullSizeRender 7.jpg We were asked to take four different free personality tests and compare the results to our personal perception of how we present ourselves.

Test One:

This test is a version of the Jung Typology, or MBTI, test where your personality is defi
ned
as four letters. Usually I’m an ENFP, but this test actually scored me an ENTP. According to the website, I would be a deviant kind of creative, overly ambitious in nature, loyal, debate-prone, and… entertaining at the very least. I think this is pretty accurate. At my core, I’m an artistic girl with a penchant for adventure and perverse humor. I take on too many projects, set my sights too high, and it usually ends in an Icarus-type scenario. Also according to the quiz, I should be fond of playing Devil’s advocate, which can be fondly remembered in my middle school self’s habit of “defending” Nazi Germany in world history class debates. Although I obviously didn’t sympathize with Hitler, it was extremely entertaining to go against the crowd in such a way. And, yeah, my friends say I’m an amusing human being.

I’ve seen a lot of these tests in my 18 years, and this one’s pretty standard: a gradient selection which allows you to pick degrees of an answer, a bunch of questions based on self judgement. The site’s also gotten pretty positive reviews from users who claim the results are reliable, and the information page is well researched as this is basically a sample of a for-sale product. I’d trust the credibility of the test.

While I’m not quite as optimistic as ENTPs tend to be, and I do have a strong introvert side, I’d score this quiz a solid 9/10.

Test Two:

The second test is another variation of the MBTI test. However, instead of ENFP or ENTP, I scored an ENTJ. Puzzled, I read the qualities listed and found myself not identifying with many. For instance, it propositions that I’m a very completion-oriented person who needs to be in charge and often grazes over either their own emotions or others. I’d only really agree that I prefer leading–but I’m also one hundred percent fine with following a leader so long as they’re competent… As for the other stuff, no. I am highly empathetic. I have a million projects going at once and have big problems getting anything in on time (lol). A look at my art desk will prove that.

I speculate that part of the reason for the inaccuracies have to do with the format of the quiz. As opposed to Test One, Test Two relied on a binary. You had one of two choices, not allowing for all the options desired. This probably led to the inaccuracy.

3/10.

Test Three:

What an interesting one! I feel as though I’ve taken this test before, but I didn’t have a clue as to what the results would be. This test rated you on a high-to-low scale in five “big” categories supposed to define your personality.

Screen Shot 2016-04-19 at 9.07.40 PM.png As you can see, I score high in extroversion, agreeableness, and intellect/imagination. I’d have to approve. In general, I’m an extroverted individual who has a natural disposition for maintaining friendships, and I’m always open to new experiences. The weirder the better, especially if I’ve got a friend by my side. Additionally, my low scorings in emotional stability and conscientiousness didn’t come as a surprise. I’m easily swayed by my moods, and I’m a disorganized mess. Didn’t really learn too much new.

The accuracy of this test probably stems from the gradient answer system which worked for me so well on the first test. It also cites Goldberg in the introduction.

8/10 because it’s kind of bare bones.

Test Four:

Another interesting one. This quiz had me randomly select colored squares based on intuition, wait a few minutes, and then redo the colored square selections. It’s then supposed to figure out your personality. Surprisingly, it was very accurate. It predicted that I’m an emotional, artistic person who lusts after beauty, intimate relationships, and who feels as though there’s more to the world than the present. I’m also prone to feeling isolated, can often be cornered into compromises, and have some difficulty appreciating the small things in life. It was really only erroneous in calling me a conceited person or that I easily become involved in pointless activities.

7/10.

Why Do We Sleep?

Baby girl sleeping against drawings on blackboard, overhead view

A night’s sleep lost leads to a glut of aftereffects. That heavy gait, that groggy mind, that inability to tell words on a page from alphabet soup–all too familiar. Therefore, it baffles me that we don’t biologically know why we sleep, just that it certainly feels good. Three explanations were posited by Dr. Russell Foster during his TED Talk: sleep as a means of energy conservation, sleep as a means of physical restoration, and sleep as a means of handling memories and brain processes. Although all hypotheses are probably true to some degree, the last one seems to me the largest and most viable reason.

First, the idea that sleep is a means of energy conservation is supported by meager evidence. For instance, our bodies only save about one hundred calories per night’s worth of sleep–an amount equal to approximately one slice of bread. Even under the hunting-gathering conditions of our past, this seems to me a second-rate exchange for the dangers associated with being unconscious for eight hours.

However, there’s still problems with this. Firstly, we actually decrease our total protein production while we sleep. To me, it seems counterproductive for the body to decrease the number of essential building blocks available to it if the goal is repair work. Furthermore, stage 3 non-REM sleep is shown to be most beneficial to our physical health, and adults spend less than half our sleep time here. Contrastingly, we spend upwards of 50% in stage 2 non-REM sleep. Stage 2 non-REM sleep is responsible for memory consolidation and information processing, leading neatly to Foster’s final suggestion.

From experience, we know when we’re sleep deprived we’re fault to a number of follies like forgetting details, forgetting how to perform tasks, and being less creative in our problem solving; yet when we get a good night’s rest, our problem solving skills increase three times due to REM sleep, and our ability to retain information from the day before increases due to the time spent in stage 2 non-REM sleep. These characteristics are crucial in defining humans from other animals. From an anthropologic and historical sense, our intellect and ingenuity have led us to survive and thrive as a species for so long, and, thusly I’d say have a lot to do with our need for sleep.

I pulled the information for this post from this website. Although the authorship is ambiguous (you have to go to the “contact” page) it seems reliable as there are a number of reputable books and websites listed as the sources. Additionally, the information was presented in a clear cut manner as opposed to being superfluous, showing me the author had a somewhat put together concept of the subject material.

Sources:

Russel Foster: Why do we sleep? [Video file]. (2013, June). Retrieved April 8, 2016, from http://www.ted.com/talks/russell_foster_why_do_we_sleep#t-653233

Mastin, L. (n.d.). Why Do We Sleep? – Physical Restoration. Retrieved April 08, 2016, from http://www.howsleepworks.com/why_restoration.html

Mastin, L. (n.d.). Why Do We Sleep? – Energy Conservation. Retrieved April 8, 2016, from http://www.howsleepworks.com/why_energy.html

Mastin, L. (n.d.). Why Do We Sleep? – Memory Processing and Learning. Retrieved April 8, 2016, from http://www.howsleepworks.com/why_memory.html

Synesthesia

In 2011 Icelandic author Daniel Tammet gave a TED Talk about perception and how it shapes our knowledge of the world. He elaborates on this point by describing his experiences with synesthesia, a condition I also have.

What is Synesthesia?

Synesthesia is defined as a “neurological phenomenon” in which two senses are irrationally, but consistently, coupled. Although this linkage can be just about any combination of the senses, the two most common are color-grapheme and color-auditory synesthesia. In the former, a synesthete perceives letters and numbers as being written in a certain color or pattern. In the latter, sounds illicit a visual cue, usually taking the form of colored light. The location of these phenomena vary. One synesthete may report them occurring in her actual visual field while another describes them as being more within the mind’s eye (Gross, n.d.).

My form is a fairly rare one. Whenever I listen to someone speak or sing words, I “feel” them somewhere in my head or have the urge to produce their movement. Honestly, the best description I can give isn’t even a description but a demonstration. Kinetic typography is a type of animation that puts words into motion like in these videos… So imagine that but “felt.” I can only “see” them if I focus hard enough.

Surprisingly, synesthesia is a very real condition with a defined biological cause. For instance, fMRIs demonstrate a difference in synesthetic and non-synesthetic brains: when exposed to a triggering stimulus, a synesthete’s brain will activate in areas correlated to their coupled senses (Rossengarten, n.d.). Dr. Richard Cytowic (2013) claims this to be the result of “hyper connecting neurons” between the two areas. Interestingly, there appears to be a genetic component to the condition since many synesthetes report having similarly affected relatives. Makes me wonder if any of my relatives have it.

Still, synesthesia is not considered a disorder since it does not adversely affect the individual to any great degree. In fact, it’s common for a synesthete to not realize until later in life his perception of the world is any different. (I didn’t know most people didn’t have personalities assigned to some numbers–related to synesthesia– until a few years ago.)

This returns to ideas brought up by Tammet. Perception is a completely individualized endeavor; therefore, we all have different ways of seeing situations and acquiring knowledge from them. According to Cytowic, this works as a great advantage for a synesthete’s creativity since he would be able to extract very unique metaphors from her surroundings–evident in Tammet’s video, where he demonstrates his way of viewing multiplication and is able to abstractly connect the word “hare” to something fragile in a Keats’ poem. I found this so cool. Never in my life had I considered the potential for inventing new methods of learning via synesthesia since I’m so used to my type just getting in the way. (Upon further reflection, this is actually how I piece together sentences: by using my synesthesia to feel out how things ought to sound or to make some weird, convoluted lyrical twists.)

Speaking of… What’s It Like Living With Synesthesia?

Living with synesthesia is extremely frustrating to articulate because it’s nearly an existential experience, but it’s honestly not that big of a deal. If you’ve always traveled through the world a certain way, that’s just how it is. You kind of get used to it, you know? It can even be a sort of nifty party trick. I, for example, have fun telling people what their voices “feel” like. If I had anything negative to say, it’d be that it gets annoying to write when the words I want to type don’t quite line up with how I think they should be moving. Punctuation, especially, is idiotic. I should be able to use them wherever, whenever, or never, just because that’s how it sounds like it should feel. Conjunctions besides “and” are also so… choppy.

My case is pretty moderate though. It exists in my mind’s eye and is really more of a weird bodily sensation than anything else; however, a lot of synesthetes like Youtuber Ariel have more extreme forms. In her video“Living With Synesthesia”, she describes her life with color-grapheme and spatial sequence synesthesia, revealing that the latter especially causes anxiety because it causes a hyperawareness of her location. For instance, while on vacation, she was constantly reminded where she was–not very fun if you’re just trying to relax. Additionally, since she sees the weekdays on a map in front of her, and they have personalities/colors of their own, some days are just automatically predisposed to being “bad.” I found this one most horrific though: since her color-grapheme synesthesia only has an index up to about 30, she’s terrified of ever aging past that. It’s a void. Pretty freaky.

References and Validity

A. (Director). (2016, March 11). Living with Synesthesia [Video file]. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnfZYGWnmKM

Validity: This is a personal account and therefore is likely to be as accurate as possible. I doubt she’d have a reason lie.

Cytowic, R. E. (Writer). (2013, June 10). What color is Tuesday? Exploring synesthesia [Video file]. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRbebvoYqI

Validity: After researching Cytowic, he appears to be a valid research scientist/medical doctor who really pushed for synesthesia to be examined with new neurologic techniques. In addition, TED does a pretty good job of presenting good facts in general.

Gross, V., Dr. (n.d.). Synesthesia Project | FAQ. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from https://www.bu.edu/synesthesia/faq/

Validity: This was my original source, but I got so interested in the prom that I found the others. It’s a generalized overview of synesthesia in the form of an FAQ put together by Dr. Veronica Gross, head Boston University’s synesthesia research team. I feel like it’s valid considering it’s basically the backbone of an acclaimed college’s research project.

Rossengarten, R. (n.d.). FMRI Scans: Synesthesia is Real. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from http://neurologues.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/fmri-scans-synesthesia-is-real/

Validity: If you look further into the website, you discover that the author of these posts are college students. I think it’s actually an assignment a lot like this one. However, I decided to trust it because a) most students can summarize a report pretty well, and b) the facts provided here were also mentioned by Gross.

T. (Producer). (2011, March). Daniel Tammet: Different ways of knowing [Video file]. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_tammet_different_ways_of_knowing?language=en

Validity: N/A

Identity Development

James Marcia’s Theory of Identity Development

James Marcia is a Canadian psychologist who focused on adolescent development and devised four statuses regarding an adolescent’s quest for identity. In his theory, he claimed that the adolescent range isn’t “a state of identity resolution or confusion but the extent to which the individual has explored and committed to an identity.” An identity in this case could be something like a religious or political affiliation or a career path. He continued by describing the two parts of an adolescent’s identity: the crisis and the commitment. The crisis is where the adolescent’s values are under speculative examination, and the commitment is when the adolescent makes a decision to end the crisis by choosing a social or personal alignment.

Marcia’s four statuses are Identity Diffusion, Identity Foreclosure, Identity Moratorium, and Identity Achievement. Identity Diffusion is characterized by low commitment-low exploration and is a very basic stage in which there is no sense of having a choice. Identity Foreclosure is similar, denoted by high commitment-low exploration, and usually relies on some form of blind faith in a particular identity. Individuals in this category do not have crises. Identity Moratorium is the opposite, involving a low commitment and a high exploration. This status centers around crises. Individuals are prepared to make a decision, but they may not know which one to make. Lastly, Identity Achievement is when individuals become actualized in their choices, having a high commitment to them as the result of a crises.

Marcia and Me

I think Marcia’s model is pretty accurate simply because it’s relatable. I’ve been through these stages at varying points in my life, and I know several tweens and young teens who’re in the process of discovering their identity. Still, if I had to pitch an argument against the four statuses, it’d be the fact that there’s only four. I find that with some, there should be in-betweens. For example, a gradient between the Identity Moratorium and Identity Achievement statuses would be useful for many older adolescences who are on their way to the later; however, one could counter this by saying that the statuses are not supposed to be read as sequential stages and that individuals can bounce between them.

Personally, I find myself as being between the Identity Moratorium and Identity Achievement statuses. On some issues such as religion and moral values, I’m very much committed, yet on others like politics and my future in terms of academics or careers, I am in the grey. All and all though, I find Marcia’s steps helpful and extremely fascinating since any bit of information I can gather about myself to help me define who I am is of the utmost use.

Mental Disorders TED Talk

The Talk

For my TED Talk, I chose to watch “Thomas Insel: Toward a new understanding of mental illness,” viewable here. I was drawn to this one because mental illnesses are an alarmingly widespread and misunderstood category of ailments affecting humankind which have taken their toll on those close to me as well as myself. As a result, any sort of new research regarding how we understand and—by extension—treat both the illness and the person are of natural interest to me.

Insel began his talk by discussing a relevant point: although medical advances in the last 50 years have drastically decreased mortality rates stemming from physical afflictions such as leukemia, heart disease, stroke, and HIV, not much headway has been made in terms of psychiatric ones as evident by the constant suicide rate. In addition, neuropsychiatric disorders account for nearly 30% of the total DALYs (disability adjusted life years) in the US and Canada in comparison to cardiovascular diseases and cancers, which individually fall into the ballpark of 13%. The speaker gives three reasons in particular for this: commonness, high likelihood of becoming disabling, and early onset. Mental illnesses, then, may be viewed as the chronic illnesses of youth as opposed to the chronic illnesses of the elderly.

After the introduction, Insel proposes that these mental disorders should be renamed “brain disorders” because the future of their treatment is through examining the brain, an “organ of extreme complexity” which is ultimately responsible for our behavior whether normal or abnormal. In example, he produces research on patients with early onset schizophrenia, displaying scans of their brains over a 5 year period. The first images manifest the beginning of a decrease in grey matter while the second set of images demonstrate an extreme drop. Similarly, in schizophrenic patients an extreme decline of cortical synapses occurs around age 20, paralleling the onset of psychotic symptoms; however, around age 15, a more gradual decline begins which could potentially be exploited for early intervention.

Insel uses this to argue that the future of treating mental illnesses will utilize the same early detection and prevention measures common in the rest of modern medicine and that, given enough technological advance, the mortality and disability of mental illnesses could be reduced.

Would I Trust It?

I would. For starters, Ibsen is a renowned researcher with decades of good work backing him and his claims. This is reasserted by his former position as head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). There’s some validity to the argument that he could be exposing an overly optimistic view given the lack of technology and what might be perceived as his own failings, but the research in of itself appears to be relatively solid. I give this talk a thumbs up.

My Own Experiment

Inspired by the graph showing the decrease in cortical mass in schizophrenic patients, I’d like to do something similar. I would conduct a long term study to help determine if there’s any similar “warning” point for depression. To do this, I would accept volunteers from families with and without a history of clinical depression and measure neurotransmitter levels associated with depression at five year increments (10 years old, 15 years old, etc.). Additionally, I’d take into consideration environmental factors specific to each subject such as home life.

About Me

Salutations!

My name’s Stephanie Austin, a freshman, and a lover of people and all their complexities. It’s for this reason that I was genuinely excited to take Psych 101! I didn’t have time to take the subject during high school—blame the Colorado school system—so I’m very thankful for the opportunity. Even if it’s intimidating, I’m planning on having a great semester!

When I think of the word psychology, I think of mental illness. Clinical psychologists. Lounge sofas. Freud. All the basics. I also think of my grandfather, who studies psychology in his retirement with a particular interest in the junction between philosophical inquiry and neuroscience.

He finds a way to bring up the brain every time we talk.

A question I’d like answered: why do we have personalities? What makes us us?

An natural extrapolation is I find the concepts of personality, intelligence, and social roles/conformity the most interesting. The first because I’m an explorer, and part of that exploration should naturally include myself. I’m looking forward to learning about why we are who we are on a personal level as well as taking quizzes and assessing their accuracy. Included in this curiosity is the theory of intelligence. What types of intelligence are there? How can and should we measure it? What kind of “intelligent” am I? Isn’t it all relative? Social roles and conformity appeals to me since I’m an eclectic person who tends to stray from her family’s preconceived “norm.” On a personal level as well as on a larger scale, I’ll be thrilled to hear this topic. It doesn’t get too much limelight in high school.

As for least interesting, my forte is most defiantly not anything regarding research. I like being in the field, but learning things like “research methods” and “experimental design” are just the nitty gritty parts of a science class you just sort of have to get through. Ah, and then the ubiquitous scientific method. Again, it feels like a bit of a rehash. Of course, I can’t know for certain if it’s not different in psychology.

A fun aside: my hobbies include doodling, music, wikipedia surfing, and rollerskating. I’m a very social person most days, and I love the sound of my own voice… So—please—call me out if I’m being irrelevant or annoying! My favorite domestic animals are cats, and my favorite color is—in general—a nice peacock blue-green. I have a dormant passion for acting; my party trick is doing the perfect little kid’s voice; I sign my name with a heart at the end; and I almost got put in a special school for figure skating way back when.

Anyways, thank you for reading! I know it’s long! Here’s to a great semester!