Author Archives: slikhari

Parenting Styles

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What are the characteristics of an ideal parent? I don’t think any parent to be really knows what types of methods they are going to parent with. I think that as the kids grow older and change into their own person, the parenting style morphs into what is required for the child to grow up happy, healthy and a productive member of the society. Each child is different so each parenting style is different, but all parents want the best for their children so they try to teach them right from wrong and good from bad.

Some parenting techniques that I think work well include, the reward system, learning from mistakes, discipline in the needed circumstances, and the “like mommy/daddy do, the child does.” Of course, there are many others, these are just some of the main ones that I think would be beneficial for the child to grow up to be strong and independent! First, the reward system, I think that when the child is in their younger years giving them rewards for certain positive activities is a good way of reinforcing that they are moving in the right direction. For example, if a child is undergoing the process of potty training and they use the restroom in the toilet, they should be given a reward such as an M&M along with a positive affirmation. If the parent was just giving the child affirmation, maybe the child would not be able to completely comprehend, so, the candy is there to back-up the words and give them something positive that they can understand better. Second, learning from mistakes is a crucial part in growing up. I think this goes hand-in-hand with my third technique, discipline in needed circumstances, because if the child does not learn from a mistake that he/she had already made then discipline is crucial for them to understand that it is not okay to do whatever they did, and this is the last string so they should not do that again. Whatever form of discipline that the parents chooses based on what they think is right for the child, that particular act should not be done again. As the child grows older, I think that the discipline should get more strict since the child needs to become independent. I do believe there should be friendship between parent and child, but there should always be an understanding that the child should listen to the parent. Finally, “like mommy/daddy do, the child does,” this is something that I have noticed within my own family friends. Younger children watch their parents to see what they say and what activities they do, children like to mimic people who they look up to. So, the parent should always be on their best behavior because they are always being watched by the child who is ready to mimic everything they do.

As I mentioned earlier, there are endless techniques and styles for parenting children. Every parent is different and every child requires a different parenting method. At the end of of the day, every parent wants their children to grow up to be independent, healthy, and productive members of the society, they will do anything in their power to do exactly that!


Do Beer Goggles Really Exist??

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Do beer goggles really exist?

The team of MythBusters are ready to chug some beers to test out the idea if the people around you become more attractive the more a person drinks… Adam, Jamie and Kari underwent a series of tests to see exactly that. These tests were to rank a set of people when they were sober, buzzed, and drunk. After each time they were given a score telling them whether or not the hypothesis was true.

Thinking about this in the eyes of the scientific method, a four part method: make an observation, develop a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, and finally build a theory. The MythBusters, firstly, made an observation that there are more male female interactions when people has some form of alcohol in their system. Secondly, they developed the hypothesis that people around you become more attractive the more someone drinks. Next, the needed to test the hypothesis, they did that by ranking a set of people while they were sober, buzzed, and drunk. The higher the score they received, that meant they saw the set of people more attractive. The lower the score they received, that meant they saw the set of people less attractive. Lastly, building a theory, coming up with a conclusion from all of the tests conducted if the hypothesis was true or not.

With every hypothesis, the tests have their own strengths and weaknesses. In this scenario, some strengths I saw included; having an intermediate test between sober and drunk, this gave them a chance to see if attractiveness is a gradual process or a sharp jump. Testing both boys and girls, giving them an idea if this hypothesis is true or false for both genders. Lastly, the tests gave them a general understanding whether or not this hypothesis is true or not. Weaknesses I noticed were, this experiment was not a real world example, meaning every time they went back to rank people there were different people shown. If this were a real world setting, you would see the same people, lets say at a bar and you’d gradually start to see them more attractive. Another would be, there were not enough people to conduct this experiment, the more the people the better the results would’ve been and the results would be more conclusive. Lastly, what if  different types of alcohol affected people in different ways. If this experiment was conducted again with changes I would propose to conduct the experiment in a real life setting, such as in a bar. This will allow the person to see similar faces and see if over time the affects of alcohol made that person more attractive. Another thing I would propose would be to add more people, with more the people in the experiment the outcome would be of a greater sample, so it could be generalized over a population. Not having enough people in an experiment makes the result hard to justify because the data could be highly varied so the average possibly wouldn’t make sense. Lastly, being able to test the experiment with other types of alcohol to see if attractiveness increases or decreases would be interesting because all people are different and not everyone gets affected the same way with beer.

After one long hangover, the MythBusters saw that overall there was a slight increase in attractiveness averaged over the three of them. Sure there were some up’s and down’s in the scores but the general trend was that as more alcohol was consumed the more a person thought everyone else was attractive.

 

 


Getting the Semester Started

Placeholder ImageHello,

     My name is Simran Likhari, I am a concentrated biology major and an art minor. Something interesting about me is that I love all types of nail art, I can do anything from regular nail polish all the way up to gel nail designs!

     I am excited to start the semester out strong for all my classes, the reason that I am taking psychology is for the pre-medical requirement. I have not had any previous background in any psychology subject matter but I am keen to learning more about the different topics that this class has to offer.

     When I think of the word psychology, first of all, I see the word ‘ology’ and immediately thing of the phrase “the study of”. Then theres the other half of the word, ‘psy’, I think of the brain and the way that the brain works. I also think of the how doctors might study the brain and all the experiments that they could do to further learn about behavior. I believe that psychology is a very complex subject that still is not completely understood. The brain develops, adapts, and changes and from that there are still limitless as well as endless amounts of things to learn from and about the brain.

     After looking at all the topics we plan to cover this semester, I am most excited to learn about emotion, coping with stress, and conformity. Emotion is something that is very perspective, meaning that the same emotion for one person may not feel the same for another. I want to learn what psychologists have understood about emotion and how they went about finding their results, such as the experiments and tests they preformed to come to their conclusions. The topics that I am least excited to learn about is neurons and brain structure only because I have been studying for the MCAT recently and have been bombarded with learning brain activities and how neurons work.

     By the end of the semester I want to be able to answer the question: How do I personally cope with stress better? What methods work for me and what methods do not work for me? As a pre-med student stress is pretty much a normal feeling and by now everyone must think that we are all good at it, but unfortunately I certainly am not and would love to learn how to better myself so I can lead a more productive life! All in all, I am very excited for this semester!