Psycho IS Psychology!

Well I had to save the best for last for my media project. It would be hard to imagine anybody else playing the role of Norman Bates in the 1960 thriller "Psycho" than Anthony Perkins. I had recently seen Psycho again a few weeks back (around Halloween) on the Turner Movie Classic channel and instantly realized I had to add this to my project. Psycho is Psychology. Just in case you have not been a live anytime after 1960 and have not seen Psycho here is the plot--in short. The main actress in the movie next to the menacing Norman Bates is the beautiful young woman Marion Crane (Janet Lee in real life). In order to have money to marry her boyfriend Marion steals a large sum on money from her employer and races away in the car. During a terrible rainstorm the only place to stop is the Bates Motel. There at the hotel she meets the innkeeper Mr Norman Bates. Before giving the young lady a room for the night Norman tells her about his sick mother. Marion tells Norman to institutionalize his mother which gets the Psycho mildly upset. From here the movie goes to the famous shower scene as Marion is trying to settle down for the night at the hotel. In walks a "woman figure" and proceeds to stab and kill Marion in the shower. Next the movie proceeds with a friend and police following up on the young lady that is missing. Both get a chance to meet Norman Bates. A detective visits the mysterious house on the hill next to the hotel and gets "missing" as well when he runs into that same "woman figure".

Who is the the "woman figure" and what is the climax of the movie? What about psychology?

The woman figure is none other than Norman Bates and his alternate personality. The climax has Bates being caught red handed in the basement of that mysterious house while he is in his "mother's" clothes. He is alive, but not his dead preserved mother found next to him. The psychologist at the jail reveals Bates killed his mother and took her identity. Personality disorder, repression where to start with the psychology. In chapter 14 I studied about a psychological disorder called dissociative identity disorder or its more heard of version called multiple personality disorder. Chapters 14 definition of dissociative disorder, "in this disorder a person seems to experience at least 2 or more distinct personalities existing in one body". In the movie sometimes Norman Bates -was/acted like Norman Bates, other times usually when he was doing the killing he was his mother. Why does Norman Bates assume his mother's identity? Well, he does this in order to repress the guilt of murdering her. In chapter 11 of my psychology book it talks about repression which is a defense mechanism. Proposed by Freud and his daughter defense mechanisms allow a person to reduce stress and anxiety. Repression itself is when a person moves events usually bad ones out of a persons conscious mind or memory. All of this is what is going on with Norman Bates.

One last thing, we all have heard of the term sociopath and immediately connect that to serial killer. Was Bates a sociopath? Maybe, maybe not. A sociopath is an antisocial personality disorder a bit different from a dissociative disorder. The book says most antisocial personalities are not killers, although they do break the law and tell lies. Bates was a serial killer for sure.

Super Nanny to the Rescue!

Children misbehaving? Super nanny here to the rescue. As I watching the show on the Family channel last night I realized this would be a great addition to my psychology project. In this episode of Super Nanny she gets to go to Las Vegas to straighten up three children. I did not get a hold of the parents names but the three childrens names were: Jessica -14 years old, Alexi - 11, and Dillion 6. As I watched this show I realized there is all kinds of psychological happenings going on. Jessica the 14 year old is very materialistic for her age, loves shopping, and calls her parents house a dump (and believe me it was a nice house). Alexi -11 on the other hand spends endless hours on the internet and often comes across obscene messages from strangers. She also spent 1200 minutes on the cell phone last month. Then there is little Dillion -6 and his main problem is he loves to swear and start fights with his older sisters. Besides neither parent knowing about the "strangers" on the internet they are fully aware of the other bad behaviors of their children. Why does their kids behavior continue you might ask? Well, the mother will correct, but at a certain point she is afraid that any more yelling or telling the kids "no" will hurt their feelings. The father on the other hand loves to avoid the situation and tries to ignore his kids bad behavior.

Here comes the nanny and here comes the psychology! Before I talk about how she corrected the behavior lets talk about how the Super Nanny works. She uses direct observation in all of her shows. She goes to the parents home and watches the kids for a day or so. Our book in chapter 13 (and other parts) discusses the assessment of personality. The Super Nanny's direct observation is primarily used by the behavioralist approach. I learned from our book in chapter one that using direct observation can have its problems such as observer bias and observer effect. There does not appear any bias on the Super Nanny's part and if there is observer effect (the kids know they are being observed and should act differently)---wow they still misbehave right on cue.

Step one lets take of Jessica the 14 year old calling her parents house a dump. Super Nanny has Jessica go to work for Habitat for Humanity to build a house for a day---great. This is punishment and when she does good after building the Habitat house her parents give her praise which is positive reinforcement. Next is Alexi the 11 year old with too much internet and cell phone use. Not tough here, Super Nanny gets parent to remove phone and move computer out of her room to the family room to be monitored. Certainly punishment by removal here. Both punishment and reinforcement I learned about in chapter 5 work best when the two are paired together. Finally Dillion the 6 year old, he picks fights with his sisters and swears. The nanny believes he does this because he is bored and frustrated. This is displaced aggression studied in chapter 14 under stress. I like how the Super Nanny handles this one. She uses what I studied in chapter 11 under defense mechanisms the term sublimation. The nanny gets Dillion's parents to put him into a martial arts class (karate). Sublimation is turning socially unacceptable urges or behavior into socially acceptable behavior.

All of this psychology in one hour of tv or so -40 minutes if you do not count the commercials. I wonder if I could borrower the Super Nanny for my two little "gremlins"---I mean "cuties"?

Boosting Memory

Here is an article I found in the Men's Journal in the November 2009 issue that talks about how to improve your memory. Ron White a winner of this years USA Memory Championship tells how he is able to remember up to 200 perons names (long-term) that he has just shaken hands with. He says the trick is to associated a physical feature of somebody he has just met to their name. For example, he says "I remember meeting a Dave in the crowd of 200 people, he had a divot on his forehead- so I associated divot with David to remember his name". Pretty weird, but it works. The article states that whenever your brain is trying to memorize something the amygdala gets excited and sends out a neural response to the hippocampus which intern causes the brain to "press the record button" to keep in memory.

Memory starts to fade around age 30, Ron White the champ is 36 years old. So what is the trick to boost your memory? Well, Mr. White says he is all "natural" and improves his memory strictly by practicing association with something often. How do others do it? Well some people opt for memory improving drugs such as Adderall. Adderall effects the neurotransmitter dopamine which leads to improved memory. Unfortunately Adderall can lead to headaches and nausea. Take a guess what is a safer way to improve memory? You got it, exercise, getting plenty of sleep and eating nuts and fish products often. Oh, and one more thing, the article clearly states superior memory was NOT driven by intellectual ability or structural differences in the brain. How about that. So get your exercise, sleep, eat good and practice association like the champ Ron White does.

In my psychology studies this semester I learned about both short-term and long-term memories in an entire chapter devoted to memory. The part of the chapter that best compares with the above article is found under "elaborative rehearsal". Elaborative rehearsal is pretty much like the champ Ron White uses in associating things together. The easiest way to do this is to connect new information with something that is already known. For the champ the known word was "divot" and the new information was "David". The book uses the word "maison" -- a french word that means "house". What would be the best way to remember the word maison? Well you should know the english word "mason" right? What does a mason do --- a mason builds houses. Now tie them together, maison with an 'I' sounds and looks like mason. Now, just remember mason is associated with the word house so the word maison which looks and sounds the same must have a similiar meaning. You then think maison must have something to do with the word house as well. You just used something you knew and tied it with something you did NOT know to get the meaning. This is exactly how elaborative rehearsal works. Okay maybe using maison with mason was too easy because they looked and sounded the same. But our book clearly illustrates that using elaborative rehearsal can be a more effective way of memory than simply just repeating a word over and over again to get it into long-term memory.

Do you think Ron White the champ had time to repeat all 200 names over and over again or did he use elaborative rehearsal such as shaken hands with a guy named Brian and tied it to Brian having blue eyes and a birth mark on his elbow?

The Angel, The Devil and Tom's Ego

This is a good one for all you cartoon lovers out there. My 6 year daughter and I (I am still a kid a heart!) were watching the cartoon network yesterday October 29th when a good Tom & Jerry skit came on that relates to our psychology class. As usual in this episode Tom (the cat) is chasing Jerry (the mouse) all around the house and yard. And as usual Jerry is getting the better of Tom, that is, until another no named junk yard cat comes into the picture. From here the no named cat and Tom fumble and battle for a while over who is to catch poor little Jerry. Eventually, after blocking each others way of catching Jerry, Tom and the no named cat stop fighting and manage to work together to catch Jerry. Jerry is caught by the two cats and put on a chopping block to be split in half for each cat to have. Tom picks up an axe draws a line on Jerry's little body marking the mid point, and then psychology comes into play. Tom starts to think, do I split Jerry in half with the axe or should I use the axe on the junk yard cat instead and take all of Jerry for myself. At that moment a little angel appears on one of Tom's shoulders and a little devil on the other shoulder. The angel tells Tom be nice to the junk yard cat and share little Jerry with him. The little devil on the other hand says to Tom the heck with the other loser cat, whack him with the axe, and take Jerry for your self. Naturally Toms chooses the devils route and the episode goes from there.

This episode of Tom and Jerry is a classic example of one of Sigmund Freud's beliefs on how one's personality was developed and functioned. Freud was always interested in how the unconscious mind and thoughts influenced peoples thoughts and actions. Our psychology book talks about Freud's divisions of the personality in the chapter on theories of personality. Freud believed that personality itself could be divided into three parts: the Id, ego, and superego. The id of ones personality is present at birth and entirely unconscious. The id states if it feels good, go do it, without regard for the consequence. That process is the pleasure principle of one's personality. This represents the little devil on Tom's shoulder in our cartoon, saying the heck with the consequences just do it. Now on the other end of Freud's spectrum was the superego. The superego in personality is a person's conscience (NOT conscious) mind using morals as a basis for making decisions. The superego stops to think about the consequences and what is wrong or right. This is our little angel on Tom's shoulder or ours saying use morals and a conscience to make the right decision. In the middle of the id and the superego is the ego. The ego is Tom's mind thinking should I do it or not. The ego is our part of personality that works on the reality principle. The reality principle basically says if I can do something and NOT worry about the consequences maybe I should do it, maybe I should not. The ego is always torn between the Id (the little devil) and the superego (angels on ones shoulder).

Overall I think this episode of Tom & Jerry was good example of psychology in particular using Freud's personality theory. By the way, do you really think Tom or that other cat really caught Jerry this time?

Stress

Here is a good article about stress and health from the Charlotte Observer. It is from the "Parade" section of the newspaper and was found on sunday October 25. The article asks the question "can stress make you sick ?". Well the simple answer is yes. Whether the stress comes from work, family, relationships or financial problems it may lower your immunity and your ability to function properly. The article confirms stress is linked to your heart, weight and can increase your risk for depression. When your body is under high levels of stress the human body produces hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol that can raise your blood pressure and heart rate. Although this increase in hormones is okay in the short term it can be damaging if the stress is ongoing. The article states for example "job stress has been found to increase cardiovascular risk by up to 50%". Stress can lead to headaches, skin problems and it may be linked to a person being more susceptible to certain cancers associated with viruses.

Our psychology book has an entire chapter devoted to stress. The part of the chapter that I beleive ties in best with this article is found under the physiological factors of stress and the general adaptation syndrome. The general adaptation syndrome or G.A.S. for short was proposed by the psychologist Hans Selye. Basically your body goes through 3 stages when dealing with stress: alarm, resistance and finally exhaustion. Just like the artical states in the alarm stage your body produces hormones to help ward off and cope with the stress. In the resistance stage your body continues to help the body fight off stress. Then negative side effects from the ongoing stress start to effect your body in the exhaustion stage. Both the article and the chapter in the book list ways to help manage stress. As always, exercise and eating healthy foods are extremely important along with getting enough sleep, managing your time wisely and simply devoting good old time to just having fun and play.