Learning Assessment Two

Think about what you will be doing in 5 or 10 years from now. What information from this course would you most want to remember or believe will be most relevant to you, your work, or your life in general. Give examples.

 

In five or ten years from now I intend to have graduated from college and hopefully have started a family. Having a family is one of my life goals; I fully intend to have children when I get older. I found the section on developmental psychology most relevant to this goal, especially the section detailing parenting styles, and which work best. We learned about the various parenting styles in class. There’s Authoritarian, in which the parents are demanding and do not respond well to their children’s feelings. They’re the sort of parents which explain themselves with “Because I said so!” A permissive parent is what I had growing up. My mother would always let me do basically whatever I wanted. I remember a few times I didn’t come home until well after 2am, and other than a “you could have called” there was no punishment. That’s not to say she didn’t care, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today without her unwavering support. An Uninvolved parent would provide money for food, but little else. Though it sort of pains me to say it, this would be my dad at best, on a good day. Most of the time he’d avoid child support-and me along with it. The best parenting style we discussed in class is the Authoritative Parenting style. It’s where the parents are demanding, but are rational, and communicate well. Without a doubt, this would be the sort of parent I hope I can be. I am the product of what would be labeled as a broken home, so naturally I’m quite concerned with the concept of me being the best father I can be. I’m adamant that my experience does not get repeated unto my progeny, at least not intentionally.

 

In what ways has the material you have learned in this course changed or influenced your understanding and/or expectations about human behavior and cognition? Give examples.

                I felt absolutely shaken on the section about us following authority without question. I have of course found myself saying that I could never do what those following the Nazi party did; I cannot slaughter innocent human beings no matter what reasoning I had. This chapter takes that lie that acts as a security blanket, and throws it on the ground, laying you bare before the hard truth: as a human being, we are all statistically likely to bow in the face of pressure from authority. The Milgram experiment was both fascinating and disgusting. Reading about it in the book was a little disconcerting, but actually watching the video in which the participant is visibly shaken up about this, nervously laughing, and thinking he just murdered another human being—that struck a chord. It’s actually almost frightening that a human being would, with some pressure from a perceived authority figure, subject another human being to horrible, violent, painful behavior in the name of some cause. I find it disgusting, even though I know now that I would probably do the same thing. The Milgram experiment doesn’t hold anything to the distress I felt when we watched the video about the Stanford prison study. I felt real terror at the thought that these normal human beings would actually torture others for a pittance in money per day. I still, despite everything I’ve learned, can’t believe that I would torture another human being based solely on the word of an authority figure. If Mr. Smith ordered me to kick a peer until she cried, for instance, I’d like to believe I wouldn’t do it, despite any urging. I suppose my understanding of humans has drastically changed as a result of this course. I used to villainize groups such as the KKK and the Nazis, but now I understand the people who follow these leaders have real psychological reasons for doing so. I think I can begin to understand why things aren’t simply Utopian, with some bad apples.

 

I honestly believe the assignment concerning “How to study more gooder, not just more harder” helped me quite a bit in the class. It made me turn my gaze inward and try to identify what exactly I do well, and what I do poorly. Here’s an excerpt from my response:

“Good study habits include finding a good location and highlighting important sections; however, I believe that motivation is the key element to studying well. Without good motivation, you cannot focus, and I would argue it is the greatest factor to studying at all, let alone studying well. When I am not motivated, I tend to get distracted from my work very easily, such as just now (there was a 30 minute break in order to acquire a late night snack). Chew seems to argue that intent to study doesn’t have much of an effect at all. He introduces a study that shows us that intent to learn has virtually no effect upon the results. It appears as though my motivation, or my intent to learn, statistically has no real effect upon the quality of my learning.”

I don’t believe I would have done as well without Chew’s tips. Those videos definitely helped.

Another thing I believe assisted me in class were the videos. I realize they were all on the wiki, and that what follows is a lame excuse, but after a full day of labor and class, the last thing I want to do is spend extra time, beyond homework, looking at the material. I find this sort of perplexing, because almost every time we’ve watched videos or looked at material on the wiki, I’ve found myself silently exclaiming “Oh, that’s cool! I’ll look at that later!” and yet I never do. The only thing from the wiki that’s rubbed off on me are the TED talks. I’ve downloaded the application on my phone, and I’ve been watching random TED videos whenever I have down time and nothing else to do. If I’ve gained nothing else from this class(an inappropriate expression, I’ve gained a lot), I’ve started learning for the sake of learning in my free time.

I noticed, however, that the lectures in class would over time cease to hold anyone’s attention. I’m fairly certain this is just natural tendency of students over a two hour period. I honestly have trouble paying attention to a movie that lasts longer than an hour and a half, even if I’m enjoying it. I pay more attention when I’m interacting with something instead of just watching or listening. So, in order to cater better to students like myself, you could attempt to make the class more interactive(not sure how you would do that, though.) The break in between the two hours does help tremendously. Thank you for that.