Our Cheating H E A R T

1. What is the thesis of the article? (One or two sentences only.)

It is that humans are not designed to be monogamous. In other word, due to evolution, humans tend to be more polygamous, or having more than one mates throughout their life.

2. In what ways are the strategies employed by men and women to pass on the next generation at odds?

The men employ the strategies of cheating on their mates by looking for every chance that they can reproduce in other to pass on their genes and keep their traits away from extinction. On the other hand, women tend to look for the healthiest and strongest males with favorable traits to provide them with fertile offspring. However, women also seek comfort and protection from their existing spouses.

3. What conclusion does the article draw about monogamy?

It tries to convey to us that we, human, are not designed to stay with one mate for our life, but to be polygamous. In other words, we are more likely to cheat on our spouses for the fact that our biological structures and survival instincts are telling us to find more and more fertile mates and look for opportunity to reproduce. Not only biological factors that influence our mating behaviors, what seems to be the reasons that people tend to cheat on their spouse are sociological factors such as money and fame. Moreover, it is not only up to our genes that determine our fidelity to our spouses, but also our moral and decisions.

4.) In your own words explain the last paragraph of the article.

It is saying that humans are moral since we have our own ability to make judgments and reasoning skills. However, we are naturally not moral beings. We are what and who we choose to be, it is our awareness that makes us moral.

5. What are you personal reactions to the article?

I felt that this is a controversial topic since being unfaithful to one’s mate is considered immoral in almost every society in the world. However, it is right for the author to say that deep down inside each and every one of us, we are polygamous animals since the theory has been proven valid by many researchers and scientist. I have to agree with the author that we are monogamous or polygamous by our moral and reasons, or ability that separate humans from animals. It is up to us to decide whether we would be moral and live according to the rules and obligations of the society, or be no different from the animals on discovery channel.=)

Principles of Biological Psychology

This perspective believes that every single behavior, thought, and feelings are from the cause of chemicals reactions and cell activities in our body, meaning that what goes on in our minds are of the effects of chemicals and that our body and mind are related. Moreover, the body, though seems to be a complicated structure, can be divided into systems and many subsystems and that a complex mental process can be traced back to the simplest part of our nervous system, the neuron, that signifies whether the body will or will not generate a reaction, this is know as the all or nothing theory, or fire or not fire. Biological Psychology also focuses on how each of our brain hemispheres works and coordinates. Each of the hemispheres has its own unique ability; the left hemisphere is involved with language skills, and the right hemisphere is involved with spatial skills. The fact that our hemispheres are intact makes it possible for the left and right hemisphere to communicate and transfer the information that suits the tasks of the brain. In addition, although adult is more sophisticated and intelligent than babies, babies seem to have a lot more neurons than adults. Why? It is that the nervous system and the brain of a child are like a blank paper, and that the unnecessary neurons will be eliminated throughout the development of the brain. In other words, the child’s brain interacts with the surroundings and experiences and that what is necessary will be kept in order to survive.

The Boy Without a Penis

This story of a boy who had his penis operated off during a circumstition that went wrong is a solid example of the 'big issue' that psychologists around the world are arguing about: nature vs. Nurture.
During the 1960's, people tended to believe that behaviors of human are shaped by their past experiences and how they are raised. However, the case of David Reimer changed the whole idea. His family intended to raise him up as a girl, but the hormones in David opposed. I believe that David had suffered a lot through his life mentally. He had been traumatized by the fact that he was deceived by everyone around him and was distressed when he was rejected from society during his teenage. That would probably left him with a scar that would not heal by time, resulting in a tragic ending when David decided to commit suicide after losing his jobs and being seperated with his wife when he was 38.
This has proved to the world that it is not only how a person is raised affects his/her behaviors, but it is also the biological factors; the genes and hormones, that play significant roles in determining one's behavior. This case of a boy without a penis, though ended tragically, has contributed greatly to the study of psychology and opened the eyes of many psychologists.

Check Yourself

Scientific attitude is all about being skeptical, open-minded, able to distinguish between assumptions and biases, and able to ask questions like ‘how can it be?’ and ‘Why is this happening?’ in any given situation. However, people with scientific attitude are not irrational. In other words, they consider the possibility and existence of the answers to the questions before asking, and be open-minded to other’s opinions.

By approaching a phenomenon with scientific attitude, we will develop smart thinking, or critical thinking, it is a way to come up with a conclusion by designing methods and experiments required in order to answer the question that you are skeptic about

• B E S T of the Century •

It has been almost a century that psychotherapy has benefit millions and millions of people around the world. Those who have joined the seminars, group therapy, workshops, and individual sessions were proven to be really ‘helped’ by the therapy. But how was a subject in which we called ‘a new science’ accepted and grew worldwide in such a short period? Here are the examples of the major changes that occurred during the 1900’s that have turned psychology to a global and modern interest of the population.

Since the dawn of the new century, psychologists around the world learned to cope with their patients and the diversities among them. In other words, they learned how to deal with different people from different background to extend border of psychology and making it applicable to everybody regardless of gender or ethnicity. In addition, the psychologists now are more open-minded, meaning that they now accept other approaches that are different from their own and apply it with their patients, while the psychologists in the beginning were opt to be loyal to their perspectives. Besides how psychologists approach their clients, other reasons that would justify its phenomenon growth would be how the subject is applicable to many of the fields whether it is business, industry, education, labor, or even religion. Finally, the developments in neuroscience and medical treatment have provided psychotherapy with many new options for the therapy, including improved medical and treatments, making it more effective and less time consuming.

Not only how psychology have transcends the borders of beliefs and logics that made it one of the most popular subjects nowadays, but there are many great discoveries during the 1900’s that have ensured the credibility of the subject. In my opinion, the five most significant discoveries during the nineteenth century are:

1) The experiment on gender roles conducted by Matina Homer in November 1969. In the experiment, Matina arranged a question for both her subjects, which were a man and a women, and by studying how both of the volunteers answered the question, Matina concluded that female are more likely to avoid success compared to male. Then she asked both of the subjects to take an achievement test in two separated rooms, the results came out that her female subject scored higher. After that, she asked her subjects to do the test again, but now in the same room. Though scored higher on her first test, the female volunteer seemed nervous and stressed out, and she scored lower than the male volunteer. The result in this experiment explained how women react differently to success and stressed their motive to avoid success. I believe that this experiment is approached by the socio-cultural perspective stressing how our behaviors and attitudes are influenced by our gender background and stereotypes, and that it is important to know how different people react to a situation and how female workers should be encourage in their field of profession in order to be more efficient and productive since they are wiser than a lot of male workers.

2) Development of operant conditioning by B.F skinner- he believed that our behaviors are influenced by the reinforcements or the consequences of the behavior whether it is reward or punishment. For example, a baby would not do anything that would make its mother upset since she scolded or punished it last time. B.F. Skinner was probably one of the most influential psychologists in the history and what among the first who believe in Behavioral Psychology, an approach to an explanation of human behaviors.

3) Philip G. Zimbardo took a socio-cultural approach to explain the cause of our behavior in his famous Stanford Prison experiment in August 1980. He put several students in the roles of prison guards and prisoners for a period of time. However, he had to cancel this experiment since the students were becoming more and more hostile. Though the experiment was called off, it is a solid prove of how our behaviors are shaped by our roles in society.

4) Introduction of ‘learned helplessness’ and ‘depression’ by Martin Seligman in June, 1973. Seligman suggested how ‘helplessness’ in adults can lead to depression, a state of mind which every one of us has faced during our lifetime. Seligman made an important discovery about learning and how important it is to be given roles and responsibility since young age in order to prevent depression when faced with miseries during adulthood. In his theory, Seligman took a cognitive perspective in identifying how depression occurs in adult.

5) Hans Selye and his discovery of ‘stress’ in March, 1978. Selye applied a theory from physics to human to see how human body reacts to threatening situations and found out the roles of stress in illness, mood, and performance. In my opinion, this is the most important discovery made in the century since people nowadays have to deal with stress almost every waking moment in their lives, and that Selye’s neuroscience perspective on stress helped us learn to cope with stress and other threats in our lives.

B I G I S S U E

A sample of a survey about our perspective on rationality/irrationality, satbility/change, and Nature/nurture have been distributed in class today, and its results after going through a calculation will indicate what kind of person am I, a pessimist, an optimist, a rationalist, or a dreamer? My results showed that I am in the middle between being rational and irrational, as well as between preferring changes and stability, and that I slightly agree on the subject that society shapes behaviors of people. After reviewing the questions and comparing it with the categories and the scores I get, I found that questions are somewhat relative to the purpose of the survey and my characteristics and perspective is well described by the results.
However, I believe that the results of this survey could be made more accurate by extending the length and variety of questions. Moreover, it could be applied to cover other kids of subject besides rationality, stability, and nature/nurture.

WHY we do WHAT we do?

Scientists have spent decades since the beginning of psychology to answer the question of why do we behave like we are today, and they came up with different theories based on their different perspectives and ways of research. A behaviorist might say that behaviors of an individual are shaped by his/her past experience of the consequence of that behavior(rewards or punishment) While a psychoanalyst says that our behaviors are motivated by means of survivals and desires. Others might say that we act according to our environment and people around us, or from examples. Some might say that our behaviors are inherited. In other words, it is our genetic differences that shape our behaviors. However, this question has not yet has a solid and correct answer to it.

my MOTIVATIONS of studying PSYCHOLOGY

Curiosity can be claimed to be one of the major reasons why I chose to study Psychology for that I have always wonder what makes people around me, or even myself, behave as we are today, and why does each and every one of us has a different personality. I believe that by studying how our behaviors are affected by our cognitive processes, chemical reactions, and/or disorders will bring me to a conclusion of why we act in such ways. Moreover, it would enable me to be able to cope with situations or problems that I might have to face in the future by applying what I have learned to my everyday life, and this might be a help to others that are troubled too. In addition, for every individual in this world has a different personality, I would be easier to deal with different kinds of people using the knowledge I gained from the class.