final post - signing off :)

Well guys, this semester is finally over and this will be the last y'all will ever hear from me...lol ;)
Anyways, this read is just over how this semester of class has shown me how psychology really does have affects on my life. So basically it's an overview of what we have learned and how we applied it over the past couple of months :)

Let me start with Module 1 which was weeks 1 & 2. During these two weeks, we wrote 2 blogs which one was over ourself and the other was over a branch of psychology that sparked our interest. Obviously the first blog being about ourself was hands down probably the easiest, but on the flip side very hard because I had never blogged in my life before. Once I started writing, I found it really easy to just sit down and speak my mind because not having to worry about having to follow certain criteria helped a bunch. Now when we had to comment on other classmates blogs, thats where it got tricky. Of course no one wants to go and comment on a stranger's blog then see them the next day in class... but ya know that changed real quick ;) The blog we wrote during week 2, we were able to choose a branch of psychology that interested us the most. I decided to choose clinical psychology which I definitely did some research and y'all can go read that blog here and knock yourselves out ;) You'll see in that blog I talk about Kay Redfield Jamison and how she helped many people with bipolar disorder, which really just amazed me considering she was working and doing research over her own disorder. Writing that blog really opened my eyes to see how it will help me in the future.

Now we get into module 2 which contains weeks 3 &4 which is all about brain, sensation, and perception. We had a couple of choices to choose from, so I chose the experiment that had to do with brain stimuli and I had my friend Malia test it out. You can go and watch the video here and laugh all you want because its actually pretty funny...lol. In these two weeks, they included how the brain works and behaved which was one of my blog's topic and it mainly talked about neuroplasticity and how the two videos I watched incorporated that topic. In there I talked about Dr. Laura Boyd's Tedx Talk and how long and short term effects on the brain work. The video over Nico and Brooke that Dr. Selvaraj provided for us was amazing. I thought it was truly moving to see that two boys both lived without half a brain and how they still functioned. For week 4, I wrote my blog all about optical illusions and the whole blue/black versus white/gold dress phenomenon, which of course just messed with my brain but I definitely see blue and black ;) While reading up on this craze, the quote from neuroscientist Jay Neitz really stuck out to me because he studied individual color difference in vision for 30 years and the dress picture was the biggest individual difference he had ever seen.

On to module 3 containing weeks 5 & 6 on the topics of developmental psychology and personality. Our task for M3 was another one where we had a couple options to choose from and I chose telling my story from past, present, to the future. Through this task, I made a poster board (or for some of you know, not actual poster board ;). It was over how my life has been in the past, now in the present, and how I want my future to look through applying developmental psychology. We talked about human development and personality and the psychological side of things effects these aspects. In my blog called human growth and development, I watched the TedTalk by Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris and how drama can affect a child and their health growing up. I really enjoyed watching this talk specifically because it really hit home. I realized that I am so grateful for the woman I get to call my mom and just noticing how strong she is, is purely awesome. In the personality aspect, we had talked in class about how everyone has a different personality and how it can really affect the person you are and the person you become. So I wrote my blog over how I took a personality test and see if it really reflected on my personality at hand. I found this very interesting and scary to know how accurate the Big Five Factor actually is. The questions from the Big Five Factor truly hits you in spots that you wouldn't think about normally and it highly reflects on your scores, which you can see my scores in my personality blog :)

This takes us to module 4 with weeks 7 & 8 over learning and memory. Our task for this week was either over an activity to demo the behavior of learning or the behavior of memory, my task that I did in my blog was over false memories and how individuals do that. Like I said before, we talked about learning, I used the chapter 6 that Dr. Selvaraj provided for us and focused a lot on classical conditioning. I found this topic to be quite intriguing and the man that was behind it all is Ivan Pavlov. He used a dog for his example on how he conditioned the dog to respond a certain way. We also discussed memory and how we tend to not realize how intricate our brain and our memory system is. I found it very cool that a person can create false memories without even realizing it. In my task blog, I showed how my friend created a false memory by writing down a word that wasn't said but she made that word fit into that category because of its relevance. This task truly amazed me. Another thing I found interesting was that in our implicit memory we have a system and not always will we remember certain things because of our span of time we have to actually fully remember things. So one of my classmates, Madelyn Dowell (you can check her blog out by clicking on her name), her blog for this week really stuck out to me when I wanted to go in and make my comments. She did her experiment over how much use of technology and social media get out of her each day and basically trained herself like Ivan Pavlov did to the dog. She trained herself to stay more off her phone or she had the consequence of putting a quarter in a jar. I think it was a very well-thought out blog and truly was a pretty awesome read. 

For module 5, we had weeks 10 & 11 and those were over motivations, emotions, & social psychology. For our task, I had to write a blog over a story that really stuck out to me and inspired me whether it be about me, a close friend, or even over a therapist that really made a difference in my life. I wrote mine over my close friend who I called Janie, she struggled with depression and didn’t know how she could move on from it. She went years with this disorder and thought about unthinkable things along with doing them too. Though to keep it short, she was introduced to our Father and she clinged to him with everything she had left and to this day, she is one Jesus loving girl who is thankful to still be here, which this truly inspired me. When we met in class that week for discussions, we talked about the emotional side of psychology and the three different types of Theories of Emotion. I bring this up because I believe that these theories are kind of one in the same, but the one that makes the most sense to me would definitely have to be the James-Lange Theory; stimulus→ arousal→ emotion. Although I did miss the discussion over social psychology, I went and read the powerpoint given by Dr. Selvaraj and found some things that really make sense to me. Social cognition really struck my attention because its crazy how we are quick to make snap judgements about people ad how we think about how people interpret us and others. Another thing in social psychology that stuck out to me was that forming impressions is a big thing especially our non verbal ones such as, facial expressions, tone, and gestures - body language says A LOT! When going in to comment, I noticed that John's blog really spoke to me. He bragged on and on about how wonderful and inspiring his mom is and after reading his blog about her, it really just moved me. I aspire to be as great as that woman for my kids and really hope that my kids are that proud of me.

This brings me to module 6 with weeks 12 & 13 over psychological disorders and therapy. In our experimental task for the weeks we had to write this blog over how psychological disorders have affect people and for my blog I chose to interview two people who are close to my heart and I compared their disorders together. I chose my dear friend and my grandfather, both of them struggled and still do struggle with substance abuse. I found out that my grandfather and my friend had a whole lot in common with how they found their way and how their struggles were. Within the lectures we had in class, we talked pretty in depth about the different disorders like anxiety, bipolar, and depression. We got to take little tests in class to see if we could simply diagnose ourselves with GAD or depression. In class, Dr. Selvaraj passed out a simple little anxiety test to see and kind of diagnose ourselves. After taking it, yes maybe it might have not been as accurate as a normal testing for anxiety would be, but I did notice that I might have a moderate case of GAD. Now this doesn't really surprise me because I am a pretty anxious person. A fact that was in the powerpoint from that week that stood out to me was that about 300 million are affected by depression and women are double the amount of those who are men. Reading everyone’s blogs for this task was quite the read. Just seeing that everyone has someone or something in their life that is going on. This task really made me realize how grateful I am for the people in my life and really appreciative of people

Finally we had module 7 for weeks 14 & 15 which covered positive psychology. In this module task, we had quite a few choices to choose from on what we exactly wanted to do for this experimental blog; for this blog I chose to write three good things that happened in my day over a course of seven days. Let me tell ya, this really opened my eyes to seeing the good in each day over the negatives. In our class discussion over this topic, the New Theory of Well-Being really stuck out to me, it has the acronym PERMA which stands for Positive emotions, Engagement, positive Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Knowing that this is something that you can really follow is truly awesome because it can really just boost your confidence way up. During this week, the group had a task for us to go around campus and spread around positive psychology. This activity was actually really fun and just seeing the pure enjoyment on peoples faces was probably the best part. My group got to go around and hand out candy to anyone and everything while handing out compliments. This really made me feel super good inside because not only were we doing it because it was assigned to us, but we did it out of the kindness of our hearts. Dr. Selvaraj also this week made us write out what we would consider a beautiful day.  Now writing it out really opened my mind to see how beautiful that day would necessarily be. I really enjoyed that activity because it actually kind of helped my mentality that week and bettered myself, also you can go read this blog here if ya haven't already ;)

So overall, this has been such a great semester and I have loved just being able to share my stories with y'all and have y'all be apart of it. This class really showed me how psychology can really play a key role in everyday life whether it be good or bad.

Well that's all I have for y'all. I hope enjoyed the reads and hope the best fro everyone :)



xoxo, court ;)