how do stereotypes changes our views of world?

First of all, we should know what is stereotype. The definition of stereotype in psychological way is no more likely the way people think is in general. Stereotype is the way how people view a group of people or a thing base on the experiences before either limited information we have known before. Stereotype can be uses on a helpful way either on a nasty way. Somehow, people use stereotypes to view out-groups differently base on race, gender and so on. As explicit discrimination has receded in the last 2 decades; in the elevation of an African-American to the Presidency, a woman to the House speakership and a black woman to the galactic dominance known as being Oprah Winfrey… Overall, it has brought up a question to psychologist: Is discrimination is less powerful? How to explain the phenomena that some groups in society continue to fare wores than others? Has bias merely become better hidden, or there is something else?

       One theory has been discovered from it among sociologists called Stereotype Threat. So what is Stereotype Threat? Is that the force work among those groups of people to feel worse? It has shown that stereotype threat is that some members of stigmatized groups, when faced with stressful situations, expect themselves to do worse – a prophecy (foreshadowing) that fulfills itself.

       Stereotype effect our judgement of first impression when we meet strangers. we are biased by the information form the first impression, it has called as confirmation- bias.  People form impression very fast; because we don't need to see much of a person to get a fairly accurate picture of who they are, it is called as Thin slices.  

      Of course, we might wonder what actually helped us form the impression.  What are the effect of being perceive in a certain way? From the experiment of Pygmalion Effect by Rosenthal and Jackson, we got know that expectation really matter. The purpose of the experiment was support that hypothsis that reality can be influenced by the expectation of others.  

error of attribution

1. What is the difference between dispositional factors and situational factors?

     A situational factor would be things outside once immediate control, eg, the enviornment, the actions of a person they dont know, or it could even be like the equipment one uses. For example: Floods happen close to your hometown. you would feel fear and sadness, fear if the flood will continue moving to your town. sadness for the neighbor town's  damage.

     Dispositional factor has to do with a person ( internal) impact like an action or even that changed you or affected you psychologically. For example: you have been bited by an  dog when you were little, then once you grown up, but the fear of dog will never disappear, because you have such experiment tells you dog is dangerous.

 

2. Explain and give an example of the fundamental error of attribution.

     The fundamental attribution error happens all the time in our lives.  It happens when we are estimating someone we dont really know by some of the behavior or clue we perceive from that person. For example: when people are driving the cars, out of sudden an driver drive rashly and cut line infront of you  without any warn. Then you would be mad at that driver and give a bad impression to him/her, because he is rude and stupid to cut the line infront of you without any warn. Or, you would think maybe he/ she has something really important that she/he forgot the rule and that is more understandable.

3. Explain and give an example of the self-serving-bias error of attribution.

    A self-serving bias is when a person describes their own behavior and tend to choose attributions that are favorable to themselves. Which means that people like to take credit for their good actions and let the situation account for their bad actions. For example:  I did not do well on the mock exam, if you ask me why i didnt do well? I would blame for some external conditions immediately, like: it was too noisy out there, or i did not sleep well, i was ill. but I wont say, i did not do well because im stupid nor i m a bad student. That is Self-serving- bias.

4. Explain two possible explanations for these errors.

  people are having the  fundamental attribution error is because we are judging or complimenting someone by the first impression and we dont think any deeply.

   But on the self-serving- bias, people are always trying to get compliment from the others when they have done something right because  they feel good about themselves, but people usually dont want take responsibility when they make mistakes, so people would let the situation account for their mistakes but not themselves.

5. What does the study by Miyamoto and Kitayama tell us about cultural differences in attribution errors?

    it tells us that people from individualist cultures are more inclined to make fundamental- attribution error hat people from collectivist culture. And the research suggest that individualist cultures engage in self-serving bias more than do collectivist cultures

The week for psychology

Asch’s studies of conformity (1956)

Your assignment is to choose two of the studies listed above, research them in detail and write a brief summary about each.  Your summaries should include:

• the aim of the study
• the basic method of the study
• the results
• the conclusions
• strengths and limitations
• ethical concerns

Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment (1971)
  This is a most controversial experiment even now.  Phil Zimbardo and his colleagues started this experiment on August 17, 1971.Zimbardo choose 24 healthy and most psychologically stable college students by paying 15 dollar per day as volunteers.  It suppose  be an experiment last 1-2 weeks, but it did not last long- 6 days only exact. Zimbardo was forced to pull the plug because of the disturbing behavior from guards and negative reactions from the prisoners. The aim of the study was to explore the psychology of prison life and what kind of situation are affecting people's behavior- to make miserable .
the method in this study was quite simple: the 24 male were randomly assigned to 2 groups, which were prison guards(12), and Prisoners(12). The guard were given power to deliver punishments as they saw necessary, they also had to wore sunglasses to prevent any eye contact and wore the army clothes just like real guard. Prisoners wore dirty and uncomfortable prisoner clothes. They also wore chains around their ankles to remind them of their powerlessness.

but the results were unexpected : at the first few days, guards were abusing their power in a horrific way, and those prisoners were violently abused and humiliated on a regular basis. These normal healthy students were turning into monster in less than 72 hours. The experiment was totally out of control before Zimbardo's attention.  At the second day, the riot broke out, some guards used fired extinguishers to batter protesters- when the research team werent around.  Those guards became wild, unpredictable violent and sadistic.
At the same time, within 36 hours since the experiment started, one of the prisoners started to show signs of insanity.( began react crazy, to scream , to curse. and he was really suffering and regretted, and wanted to be released.)

the conclude of this study support the idea of situational attribution, rather than dis-positional attribution.
means it was the situation that turned the guards to become sadistic and violent, not their personalities.
Also, this study is used to support the cognitive Dissonance Theory.

However, it has always been a controversial experiment event, because as doing the study, should not give any harm nor psychologically issues. But we can see almost all people involved got mental disturbance, which is highly unethical!  It should least protect the safety of the participants.

trait theory of personality

In psychology, Trait theory is a major approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion.

Trait Theory:
cardinal Trait : the trait that dominate a person for life long. eg. Christ-like, Don Juan.


Central Traits : General characteristics that form the basic foundations of personality.  And the central traits, are the major characteristics you might use to describe another person. ( eg. honest, intelligent. shy)

Secondary Traits: the traits that reveal on attitudes or preference sometimes, and often appear only in certain situations or some specific circumstances.

when do we need help from placebo ...

        A placebo is a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other condition intended to deceive the recipients. sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect.
in the medical research, placebos are given as control treatments and depend on the use of measured deception. Placebos are mostly using to replace painkiller or depression treatment.
i believe using placebos are totally  ethical. on the way it is good for the patients, if the placebos are working well on them, they will avoid any side affect from the real pain pills.
it is important to note that " deception is not a necessary part of the placebo effect, doctor can tell people that the treatment might benefit them and that is not a lie" doctors are doing that to benefit this society.

The Placebo Effect

       A placebo has been defined as " a substance or procedure that is objectively without specific activity for t     he condition being treated"
when patient feels improvement in health without an actual treatment, that calls Placebo Effect.
and we wonder what is actually making us feel better without any treatment but pieces of sugar pills?
the answer is our beliefs. From article- Just A Sugar Pill, we got know that every mental process is represented in the brain. A placebo can not makes you feel better unless your brain tell you so.  Therefore, while you think you are taking the right medicine, your brain already make the decision that you must feel better after the medicine, even though none of you nor your brain know it is just a sugar pill, and that is how placebo effect works.  Anyway, there are two positive placebo effect calls : 1. Inert Placebo 2.  Active Placebo .  For Inert Placebos are  those really devoid  of action, be it pharmacological, surgical... For Active Placebos are those that actually have actions, although these actions are not relevantly specific to the disease for which they are administrated.  however, there are also some issues about placebo. for example, there is a negative effect called Nocebo Effect,  when patients report that they are getting worse or that unpleasant sude-effects has occurred, Nocebe is a word derived from the Latin nocere, meaning inflicting damage. it often happens when the patients don't believe the medicine works well on them. 
nevertheless, scientists have made many experiments, afterward they found out all they are about Subject- expectancy Effect.  that occurs in experiments or medical treatment, when a research subject or patientexpects a given result and therefore unconsciously affects the outcome, or reports the expected result. Because this effect can significantly bias the results of experiments (especially on human subjects). 

PTSD treatments

* CBT( Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)


     1. Explain the process of the treatment...
        this therapy helps to solve 2 main issues from PTSD
      - Cognition ( thinking): because of PTSD, patients minds have being trapped in a cycle, that makes they think that they can not ever get rid of it. The cognitive part of CBT break down these harmful thought patterns to helps patients feel free again.
     - Behavior( acting）:  this part of CBT helps patients to spot and correct these behavior( PTSD)  and to replace them with behaviors that work for you.


     2. How does it work????
          CBT helps patients to make sense of overwhelming problem, by breaking them apart .
          then they will see how does those thing affect you.
         by watching your :
                                   Thoughts
                                    Emotions
                                   Physical feelings
                                      Actions



* Medicine treatment ( drug treatment)


   1. the process of the treatment :
    A type of drug known as Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a type of antidepressant medicine. These can help patient relief their painic 
emotion  . They appear to be helpful, and for some people they are very effective. SSRIs include citalopram (Celexa), fluoxetine (such as Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), and sertraline (Zoloft).
Stop a crisis from escalating, for example, medications can help patient regain control when they are suicidal, unable to workk, or in danger of hurting other people.Work fast,  reduce your anxiety   


2 how does that works for PSTD


       doctor uses some kind of medicine to comfort some in serious illness  patient to help them control their emotion.
   


   how to combine these 2 treatment together??


it is helpful if the doctor use both for the patient who has serious PSTD. because they need medication to make them feel better, then the doctor can use CBT to release their pain.


 but for some not that serious PSTD, CBT is just fine, to help.