Category: Pop Culture
Conformity
Conformity is determined by a variety of situational and individual difference factors. Situational factors tend to increase when subjects are in groups that have been previously successful, when subjects are asked to give public responses while facing an opposition, when the stimuli are ambiguous or difficult, or when members are interdependent or unanimously opposed. Individual difference factors tend to increase when there are factors that decrease the subject’s certainty of their response or increase the subjective correctness of the group. (Back et al, 1965)
The behavior of conformity can be classified by whether someone’s behavior demonstrates a real acceptance of the norm, or whether the person is just going along with the group (Mezzacappa, 1995). The Asch conformity experiments in 1956 studied how participantswere influenced by conformity when they held an opinion that labeled them as the minority against a unanimous group opinion on unambiguous perceptual stimuli. The line judgment task in this experiment showed a standard line and comparison lines, and participants were asked to say the letter of the comparison line that matched the standard line out loud after hearing other people’s responses. Only 25% of the participants in the study gave correct answers after hearing other people’s erroneous answers. The study found that participants conformed due to either informational influence, which is the assumption that the crowd, or majority, must be correct, and the individual, or minority, must be wrong, or normative influence, which is the conformation to a crowd to avoid looking foolish. Personality characteristics relevant to deviation from norm can also be associated with conformity. Maslach (1974) and Maslach, Stapp, and Santee (1987) studied the trait of individuation and found that it is negatively correlated with conformity. Conformity behavior is also negatively correlated with intellectual achievement, perceptiveness of self, and security in social status. However, situational factors have a greater influence on conformity because individual difference factors tend to be more consistent.
~ Sophia Hon
Citations:
Back, K. W., Davis, K. E. (1965). Some personal and situational factors relevant to the consistency and prediction of conforming behavior. Sociometry, 28(3), 227-240.
Mezzacappa, E. S. (1995). Group cohesiveness, deviation, stress, and conformity.Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 55(11), 5126.
Pay attention, Millennials!
It seems like today, there isn't a single person without some type of smart phone. We look around, or more commonly, we look down at our screens, and everyone is either texting, tweeting, instagramming, or snap chatting. A short time ago, we had to actually have human interaction to give someone a message or to even just say hi. Now, we can Skype or Facetime and communicate with an LCD screen. That's not even the worst part. Recent studies have shown that our attention span has been rapidly decreasing because of this. On average, humans have the attention span of 8 seconds. Let me just repeat that really quick, 8 SECONDS. That is a shorter attention span than a goldfish. We cannot pay attention longer than a goldfish...
This short attention span is a huge problem in society. Children are failing to read books properly because they cannot hold their attention long enough to stay on the page. Adults cannot finish one project at a time because they get bored of it and want to move onto something else. The list goes on. So what are we going to do to stop this? We can't get rid of smart phones, which is the major cause of this loss of attention. We can't give every person Aderall, a medication used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to keep them focused, as that would be inefficient and a waste of money. However, there is one thing that people can do for themselves to help increase their attention span: meditate.
When people hear the word mediation, they usually picture a person sitting on the floor with their eyes closed, their thumb and middle fingers touching, making the 'om' sound. Yes, this is one way to meditate, but what many people don't know is that there is a variety of other ways to meditate and be mindful. All you have to do is focus; pay attention to your thoughts and feelings in the current moment. I know that in today's society, asking someone to focus and pay attention is a very big request, but everyone is capabile of this, even if it's only for 8 seconds. The key to this is to do it a few times a day and increase your time spent meditating as each day passes. There have been countless studies done on mediation and attention. It has been proven that meditating at least once a day increases your attention span and improves many other things. How does meditation do this? Meditating every day increases cortical thickness in the brain. This has been proven through brain imaging before and after subjects went through different meditation programs. This increase in cortex leads to an increase in attention, which ultimately leads to better memory. When we are able to hold our attention longer, we retain more information so, simply put, we are able to remember more stuff.
There are so many positive effects of meditation. Not only does it lead to an increase in attention and memory, but it also reduces stress levels, increases relaxation levels, increases energy levels, decreases respiratory rate, increases blood flow, and so much more. Meditation definitely has the possibility of solving society's attention problem and so many more problems, but only if people take the short amount of time out of their day to do it.
-Gianna Absi
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11607315/Humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smartphones.html (ARTICLE ON ATTENTION SPAN)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361002/ (ARTICLE ON CORTICAL THICKNESS)
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/GeneralGeriatrics/34269 (ARTICLE ON BETTER MEMORY)
http://www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/2008/05/100-benefits-of-meditation/ (BENEFITS OF MEDITATION)
Music: More than Just Entertainment
What is music? It's something I listen to when I want to relax or when I want to focus. If I'm missing home, I listen to Bollywood. When it's Christmas, I listen to carols, both classic and modern. So clearly, I think of music as a source of entertainment. In fact, in both ancient and modern times, music has been a key component of celebrations, like weddings and cultural events. Interestingly, scientific research on music and the brain has shown that music has more benefits than entertainment alone.
Video Games Can Read Your Emotions
Using technology similar to that found in a lie detector, Corey McCall, a Stanford University doctoral candidate, is creating a video game controller that registers signals about a players respiration, pulse, and perspiration. In Gregory Kovacs’s lab, in association with Texas Instruments, a prototype was constructed.
As a player gets more excited, all of signals the device registers change. Consider physical activity or watching an interesting movie, surprising these have similar autonomous nervous responses. As your interest or involvement increases your respiration rate decreases, pulse increases, and perspiration increases.
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A Bad Joke Won’t Fool The Brain
I think I'm funny. Some people say I'm funny. But when the moment presents itself where its my time to shine, all lights on me, this 'one' is going to be a knee slapper...nope, not so much. The first time I realized I wasn't funny was in the eleventh grade in my calculus class. My teacher's name was Mr. Butke and he easily is ranked in my top 3 'all-time' of the math professors I've encountered in my lifetime. He had a mustache that covered his mouth and you never knew whether he was smiling, smirking, or grimacing at you. It kept you guessing, I liked that. He also presented stories of how he slayed cobras in Kenyan villages while pursuing a multi-purpose cure for malaria, encephalitis' of sorts, and maybe AIDS. Bottom line, he was memorable and his stage presence resonated with my classmates and I.
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New Study Shows Lack of Sleep Leads to Permanent Brain Damage
We all know that sleep is one of the best ways to restore our body. For example, when we become sick, we just lie in bed and sleep all day; or after a long day bustling between class, the gym, meetings, and extracurricular activities, our body yearns to fall into a deep slumber to restore itself to its peak state. Recently, it was published that the reason sleep is so restorative is because while we sleep, cerebrospinal fluid flows more efficiently through the brain, essentially “clearing” the brain of any metabolic waste products that build up during the day (for more on this, refer to the December 9th blog post). However, just as we all understand that great feeling of satisfaction that comes after the so rarely obtained 8-9 hour sleep cycle (yes, young college-aged adults should ideally be getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night), we also can all relate to the groggy, confused, cognitively impaired state that comes after the all-night cramming and three hours of sleep, and before the double espresso from Starbucks. Until recently, this chronic state of unrest considered normal by college students, shift workers, and truck drivers, wasn’t thought to have any long lasting damage; it was considered common knowledge that catching up on sleep during weekends or vacations made up for the hours of sleep lost during finals week. However, a new study published on March 18th in the Journal of Neuroscience refutes this; the study, out of University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, shows that chronic sleep loss may be much more destructive than previously thought, leading to permanent cell damage and neuronal death.
Spritz: The Faster Speed Reader Technique
How many times have you not completed the reading assignment for you systems physiology class because you ran out of time? How many times have you attempted to use speed reading techniques like not subvocalizing, or talking to yourself as you read? A new Boston-based start-up claims to have solved the ‘slow reader’ problem and promises 600 words per minute for all.
One must be skeptical when approaching the front line technologies, as it is easy to be convinced that people have invented what you desire. For instance, when Tony Hawk promotes a brand “hoverboard” technology, Back to the Future fans went berserk. However, Spritz is a bit more open about the actual science behind their product.
What’s the deal with kissing?
A new take on kissing...
It would make sense for kissing to be favorable for evolution if it led to increased arousal and consequently a greater inclination to have sex. When a (heterosexual) couple is kissing, testosterone can pass from the man’s mouth to the woman’s, which may make her more receptive to sex (and the passing on of their genes). But it turns out that though people certainly kiss when they’re aroused, there’s not much evidence to suggest that it works the other way around, where kissing causes arousal. And though some other species such as bonobo monkeys also kiss, it doesn’t have quite the same association with sex as it does for other humans. This suggests that there are other factors at play than just the initiation of play time.
Man’s Best Friend: Baco
As an international student living in the U.S., one always misses their native country. Whether it be the food, the house, the parents or the friends, homesickness is a normal feeling. As strange as it may seem, my dog Baco is who I miss the most. Baco is a 3-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback. For those non-dog lovers out there, a Rhodesian Ridgeback is quite frankly the most beautiful, loyal breed of dog (no exaggeration). Baco has been like my fourth brother ever since my actual brother brought him home as a puppy. Together with my brother, we raised him since he was no more than 5 kilos (that is about 11 pounds for those who do not understand the metric system). Today, Baco stands at about 66 cm tall (about 2 feet) and weighs about 34 kilos (75 pounds). You might be wondering why I am bragging about how great my dog is in a neuroscience blog. Well, in the past few years, some very interesting research about the canine brain has been done...
I have always wondered if Baco truly loves me or if he just acts as though he loved me in order to get food. Like me, I imagine there are millions of dog owners who may ask themselves the same question. Interestingly enough, one such dog owner is recognized neuroeconomist and neuroscientist, Gregory S. Berns. Professor Berns and his team have been studying the dog brain for a while now, and there research has been nothing short of extraordinary. I found out about this research by reading Berns´ book, "How Dogs Love Us." Of course I want everyone who reads this article to read that book so I will try not to spoil it for you.
Pregnant Women Fit Between Everyday Obstacles
Pregnancy is...? This sentence can end in a multitude of ways depending on whose answering the question. If I ask the 'teen-mom-too-good-to-be-true-seventeen year-old-boyfriend' who isn't worried about nothing, then he'd probably say...well I would've asked but he just stormed off in his 92' Bronco. You know, the one with the flames on the side? If I ask the nervous husband who has been day dreaming of becoming that perfect family man ever since he got into the relationship, then he'd probably say: If it's a girl, I will be the dragon that protects my princess' castle. If I ask the soon-to-be-BIG-brother whose busy doing doughnuts in his fisher price corvette yelling "look mom, no hands," he'd probably say: This doesn't change the cookie rations, does it? And finally if I ask the pregnant mother-to-be if she thinks she's gained weight what she's praying for, she'd probably say: Just not your father's personality, PLEASE, not your father's personality.
Pregnancy is engaging. It brings together families, can tear relationships apart, and creates changes in the daily routine. Most notable is women's change in body size. Bodily size and the awareness of that size can create multiple obstacles. Typically, pregnant women are thought to be inhibited in their ability to adapt to these obstacles, however, pregnant women are just as capable as non-pregnant individuals. Today, we'll discuss their ability to asses depth perception and whether or not they can fit through openings such as doorways. Thanks to perceptual-motor-recalibration, pregnant women are just as good at adjusting their spatial awareness of their environment to match their constantly changing bodies.
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