Wow, people are crazy…

I was reading a post about some man that put his child in the microwave, and from what I read I had to take a look at the article myself in order to believe it. Apparently this man called police saying that he burned his daughter after he tripped while carrying hot water, and it wasn’t until later that he told police he put “his daughter in the microwave because he was under stress”. First of all, putting a child in a microwave because you’re under stress is not an acceptable excuse. Second, there is something suspicious going on if he lied to the cops in the beginning, maybe he meant to put his daughter in the microwave? Third, if the little girls mother is defending the father, then something is probably wrong with her as well, if not maybe she was a part of the whole incident. Maybe they both agreed to kill the baby until after 10-20 seconds of watching their baby burn in a microwave they realized how %@&#$ up they were. Also, it says something about both the man and the woman’s lack of responsibility if they have a child at such a young age, then put it in a microwave. Perhaps they couldn’t handle the responsibility of a child, and at least one of them decided that the best choice was to microwave the 2 month old girl. I don’t know what other messed up explanations there could be for these actions, but none of them justify what happened to the helpless infant. I think that the father should absolutely spend life in prison, and if the mother is defending him then she should go to prison too. If the mother doesn’t go to prison then the least that should be done is the little girl should be placed into different custody. I don’t know what else to say except that these people are absolutely crazy.

Behaviorism

Several classes ago we discussed behaviorism as the study of cause and effect. This is when we tried to have one person perform a task simply by giving that person positive reinforcement for actions that were part of the overall task (Nate doing the tango). During this class we also talked about how free will  played a role in behaviorism.

What I wanted to talk about was how behaviorism will be different on an individual basis as well as between species, and how I think it has  a lot to do with intelligence level. To explain what I mean, think about training a dog. Everybody that has trained a dog knows that if you want your dog to learn to sit, you say sit, you push it’s butt to the ground, and you use positive reinforcement in the form of treats. However, if you were to try and train a person in a similar fashion, you might be able to succeed, but the chances are the person will not become a ‘pet’ simply for a treat. A person will realize that they do not necessarily need the treat (unless they are starving to death, which is the only case in which this particular argument would not work) despite the fact that they might want it. On the other hand, a dog will sit for a treat anytime you ask. In fact after you have taught a dog that he will receive a treat for sitting, he will sit for you repeatedly without being rewarded with any treat at all. If the dog had a higher level of intelligence it would not take him long to realize that the treat was only being used to make him do what you wanted, which is why a person (or most people, depending on how smart they are) would be able to figure that out. I would be willing to bet that the same concept holds true for almost any animal, and you can probably predict how fast each animal will realize this depending upon their level of intelligence.

Conformity

    Last class we talked about conformity, and the fact that everybody conforms to society in some way or another. I actually found this discussion interesting because I do not necessarily agree with everything we discussed. For example, the idea that driving on the right side of the road can be classified as conformity is not something I would necessarily agree with. However, a definition says that “Conformity can have either good or bad effects on people, from driving safely on the correct side of the road, to harmful drug or alcohol abuse”. So I cannot exactly argue the fact that driving on one side of the road is in a way conforming, however, I think that when your talking about conformity in a social aspect, driving on one side of the road and going to school are really just rules that children in America have no choice but to follow. I think that it is unfair to call it conformity when the only choice we have is to drive on one side of the road or get arrested. If there were a third choice, perhaps I would take it, but there isnt… so I’m not conforming to driving on the right side of the road, instead I’m keeping myself out of the way of the laws that our society has placed upon each of us for being born in America. I believe conformity has something to do with choice, and in this case, there is no choice because I cannot be an exception from the law, and if you break the law then things are not going to go well for you. What I’m trying to say is I have the option of breaking laws and going to jail, but everybody knows how horrible jail is, and so really I’ve been born into a society where I can’t do whatever I want because there were rules and laws that I had no part in making because they were created long before I even existed. In a way I am conforming, yes, but it isn’t my choice, and if it was, then I wouldn’t conform.

That’s a little confusing, but its hard to put the words together to make my argument.

 Anyways I found this quote online talking about conformity, and I think its a good example of what I believe conformity is. “The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive – a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence.  The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society – a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself…. The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question”. This quote is a little confusing but what it basically says is that people have created the idea of God, whom we are supposed to have faith in despite the fact that his/her/its existence is totally based upon each individuals beliefs. And people have created rules/laws which come from the government that we, as a society, have created, and which we have no choice but to follow. I believe that this helps to explain why I believe conformity should be based on and defined by choice. For example, here it explains that most people believe in God, and despite the fact that we spend time, money, and effort worshiping God, people at least have the choice of believing in a God. On the other hand, society has created a government which we have no choice but to obey. Therefore, I would classify belief in God as a conformity, while I would classify following the laws as more of a guideline that people must follow.

Alfred Adler post 1

I dunno how, but I deleted this post a while ago. It was posted on time, and I even have an e-mail asking me to approve a comment that Alex made on it, but I was looking over my posts today and it wasn’t there. Luckily I had it in a word document so I’m putting it back up…

            Alfred Adler has very logical ways of analyzing people, and their situations, and despite the fact that his theories can help many people understand why they are they way they are, they are not guaranteed to hold true for everybody.

            Alfred’s theory of Individual Psychology came to him through his curiosity of people who are able to overcome tremendous flaws, difficulties, and problems seemingly through their own will power. The example that Dr. George C. Boeree uses is Teddy Roosevelt who was actually a very sickly child, yet Teddy somehow managed to overcome his troubles and become tremendously successful simply by keeping his head up, his spirits high, and his work ethic strong. But Adler was curious about the thought of everybody having the ability to do the same thing, and that’s where he developed his theory from.

            As Adler developed his theories, he came up with the idea of teleology in which people are drawn towards their goals and ambitions rather than pushed forward by their failures and successes. As Dr. Boeree puts it, “Adler sees motivation as a matter of moving towards the future, rather than being driven, mechanistically, by the past”. The cool part about this theory is that it means people can change what they are doing and where they are going, rather than being completely influenced by what has already happened in the past.

            In Adler’s mind, the reason a persons personality development can go wrong is that person has a feeling of inferiority. If a person has such a feeling where they think they are weak, stupid, short, or even a physical inferiority such as height, weight, strength, then people will try to make up for their inferiorities through compensation. This inferiority causes people to think too much about themselves, and not about others because “if you are moving along, doing well, feeling competent, you can afford to think of others. If you are not, if life is getting the best of you, then your attentions become increasingly focussed on yourself”.

            Aside from Adler’s basic ideas which I explained above, there is one interesting fact that I think you all should know. That is “Adler must be credited as the first theorist to include not only a child’s mother and father and other adults as early influence on the child, but the child’s brothers and sisters as well. His consideration of the effects of siblings and the order in which they were born is probably what Adler is best-known for”. Adler was the one who made the connections between only children and a pampered good life, the first child feeling rejected as the second child comes along, and the second child starting competition to overcome the first child. His ideas are interesting, and I can think of several cases in which they hold true for people I know. Below I put the list of Birth Order theories which Adler created so you can all take a look and see if any apply to your families.

 

The only child is more likely than others to be pampered, with all the ill results we’ve discussed. After all, the parents of the only child have put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and are more likely to take special care — sometimes anxiety-filled care — of their pride and joy. If the parents are abusive, on the other hand, the only child will have to bear that abuse alone.

The first child begins life as an only child, with all the attention to him- or herself. Sadly, just as things are getting comfortable, the second child arrives and “dethrones” the first. At first, the child may battle for his or her lost position. He or she might try acting like the baby — after all, it seems to work for the baby! — only to be rebuffed and told to grow up. Some become disobedient and rebellious, others sullen and withdrawn. Adler believes that first children are more likely than any other to become problem children. More positively, first children are often precocious. They tend to be relatively solitary and more conservative than the other children in the family.

The second child is in a very different situation: He or she has the first child as a sort of “pace-setter,” and tends to become quite competitive, constantly trying to surpass the older child. They often succeed, but many feel as if the race is never done, and they tend to dream of constant running without getting anywhere. Other “middle” children will tend to be similar to the second child, although each may focus on a different “competitor.”

The youngest child is likely to be the most pampered in a family with more than one child. After all, he or she is the only one who is never dethroned! And so youngest children are the second most likely source of problem children, just behind first children. On the other hand, the youngest may also feel incredible inferiority, with everyone older and “therefore” superior. But, with all those “pace-setters” ahead, the youngest can also be driven to exceed all of them.

Alfred Adler post 2

    There are definitely many examples I could give to show how Adler’s theories are applicable to my life or people I know in the real world today.

One example is a person I was really good friends with for a while (I’m not going to mention his name), but I believe this person displays a certain degree of Napoleon complex, which is “a colloquial term describing an alleged type of inferiority complex which is said to affect some people who are physically short”. Adler’s theories concerning inferiority complexes describe something called compensation, where people try to make up for their particular inferiority in one way or another. This person that I know tries to make himself seem better and bigger than everybody else in almost any situation, even in situations where there is no type of competition or attack in any way on his physical height and size. This is pretty much what the Napoleon complex is recognized as, and I believe that Adler’s theories of inferiority and compensation are both fairly accurate in this particular case.

One of Adler’s theories tries to explain that birth order can have an impact on the way a person will turn out. One of these describes “the only child“, who is “more likely than others to be pampered… After all, the parents of the only child have put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and are more likely to take special care — sometimes anxiety-filled care — of their pride and joy”. In this case I will once again keep the name of the person anonymous, however I fully believe that Adler’s theory holds true. This person I know is an only child who’s parents tried to have a child for many years and finally did. Today, this person is given practically anything she wants, and her parents pamper and care for her, even displaying the “anxiety-filled care” which Adler described. One time when this person was going to come skiing in VT with my family for two days, her parents were crying and almost scared to let her out of their sight for that long (remember this person was 16 at the time), and after one night, her parents actually came to pick her up. Although I believe that this pampering will have a negative effect on this person in the future, I cannot say for sure because she is still in high school and not in the real world yet. Still, I believe that Adler made a good prediction saying that “the pampered child fails in two ways: First, she doesn’t learn to do for herself, and discovers later that she is truly inferior; And secondly, she doesn’t learn any other way to deal with others than the giving of commands. And society responds to pampered people in only one way: hatred.” I know that sounds pretty harsh, but the truth is people get annoyed with pampered children…that’s why terms like “spoiled” and “spoiled rich” have such negative connotations.

A third place that Adler’s theories are apparent can be applied to almost every male I know. Adler called it “Masculine Protest” where he believed most cultures had a tendency to believe that “Boys were held in higher esteem than girls. Boys wanted, often desperately, to be thought of as strong, aggressive, in control — i.e. ‘masculine’ — and not weak, passive, or dependent — i.e. ‘feminine.’ The point, of course, was that men are somehow basically better than women.” Although our society gives women full rights today, the rest of what Adler believed seems to hold some truth still. Today many boys and men can look at a slightly more ‘feminine’ boy or man and immediately call him gay. Although most of us know that not every feminine man is gay, and there are extremely masculine gay people, this is an assumption that many of us make. Also, the fact that after 43 presidencies Hilary Clinton has come closer to becoming president than any other woman, may say something about the fact that our society would feel uncomfortable with a woman leading the country. I’m not saying that this “masculine protest” is the reason that there has not been a woman president, but does it make sense that there have been 43 men who have been capable of being president (some of them doing a terrible job at it), yet there has not been one woman who was equally, if not more so, capable? I think that our country is a little nervous to put a woman up front to lead us, and so I can give some support to Adler once again.

Link to posted comment

I dunno exactly how I’m supposed to be doing this, but I made a comment on Mr. Beardsley’s blog so this is the link to it.

Simpsons + Freud

I watched an episode of the Simpsons the other day in which Lisa’s superego and ego have a tough little battle to fight out on the spot. In the episode, Lisa helps Mr. Burns to overcome his debt through recycling. Unfortunately Mr. Burns gets caught up in the thought of money that he becomes not-so-environmentally-friendly. After Lisa becomes angry that she was unable to change Mr. Burns, he comes to her with a check for 10% of the 120 million dollars he received upon selling his recycling plant. Although Lisa’s ego immediately tells her to take the 12 million dollars, her superego steps up and makes her think again. In the end, the values that had been stressed upon Lisa throughout her life caused her to reject the 12 million dollars and indirectly caused Homer to have several heart attacks. This is a good example of how the superego would act in a person who values their morals, like Lisa, but I think it would be interesting to see a situation like that in the real world because I doubt many people would reject the money.