What kind of learner do you think you are: visual or auditory? The truth is, it does NOT matter! Studies have found that there is no true evidence that points to the existence of learning styles. Most of the time you are just tricking yourself into thinking that one learning style is better for you by trying to learn in accordance to what you believe is your learning style. Three studies done by psychologists all point to the fact that learning styles do not exist, and there is no learning style that is better than another. Joshua Cuevas and Bryan L. Dawson (2017) tested learning styles in a survey study of 204 university students. This survey consisted of questions like, “Do you spell an unfamiliar word by sounding it out or visualizing the letters?”, or “Do you give directions in words or by drawing a map?” They also read statements and asked the participants if they created an image in their head or listened to sound and pronunciation. You would expect that visual learners would focus on creating an image in their head while auditory learners would listen to the pronunciation. However, it turned out to be opposite; visual learners focused on sound while auditory learners created an image of the statement. The next study done (Massa & Mayer, 2006) tested the participants ability to learn new tasks through one’s preferred learning style: a diagram or written instruction. People who thought that they were visual learners chose to study the diagram, and people who thought they were verbalizers chose to read. The outcome turned out that neither of the groups learned the task any faster than another, therefore people just try to learn in accordance to what they think their learning style is. The last study (Kraemer, Rosenberg & Thompson-Schill 2009) looks into the brain activity. The participants consisted of eighteen right-handed people (11 are women). They were given either a picture such as a striped triangle, or words such as “orange”, “circle”, “dots.” Then, the participants had to match the next item that popped up with the one before. When a visual learners saw words, they were transforming the words into a picture, therefore the visual part of the brain was active. The opposite occurred for when verbal learners saw a picture they were translating it into words, therefore their verbal parts of the brain were active. This study shows how people mentally try and change their thinking to match it with what they believe is their learning style. These studies show us that there are no learning styles that we are constrained to because we are able to adapt to anything. Inevitably, sometimes learning styles can hurt us because they are just not fit for a certain task. For instance, problems involving creativity is better fit with intuitive thinking while problems involving probability calculations is better fit with reflective thinking. There is no way that on a statistics test a intuitive learner who uses creativity would ace the test because reflective thinking works more with problems involving with calculations. Learning styles do not actually exist because there is no good evidence. Therefore, you must transform your thinking to meet the task you are trying to complete rather than trying to change your thinking style. Anyone can use any type of learning because they are all accessible by our brains to perform certain tasks.
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By: Brienne Kelley For thousands of years, men have been categorized as being “superior” to women. This bias has been demonstrated in a variety of ways throughout different cultures around the world. One example of this is in Egalitarian Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was a movement to prove that women are fundamentally different to men, meaning that they couldn’t even be compared in the first place. This belief has been translated into modern day work settings and psychology books. That brings us to this question: are male and female brains really that different? There has been countless studies trying to find conclusive evidence of one side or the other. One study suggests that male brains connect through perception and following action while female brains communicate through analytical and intuitive processes. This is an example of a real difference between male and female brain. Of course, this isn’t strong enough evidence to excuse misogyny. Another study suggests slight differences in the processes of human brains. This gives evidence to everyone’s brain processing differently, with female brains being more similar to each other, and vice versa. The researchers of this study call these processes “mosaics” in order to visualize it more easily. Mosaics are pieces of art made out of many tiny pieces, they are often seen in churches as this form of art became very popular during the renaissance. Calling human brain processes “mosaics” could be considered a good metaphor as, like mosaics, the brain and how it functions is made up of many different pieces. There is a common belief that male brains are “more autistic” because autism is more common in men. In fact, autistic people tend to have a combination of male and female brain processes or “mosaics”. As previously stated, everyone’s brain process is unique, but specific processes are more common in men or women. That being said, a woman could definitely have some typically male brain “mosaics”, and vice versa. It may help to think of this like a spectrum of brain processes, with “male” and “female” at either end of the spectrum (but without any definitives: having “male” brain processes does not necessarily make your male). The brain and psyche is made up of many different causal influences, not just your assigned sex, meaning that mosaics are not only comprised of your gender. Psychological conditioning could also give way as to why some brains may operate more “feminine” or “masculine”. Societal rules, biases, double standards, and general sexism may be a better explanation for this rather than one’s genitals. These cultural issues need to be taken into consideration and “fixed” before anyone worries about “male” and “female” brains. Picture: geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/10/05/martian-males-and-venusian-females-are-gender-differences-rooted-in-the-brain-or-society/ Joel, D., & Fine, C. (2018, December 03). Can We Finally Stop Talking About 'Male' and 'Female' Brains? Retrieved December 10, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/male-female-brains-mosaic.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Psychology and Annie Lowenstein Do you find yourself juggling a dozen projects in various states of completion all happening at once? You’re not alone. But when you don’t know can hurt you. Having this many tasks all happening at once can lead to excess stress in your life. But through setting goals and being selective there are ways to break this cycle of stress. Many people find themsleves doing two or three projects in any given week, we may ‘abandon one’, or ‘save it for later’ as we tell ourselves but really when we do this, it turns into an uncionious load of stress that we have no control of… But wait, yes you do. It starts with our very first decision to start a project, then our brains commit something called a planning fallacy, which is a mistaken belief. The plannign fallacy states that there is a, “predisposition of humans to underestimate the time it takes to complete a thing”. What this is sayign is that as humans, we cannot accuratley estimate the amount of time something will take, so in turn we overcommit ourselves to an abundance of tasks we hcan’t complete. This priniple is so deep within us that some people can understand an d agknowldge the fallacy but still do it. It is also partly that our unconcious brain finds new things so exciting, throwing our brain for a loop where our brains reward ourselvves for starting something new because it feels so good. As humans, we are biult to crave this feeling, and can get addicted to starting new tasks. It is a form of operant conditioning: postivite reinforceent: when we add something into our lives to strengthen the goos feeling in our brains. After a while we are conditioned to crave the feeling of starting new things. But with time, naturally, the excitement will fade and your brain will lose interest in those things that we don’t toally care about. After a while they loom over us as half-completed, and nag on our brains, adding more stress. But there is a way to solve this looming crisis! Every time we There are various ways we can aviod the extra taks turning into stress. It has to do with self-affrimation and how your brain rewards itself upon completion of a task. Dr. Amabile, who studies the impacts of daily events on ones productivity and work life, found in a study that participants that the most impactful events in productivity were the small progresses, or “micro progresses” that kept participants interested in a project. With these tips, you can keep yourself true to the projects you care about, and lave behind those that aren’t of interest to you. First, figure out what sucess really is to you in the thing you want to begin, and set goals for yourself. Because when we fail to reach a standard that is unreasonable it makes us lose interest in that thing. Next, learn how to “Count the full cost”. This means that when we want to start a new task and try to think about the time it will take to complete, multipy that time by three. It seems to be a lot but has been found to be accurate in making realisic time estimates. To-do lists are also very helful, this can be considered “micro progress”… When you check off the items on your list, there is a chemical reward released into your brain and it is encouraging for your brain to keep biulding off of those small accomplishemnts. Lastly, know when you give up: Set a cutoff date in your head to quit at something when or before it lingers too much and causes you stress. Our brains only have so much attention capacity so dont let something from ages ago take up that space you could use for important things. Higgs, M. M. (2018, December 04). How to Accept a Compliment - Even if It's From Yourself. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/smarter-living/how-to-accept-a-compliment.html?module=inline Herrera, T. (2018, December 10). Why You Start Things You'll Never Finish. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/09/smarter-living/why-you-start-things-youll-never-finish.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Psychology and Psychologists&action=click&contentCollection=health®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection Multitasking woman stock photos. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.shutterstock.com/search/multitasking woman Evelyn Tillinghast The basic principle goes something like this; men and women's natures can be separated into two categories. Women are better at remembering things. Men Aren't. Men are more physically impulsive and aggressive. Women aren't.
This notion has been seen in several popular books such as Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, The Male Brain, The Female Brain, and, Results at the Top: Using Gender Intelligence to Create Breakthrough Growth (which was only released last year). The concept has also been popular in scientific studies. The "Extreme Male Brain" theory of autism is where there are two basic categories for "male" and "female" brains; men are better at systemizing, women are better at empathizing, and autism just happens to be an extreme of the "male" brain. A globally published study by Madhura Ingalhalikar concluded that "male" brains are structured for perception and coordinated action, whereas "female" brains are structured to communicate analytical and intuitive processing. It also found that "male" and "female" brains start out the same, but as the individual ages, the developmental trajectories separate, resulting in wide differences during adolescence and adulthood. The only problem with these notions is that they fail to account for one thing; they assume that traditionally "male" and "female" behaviors consistently add up to create "male" and "female" brains. (There is also the whole thing with nature and nurture, but it wasn't part of the article, so I don't think I should be getting into that) In 2015, an analysis of four large data sets of brain scans showed that humans don't have a consistent set of "male behaviors" and "female behaviors." It's more a "mosaic" if you will, of features. Some are more common in men, some are more common in women. A data set of 4,860 adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health also showed that the only things men and women differed the most on were things like weight, depression, delinquency, impulsivity, gambling, involvement in housework, engagement in sports, and a femininity score. No one had solely "feminine" or "masculine" scores. So what caused this misconception? The rise of 17th-18th century egalitarianism. It created a need for scientific reasoning to explain why women were naturally "inferior," and it worked. As Londa Schiebinger put it, “Women were not to be viewed merely as inferior to men but as fundamentally different from, and thus incomparable to, men.” The same thing was done to people of color (just google scientific racism). Bottom line; although there are differences in brain and behavior, when you stop focusing on the group and start focusing on an individual, differences are going to "mix up," rather than "add up." No one falls onto an exact line with men being more "things-oriented" and women being more "people-oriented." As a matter of fact, recent studies have shown that people's self-reported tendency to empathize says nothing about how they systemize. They can gravitate to one, both, or neither, and claiming that science says that merging gender roles is unlikely due to "natural" differences is incredibly flawed reasoning. There are no "male" brains and there are no "female" brains. There are just brains. By Jack Vigue Compliments are stressful. Many of us feel awkward when we accept compliments because we don’t know what to say. We tend to deflect compliments at times because we don’t want to come off as arrogant to others. It is difficult for many people to accept compliments due to the internalized fear of boasting; this leads to the common tendency to explain away compliments. However, compliments, even from yourself, are beneficial. Acknowledging wins, even small ones, can boost motivation and mood. Positive feedback can decrease stress and better someone’s working habits. Research suggests that praise boosts motivation and improves memory for new skills. Receiving compliments and getting credit for a job well done is highly rewarding; this helps the brain accomplish more. As people stress over what to say when someone gives a compliment, keep it simple; an easy response is “thank you”. Yet, it is okay to not always receive a compliment from someone; self-recognition is still important. The feeling one has after completing a project brings great elation and happiness. To improve motivation, productivity, creativity, and mood, create a list of accomplishments rather than a to-do list. Keeping track of achievements are very helpful in our personal lives; for example, during future rough patches, we can go back to see what we can accomplish. It is also extremely important to record positive achievements because our brain tends to disregard them. Receiving compliments are important for our well being and being able to accept them is beneficial to our mood. Studies show that meaningful praise is advantageous; it helps the brain’s ability to remember and repeat new skills. However, research also shows that we tend to dwell on negativity and failures compared to positivity and accomplishments. Dr. Amabile studies the impact of daily events on one’s productivity and inner work life. They found that the small moments of progress were the most impactful in our lives. Dr. Amabile’s team also found that personal satisfaction had a stronger impact that external praise; this is if employees felt like the compliments they received didn’t connect with the work they valued. Dr. Chris Cascio, a journalism professor, studied participants and their reactions towards meaningful things. Dr. Cascio found that when participants subconsciously cared about something and then were shown messages encouraging new exercise habits had areas in their brain light up that are connected with reward and self-motivation. The area in the brain associated with reward is our dopamine pathways. Specifically, the VTA (ventral tegmental area) which is one of the principle dopamine-producing areas in the brain. Dopamine is mainly involved with our happiness. These experiments show that praise and compliments are beneficial in both our personal lives and in the workplace. Many different factors can be stressful in live: school, work, family, etc. However, this study of using compliments and praise to boost positivity is extremely helpful in life. Praising people after small or large accomplishments lead to better lives all around. This study depicts how to be comfortable with accepting compliments. Many of us are stressed about being too arrogant, but knowing how to accept a compliment can relieve a lot of stress and even promote positivity. The studies also describe how to boost motivation by being able to talk with those close to you about your accomplishments. This could mean talking with your family or friends weekly about what progress you made for that week; this can help with being comfortable about accepting praise without boasting. The ability to talk with others like teachers, family, and friends about your accomplishments with ease is beneficial. By being able to do this, interviews will be much easier because you are able to talk about your accomplishments without feeling stressed out. Also, these studies show that in the result, people who easily accept praise by others and themselves are more susceptible to being able to apprehend criticism in a constructive way. We all deserve compliments, and we all need to be able to accept them from friends, family, teachers, co-workers, and ourselves. This will benefit our lives by boosting mood, motivation, positivity, and productivity. Compliments and praise also help us keep moving forward in our lives rather than stepping back. Consider the positive effects compliments have, and take that into account the next time someone gives you a compliment. When you say “hey” to someone in the hall, give them a compliment; it will brighten their day. Learn to accept compliments, even from yourself, because you deserve them. Articles Used: (NYT article)
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Ms. Carrigan's Psych ClassWe have been reading articles about psychological studies to inform the way we live our lives. Please explore, and we hope you learn a bit about the psychology in your life! Categories
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