Exploring Social Psychology - Essay Example

145653 Personality traits that could be heritable, could be known to heart, but not to reasoning and belong to unconscious information arena.Predicting behaviour or constructing memories, reconstructing past attitudes all need cognitive, biological and cultural perspectives. I have a capability of remembering names and relationships and I attribute to family heredity. But I have a poor memory when it comes to faces and this perhaps due to lack of attention. Also my ancestors being intellectual, might have considered it mundane and focused their attention on bookish theories more than day-today social interactions, of which I myself am guilty.

Some traits are far more heritable, because they were held important by earlier generations and I might have come inherited it. . As an old Chinese proverb says, "Two-thirds of what we see is behind our eyes" Myers (1994, p.24). 2. My friend Stevens may not be right in thinking that hypnosis would improve his memory, and my mother could be right when she thinks that hypnosis might help her arthritis pain from which she had been suffering for long. In my friend's case, improving the memory through hypnosis, even though it awakens a subconscious, recovered memory, it may not be reliable.

Psychotherapy and guided memory arousal might lead to false memory power. American Medical Association said: "The Council finds that recollections obtained during hypnosis can involve confabulations and pseudomemories and not only fail to be more accurate, but actually appear to be less reliable than nonhypnotic recall.1" Hence, Steven would not be very successful. My mother could be benefited by pain management. "The body of literature which has investigated whether hypnosis can reduce pain sensitivity has been overwhelmingly supportive2" 3.

Professor's memory loss could be result of loss of cognitive abilities of could be the onset of Alzheimer. Also could be the result of mental level of alertness slipping; "difficulties with age-related memory loss are likely to be quite manageable for educated elderly with reasonably good physical health, consistent medical care, high levels of activity and accessible support systems.3" Because there could be misinformation and imaginative effects, she should avoid stereotyped beliefs and stored memory in brain could be processed with effort. 4. Helen was informed that she has 40% chance of getting it and this heuristic information could lead her to conclude that she is a victim of depression.

Because it can affect her thinking process, emotional intelligence and genetic influences, she expects the worst. "A review of the literature indicates that fear of future illness shares many characteristics with a wide variety of conditions. Concepts such as hypochondriasis, adjustment disorders, generalized anxiety, and mass hysteria must be considered. Also, factors such as reporting bias, influential others, collective behavior, political groups, and litigation appear to induce symptom reporting from patients complaining of fear of illness and cancerphobia"4. 5. Antisocial personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder and schizophrenia almost touch one another and can very easily be tilted towards insanity.

Also it can lead to subtype schizophrenia, suicidal tendencies, and bipolar disorders. APD patients cannot mingle, show aggression and legal problems. They show psychiatric impairment and marginal schizophrenia which could have been caused by family history, and they dangerously walk very close to dividing line and could lead to long term ailments. "Although these data apply to antisocial men who had been psychiatrically hospitalized, we conclude that APD causes significant long-term impairment in important domains of life.

5" Dissoative identity disorder can come as a result of schizophrenia and it can lead to positive and negative symptoms of the mental sickness. One research concludes: "Since patients with dissociative identity disorder report more positive symptoms of schizophrenia than do schizophrenics, while schizophrenics report more negative symptoms, a primary emphasis on positive symptoms may result in false-positive diagnoses of schizophrenia and false-negative diagnoses of dissociative identity disorder.6" 6. Geraldo should be treated by a Behavior Therapist and not by a psychoanalyst as Myer points out while evaluating alternative therapies.

A systematic desensitization would help overcoming aversion of women, and fear of being refused/snubbed/ridiculed could be deconstructed.. Geraldo is suffering from mind-induced phobia and poor self-perception "Self-[perception theory assumes that when our attitudes are weak, we simply observe our behavior and its circumstances and infer our attitudes," Myer (2005, p.164). 7. Even though David was not completely wrong in damning the Germans for killing Jews, psychologically there exist certain contradictions.

Germans might have been influenced by mass hysteria, subtle prejudice and group mentality. Or mass obedience leading to internal altruism and external hatred. Milgram's research dwells upon consent, obedience and perception of obedience to authority. He argued that a compelling psychological pressure exerts on mind that makes disobedience almost impossible. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Myer, David G (1994), Exploring Psychology, 6th edn. Worth Publishers. 2. Myers, David G. (2005), Social Psychology, 8th edn.

, McGraw Hill companies, Boston. 3. Myers, David G. (1994), Exploring Social Psychology, McGraw Hill Inc., New York. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.fmsfonline.org/reliable.html 2. http://www.psywww.com/asc/hyp/painhypn.html 3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgicmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=1529055&dopt=citation 4. http://www.apa.org/monitor/aug98/aging.html 5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgicmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7599370&dopt=Citation 6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.

fcgicmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=7714512&dopt=Citation 7.