Drug Use

Addiction has become a rapidly growing epidemic throughout America. Unfortunately for most people, addiction has either consumed themselves or that of a loved one. Like most people, my friends and I were personally affected from the disastrous drug choices of a beloved friend. This disease has become so widespread and quite uncontrollable. The clip in the power point, “Heroin addicts speak,” is very eye opening. Personally, I was not really aware that someone could be addicted to heroin for a prolonged period of time and still present themselves forming words and relationships. The stories of heroin users that I personally have heard, either end happily with recovery or the loss of a life. The one man in the video claims he has been shooting heroin for over thirty years. That amount of time completely baffles me. His tolerance has grown over the course of years and continues to increase with every needle. The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that “approximately twenty three percent of heroin users become dependent.” Once a person tries heroin for the first time, it automatically alters the brain cells. Heroin treatments are extremely hard and emotional for the addict, but immediate help can change their life. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/heroin-treatment

The Science Behind Choosing A Mate

One problem I have with the theory of choosing a mate is that I don’t think anyone can be truly happy with someone until we factor in our personalities, instead of just looking at attractiveness. An example that I used in my post was that the cheerleader (10)  may think the football player (10) is very attractive, yet he is very rude to his peers, and is failing all of his classes due to lack of effort. The cheerleader (10) may then go for the nerd (6) because he is nice to everyone, is very smart, and has plans of having a very successful future; the Structural Powerless hypothesis. I think we pick our best mate once we’ve experienced real life, and figure out what we truly value. I also think it is interesting how women choose their mates for the highest survival rate of their offspring, meaning women look for a more wealthy man that they could see being the father of their children. I agree entirely with this, because my goal in life is to one day be an amazing mother. Having someone by my side that can help provide for our children, teach our children, and help them grow into amazing people is what is most important to me, not necessarily just their physical appearance, or what car they drive. I also think it is important to have an emotional attraction to your mate, not just a physical attraction.

I really liked this article from Harvard University, that looks into the chemicals in the brain involved with lust, attraction and love! Also, make sure you listen to the music while reading!!

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/love-actually-science-behind-lust-attraction-companionship/

Drug Lecture

Motivation has always been an interesting topic to me, because of how differently motivated every single person on the planet is. I’ve also always been interested in what motivates some to start using drugs, and how they can then start to become addicted to them. My mother and best friend are addicted to heroin, so this topic hits close to home. They both started using because they lost someone very close to them, combined with past mental health issues. My mother has lost all close friends and family due to her addiction, and my best friend no longer has many friends at all from our town, because of his addiction. So why do people continue to use drugs, when they have lost so much because of that drug? The fact that these drugs affect our brain and “pleasure levels” is the only real answer to this question. My mother also used to be an alcoholic in her early twenties. In terms of heredity, I’ve noticed that my sister shows similar characteristics when drinking, like drinking heavily and often, blacking out without anyone realizing, and becoming belligerent. It is important to realize that being an addict is more than being “selfish” or “weak”. There are many other components that come into play, like heredity, our brain’s “pleasure system”, and our own personal motivators.

I found this video, and really enjoyed how Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains what drug addiction can do to the brain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f1nmqiHIII

Drug Lecture

As we all know drug addiction has become a huge epidemic that we deal with every day in today's society.  Even though we have so many resources and the right technology to help improve this epidemic it seems to be getting bigger. I’ve had quite a few people in my life family members and friends who got involved in drugs luckily I did not physically lose them but I did lose relationships due to their addiction. For example, my best friend growing up turned to drugs once we got into high school which is where our relationship started to fall apart. I chose a completely different path than she did and it and eventually led to us today not being friends whatsoever. As if high school isn’t hard enough dealing with your best friend struggling going through drug addiction made it 10 times harder.  Personally, I can not wrap my head around how someone lets addiction take over their life. After watching the video included in our lecture these individuals clearly know what they are doing isn’t going to get them anywhere but they know that the can’t stop on their own. The one-man even said that he knew all of the things he was sacrificing including his house, wife, and kids and he still chose to do heroin. Even with having family members and friends suffer from addiction after watching them suffer and hit rock bottom I still don’t get it and I don’t know if I ever will. It definitely one of the hardest things to watch because you can’t do anything for them when they are at that low you have to wait for them to be ready to change. But I guess in a way this is where the motivation aspect comes into play with someone wanting to beat addiction and live a normal life with friends and family. Here is a video explaining what heroin does as soon as it going into the body.  https://youtu.be/KxGL2bZyDbk

Food

Food is a large part of what makes a culture or region vary and self-identify itself. As for civilians living in India, Nepal, and even Bangladesh, they have grown to acquire the name Musahars. Musahars stems from the meaning of “rat eater.” As shown in the video, natives of these lands have grown to normalize the eating of rats. Although the area is poverty struck and low protein is available, the Musahars continue to catch and roast rats. Due to their low finances and insufficient funding, unfortunately these civilians are ultimately left with nothing else but rats to eat. Differences of the world are stretched far and wide from clothing, religion, beliefs, finances, and most popularly food. In America, I feel as though it would be very strange to hear of a restaurant or supermarket selling rat meat. Rats are characterized as disgusting, disease carrying, unwelcomed varmints. I cannot imagine seeing someone willingly consume a roasted rat. I do not know if this reaction of mine would stem from the vision I hold of rats or the fact that I indeed have a food neophobia. A meal has to look quite appetizing for me to even consider getting close to it. I realize how fortunate I truly am to have grown up in an area where chicken and beef are abundant. This link is to an article which discusses the financial struggles the Musahars deal with and how they have grown to be known as “rat eaters.” 

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/the-rat-eaters-of-india

Food Lecture: Food Preferences

The food lecture was very interesting there are so many things throughout the lecture that we can all relate to. There are many different struggles that people go through on a daily involving food. Whether it may simply just be your food preference or you could go to the extreme of an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. I really like the video included in our slides with the babies trying the different foods showing how each individual has their own preference of what they like. Personally, I believe that this video is a perfect example because as adults we can kind of play it off by acting like we like something compared to infants not really being able to control their facial expressions and how they truly feel.  I can definitely relate as I’m sure many others can to the Mere exposure effect. As a kid, I was an extremely picky eater but as I got older I knew I just needed to keep trying new things over and over and that eventually led into me liking so many new foods! One food that I just don’t seem to like is avocado, everybody always talks about it and how good it is so I always felt like I was out of the loop since everyone is now on an avocado kick. This is one food that I still continue to keep trying in different forms and I still hate the taste and texture. Throughout this whole lecture, there are so many examples that kept popping into my head this topic is so easy to relate to and I could go on for paragraphs talking about this lecture. I actually found a cool video called Why People Taste Things Differently. The video went over how some humans are Subtasters and others are Supertasters which is something that I never heard of so that was my fun fact of the day.

Video link: https://youtu.be/bQ_uyux8i_M

Book Review: The Influential Mind By: Tali Sharot

Book Review

The Influential Mind – What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others.

Author - Tali Sharot

The Influential Mind – What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others was written by Tali Sharot who is an associate professor of cognitive neuropsychology.  Throughout this book Sharot discusses neuropsychology research in everyday language and then she relates these studies to everyday situations and experiences.  Many of examples used by the author are presented as a story which makes them engaging and relatable. Sharot explains the underlying assumption of the book which is that our brain makes us who we are.  As such, every thought we have had, every feeling about our experiences and every decision we make are determined by the brain and the firing of neurons.  The Influential Mind is organized by chapters that discuss the seven critical factors that impact one’s efforts to change someone’s mind which includes prior beliefs, emotion, incentives, agency, curiosity, state of mind, and other people.

I found the chapter entitled (Curiosity) What Do People Really Want to Know? to be the most interesting.  Sharot explains that people pay attention when they are presented with information that includes positive emotions. She uses the example of how we tend to ignore the pre-flight instructions that are presented in a negative manner such as a plane crash, but when the same information is presented in an animated, fun manner, people will stay focused.  The chapter also discusses how “information gaps” make us feel uncomfortable.  When we are told that we do not know something, we are then want to know.  In fact, research proves that we are driven by the same neural principles that drive one to gain water, food, and sex.  Furthermore, we prefer to gain or seek information that will make us feel good, rather than information that makes us feel bad.  Sharot uses the example of the stock market and showed that when the market is doing well, people check their portfolios frequently. When the market is doing poorly, people check their portfolio less frequently. So basically, if we want people to listen to us and pay attention to what we are saying, we must reframe our message so that it provides hope, rather than despair. 

In Chapter 4, How You obtain Power by Letting Go (Agency), Sharot explains that one of the ways that we express control is by making a choice.  In fact, the association between a reward and a choice is so powerful in our minds, the choice itself is rewarding.  Sharot discusses that humans have a strong desire to make a choice even when choosing does not improve an outcome for them.  For the most part, this is true except when we are faced with too many choices. The author went on to discuss Iyengar and Lepper’s jam study that found that people are more likely to purchase gourmet jams when they have only six options, rather than twenty options.      Sharot indicated that when we are given too many options, we become overwhelmed and do not choose anything.   This conclusion is similar to Barry Schwarz discussion about the paradox of choice and why sometimes “more is less.”  Schwartz explains that when we have so many choices, we become paralyzed with our decision making, and it will take us a lot of time to choose and sometimes we cannot decide at all.    

The chapter entitled, (Emotion) How We Persuade to Reach for the Mood explained the role that emotion plays when we try to influence others.  I found a number of videos about Tali Sharot’s book, The Influential Mind.  On the Today Show, neuroscientist, Tali Sharot, explained how the key to influencing others starts in our brain.  In the attached video clip, Sharot used the example of the presidential debate where Carson provided facts and research information about the benefits of vaccinations.  In contrast, Trump told a story about a 2 ½ year-old child who was vaccinated and became ill several days later.    Although Carson used facts and figures to provide information, this was not enough to convince people since our brains are wired to be influenced by emotion.   This video showed MRIs that depict the changes that occur in the brain during negatively charged emotions which causes a person to “shut down” and not listen to what is being explained to them.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-pRAxrc1vM  In general when we evoke emotion, we can communicate our ideas and get others to share our opinions whether we are talking to just one person or to a large audience. 

One of the things in this book that I found to be most useful was the information about the state of mind (or one’s level of stress) and how it impacts decisions and attention.   Stress has been shown to impact the digestive system, immune system, and reproductive system and to alter the brain.  Basically, when we are under a great deal of stress, any type of negative news will have a large impact on us.   When we are stressed out, we focus on what can go wrong and we become overly pessimistic which influences our decisions.  This information was very powerful to me because it made me realize that I should be careful about making personal and work-related decisions when I am under a lot of pressure.  With regard to influencing others, Sharot indicates that there should be a match between our opinions and the state of mind of the person we are trying to influence since a person’s emotional state will affect how receptive they are to what we are saying.   In other words, it is important to understand another person’s emotional state whenever we are trying to convince or influence them.   Overall, I highly recommend this book since it provided so much useful information about relating to others and how to get them to listen and to accept my point of view.

Food

This lecture was pretty interesting and made me think about my own food preferences. One thing that I noticed I do is taste aversion. Whenever I smell certain foods such as tuna, I get nauseous and find the smell take over the room. I also agree that humans eat bigger portions when they are given to you. At restaurants, I always feel as though I need to finish my meal (even when I'm too full) because the large portion is put in front of me. I also have watched 'My 600-Pound Life' and found that those people feeding the obese people are enabling them because they give them the large amounts of food that they are hoping for. This is something I have witnessed and its sad how some people will never be able to control their portions and therefore never lose weight. Lastly, I can relate to stress induced eating, considering I constantly find myself overeating while I study. But, sometimes when I'm stressed about multiple things, I find myself not having an appetite due to all the stress. Something I've learned from my own research is that anxiety/stress can also decrease your appetite and chronically suppress your appetite leaving you without hunger. This is something I've experienced which I've noticed to be the reason I have not eaten some days. After doing some research, I also found that anxiety can be directly related to eating disorders as well. I attached a link with more info.

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/anxiety/how-anxiety-is-linked-to-loss-of-appetite/

Endurance

After finishing the book Endurance, by Alfred Lansing, I feel as though anything can be possible. They were against all odds to make it as far as they did and survive the living situations they had. I am very shocked that the entire crew survived without any life threatening injuries. I especially liked how Shackleton was consistently calm and confident given their situation. Even when they lost their ship and had to sleep directly on the ice floor, the crew didn't really complain. They all were very obedient and listened to Shackleton because they trusted him. He was a very great leader and most of the crewmen said that repeatedly. He knew what to say and what to do to get his team of men to their destination and keep them all wanting to persevere forward.  The author stated on page 129, "the indomitable self-confidence of Shackleton's took the form of optimism and it worked in two ways. It set men's souls on fire; as Macklin said, just to be in his presence was an experience. It was what made Shackleton so a great leader". I truly believe that if it wasn't for Shackleton's great leadership skills that kept the crew going throughout the entire expedition, they would not have made it home. This book is a great example of what it takes to lead a large group of men to success!

Book Report - The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Power of Habits by Maricor Panghulan on Scribd

Endurance

After  finishing Lansing’s book, Endurance, about Shackleton’s expedition to cross the Antarctic

Continent from the east to the west coast, I cannot get this story out of my head.  The story of

Endurance is an absolutely amazing feat.  Even though the expedition did not meet its goal,

the expedition was an unbelievable accomplishment that shows the power of endurance.  It’s

unbelievable how persistent the 27 crew members were from the beginning to the end of

the expedition.  After watching their ship trapped in ice and eventually crushed, they

continued to persevere.  They kept their spirits up when they were trapped on ice floes for

months while they drifted.   The journey that Shackleton took with his five crew members in a

small boat for an 800-mile voyage across the treacherous Drake Passage to South Georgia

Island was exciting to read.  It’s hard to believe that the 27 men survived for almost two years

in the wet and freezing the Antarctic.  Their diaries showed their persistence and drive throughout

the endless days of boredom, despair, and threat of starvation. It’s amazing that no one died

on this expedition. I have to say that this was the most exciting non-fiction book that I have

ever read and I can’t believe no one has made a movie of it.  Check out this footage from the

expedition that was filmed over 100 years ago: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj0fAYiY09A 

Drug Lecture

Drug addiction has become a large epidemic in our society today and in past generations. I have personally known people addicted to drugs which resulted in losing people whether it was by death or lost them because of their addiction. No matter what the type of drug it may be, they are all going to negatively affect one's life in some aspect. Drug addiction not only affects the person, but also their loved ones. The video about heroin in this lecture was very impactful because it is believed that no one can use this drug in a recreational manner; it is highly addictive and deadly. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2017, nearly 494,000 people in the United States (12-years old or older) reported using heroin in the past year, which is an estimated rate of 0.2 per 100 persons.² And in 2015, 81,326 emergency department visits occurred for unintentional, heroin-related poisonings in America, which is an estimated rate of almost 26 per 100,000 people. The statistics are astonishing. 
This video goes more in depth about heroin addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g49kXbRaZDU 

The Influential Mind: Does Evidence Change Beliefs?

In this book, Tali Sharot discusses the influence that data has on people and their own beliefs. Have you ever been in an argument with someone and you have presented data but they still are sticking to their belief? According to Tali Sharot, studies show that data as only a limited capacity to alter the strong opinions of others. Seems hard to believe because data is simply data but it is where the data is collected and the people involved in that data being collect which alters the results. Presenting people with information that contradicts their opinion can cause them to come up with altogether new counterarguments that further strengthen their original view, which is known as the, "boomerang effect." Tali Sharot gives a great example in the book to have a better understanding of the idea of data such as, "Bulletproof Coffee" which is a theory that putting butter in your coffee can be extremely great for you, but within seconds you can find an article contradicting that giving all the reasons why it is bad for you; this goes on with many other ideas also. Another study that she mentions is that when a person is searching for statistics or data through Google, once they type into the search engine the results are customized towards the searcher all according to past searches and Web activity. For example, if a person is a Republican, searching for the latest stats on the presidential debate, their searches are going to be more geared towards the republican side. I found this topic overall to be extremely interesting because it is almost as if people are blind to other opinions because of biases. Google is going to give a person the type of data results that they want to see and most likely will not show results that they disagree with. This makes a debate very difficult because there is data for just about anything.
Here is a great video that might help give a better understanding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxYrzzy3cq8

Food Lecture: Stress Induced Eating

This lecture discussed all about food ranging from, unusual foods that different cultures eat, different ways we eat, overeating etc. Stress induced eating was one the last topics discussed in this lecture it is basically when people overeat due to stress. They did studies on this and showed that people at the movies at more popcorn when watching a horror film, compared to people who were watching a comedy film. This is because stress arises when watching a thriller, causing a person to eat without even realizing. I chose this topic because I can relate to it. I tend to eat when I'm feeling stressed whether it is personal reasons, school related or work related. I believe that when a person is feeling stressed, they eat to raise their serotonin levels which helps a person feel happier; much of the time it is short lived and begin to feel stressed again. There has been studies where stress eating can even lead to obesity. I found an interesting link that discusses all the different types of stress eating behaviors: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214609/

The Paradox of Choice

I finally realized why I hate to shop for new clothes or to shop for basically anything at all.  Barry Schwartz discussion about the paradox of choice explains why with regard to choices, “more is less.”  Schwartz explains how we live in a world where we have so many choices for anything from selecting cereal to buying a house.  With so many choices, we become paralyzed with our decision making. With so many choices, it takes us a long to time to decide and sometimes we cannot decide at all on what we want. Finally, when we finally choose from the many options, we are often left with regret for making the choice.  It makes so much sense.   When you have so many options and then you are not satisfied with your decision, you can only blame yourself.   Schwartz also talks about opportunity cost which is when we select one activity over another and we know are giving up something.  When we make are the ultimate choice, we are aware of what we have missed out on something which causes distress.  I am not sure if there is an answer to the paradox of choice.  For me, I think I will try to decide exactly what I am looking for before I go out to shop so that I do not become overwhelmed and paralyzed when I get to the store!

Reproduction

I found the topic of sex appeal very interesting to learn about. I read through the powerpoint, and watched the videos and a lot of what was said made sense. When you think about it of course everyone wants to be with the most attractive person. A very basic idea of this in our society is the captain of the cheer team dating the quarterback of the football team. These people usually are the most popular and overall the most attractive. This would be examples of two "10's" being together. Then the thought that most people who fall short of being that "10" usually end up with someone of the same level of attractiveness also makes sense. This was seen in the video when everyone was stripped away or their nice clothes and hair, which I thought was very interesting to see it in person. Then the thought of social class and money being very important for women was introduced and that made a lot of sense as well. I just never thought about it very much, women do not have as many opportunities, and the pay is unfair so it would make sense that women out want to pair themselves with high paying men to support them and build a good life with. The fact that men did not consider this is concerning but in the end makes sense as well. Overall this was a very interesting topic to learn about. I looked more into the science of sex appeal and found another video which I will list below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVhKSzSpXMA

Science of Sex Appeal

I found the videos about the Science of Sex Appeal to be very interesting and thought-provoking.   Dr.  Kenrick conducted a study where he dressed the male and female participants in similar clothing and removed their individual’s differences such as hairstyles, accessories, etc.   The participants were given a random number which represented desirability.  The participants could see others’ desirability number; however, they did not know their own number.  The participants were then instructed to “pair up” by putting their hand out to someone with the objective of pairing with someone with as high of a number as possible.    At the end of the experiment, participants paired up with individuals with a similar desirability number as themselves.  This demonstration showed how in reality, when looking for a mate, we aim high and “work down” until we find someone who will accept us.    Another related study done by researchers in Austria found that women change their perception of a man based on the car he drives since car represent dominance and power.  The authors stated that social and financial status is important for women because their objective is to choose a partner, keep the partner, make a nest and have children.   This research seems discouraging to me…when it comes down to finding your soulmate, is it really all about status and money?

If you find this topic intriguing, check out this video:  The Science of Sex Appeal – Unsexy Scents. This short video explains how physiologically we have an aversion to the scent of relatives which keeps us from being attracted to someone with our own genetic make-up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVi_B8IuJeM

The Influential Mind: The Amygdala of The Internet

When reading the book The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot, I found it very interesting how the author touched upon the topic of social media and how it impacts people's emotions. Last year in my Arguments and Persuasion class I chose the topic of negative impacts that social media has on today's society, which lead me to find very convincing evidence as to how social media has the potential to give people anxiety when using social media apps. During this segment of the book, the author enhanced my argument by describing the many ways people have proved the direct relation between how social media heavily impacts people's emotions. A group of researchers used twitter for an experiment to observe people's feeds and related each tweet to being either positive or negative.   These researchers found that when a person posted an uplifting tweet, their feed just prior included around 4% more positive tweets than negative tweets. Then when someone posts a negative tweet, their feed just prior to them posting their tweet contained 4% more negative than positive posts. Another piece of evidence they found was that tweeting is a very emotionally arousing activity due to the fact that studies show that tweeting raises your pulse, makes you sweat and enlarges your pupils. Studies have also shown that tweeting and retweeting enhances brain activity that indicates emotional arousal by 75%. This study just shows how social media can impact your mood and what you post can also impact other peoples moods and behaviors. With that being said, it is best to remember your audience and try to stay as positive and uplifting as possible when posting online!

"It is important, then, to be mindful that we are altering people's emotions simply by experiencing feelings ourselves. Similarly, other peoples emotions change our own state - we are constantly synchronizing with each other and everyone around us" - Tali Sharot

Food and Personal Preferences

A subject that I really enjoyed learning about was the topic of food. Growing up, I was always interested in why some people developed "pica" an eating disorder in which people eat things that are not classified as food and do not contain any nutritional value.  In the "food" section of the lecture, Professor Berg explains food neophobia. Food neophobia is the tendency to avoid novel foods and to prefer familiar foods. With food neophobia being instilled in humans, my interest peaked and rose questions in relations to pica. Technically speaking, with food neophobia being in place due to evolutionary precations, pica should not be a disorder, right? Wrong! In my research, I learned that maybe those who eat clay (which would get them diagnosed with pica) may have origins to Australia or Turkey. In those areas, clay was eaten as a fertility food which may explain pica and how it has progressed in different forms. In the video I linked within this post, you can watch Nicole explain how the disorder has affected her.


https://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery-health/50508-my-strange-addiction-eating-house-and-home-video.htm

Welcome Summer 19' Students

I look forward to reading your posts here!