Incentives Slides - Taylor Chrisman

I have never heard the saying “losses loom larger than gains” until studying these lecture slides. This saying simply means that the loss of something is more dissatisfying than the gain of it. For example, if a kid loses a candy bar he got on Halloween, he will be thinking about it more and be more dissatisfied than he was satisfied when he got it in the first place. This is known as loss aversion. To an extreme, if someone’s house is foreclosed on, they will be more distraught than they were happy when they got the house. I don’t think that people realize how hard scaling back can be. You get so used to having certain things and certain luxuries that you often take it for granted. People underestimate how emotionally difficult it can be to downsize and live a more minimalistic lifestyle.

These slides also discussed procrastination. Procrastination is a delay I goal-oriented behavior despite knowing that one will be worse off as a result. Most students probably have at least one experience with this. Personally, I tend to procrastinate assignments that I may not necessarily understand or that seem poorly explained by the professor. This is a bad habit because it usually leaves me scrambling the night before to clarify the instructions and produce a good assignment that is worthy of a good grade. Thankfully, I have learned to stop this behavior over the years. Once I came to college and had the goal of entering graduate school to become an occupational therapy, I realized that I can’t afford to procrastinate anymore.

Reproductive - Taylor Chrisman

I found it interesting that women select mates to increase chance of survival of their offspring and men select mates to increase chance of producing many offspring. Women desire partners who will be able to provide for their family, whether that is through monetary benefits, ambition, or industriousness. Even though economic opportunity between men and women is slowly becoming more equivalent, there is still a discrepancy. Women are attracted to financial stability because of this discrepancy. They are not as likely to have as high of a salary as a man is. Although this makes sense, I never thought of it in this way before. I believe that women look for these qualities subconsciously without necessarily realizing it. 

I also was fascinated that good looks are indicative of fertility. This is part of the reason why men are attracted to mates who have good looks. Men want a healthy family just as bad as women do. Interestingly, men consciously look for women with good looks. Men are not shy to express that they are interested in finding a woman with good looks. However, women are more hesitant to admit that they are looking for a partner with financial resources. This is a consequence of our society and certain stigmas around men and women.

Drug Slides - Taylor Chrisman

While studying the lecture slides, I was particularly interested in the slides about opioids. Although more under control now, a few years ago the opioid epidemic was totally unmanageable. Doctors were handing out prescriptions for opioids far more than they should have been. These drugs are highly addictive and produce cravings that will encourage people to do just about anything to get their hands on them. After more research was done and doctors became stricter with opioid prescriptions, people were turning to the black market. The black market is an underground economy that is used for the illegal purchase and sale of goods, in this case, drugs. Crime rates were at an all-time high during this period.

I was intrigued when the slides explained that there are positive addictions in addition to negative ones. When I hear the word addiction, I usually think of it to have a negative connotation. However, addiction is just the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity. For example, someone can be addicted to exercising and eating healthy. These types of addictions bring positives to someone’s life. 

Incentive Slides

I found the General Procrastination Scale to be very useful. It helped me identify where I do well and in which tasks I should focus on. I find that I often do not procrastinate when it comes to schoolwork. My first year of college I put socializing over schoolwork almost every time and was disappointed with the grades I received. Now, I allot myself a decent amount of time to focus on writing papers. I have gotten straight A’s the past 5 semesters which is a great positive reinforcement. This has also opened a lot more opportunities for scholarships, and organizations which recognize academic achievement.

Seeing an A posted on Blackboard gives me a nice release of dopamine. This feeling makes it much more common for me to put in the same, if not more, work for future assignments as I did for the work which earned an A. This is an example of being extrinsically motivated.

Drug Slides

Opioid addiction affects people of all backgrounds from many places around the world. The common nature of heroin addiction is very prevalent especially in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It is hard to find someone who has not been personally touched by addiction. The stigma around addiction, in my opinion, contributes to why people end up alone and never seeking help. I think people need to educate themselves more on addiction to gain some more compassion. It’s important to realize more people are susceptible to drug addiction down to their genes. It’s interesting to see how drugs were tied into this course through impulsivity, reinforcement, and incentive value.

I was surprised to hear the one man in the clip say he has been using for 34 years. He explains that even though he knew he was losing everything, he still chose heroin every time. This shows the power and true physiological takeover these drugs have over a person’s body. It’s sad that some of them realize they have nothing and know that this drug takes everything away from them. For the first man shown to admit he wishes he had a normal routine and career is a big step, but unfortunately in the relationship he is in, it seems unlikely he will get out of his cycle.

Reproduction Slides

Two theories I found the most interesting from this set of lecture slides was Poaching and Structural Powerless Hypothesis.

Poaching is something commonly seen in society. I have seen many posts on social media pertaining to this subject. Posts that have become popular talk about once that person enters a relationship it seems like other people come out of the woodwork to express their feelings to them. It almost is like once a person is taken or not available anymore, they become more desirable to others. I guess it’s somewhere along the lines of the phrase “You always want what you can’t have.”

Second, the structural powerless hypothesis discusses the roots and present relevance of why women seek more grounded, successful men. This reminded me of a class I’m currently enrolled in which discusses Jack the Ripper, his victims, and the context of London’s society during the murders. So far, all the victims have been poor women because they have separated from their husbands. We learned there were virtually no options for women to have a financially stable job which would allow them to live on their own. Marriage was not often for love, but for women to be able to survive. Since they had no opportunities and no husbands to support them, Jack the Ripper’s were often sex workers. Sex work was an unstable, dangerous job which still did not guarantee enough money for even a place to sleep.

The Power of Habit Book Report- Nikki Lombardi

     The fascinating book titled "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg is a compilation of anecdotes, science, strategies, and explanations revolving around the way habits are formed. The book covers information about our own individual habits, the habits of businesses, the habits of government, the habits behind sports psychology, and the habits behind cultural movements. This captivates the reader by detailing relatable information in some way, shape, or form. Duhigg's ultimate goal in writing this book is to demonstrate that habits dictate most of what goes on in the world around us every day, whether we see it or not. While describing the nature behind the formation of habits, the book also describes strategies and techniques to apply changes to individuals' own habits or the habits within an organization. The key piece of information that is mentioned throughout every chapter is the 3-step loop in which habits operate: the cue, the routine, and the reward. This book includes information that can be beneficial to everyone, being that the main argument is the description of what habits are and how they can be changed.
     A chapter within the book that was one of my favorites was chapter 2, The Craving Brain: How to Create New Habits. This chapter covered information about creating new habits within individuals and how businesses use this to their advantage. A specific topic in this chapter that I was drawn to was the pepsodent toothpaste campaign. In order to sell their toothpaste product, this business had to appeal to a very specific habit loop. The cue triggered was the film people feel across their teeth. The routine was the use of the pepsodent toothpaste. The reward was the pretty teeth and beautiful smile after brushing with the toothpaste. This habit loop was successful among the public and caused the pepsodent toothpaste to boom. It is extremely compelling that a simple habit chain caused such a successful outcome for the company when, in reality, toothpaste does not actually have much of an effect on teeth. However, by learning the right human psychology and putting it to the test, this business created their profit from a simple habit formation of the human nature. It should also be noted that buyers were not even aware of the habit loop they were apart of, but they followed the chain anyway. This shows the true force behind the strategies in altering habits and how businesses have driven their success through it. Overall, this chapter consistently displayed the habit loop in different forms to show how new habits are created among individuals, the strongest of them being the pepsodent toothpaste habit loop. Below is the diagram from the book, displaying the habit loop utilized.

     Another chapter within this book that outlined essential information to the overall concept was chapter 4, Keystone Habits, or the Ballad of Paul O' Neill: Which Habits Matter Most. A topic highlighted within this chapter was willpower and how it relates to habits. Willpower is regarded as the single most important keystone habit for individual success, and the best way to strengthen it is to make it into a habit. An experiment was conducted in this chapter that ultimately proved the success of willpower when it becomes a habit. This experiment was with elderly patients who had just undergone hip or knee surgery. The scientist conducting the experiment wanted to see if it was possible to help the patients tackle their willpower. She gave each of them a booklet for them to write down exactly what they were going to do each each week with specific plans. She then compared the recoveries of those who wrote out weekly goals in the booklet to those that didn't. The results proved that the patients who had written plans in their booklets started walking almost twice as fast as the ones who had not. They started getting in and out of their chairs almost three times as fast and doing daily activities much quicker than the other patients. The scientist wanted to understand her results better and further examined the booklets. She noticed that many of the plans had one thing in common, which was that they focused on how patients would handle a specific moment of anticipated pain. In other words, these patients all thought ahead about how to deal with painful inflection points. They deliberately designed willpower habits that allowed them to reach their goals faster. Therefore, when willpower can be turned into a habit, there are higher chances of achieving goals and reaching success. To further prove this point, Colin Robertson on the topic of willpower declared that automating a goal dedication is about setting triggers and reminders of the overall goal. This can be done by following a plan such as writing down goals everyday, sending goal reminders, or increasing self-awareness. This demonstrates how writing down goals can actually strengthen willpower and turn it into a habit. Undoubtedly, this chapter proved that willpower can be turned into a habit , which in turn can be more beneficial for individuals.
     The next chapter within the book that contained prominent information about the utilization of habits was chapter 7, How Target Knows What You Want Before You Do: When Companies Predict (and Manipulate) Habits. The main focus of this chapter was Target and how the company uses its customers' habits to their benefit. While many individuals might not know this, Target knows much more information about their customers than what is suspected. In fact, every shopper has an identification code, known as a Guest ID number, that keeps tabs on how each person shops. Target can then take advantage of this by sending customers specific coupons for items they bought the previous week to get them to keep coming back. On a similar note, Target noticed that their most profitable customers are moms and pregnant women. Having a baby means needing a plentiful amount of diapers, wipes, juice, toilet paper, etc. With that in mind, Target knew they had to focus on these customers to engage their spendings. As mentioned by Charles Duhigg himself in a New York Times article, there are brief periods in a person's life when routines fall apart and buying habits are in flux. One of those moments is right around the birth of a child, when parents are exhausted, overwhelmed, and their shopping patterns and brand loyalties are up for grabs. This is when Target carefully pinpoints the optimal timing to make their move with baby ads. However, in order to do so, Target had to first discover when women were pregnant. Aside from a baby registry, Target created another way in which they could identify when their customers were pregnant. They began going back to observe the shopping habits of moms who had previously had a baby and what they bought during the pregnancy with a pregnancy predictor. From that, patterns were picked up and it was discovered that expectant mothers shop in fairly predictable ways. With that information, Target could then take the list of women who were likely to be pregnant and overload them with advertisements for baby items. In order to make it appear like the company was not spying on pregnant women, they decided to mix in ads for things that pregnant women would never buy to make it look like the baby ads were random. With that tactic, Target determined that the women would use the coupons. Unquestionably, this chapter displayed the truth behind corporate businesses and how they can pinpoint customers' habits to maximize their profits, especially Target.
     Clearly, "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg is filled with information regarding the human habit formation and how it can be changed or put to use in everyday life. I chose to focus on the formation of the habit loop (particularly with pepsodent toothpaste), the habit of willpower, and the importance of customer habit when it comes to corporations (specifically Target). Nevertheless, this book fully details the key information of habit formation, ultimately ending with the idea that humans are responsible for cultivating their own habits and taking charge of their own lives. I personally believe this was an outstanding book and a surprisingly simple and enjoyable read. One would think that a book containing so much research and scientific information would be difficult to understand, but it truthfully wasn't. The information in this book can be easily comprehended and even applied to the reader's own life. The book contained numerous examples, statistics, studies, and stories that made the concepts easier to grasp and fully understand. With the amount of detail in each chapter, I think all readers of this book can take away far more knowledge about habits than they knew before. I really liked how easy the book was to read, how descriptive each chapter was, how understandable the content was, and how the information was relatable. I do not have any complaints about this book and I believe it got the main point across victoriously. Without a doubt, "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg is a highly informative book that can teach any reader about the habits in the world around them.


Sources:

Duhigg, Charles. “How Companies Learn Your Secrets.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Feb. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html.

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How to Change. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014.

Robertson, Colin. “Willpower and Habits - What Will Truly Help You Achieve Your Goals?” Willpowered, Willpowered, 17 Nov. 2014, www.willpowered.co/learn/willpower-and-habits.

Reproduction

       On the lecture regarding Reproduction/Mating as a psychological motivation, it discussed briefly about gender disparities (specifically social status), as well as giving a brief overview on the science of attraction.
    In several of the YouTube clips, it follows participants and researchers who are involved in a study, measuring the attraction level participants had with each other. In this experiment, researchers discover that the higher number displayed on the participants uniform, the more immediate "interest" and attention they received when they were asked to pair up with any participant in the study. In this classic study, we see reflection of the "good gene hypothesis," which states that beauty level of an individual falsely assumes that the highly attractive person is more healthy and more intelligent.
      In the extension of this study, researchers wanted to test the public on how they viewed attraction and researchers discovered beauty standards have 3 broad categories: averageness, symmetry and sexual dimorphism (masculine/feminine).
      Moreover, researchers found a pattern when using the same participants, but giving them pseudonyms: fake jobs, cars and incomes. When researchers asked men and women to view the study participants and their fake bio (though, unknown to the public), they found women  to be more attracted to men who was more financially stable, and had a higher socioeconomic status.  As for the men in public, they found a woman to be more attractive by just looking at their physical characteristics. This observation is an example of structural powerless theory; additionally, this is a recurring theme throughout the Motivation of Reproduction lecture.

Incentives Lecture- Nikki Lombardi

     Within the lecture discussing incentives, I enjoyed learning about the temporal motivation theory and wanted to discover more about this topic. As stated in the lecture, the temporal motivation theory integrates how incentive utility changes temporally (with time). The utility is based on the value of the expected incentive and the delay of the incentive. In other words, the temporal motivation theory emphasizes the impact of time, particularly deadlines, on the allocation of attention to particular tasks. As covered at "Education, Society, & the K-12 Learner," the temporal motivation theory argues that the perceived usefulness and benefit of an activity increases largely as the deadline for completing it nears. It is particularly useful for understanding human behaviors such as procrastination and goal setting. I think this is really interesting because throughout our course, we have discussed procrastination and why humans do it continuously. Relating to the theory, the greater an individual's expectancy for completing a task is, and the higher the value of the outcome associated with is is, the higher the individual's motivation will be. Impulsivity and a greater amount of time before a deadline tend to reduce motivation. I think this theory holds a lot of truth and can easily be related to all of our lives, especially in regards to procrastination and motivation as a college student.

Source: Amidon, Joel, et al. “Education, Society, & the K-12 Learner.” Lumen, courses.lumenlearning.com/teachereducationx92x1/chapter/148/.

Performance Lecture- Nikki Lombardi

     Within this lecture about performance, I found the zone of optimal functioning hypothesis to be the most interesting topic. In the slide, it is stated that the zone of optimal functioning hypothesis is an idea in sports psychology that each individual has his/her own inverted-U curve. The U-curve can be viewed in the way that as stimulation or arousal increases, performances increases, levels off, then declines. It is stated that athletic performance is best when an athlete is at the optimal of his/her own curve. I found this information very interesting because I did not know each individual has their own inverted-U curve relating to how good or how bad their performance will be. As stated at "Zone of Optimal Functioning," the zone for optimal arousal actually differs for varying activities. For example, weight-lifters benefit more from high levels of arousal so that they can generate maximum power during their lift. On the other hand, golfers about to make a putt benefit from low levels so that they can perform more controlled and delicate movements. The zone of optimal arousal can also differ for individuals performing the same activity. I found this information to be fascinating, especially as it pertains to athletes and how they perform their best.

Source: “Zone of Optimal Functioning.” Oxford Reference, www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803133528142.

Drugs Lecture- Nikki Lombardi

     In this post, I will be discussing the lecture titled "Drugs," specifically commenting on the genetics of addiction aspect. In the slide, it is mentioned that genetically related individuals are similarly vulnerable to drug experimentation and addiction. This is something that caught my interest, especially because I already learned a bit about it in another psychology course. Many people think addiction is strictly genetic or primarily based on environmental factors. However, neither is the case and they can both factor into addiction. Just because an individual has a genetic predisposition does not mean that they will develop an addiction, or even patterns of abuse. It simply means that their risk factor is higher, which is why they should be extra cautious by developing a greater awareness and implementing protective factors in their life. As mentioned at "Is Addiction Genetic?", The National Institute for Drug Abuse tells us that based on numerous studies on various degrees of siblinghood, up to 50 percent of a person's risk towards developing an addiction is linked to genetics. This is quite a high percentage when you really think about it, but again, there are other factors that contribute such as environmental, cultural, or psychological factors. There is also how a person who knows he/she is at a higher risk of addiction structures his/her life to avoid being susceptible to it. Overall, I found the topic of addiction being related to genetics very interesting in this lecture and enjoyed diving a bit deeper into the subject.

Source:

“Is Addiction Genetic?” The Treehouse Rehab, 18 Sept. 2019, www.treehouserehab.org/is-addiction-genetic/.

Welcome Spring 20' Semester Students

Here is where your posts will show up :)