Reproduction

Before taking this course, I did not realize that there was any psychology backing choosing a mate. I learned in this chapter that there are a few factors having to do with psychology that come into play when choosing a partner. Physical attractiveness being an important one for many people comes from what is known as mate value. This term is defined as a "person's characteristics that makes him or her desirable to another person as a partner." A few other attributes that fall under mate value are ambition, good sense of humor, financially secure, desire for children and many more. As shown in the the youtube video called "The Science of Sex Appeal," physical attractiveness if the first shield of finding a mate. This experiment done by Dr. Kendrick took 10 males and 10 females and gave them each a number between 1 and 10, one being the least attractive and ten being the most. The results ended up that the people with the higher numbers ended up together and the same for those with lower numbers. It was not until those with the lower numbers tried to pair with the 9's and 10's and got rejected that they began shooting for the lower numbers. Going hand in hand with having high mate value, people pick a mate based on the good gene hypothesis. This is beauty that signals good genes for the future. A few things that are thought about during the good gene hypothesis are intelligence, good immune system, healthy offspring, and good parenting. Together mate value and the good gene hypothesis are huge psychological factors in finding a partner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYeKFW-YSrg This youtube video explains the good gene hypothesis.

Book Report: The Influential Mind

   

    In The Influential Mind – What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others, author, and neuroscientist, Tali Sharot writes about the interesting and sometimes stubborn ways the human brain operates. She talks about how our instincts are often ineffective because they aren’t consistent with how the brain works. Sharot points out that having a better understanding of how the brain works can leave us with better control over our lives and a deeper appreciation of our experiences. The book covers topics like incentives, emotions, and curiosity. She uses research from neuroscience, psychology, and behavior economics to back up her points throughout the book, while also giving plenty of examples the public can easily relate to.

    My favorite part of the book would have to be Curiosity (What do people really want to know). Sharot explains that when people encounter evidence that goes against their beliefs their immediate reaction is denial and distancing themselves from the facts. She gives an example of the stock market. When the stock market is doing well people check their accounts more often, but when the stock market is down they check their account a lot less. I feel like the concept really prevents people from learning the truth and being educated on important topics. I can only imagine how different our world would be if everyone was willing to face the truth.

    In the book Sharot talks about the ways your behavior is changed based on what is going on around you. She uses the example of a hospital medical staff. Staff was supposed to wash their hands before entering a patients’ room. A small amount of staff followed the rule until a board was put up to display instant feedback. The board gave each employee a “hygiene score”. They are all able to see the work that everyone is doing which instinctively makes us want to do better, which is called a social incentive. We learned about incentives in our readings and the readings allowed us to differentiate between positive and negative incentives. In this case the display board is a positive incentive.

    I came across a video where scientist, Lisa Barrett, speaks about her experience studying emotions. She breaks down what emotions really are and explains that we’re wrong about how emotions work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gks6ceq4eQ

    I don’t often think about why humans are the way they are or how they work. It was nice to hear explanations of why we are the way we are, and relate them to myself or my everyday life. In was very insightful and I think getting a better understanding of yourself (or others)  would be helpful to anybody.

Book Report: The Influential Mind

Gina Umosella

Professor Berg

Motivation

August 6, 2019

The Influential Mind: Tali Sharot

General Overview

            The Influential Mind is unlike any book I have ever read. I tend to read books that involve a storyline and a plot. Tali’s book is more of the understanding of how the brain operates in a person’s everyday thinking; ranging from our beliefs- how they can be influenced, how our actions influence others, and also how power influences our lives. Tali is a cognitive neuroscientist, which she describes as, psychology and neuroscience grouped together. In her book, she thoroughly explains many experiments that she has done which then gives us a better understanding of how and why the brain operates the way it does.

Favorite Part

            My favorite part of this book was in chapter 3: Should You Scare People into Action? Throughout this chapter, she gave very specific statistics that were completely surprising and almost scary. At restaurants, it is quite obviously the employee’s obligation to wash their hands after using the bathroom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) workers traveled to hundreds of restaurants across the U.S, where they recorded the restaurants employee’s hygiene practices. Turns out, 62% of the employees fail to wash their hands. To make matters worse, medical centers are not much better; about 38.7% medical staff members wash their hands. Tali did an experiment and learned that the brain operates differently when it comes to this issue. They first did an experiment where they had cameras set up watching the employees, thinking that this would encourage the employees to wash their hands because they knew they were being, “watched.” It in fact, did not; only one in ten staff members followed the hygiene rules. They tried a new experiment; they set up electronic boards in each room which then provided immediate feedback on how they were doing. When the staff followed the hygiene rules, the numbers on the board went up, providing them positive feedback. This resulted in a 90% increase. Tali learned from these experiments that the brain operates through positive feedback; the staff knows the consequences of spreading disease by not handwashing, so why wasn’t that enough to get them to? Positive emotion and feedback are what motivate a person to do something. This experiment was very interesting to me because the staff knows the risk of the damage they can do to other people, but when they switch the roles to them to see how they are performing on the job, their mindsets change drastically. This topic reminded me of the lecture: Rewards=Reinforcers; by the staff receiving positive feedback, reinforced their performance at work.

Relate

            In the lecture slides, we discussed a lot about self-control. One small thing that stuck out to me is the marshmallow experiment. In the very beginning of class, we watched the clip of the children participating in the marshmallow experiment, this stuck out to me because I thought it was adorable. As I was reading the book, Tali gave an example of the same experiment. The marshmallow experiment involves children, they are given a marshmallow and are told that they can have a second marshmallow if they wait for the experimenter to come back. Many of the children did wait but how they tried to distract themselves from eating the marshmallow was super interesting. Tali goes more into detail about the after facts of the experiment. When Tali did the experiment, there was one boy who didn’t wait for the second marshmallow. She concluded that the young boy may not have been so convinced that the researcher was coming back with the second marshmallow, maybe the researcher was lying or what if they forget. This resulted in him eating the marshmallow because he was worried that there was a chance he may not get to eat the marshmallow at all. Another example that related to self-control was a story Tali told about a girl named Kate applying to business school for her MBA. She received a fraud e-mail that completely ruined her chances of getting into business school, simply because she could not wait for the results to come in, she had to know. In the first lecture: Self-Control and Impulsivity, slide 13 it states, “Most personal problems with self-control arise because people have difficulty delaying immediate gratification for a better future reward.” Just like the little boy from Tali’s marshmallow experiment, he did not wait for the reward in fear that he might never receive it and the story about the girl Kate who did not get into graduate school because of a fraud email that was sent out to her. Because of the “not knowing” aspect of things, it can lead to people making impulse decisions for immediate gratification which is where self-control comes into place.

Creative

            In Chapter 6: “What Happens to Minds Under Threat?” Tali Sharot describes how just like animals who are running away from predators, the stress hormones such as cortisol are secreted causing the heart to pump and breath to shorten. She gives a story about how she was in New York City and a man began running down the street who appeared to be in a panic. Suddenly, crowds of people began following him without any idea of what was going on. Even though no one knew what was happening, they all began to follow because of the possible, “what if?” question arising in their own minds. I found a video on YouTube of people pranking others with this exact scenario. It shows just about every person following the person running, even though they have no idea what is happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNgp9CrQNV0

Extension

            There are many instances throughout this book that I had related to myself while reading it. It really helped me have a better understanding of the mind/brain and the way it works. Like in my favorite part section, people are motivated by positive reinforcement. I feel this will help me as a school social worker to overcome difficulties with struggling children. Many people think disciplining by negative things such as, “time out” or removing something from them that they are attached to, will help them become better in a sense. This is not the case and does not always work. While taking away negative disciplinary methods and replacing with positive ways to shape a child up, can make great changes to them. If a child is struggling with their school work, telling them what they can do and what they are good at versus getting frustrated with a child for what they do not know can boost their confidence and they will excel. There are so many instances that I related to the book, but I felt that positive reinforcement related to me the most because it is crucially important for the type of work I want to achieve. Overall, this was a great book; Tali Sharot is a very smart and interesting individual and I learned so much from her.

Foods - Preferences

Something that I learned in the food chapter is that there are two different kinds of food preferences. There are innate food preferences and conditioned food preferences. The difference between the two is that one comes along with birth, and the other is more of a learned behavior. When referring to innate preferences, there was a study within the chapter that showed a mother who drank carrot juice during pregnancy and breast feeding verses a mother who did not. It showed that the child preferred carrot flavored cereal when the mother drank the carrot juice and the child who was not exposed to the carrot juice did not like or prefer the carrot flavored cereal. This study shows innate preference in action. Conditioned preferences is a learned desire for a type of food. Two behaviors that goes along with conditioned preferences are mere-exposure effect and taste aversion. mere- exposure effect is when being exposed to the same foods over again result in an increased liking for that food when taste aversion is a strong dislike for a food due to a bad experience or bad taste. I found an interesting TedEd video that explains the mere- exposure effect in a way that helps us understand the definition while also pulling in other factors besides food. https://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2014/09/september-4-2014.html

"The Power of Habit" Book Report- Joe Cariddi

This book focuses mainly upon something called the "Habit Loop". In using the habit loop it is possible to explain several of the tendencies and choices that people make. The Habit loop consists of three parts, the Cue, the Routine, and the Reward. This book then goes into the several ways that a Habit loop is seen in real life, such as how febreze became such a successful product, why target sends certain coupons in the mail, and even why people compulsively gamble. It all comes back to gettin a desired result. A certain action sparks a response, which in turn gives you a reward. The reward is mainly why people repeat the action. No people do have the option to try to change and alter such loops, but it is no easy task. In the book it also details certain ways that people can change habit loops, and delves into this with examples of addicts, and thrill seekers. The main overarching themes are how a habit loop works, why repeat tasks, and certain ways we can try to alter our habits.

My favorite part of the book was actually the end of it, when the topic of gambling was brought up. I personally do not gamble, but my roommate does and he is not the best at it. It seems like he rarely wins money, but he always seems to go back. I could not wrap my head around it until I read this section of the book. This part of the book was called the neurology of free will, and explored the life of Angie Bachmann. She was a compulsive gambler who lost everything. Within this chapter Angie went from riding high with a lot of money, to losing it all in one night. There were two reasons for this. Angie was given several incentives to gamble, Harrahs offered her free trips, free rides, and would give her lines of credit to use. They would then guilt trip her into coming back, she had also developed an issue that most gamblers have. When she had almost won the brain registered that as another win. Even though she lost, her brain released dopamine. This is obviously a bad thing for Angie, she literally could not stop. She took a break after she was bankrupt for the first time, but eventually she had a chance to go back and she took it, then lost everything again. She was sued and then ended up being held liable for the money she owed the casino. Her brain really made her go back, she had become an addict. She always wanted to win more than she lost, and in the end she lost everything she had.

In class we talked about rewards, and it really relates to this entire book. If a reward can be achieved then people much more likely to repeat the task that they did. Take Angie for example, she gambled and gambled. When she won she felt like she was on top of the world. This is the reward, then she was reinforced. Harrahs would send her on free trips, would give her coupons, and would give her complimentary rooms. Every time she gambled she would get more opportunities from Harrahs, and then she would win money. If she lost she would try to win it back, then when she won she would try to win more. She risked a lot, and could not handle it. Then Harrahs would keep calling her, and would tell her to come back. This was positive reinforcement in a very negative way for her life.

This is an attempt to explain what a Habit Loop is in a real world example.
https://www.michaeldpollock.com/charles-duhigg-habit-loop/

I definitely think this book can solve a real life problem. So many people have bad habits that they want to break. Even if it is something as minor as procrastination, if you can see what is your main issue like in the video then it is very possible to change habits. I know a habit that I recently changed was doing homework with people. I would never seem to get as much done, but I always went with my friends to study. I am a social person, but I did not realize that this was hurting my grades. I would study for hours with them and would not retain enough. One day I stopped and said not I am going to study alone I will see you after. My grades started to rise a lot more, and I had changed my habit. I would take study breaks and go see them, but in order to benefit myself I needed to study alone. I think this can be used in all walks of life. Even in the video when the guy discusses why he ate so many cookies. He had a bad habit that he needed to change, and he did and was better off for it. 

Mate Value

I found the reproduction portion of the lectures very interesting. Specifically the mate value section. It makes it seem like finding a partner is so calculated. In the video where both men and women were given a number and they had to pair up. Immediately, everyone tried to pair up with the highest number. I can see how this relates to the real world. Everyone tries to go for the most attractive person and then other characteristics come into play.

Caffeine

Psychoactive drugs are defined as chemical substances that alter mood and behavior. The last substance I expected to see on this list was caffeine because it seems so harmless, but in reality you can become addicted to it. In high school I discovered coffee and drank a large Starbucks frappuccino every morning. When I suddenly stopped consuming them I started having pounding headaches, and I was constantly shaking. I remember staying home from school for a day when the symptoms began. Caffeine is so accessible which isn’t a bad thing, It helps a lot of people get through the day.

Food

When the topic of food was introduced I was excited because I love food like most other people. This reminded me of my failed attempt at the mere-exposure effect. When I was younger I would eat everything my mother gave me except for one thing. Peanut butter. She loves peanut butter so she always tried to make me like it. I think I developed a taste aversion because to this day I get sick by the smell, and it’s weird because most people like peanut butter. I decided to search up why we enjoy some foods, but not all. According to an article I found, we can be born with different sensitivity to the five types of taste but whether we enjoy a particular flavor is up to us. Unfortunately peanut butter gets a no from me.
https://www.thecut.com/2016/05/the-complicated-reasons-why-you-like-some-foods-and-hate-others.html

Reinforcements and punishments

One lecture that I found interesting was the rewards section. Reinforcements increase the likelihood of a behavior while punishments decrease the likelihood. Reinforcers depend on the organism, situation, and needs. The same reinforcements and punishments do not always work on the same people. For example I work as a counselor at a YMCA during the summer and the other counselors and I found out early that the younger kids behave better when you punish them for bad behavior and the older kids behave better when they get a reward for not getting in trouble. The younger group did not care to much when we would reward them but would behave much better when we would take pool time away, and the older group would just behave even worse when we would take things away from them. This showed me that different reinforcements and punishments motivated each age group differently to behave well.   

Drugs

As I was going through the slides on Drugs, I was waiting to read about a topic that always comes up when people talk about addiction. Disease... I didn't see a slide about disease and I have to be honest I was grateful. Know I'm not saying that's your official stance or it's how you feel, but time and time again addicts are not held accountable for their actions. They're given a pass by many when it's chalked up to something it isn't. But that's for another slide/conversation. I just wanted to express my appreciation.

Book Report - The Influential Mind

Moira Solano 

8/5/19 

Motivation 

Book Report 

The Influential Mind by author and neuroscientist, Tali Sharot discusses the relationship between the topic of influence and the brain. Sharot talks about how the human brain operates when people are being influenced and how they respond to it. The three main things she focuses on are how critical emotion in influence is, how weak data is, and how powerful curiosity is. Sharot discusses both good and bad influence. She discusses human behavior and explains the scientific reasons behind the way we act and think when being influenced.  

The prologue of the book discusses our role. A role we aren’t aware of and think about all the time. On the first page, it says, “This duty we all share is to affect others. We teach our children, guide our patients, advise our clients, help our friends, and inform our online followers. We do this because we each have unique experiences, knowledge, and skills that others may not. But how good are we at this role?” Sharot mentions how every thought we have ever had are powered by neurons in our brain. Understanding how our brains function will help us understand how we react to situations and the topic of persuasion. 

I would have to say my favorite part of the book is in chapter 2, “(Emotion) How We Are Persuaded to Reach for the Moon, The Incredible Sway of Emotion”. The section that stuck out to me within this chapter would have to be called, “Sharing the Love.” Sharot mentioned how she loves watching the Olympics because she believes it’s not really about who the greatest athletes are, but the emotions that are displayed during the games. I thought this quote on pages 44 and 45 was beautiful and it says, “My deep attraction to the games stems largely from the raw display of emotion: the pure happiness in the eyes of the woman who just crossed the finish line first, the tears of joy running down the face of the swimmer standing on the podium. Their happiness is contagious. You cannot help but smile when those faces on the screen do. Even the most aloof among us will find their eyes welling in response to winners’ and losers’ tears.” When we see others happy or sad or mad, we feel their emotions and we start to experience what they are feeling, regardless if we know them personally or not. People who you surround yourself with and you are around frequently, like family and friends, will instantly know how you are feeling based on how your face looks, how you sound, how your body looks, and how you speak. Sharing your feelings is easier than sharing ideas because it allows you to open up to people and show that you are vulnerable in that moment. 

 

The chapter I felt was the most related to the topics that we discussed in class would be chapter 4, “(Agency) How You Obtain Power by Letting Go, The Joy of Agency and the Fear of Losing Control”. The section within this chapter called, “Removing Control” made me think about how losing control and maintaining self-control go hand in hand. Losing control and not being able to have it is hard for people to accept. There is no way to do anything, but endure in it, and you feel trapped. Trying to have self-control over something and not giving into it is also hard to accept. In this situation, you have this choice to either ignore the impulsive choice or give in to it, and your choice will determine the outcome. I feel as though this quote on page 83 explains the feelings people have when they have a lack or no control over something, and it says, “Most people become stressed and anxious when their ability to control their environment is removed. This is why many people prefer sitting in the driver’s seat rather than the passenger’s seat, and also why we feel anxious when we are stuck in traffic, unable to move.” I feel like this example is relatable because being stuck in traffic can trigger anxiety and stress, especially because you can’t do anything about the situation and have to sit it out quite literally until it clears up over time. 

I really enjoyed learning about these topics in this book. Tali Sharot did an amazing job explaining not only how the brain functions but talking about real-life stories and experiences that she went through in order to tie in the concept of the book. I’m going to take these topics to heart because it made me think about how I am personally influenced and how my thoughts are being processed based on the information I was given. It’s also fascinating how we don’t fall into certain types of persuasions than others. It’s like we don’t give in due to past experiences or we just have the wits to know that this is a trap. I highly recommend reading this book because it really makes you think about your own thoughts and influences and how you influence people. I think this book will help people become more aware of not only themselves, but also the people around them and the media because I feel as though the media is a huge influence on how we act and think.