Blog Post #11 - Personality

I think I have a very easy, fun loving personality. I am able to get along with most people and definitely love being social. I am laid back and not up tight about anything except my school work. When it comes to people and everyday things, I am laid back, but if my school work is not done, I am way more up tight about it. Another positive trait would be organization. I am organized in and out of school. My locker, homework, and clubs in school are all super organized. At home, my closet and room is always neat and everything has its own place. I am super self-disciplined. My parents were strict on me growing up and now that they are laid back and giving me more freedoms, I am able to discipline myself and make good, smart decisions. I am a fun-loving person and can get along with most anyone. I enjoy helping others and listening to them and providing feedback when asked. The last positive trait would be I consider myself to be relatively smart. I have school smarts and street smarts. School comes pretty easy for me luckily and I am usually able to get stuff done. The first not so good trait would be I get stressed very easily. Sometimes I get stressed because of school and situations outside of school. The second one would be that I am very particular about different things like my homework or projects. I always have to have them just right and the way I envisioned them. The last negative thing would be getting nervous. I get really nervous giving speeches and talking in front of large groups. I also get somewhat nervous going into new situations.

I feel that I am more of a pessimistic person. I always feel like I am thinking ahead about all the negative things that could happen and thinking of ways to prevent them. I feel like this affects my life by always worrying and thinking ahead and possibly getting stressed out. My first example is when I have to take a test in school. I get stressed out and think about all the horrible outcomes of the test. This makes me nervous and sometimes I end up doing not so good because I am worrying too much. My second example is when I go into a new situation that I have never been involved in. Sometimes I think about all the negative things that could possibly happen and it pushes me away from trying new things.

The first trait that can change and adapt from situation to situation would be going from really laid back to being uptight and nervous. When I am in a situation where I feel super comfortable and know exactly what is going on, I am able to be relaxed and laid back. However, when it comes to having to do a speech or enter into a situation that I am unaware of, I get super nervous. It is adaptive because depending on my surrounding and what is going on will decide whether or not I am nervous and worry about things. The second trait would have to be how stressed out I get. I get stressed out super easy,especially at school. However, when I go home I am more at ease. They are two different environments that I adapt to and my personality traits change.

I have used "reaction formation" which is the tendency to act in a manner opposite to one's true feelings. When I was younger and had a crush on a boy, there were many times when you deny it and are mean to that boy because you have a crush on them. I have used "regression" which is relieving anxiety by showing immature behaviors that have relieved anxiety in the past. When I get mad or frustrated with parents or friends, there have been many occasions that I have punched things in my room or threw my cell phone and broke it. I have used "rationalization" which is the providing of socially acceptable reasons for one's inappropriate behavior. I used this when I have argued or been disrespectful to someone because I was standing up for myself or someone else.

Blog Post #10 Thinking and Intelligence

One thing I read about in chapter 9 was overconfidence. Overconfidence is the tendency to be more confident than correct and to oversee the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments. Across different tasks, many people will overestimate that their performance was, is, or will be. There are many different types of overconfidence in our world. For example, presidents may be overconfident when going to war, different tests in the labortories, stockbrokers, and students in school with assignments. Many people are overconfident in their decisions with everyday things. If you fail to appreciate our potential for error, it can have different consequences but overconfidence does have adaptive value also. People who are on the side of overconfidence live more happily, find it easier to make tough decisions, and seem more credible than those who lack self-confidence. I feel that it is necessary to be overconfident in some situations but not when it involves other people and issues that affect them. In school, kids who are overconfident with their opinions and making sure everyone knows exactly how they feel about every situations is very irritating. When kids are overconfident in school work and no exactly what they are doing, it can be nice if you need help with an assignment. Overconfidence can go both ways, sometimes it pays to be overconfident and sometimes people need to know when to hold back.



Creativity is the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. There are five different components to creativity. Expertise is a well-developed base of knowledge that furnishes the ideas, images, and phrases we use a mental building blocks. Imaginative thinking skills provide the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections. A venturesome personality seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles. Intrinsic motivation is being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures. A creative environment sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas. If you are surrounded by all these things and contain all these things how can creative can one really be? There are different factors that I can be creative with and not so creative with. In school with projects, posters, and things like the yearbook, I feel I can be super creative with designing things. However, I am only creative if its on the computer or with stencils and what not. I have no artistic ability what so ever. I feel it can be an asset to have a higher creative intelligence. If you are creative in different things it allows you to broaden your horizon and be different than others. It may also allow for more ideas to be brought up that can benefit you.



I thought Sternberg's three intelligences were very interesting and the one I would probably relate too the most. He also states that there is more to success than traditional intelligence. He proposed triarchic theory which consists of analytical (academic problem-solving intelligence) intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence. Analytical intelligence is assessed by intelligence tests which presents well-defined problems having a single right answer. This is the type of intelligence I use in school and work. Creative intelligence is demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas. Practical intelligence is required for everyday tasks, which may be ill-defined with multiple solutions. I use practical intelligence everyday with everyday situations and problems. I think intelligence is a measure of many different thinks not just about book smarts and your IQ.

Blog Post #9 - Memory

Memory can help shape a person into what and who they are as they grow older each day. From the day you are born until the day you die, you memorize things all the time. If memory was nonexistent this earth would be drastically different. How would a person carry on their day without memory? It would be almost impossible for memory to not exist because each day carries over into the next. Clive Wearing was a talented musician who suffered from anterograde amnesia. He is unable to transfer memories from working memory to long-term memory. His memory only lasts from 7 to 30 seconds and he spends every day waking up every 20 seconds restarting his consciousness. If I was his wife, there is no way I would be able to be that patient unless I was completely in love with him. I give her so much credit for sticking by his side and making it through each day with him. She has tried hard to help him each day and he still greets her with excitement every time they meet whether or not they were together five minutes before. If I was Clive Wearing's wife, I have no a clue what I would do with myself. You have to be so patient each day and I honestly don't think I would be able to handle that. If he was my husband and I loved him that much, I would try my hardest to work at things and make each day better for the both of us. This makes me realize just important memory is to me. People never wake up and think about what it would be like to not have their memory. Most people, myself included, take it for granted. It makes me think twice about what I should think about more and just how true my memory actually is.

I never realized just how specific and intense the process for memorization actually is. Memory is an unconscious process that can be narrowed down to a three stage model. It begins with information to be retrieved by your senses and registers in your sensory memory. We then encode the information into working or short term memory through rehearsal. From there the information moves into long term memory for retrieving later. We can encode the information automatically, such as what shirt you wore yesterday, or with effort, such as studying for a test. This makes me wonder just how and why I memorize the things I do. Obviously there is no way a person can memorize everything so what sticks out for each item that is memorized. When we did the activity in class when Mrs. Olson read the list of things and I thought she said words she didn't and could only remember certain words. It makes me wonder why I memorized the ones that I did and why not the others? When I did the exercise called "Short Term Memory:Encoding and Rehearsal" it says how most people would memorize words that are spokin that are seen. However, I was able to memorize the words that were written down better than the spoken words.

I found chunking to be very interesting. It is something we use everyday and don't even realize we are doing it especially in school. Chunking is the organizing of items into familiar, manageable units. Chunking can also be used as a mnemonic technique to recall unfamiliar material. The example from the book is ROY G BIV, which helps you memorize the colors of the rainbow. I have used chunking and mnemonic techniques in many of my classes to help me remember and understand concepts for tests and assignments. It is important because people don't even realize they are grouping things together but really it is helping them to recall phrases and words better.