D Block Introduction to Psychology 11 - We'll head to the library to work on our week 3 package and to continue the process of Inquiry for our project. Don't forget, within the context of Psychology in order to develop your inquiry process you'll need to ask/consider:
- What is my broad area of inquiry?
- How can I narrow down my focus...
- Some possible inquiry questions are...
- Where can I find reliable information sources?
Another activity I'd like you to begin is your psyblog or psychjournal. This IS NOT a "Thought Diary" or "Journal Therapy" (the purposeful and intentional use of reflective writing to further mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health and wellness)! I would like you to write down your thoughts, ideas, impressions, questions and opinions about the course content we are going through together. I'd prefer not to give you writing prompts as I want you to drive your own learning so here are the topics we are covering in the course:
- Contemporary Psychology and Psychological Perspectives
- Bio-psychology: Neurons; the Brain, the Nervous and Endocrine Systems
- Sensing, Perceiving and sensory systems
- Consciousness: dreams; states of consciousness; and altered states produced by psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, and meditation
- Development, Learning & Intelligence: Cognition and measurements of Intelligence; Stages of human growth and development; and How we learn
- Emotion, Motivation and Personality: Motivation (why we engage in a given behavior); Affect (the experience of feeling or emotion); Universal facial displays of emotion; and Traits and Personality Types (MBTI)
- Psychological Disorders and Treatment: Classification & the DSM-V; Anxiety, Mood and Personality disorders; Psychotherapy and Biomedical Therapy
I would like you to be reflective, introspective, and intentional about your writing so what is it you are interested in and why...be specific. Was there a video or on-line link that helped clarify your ideas on a specific topic? What was it and why did it help.
An example...Let's say we're looking at altered states of consciousness and I mentioned Ayahuasca in the Amazon or Peyote in the Southwestern USA - Northern Mexican region. Let's imagine you looked on line and found the following link at National Geographic and were curious about the cultural psychology of altered states of consciousness (it was used as a religious sacrament among more than forty American Indigenous groups). What are your honest thoughts about the topic? Why does the sacred medicine draw your attention? Is it that you are skeptical of modern "western" ideas of morality or are you interested in ethnobotany?
Another example...Let's say we're looking at psychological disorders and I mention Stephen Wiltshire in class. Let's imagine you have a relative who has autism and want to know more so you go online and find his website and this National Geographic video on him. Perhaps you want to know more about him or are just amazed at how fricken cool he is. Reflect on his brilliance. Why does it draw you to him? What would it be like to be him or live his daily life?
If you love the feeling of physically writing down your thoughts, a paper notebook may be the best option for you. Keeping a paper journal gives you total physical control over your writing, and it gives you the most privacy, since there's little chance of your journal being "hacked" or "lost" when a service shuts down or is compromised.
If you want to be online, Penzu started off as a simple, password-protected online journal, but the service is much more than that now. In addition to a password-protected journal that only you can read, you can also share specific posts with individuals if you want them to see them, or you can leave everything private and locked down. You might just want to start a blog. That doesn't mean your blog has to be view-able to anyone but you, or even public at all. Most popular blogging platforms like Google's Blogspot, Wordpress, Live Journal, Bloguni, Tumblr or Squarespace or any other blog creation site you choose allow you to create completely private entries or entire blogs that only you can see. I would HIGHLY recommend staying with Wordpress, Live Journal or Blogger (you have a Google account through the school district and Blogger is a Google product so it makes sense to use your school e-mail account to create a Blogger site). If you are going to keep a psyblog please remember:
- Ensure your privacy: Keep your journal materials in a safe place (password protected).
- Return to what you have written: Save everything you write and review it often. The process of going back to what you have written can not only spark inspiration for future writing, but can offer perspective.
- Write freely: Hush your inner critic and ignore the urge to edit your work. Your psyblog is not meant to be pretty or grammatically correct; it is meant to be real.
- Be honest with yourself: Honour your thoughts, feelings, and experiences with the authenticity they deserve.
The Health Benefits of Journaling
The Good and the Bad of Journaling
C Block Social Studies 11 - You have time to work on question 1 a & b from page 79 in Counterpoints and the Using Statistics in History questions 1 a, b, 3, and 4 from page 81 in the Counterpoints text. By doing this we will be able to see the impacts of the Great Depression on the Prairies in 1932 and 1933.
- Why did Prime Minister Mackenzie King tell Canadians that the Stock Market Crash would have little impact on Canada?
- What promise did Prime Minister R.B. Bennett and his Conservative Party make to get elected in 1930?
- Should prime ministers try to minimize citizens’ anxieties during a crisis?
- While the economic conditions in the 1930s prevented many people from spending money on consumer goods, the newspaper industry was surprisingly profitable. Why?
- What was the extreme response of some people to the financial crisis?
- What was the “jungle”? What happened to the people who lived here who could no longer cope with the Great Depression?
- How did unemployed men travel around the country, without paying? What was this called?
- What program did the government set up to deal with the unemployment crisis?Where were the convicted members of the Communist Party of Canada taken, and what were the conditions there?
B Block Law 12 - Today we'll watch an episode of Law & Order from season 14 called "Hands Free". From tv.com..."When McCoy fails to win a murder conviction against an eccentric cross dressing millionaire for the death of his neighbor, he redoubles the effort to convict the man for murdering his second wife years earlier by demonstrating that he murdered a witness to the crime." This episode is connected to the Robert Durst murder. Who is Robert Durst? He is the son of New York commercial and residential real estate developer Seymour Durst and was also investigated in the 1982 disappearance and murder of his wife Kathie McCormack Durst in New York, the 2001 murder of his neighbour Morris Black in Texas, and the 2000 murder of his friend Susan Berman in California.
In early 2015, a six-part HBO documentary titled The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst described circumstantial evidence linking Durst to the 2000 slaying of Susan Berman, who was believed to have knowledge of Kathie Durst's 1982 disappearance. The documentary detailed the disappearance of Kathie Durst, Berman's subsequent death, and the killing of Durst's neighbor Morris Black. Against the advice of his lawyers, and his wife Debrah Lee Charatan, Durst cooperated with filmmakers, giving multiple interviews and unrestricted access to his personal records. In February this year (2016) Durst pleaded guilty to a federal gun charge in New Orleans, paving the way for extradition to California to stand trial for the 2000 murder of Susan Berman. His arrest in New Orleans coincided with the airing of HBO's documentary series, "The Jinx,". During the show, Durst was confronted with two handwriting samples — an anonymous letter that had been sent to police alerted them to a "cadaver" at Berman's house and another letter he sent to Berman — that appeared to be a match and had identical misspellings of Beverly Hills. Afterward, he blurted into a hot microphone: "There it is. You're caught," and "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."
In the time left you may finish the work from the past two days.
A Block Introduction to Law 9/10 - So we looked at profiling yesterday (and learned about the efforts of Howard Teten, John Douglas, Robert Ressler, and Roy Hazelwood). The piece we watched (Wayne Williams and Robert Hansen) was biased and really showed profiling in a very positive light. There are questions surrounding the efficacy of criminal profiling and Criminal Minds has certainly glamorized it as a subject, however it is a tool in the proverbial crime fighting tool box.
Another topic that has a great deal of attention, but that the APA (American Psychological Association) is unclear on, is psychopathy. In the DSM-V, the APA recognizes Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder but not Psychopathy. Dr. Robert Hare of the University of British Columbia created a checklist called the PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist Revised). From Mind Disorders...Hare describes people he calls psychopaths as "intraspecies predators who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, sex and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse".
While both psychopathy and sociopathy are extreme forms of antisocial personality disorders, sociopathy is caused by social or environmental factors whereas psychopathic traits are more innate.
From the Atlantic magazine...
In his landmark book on psychopathy, The Mask of Sanity, researcher Hervey Cleckley theorized that some people with the core attributes of psychopathy -- egocentricity, lack of remorse, superficial charm -- could be found in nearly every walk of life and at every level, including politics. Robert Hare, perhaps the leading expert on the disorder and the person who developed the most commonly used test for diagnosing psychopathy, has noted that psychopaths generally have a heightened need for power and prestige -- exactly the type of urges that make politics an attractive calling. In any event, the idea that a psychopath could reach the heights of power is nothing new.So we'll look at Hare's PCL-R and then watch the CBC DocZone video below
Over a century ago, famed American philosopher and psychologist William James said, "When superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce [...] in the same individual, we have the best possible conditions for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries." Perhaps, then, that's the key; it's the combination of other talents with certain elements of psychopathy that can make an effective leader.
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