Essay Helper – Improves Your Academic Results by Using Their Assist

When it comes to composition, anyone will probably say who wouldn’t need an essay helper. But then, here are certainly not referring to just writing an essay for college demands. Most of the current students that aren’t from an English history are more likely to face a lot of difficulties in writing a quality essay.

These hindrances Continue reading

Mass Murderer

Mass murders and public shootings are, sadly, becoming more frequent.  Why is this?  Is it just because they are angry at someone or thing?  It might be more complex than you’d think.  These attacks are well thought out and caused due to anger and rage that can’t be fulfilled by anything else.

Typically, a mass murderer is a young male.  What’s scary is how well most mass shootings are planned.  They hardly ever fail, and even when they do not succeed completely, there is still a lasting damage.  Take Columbine for instance.  That attack could have been much worse; the shooters had enough bombs set up to kill everyone in the school, luckily they didn’t go off.

Is there a way to stop these bad people?  I don’t believe we can 100% stop killers of this sort.  Usually their pent up anger includes months and years of planning.  Also, most killers don’t seem like killers.  Most family members would agree that they didn’t notice anything different with their family member before their attack.  Can we stop them? Not right now, but maybe once we learn more about the mind we can.

A link to my article I read.

Napping Done Right

Everybody loves a good nap from time to time, but it is often a gamble as to whether you feel better or worse when you wake up.  Naps can be very beneficial if done correctly, and can be a great way to get a quick boost of energy or relieve some stress.  If done incorrectly,  you run the risk of messing with your circadian rhythm  and waking up feeling groggy.  Personally, I really enjoy naps, especially when they help me to feel refreshed.  I also recently found an article that helps explain the pros and cons of napping, along with how to go about taking successful naps.  The article will be linked here.

I found this article to be very interesting and also quite useful.  The circadian rhythm is something that I find intriguing because it is a cycle that varies from person to person.  From a biological perspective, I would think that everyone would have a relatively similar circadian rhythm to follow, but in reality, this isn’t necessarily the case.  Some people can get 3 hours of sleep each night and be okay, whereas others need to get 9 or 10 in order to feel the same effect.  Consistency is a big factor when it comes to your circadian rhythm, and naps are the same way.  Doing it at the same every time will help you to get better results.  But if you already have a hard time sleeping at night or can’t find time to take naps more than 6 hours before your bedtime, you may be better off avoiding naps entirely.

Depending on how long your naps are, they may have different benefits.  Taking a 20-30 minute nap can help to boost your energy, but won’t do too much more.  If you take a 90 minute nap, your brain will start to form new connections, and this can help with your creativity.  They can also help to reduce stress, which in turn will help prevent a myriad of medical conditions.  And of course, your overall mood will be better since you will no longer be tired!

Why do children kill?

Traditional explanations for anti social behaviours in children consider poverty, low intelligence, dysfunctional families and the availability of guns. However the case of the Eric Harris (18) and Dylan Klebold (17) disproves these explanations. These boys – who killed a total of 13 people, and then themselves, with a homemade bomb and sawn off shot guns – were considered intelligent, and came from stable, affluent backgrounds. This is where psychology comes in, to suggest dispositional and situational explanations for these behaviours, such as social identity, media influence and childhood development.

Media Influence

Bandura’s study told us that children learn behaviour by modelling, but to what extent is modelling coming from the media? It is undeniable that the media influences us, but is it possible for this influence to become malicious? Endless coverage of the Denver school shooting lead to several “copy cat crimes”, such as a 15 year old boy in a Georgia school who started shooting at random, injuring six pupils. Along with this, doctors found that following an episode of Casualty featuring a paracetamol overdose, hospital admissions for similar emergencies rose by 20% (Bulstrode, 1997). Harris and Klebold admitted to giving up sports for computer games such as “doom”, which were graphically violent. Whilst this would have encouraged and potentially even inspired the homicide that occurred later on, there has been no causal relationship found between violent video games and anti social behaviour.

In-groups and Out-groups

The social hierarchy had a large part to play in the boy’s “outcast” image. Their interests in Marilyn Manson (the “antichrist superstar”) and KMFDM (A German rock band) orchestrated their isolation from mainstream culture. A group labelled the “Trench coat mafia” was created in the school, as a sort of counter-cultural group from the jocks. This group had Nazi undertones, obtaining a “uniform” of long black coats, berets and sunglasses. A crucial piece of information is that the boys were in this “uniform” when the homicide took place. Zimbardo identified this uniformity as contributing to a process called “deindividuation”, in which the anonymity of a uniform allows people to behave in ways that would not normally be acceptable.

The Strains of Adolescent Masculinity

Adolescence brings rapid physical change, hormonal surges and a rejection of parental values, all of which can make this a disturbing period of transition. Inter-male competition is most pronounced when sexual interests and testosterone levels are at their peak, along with cultural values which emphasise exaggerated masculinity. All of these influences can result in impulsive and violent activities. The pressures surrounding conformity and fitting into an idyllic social identity is strongly displayed in Harris and Klebold’s case, where they decided aggression with weapons was the only way they could ever acquire the social status they were previously denied. This time of unstable development in boys, accompanied by other environmental factors, is what drives a desire for a sense of meaning, even if this meaning is unacceptable to everyone else.

Conclusion

Psychological evaluation is the only way we will ever be able to establish an understanding of why these boys committed mass murder, given their “normal” background and upbringing. The psychological discoveries and applications that came from this case have provided us with an understanding of how to identify warning signs in individuals. This is a form of intervention that can help prevent anything like the Denver killings from happening again.

Inside out and its applications to psychology

The movie, Inside Out, is about an 11-year-old girl, Riley, originally from Minnesota, who moves to San Francisco with her parents. The leading characters of the movie are Riley’s primary emotions, Happiness (Joy), Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust. These emotions demonstrate what it might be like in the mind of an 11-year-old girl who struggles with having to move to a different city, away from her friends, away from her hockey league, and has a hard time pretending to be happy for her parents.

This movie is very accurate as it relates to cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychology. The 5 emotions used in this film are in fact 5 of the 6  universal emotions (the 6th one being surprise). Psychologist, Paul Eckman, is most known for his work with universal emotions as he traveled around the world and found that these were present in every culture and presented in the same way through the same facial expressions around the world.

Other concepts displayed in this movie included the conversion of short to long-term memory. When a memory is seen as relevant to us, or when it has been repeated enough times, the brain messengers, dopamine and glutamate, ensure the long-term encoding of that memory. Other concepts briefly covered in the movie include psychological changes of reaching/approaching puberty, psychological stressors, family psychology, inductive and deductive reasoning, and many others.

In conclusion the movie, Inside Out, is a cute and relevant adaption as it applies to human psychology and how the brain functions.  The information and scenarios in this movie are accurately displayed and well thought out.  It is a valid contribution to psychology and I give it 5 out of 5 stars as a great movie.