The Objectivity of Responsibility

The objectivity of responsibility is a powerful notion in our understanding in who we are as individuals. Responsibility gives us a sense of justification in everyday lives. Justification is one of the greatest creation the mind creates because it allows for the brains function to be valued no matter the order in which the mind is dependant on. Responsibility entails individuals with a self regulation in who they are in the workings of their everyday lives. Responsibility is dependant on the value system the individual exhibit in their moral understanding of the world around them and themselves. The notion of responsibility is one contribution that helps individuals justify themselves and their actions. The brain creates many notions that helps better navigate the environment around us.

The Nature of Symbolism

Symbolism is an important conception to our individual self-image and how we understand the world around us. Our brains are dependant on a structured way of operating which makes Symbolism a way to easy understand ourselves and cultural policies. A symbolically perceived thought is a collection of different logical correspondences that help us understand a particular object, place or thing. Symbolism is basically a group of knowledge that is represented in one contribute form of logic. When these different collection of knowledge is compacted together a logical understanding is formed on our minds. This is where the many logics that correspond to that symbolic notion is experienced by the individual. The order in which symbolic ideology is created or experienced by an individual is the same order in which the brain uses to compact memory structures together in order to make functions easier to retrieve and learned. While many structures and policies of different cultures can be related to the way our brains function. It's important to understand that even outside of our brains in nature a certain order is an place that mimics our own way of understanding and thinking. Symbolism is a creation that can be compared to many aspects of not only ourselves but the world around us. Because compartmentalization leads to easier function processes that help bread many things including the aspects of Symbolism.

The Self-regulation of our perceived self image

The process of self regulation entails our learned behaviors and defense mechanisms to enforce our perceived self-image of ourselves. Sometimes the image individuals create in their minds about themselves does not correspond with that of the image others see about ourselves. While others form their concepts of who others are their viewing of others is dependant on their own self-image of how the world around them is or should be. Individuals own self-image about themselves is dependant on the ideas that the growth of our inner-thoughts have lead to an individualistic identity that serves individuals in creating their own self-image of themselves. When this self imagine is positivity or negativity effected the self-image of that individual is affected to a certain manner that defers from it's original standpoint of self-image. In most cases, Self-regulation is important to help foster the individuals original self-image of themselves. Self-regulation comes in many forms and oftens sets the goal of trying to return the individual towards a previous state of mind frame that help regulate the individuals self-image status within themselves.

Alfred Rangel

Identify Our Identity

Identity is a defined concept which recognizes the brains adaptation to where we come from and who we are as individuals. Identity is to the brain one of the important components that help form our sense of self. Knowing oneself is a basic idea that many believe they can describe themselves on a multiple scale levels. But can someone really know themselves without creating bias towards the beneficial reward factors that goes when giving a basic explanation of themselves. Identity helps form the point of view one uses to describe who we are. In reality, our identity regard multiple factors that are often misunderstood when one describes oneself. These multiple factors require a non-bias point of view when trying to understand a situation in ones past. To form a healthy identity gives ourselves a guard against misunderstanding oneself. Many of the times our results and actions do not compare with our expectations. Often this is a cause of a misplaced identity. We often believe our identity is one way, when in reality it's another. Knowing the limitations and strengths of our identities helps us better explain ourselves and better give way to navigate our environments. Identity is just one of the many contributions our brain uses to help us create the sense of self in a person.

The Mind and Body Connection

The mind’s ability to self-actualize itself is an amazing gift we all share. When we self-actualize we are being aware of our surroundings and the mind puts this all together for use in a way we can understand our surroundings better. Self-actualization is at the corner-stone of many therapy techniques that help individuals through behaviors and disorders that are harmful to ourselves. When these behaviors and disorders interact with our self-actualization of ourselves a sense of sometimes overwhelming effects follow. The mind starts to tell the body there is something wrong and sends the body signals in order to help protect the body. The body in return creates its own problems of deregulating itself which can be overwhelming to ourselves because besides the destructive behaviors or disorders interacting with our self-actualization. We are now experiencing the effects through our physical bodies reaction to these experiences which can become overwhelming and can even create new destructive experiences for ourselves that add to the overwhelming effects we were already experiencing. Many of the times we have to function in society in this manner and create more harmful effects towards our ability to tackle the underlining problem. Confronting our bad experiences as they happen in the moment can help in the long run with our abilities to move on from destructive behaviors or disorders. Confronting the problem meaning to understand why the destructive behavior or disorder took place and self-actualize a resolution that helps our mind better understand the situation instead of creating a false sense of reality or just leaving the mind to wonder for an answer through the many interactions we experience on a daily bases. The mind and body connection is a strong connection we have with ourselves and also with the world around us. The better we can understand the effects this connection has in our daily lives the better prepared we can be when destructive behaviors or disorders are experienced.

Signs of Anxieties

Traumatic events are never easy to cope with. When 9/11 happened, individuals were bombarded with news coverage that went around the clock showing the buildings collapsing. This made individuals relive the event over and over for months after the event toke place. Individuals reactions did not help because many resulted to committing crimes against other individuals. There are warning signs that can help when someone is experiencing high levels of anxieties that consulting a medical professional is warranted. For instance, someone that is avoiding places or people so that they not relive the event is a sign that post-traumatic stress has taken place. Another thing that should be considered is post-traumatic stress can manifest itself in actual physical symptoms such as headaches or feeling tried. Individuals feeling symptoms of PTSD or high anxieties after going through a traumatic event benefit from staying connected to a support system such as being around family and friends. This helps with coping with the traumatic event that was experienced. Traumatic events may vary in nature and individuals go through them daily. Living in major cities individuals can be bombarded with traumatic events that occur daily. One just needs to turn on the news and see a traumatic event that has occurred to someone. Often medications are given to individuals that exhibit a long time of feeling anxious because of the traumatic event. Anxiety is a symptom that is seen in many disorders including PTSD. Feeling anxiety is a normal occurrence. It is only when a consistent feeling of anxiety is felt when the individual may be suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder or social anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are treated with a combination of psychotherapy and medications depending on how severe the anxiety disorder is. One of the most effective psychotherapies is called exposer therapy. This is where the individual is exposed to what is making them anxious and through operant conditioning restructure their cognitive thoughts about the traumatic event. Many of the times females have a higher rate of having anxiety disorders than males do. But that does not mean males do not experience anxiety disorders. Some individuals feeling a consistent or high level of anxieties may be genetically predisposed if past relatives exhibited the same symptoms. This leaves individuals to react to situations different than individuals that are not predisposed to these symptoms. One must understand that our genetics can form mutations that can be passed down from past generations. PTSD and anxiety disorders go hand in hand, but it can be difficult to treat if individuals have comorbid disorders or have a substance abuse problem. Can anyone think of another disorder that goes hand in hand with both PTSD and Anxiety disorders? 

Happy Holidays... Let's talk Hunger...

Hello everyone, this topic of discussion is great around the holidays as eating is something that is done mostly. Hunger is said to be caused by the stomach. The stomach when full makes hunger stop, as the chemicals the body needs to produce energy are present by digestion. When the stomach is empty then the body senses a lack in a chemical balance to produce energy. The body creates a need for hunger. The main role of insulin is to lower blood glucose levels right when a food is being digested. Insulin also creates glycogen. Glycogen is created by insulin when there is too much glucose in the blood. Glycogen is then stored in the liver and muscles. The pancreas gland is responsible for the release of insulin when there are too much glucose, amino acids and fats which is created by the food we eat when hunger sets in. The neural and chemical feedback the brain needs to govern food intake is the rise and fall of curtain chemicals which can be sent to the brain by means of the liver or stomach using neural connections. This allows the brain to help better govern food intake. The glucostatic theory of hunger states that a drop-in glucose is a signal to the body and brain that digestion of food needs to happen. The dual-centre set-point theory states that the lateral hypothalamus and the ventromedial hypothalamus are involved in the aspects of hunger (Wickens, 2009). The differences are that the dual-centre set point theory uses neural connections to signal hunger and the glucostatic theory needs glucose to signal hunger. (Wickens, 2009). The theory that has more evidence to support it is the glucostatic theory because it has been around longer by only a couple of years. The role of neuropeptides in producing satiety is the release of neuropeptides by cells in the gastrointestinal system. (Wickens, 2009). The theory that sounds the best to me is the stomach being one of the main aspects in hunger. Since hunger is somewhat a routine experience then the brain storing these actions would be normal. Meaning patients that had their stomach removed still felt hunger because of perceived experiences already stored in the different locations of memory in our brain.

Which connections of hunger can you think is involved with our memories and declarative memories?

Alfred Rangel

Reference
Wickens, A. (2009). Introduction to biopsychology (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Prentice Hall.
 

Forms of Intelligence

There are several types of intelligence. One of the types of intelligence is academic intelligence. Academic intelligence is the ability to form structure cognitive thoughts to apply abstract thinking towards problem solving. This form of intelligence is learned through time and conditioning. Academic intelligence is useful in many aspects of our lives because it deals with solving problems and this knowledge can be applied to everyday situations. Academic intelligence works on basically evidence based knowledge that has been constructed through time from generations to generations.

Another form of intelligence is the ability to associate cognitive learning with emotional aspects. This form of intelligence takes into account emotional aspects that are perceived by an individual. Emotional intelligence varies from individual to individual. While this sort of intelligence may seem unstructured it often is used mostly in the general population. Emotional intelligence has the capabilities to create motivations that help an individual towards solving problems as well as academic intelligence can. The only down side to emotional intelligence is as stated it varies which can be associated with negative and positive aspects.

Cognitive psychologist definition of intelligence is basically the abilities an individual has to store memories and learnings that help create an awareness of structured thought. This definition of intelligence takes into account the working brain and its abilities to function property. For instance, individuals that are born with down syndrome have a brain deficiency that limits their abilities to create intelligence. Cognitive psychologist takes into account structured learning, memory systems storage, and sensory input capabilities to help define intelligence. The difference between how cognitive psychologist define intelligence and other forms of intelligence is consciousness. Consciousness as we have read is the ability to associate different workings of the brain in a combination effort to create a state of awareness.  

Having consciousness allows us to interpret the world around us. This interpretation with conditioning allows us to create knowledge of the world around us. While some knowledge can seem outrages it is intelligence none of the matter. This is because the individual was able to use multiple aspects that allowed him to interpret what he is perceiving and combination that perception with knowledge that already has been obtained. This ability to create intelligence is unique to the human species. While other species can create a sense of direction towards their survival. Humans can create thought about the direction that our survival techniques lead us towards.

Can anyone think of another form of intelligence?

Let's Talk Psychology...

Psychological aspects can be seen all around us. Take for example the gender roles that are shaped through the social environment they are in. Men are assigned a role and woman are assigned a role as well. Men are expected to be more manly and women to be more feminine. Of course in a traditionally sense of view. Imagine if the roles were reversed. Can gender roles be switched?