Developmental Stew

We have finally made it to the home stretch, which means that this blog is coming to a close.  While discussing many separate topics that relate to real world issues and experiences, I have come to realize that a lot of these topics share many similarities to each other.  Developmental psychology topics all blend together at different areas while defining how we as humans progress through our lives. By mixing these topics together, we can obtain a better grasp on how we grow.  Below are three examples of what I mean.

Predicting Divorce/Positive Aging

One of the biggest life events that occurs for most people is marriage.  People grow up in search of their soul mate, and are always curious of when their time will come. Sadly, the current divorce rate is at approximately 50%, and divorce can affect people of all ages, including middle age and elderly couples.  This interesting connection between divorce and positive aging is not one that people would expect.  When I think of elderly couples, such as my grandparents, I could never imagine two people issuing a divorce after being married for over a third of their lives.  However, according to Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 17.5% of Americans over the age of 50 reported being divorced or separated from their spouse, and this number has stayed pretty consistent.

Why are older people becoming more likely to file for divorce?  According to Dr. John Gottman, the heaviest predictor of divorce is the man's overall dissatisfaction.  Oppositely, it is more likely that a woman will initiate the conversation of filing for divorce.  This may be because women feel more empowered to fulfill their own needs, and are no longer dependent on men to support them.  Because of this, women tend to expect more from men, and put their own needs on the back burner in order to save their marriage; however, this lack of communication about her feelings is what ultimately leads to her unhappiness.  Now that women do not need a man on their hip to determine their worth, women are more likely to go out and seek happiness in other things (or people) rather than staying in an unhealthy relationship.  There are so many other options for people who are unsatisfied with their marriage does not live up to their expectations.  Additionally, thanks to better health care and medicine, spouses at age 55 are aware that they have 25+ more years to live.  At this age, the children are typically out of the house, and staying in an unsatisfying relationship for another quarter of their life does not seem pleasant. Gottman provided a few tips to maintain a healthy marriage:

• Build love maps
• Share fondness and admiration
• Turn towards
• Positive perspectives
• Managing conflict
• Make life dreams come true
• Create shared meaning
• Trust
• Commitment

His therapeutic developments have been designed to aid couples in increasing respect, affection, and closeness, breaking through and resolving conflict when they feel stuck, generating greater understanding between partners, and keeping conflict discussions calm.  Utilizing these techniques may help that elderly couple rekindle the spark they had during their newlywed stages; it's all about passion, devotion, and love after all.


Identity/Sexuality

Identity is a very important aspect when a person is trying to figure out who they are and what direction they want to take in their life.  The development of identity is a long process that is not solely based on biology and genetics, which is a hard concept for some people to grasp.  For example, some people view racial identity as sharing a group with people with the same skin color, when in reality it is so much more.  Race is modernly discussed as a social construct, and people determine their racial identity based on which racial group they perceive to have a shared heritage with.  Similarly, ethnic identity is not based on what we look like on the outside, but instead our beliefs participation in a culture that best fits us that we share with other people.  Another important identity people must determine is sexual identity.  While many closed-minded people believe that sexuality is black and white and can be categorized, sexual orientation is fluid and allows people to move around the spectrum in order to decipher their preferences in a partner.

Identity affects every person's life, yet people are discriminated against on the basis of identity regularly.  While America is perceived to be way ahead when it comes to human rights, it is certain that we still have a lot of work to do.  People who identify with minority races and ethnicities struggle to find work, and are forced to "white wash" their resumes just to obtain interviews for jobs.  People have changed things such as their academic background, previous work experience, and even their name to sound Caucasian because society has a prejudice against minorities, deeming them unable to produce the quality of work a white person is able to.  Obviously, this is untrue, but our society is completely biased toward the white man.  Similarly, non-straight people experience prejudice because they are not conforming to social norms of society; a man and women are able to produce offspring and keep the human race alive, but homosexuals are preventing the reproductive purpose of our existence.  While America does have its flaws, homosexuals are treated very poorly in third-world countries.  For example, homosexuals in Nigeria and other African countries receive very harsh punishments, including the death penalty, for being gay.  These nations are unaware that homosexuality is not a choice, and believe that homosexuality is a completely social choice.  Ultimately, identity is something that influences everybody, and it is sad to see such a separation between the different identity preferences.  As humans, we should all embrace and support each other in our life choices.  Acceptance is the ultimate goal, and without diffusion of different lifestyles, prejudice and discrimination will continue to be prevalent in our society.


Emotions/Bullying

Bullying is a global problem that can lead to extreme consequences depending on the severity of the situation.  People are bullied for a multitude of reasons, including identity, physical attributes, social quirks, or really anything a person can find to make fun of.  Bullying causes victims to have an overload of negative emotions, which may lead to different mental disorders.  Emotions play a huge role, and sometimes it is very hard to detect a person's true emotions.  The happiest people tend to be hiding their true feelings and putting on a front, however, according to Paul Ekman, people display "microexpressions" that display a person's true emotion for about 1/25 of a second.  These microexpressions bring the basic emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, contempt, disgust, and surprise to light.  Each emotion has specific facial features that go along with each expression, making them easier to interpret and justify.  By educating young children about emotional intelligence, the effects of bullying may potentially decrease significantly.

Technological advances has made bullying easier and emotion interpretation much harder.  Online bullying has a lot in common with bullying in school: Both behaviors include harassment, humiliation, teasing and aggression. Cyberbullying presents unique challenges in the sense that the perpetrator can attempt to be anonymous, and attacks can happen at any time of day or night.  In this sense, the bully is able to hide their identity and save their social image while still getting their point across to the victim. Technology is also slowly destroying interpersonal connections in the real world. People are less likely to communicate with someone face-to-face, and turn to technology because it is simple and faster. Humans are becoming so heavily reliant on technology that we panic when we are without it. We sometimes even begin to isolate ourselves from the real world, and begin to replace our personal relationships with cyber friends. These addictive behaviors destroy our emotional functions.

Closing

It has been a pleasure to write an academic blog on developmental psychology and also social justice is some cases.  I have learned a lot about international issues, dilemmas here at home, and even personal experiences that have been eye-opening.  I have enjoyed hearing the perspectives of others in comparison with my own take on a topic.  Hopefully I can continue to socially blog on controversial topics and apply the strategies I have acquired through this experience.

Until next time!

Lauren O'Brien 

Love is Love

Marriage is defined as is a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. Traditionally, a marriage is thought to be between a man and a woman, but as times change, more and more people are beginning to fight for the rights of homosexuals, bisexuals, transgenders, and any others who don't fall into the category of "straight."  However, there is a lot of backlash from people who don't support the movement.  These people either feel that this nontraditional union ruins the sanctity of marriage, have conflicting religious views,  or just view gay marriage as unnatural.  Obviously, opponents of gay marriage are heterosexual and are unable to empathize with the LGBT+ community.  In our own nation, 32 states have legalized gay marriage, which is huge step in the right direction!

Although many social liberals in the United States are frustrated that gay marriage is not totally legal yet, we are way ahead of the game in comparison to other nations around the world.  As more and more states in America begin to legalize LGBT+ marriages, other nations are still punishing, and even killing, homosexuals solely because of their sexuality.  For example, Putin and the Russian government have a law in review that would allow children of gay and lesbian couples to be taken away from them.  Members of the LGBT+ community in Russian cities, such as Arkhangelsk and Ryazan, have had to live their lives around that national ban against "propaganda of nontraditional relations."  Many have joined youth groups and advocacy groups, but they know they are still vulnerable.  The citizens realize that they are the majority, and that many people are supporters of nontraditional marriage, however the government (even though its members have the minority opinion) is far more powerful than the citizens.  While the local media in these two cities have shown homosexuals unexpected support, the government-controlled national media is persistently inhospitable toward the movement of equality.  This may stem from the fact that Russia and the Western world have always been competing for the title of "global superpower," so Russian lawmakers want to be as different as possible from the United States.  

The debate of gay marriage was brought to the globe's attention during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Many nations around the world threatened to boycott and skip out on the games due to all of the anti-gay propaganda that Putin was delivering. Although the games did end up occurring with all of the intended nations, many interest groups have contacted the International Olympics Committee (IOC), demanding that the games are to never be held in a discriminatory nation in the future. The Olympic Charter protects the rights of all athletes, coaches, and spectators, but it cannot interfere with the implemented governmental system of the host nation (in this case, Russia). However, International Olympics Committee President Thomas Bach explicitly stated prior to the games that humans all over the world could count on the group to “ensure that the Charter is fully applied at the Olympic Games and is fully accepted at all venues for all participants from athletes and officials to media and spectators.”  This event became a worldwide controversy, and really shed light on how torn the globe is on this issue.

Nigeria, Egypt, and Uganda are also taking extreme measures to sanitize themselves of homosexuality. Many people are being incriminated and getting thrown into jail because of their sexual orientation. Africa as a whole is struggling to catch up with the rest of the world, and is treating gay marriage very harshly.  The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, is not taking this issue lightly now that Ugandan scientists have ruled that homosexuality is a completely social behavior.  Nicholas Kristof takes a medical standpoint on the matter and issued a letter to health officials which stated multiple reasons to persuade the president to reconsider.  He rebuttals the idea that homosexuality is strictly social, and compares homosexuality to race, height, and other similar characteristics. These characteristics do not have one assigned gene that determines the trait; instead, multiple different genes work complexly to determine what each trait will become.  Kristof speculates that homosexuality falls into this category of ambiguous traits.  He reassures the medical professionals that homosexuality is found in every culture, and can also be influenced by environmental factors.  He closes the letter by reminding the recipients that the vulnerable need to protected and that further research needs to be done before any legislation is passed.

One of the most frustrating arguments against gay marriage is that it ruins the sanctity of marriage due to a lack of religious meaning.  In today's society, the religious affiliation that is "supposed" to go with marriage is lacking and rapidly diminishing.  More and more couples are getting married outside of religious buildings.  Marriage is becoming more of a social event, and with religion slowly being removed from the picture, there really is no argument.  Furthermore, heterosexual spouses are just as likely to destroy the sanctity of marriage through cheating and divorce.  In fact, gay couples are likely to be together longer before getting married, resulting in a lower divorce rate.  From a religious standpoint, opponents argue that gay marriage takes away from the true purpose of marriage, which is to procreate.  However, there are many heterosexual couples that end up putting their children up for adoption because they are unwilling or unable to take care of them.  Through the legalization of gay marriage, more children will be able to have a stable home environment with loving parents rather than having to grow up in foster care with a constant change.  Furthermore, the Bible promotes social change.  In Matthew 5:7, “Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”  This metaphor is basically saying that change is necessary for society to grow, and old societal norms can be detrimental to human development.  

With Liberty and Justice for Some

Meet Jose Zamora. Jose electronically applied for any job he felt qualified everyday, adding up to anywhere from 50 to 100 applications per day. Unfortunately, Jose never heard back from any companies, and uploading resumes with no response became a routine.  After this disappointing routine began to take over his life, he decided to take the "s" out of his name on his resume, therefore becoming "Joe Zamora."  Within a week, all of the companies he applied to with the name change got in contact with him and offered him an interview.  

What Jose did was "whitewash" his resume. All he had to do was make his name sound more Caucasian - he didn't edit a single thing on the resume itself.  According to recent studies, white applicants get 50% more callbacks from employers than Latino or African American applicants.  This is a huge gap, and companies both consciously and subconsciously discriminate against potential applicants solely based on the ethnicity the employer associates with the name on the resume.  Unfortunately, Jose is not the only person to change their identity in order to get a job.  Besides changing their names, minorities have had to rearrange their previous experiences so black employers were not listed first.  Furthermore, people who have attended historically black colleges have had to remove that portion of their education off of their resume for a chance at a job.  Of the people interviewed for the article, one woman was afraid of the message she was sending to her children by "whitening" her resume and not embracing her background.  This is startling based on the fact that affirmative action has been implemented to ensure that discrimination would cease in the work place.

Affirmative action was implemented by by President Kennedy in 1961 during the Civil Rights movement.  He stated that the point of affirmative action was, "to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Affirmative action policies often focus on employment and education, which is why the need for "whitewashing" is disturbing.   However, more and more organizations are replacing affirmative action programs with diversity programs.  A lot of these diversity programs are ineffective; therefore, minority applicants and employees are experiencing backlash and discrimination based on their race and ethnic backgrounds.

There is cultural diversity all over the United States; in fact, my generation is the most culturally diverse group of people to date.  People in my parents' generation are less likely to identify themselves as every background they are a part of; instead, they identify with the one that resonates with them the most.  This may stem from the fact that from 1970-2000, people were only allowed to select one race on the census, making them feel "locked in" to that one specific race.  However, things are much different now.  Not only are college campuses full of diversity, but now cultural diffusion occurs in areas such as politics, business, and sports.  Interracial relationships are no longer a taboo in society; they are very common.  Sadly, interracial people and relationships still receive backlash.  One young man reported his family constantly asking him, "Why don't you date a Hispanic girl?" when he brought an African American girl home.  Another young man stated that because he was always being tug-of-warred by both sides of his family to choose a side, he had no desire to identify with any race.

I have a very strong reaction to this.  It is 2014.  People should be able to live their lives how they want without judgment.  People should not be penalized for something they have no control over, such as their race or ethnic background.  Instead, they should be able to celebrate life and their diversity.  It is disturbing that people have very limited and restricted opportunities because of who they are, so much so that they need to change themselves in order to find acceptance.  We are all people.  There is no reason for dominant and oppressed groups to exist.  We are all the same species, and we are all given the same chance at life.  Haile Selassie, who was the Emperor of Ethiopia for 58 years during the 20th century, stated, “This world was not created piecemeal. Africa was born no later and no earlier than any other geographical area on this globe. Africans, no more and no less than other men, possess all human attributes, talents and deficiencies, virtues and faults.” This eye-opening quote, along with the work of many advocates for racial equality, show the hunger for acceptance that these people want.

Right and Wrong & Right and Left

Even though I am not the most religious person, I do enjoy spirituality.  I love hearing different theories that try to explain why the world is the way it is, and why people act the way they do.  One of my favorite things to read are horoscopes and astrological traits.  Based on date of birth, each person is assigned an astrological sign.  People that have the same astrological sign share common traits.  For example, I am a Libra.  According to astrology, Libras hate conflict, and do anything they can to have a cooperative balance between themselves and the people around them.  Libras are so concerned with peace and harmony that it's sign is a balance.  Libras have a pretty good sense of what is right and wrong, and are at their best when collaborating with the people around them.  Libra's love to learn and gain new perspectives through interaction with others.

Oscar Wilde once said, "Morality, like art, means drawing a line somewhere." A moral person is able to distinguish between good and bad behavior, and learn this difference through interactions at home, school, work, and other social environments.  Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that morality is constantly being shaped and molded throughout a person's lifetime, and created six stages of moral development.  The preconventional stages revolve around the self.  The first stage is obedience to authority.  A person is less likely to perform an immoral action if they have a chance of being caught.  The second stage is instrumental.  This means that a person is more likely to perform an action if they will experience personal gain.  Next, the conventional stages are based on external factors.  The third stage is interpersonal norms.  A person is more likely to perform if they feel that they are expected to. The fourth stage is societal norms.  People act in specific ways based on social cues and expectations. The postconventional stages have a more altruistic view of what is right and wrong.  The fifth stage is the social contract.  People are willing to overlook and break social rules if they are deemed invalid.  The final stage is universal ethical principles.  People in this stage regard themselves on the basis of equality and have no problem going against norms for the sake of justice.  Based on these stages, there are a few questions that can be raised.  First, does moral reasoning actually lead to moral behavior?  It is one thing to know what the right thing is, but it is another to perform moral actions.  Second, Kohlberg stresses the ideas of justice in his theories, but does not fully account for the fact that emotions can sometimes inhibit our ability to reason morally.  Third, Kohlberg's theory is based on personal rights rather than society and community as a whole.  While this theory supports individualist cultures, collectivist groups may have different methods of moral reasoning that Kohlberg is missing.  

Another perspective of moral reasoning comes from Jonathan Haidt, who raises some pretty controversial dilemmas in order to get his point across.  One of his most known dilemmas is the story of Julie and Mark, siblings who engage in protected but incestual relations to try something new, and asks readers to determine if this is a moral action.  Many people say that it is not, but Haidt always has a rebuttal for every argument made. "That is disgusting!" - obviously not for them.  "Genetic mutations are bound to happen!" - most likely not since two forms of contraceptives were used.  The list goes on.  What Haidt is trying to show here is that people have an initial reaction to a stimulus before reasoning with it.  We as humans like to believe that we have complete control over our emotions because of our free will.  However, research has shown that we have no control over our initial reaction to a stimulus, but after that reaction we are then able to process the information.  

One of Haidt's theories is called the Social Institutionalist Model, which states that moral judgment is mostly based on automatic processes rather than on conscious reasoning. People engage in reasoning largely to find evidence to support their initial responses.  This theory was then extended to become the Moral Foundations Theory.  This theory suggests there are at least six innate moral foundations, upon which cultures develop their various moralities.  The six are care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. The theory was developed to explain cross-cultural differences in morality, but has also been found to explain differences in political views.  For example, democrats, liberals, and those who are more toward the left on the political spectrum tend to focus more on the aspects of care, fairness, and liberty, while republicans, conservatives, and right-winged thinkers tend to utilize all six foundations equally.

When I think of a moral character, I always think of the film "To Kill A Mockingbird."  The film (originally a novel written by Harper Lee) is based in Georgia in the 1930's, where racism and oppression were extremely prevalent.  Atticus Finch is a lawyer who takes on the job of representing Tom Robinson, an African American man who is charged with rape and assault of a young white female.  Although the entire city was totally against Tom due to the color of his skin (even though he was innocent), Atticus still fought for this mans rights.  Atticus saw Tom as a human being with rights, while the rest of the town saw Tom as an unequal.  At one point in the film, Atticus states (in regards to Tom), "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it," and that basically sums up his moral character.  Based on Kohlberg's stages, Atticus Finch can definitely be placed in the postconventional level because he looks at representing Tom as a universal ethical principle, and is able to realize that justice and equality should be part of our moral compass, regardless of existing laws and social rules.

Untying The Knot

Merriam-Webster defines marriage as "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law."  Marriage is one of the most sacred events in many religions and is transforming as time continues.  In the past, the matrimonial ceremony would always take place in a holy building, such as a church or temple.  Recently, marriage has become less and less religious, and more of a social event.  People are beginning to get married on beaches, cruises, and even amusement parks to liven up the event.  But marriages are not all fun and games - any type of relationship requires an equal amount of work from both parties for the best results and overall satisfaction.

At Catholic weddings, new spouses vow to the other that they are "to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part." Sadly, many couples are not able to keep their promises and end up splitting up.  Divorce is starting to become a normal occurrence in this day and age, as approximately 50% of marriages end up in divorce.  According to The Huffington Post, the top ten reasons for divorce include:

1. Infidelity
2. Unhappiness
3. Too much arguing
4. Fell out of love
5. Little to no communication
6. Wanted different things
7. Their partner changed
8. Felt no connection to their partner
9. Abuse
10. Financial issues

People contemplating divorce take approximately two years to decide what they want, and spend 18 months out of 24 trying to fix and work things out in their relationship, whether it is for themselves or for their children.  A significant amount of people view divorce as a personal failure, causing them to be hesitant to make the heartbreaking choice of leaving their partner.  Divorce can happen to couples of all ages.  Surprisingly, it is becoming more and more common to find couples over 50 years old file for divorce.  As human life expectancy grows, people at the age of 50 are expected to live for another 25+ healthy years, and with the children grown up and moved out, people are likely to opt out of bad or even stale relationships.  In this day and age, there are many different options for people who are not excited by their marriages.  More often than not, divorces are initiated by women, as women are much less tolerant of an ordinary and unfulfilling relationship.  Maybe this is because relationships (and the idea of love) has been so romanticized, and more and more pressure is put on men to go above and beyond to show their affection for their partner. Women are beginning to expect men to give more because women are more in touch with their needs and are able to support themselves, and begin to put their own needs on the back burner for the sake of their marriage. Another explanation is that when a couple divorces, the women are usually favored, and are given custody of the children.  Men are afraid of losing their children, and will choose to continue in the relationship, even if they are unhappy.

Many people question whether marriage is a civil right or not.  According to the United States Constitution (specifically Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment), "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  This passage was applied to marriage in Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia in 1967, where the Chief Justice stated, "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men ... To deny this fundamental freedom...is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted...Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person...resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."  This case was specifically speaking about interracial marriage, but in the current age, same-sex marriage is the new hot topic.  

Same-sex marriage is a very popular debate all over the nation.  While some states have legalized it, other states are extremely opposed to the idea.  Some feel that the sanctity of marriage will be ruined, while other oppose the union of same-sex couples based on religious beliefs.  However, as stated by the 1967 case, the freedom to marry or not should be up to the people involved, and not the governing bodies.  In my opinion, if two people love each other, then gender should not play a role in their ability to unite under the eyes of the law.

The Williams Institute, part of the University of California Los Angeles, conducted research to compare marriage and divorce statistics between straight and same-sex couples.  The research provided astounding results.  First, marriage is much more appealing for same-sex couples because it is not as easy to attain.  Furthermore, same-sex couples strive to earn the acceptance and symbolism that comes with marriage, while straight couples are only required to say "I do" (without any hate attached) to achieve the same things.  Another finding is that divorce rate is lower for same-sex couples.  The researchers believe that this is because partners in same-sex relationships are more likely to date for a longer period of time before agreeing to wed, giving them more time to experience arguments and commit to becoming a family.  

How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris and his family.

These statistics get me to thinking about children with gay/lesbian parents.  Some children have straight parents that do not properly care for them and love them, but they are able to have as many children as they please because of their anatomy.  On the other hand, same-sex couples struggle to adopt children because they are the same gender, even though they will love and care for that child unconditionally because they are unable to conceive naturally.  This irritates me.  Personally, I don't think that the gender of the parents should be a barrier - as long as the child is properly cared for and loved, then the sex of the parents should not matter.

Emotion, Technology, Lies: OH MY!!

Emotion is a very important piece of human interaction.  All people have the ability to display both basic emotions (ie. happiness, sadness, anger, etc.) and complex emotions (ie. jealousy, pride, embarrassment, etc.).  Our emotions shape how we react to different situations and how we handle different challenges.  

These figures show the same 8 basic emotions.  Each emotion, although not totally the same due to individual differences, share similar facial features.  This allows us to distinguish between emotions.

As shown in the images above, all humans display the same facial features when feeling a certain emotion.  For example, when we are surprised, every person initially opens their mouth and bulges their eyes.  As a species, we all react similarly when feeling a certain way.  To make more sense of this phenomenon, Bio Motion Lab has created a prototype of a human using virtual laser pointers.  In the simulation, the user can change different traits, such as gender, weight, and mood of the human on a spectrum, and see how the body language changes.  This prototype shows that humans share very similar body language to express their feelings.

The prototype simulation starts off neutral and allows the user to place the human on different parts of each spectrum.

The way we respond to emotional stimuli helps to differentiate between people.  Some people can be honest and express their emotions, and others block off and even sometimes lie, depending on the circumstance.  It is scary to think that most people can lie to someone's face without being caught. Humans are able to exaggerate and blatantly lie about anything without facing any consequences because the lie is not detected.  Humans lie because they do not want to face a punishment for something we did wrong.  Sometimes we lie to get out of an accidental situation, but other times we engage in premeditated actions and plan on lying from the get-go.  Regardless, we are a very gullible species and tend to believe most of the things we hear.  

Wouldn't it be nice if people were like Pinocchio, and their noses grew a little every time they lied?  I know that having that trait would make the lives of the law enforcement much easier.  Unfortunately, nothing is that simple, and law enforcers have different tactics to detect lies.  In Dr. Paul Ekman's video, Three Ways to Catch a Liar, he explains that people can lie using words, but their body indicators are really what tell the truth.  He states that the most useful method in detecting a lie is by analyzing microexpressions.  These expressions only last for about 1/25 of a second, and if the microexpression doesn't match the statement, then that person is concealing an emotion.  Although this doesn't determine that the person is lying, there is a good indicator that they are hiding something.  A second thing to notice is a person's body language.  Specifically, nodding has been seen to contradict words time and time again without the person even realizing their movements.  Dr. Ekman has been using these tactics to learn more about human emotions while helping law enforcers, including FBI and CIA agents.

Dr. Ekman and television series "Lie To Me" members point out different microexpressions found in each basic emotion, making it easier to detect what the subject is actually feeling.

Back home, a friend of mine was having issues with her computer, so she took it to tech support to get it fixed.  After many virus scans and restarts, the technician began to check for any hardware issues, and found that the webcam on the computer was turned on.  After checking all of the running applications and closing them all out, he noticed that the webcam seemed to still be running.  After toying around with the computer some more, they realized that someone had hacked into her webcam and had been watching her whenever she was using her laptop.  Furthermore, the hackers were able to deactivate the light that turns on with the webcam so she wouldn't know it was on while activating the microphone.  In short, the hackers were able to watch and listen to everything she said in front of her computer without her knowing.  Clearly, they did not have her consent, and knowing this, I constantly keep a piece of paper taped over my own webcam.

The point is that technology is rapidly expanding in ways that most people are unaware of.  When we are online, our every move is getting tracked.  Now, there are forms of technology that can detect our emotions when we are not surfing the internet.   Not only can the software inspect our inner thoughts, but hardware is becoming another source of emotion tracking.  There seems to be no end in sight of massive surveillance issued by the government. Newer technology that is able to identify your name just by looking at your face is beginning to be distributed world wide.  Even scarier, future technology will also have the ability to detect our emotions.  These technologies will have "emotion sensors," and although they won't know what exactly triggered an emotion, they will know what emotion we are experiencing at that time.  These companies have no guidelines to follow regarding consent and notification to use face recognizers and faceprints. Soon enough, people are going to lose all personal privacy that they have, and that is terrifying to me.

Technology is also slowly destroying interpersonal connections in the real world. People are less likely to communicate with someone face-to-face, and turn to technology because it is simple and faster.  Humans are becoming so heavily reliant on technology that we panic when we are without it.  We sometimes even begin to isolate ourselves from the real world, and begin to replace our personal relationships with cyber friends.  These addictive behaviors destroy our emotional functions.  On one social blogging sight, Tumblr, bloggers are constantly posting about wanting to sit online rather than interact with people.  Whether this is an ongoing joke or not, social media and technological advances are beginning to inhibit our ability to function outside of the cyber realm.

A typical Tumblr blog post.

Emotional interactions are vital for human existence.  Many people find their reason for existance through objects or experiences. If we didn't have any sense of attachment or emotion, negative feelings like emotional pain, envy, and hatred would not exist, but neither would positive emotions, such as joy and contentment. Therefore, life would have no logical reason to continue other than to simply and instinctually exist because there would be no motivation. However, if we continue to deny ourselves from obtaining the full human experience by wasting our time in front of a screen (that is monitoring us!!!) our emotions will begin to lose their importance in our lives.

Talk the Talk and Thought the Thought

Language gives people the ability to discuss the past, present and future.  As Keith Chen explains language, he expresses the differences in languages around the globe, and how some are more detail-oriented than others. For example, in English, we would vaguely describe a person as our "uncle."  However, in Mandarin Chinese, the details about who this uncle is are much more descriptive, like "my uncle who is married in on my mother's side."  He also explains the concept of future-based versus futureless languages, and how the way words are grouped together really make a difference in both personal and national levels when it comes to health and wealth, and probably much more.  Futured languages force us to add a new ending to words, clearly stating that the future is completely different than the present day.  On the other hand, futureless languages do not require a new ending, therefore making the future seem similar to the present.  These differences in word groupings lead people to think in different ways, research has shown.

I noticed that a lack of language can really hinder a person's ability to complete a task.  This August, I was an Awakening leader for ten of the incoming first year students.  We gave them a number of challenges throughout the week, and saw that they were able to get the task done efficiently through communicating.  However, we also realized that they were easily distracted from the task, and we always have to help them refocus.  Because of these observations, we decided to challenge them, and have them complete a task completely mute.  They were given five minutes to plan aloud with each other, but had to be completely silent for the remainder of the activity.  We noticed that they became extremely frustrated because they could not be successful as quickly as usual, and that they used their hands in attempt to get their ideas across to the group.

Team Anaconda during Awakening 2018

One study that I found fascinating was Gary Lupyan's alien experiment.  Students were given a task to identify which aliens were safe and which ones were dangerous just by looking at them.  The experimental group was given the category of alien that the specific alien shown was a part of, whether it be "leebous" or "grecious," while the control group was not told any information other than the original task.  The results showed that the experimental group was able to recognize the similarities and differences between the aliens significantly faster than those in the control group.  The most interesting part of this study, in my opinion, was the fact that the control group created their own categories for the aliens once they began to notice the commonalities and changes between the different pictures.  Clearly, the students in the experimental group had an advantage and was able to process the pictures faster because of the categories they were supplied with, which only builds up the idea that language influences our thought processes.

Left side was catagorized as "leebious" and the right as "grecious" in Lupyan's experiment.

One idea that captured my attention was linguistic relativity.  This is a common interest among people all over the world, considering that it discusses the way people view the world and interact with one another.  This idea is linked with color perception, and how we categorize every new color we see, and how every culture processes color differently.  Some say that people have eleven categories for color, and they are added to as we encounter new colors. However, more recent research shows that one group, called the Namibian Himba, only uses five groups of color descriptively, yet we as a species are able to see the same spectrum of color.

After reading about these experiments, I began to wonder about how deaf people and sign language are connected with this idea.  Obviously, people that speak in sign language use a more visual way of conveying a message, but sometimes we as humans don't always have words to describe our feelings.  In these cases, we turn to actions, just as my Awakeners had to do while they were muted.  Similarly, the participants in Lupyan's study were able to visualize the aliens and see the differences, along with being given language cues.  Do deaf people process their thoughts in a different way?  I learned that deaf people sometimes sign language mumble, which happens when they quickly run through the signs without fully doing them.  People mumble all the time while they are speaking, so does this imply that the processes are similar, if not the same?  Signers also have accents, depending on where they are, and there are different forms of sign language all over the world.  In sign language, the same sign can have many different meanings depending on its placement.  Similarly, languages can have the same word with different spellings that have completely different meanings.

These two different (well, maybe not as different as we think!) forms of communication influence our thoughts in similar ways.  For me, language is very captivating and I am beginning to realize how language is completely taken for granted.  Without a system of communication, we would have very insufficient thought processes and would be extremely limited as a human race.

Baby Talk

Throughout my life, I have always been interested in babies and their thought processes.  How do they think? Do they have babbling noises running through their heads?  This concept always intrigued me.  When my twin siblings were born, I was six years old.  I remember always wanting to know how to get my siblings to like me, so I would always try to make them laugh.  I would also try to play little mind games with them, like peek-a-boo.  Because object permanence wasn't implemented for them yet, it blew their little minds when my face reappeared from behind my hands.

If only they knew...

But the most exciting thing for me was watching them interact with each other.  When they would play together, they would use the other's toys.  Because these toys were new to them, they became very engrossed in the item, ignoring all of their own toys that they were used to playing with normally.

A photo of my siblings and I back in the day.

Phenomenon like this are constantly tested.  If Piaget were to analyze this scenario, he would think that my siblings were more attentive because it was a foreign object to them.  Sylvain Sirois and Gert Westermann would agree with Piaget in that they are more interested in the new item than what they have seen previously.  However, a conflicting opinion would state that babies come equipped with some knowledge at birth and can understand basic math, physics, and other life aspects.

Personally, children baffle me.  They are so intelligent and never stop making me wonder what is going on inside their tiny little heads.  I would love to think that babies are born with basic knowledge of the world around them, and are readily equipped with the proper tools to survive, but the answer is still unclear.  There is one thing I do know for sure: whether they are born smart or they learn as they develop, babies never cease to amaze me.