Psych Response Paper

Throughout this semester of Psychology 150 I have learned a great deal about several different concepts that I consciously, and sometimes unconsciously, find myself applying to my life. There are five different psychology topics I found that held the most relevance to my life. Some of these topics do not deal with myself exclusively, but they do affect the people I hold dear to me. The topics range from disorders to personality differences, and they all affect me in some way, both indirectly and directly.

They also found that childhood sexual abuse was the most common trauma that lead to PTSD symptoms. These findings are in line with previous research on this topic or similar topics to this one. Although childhood sexual assault was the common, the authors noted that being stalked and being threatened produces the most severe symptoms of PTSD in the regression equation. Another finding that was consistent with previous research is that sudden death of a loved one was a traumatic even experienced more frequently by the participants. Even though this was a very diverse group in terms of ethnicity, it still found that men experienced robbery and stranger assault more frequently than women. These findings are also consistent with other research. The authors expressed that because the diagnoses were not based on research-based diagnoses but from clinical charts it may not be as reliable. They also noted that there may be some groups that were not represented in the study, such as those living with SMI in the inner

Describing a psychological or mental health response following exposure to a traumatic event has become an unachievable goal since there is no response to it. It is apparent that there are individual differences in resilience and risk factors that play a crucial role in response to potentially traumatic event and prevent a description of a response to an event that would affect people uniformly. During the course of a normal life span, most people at different times in their lives are confronted with the adverse events such as the death of a close friend or relative (Kessler, Sonnega, Bromet, Hughes, & Nelson, 1995).

However, more recently, a study led by King’s College London has claimed that there are differences between the brains of psychopaths and other criminal offenders diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Dr. Nigel Blackwood who led the research is quoted as saying “We describe those without psychopathy as 'hot-headed' and those with psychopathy as ‘cold-hearted’.” This statement shows a clear distinction between what should be interpreted as a lack of self-control and ability to repress impulses and what should be diagnosed as psychopathy.
The study took MRI scans of 66 men, two thirds of which were offenders who had been diagnosed with antisocial personality whilst the other third were non-offenders considered to not have any personality disorders. Of the 44 offenders, 17 met the diagnosis criteria for psychopathy (ASPD+P) assessed by the guidelines stated in the DSM-IV. Researchers saw that the members of the study diagnosed as psychopaths had notably less grey matter in areas associated with moral behaviour and understanding other peoples’

In Psychology 101, you learn about a personal fable; something that I have not lost. I have always wanted to change the world that I was destined for greatness and teaching elementary school students gives me that power. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

First, children¡¯s acquisition of language is an innate mechanism that enables a child to analyze language and extract the basic rules of grammar, granted by Chomsky. It basically states that humans are born with a language acquisition device that, the ability to learn a language rapidly as children. However, there is one important controversy in language acquisition concerns how we acquire language; since Chomsky fails to adequately explain individual differences. From the behaviorists¡¯ perspectives, the language is learned like other learned behaviors. It is learned through operant

The brain can be affected by damage and cause behavior to be expressed differently in every person. Events such as a car crash or childhood abuse can affect brain development and function. Damage to certain areas of the brain can have a variety of effects. The hippocampus controls emotions and is associated with memory, and the frontal lobe is a brain cortex that controls motor functions, problem solving, memory, language, judgments, social and sexual behavior and impulse. When the frontal lobe or hippocampus is affected, a person’s emotion can be out of their control. In criminal cases, brain damage can affect the sentencing of a violent criminal, but to what extent should these abnormalities play a role in their conviction? Much research has been conducted in order to determine the effect that brain abnormalities should have on the conviction of violent criminals. A psychiatrist at New York University, Dr. Lewis, has conducted a study on death-row inmates, how their brains work and what affect the damage had on their conviction. By doing so Dr. Lewis paved the way for other researchers, such as Kent Kiehl and Jonathan H. Pincus to study the brains of violent criminals looking for a answer as to whether or not these criminals should be incarcerated. Over time research has been conducted focusing on mental illnesses and brain damage as the cause of violent acts instead of it being just premeditated murder. Many believe brain damage or mental illness should have no affect on

The United States formed the principle of “Innocent until proven guilty”. Sometimes the perpetrator knows that they’re guilty, but they’re found not guilty. Kenneth Parks, a twenty-three-year-old man who “… Broke in, stabbed his mother… drove himself to the police station… said ‘I think I may have killed some people’” (Quoted in Eagleman 437). Parks was a man who committed murder and was found not guilty. Various parties knew that Parks committed the murder, but motive was the reason he was found not guilty. Controversy around Parks’ adjudication just added to existing debates about psychological crimes. Who did the crime, the culprit or his/her biological factors? Should the culprit get rehabilitation

I do believe that neuroscience can have a role in the criminal justice system. By reading some scenarios from a website, this has brought me to my answer on why I agree that it does. Let me share a story from the reading:

The biological theories are an essential to criminal justice professionals to explain why the genetic characteristics of the human being's body chemicals and evolutionary aggressive criminal conduct have been proposed as explanations for crime; however, to distinguish criminals from non-criminals without adding the value judgment. (Bohm & Vogel, 2011) “Biological theories can be understood as a broad, science-based, anthropological approach to understanding criminality” (Swan, 2017, para. 4). It is important to understand the body type based on the functions of the brain. Therefore, there are several different methodologies to describe the physical differences between criminals and non-criminals such as physiognomy, phrenology, criminal anthropology, the study of the body types, heredity, and scientific technologies that examine the brain function and structure to give the criminal justice profession another look into an individual before a biased take.

Due to its primary role in processing memory and emotional reactions, over the last decade and a half psychologists have been linking the amygdala to psychopathy. It is involved in aversive conditioning and instrumental learning and is thus involved in all the processes that, when impaired, produce the same functional impairments displayed by psychopaths. Two famous studies conducted by Tiihonen and Kiehl respectively have confirmed this. Tiihonen used a volumetric MRI to test and confirm the positive correlation between low amygdaloid volume and a high degree of psychopathy in violent criminals (measured by the Hare checklist-revised) while Kiehl used a functional MRI to prove reduced amygdala response during an emotional memory task in individuals who scored high on the Hare checklist-revised. However, both these studies along with numerous others were conducted using violent offenders as subjects rather than individuals with psychopathy. Although many psychopaths do exhibit violent tendencies, not all violent offenders are necessarily psychopaths. A study conducted by Raine is one of the few that did focus only on individuals exhibiting psychopathy. In his study Raine was able to show reduced prefrontal grey matter in his test subjects. Unfortunately though, he was unable to differentiate between grey matter in different regions of the prefrontal cortex. It is however clear that there is one region of the frontal cortex that could be

* Predict: Offering predictions (or hypotheses) about how a given condition or set of conditions will affect

It is very rare these days to turn on the news and not hear about a crime or a murder. Crime is a common occurrence yet many times it is difficult to understand how someone could bring themselves to do these things. It does seem to make any sense why a young handsome man from a good family would want to kill someone and then be able to go through with it. This leads one to wonder if the brains of people who behave in socially unacceptable ways are different from everyone else's brains. There is a substantial amount of evidence that suggests some criminals do have differences in their brains that most likely contribute to their behavior. Many of these individuals have Antisocial Personality Disorder and

Genetic influences on behavior can affect the criminal justice system. If a person is convicted of a crime with a mental disorder they have diminished responsibility for the crime and may not be held accountable because of their behavior and since this is the case should then genes affecting your behavior be treated the same way(“Genetics and Human Behaviour: The Ethical Context”).

Behavioral neuroscience or biological psychology employs the principles of brain pathology to the study of human behavior through genetic, physiological, and developmental operations, as well as, the brain’s capacity to change with experience. Since the second world war, crime was largely attributed to mostly economic, political, and social factors, along with what psychologists termed at the time, the “weak character” of mental disturbance, and brain biology was rarely considered. However, new advances in neuroscience and technology have allowed a number of studies that link brain development, impairment, and injury to criminal violence. This emerging field of psychology explores the brain at a microscopic level, focusing studies on the roles that the brain’s neurons, circuitry, neurotransmitters, and basic biological processes play in defining and molding all human behavior.