Student Life: Munchausen's Syndrome

Munchausen's Syndrome is the name given to people who fake illness or disease in order to gain attention or sympathy from others. 

Those who suffer from it deliberately seek medical attention and in some cases will have unnessary surgeries just to feel cared for. Unlike Hypochondriacs who really do believe they have something wrong with them, those suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome know that they are perfectly fine and well. 

The most common diseases and illnesses that are faked are: depression, anemia, joint pain, seizures, sexual abuse and cancer!

You may be wondering how someone could actually fake such conditions physically. Well there was a story in my psychology textbook that explained the case of one woman who faked cancer. Apparantly she knew the symptoms as her neighbour had just died of the disease. She then joined a therapy group, took laxatives to loose weight and even shaved her hair off to make it look as if she'd undergone chemotherapy. After a while she was caught out though. I'm assuming because she didn't die.

How crazy is that though? How sad and lonely must these people be to go to such lengths just to be noticed?!

 

Student Life: Bystander Intervention

If you saw someone being mugged what would you do? Intervene and help? Or ignore it and pretend you didn't see anything?

I think all of us would say that we would intervene but realistically we probably wouldn't. According to psychologists, in order to intervene, certain factors need to be present. Firstly, the bystander would have to notice the event then interpret it as an emergency before deciding to take personal responsibility to intervene.

What's interesting is that if an event (such as smoke filling a room) occurs in a room full of people and no one says or does anything, then we are more than likely to not say or do anything either. This is known as Diffusion of Responsibility. Simply put, "no one else is doing anything, so why should I?"

Another reason why people don't say or do anything around other people is because we do not want to appear foolish. So if you think about it, we would rather risk our lives before looking like a fool. Isn't that crazy!

One totally unbelievable example of people standing back and doing nothing was the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. Her screams and cries got the attention of 38 of her neighbours but not one of them helped her. They didn't even call the police until some time after she was dead! 

Obviously there are people out there who would intervene regardless if anyone else was there or not, otherwise there wouldn't be stories of good samaritans etc. So there is some hope for the human race after all!

Student Life: Who Controls Your Fate?

Would you call yourself the master of your own fate? Or do believe that your fate is completely out of your control?

If you said yes to the former, then you live your life with what is known to Psychologists as an Internal Locus of Control. This means that everything that happens to you, good or bad, is entirely your own doing. 

For example if you get a promotion at work, it's because of all the hard work and effort you put into your job or if you fail at an exam, it's because you didn't study enough. 

If you said yes to the latter, then you live your life with what is known to Psychologists as an External Locus of Control. This means that everything that happens to you, good or bad, happens due to outside forces. 

For example, if your relationship with your boyfriend/girlfriend ends, it's because it was meant to be.

Another example of External Locus of Control was found when observers recorded death rates of Chinese participants suffering from heart conditions. In Chinese mythology, certain years are considered "bad" whereas others are considered "good". What's interesting is that those who were born in the "bad" years died at a younger age compared to those born in the "good" years despite them suffering from the exact same heart conditions.

Psychologists suggest that this is an example of External Locus of Control as those born in the "bad" years could not escape the misfortune that they believed came with being born in that year.

It's amazing how much our beliefs can affect how we live our lives, isn't it?

Student Life: Personality Testing

In the 1930's, people's personalities were tested by Thematic Apperception Tests, or TAT's for short. Basically psychologists gave their patients a simple image and asked them to describe what was going on in that image. Their answers were supposed to reveal deep or hidden insights into their personalities. 

In a seminar we were showed a few examples including this one:

Here is my interpretation:

The young man is distraught at returning home to discover his lover having comitted suicide. Yet, because she wanted to lessen the blow for him, she pulled the blanket down in order to give him one last look at her perky tits. 

I wonder what this says about me?

Student Life: Illusions

What do you see?

A young woman wearing a stylish hat... Or a an old witch?

A musician... or a woman's face?

A Native American... or an Inuit?

What animals do you see? Click here to find out what you possibly missed!

Student Life: Study Fail

I'm seriously wondering how I coped at high school. I had nine subjects. I didn't finish til 4pm for 5 days a week. Every other night I was doing homework and I also had coursework and revision on top of that!

HOW DID I NOT DIE?

Well to be fair, I did get an awful lot of migraines....

But the point I'm trying to make is that after four years of doing courses were I didn't have to study, I'm now a bit rusty.

I only have 3 subjects this semester, two days off a week and I finish the other three days at 1pm yet I'm struggling to find the motivation to read the assigned textbook chapters or even make decent notes. 

I'm so outta practice!

Student Life: Schizophrenia Testing

Last friday, a postgraduate student picked twenty of us from my lecture class to take part in a survey. He didn't tell us what it was about to avoid bias but it was obvious from the sort of questions we were being asked...

Q Have you ever seen animals or objects when no one else has?

Q Do you hear voices when no one is around?

Q Do voices inside your head tell you to do things?

A guy even asked him if he was testing us to see if we were nuts!

After the survery he left us in a pitch black room as we watched a bunch of images flash on the television screen. The images were a multitude of Rorschach's and whilst I couldn't make head nor tail of most them, a few did leave me feeling quite disturbed.

He then gave us a number scale inbetween two emotions and asked us to indicate how we felt whilst watching the images by circling the number closest to the appropriate emotion.

For example:

Anxious    1 2 3 4 5 6 7    Calm

That is what I think he said anyway. As I was too scared to ask him to clarify again I simply followed that rule. I'm sincerely glad the whole thing was done anonymously because one of the questions was:

Aroused   1 2 3 4 5 6 7   Uninterested

To which I circled 7 as they didn't arouse me at all. I'm hoping I answered it correctly to show that I was completely uninterested otherwise he's gonna think that someone he chose is quite sick in the head...

He also went through the images and asked us to say what we saw in them. There were the usual "bat" like shapes but one stood out for me. I swear it looked like a mask to me but with a robed figure in the middle, here it is:

Do you see it? Coz if you do, it means you've got a paranoid personality. It's scarily accurate for me because I am, thee most, paranoid person on the planet. I'm not even joking.

Here's another one:

If you see legs/a big monster it means that you have a dominant personality. I saw this but I'm far from dominant so we should probably view these images with just a pinch of skeptism. That is, unless I'm seriously repressing my dominant side, who knows?!

And I'll leave you with this one:

I saw ducks with a red bow tie in the middle but I didn't admit that obviously. He asked all the guys what they saw and they all answered with "two girls bent over a table". Typical guys... But apparently if guys see two men with their dicks out then they are repressing their homosexuality. Again, view it with a hint of skeptism if you please. 

If you are interested in seeing more of the type of Schizophrenia questions we were asked, check this out. They're pretty much the same.

P.s I was wondering if you guys would like to see more posts like this? I just thought it would be nice to share the things I'm learning on my Psychology course with you all. Let me know!

Student Life: The Hazel I Can Never Be...

A few weeks ago I talked about Carl Rogers and his theory that everyone has a Real Self and an Ideal Self. Some of you were kind enough to talk about your Ideal Selves so I think its time that I shared mine too.

My Ideal Self has very sophisticated tastes. She wants to read classic literature and be able to discuss their authors as well as be able to identify composers from a single note. She is also the one who dreams of playing the violin to rival Vanessa Mae.

Appearance wise, her Real Self enjoys her petite stature but deep down she'd love to be a few inches taller. Plus, her actual size three feet makes shopping for shoes more difficult than it ought to be. She likes her long hair but wishes it was more voluminous and luxurious as well as wishing it was black like the midnight sky. She doesn't mind wearing glasses but would have preferred green pupils than common grey.

My Ideal Self would love to go on shopping sprees in the fanciest stores but the fact that her Real Self has an aversion to shopping, that doesn't happen that much. If at all. She longs to wear outfits that make her look smart like a young adult instead of wearing outfits involving converse and jeans all the time. Though when wearing jeans and converse she would at least like to look like Bella Swan instead of a fat frump.

She would also like to be more independent such as having her own place as well as a job. A job that she actually enjoys were her colleagues respect her and don't treat her like shit. She'd love to be able to cook for her loved ones as well as spoil them rotten with unexpected gifts or little gestures. My Real Self already has the pleasure of owning her own car but my Ideal Self would love to have the freedom to drive it without first consulting my mother on where I'm going, why I'm going and when I'll be back. Always having to ease her worries takes the freedom away from driving.

Finally, my Ideal Self would also like to have a few close girlfriends that I can always rely on for a good giggle and a gossip. She imagines having them round her house drinking wine and enjoying themselves but her Real Self knows this will never happen as she doesn't like alcohol and is socially retarded.

Student Life: Perceptions...

According to the psychologist Carl Rogers, every single one of us has an "Ideal Self" and a "Real Self". Now our Ideal Self is what we wish we could be like. For example, some people may see their Ideal Self as taller, thinner, smarter, prettier, having a decent job, having a dream guy/girl etc. Whereas our Real Self is what we actually are in reality and unfortunately the two selves rarely match. Due to this, many people suffer from depression as sometimes it just isn't possible for people to achieve their Ideal Self. For example, people can't change how tall they are or change their body type. It just can't be done.

Throughout life we are constantly striving to achieve this Ideal Self that we've conjured up for ourselves. For example, in order for us to have that dream job we go to college to get the required qualifications. Or we watch what we eat and exercise in order to live a healthier lifestyle. Rogers also says that the gap between our two selves is known as our "Self-Esteem". The larger the gap, the lower our Self-Esteem is and the smaller the gap, the higher our Self-Esteem is. 

As an avid fan of psychology I've always found things like this fascinating. When I learned this, it just made sense. Of course our self-esteem is going to be low if we aren't measuring up to what our minds wish we were like. It's practically common sense yet I still find it amazing. My Ideal Self consists of the usual things, being smarter, prettier, thinner but also being more independent and having friends. I'm sure independence will come with age but I'm not so sure about the friends part. I think that I've gone so long without them that I will seriously struggle opening myself up emotionally in order to make any lasting friendships. I hope that I will be proved wrong someday.