Behavioral Psychology Courses

 

I was horrified to read that an annual Easter egg hunt in Colorado Springs has been canceled this year.  Was it because the kiddies misbehaved?  Was there some egg-throwing that got out of hand?  Well, not exactly.  Apparently, it's the parents whose behavior was out of hand.  

"Too many parents determined to see their children get an egg jumped a rope marking the boundaries of the children-only hunt at Bancroft Park last year. The hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of eggless tots and the rules-abiding parents.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/53794462-68/parents-hunt-egg-easter.html.csp

Recently, the news has been filled with stories of "helicopter parents" - those parents who hover above their children and are a tad, shall we say, "overinvolved" in their kids' lives.  Those are the parents who demand that teachers recognize how special their child is.  (Aren't all children special?)  They argue with teachers if their child doesn't get the high grade they'd hoped for and make such a habit of speaking for their children that their children may get tongue-tied when expected to speak for themselves.  

Actually, the children sometimes become so unable to do anything for themselves that Mommy or Daddy may end up doing the homework, the science project, and even write college papers! Happily,  I haven't seen that at Granite State College, but I know it happens.

What I do wish is that these clueless parents would take a course in Child Psychology.  (We have them at Granite State College - both in the classroom and online...that's my plug for our wonderful college.)  Often, at the end of that course, my students say they wish their parents had had a course like that, and they might have been raised differently!  Many of our students are adult learners and people who have returned to school for a college degree.  But we do have a philosophy that the ideal target audience is a "lifelong learner."  So that should include everyone!

It's easy to express dismay over how "different things are now."  One thing that does give some strength to that argument is that parents are having fewer children than ever before.  Might that make a difference in how involved parents are?  Parents may have more time to be involved in their childrens' lives.  But there's another factor to consider:  Both parents are likely to be working now, so that cuts down on how much time both parents have to devote to "helicoptering" their children's lives.

These are the interesting kinds of things you can learn in a course on Child Growth and Development or Human Development at Granite State College.

"If you want to go quickly, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together."  --African proverb.

I recently saw the above quote from my Granite State College Social Psychology textbook, "Social Psychology" by David G. Myers.  There is something about this quote that really seems to resonate with me.

For many years, I believed that working hard would alone get me to the goals and ambitions that I had hoped for in my life.  In many ways that is true, because without hard work, I probably wouldn't have gotten far.  My choices were very much "I" choices and what "I" would do by my own steam.  How much more fulfilling it has been to expand and be active in my community, being a volunteer in several organizations, and to continue my education.  I find that college life has expanded my knowledge in many areas, has helped me to "think outside of the box," and has that advantage of being surrounded by many like-minded people who enjoy their degree choices.  For me, that degree choice is a bachelor's in Behavioral Science.  Granite State College's online adult learning courses has been my primary method of "attending" classes and has really proven to be much more fulfilling than I could have imagined.  I'm on class discussion boards almost as much I'm on Facebook!  :)

I also find that being in a course at Granite State College doesn't mean that I "go it alone," since there are so many helpful people that I meet up with as I pursue my educational ambitions.  I will be continuing on to graduate studies after I complete my bachelor's in Behavioral Science in June.  I've put in a lot of individual work that will help me to go quickly, but the quality of the journey is from working with others at Granite State College that has made all of the difference as to how far I will go. 

Trying checking out some of the courses that are available at Granite State College and you'll see that together we'll go far!

Discussing gender differences is always fun - and of course, challenging, and we do a lot of it in my adult online college psychology classes at Granite State College.  We also discuss other interesting variations in humans - size (taller people, for example, fare better, sadly, in some instances like hiring, presidential elections, etc.), geographical location (where you live and grow up can influence your behavior), SES (a very complex idea - the initials stand for "socioeconomic status"), and of course, racial characteristics.  

This latter is, as you can imagine, a topic that's near and dear to the hearts of psychologists as we research every imaginable concept, with some fascinating findings that relate to prejudice, an interesting idea called "outgroup homogeneity bias" (people in any racial group tend to have a hard time differentiating people in other racial groups:  "They all look alike, but we all look distinctive") and other areas that pertain to that questionable and artificial attempt to distinguish people by their race.  

I remember I had a young female student when I taught at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the 1990's.  She was from Taiwan, and said that when she first came to America, she had a hard time telling Americans apart.  Other students were stunned:  "But Americans look so different:  different color hair, different facial characteristics...."  She could understand what her fellow students were saying, but she said that, particularly with regard to the women, she just thought "they were all beautiful.  But I couldn't tell them apart."

My grandson, who lives in Kansas, had his own solution to racial distinctions.  (Just to give some background, his mother is "white" and his father is Salvadoran.)  He's five, and came home from kindergarten discussing a "black boy" in his class. His mother, ever the sensitive person, said there was no need to refer to a child by the color of his skin.  He asked how he should describe the other child.  His mom said, "Well, just because his skin is a different color, you don't need to say that.  Just use his name."  He seemed to mull this over, and after a couple of days, he said, "Mom, you know how I shouldn't call a kid 'black'?  Well, I just figured out what I should call him:  'A kid whose skin is a different color.' "  Our daughter wasn't exactly thrilled with that distinction, so she pointed out that if skin color seemed so important, "How would you describe Daddy?"  "Hmmmm..." said the budding diplomat.  "I dunno."

I guess one social solution per day is all that a five-year-old can handle.

Our Winter session has started.  I was really excited about the start of this new semester.  Part of the reason is that I only have five more courses (including this semester) before I graduate in June with my Bachelor's degree in Behavioral Science and I'm looking forward to my courses.

I'll have two online classes for college this semester and one in the classroom at the Manchester NH college campus.  I can't say that I'm very good at biology, but I am so looking forward to my class, "The Human Brain."  It will be interesting to learn more about different disorders and what parts of the brain are affected.  Cool stuff!

I'll also have my Introduction to Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences and Social Psychology - Hi Beth!  (Beth was the instructor for my Human Development class too.)

The Intro class is so interesting even though we're only about half way through the first week.  Lots of great online discussions as responses to a posted question from our instructor.

I can't wait to see how these classes unfold.  I wish in some ways that I had started at Granite State College earlier because they have so many interesting classes being offered through the year.  But I'm not complaining!  It's because of Granite State College's flexible class schedules and different formats (classroom, online, and weekend intensive) that's allowing me to graduate in June!  

I'll let you know how things progress!

mary

I watched a "60 Minutes" episode recently, where a half dozen people who have "superior autobiographical memory" were interviewed.  (The group included Marilu Henner, whom I remember fondly from a sitcom called "Taxi.")  The segment was called "The Gift of Endless Memory," and Leslie Stahl interviewed five people who didn't have just "great" memories.  They could remember everything that had ever happened to them, and when.  Given any date, each could remember tiny details of the day, and of course, the interviewers made certain to verify these memories.   

The researcher involved,  Dr. James McGaugh, is a professor of neurobiology at the University of California Irvine, and he's a well-known expert on memory.  He would ask these subjects (there are six known in the world), what would ordinarily be difficult or impossible for an ordinary person to recall, but could be verified by records, such as which days of a month twenty years ago, that it rained.  When they showed one subject being questioned about the weather twenty years ago, she not only recalled which days it rained, but the weather for the days before!

Psychology courses often delve into how memory works.  At Granite State College we have a lot of psychology courses and behavioral science classes, both online and classroom courses (the classroom courses take place in one of our nine NH state college campuses), including some we call "five-week intensives," that are accelerated courses.  You'll read a lot, and become immersed in your subject, but at the end of five weeks, you'll be impressed with yourself, to realize that you've completed a whole college course!  And the only shortcut is the length of time it took to finish the course.  You'll still be learning the same things you'd learn in a full-length course!  (But we can't promise that, like the people I've described, you'll remember everything for as long as you live!!!)

At Granite State College, we find ourselves emphasizing "adult learning," but once you finish high school, it's true that all college learning is "adult learning."  And our learners range from just out of high school to senior citizens!  (The oldest student I've had so far was 71 years "young" and the youngest was 17!)

Oh, and back to that fascinating segment on "60 Minutes":  I loved when Marilu Henner said, "You know what I love? I love when people get so flattered, Like they go, 'Wow, I must've really made an impression on you.' And I go, 'No, no, believe me - I remember everything' '"  And the fact that these people seem to have just a little bit of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder):  they like to keep things in order and to collect things.

But the thing that's also stuck in my mind over the last week is that of the five subjects on the show, only one - Marilu Henner - had ever been married.  (And she'd been married three times.)  Is it possible that being able to remember everything (including arguments and hurt feelings) might make a long-term relationship more tenuous?  Maybe it's important for our social "grease" to be able to actually forget details.  (Ah, that's something that I should bring up in Social Psychology course, one of the online adult education classes that's coming up!)

So, I'm wondering if maybe that not-so-great memory of mine may have contributed to the longevity of my marriage.  (We just celebrated our 42nd anniversary.)  Well, there certainly aren't any proven "magic pills," but you never know...

Here's a link if you want to watch the "60 Minutes" segment.

Another twelve weeks has come and gone at Granite State College, and I am emerging on the other side of this term changed once again.  Perhaps 'changed' isn't the right word, as each class has enhanced or refined who I am as a person.  I don't believe that one can actively engage one's mind and learn new concepts without being impacted.  A truth, once learned, becomes a part of who we are.  Once our eyes are opened, it would be utter foolishness to close them again to what we have seen.

Learning doesn't stop at the classroom door.  Some people consider their educational career to have been completed upon receiving their high school diploma; others equate learning with adult continuing education programs, and "pause" between courses.  What I've found from taking my behavioral science classes, as well as the core and elective classes, is that the readings, discussions, and assignments throughout the terms have stirred my hunger for knowledge.  

I've often filled the between-times trying to learn more about the subjects I've already learned, or trying to satisfy my curiosity about thoughts and ideas yet to be explored.  A simple search for "behavioral science" on YouTube results in many videos illustrating the psychological concepts discussed in textbooks and classes.  Another favorite site of mine is http://www.sciencedaily.com, which I've used extensively both in my classes and for my own interest.

One of the many benefits of being a recipient of adult higher education at Granite State College is that it has prepare my mind to be a lifelong learner, not only in the classroom or through the online adult programs, but in the great classroom of life.

There is knowledge waiting to be discovered everywhere.  Whet your appetite and prime the pump at Granite State College.

Hi all.

Only a few more days until I finish these three courses of the fall semester.  I really enjoyed my Human Development class with Beth Benoit (Hi Beth!).  Beth is my instructor as well as a fellow Granite State College blogger. 

I'm finding my degree specific classes for the bachelor's in Behavioral Science to be so interesting.  I want more of it!  This may later prove to fall under the category of "be careful of what you wish for," but I don't think so.  Beth will also be teaching my online course for Social Psychology, one of the behavioral science classes, and I imagine I will enjoy that just as much as I've enjoyed this one.

It's so nice to get to this stage of my life and really know what I want to focus on and that is to help others.  Not that I regret the past, but now I feel more focused and ready to stretch myself to new experiences.  When I was in my 30s, going back to school wasn't even a blip on the screen for me, but now... I can't believe how many cool things I've gotten a chance to do in my 40s!  A few weeks ago, I received my GSC reminder to submit my "Intent to Graduate" form.  How exciting!  Two more semesters and I'll have my bachelor's from GSC, the center of adult education.  I can hardly believe it.

We're  capable of accomplishing so much and life can be so rewarding.  I have my ups and downs too, but, wow, life is good!

If I don't write again until after the holidays.  I hope your holidays are everything you hoped for and that you have a wonderful new year!

Hi.

I thought I would write a bit about the degree that I'm pursuing.  I'll be receiving my bachelor's in Behavioral Science in June of next year (2011).  What got me interested in Behavioral Science was the community service work I had started while at Nashua Community College.  Some of the community service was helping at the local soup kitchen or helping homeless vets with creating resumes and checking online jobs boards.  I am a volunteer advocate for victims of violence and have also helped with Habitat for Humanity.  I get such good feelings from volunteering in these groups, it's amazing. 

I wasn't sure if I wanted to focus on psychology, sociology, and social work, but the Behavioral Science degree offered at Granite State College was perfect to sample a bit of each of those areas.  What was interesting too was after taking a quick look at other local colleges, Granite State College appeared to be the only one that offered a Behavioral Science degree.  So far I've taken Counseling, Human Development, and Victim Rights and Advocacy.  Exactly the topics I'm interested in.  Next semester I'll be taking Intro. to Behavioral Science Methods, Social Psychology, and The Human Brain.  Cool courses!  I can't wait.  Which reminds me, don't forget to sign up for courses starting Nov. 22!

It's hard to believe that I'll have my bachelor's in Behavioral Science in less than a year.  Granite State College is helping me obtain my dream of having a bachelor's degree and maybe even move on to another University System of New Hampshire University's to pursue my Master's.  It is soooo exciting!

Wow, summer sure did fly by! I can't believe that it's already almost time for fall semester to start. I don't know about you, but I had an eventful summer. I got married, moved into a new house, and went on a few really nice vacations.

Now that my summer off is almost over and fall is upon us it's time for me to start thinking about what classes I wanted to take for the fall semester at Granite State College. The Conway campus has some great classes to offer this fall, especially for my major: behavioral science. 

Living in the White Mountains means that during the fall, my two jobs are very busy and  it could be a challenge to also try to take classes. With the convenient evening college classes at the Conway NH college campus, I can make a schedule that really works for me. I also have a great advisor, who can help me figure out which courses will work best with my busy schedule. That's one of my favorite things about GSC: there is always someone there to help you throughout your education journey.

I'm going to take Art therapy, and Cognition and Learning this upcoming semester. Both are Psychology classes, and both seem really interesting. I'm not a great artist, but I love the challenge of taking a class that will teach me more about something I'm not the best at. I feel that's an important part of the college experience; to try to be challenged as often as possible. I think Cognition and Learning will help me build a better foundation to achieve my career in behavioral science. I can't wait to meet my new professors and new classmates. With one more month to go, I need to order my books and supplies. I love that you can order them directly from the Granite State College Website, it makes it so easy to be prepared for the first night of class.

I hope to see you on the Conway NH college campus in a few weeks :)

Having my first child at age 22, I learned really quickly that there is no manual for child rearing. No matter how great my intentions were, no matter how many books I read, nothing prepared me for the lifelong teaching I was going to be doing when my little man arrived.

A friend of mine helped me get my life back on track. She helped me set up goals, and one of them was to go back to school and get my degree. She even drove me to Granite State College so that I could get the ball rolling on my journey through on-line classes for college. I think the fact that I decided to go with behavioral science classes has helped me gain the knowledge to better my son's life.

People are correct when they tell you that their is no manual on how to raise kids. But, what I am learning through all of my courses is helping me piece together great concepts in how to raise my son he becomes a well-rounded individual. As an adolescent once myself, I know you cannot force your children into getting good grades and volunteering to help the community. I have, however, learned in my adolescent psychology course that there are ways to raise a child to want to do those things, to strive to be a upstanding student and citizen. There are ways you can protect your children from the temptations of sex and drugs without being by your child's side all the time.

The knowledge I am gaining from my classes is not only helping me earn my degree, but also helping me in specific areas of my life. You can sit and talk to me until you are blue in the face about how you raised your child and how it worked for you. Every person and every child is different. I think that studying this information has helped me better appreciate the knowledge that I have gained and helped me understand how I can put these concepts into practice and help my son to be a strong, intelligent, proud and independent individual.

During my behavioral science classes at Granite State College, I had the chance to take an assortment of different classes with a variety of instructors. Almost without exception, I enjoyed my classes and found the professors were knowledgable about their subject and seemed to enjoy teaching adult college classes a great deal.

Now that I'm done with my time at GSC, I wish I had had the time and opportunity to take  advantage of more classes. When talking with my fellow classmates, conversations would often turn to classes that were highly recommended or a professor that was held in high regard.

As challenging as it may seem to meet the requirements for your studies, unfortunately there will be many classes of interest that remain unexplored, or professors that you never got to experience as your instructor.


I would have loved to take more classes with Dr. David Lawson whom I had for "The Human Brain" or Craig Nevins who taught "Society and the Individual". Beth Roth was my instructor for two difficult reserch classes and she often believed in our abilities more than we did. I took an independent study with Kathie Minaert and I think I would have enjoyed having another class with her as well.

The classes that intrigued me but never had the opportunity to take are numerous. There are many art classes offered but only one was needed for my course requirements. There are also English, humanities, psychology, health care and behavioral science classes that I just didn't have room for. Social science classes and sociology classes covered a broad range of interests, and regrettably, I was able to sample just a handful of these.

I hope your journey towards your degree from Granite State College is as rewarding, enjoyable and interesting as mine was. Take that first step, even if your educational goals seem too distant. The process of "getting there" was half the fun!

I find Netflix' recommendations for movies you might like, based on your previous choices of movies you've rented, a very interesting - but also kind of scary - idea, especially from the standpoint of social psychology.  And other DVD businesses such as Blockbuster have similar techniques to recommend further movies based on your interests.

In social psychology (you can take a course in it online at Granite State College!), we examine what influences people to make the choices they make.  Just think of all the things involved in your feelings about whether Netflix might be making good recommendations for you:  
1.  You chose to enroll in Netflix.
2.  You're paying to use it.
3.  They make an effort to appeal to you with user-friendly statements like this:
I have more questions about watching instantly on my PC. Where can I get answers?

So you end up feeling as though they really want to help you and somehow "know" you.  And you know what?  You're right about them knowing you!  They do know you.

But they're not really your "friend," of course.  (That can be the subject of another blog...whether "friends" on Facebook really are, well, friends.)  They're basing their information on carefully calibrated software that tracks your choices.

Lots of people are getting leery about having software seem to know them.  Once you take a course in social psychology (and you can do it entirely online.  Here's a link to Granite State College's behavioral science courses:  http://www.granite.edu/academics/degrees/bachelor-degrees/behavioral-sciences.aspx), you may be surprised at how much more you feel YOU know about what people are thinking, what you can know about other people, and even what advertising uses to influence your choices, from selecting DVDs to buying cell phones!

There are plenty of "Psychology Courses You'll " at Granite State College.

 I read an article in the New York Times by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (article) bemoaning the fact that all too often, responses to one of her articles include ugly, mean-spirited comments. She described a piece she wrote for Salon about suffering from postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder after the traumatic delivery of her son.  A slew of nasty comments followed.  

She wrote:   
 "I don’t write this to say how hurt my feelings are. Rather, I’m confused. It’s O.K. if people would like to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of the opinions and facts discussed in my work. It’s also O.K. with me if people simply don’t like my work. What confounds me is why online commenters are so gratuitously nasty; why, when given the opportunity to have an educated disagreement with an author or other readers, they use the space allotted to spew venom instead of presenting a well-reasoned argument."

One of the thoughts she had was that perhaps it's the anonymity that allows such cruelty.  I completely agree.  Happily, for our Granite State College blogs, all responses are "vetted" by our enthusiastic and hardworking middle-person.  As a matter of fact, when first asked to write a blog, that was my first question, since I know how thin-skinned I am and nasty responses would be likely to crush me.  Kate B. assured me that all responses go through her first, so anything nasty would never see the light of the internet.  "Phew," I thought.

One of the things we know from studies in Social Psychology (which you can take in an adult online course at Granite State College - here's a list of online courses), is that being anonymous can contribute to people doing things they wouldn't be likely to do if they could be identified.  It's called "deindividuation."  Think of the actions of people in the Ku Klux Klan, for example: They wear white hoods to disguise their identities.   Negative behavior is also more likely to take place under the cover of darkness or in a crowd - when it's harder to identify someone.  You can probably think of a lot of things that people do if no one can actually identify that they are the person doing or saying it.

Kathleen Taylor, the author of Cruelty:  Human Evil and the Human Brain, is quoted in the article, and says, interestingly, “We’re evolved to be face-to-face creatures.  We developed to have constant feedback from others, telling us if it was O.K. to be saying what we’re saying. On the Internet, you get nothing, no body language, no gesture. So you get this feeling of unlimited power because there is nothing stopping you, no instant feedback.”

So the suggestion that people who respond online should have to provide their name is probably an effective one.  (Providing they use their real name!)  There are a lot of thought-provoking ideas you can learn in a psychology course!