Assignment 4

'Essentials of Understanding Psychology'

By looking closely at the psychological problems which can face us in our lives, author Robert Feldman looks to increase awareness of these problems and help us understand how they can occur and affect the mind. It also looks at the senses, learning and perception which allows the reader to understand further the workings of the human brain. I looked at the chapter 'Motivation and Emotion - Stress and Coping' as it related to my previous assignment topic. Feldman concentrates here on the symptoms of stress and how sufferers react to the problems it can cause. He even gives the reader a chance to find out 'how stressful' their life could potentially be by listing some common occurrences in peoples lives and rating how stressful they are using number scores. He references 'Marx, Garrity and Bowers', stating that if you score over a certain number you are in danger of suffering from stress-related illnesses in the future. He then looks at how radically a persons mood can change from undergoing different experiences every day. He shows us a table of everyday hassles and uplifts, extracted from a book named 'Hassles' by Chamberlain and Zika. This table shows, in a simple manner, the percentages of people who feel they are experiencing these hassles or uplifts. There seemed to be a huge percentage of people feeling worried by having too many things to do and too little time to do them in, which according to Feldman is a prime cause of stress. Feldman also does his own experiment by enlisting a volunteer and taking her stress levels throughout her day at work. By measuring her blood pressure and heart beat he is able to see clearly that factors such as being told to do something by her boss or realising the amount of paperwork she has to do by a certain time of the day dramatically increase stress levels. Feldman explains clearly that we cannot avoid stress - it is part of being human - yet at times it can be avoided, and should certainly not be allowed to fluctuate to such levels that a person can become unwell. He just wants us to be aware of the damage it can cause, and although a person may look perfectly healthy if their mind is under stress then they are most definitely not well.

'Psychology'

The main point in this book is to understand the psychology of the human being. By looking at how our brains function, how personalities are developed and how problems can occur within a persons mental health (just to name a few points of interest) it helps us to understand that the mind is a tricky thing to control. Again, I concentrated on the chapter relevant to my assignments - 'Stress and Health'. The chapter kicks off with a story about a young man in 1960, who had been released from hospital after being deemed 'symptom free' and healthy. Some weeks later he died, and the autopsy reported him to have died from heart damage due to a lack of oxygen to the brain. However, after interviews with his doctors and family a different story was revealed. A troubled relationship with his mother had haunted this young man - she disapproved of his career choice, was unimpressed with his children and refused contact with them and denounced both his first and second wife - resulting in her 'cursing' her son, telling him that something terrible was going to happen to him. His psychiatrist claimed that this curse was always the main topic of discussion with the young man, and he seemed terrified by the idea of it. He was constantly worried and avoided social situations, preferring to remain solitary to the point that he became estranged from his wife and children. It was then claimed that the man was in fact terrified to death, however the authors of the book claim differently - it was down to stress. This was a sad story to read, yet it immediately proves a point to the reader that stress is not to be taken lightly. By looking at 'chronic stressors' and reactions it helps the reader understand that a recurring stress such as troubles within a relationship are usually the most damaging, and a sufferers reactions can become increasingly irrational, before causing a kind of slump and depression in the persons mood. The authors link this to a chart named 'Selye's Three Phases of Stress Response', Phase 1 being 'Alarm Reaction', Phase 2 being 'Resistance' and Phase 3 being 'Exhaustion'. By backing up their own points with other sources they provide a more convincing argument for their opinions on the problems with stress. Another point discussed is how stress can effect and lower our immune systems. Apparently stress can lower our production of white blood cells - ouch. 


My Opinion

Although I found both books thoroughly interesting and learned a lot from both, I have to say that 'Psychology' was more informative overall. It had more content and references, and provided a better argument for each point that it made. The book seemed in favour of the old shock tactics as it contained some distressing stories and images to go along with the hard facts also on offer. Although the writers could maybe have had a slightly more sympathetic approach to those suffering from stress, in general they remained compassionate throughout. With both books it seemed to be that the authors simply want the readers to become aware of stress and its damaging factors. The detail gone into the research for these is staggering and should not be taken lightly! 

Further Research

I think to fully understand this topic it would be interesting to even construct an experiment where you yourself can get involved. A friend who studies psychology told me about an experiment where they measure a persons stress through computer games, the volunteers are simply given a computer game to play, but the level they are playing at is incredibly difficult to complete, thus it causes the player to become stressed and frustrated with both the game and themselves for not being able to complete it. This would be an easy experiment to conduct and noting peoples different reactions would provide some interesting information. I would also try to find some relevant journals on this topic - I was not able to find any in the main library which sounds ridiculous even as I type this because I know there will be plenty, I'm just useless at cross search apparently - and look into them further.

Bibliography

•  Feldman, Robert S. (1997) Essentials of Understanding Psychology, McGraw-Hill.

•  Gilbert, Daniel T., Schacter, Daniel L., & Wegner, Daniel M. (2009) Psychology, Worth.

Outsiders - Art by People

Compiled by Steve Lazarides, this book is a collection of artworks which he admires by people who have not taken the traditional route to artistic fame. 

The art work shown in this book is truly incredible, ranging from 'graffiti' to simple sketchbook pages, installations and the just plain weird. This book has given me a lot of inspiration over the past year I have owned it, it shows that you do not have to be rich or famous to produce incredible work - in most cases these artists have opted not to have their work publicly shown in galleries etc, maybe because they want their work to purely be appreciated for what it is and not for it to have a name tag attached. Our friend Banksy would be proud.

Worth a look

http://thetextileblog.blogspot.com/

This is an interesting blog about textiles history. There are some fantastic images available with annotation - give it a visit!

Something to make you think...

I have just watched Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" on 4od. It is definitely the most controversial programme I have ever come across and some of its content is really shocking. Although I am not going to discuss my beliefs or views on my blog (I think that would be an extremely foolish thing to do) I would definitely recommend this programme to anyone who has an interest in debating religion.

Second Bibliography - Harvard Style

In Assignment 2 I talked about how economic conditions can effect design. I came up with a few ideas; money problems, psychological factors etc, but for assignment 3 I have decided to look at the topic of psychological factors in more detail. 
Cross search has not been my friend so far. The whole concept has been very difficult for me, a self confessed computer-phobic, but I think I have got the hang of it. I wasn't able to find any books or journals relating to psychological factors and design specifically (although I have the sneaking suspicion that there will be loads and I'm just not looking in the right place) but nevertheless I have found some what seem to be interesting and informative books and journals on psychology and stress in particular, which can easily be related to designers at work.

Bibliography

•  Feldman, Robert S. (1997) Essentials of Understanding Psychology, McGraw-Hill

This book is simply about understanding human psychology. It looks at the symptoms, causes and outcomes of different psychological problems and how they can or cannot be cured. I focused on Chapter 9 - Motivation and Emotion, as it had some interesting facts about stress and how it can effect a persons quality of life. At one point it gives you an example of how a person can be under stress, using a volunteer at her work and monitoring her heart rate and blood pressure at different points during the day, then comparing them to someone who has instead been enjoying a leisurely day. The results are very interesting, yet it is a little frightening to see how dramatically a persons health can change when faced with what seem to be tiny stresses.

•  Gilbert, Daniel T., Schacter, Daniel L., & Wegner, Daniel M. (2009) Psychology, Worth

This book is more about the science of the mind. More than half of the book is about understanding how it is that the brain works by referencing known facts, experiments and even philosophical sayings. It devotes a whole chapter to Stress and Health, even drawing up an experimental table which names different events, such as financial difficulties or peer pressures, then rates on a scale from 1 to 100 how stressful they are (apparently having two exams in one day has a stress rating of 80 - oh dear). 

• Hicks, James W. (2005) 50 Signs of Mental Illness, Yale University Press/New Haven and London 

 This book looks at psychiatric symptoms, what they can mean and how to deal with them. It has separate, very detailed chapters each devoted to a single 'mental illness', such as Delusions, Paranoia and of course Stress. Self-described as a book of 'reassurance', it provides advice on whether you or a loved one are suffering from any of these illnesses and whether you should seek help. Although it is generally a self-help book, it gives some interesting facts about mental problems in general, such as 'Life slows down during depression... You walk slowly. You eat slowly. You speak slowly.'

• Mental Health Forum, http://www.mentalhealthforum.net/   

 This website is for general use, it offers discussion forums, question and answer pages and a list of numbers which can be contacted for those who wish to seek help with their problem privately. I found the stress discussion forum particularly interesting because although the opinions shared may not be correct, it was fascinating to read about different peoples experiences with stress. One lady had written about how she had recently been made redundant from her job and is now on benefits. She spoke about how ashamed she felt to be claiming benefits for the first time, and her struggle to find a new job was becoming a heavy burden. When she was diagnosed with severe stress she said she felt helpless and pathetic. I found that hearing about a sufferers feelings was very insightful.

• Scientific American Frontier, http://www.pbs.org/saf/1310/index.html

This website has some interesting links and articles about different types of stress. I found an article which I found particularly interesting as it was all about Post-Dramatic Stress Disorder (PDST), a condition that many soldiers suffer during their time in the army and afterwards. The soldiers were basically traumatised by what they had seen in war, and it affected them mentally. The article explains the origins of PDST, how it affects people, why it affects people and who it is most likely to come to.

Assignment 3

There was only one website that I could think of that I regularly look at and take a great interest in - the London Fashion Week website. It is kept up to date with interesting links to various designers blogs and recent shows and/or exhibitions, and exciting website for anyone who enjoys fashion and art. Aside from this, I couldn't think of any other relevant websites, so browsing the internet began. After a good hour or two of aimlessly losing myself in various textiles websites I finally remembered I was supposed to be recording the useful ones. I found quite a few interesting websites, but I narrowed them down to four (plus the LFW) which I definitely would recommend to anyone interested in the world of textiles.

• www.londonfashionweek.co.uk

• www.textilearts.net

• www.gold.ac.uk/constance-howard

• www.texi.org

• www.textileworld.com

 I then started to look at websites which could keep me up to date with the world outside of textiles. There were the obvious ones - major news broadcasters and the sorts - but I also found an interesting art related sort of news letter which was all about current exhibitions, dates to remember, recent goings on, basically your average news letter but completely art based. Oh, and I threw in the last one because, lets face it, nine times out of ten the news is depressing so a little lighthearted news website can't hurt!

• www.bbc.co.uk

• www.artdaily.org

• www.guardian.co.uk

• www.sky.com/skynews

• www.davesdaily.com

Propaganda and Visual Communication

Today's lecture was pretty interesting. We spent some time looking at War time propaganda and the message that it conveys to the onlooker - hearing everyone's different opinions was very helpful, and it seemed that certain posters were interpreted in various ways, and usually males seemed to think that the message was something else than what the females thought. Simplicity was a major factor in these posters as well, since we looked at first German and Russian propaganda, then British. The British posters were easier to understand (not just because I could understand the language...) as they were mostly simple images of simple things, such as women waving men off to war. The German and Russian posters however were more painterly, with lots of detail and imagery, which in turn made the point less clear and almost gave the onlooker too much to take in. I was really intrigued by this since i have never really given this topic much thought, but British propaganda was very clever. Its simple, easy to understand aesthetics and obvious message worked extremely well when convincing men to join the army and encouraging women to make the most of their time without their husbands/sons etc. So basically, design has to speak to the viewer - if something is confusing or difficult to understand it will not work as well as something which is simple. I had a mixed reaction to this. I don't believe that everything has to be simple to be understood (lets give ourselves some credit) but I definitely do think simplicity appeals to the vast majority of people, purely because they don't have to think about what they are seeing, it can just be taken in and accepted or not accepted, easy as pie.

Knit week

I loved the knit week - it's been the most enjoyable week for me so far this semester. We just got to mess about on the machines trying different techniques and using various yarns, then eventually we were to come up with our final samples. I moved onto the chunky knit machine which is slightly bigger than the normal knit machine, as I was using a very thick lambswool that was basically impossible to put through the smaller machine. I made some really lovely samples looking mainly at skipped stitches and holes - texture and shape over colour. I also managed to avoid any major mishaps (not including getting my sleeve stuck in the machine and having to get it cut out) and produced a fair amount during the week, so all in all it was a success.

I was looking through the internet at different knit designs as well - here are a few images I found particularly interesting.

I have also found the work of RCA graduate Alison Linton very inspiring. She specialised in knit and her pieces are beautiful. As she is the older sister of one of my friends I hear updates about her work and how she is getting on very regularly, it was through this that I found this dress which she displayed in her degree show, I was blown away by the detail and how intricate it is.

How Do Economic Conditions Affect Design?

My final outcome.
After I had researched my title further using the internet, I wrote up a simple mind map which I felt highlighted the main economic conditions which can and do affect designers and their work. The two more obvious aspects of this I felt were to do with money and the recession which I already know a fair bit about, so I did less research for these. I found looking at the psychological aspects extremely interesting as it is not something I would usually consider when talking about something like this. One website I was looking at referred to stress being the deadliest predator when related to business and output. After thinking about this for a while, I found myself unable to disagree with this statement. If someone has their mind on other things, is constantly worried and just plain unhappy then of course their work is going to suffer, and of course this will relate to design. Also, apparently it is far easier now than it ever has been to trade within the European Union, which means instant difficulty for any designer. Designers are having to work harder than ever to create the biggest and best ideas for their field of work in order to compete with competition from out with the UK. And then there's the problem of money. With businesses collapsing left right and centre the demand for design will be decreasing, not to mention jobs being lost. So how does a designer make any money anymore? Beats me.

Helpful Stuff

 I found this article very helpful and interesting in relation to this assignment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2008/sep/19/art.photography

I have read a few articles by Jonathan Jones and have always found his opinions and approach to art and design very illuminating. Although this article looks mostly at how art has changed due to economic changes, I found that a lot of his main points could easily relate to the design side of art as well.

This is another article I came across.

http://www.allbusiness.com/economy-economic-indicators/economic-conditions-recession/12722389-1.html

Although I don't really have any idea who wrote this I found their opinions and outlook on the economic depression extremely thought provoking.

Assignment 2

For Assignment 2, we were asked to brainstorm our detailed mind maps which we had completed for Assignment 1. I got together with a few others who had also chosen Smoking or The Stickiness Factor and we brainstormed this topic in relation to how connectors influence design. Below are a few images from the brainstorming session.

After completing the brainstorming, myself and a couple other members of the group decided to look at how economic conditions affect design, in relation to money problems, poverty etc. My final piece of work will be based on this. 


I enjoyed working in a group, simply because it is reassuring to have someone there to compare your thoughts to and discuss your work with.

'Good Design, Bad Design'

One of the first things that Johnathan said to us at the beginning of our lecture titled 'Good Design, Bad Design' was that the lecture was designed to provoke us. I immediately decided not to get provoked. This didn't work. Anyway, I found this lecture interesting as it was his personal point of view, not like most lectures where the tutor is given a system to follow. There were many topics touched upon in this lecture from racism to sexism, assuming to knowing, and although these are broad subjects which may not immediately relate, they tied together well.

The main thing in this lecture which got me thinking was when Johnathan showed us the images from the Ladybird books. Although I have seen images like these throughout my life and they were not anything new to me, Johnathan pointed out a few things which, for some reason, had never occurred to me before. For example, a picture of children sitting in their dressing gowns drinking milk, watched by their mother, with a completely oblivious father reading the newspaper in the background. Although this was not an obvious stereotype to me, it showed pretty clearly the womans place in the family - caring for the children. Johnathan then brought up, with some hesitation and glares from the female audience, the sexist assumption 'a womans place is in the kitchen' . After assuring us quickly that he was not sexist in any way and with some giggles from the onlookers, he made the point that since this was the imagery that he and others of his age were brought up with, why would anyone think any differently? I was surprised to find myself really agreeing with him, usually as a female I would be protesting this and joining a feminist group, ahem, but in this case this is a completely valid point. If you had grown up being told by everyone you knew 'the sky is not blue, it is orange', you would believe it because that's the 'knowledge' you've grown up with. Makes you think doesn't it?

Later on in the lecture, Johnathan was talking about his childhood. Although I am a strong believer in women having an equal position in society as men, I found myself making what could be seen as a sexist assumption myself. Johnathan mentioned that his parents had got divorced when he was younger, and that he lived with his father. I'm embarrassed to admit that I was surprised by this - I assumed that he would live with his mother. This is because, in my mind, when parents divorce the children live with the mother. I then felt like kicking myself - what a stupid thing to think!

Maybe I am not thinking in the way that Johnathan was hoping us to, but I have to say I haven't been so intrigued by a lecture in a long time as I'm usually the one falling asleep at the back.  I think the interesting factor in this lecture was that it was not a purely design based lecture 'this is a design for a chair, this is a design for a scarf, this is a design for a poster.............. yah de yah de yah', it appealed to me because there were so many different things brought up which could be linked to design. Think outside the box!

Bibliography - Harvard Style.

Book - The Tipping Point,  'How little things can make a big difference'

Author - Malcolm Gladwell

Publisher - Abacus

First published - 2000

Case Study - Smoking

 

Viscusi, W. Kip, 'Smoking: Making the Risky Decision', (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 61-78.

Krogh, David, 'Smoking: The Artificial Passion.' (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1991).

Pomerleau, Ovide.; Pomerleau, Cynthia.;  Namenek, Rebecca.; "Early Experiences with Tobacco among Women Smokers, Ex-smokers, and Never-smokers," Addiction, (1998), vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 595-601.

Eysenck, H. J. 'Smoking, Health and Personality', (New York: Basic Books, 1965), p. 80. (This reference is found in David Krogh's 'Smoking: The Artificial Passion', p.107.)

Shiffman, Saul.; Paty, Jean A.; Kassel, Jon D.; Gnys, Maryanne.; Zettler-Segal, Monica.; "Smoking Behaviour and Smoking History of Tobacco Chippers," Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, (1994), vol. 2, no. 2, p. 139.

Fidler, Wendy.; Michell, Lynn.; Raab, Gillian.; Charlton, Anne.; "Smoking: A Special Need?", British Journal of Addiction, (1992), vol. 87, p. 1583-1591.

 

The Tipping Point

When I was first told to read Malcolm Gladwell's 'The Tipping Point' I was immediately worried. At first impressions it sounded like the sort of book I would deliberately avoid - analytic books have never been a source of interest to me, however I found myself pleasantly surprised by this book. Gladwell basically talks about how easily people can be influenced and, of course, 'How little things can make a big difference".  Although there were some parts of the book which were completely lost on me (we'll not talk about those parts - I was told today by an irritated class mate "that's the easiest bit!!") I was particularly intrigued by the section of the book on smokers and their mentality.  Despite finding some of the points that Gladwell made slightly biased as he is clearly a non-smoker himself, I found myself agreeing with the majority. Then it occurred to me that this may be because I am also slightly biased, but maybe I was thinking too much into it. 

A definite recommendation to anyone who is interested in finding out about stereotypical groupings and how they occur, how and why addictions really come to pass and also how to keep your child well educated and out of the crime scene; Sesame Street (That may sound silly, it was my initial thought as well, but Gladwell really does make a very good point, and I now thank my mother for buying me all the Sesame Street video tapes). Also recommended to anyone who just wants a good read, and maybe to think a little.

Anyway, I made two mind maps, one on the book as a whole and another looking into the smoking section in more detail. I'll apologise for my messy handwriting in advance - calligraphy has never been my strong point - but hopefully it'll be legible enough.#

I have also made a bibliography concentrating on the smoking case study in this book. Since it was to be written in 'Harvard Style', I have spent a long time looking up this 'Harvard Style', and I'm pretty gutted to admit that I don't think I've got the hang of it even now, but I gave it my best shot and I hope the bibliography makes sense.

 

Probably the reason that I am an art student

My ridiculously life-like collages.