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!