domingo, 10 de junio de 2007

Assignment 6, Summary

New Developments in Psychology of the Personality: The Model of the Five Factors

(Authors: Eugenia Vinet, José Saiz)

This model is a new paradigm in psychology of the personality, and is about five main factors that the authors presents as the “regulators” or the characteristics of the personality in all the people (Characteristics that all have in common, but at different levels). These five factors are: Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness (O), Agreeableness (A) and Conscientiousness (C). The measurement instrument used for this model is the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). The purpose of this model is to “make” a “picture” of the personality based in the factors, for example, in a clinic treatment, someone with a higher level of E and A will be better treated by a therapist, and a person with lower levels of E and A will have a better treatment if this is based on pills. For the authors this model is a very good complement for the therapy, and they expect that the model keeps growing in popularity among the therapists.

jueves, 7 de junio de 2007

5th Assignment, Topic related to psychology

Hi to everyone!
Well this year we have been studying a lot of interesting topics, but there's one that called my attention more than the others, and that was Operant Conditioning.
This because with this information I could train my animals to do certain behaviors, and I found it very funny and interesting. Operant Conditioning consist of form an association between a behavior and a consequence, to make the desired behavior be more often in the future (if the consequence is good, if it's bad it'll tend to reduce the behavior). We are realizing an experiment with a Rat (it's called Yawght) in the subject (Learning psychology it's called) and we've got to make it push a button, and then it recieves food. This is to improve the times that the rat pushes the button. As I said, I like it because I can "teach" my pets to do things to recieve something, I already have teached my cat to do a certain behavior in a certain time.
Take care!

Links:
http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/#Operant
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/opcond.html
http://www.bfskinner.org/Operant.asp