Psychology of Creativity

Giving Entire Cultures a Personality Test

A person’s individual character is basely determined of the distribution between certain personality dimensions. Based on the idea of individual differences the scientists developed a concept that group differences also exist. These distinctions are more commonly known as stereotypes. Researchers began rapidly developing methods to evaluate the reliability of cultural stereotypes.

The research grounds were based by developing cross-cultural questionnaire. These tests were also designed to show the typical national character of a given society. Survey participants were asked to highlight the characteristics of a typical member in their culture. The collected data was further analyzed by searching for correlation between the temper of an individual and his culture personality stereotype.

The results showed that people had no difficulty in summarizing the national identity of their culture. Nevertheless these opinions dramatically differed from the actual personalities of these participants. The findings made it clear that the personality stereotype is caused by how the members of a given culture see themselves based on historical events and exaggerations, but not who they really are.

English language invasion

Officials of China and France are declaring concerns about the increasing invasion of English words into their national languages. The current situation is even being compared to the invasion of Nazis in France during World War II. The authorities are now taking actions to save their national identities.

The everyday use of such English words like ok, bye-bye, nice and many others are increasing in spoken Chinese and a lot of barbarisms written on the walls of France are the first warning signs that actions must be taken. The French government even led a debate and accounted that over 80 percent of the population agree that the national language is closely associated with the cultural identities of the people.

The Chinese had limited the screening of foreign films and banned websites like YouTube and face book and the French made their national language mandatory in government publications and public schools to fight the negative phenomenon. Officials in Beijing even prohibited every publication, company name and directed them to be translated to Chinese.

Despite the efforts some people are still using English words while speaking in there national language trying to state their open mindedness. The contra argument to this is that people must respect their national language to be respected and positively visible by others.

Nevertheless, not everyone agrees that the invasion of English must be stopped. Some state that this is a natural process that shows expanding culture and companies in France want there branches to be named in English because they think that will make them more recognizable.

References:

English invasion 'threatens French language more than Nazis did'

Chinese language 'damaged by invasion of English words'

Self assessment

English for special purpose classes proved to be very useful in helping one to understand the terminology of psychology not only in a native language but in English as well.

One of the hardest challenges in these studies was to adapt to translating terms of psychology from Lithuanian to English. This challenge was quite a nut to crack but nevertheless online exercises and a handful of tests combined with live discussions between classmates helped more than I could ever thought about. 

One of the main goals I can say I proudly achieved is the fact that native English speaking is not so complicated to understand to me anymore. In the past I found huge challenges in translating native English to Lithuanian. It is not surprising. As we all know people in Great Britain speak in very different dialects and an untrained ear is not able to distinguish these dialects and understand the meaning of information which is communicated to them. I am happy to say that due to English for special purpose classes my ear has been trained and I have fewer problems in getting the meaning of sentences stated in native English.

These lessons will be wary useful in the future if I decide to extend my psychological suites in other English speaking countries so I value them greatly.

Nevertheless of my achievements I stay with my past belief that learning something is a never ending process and the one can newer stop learning. Because of that I will continue to study hard and become even more fluent English speaking psychologist.

Richard Wiseman

Richard Wiseman was born on 1966. He is the Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. Wiseman started his professional life as a magician, before graduating in Psychology from University College London and obtaining a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Wiseman is known for his critical examination and frequent debunking of unusual phenomena, including reports of paranormal phenomena. He is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. His research has been published in numerous academic journals, reported at various conferences, and featured on television. 

In 2004, he took part in a preliminary test of Natasha Demkina, a young Russian woman who claims to have a special vision that allows her to see inside of people's bodies and diagnose illnesses. The test was featured in the Discovery Channel documentary, The Girl with X-Ray Eyes.

In addition Professor Wiseman has studied the principles of good and bad luck, publishing the results in the self-help book The Luck Factor, He showed that both good and bad luck result from measurable habits; for example, lucky people, by expecting good luck, might expend more effort.

On the conclusion I might say that Richard Wiseman is a very wise man and we can learn much from him and his work.

The mystery of memory

The memory phenomenon became the object of scientific studies not so long ago. Nevertheless, psychologists managed to character short-term and long-term memory while also making some other discoveries.

One of them is the explained difference between procedural and declarative memory. The first one is more stable because it helps us remember how to execute motor functions.

The second discovery shows that it is easier to recognize information that to recall it. This explains it is much more difficult to remember how a person looks like and so easy to identify him when talking face to face.

Further studies also showed how our brain contains information. It is thought that every time we put something into our long-term memory a new pattern of nerve cells occur. This pattern makes a pathway for nerve impulses to travel. This is how our memories are being coded.

The memory researchers had been successful in making some discoveries but they agree that there are much more unanswered questions. One of them is to understand how different brain parts work together in giving us conscious experience.

Deja Vu

There are not many phenomenons’ that get the amount of public attention like Déjà vu. It has been mystified in ways no one could have imagined earlier. People started believing that it is possible to predict the future remember their past lives all thanks to the Déjà vu phenomenon. It is not surprising that scientific researchers were conducted to get to the bottom of this strange feeling of familiarity we people tend to get so often.

The first challenge researchers faced when they decided to study Déjà vu is lack of objectivity. This almost paranormal occurrence was very hard to capture and even harder to prove. Nevertheless thanks to new technologies and the ingenuity of the researchers some groundbreaking discoveries were made.

After a long debate psychologist agreed that the most common cause of the phenomenon is simple. The vast majorities of the dreams an individual had dreamt are forgotten, but not completely. These imaginative memories are stored in the subconscious level of the mind and there are ways to slightly remember them. One of the easiest ways to remember once dreams is to be presented with a similar stimulus we dreamt in the past. For example if I had dreamt of walking in the forest and seeing a squirrel running up a tree after a sound of braking branches at my feet it is possible that after some time in similar circumstances I might fell like knowing what will happen while spending time in the forest and breaking some branches. If coincidentally a squirrel would run up a tree I would be really shocked and confused. Maybe I would even believe in having some supernatural powers. This simple explanation explains the long known phenomenon of déjà vu.

In the conclusion I would like to state that before making absurd assumptions or believing in supernatural powers one should always use critical thinking and find logical explanations to illogical occurrences.