Academic interests

This page is dedicated primarily to Psychology and Criminology.

Summer Term 2016
I am taking one class this term - Violence Against Women (Criminal Justice) which happens to be my capstone class for my minor (yay! minor achieved in 3 more weeks!). I will be posting links to various references and crisis sites/shelters as I come across them. Shelter resources and information will primarily be located in the Washington State area. If you or someone you know may be experiencing domestic violence or sexual assault, please get help. No one has the right to violate others and no one deserves to be violated.

5/31/16
I have a lot to write (10 page paper) today so I'll make this brief. Anytime someone tries to coerce you into physical intimacy - this includes threatening your reputation, not just with threats of physical violence - it is sexual assault. I am speaking in particular to Freshman and Sophomores newly out of high school. You can always go to another school. There will always be other sororities (if that's your thing) on different campuses, for you to "be cool" with. What you can't get back is the feeling of security, lack of shame, and completeness of self-worth that goes when you give in to coercion. We all try to rationalize the decisions that lead to our victimization but in reality, there is no rationalizing it. I was abused by my ex-husband (starting at 20 years old) and it's been 9 years since I left that situation. With everything I've accomplished - lecturing at colleges against abuse and sexual assault, self-defense classes, advocacy, volunteer work at women's shelters, pursuing a career in trauma therapy and criminal psychology (with the purpose to aid prosecution of DV and SA perpetrators), I still can't help but feel angry at myself sometimes, because of the fact that I felt like I put myself in that position. Some assholes out there will agree. They'll blame me instead of my ex. But the reality, what I know to be true, is that he never had the right to do to me what he did. I have forgiven myself, for the most part, but I don't know that I'll ever be completely free of these feelings, either. Maybe if I had trusted my instincts from the beginning (lesson learned, that)...but hind-sight...

Basically, know the signs, don't go off with men/women you're not super close to (and sometimes that's not even something that will keep you safe, as 80% of rapes and sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim). Unfortunately, we still live in a society that loves to blame the victim and find fault in their (especially if the victim is a woman) behavior that could have mislead the "poor" offender into entrapment - so it is up to us to keep ourselves safe. In reality, no one has the right to touch another human being without full consent - that means that both individuals are 100% in control of all of their faculties and willingly say "yes" and openly (and happily), participates. But the reality also is that we DO need to protect ourselves and we DO need to make sure that we aren't placing ourselves in situations where the opportunity for some jack-ass to get his jollies can happen (most men aren't going to be overpowered by a woman unless they are incapacitated and most men who are sexually assaulted are assaulted by other men, statistically). Dress how you want to and be yourselves. But be smart about it, too. Stay out of dimly-lit areas, if you can help it; don't walk home alone; don't over-imbibe on substances that impair your judgement or the ability to protect yourself; carry mace if it's legal in your area (and I highly recommend taking some self-defense courses, as well); and never ever leave your drink unattended or accept drinks from strangers without having full view of the drink from its source to your hands. This seems like common sense to most of us, but there are still too many situations where rape occurs for this advice not to be stated.

Stay safe everyone.



Fall Term 2015
I am taking four classes this term: Intro to Policing (Criminal Justice); (Psych)Personality; (Psych)Social Psychology; and (Psych) Self Control. I'll be adding to this section as the term progresses.

9/16/15

I'm going to return to this post after I'm done doing all of my homework and studying but I just want to say... "yay! we're studying Paul Ekman's work on microexpressions and microgestures in my social psychology class!!!" Excited fan-girl gushing to come later.

9/14/15

Oh my god. I try not to get too fired up about a lot of stuff but man... Every time I read about Freud, I just want to rip the beard off of his chauvinist, misogynist face. Some day I may get more into it but probably not today. His psychoanalytic/psychosexual theories are laughable, at best, and disturbing at worst. I believe that his focus on child genitalia and the sexual perversions that come out of his so-called "stages" (especially his "anal stage"), is far more telling of his own psychological state than anyone else's. Freud obtained his childhood development "theories" by interviewing women who were in various stages of mental and emotional distress as adults. He never interviewed children! Considering that he had incredibly low opinions of women to begin with, I highly doubt he would be a reliable source when it comes to unbiased research on psychological stages of women and children. The fact that we still focus so much on his idiocy just gob-smacks me...unless it's as a warning of how NOT to conduct psychological scientific research. If anyone followed his "standards" of scientific study today, they would be scoffed at by the modern academic community. And yet we praise him...

Also: His use of the word "pleasure/pleasurable" has now made me despise it and want to scrub it from my memory. Every time I read it, I feel dirty (especially considering the fact that it's in reference to children's genitalia and the psychological stimulation of said organs). Over-reaction? Maybe...but then again, maybe not. Oedipal complex. Look it up.


9/9/15

Today's academic interest is brought to you by my Personality class. We are studying Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory. One of his experiments, in particular, is very popular among Child Development Psychologists.

In a nutshell, Bandura believed that people are not solely influenced by negative and positive environmental re-enforcers. (This explains why grounding never worked on me ;) ). Instead, Bandura believes that we learn more from imitating those around us. I do agree with this, however I have beef with one of his experiments. Not with Bandura  or the experiment itself, but with people using only half of his findings to justify their stance that media violence is guaranteed to create violent children and thus we should sensor the crap out of everything in the chance kids will see it. Here's a quick run-down on Bandura's experiment:

So, basically he gathered a bunch of pre-k kids, separated them into three groups, and had them watch a video of an adult beating up one of those Bobo punching bag dolls (you know, the creepy-ass clown doll that always bounces back and hits you in the face?!). One group of kids did not see what happened to the adult after the incident (no reward or punishment for the violent behavior). The second group of kids saw the adult being reprimanded and physically punished for the adult's behavior towards the doll. The third group of kids saw the adult being rewarded for the violent behavior. The first and second group of children, after viewing the video, were left alone with various toys and did not show any violence towards them, unlike the third group. SOME kids in the third group were violent towards the toys when no adults were present. Now, proponents of the "all violence in tv, video games, and movies is evil and will turn our children into violent little hell-spawn (because heaven forbid we actually raise our kids, instead of relying strictly on entertainment to do so...)" will use the results Bandura collected - that violence modeled in front of young children will inspire said children to be violent - to support this belief. However, what they fail to mention is that very important part that the group of children that witnessed the violent adult being rewarded for violent behavior was the only group that exhibited said behavior. The kids in the other two groups witnessed the violent behavior and did not behave the same way. This suggests that children who are exposed to inappropriate behaviors that have positive feedback/rewards are far more likely to imitate those behaviors than kids who either do not see rewards/punishment, or see the subject being punished.

This, my dears, is why it is important to a) consider all of the facts, not just the parts that support your opinions (some may be familiar with this very behavior when it comes to bigotry - Hello, Kim Davis I am indeed talking to you,) and most importantly b) raise your own kids. I am part of the gamer community, I'm not against screen time and in fact believe that educational programming, paired with parental involvement (this means you sit with your kids and discuss what is happening on the program, sign/sing along with the show and your child, etc.) is incredibly beneficial in cognitive development. I have seen many children being raised alongside violent video games. These kids turn out just fine because their parents do not reward real-life negative behavior. They also take the time to explain to their children the difference between make-believe and reality.  (For those of you who feel the need to argue that violent video games with violent protagonists are in some way being rewarded for the violent behavior - say fighting crime as a super hero - refer back to my final statement. You cannot and will not control what the Media and the public puts out there for our children to see - it's called the First Amendment - but we can control how our kids take it in. Be present, be a parent.)

As for my and A's parenting style when it comes to violence, I try to avoid Peanut seeing most of it but not in fear that my child will pick up violent behaviors (kids seem to be born with the ability anyway, even if they have never seen it to begin with). With her advanced level of cognitive development, she's prone to nightmares and sleep terrors and with violence on TV and in movies, it is often accompanied by loud noises and bright lights/quick movements. It's more in an attempt to prevent nightmares and sleep terrors, in her case.

And there you have it. My thoughts on today's Personality lesson.

9/7/15

So I'm doing my readings for my Crim-J class and, with all of this hatred in the Media that I've been seeing against civil servants lately, I just have to get this off of my chest.

I am incredibly tired of police bashing. So tired, in fact, that it is difficult for me to continue with this post, primarily for one reason - I don't know if it'll even matter and it's exhausting. There are far too many people who are incapable of thinking for themselves. They think life is bad now, that police are all of a sudden the enemy, well here's the thing: How do you think life will be without them? (Research Deadwood, SD's history for an example of what life was like before law-enforcement.) The police aren't the problem, people who spread falsehoods and lies about the police are. Every time someone shares a post on facebook of a blurry video (or video taken out of context) of what people assume to be police brutality, every time people post opinion threads about cops and how corrupt they all are, you are spreading hate and misinformation. We are falling prey to the Media's desire to stir up hate and fear, and are persecuting the people who do the job we are paying them to do! People need to start doing their own research instead of vomiting forth twisted and misrepresented "facts". Police aren't the enemy, ignorance is. And as long as ignorance reigns, our species is doomed to extinction by our own hands. (On that note, groups such as ISIS don't need to do anything but sit back and wait for us to tear ourselves apart, which we are doing quite spectacularly, might I say).

Yes, there are bad apples in every bunch. I am not excusing that nor endorsing bad behavior. There is still racial profiling, this is true, though there are initiatives in place to try and help eradicate it from law enforcement. However, there is a reason why racial profiling exists and it's not because all White people are racist (people of all races racial profile, don't think any race is exempt from this). If people uphold a stereotype, it will continue to thrive! Don't like the stereotype, then change it. Stop behaving that way! To think any form of negative behavior doesn't have a base for it's existence is naive. Black on black crime is much more of an issue than white on black crime but do people understand this (or care)? No, it's not sensational enough. People are used to Black people victimizing each other (which is a far bigger problem than the handful of corrupt police officers). And yeah, I bet there are people who have been wrongfully accused, have been hassled by police, but the majority that feel they have been were actually...think about it... doing something wrong! I am not excusing the poor behavior of those rotten apples in the PD but there is a bigger problem within all groups and it is not in police/citizen relations.

Now, I know that I am going to get flack for these thoughts but honestly, I don't really care.  I'm ashamed to admit that I used to be one of those people that I am speaking out against. Then one day I woke up, reversed my ignorance, and did my own thinking. ALL lives matter. It's that simple. To focus on one group and exclude all others will do nothing but create barriers and cause people (who should be working together) to want to turn inward in order to make sure that they are not being forgotten or wrongfully treated.  At the pace we're going, we're going to end up creating another civil race war. We can't keep going on in this way if we expect to evolve. We are sliding backwards as a species. We are going to tear each other apart and it scares the living shit out of me. All because people are either a) unable/unwilling to think for themselves or b) are afraid to speak out against these newest initiatives for fear of being called racist (or worse) simply because they don't agree. But guess what, we don't have to agree! That's the great thing about America. But we do have to live and work together so lets stop with the qualifiers and start working on cleaning our mess up.

One last thing to keep in mind: have you ever heard the saying "there are no guilty people in prison"? Start holding criminals responsible for their actions and stop targeting cops. Or one day you just may need a police officer and there may not be any left to help you.

8/30 - Quizlet

Not so much an academic interest but a very handy study tool. So, students, if you need extra resources to help you study for exams, here's a really good place to utilize. http://www.quizlet.com