Module III- Final Draft

Psychology and Phobias

I am currently a psychology major, and I like reading and learning about human behavior. Everything we do in life is related to psychology. Psychology is basically the study of who we are, why we are that way, and also what we can become. I chose to write about articles that explain some psychological issues. The Journal of Genetic Psychology has many articles about behavior of different kinds. The three articles that I will explain each have different types of phobias. A phobia is a common type of anxiety disorder. Many people can have phobias of different kinds. Examples of phobias that I will explain are fear of earthquakes and fear of being social with others.

“Reducing Earthquake-Related Fears in Victim and Nonvictim Children” is an article that includes the study to measure fear. To do this, the authors used a powerful study technique known as the activity-based cognitive fear reduction (ABCF) by using the Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC). The FSSC consisted of gathering data from 266 participants to determine the different types of fear characteristics of children between the ages of 8-12 years. The ABCF was a nine-session procedure that hoped to reduce children’s earthquake related fears. The authors hypothesized that this intervention scheme would be substantially different from a post event debriefing intervention, which usually occurs immediately after a traumatic event (Karairmak and Aydin). The results showed that earthquake victim children were more fearful on two subtests of the FSSC than were nonvictim children and that girls had significantly higher scores on all subscales of the FSSC than the boys.

“Reducing Earthquake-Related Fears in Victim and Nonvictim Children” discussed children with fear of earthquakes, while, another article, “Work Characteristics and Social Phobia in a Nationally Representative Employed Sample” discussed social phobia. This article is talks about fear of being social with others. The objective of the article was that social phobia is associated with long-term impairment and disability (Stansfeld et al.). This is the first study to look at the connection of work characteristics with social phobia in a population. Self-reported work characteristics were linked to 12-month social phobia diagnosed by the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview in 2004, 324 were employed individuals from the Canadian Community Health Survey (Stansfeld et al.). What the authors concluded was interesting. Job insecurity may be a result of illness in employment populations, while on the other hand high job pressure may also increase the risk of symptoms.

“Work Characteristics and Social Phobia in a Nationally Representative Employed Sample” is connected to another article that discussed social anxiety disorder, specific phobia and fear conditioning in healthy individuals. In this article, “Functional Neuroimaging of Anxiety: A Meta-analysis of Emotional Processing in PTSD, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Specific Phobia,” the authors searched for common and disorder-specific functional neurobiological deficits in several anxiety disorders (Etkin and Wager). The main point of this article is that the study of human anxiety disorders has benefited greatly from functional neuroimaging approaches.

Furthermore, the fear of earthquakes and the fear of being social are examples of phobias that people have. I learned that phobias can occur when someone experiences a traumatic event, as in the article of the fear of earthquakes. Human behavior is a very important subject that should be experimented with because we need to figure out how and why phobias exist. Without these experiments, nobody would know why people act a certain way to certain things. I also learned that many people can have different types of phobias. They may not even know that they are afraid of something until they actually experience it. From the articles that I discussed, I now know the importance of the study of behavior.

Work Cited

Amit Etkin, Tor D Wager. (2007). Functional Neuroimaging of Anxiety: A Meta-Analysis of

Emotional Processing in PTSD, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Specific Phobia. The

American Journal of Psychiatry, 164(10), 1476-88. Retrieved November 6, 2008, from

Research Library database. (Document ID: 1360500841).

Özlem Karairmak, Gül Aydin. (2008). Reducing Earthquake-Related Fears in Victim and

Nonvictim Children. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 169(2), 177-85. Retrieved

November 6, 2008, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1489114251).

Stephen A Stansfeld, Emma Robertson Blackmore, Brandon M Zagorski, Sarah Munce,

Donna E Stewart, Iris Weller. (2008). Work Characteristics and Social Phobia in a

Nationally Representative Employed Sample. Canadian Journal of

Psychiatry, 53(6), 371-6. Retrieved November 6, 2008, from Research Library database.

(Document ID: 1521969881).

Module III- What I revised from my RD

There were many things that I needed to change from my rough draft because I wasn’t completely finished with my essay. My rough draft only had the summaries of the three articles that I chose, which were all about different kinds of phobias. The summaries of the three articles were okay. I just made a few changes in each paragraph to make them flow better. I made some sentences shorter and some longer. I also added some more information that the authors talked about. From paragraph to paragraph, I included a transition sentence to connect them.

In my final draft, I fixed my introduction and added a definition of psychology. I also explained why I chose to write about this topic. I ended my introduction with a thesis that basically states what my essay will talk about.

To wrap up my essay, I ended it with a conclusion. In my conclusion, I restated my thesis and summarized what I wrote in my essay. Also, I talked about what I learned from each essay.

I did not have my work cited page finished in my rough draft. For the work cited page, I cited each article and put them in alphabetical order. That page was the last page of my essay. Everything else looked pretty good. I made sure all my grammar was correct and I came up with a title that fits my essay.

Module III- Draft

Introduction- Not quite done yet

3 Article Summaries:

“Reducing Earthquake-Related Fears in Victim and Nonvictim Children” is an article that includes the study to measure fear. To do this, the authors used a powerful study technique known as the activity-based cognitive fear reduction (ABCF) by using the Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC). The FSSC consisted of gathering data from 266 participants to determine the different types of fear characteristics of children between the ages of 8-12 years. The ABCF was a nine-session procedure that hoped to reduce children’s earthquake related fears. The authors hypothesized that this intervention scheme would be substantially different from a post event debriefing intervention, which usually occurs immediately after a traumatic event (Karairmak and Aydin). The results showed that earthquake victim children were more fearful on two subtests of the FSSC than were nonvictim children and that girls had significantly higher scores on all subscales of the FSSC than the boys.

“Reducing Earthquake-Related Fears in Victim and Nonvictim Children” discussed children with fear of earthquakes, while, another article, “Work Characteristics and Social Phobia in a Nationally Representative Employed Sample” discussed social phobia. This article is connected with social phobia which is fear of being social with others. The objective of the article was that social phobia is associated with long-term impairment and disability (Stansfeld et al.). This is the first study to look at the connection of work characteristics with social phobia in a population. Self-reported work characteristics were linked to 12-month social phobia diagnosed by the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview in 24 324 employed individuals from the Canadian Community Health Survey (Stansfeld et al.). What the authors concluded was interesting. Job insecurity may be a result of illness in employment populations, while on the other hand high job pressure may also increase the risk of symptoms.

“Work Characteristics and Social Phobia in a Nationally Representative Employed Sample” is connected to another article that discussed social anxiety disorder, specific phobia and fear conditioning in healthy individuals. In this article, “Functional Neuroimaging of Anxiety: A Meta-analysis of Emotional Processing in PTSD, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Specific Phobia,” the authors searched for common and disorder-specific functional neurobiological deficits in several anxiety disorders (Etkin and Wager). The main point of this article is that the study of human anxiety disorders has benefited greatly from functional neuroimaging approaches.

Conclusion......

*There are still some changes that need to be done and I still need to add some information to the paragraphs.

Module II- 500 word post

Article V- Gender Differences in “Social Portraits” Reflected in Social Profiles

MySpace is a very popular website for both younger and older people. It is a website used for communication, as well as friend-networking. It is very easy to meet new people and socialize with them on a daily basis. MySpace has sections that help other people know who they are. For example, there is an “About Me” section where people can write personal information about themselves. According to Article V Gender Differences in “Social Portraits” Reflected in Social Profiles, analysis of MySpace profiles provides a unique means of studying gender differences in identity, wherein men were much more likely than women to fail to mention their significant other even once in the “About Me” section of their profiles or in their “Interests” section. This article is trying to prove that males and females provide different information in “About Me” sections and “Interest” section.

There are many things a person can write about in their “About Me” section of their MySpace. The topic that is explained in Article V is about which gender will most likely mention their significant other on their MySpace. For males, 43% mentioned their significant other 0 times, 43% mentioned their significant other once, and 14% mentioned her between 2 and 10 times. For females, 16% had no mention of their significant other, while 47% mentioned him once, and 37% mentioned him between 2 and 10 times. These results were achieved in the spring of 2007. Also, there were results for information provided in the “Interest” section.”

In the “Interests” section, 67% of males did not mention their significant other at all, and 33% mentioned her between 1 and 5 times. Nearly half of females did not bring up their significant other in the “Interests” section, which is 47%. The remaining 53% mentioned him between 1 and 5 times. These differences are pretty accurate according to the article. They experimented on 100 people with MySpace accounts and achieved these results.

Moreover, this article’s main points were showing the differences of the gender roles in a MySpace account. Both males and females provide information in their profiles. However, they each provide different information. According to the article, the results may vary over the years because there are new accounts being made every day. The different information between males and females can change over time. New experiments can be performed which will have different results. Researchers are focusing on this subject more and more. Maybe one day the information that males and females provide will equal each other.