Learning and Memory - Cognitive Processes

Learning and Memory – Cognitive Processes

In Sam Sommers’ article, he talks about an experience he had after breaking two fingers playing baseball where he underwent a minor surgery that changed the way he thought about the daily situations in the normal human beings’ life. Sommers describes how people should be attentive to what they go through everyday (Sommers, 2008). Sommers’ situation can be related to a situation a friend of mine experienced quite recently with his professor. Being a student in one of the local universities, he believes in punctuality and figuratively he does not believe in patience. He is the kind of person who wants everything “yesterday”.

He once recently came to me, his number one friend with kind of a problem he was experiencing. He told me that he had sent his professor an assignment, which was very important since it determined who represented the university in an international science competition. He was very disgruntled and wanted to go to the professor’s office to enquire personally, what the problem was. Wanting to find out more on the problem, I carefully probed him to get more information about the situation. I found out that, the entrants to the competition were about two hundred and fifty and the assignment in question had fifteen pages.

After advising him contrary to visit the professor’s office he went there, guns blazing and gave the poor man quite an interrogation. Out of frustration, the professor ruled him out of the competition without even reading his article and disqualified him from any further events for a year. As Sommers says, if he had heeded my advice and looked at the situation from the professor’s point of view, the situation would have gone a lot smoother than it did and knowing how good he is in what he does, he would have landed the chance to represent the school in China. The student’s reaction to the situation caused the professor to get angry and rule him out of the competition. He learnt from the situation and has made quite some significant change from then.

Marksman’s article talks about how a person’s behavior depends on both the interaction between who they are as a person and what they are going through at that time. He also talks of how people, in any situation, judge others reactions as influenced by their personalities and rather not by how they themselves have acted in the same situation (Marksman, 2009). The scenario above can most closely be related to a situation in a movie that I recently watched. In the movie, there was a character by the name of Chad. He lived alone and was very negative about women, a negativity brought about by an ex-girlfriend of his who cheated on him with a richer man.

In Chad’s workplace, there was a beautiful young woman known as Christine. She liked him very much and was always eager for the day Chad would ask her out. Chad on the other hand, was as blind as a bat and would not notice the affection the young woman showed and felt for him. She would do favors for him, clean his workspace every morning, and bring him lunch and several other activities. Chad then received news that he would be transferred for a period of three months after which he would resume his normal place of work.

The day finally came when Chad was to leave the office and honor his transfer. Christine was devastated by the news but was hopeful for when Chad would come back. After a few days away, Chad started noticing the void that he had in his life. He started noticing how he had no one to bring him his lunch, clean his desk an do for him other favors which he was used to. His eagerness to go back home started to grow stronger and stronger gradually and as Marksman says his behavior towards women started changing. The situation he had gone through with his ex-girlfriend started fading slowly and he started appreciating Christine more for her efforts. After he went back home, he asked Christine out and their courtship became fruitful since they got married. Chad’s interaction with Christine was poor at first since he was going through a rough patch and since his attitude towards women had changed.

In the third article, Dr. Biali talks of a self-actualization exercise that she went through and found her personality to be highly sensitive. She also talks of Michael Jackson and compares her traits to his suggesting that he must have also been like her, a highly sensitive person (Biali, 2009). A self-actualization exercise would do well for me since I would want to know what kind of person I am. I fall under most of the qualities that Biali’s article mentions. I ask myself, am I a highly sensitive person? I believe that a person’s character should be described more by those who know and associate with them. This is because they would know certain things about one that they might be in denial about.

As I went through some of the qualities written down about me in a class discussion I once had, I realized that most of the things that were said about me, I did not know of. Some I knew but was in denial bout and some I ruled out as impossible. After reading in an internet article that those people around a person are the ones who describe them the best, I went back to the list and started accepting each quality, one by one. I internalized all of them and started learning more about what they mean and how they complement or how they clash a person’s personality.

This helped me better understand and accept who I am and from that day on I became confident with myself and was able to interact better with people since I knew exactly what made me happy, sad, angry, laugh and what about me made others happy, sad, angry, motivated and so on. Like Dr. Biali, I became one with myself and was able to try to explain to others the benefits of the self-actualization exercise. I explained to some of my friends, they too performed the exercise, and it worked out for them. One’s understanding of themselves is an activity that should be treated with importance since it helps one better relate to others.

References

Biali, S. (2009, July 8). Was Michael Jackson a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)? Are You? Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prescriptions-life/200907/was-michael-jackson-highly-sensitive-personhsp-are-you

Markman, A. (2009, January 12). People, Situations, Attributions and the Hollywood Movie. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/200901/people-situations-attributions-and-the-hollywood-movie

Sommers, S. (2008, July 11). The Elusive Power of Daily Situations. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-small-talk/200807/the-elusive-power-daily-situations