EMPRESSOFDRAC.COM, A Media Blog

Sashi Buri! Do you know that your most beloved Facebook was created by a 20 year-old geek in his college dorm (5 years ago), and a movie about it will be released this year starring no other than Justine Timberlake?

Well, if you are reading this post, it’s 99.9 percent that you are a Facebook user and you are somewhat curious with the title above.  The only thing you and I know is that, Facebook is the best social networking site ever existed in this friggin’ universe.  And you know that I’m not making a baseless statement.  I can attest to this and I can personally go into detail why Facebook is the most superior social networking site in the world wide web.

Aside from the usual social networking features (well, they are really not usual but I will go into details about this in my next post), there is this main factor which makes FB superior among other social networking sites.  I’m referring to TOUCH.  Touch is a term in psychology which is parallel to ATTENTION.  From infanthood to adulthood (an even from conception), the human consciousness always craves for this kind of warmth and bliss.  Everyone loves attention.  Well, not necessarily to become the center of it, but attention from the people they treasure like friends, lovers, family members, and the likes.  Most children who lack attention have high probability of becoming rebellious and tend to develop self hate and low confidence when they grow up.

So, what is the physical or rather virtual manifestation of attention in Facebook?  We can start with its “like” feature.  Believe it or not, you can’t find this feature in other social networking sites.  FB pioneered the use of the “like” button that enables users to like theirs or other users’ statuses, photos, notes, posts, quizzes results, and all activities published on their newsfeeds and walls.  This button looks like any other button out there but if you will examine it closely, it is actually one of the reasons why most FB users are active and love to share their online activities with friends.  If your status is being liked by your friends, it’s a positive form of attention and you will surely post another one again and again.

Another feature that triggers the manifestation of attention is the “tag” feature. If you found out that someone tagged you in his/her note (or post, or photo), the very first thing that would come into mind is that, that person remembers you and he/she wanted to share something with you.  Being tagged would give you a feeling of belongingness and can actually hype up your self-esteem.  Being tagged means that the person who tagged you has given an ounce of his time in paying attention to who you are.

The last feature that would make a complete combo to the features I mentioned above, is the “comment” feature.  This is rather a common one, but it is only in FB wherein you can comment in every activity your friends published (on their walls or newsfeeds).  Just like the like button, comments are one of the strongest manifestation of attention you can get after posting your activities on your wall.  But, it could result to positive or negative reinforcement.  Unlike the like button which only gives positive reinforcement, the comment feature can actually affect your temperament especially if the comments are bashful and indifferent, and contain personal attacks.  This is actually the form of attention that most users wanted to avoid.  Uhmn, well, there are actually deviant ones.  These are FB users who would do everything to anger or irritate anyone in their networks just to gather lots of comments.  They are called KSP (Kulang Sa Pansin).

Conclusion: Like button + tag + comment = The FB Attention Combo.

Ja Mata Ne!

Well, if she has, she must be under a really good medication, for she’s kicking  her ass off again in the recently held 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.

In the recently concluded video awards, Brit made a victorious comeback. She just won three Moonmen. These includes Video of the Year, Best Female Video and Best Pop Video. These are all for her hit “Piece of Me“. These are actually her first wins in VMA history.

Aside from that, she had also delivered high ratings to MTV. According to LA Times, Britney Spears worked her magic for the show even without a performance. More than 8.4 million viewers watched the three-hour music event, which is a 19% increase over the last year’s viewership.

Britney has just made her real comeback, and there are no other people who are more delighted, than her fans. She actually dedicates her awards to them. But, some are still wondering if this will be for good. Is she psychologically sound enough to handle her career? How about her rumored mental illness? Is she really a bipolar?

According to John M. Grohol, a psychologist, Britney Spears may have a Bipolar Disorder. A bipolar disorder is a serous mental disorder characterized by mood swings between extreme depression and mania (i.e. from extreme happiness to extreme sadness). When this is left untreated, those people with this disorder can go back and forth between these two extremes.

This rumored mental illness actually appeared after the dispute over Brit’s custody of her sons against her ex-husband, Kevin Federline. I think she’s just being over emotional because her ex-hubby is trying to take her children away from her. Federline took advantage of her ex-wife’s weakness, and may had invented stories that could give him more authority over their children. And he did succeeded. Well, he should do his best to maintain a connection with Britney, since without her, he will lose his status as a celebrity.   And mind you, Brit is filthy rich.   And having her children in his custody means a stable fountain flow of dollars.

I guess people should not believe everything they read or watch in the news right away. Popular people like Britney Spears, is the media’s favorite target of topic exaggeration, for they can attract massive attention, which means higher profits and income. We should be more vigilant on how we process the informations we receive everyday, because not all of them are based from facts.

Bipolar or not, Britney has proved her prowess once and again in the pop music world.

N.B: I wrote this topic due to Maybel’s request.

Photo Credit: oxygenchunks.blogspot.com
You can download Britney’s Piece of Me mp3 here

Nobody in this bloody universe wants to feel sad and lonely.  Everyone likes to be happy.  Human beings NEED to be happy. But, what’s happiness without pains and sacrifices? How can you recognize happiness when you haven’t experienced loneliness or sadness yet?

It is inhibition-activation. Yes! In order for us mortals to experience the pleasure brought to us by happiness we need to inhibit ourselves from sinful pleasures and sacrifice a little so that when activation comes, our senses won’t be jaded. That way, we can ultimately enjoy the good stuffs brought to us by happiness.  Hehehehe! I don’t know if you still get what I want you people to get.

Anyways, according to a famous psychologist, the secret to a happy life is POSITIVITY. Positivity in what way?  Make a Happy Journal. It may be written in old school style like diary, notebook, or you can have the leisure of blogging and online journals. In your journal write only all the happy things, events, occasions that happened in your life or blog about your happy thoughts and musings. YES! All those wacky stuffs you did with your friends, happy moments with your loved ones, sight seeings with your comrades…everything and anything that exudes positivity and happiness.

Honestly, this is what I have been doing for the past few weeks.  And it’s definitely effective! Hehehehe! So, what are you waiting? Fill your life with happiness! Start writing your Happy Journal now!!!

Ta ta,

EOD

I can’t get enough with Basic Instinct 2. If you haven’t watched the movie yet then you should watch it as soon as possible.  It is in that movie I first heard of the word “Risk Addiction“. Sharon Stone played the role of a risk-addict novelist who would do anything to quench her thirst for risky stuff, like finger-fucking while driving her car (risk of getting caught and risk of having a brutal road accident), paying a man-whore for sex and a secret gang-bang or orgy) (risk of having a disease, being caught by people, risk of social isolation ), committing sexual-oriented crimes (risk of getting caught by the police, risk of going to prison), and a lot more.

Sharon Stone’s character in the movie is unstoppable and she has the drive to do anything she wants. She even manages to manipulate her psychoanalyst and make him believe that he’s a psychotic. I think the movie exaggerates a lot in that part. I mean in the real world, the psychoanalyst should not be that attached to his patient. In the story Sharon Stone manages to lure him using her erotic sexual charms.

So, what’s with risk-addicts anyway? They are individuals who have high dopamine and serotonin on their bloody brains. Dopamine and serotonin are neurotransmitters which are responsible of the occurrence of various attitudes which turned out to become the basis of personality development. The level of these brain chemicals can determine if an individual is compulsive or impulsive, easy-going or independent and the likes. Risk-addicts have high level of serotonin, this means their brains need high level of stimulation before they can feel satisfaction or before they can feel anything.

People who are into danger-seeking activities like bungee jumping, mountain climbing, drug abuse, sex abuse, and the likes are risk-addicts. Their lives are defined on how they outwitted risks and winked at death. The common cause of this addiction is the fear of boredom. People who have high levels of dopamine cannot just sit in the corner and wait for someone to come. They are the ones who go out and seek for fun. So, are you a risk-addict?

This is the common dilemma faced by many Psychologists as they practice their profession and do their research in the field. We always tackle this topic every time we think of designing an experiment in our Experimental Psychology class. Our experiments should put the safety first of our subjects before it will be conducted. There has been lots of complaints and protests on how the field had exploit, humiliate, used, and even to the point torture innocent subjects just for the sake of acquiring information. I just read an article about this and I’m quite saddened how the author of the article expressed his sentiments.

Torture, Psychology and Ethics in APA

You may or may not have read about recent protests of the APA and its stance on psychologists engaged in torture. On the one hand, it sounds as though the APA has taken a strong position against psychologists being involved in torture. The APA’s press release states that psychologists are prohibited from a long list of tactics, including “mock execution; water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation; sexual humiliation; rape; cultural or religious humiliation; exploitation of phobias or psychopathology; induced hypothermia; and the use of psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances for the purpose of eliciting information. In addition, the following acts were banned for the purpose of eliciting information in an interrogations process: hooding; forced nakedness; stress positions; the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate; physical assault including slapping or shaking; exposure to extreme heat or cold; threats of harm or death; and isolation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family.”

And yet I have read, in many different sources, that the APA’s position is more equivocal than it sounds. The resolution passed at the August 07 APA council meeting allows psychologists to assist with interrogations in their work, even when the interrogations might not protect the prisoner’s rights. The rationale that I heard for this, from APA leadership at the August meeting, is that the APA leadership believes that the presence of a psychologist can protect the prisoner’s rights. The APA asserts that being involved in the process helps to protect prisoners. Critics decry such logic as naive, and say that it disregards what we know about social psychological processes.

I am sad to say that I am more persuaded by the critics than by the APA, and I am considering resigning from the APA.

Check the rest of the article here.

Whew! At last! I finished this one. I actually had this concept just last week, and I was thinking how can I interpret it in photoshop.  Well, this isn’t that special to start with because my work isn’t that great, but then I’m still proud because I put some effort on this one.

We were actually talking in our Pysch 141 class last week about the the contributions of our genetic structure in the changes of our behaviours. And then we ended up discussing about the great resemblance of chimpanzees’ genetic structure to human beings’. The chimpz are humans closest relatives. The percentage of resemblance is 99.9%. And it’s only the gene which made our jaws move that made us different from them.

Well, it’s very embarassing because the chimpz greatly denied the statement above. What a very shocking reaction form our beloved chimpz! They cannot accept the fact that assholes and asswipes like us are claiming them as our closest relatives. Ahehehehe! Just kidding! (Well, we really don’t know for sure. Hahahaha!)

by EOD

This is just a summary…

In a relativist point of view, personality development varies from culture to culture, from place to place. So does the development of a unique Filipino personality. On the other hand, the Teleological Approach is in lieu of universalism. Personality development is greatly correlated with consequentialism (individuals are consquentialists in nature). Consequences motivate individuals to change or alter their attitudes. This is because people in general are goal-oriented. They always expect reciprocation and consequences.

This approach can be used as another spectrum in viewing the Filipino personality as a whole. This is because their consequence-oriented personality can be attributed to the fact that 83% of the them are Roman Catholics. It is noted that religion is a vital influence to people’s lives. And it is the religion that affirms consequentialism (wherein it teaches the people to do good so that they will be blessed in return, doing the other way means hell and the likes). Its influence to the people affects the intensity of consequentialism as a prime motivating factor in personality development. But we have to take into consideration that religion is just a contributing factor. Consequentialism alone is a very important variable in studying personality. Here, we can conclude that the concept of consequentialism is universal.

EOD

I decided to do this “Free Association” stuff at 12 midnight last night. At first I was hesitating, and I really didn’t have any idea what to say. And then I tried to recall all the things that I did that day. The very first thing that came to mind is my frustration of my Stat subject. I didn’t able to get the last exercise because I missed Miss G’s instruction, and I was blaming myself.

It hit me that I’m always blaming myself whenever I did something that disappoint me, and I’m quite disheartened that until now I still have that kind of disposition. And though my boyfriend had already consoled me about it I’m still very upset.

And then, I found myself cursing because I was so sleepy, and it’s past 12 midnight. I keep on yawning and then I recalled our Philo assignment regarding Truth and Reality, and for a few minutes I tried to differentiate the two. And then, I cursed again for I have nothing to say. And then, I started blabbing again about my Stat frustrations. And then, I came to a point that I was consoling myself.

I told myself that I will make it up next time. And then, I’m out of words again. I found myself yawning and cursing.  And then, I was telling myself to be more studious. And then, I found myself talking about my friends and how I miss our bondings and outings. And I was out of words again.

Notes:

This “free association” thing is quite unique yet not lucrative. I mean if you’ll look only at the surface you can easily generalize that it’s like a child’s activity. It seems nonsense talking to yourself while recording it. And it is basically a waste of time for other people who don’t have any idea what it is for.

Anyways, this thing is a sort of a loner-confessionary-instrument. If you got no one to talk to, and you want to release some negative energies, then, I think it can be quite helpful. Talking to myself for the very first time, while aware that I recorded it made me conscious of my words. I dunno, but I’m not used to talking alone with myself. Writing alone is my kind of stuff. And in my point of view, I don’t see any unnaturalness in myself while doing the activity.

On the other hand, after I released all the stuffs that made me anxious that day, I really, really feel comfortable, and it seemed like I became guilt-free. I guess it had to do with the freedom of saying whatever you want without interruptions or opinions from anyone.

The only person who can scientifically analyze the result of this activity is a professional psychologist. Anyways, I tried to listen to my recorded voice, and I find it awkward listening to myself. It’s quite funny, but the activity couldn’t be that helpful to all mortals. It all boils down to honesty and sincerity to oneself. If you’re not serious in doing it, then it’s useless.

~eod~