Personality

Personality has always been a big topic of interest for me. I just find it fascinating, seeing how some people differ from others in how they think, act, and observe. It's something that makes each and every one of us unique because none think or see or feel in exactly the same way. There have been many personality tests made to try and figure out someone's personality, and put it into a category or group that it best fits with. Because I find personality so interesting, I have taken multiple personality tests. No test gets it exactly 100% right, naturally. No one can truly know your personality like you, and no test can tell you what your personality is. That being said, there is one personality test that I have taken that seems to do the best at describing my personality, and that is the one I will talk about here: the Myers-Briggs test.

It makes sense, since it is the most widely test given and taken every year. The test usually consists of many questions, each having to do with four categories, with two possible traits under each category:

Introversion (I) vs. Extroversion (E)
Sensation (S) vs. Intuition (N)
Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
Judging (J) vs. Perception (P)

(I would explain what each of these traits mean specifically, but that would take way too long. It's easier to just take the test, see which traits you get, and then research those traits specifically.)

Since there are two traits under four categories, there are 16 possible combinations between all of them, and those different combinations are the 16 Myers-Briggs Personality Types. What's interesting is that I've read and heard that the Myers-Briggs test is not very accurate, but I disagree. In my experience, the test is fairly accurate 9/10 times. I've had many of my friends and family members take the test, and almost all of them have said that the description provided for them at the end was very close. I've also read that your personality type can change, but I'm not so sure about that either, once you reach a certain age. I've taken the test multiple times (and on multiple sites) since 8th grade, and I've gotten the same result every time, even after I've grown and matured. I feel like while how we handle certain aspects of our life may change, the core persona that drives our decisions will always be there, even if parts of it are modified over the years.

My Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ (Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging). I have always felt that this type does describe me best. While I can appear very extroverted on the outside at times, I am actually very introverted. I am pretty good at "reading people," as in being able to tell what their true motivations are for doing a certain action (or at least, I like to think I am, haha). And most of all, I love to listen to people talk about their problems and give them the best advice I can give. It's something I just find joy in doing. These are just a few of the traits described, but almost everything seems to fit with me pretty well.

I highly recommend taking this test, it can lead to lots of self-understanding, and understanding others. Me and my girlfriend (who's and ISFJ) like to study each other's types, since we both find the test very interesting and fun to talk about. That being said, if there are things that the test tells you that you don't think line of with who you are and what you do, don't panic, and most of all, don't think that you need to be the way it describes. Every site will tell you that each type will not fit you completely, and that no one can fit into one category alone. I think that also has to do with why so many people believe this test to be inaccurate. The reality is that none of them are exactly accurate, they're just meant to get you thinking about who you are as a person, and what you can do to healthily grow in who you are.

- Christian

Take the test for yourself! This is my favorite site, I think it has the most accurate results and best descriptions:

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

Developmental Psychology Reflection

I watched a Ted Talk from Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and her experience with the realization of the cause and likelihood of many mental illnesses in children. In the talk, she explained how she had gotten child patient after child patient that was being referred to her because of the high chance of then having a mental illness, like depression or ADHD. She began to really wonder what the cause of all these mental illnesses were. How could so many kids and people in general have these mental diseases? There had to be a reason.

She eventually found a study that said majority of people that had a mental illness, or even a physical illness, such as cancer, had experienced abuse as a child. Harris realized through that information and how many of her patients had gone through abuse too, that child abuse was a key component in deciding the individual's health in the future.

Through the analogy of seeing a bear in a forest, she explained how when adrenaline, activated by something that scares us, like abuse from someone, can ultimately exhaust our brain if it is activated too frequently. What is meant to be a good, energetic defense mechanism, can ultimately be the cause of a very big health problem. When our brain is exhausted by that adrenaline when we are young, it damages the brain so that we are more likely to succumb to mental or physical illnesses.

Apparently, not many people are on board with the idea that many of these illnesses are due to abuse as a child. Harris said that not many people are enthusiastic to research more about this. If the information is true, than there is a simple fix to be said: Stop abusing children. It's that simple. Interestingly enough, many of the people that abuse their children are suffering from a mental illness themselves. While medication can sometimes be prescribed to help with those, the ultimate change needs to happen in the heart. If child abuse stops, according to this information, than the number of illnesses in this world will go down.

Here is a link to the Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime?referrer=playlist-how_does_my_brain_work#t-946755 

- Christian

Brain and Behavior

We are currently thinking about the brain and how it affects our behavior in class. The brain stimulates everything we feel, so it makes sense that the brain is the most important part of our body when it comes to behavioral aspects.


I recently watched TED Talk about how the brain is affected by sleep. In the video, it talked about how sleep is meant for our brain to regenerate. How much sleep we get determines how well our brain recharges, and therefore how well we are able to function the following day, whether it be social interaction, memory, or just listening and taking in information. The speaker, Dan Gartenberg, stated that "the average American, [thanks to the invention of the lightbulb,] sleeps a whole hour less than in the 1940s." It makes you wonder just how much better we could function if we got that hour back every day. It's also a known fact that lack of sleep throughout one's life can lead to disease and other health problems, Alzheimers disease, cardiovascular disease, and stroke being a few of them.

Later in the video, Gartenberg talked about the three stages of sleep: Light sleep, Rapid Eye Movement (REM), and Deep sleep. It is during deep sleep that our brain experiences the most regeneration, by a large amount. He explained that it is during deep sleep that our brains turn our interactions during the day into our memory and personality (in other words, it's very important!). He said that deep sleep is by far the most important stage of sleep.
This led to some research being done on how we could increase the deep sleep stage. Gartenberg and some fellow researchers found that if a certain noise could be played during the deep sleep stage, it could increase the brain activity, as in, its regenerative process. The sound that he played in the video sounded kind of like a whooshing sound you would hear in a car wash or something. They found that if we could create a device that played these sounds when we were in deep sleep, it would really help our brain's regenerate, and help us to be more healthy overall!

- Christian

Here's a link to the TED Talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gartenberg_the_brain_benefits_of_deep_sleep_and_how_to_get_more_of_it#t-304006