REFLECTIONS

  I   liked the way the books are written. Let us take an example from a text book prescribed in MA (Applied Psychology). The book is Biopsychology by John PJ Pinel and Steven J Barnes. The book makes for an interesting reading. Contains many real life examples and makes a topic like Biopsychology fun and exciting. Lets dwell how he explains he term 'Coolidge effect' in the book.     The Coolidge effect is the fact that a copulating male who becomes incapable of continuing to copulate with one sex partner can often commence copulating with a new sex partner. Before your (referring to readers, who would be University students) imagination starts running wild, we should mention that the subjects in Lester and Gorzalka's experiment were hamsters, not university students. page 31.

 This is part of my assignment for the subject "Stress and Health" MA Psychology 2nd Year. The Diathesis-Stress Model of Mental Illness The Diathesis-Stress Model of mental illness is used to explain the pathogenesis of mental illness (cause of mental illness or etiology). It is one of the most widely accepted theories for explaining the origin of mental disorders. It proposes that psychological disorders arise from the interaction between a person’s predispositional vulnerability (diathesis) and environmental stressors. Neither vulnerability nor stress alone is sufficient; rather, it is their combination that triggers illness. The term Diathesis comes from Greek word meaning predisposition or arrangement.   American Psychologist Paul Meehl, in his paper in 1962, applied this model to explain the origins of schizophrenia suggesting that a genetic vulnerability (schizotaxia) combined with stress could lead to the disorder. Since then, it has been applied to other mental di...

  The following analysis of the net-flix documentary-serial ADOLESCENCE was written around 31Mar2025 as part of assignment for Life Span Psychology MA(Applied Psy) NETFLIX SERIAL- ADOLESCENCE INTRODUCTION The Netflix 4-part serial ‘ADOLESCENCE’ is creating new records in terms of popularity and viewership. Many critiques have called it- the closest thing to perfect cinema making. The serial has already been screened at British Parliament and proposal to screen at all UK schools has received support from the Prime Minister. It is a crime drama depicted in four parts, each of about 60 minutes duration. Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham are the co-creators. Explaining the theme of Adolescence, co-creator Graham says, “One of our aims was to ask, ‘What is happening to our young men these days, and what are the pressures they face from their peers, from the internet, and from social media?” The idea for the series was based on a real incident where a young boy 14 years old killed his...

The article was written on 15 Nov 2024. A week after the results of the elections, which was won by Trump, as assignment project for the social psychology class (MA Psy) . Posting it without any amendments (posted 4 April 2025)       INTRODUCTION       The Week, a renowned international magazine, of 8 Nov’24 screamed from the first page “A dark day for liberal America”. This headline pertained to Donald Trump, who won the 2024 US Presidential elections. He is the first US presidential candidate who is a convicted felon, convicted criminal, sexual abuser, tax evader and a compulsive liar. Many strongly believe that he is a dictator in the making. In the run up to the 2024 elections, Trump removed any misgiving about his intentions. He pronounced that he will get even with his enemies and political opponents. He would fill the judiciary and executive arm, which are by design supposed to be fiercely independent, with his loyalists. His campaign was full o...

  OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY EXPERIMENT          Stanley Milgram, professor of psychology at Yale University, got interested in the topic ‘obedience’ during the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann who was one of the architects of the Nazis “Final Solution” which oversaw the systematic execution of 6 million innocent jews. Like other high -profile war criminals, he too defended his actions as, ‘merely following orders of superiors.’   Milgram also, was intrigued by the acquiesce of normal German population to these mass killings. The agenda could have been set at top but the actual killings were carried out by officials down below and local population would have been aware and acceptable of such mass killings. Were they all demons or psychopaths? What conditions led people to become partner in such mass scale killings? These were the questions which Milgram wanted to test. The experiment had three participants. The ‘experimen...