Personality Traits explained

http://www.abnormalpsy.org
Christopher Shaw
wizkid007@rogers.com 

There are a couple of things that influence personality. I guess we have to break down the various aspects of personality before you can move forth.

Becoming Introverted/extroverted

I believe to nail down the cause of how somebody becomes introverted/extroverted, you really have to step back and take a look at how a basic cell works and how it reacts to stimulation on the whole. A brand new cell is like a brain, at first it really doesn’t know what to make of the world but as time goes on, various forms of stimuli is received and the brain matures into its final state. A cell very much works the same way. When a cell is born, it doesn’t know what to make of the world, but if that cell receives a good amount of positive stimulation from the beginning of its very existence. Then the cell begins to crave that stimulation because it has become conditioned to respond to it and that stimulation becomes the cells security, very much how a baby cries for a bottle when he/she is hungry. Now we are going to deal with the opposite effect. What if a cell doesn’t receive the proper stimulation and it ends up maturing, the cell becomes introverted because of the matured state minus the stimulation. The actual size of the cell would be smaller as well simply because there wasn’t any stimulation received as opposed to the extroverted cell which grew because of the positive stimulation, I know this because of an experiment done years where a baby received stimulation compared to one who didn’t, well the one that did grew twice as fast. Now take the single cell premise and apply it to a human who is really composed of billions of cells in which all the cells are linked and share stimuli. This implicates that touch is a huge factor before the age of 5, a child who receives touch will be much more inclined to go after things in life and would generally be the life of the party if given the chance, simply because it ends up being their security, basically to be loved by others. The stimulation received as a toddler has given the child the confidence to portray themselves as a go getter. All in all they are just assuming the role of an extrovert based on how they feel about the world, and it really does become their security. An introvert on the other hand likes to work alone, doesn’t feel comfortable around lots of people. In essence that becomes his security, having everything just right, orderly and withdrawn from society in general.

Mannerisms and stress before birth

Well in determining how your child is going to end up you really have to consider all the variables, well one that has certainly been over looked is the stress a women goes through while pregnant. A women who is easily stressed passes on that stress to the child in her womb. The brain cells of that child are in the very early developing stages and are very susceptible to bouts of stress that the mother may be going through, that stress is dissipated from the mother and transferred on to the child because the body acts as a heat sink for the brain, basically spreading the stress over a large area to get rid of the concentrated effect. This stress being dissipated puts new stress on the child screwing up the important fundamental development in the early stages making the babies cells very touchy. The newly formed touchy cells keep this state and actually get worse with time, probably bringing on early grey hair in the process. This babies newly found state puts the child on edge and craves attention, but in a negative way, leading him to act out when he gains a sense of self at a young age, becoming defiant etc, it also very much leads to alcoholism to quell the anxiety build up that may be present later in life, drug abuse as there habits mature and all kinds of other dysfunctional activity. It basically transfers a carbon copy of how the mother feels on to the child at the time of birth.

Mannerisms

Mannerisms are probably related to the stress before birth issue, I would say that if there is stress during the birth then the fundamentals of the mother are probably not in the best shape and the mannerisms that would be transferred to the child would also be somewhat incomplete and probably erratic in some shape or form. Which is bad because it’s the mannerisms that determine how successful we are when we are dealing with people on a day to day basis, and somebody who doesn’t have them will fair a lot worse in life and will probably lead to a declining quality of life and ailments like depression and substance abuse to coup with the harsh reality, its especially important in social relationships as well considering one of the main goals in life is to meet somebody but that process will be hindered if the very core of your personality does not hold up to the ever rising standards of society. Mannerisms deal with speech, movement and how you come across in general. The world is very judgmental and mannerisms are the first thing people take note of besides actual appearance. So they have to be good to build your confidence factor which is really a part of touch and an extended part of being an extrovert which I already covered. They are all connected directly or indirectly.

Logical vs. creativity

This part of the personality determines our interests. I personally believe that this is one of the only parts that we have absolutely no control over. This is a mixture of compromise, testosterone, estrogen, how dense the brain is and what the brain is trying to do as it grows during the fundamental stages of life. Even before a baby is born testosterone and estrogen play a vital role in determining if you become logical or creative. If there is a higher then average ratio of estrogen the mind will come out a little bit smaller but with increased density. This density allows the neurons to connect with one another since they are closer to together, this allows the person to use more of the brain when performing tasks. It also demands more stimuli to be taken in, and this stimulus is able to erect feelings within the person because of how the brain is denser overall allowing more of the brain to work in unison. Feelings then come to the surface, the mind becomes sharper and the senses are stimulated giving rise to creative thinking patterns that create memories in the process making for a very good memory. Memory is then accessed since allowing the person to draw on more ideas at once making up creative thought. When somebody becomes logical, there is an excess of testosterone in the womb that affects the brain. This makes the brain larger and spreads out the neurons. The mind neurons are less connected as a result which restricts the feelings of empathy that would normally rise to the surface. The emotion never gets stimulated and is replaced by cyclical tendencies to stimulate the brain and is the exact point where the compromise comes in, as the brain must be doing something as it grows at this huge pace during the first couple of yrs, if there is no emotion, the person automatically focus’s on what he sees which is the inanimate objects around him/her. The brain then tries to connect as many neurons as it can through the act of this type of stimulation. In which the use of logic and the interaction between objects becomes the focus creating somebody who ends up thinking of life in a logical sense. I am dealing with extreme cases, as most people fall somewhere in the middle utilizing both creative and logical means.

Brain symmetry/Overall size

This part of the personality deals directly with how intelligent you become. In general brain size does count but it is how well it is utilized that really makes the difference. And I am going to use a person with asparagus syndrome which is a form of autism as a basis to work off of. A person with asparagus syndrome is equipped with a brain that is larger in both hemispheres. It’s also a fairly well known fact that people with AS end up being average to above average intelligence. The testosterone produced at birth acts as a stimulant and enlarges the brain causing the person to become fixated on the intake of information that is supplied by inanimate objects. This leads to a flurry of cyclical emergency tendencies to fill the space with some information building the fundamentals for very pattern oriented thinking and in the end the AS patient ends up with above average intellect, there is a problem with this though, often there is a learning disability and if the AS patient doesn’t learn to open up then his cyclical tendencies can only warrant so much intellect, he/she has to find a way to turn his introverted tendencies outward and become a mild extrovert and continue to bring in outside information to expand his own knowledge base, if this is unable to happen then he might just end up very much like an autistic. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have dyslexics. Dyslexics end up with brains that look fairly symmetrical on both sides but they also have a learning disability, but this learning disability is from not being able to use all aspects of the brain at once as the brain needs time to mature much like learning a new task for the first time, the task ends up being really sloppy but refines the more you do it and since the brain is already symmetrical the learning stimulus ends up getting distributed equally, allowing greater more accurate judgment because a larger part of the brain is being used to calculate the end result, again since more of the brain is being used it will take longer to develop, probably quite a few yrs longer then the other children and hence that person will end up being viewed as stupid etc, this is also the reason why many great minds were once considered to have a learning disability, as they mature and come into there own, the learn how to utilize the brain properly and end up making decisions with greater accuracy. Now if you take this premise and realize that the brain matures dynamically based on the stimuli being received during the course of the persons lifetime, then you will come to the conclusion that anything is possible, and strengths do arise based on brain symmetry and why strengths arise in certain areas as some parts of the brain gets favored more then others, there is a compromise as well as dyslexics have a hard time recognizing words since the entire thought process encompasses ideas differently by taking all the information at once and breaking it down since the information is being distributed equally then that of someone who uses other parts of the brain and often would end up forgetting the small details since the brain developed more thoroughly but at a slower pace. This corrects itself with time after a certain amount of stimuli has been received and the dyslexic ends up being able to use his brain to his full advantage. Bottom line, all parts of the brain need to be stimulated at a young age so your intelligence can mature to its full potential as you get older. It really comes down to balance. And I believe this is how genius’s are born, they develop with introverted tendencies and expand there knowledge as they gain more confidence slowly becoming an extrovert.

Bottom line

Overall people are made up of the above criteria, mix and match them and you can build personality profiles. Of course this doesn’t take into account the actual experience, family situation and the amount of money etc but you can see what factors would influence what if you just took a second and thought about it.

Why do placebos work?

http://www.abnormalpsy.org
Christopher Shaw
wizkid007@rogers.com

This is a question that has plagued scientists for some time now. Well let’s break this down. It’s obviously neurological. And the psychology of feeling good about something comes into play. I personally believe there are two kinds of stimuli. Positive which comes from within, and negative stimuli which comes from both external and internal sources. Both play a factor in determining why placebos work.

When somebody anticipates pain they actually put empathise on the feeling associated with the ailment intensifying the overall feeling. Only recognizing the consequence of having that ailment. However when a placebo is put into effect there is a release in the patient, a sigh of relief that this external substance is in fact going to make a difference. The neurological empathize is then de-empathized in favor of positive stimuli. Very much the same way a laugh releases anxiety. The effects of the ailment are then perceived as not as severe. And therefore the placebo effect works.

This can very much be compared to the loss of a gf. Somebody who doesn’t have the opportunity to be with very many women will value the company more then somebody who sleeps around quite often. But when that someone loses her for whatever reason. It hurts twice as worse. Only after it happens once or twice will it not hurt so badly. The psychological factor really makes a difference because of the stress it puts on the body driving it out of sync and breaking down the immune system in the process.

Overall I don’t think there is any difference in what the placebo does; it is really the neurological aspect as positive stimuli boosts everything from healing to metabolism. The mind is so dynamic and is really responsive to stimuli overall. In the end its really comes down to mind over matter.

http://www.abnormalpsy.org
Christopher Shaw
wizkid007@rogers.com  

Dreams as a natural defence / Unconscious wish fulfillment

In light of the mental scars that society brings forth, the brain has a natural defence, it try’s to clear out the garbage of every day life to bring things back to an equilibrium state. That is why sleep is important as it allows our body to recuperate and let the built up stimuli accumulated dissipate from everyday living. Now I am going to borrow an idea Freud proposed, dreams in general do fulfill our needs, if we have a desire while we are sleeping, we end up acting out the desire and I have experienced this myself on multiply occasions. However it isn’t a message, all it represents is a prevailing idea to the activity going on in our head and that activity takes precedence over anything else because it deals with a need that we need to satisfy at that moment whether it be a want in every day life to a personal emotional need, and in a way it also represents the balance that our body is constantly trying to reach, if we need something then it reacts accordingly. It really is that simply, but using Freud's model that he proposed I am going to take it one step higher. Right up to the unconscious level of activity as his model proposed deals only with the conscious part. However the unconscious part deals with the annual cleaning out of ideas that would be considered clutter, and hence dreams are born. Clutter that has accumulated from the context of everyday life, ideas that have been discussed or thought about in relation to important events, ideas associated with daydreaming, anything really but I cant explain the context of the dream itself, just what the mind is doing in the process. Dreams are derived from the calming of neurons, when the neurons enter hibernation they release the ideas which in affect turn into dreams, and it is also why we forget them almost instantly, simply because an idea is being released. However if those ideas are not cleaned out then they cause conflicts. Conflicts such as schizophrenia that arise in the middle of the day to turn the person into a walking dreamer, basically making the person lose conscious control of their body while the unconscious takes control to provide emergency cleaning. Again the unconscious was developed first and therefore still controls aspects of who we are, and therefore we are still a slave to it when the need arises. This also lends to the notion that people who live rather sheltered lives develop better, I am talking about the general here simply because it encompasses most of the population. Ailments among people who grew up in a good home rarely come forth. I personally believe just like anything else, if the foundations are thwarted then everything after that point gets modified in a negative way as well. It really is that simple. If people want to find a cause for today’s various ailments, then they have to start listening to every aspect of life, the environment around us, and even start thinking outside the box but most of all, start listening. You will get a lot further in life if you just listen and incorporate as many ideas as you possible into your thought process. Just because something is taught in a linear fashion doesn’t always make it correct, it just makes it common. And dreams certainly are a part of a larger scheme of things. To equalize the body back to an optimal state that evolution itself was founded on.

What I just outlined are normal dreams, however there are dreams that come across so vivid that they can be exhilarating or scary. Both fulfil the same purpose but with two very different outcomes, one being a nightmare and other being a wild ride.

There are two types of stimuli that affect dreams.

There are 2 types of stimulus that affect the vivid dreams.

1. Stimuli that is positive in nature
2. Stimuli that is negative in nature

If you lead a very positive life and all your psychological needs are taken care of then your dreams are going to be very positive in nature, and for good reason.

And then there is negative stimuli that causes nightmares which are usually based on insecurity.

In both cases the dream is very vivid and causes you to wake up. Now if the nightmares represent insecurities of some sort, and my gf used to have them a lot before I came along in which they disappeared, and I had them because of other things that I was able to pinpoint to the exact hour. Then it shows at least some evidence in why people have them, at least with me and my gf. Probably others as well and in all the cases it showcases why nightmares do pop up every once in a while.

Positive dreams would work the same way. They would generate additional stimulus creating an escalation in overall feeling because of the strong emotion that the dream is originating from. This would represent positive stimuli and a good state of mind making for a very vivid memorable dream.

I think when the mind is trying to clean out ideas that hold emotional content, that attachment creates additional emotion and activates other neurons which hold other ideas leading up to a state where you have to wake up.

In the normal case if nothing emotional is stimulated the neurons calm and dreams are forgotten almost instantly.

There is another aspect to this as well. Schizophrenics who go into a dream like state while having an attack will experience a change in thought sometimes. They will think one thing but get back another msg, like the mind intervened and changed it a long the way because they are still fully awake. When you are sleeping this does not happen as the conscious isn’t fully present. This tells me that the mechanism responsible for the change in thought pattern isn’t active and dreams are allowed to run wild with the connections making the dream illogical and intelligible. And for this reason I believe there is a greater purpose to the dreaming state. Because if there is nothing to intervene and fix things with some logic. The mind is allowed to run wild to restore the equilibrium. Just like the body would react to somebody taking cocaine. Increases the metabolism to get rid of whatever foreign substances are in body. Same type of affect takes place. And once the ideas are purged. The mind is ready for the next day.