Cognitive Style: Gregorc's Style Delineator

Introduction - What is Gregorc Style Delineator?
Now a day, it is an acceptable concept in the field of psychology that everyone has different perspective, therefore percept the world differently. This perspective defines much of what we are, as well as our strength and weaknesses. In this includes our natural learning strength, called as the learning style. Because each person's learning styles are different, the same approach cannot be apply to every single person. Therefore, models of learning styles was proposed to classify each person into a group of learning style. One of the most effective model is proposed by Anthong F. Gregorc and Kathleen A. Butler through their research, called as Gregorc's Style Delineator.

The Gregorc's Style Delineator is a test for determining the learning styles of each individual and provides the suggestion of how the mind works. The model is divided into two perspectual qualities and two ordering abilities.

The two perspectual abilities are abstract and concrete. Abstract perception is the quality that allows an individual to visualize, concieve ideas and percept something that cannot actually be seen. The abstract person tends to use more intuition and imagination in dealing with ideas. In contrast, the concrete perception is the quality for straight forward and direct way, unlike the abstract which is more subtle with communicating something. Concrete person often deals more with facts, truth and reality, not with imaginative things like the abstract person.

Gregorc and Butler suggest that there are two ordering ability, sequencial and random. Sequencial person often deals with data in a linear, organized manner. They tend to plan out and follow it step-by-step rather than just do it without any foreplan. Unlike the sequencial ordering ability, random person prefer to deal with information in chucks, making them to sometimes be able to skip steps or work in the unorganized order and yet gains the desired result. Random person can work from the middle, from the very end or even work back and forth without having any plan and steps to follow.

By combining one of the perceptual ability with one of the ordering ability, the two researchers comes up with the combination that explains each individual's style according to which abilities, both perceptual and ordering, do each tends to work more on.

The Test:
We are given ten lists, four words in each list, which composed of mostly adjectives and nouns. According to the test, we must use our first impression of each of the list to rank the word that most describe us. Then we add up the score for each of the rows before adding one row to another, according to the test, to get our final score for each of the styles.

My Result:
After doing the test, I get the score as shown:
Abstract Random: 31
Concrete Random: 27
Concrete Sequential: 24
Abstract Sequential: 18
Overall, I think the result is pretty much accurate, in my point of view, because I think I am rather a random person, taking into account that I can't really follow up with any of the time plan I made and never use the planner to keep record of events and things to do. So, it does reflect my personality as a random person. The interesting part is that it also suggest that I am neither abstract nor concrete, in the way the result is ordered. True that I get the highest score as an abstract person, but interestingly the lowest score, too, is abstract. This may suggest that I am probably somewhere in the middle.

Interpretation:
This is an interpretation of the person with abstract random as a dominant trait, according to Gregorc's Style Delineator:

What Do They Do Best?
Listen to others
Understand feelings and emotions
Focus on themes and ideas
Bring harmony to group situations
Establish positive relationships with everybody
Recognize and meet the emotional needs of others
-- Personal Response:
I agree to most of them, since it is quite true that I always prefer listening to other people, and always try to focus on the ideas and themes. I cannot really says it fully though that I the relationship I established is always positive. I do tries to recognize and meet the emotional needs of others, but from what I notice, sometimes I just screwed it up for some reason.

What Makes Sense to Them?
Personalized learning
Broad, general guidelines
Maintaining friendly relationships
Enthusiastic participation in projects they believe in
Emphasis on high morale
Decisions made with the heart instead of the head
-- Personal Response:
Yes, I like it better just to grasp on the big idea, doesn't need to be much into details, since sometimes, when I go in more and more detail, I began to get confused with myself and messed it all up. I don't really like to do group work in general, but if it is assigned so, I often try to help out, and feel regret if I think I didn't help the group enough. I judge many thing by first impression and through what I'm feeling at that moment, from what I am going to eat to which homework I want to do, which oftentimes get in trouble due to that I forgot about the homework that is due tomorrow and go on and just work on the homework due even a week after that. I don't really feel as if I can maintain much of my relationship though.

What’s Hard For them?
Having to explain or justify feelings
Competition
Working with dictatorial/authoritarian personalities
Working in a restrictive environment
Working with people who don’t seem friendly
Concentrating on one thing at a time
Giving exact details
Accepting even positive criticism
-- Personal Response:
True that I don't like to even express my true feeling in words, for that is what Thai people often are like, so it's hard to explain how I feel exactly. I only enter competition which I think sound fun, but hate it when I really need to compete with someone on something that I am not really interested in. I think the third one applied for anyone, since no one would probably like to be order around too much, and don't like it when people are being unfriendly. Unless for something that really catch my attention and make me feel truly involved or something that can be done in no time, I don't like to work on one thing, even with something I really like. That is why I often multi-task by doodling in the classroom. Most of the time, I will go from the very simple and vague way of phrasing my words first, and only go into deeper detail if needed to. But I cannot really say that I can or cannot accept positive criticism due to the meaning of what positive criticism is.

What Questions Do They Ask While Learning?
"What does this have to do with me?"
"How can I make a difference?"
-- Personal Response:
If I am in a really bad mood, then the first question is similar to what I would have ask. Otherwise, I don't think I use that question that often. But the second question is what I used more. I want to improve, I always look for a way and find what go wrong. What can be change is what I am focusing on most, not what I am already good at.

Evaluation of the Test:
I don't think style is something that you can draw a clear boundary across and classify it. Rather, it is something, bits and bits, that people gather to get the way that work best for them. Sometimes, it is even a cross over. So, partly I don't think the test has be very accurate, but only accurate to a certain extent. Things too can go wrong with the test, especially for the REAL random person. The choice, even from the first impression sort of thing, can varies depend on the mood a person is in as well, leading to an inaccuracy in the test. Also, the test, in my opinion, still failed to take other factor into consideration, such as mood, as I said before, environmental factor, cultural factor, and the person's own perspective, especially when defining the word.

Cognitive Experiment 04: All Purpose Memory

Introduction:
This experiment aims to explore many theories on memory based on Cognitive Perspective. The words are told to the group, 1 seconds between each word, and the participants are to write them down as much as possible after all the words are told.

Data Collection:

Bed: 10
Quilt: 7
Dark: 7
Sleep*: 3
Silence: 4
Fatigue: 9
Clock: 6
Snoring: 3
Night: 10
Toss: 6
Tired: 9
Artichoke: 5
Turn: 3
Rest: 4
Dream: 6

Data Analysis:
1. Serial Position Effect: Though it is not so clear, there is an evidence of the serial position effect in this experiment, which is the first and last memories are recalled better than many of the middle one.
2. Semantic Distinctiveness: Since artichoke is a word that does not associate with bedroom and nighttime, the word is recalled better for some people.
3. Rehearsal: The word night is repeated three times, enhancing recall of the word.
4. Memory reconstruction: The word sleep is not in the experiment. The fact that some people claimed they recalled this word is because their memory associate the word to the topic, therefore leading to the thought that the word sleep, too, is mentioned.
5. Chucking: Though it is not clear for this experiment due to that we are not a native speaker of English, chucking can happens with the word "Toss and Turn."

Conclusion:
The experiment is successful in demonstrating the theories about memory according to the cognitive perspective. Though it may not be so clear due to that the group is only of 10 people, the experiment explains all the theories said above.

Cognitive Experiment 04: All Purpose Memory

Introduction:
This experiment aims to explore many theories on memory based on Cognitive Perspective. The words are told to the group, 1 seconds between each word, and the participants are to write them down as much as possible after all the words are told.

Data Collection:

10 | |
9 | | | |
8 | | | |
7 | | | | | |
6 | | | | | | | | |
5 | | | | | | | | | |
4 | | | | | | | | | | | |
3 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
2 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
1 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
0 ----------------------------------------------
B Q D S S F C S N T T A T R D
E U A L I A L N I O I R U E R
D I R E L T O O G S R T R S E
L K E E I C R H S E I N T A
T P N G K I T D C M
C U N H
E E G O
K
E

Data Analysis:
1. Serial Position Effect: Though it is not so clear, there is an evidence of the serial position effect in this experiment, which is the first and last memories are recalled better than many of the middle one.
2. Semantic Distinctiveness: Since artichoke is a word that does not associate with bedroom and nighttime, the word is recalled better for some people.
3. Rehearsal: The word night is repeated three times, enhancing recall of the word.
4. Memory reconstruction: The word sleep is not in the experiment. The fact that some people claimed they recalled this word is because their memory associate the word to the topic, therefore leading to the thought that the word sleep, too, is mentioned.
5. Chucking: Though it is not clear for this experiment due to that we are not a native speaker of English, chucking can happens with the word "Toss and Turn."

Conclusion:
The experiment is successful in demonstrating the theories about memory according to the cognitive perspective. Though it may not be so clear due to that the group is only of 10 people, the experiment explains all the theories said above.

Cognitive Experiment 03: Meaning Enhances Recall

Introduction:
This experiment aims to study how meaning of the words may enhance the ability for a person to recall the word. By presenting 20 words to the participants, the participants have to memorize as many words as possible. Given that the letter A and B written in the corner of the piece of paper the words are presented on, The rule is directed to the participant, stating that if the letter A is presented, the participant need to count the syllable of the words and if the letter B is present, the participant need to categorize the words as either pleasant or unpleasant. Then the participants are given 3 minutes to write down all the words they remembered Through this, the data is collected and accumulated into the result of how meaning can enhance recalls.

Data Collection:
Total Score: 20
Lowest Total Score: 6
Highest Total Score: 19
Average A words memorized: 5.09
Average B words memorized: 7.09
Average words in total memorized: 12.27
Number of participants memorizing A=B: 2
Number of participants memorizing A > B: 1
Number of participants memorizing A < B: 8

Conclusion:
According to the result, people tends to recall better when the words are associated with some meaning, rather than only just counting the syllable. The results then successfully portrays that meaning do enhance human's ability to recall a certain things. Though, errors associated with this experiment may include other factors, such as breaking the rules. Also, how many words a person can memorized may varies due to process and environmental factors, such as mnemonic.

Cognitive Experiment 01: First Memory

Introduction

This experiment is conducted to see the ratio and average on the first memory a person may have. We are to think of what is the first memory we can remember and when is it happen. By having everyone says about their memories, the data is collected and analyzed into finding the average estimated age the first memories occur and the ratio between positive and negative memories.

Aim

To gather up information on the first memory each person has and see for average age in which the first memory is in and the ratio between good and bad memory.

First memory

I was playing in the small water tub in the garage when I was around 3-4 years old.

Data Collected

Average age as a class in which the first memories occurs = 3-4 years old

Ratio between positive and negative memories = 7:5

Conclusion and Evaluation

Memories are affected by emotional elements a person has in that certain moment. According to the theory on memory, a person is incapable of remembering the event before the age of five, which leads to the conclusion is that this experiment is not valid. One factor that affected this experiment is the malleability of the memories. People tend to remember things from photograph or story told by parents rather than remembering thing that really happens. That means some of the memories might not even exist, but a make up story by the parents. For me, since I heard of something called as childhood amnesia before, don’t know where I heard about it, which stated that people are capable of remembering only from 5 years old on, I also felt that the age is not correct, somehow. Either I recalled the wrong age or I saw it from the photograph that I remembered it, but I always have it cleared that something is wrong with this first memory.

Introduce Rollo May

INTRODUCE ROLLO MAY

Who is he?
Rollo May is the best known American existential psychologist, or the "father of existential psychology". He's born in April 21, 1909. His family has several problems, including how his parents can't get along which each other and divorced, and his sister suffers from mental breakdown.

He enters Oberlin College in Ohio and receives the bachelor degree in the year 1930. Then he began his job as an English teacher in an American University in Greece. During his job as a teacher, May frequently went to Vienna to attend Alfred Adler's seminars, and he got called back to study theology in USA. He receive a bachelor of divinity degree in 1938. After a while, he resigned from the ministry and began his study in psychology at Columbia University.

While studying, though, he became sick from tuberculosis, which is a deadly disease. Because of the experience of having such a life-threatening illness, he becomes fonded with existential psychology, due to his belief that the struggle to live and get well is more important in term of determining his fate for life than any medical treatment. His background in theology becomes a main impulse for him to study the field of psychology informed by existentialist philosophy.

In 1949, May completes his doctorate in psychology. The first book he published, Existence (1958) is the book that plays a major role in the emerge of American humanistic psychology. It contains the accumulation of translated works from many other existential-phenomenological psychologist. It also includes May's own essays on the field, portraying his enriched understanding on the importance of existential psychology.

May died on October 22, 1994, in California, USA.

What are some of his works?
May was very interested in reconciling the Humanist Perspective with other approaches, such as the Psychodynamic Perspective. His uses of words are different from other psychology; he uses the word "destiny" as to explain that part of our lives are predetermined for the purpose of creating life, and "courage" as for the authenticity of facing and overcoming the anxiety.

He saw life as divided into 5 stages:

1. Innocent: preconscious stage; dominant in infant; ones do thing according to only what they must do in order to survive, though does have some degree of will in the sense of fulfilling needs
2. Rebellion: want of freedom without full understanding of the responsibility lies within that freedom
3. Decision: transition stage; broke away from parent; must decided which path they want to take in life to obtain the wants from the rebellion stage
4. Ordinary: normal adults; learn of responsibility but found it too demanding
5. Creative: existential stage beyond ego and self-actualization; accept destiny and face anxiety with courage
   

Each stages can be overlapped, regardless of ages. For example, a child can be innocent and rebellious at the same time. However, what the age has to do with the stages is that which stages is dominant in each age, like how teenagers seem to be very rebellious.

Another one of May's theories deals with the motivation, called as the daimonic (Greek: little God). He basically explains that the daimonic is composed of many specific motives, called daimons, and each individual has different set of daimonic. Daimons includes the lower needs, such as food and wants to reproduce, as much as the higher needs, such as love.

One of the major daimon is Eros, or love. May saw love as the need a person has to becomes "one" with another person, referring to the ancient Greek myth.

May stated that having daimon is usual and okay, but over a period of time, those daimons, even the Eros, can take over a person. That is, a person can become obsessed with these motivations. May refers to this situation as daimonic possession.

May also focused on "will". He defined will into two ways. One is that it is "an ability to organize oneself in order to achieve a certain goal", making it to be very similar to the ego. May also hinted that will is also a daimon. Another meaning of will is "an ability to fulfill one's wish. " Wish, in this case, is defined as a "playful imagination of possibility" and a manifestation of daimons. Many wishes originate in the Ego, but it requires the will to fulfill those wishes.

The balance between the will and the wish is described into three main categories. One is neo-Puritan. These are people who have a lot of will, but hardly any wishes. They have great self-discipline, always want to "make things happen" without having a wish to fulfill. Therefore, many of the people who belong to this type are perfectionists who is fairly much empty.

Another one is infantile. These are the opposite of the neo-Puritan in the way that they are full of wishes, but lack of will. Many times, this type of people wish for many things but has no ability and self-discipline to fulfill them. Therefore, most of them becomes dependent on other.

The last one is creative, or basically the people with the balance between the two. May suggests that people should cultivate the balance between the two; "uniting love and will."

May, like Carl Jung, also focuses on the idea of mythology. He believed that modern day people have lost their values. He suggested that everyone has to create a value in themselves. As for myth, he refers them to as "guiding narrative", May claimed that people should create their own myth to support one's effort to make the best out of life.

The books by May:

Quotes from Rollo May:

Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about.

A good thing about this quote is that it is meaningful. Many people tends to claim that money is what differentiate good and bad life, but this quote implies that money is not always what make life good, but only part of it. Things that people care, no matter if it is family, an object, a goal or a career, or can make a good life.

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

This quote is significant in the way May used the word "betrayed". The fact that people tends to copy from other people, not listening to one's own idea, just go with what other people says is a sign that one doesn't trust oneself, but rather trust other people. By this, originality is lost and eventually, one's self identity will be lost too.

Depression is the inability to construct a future.

The wording is witty in the way May explains the term "depression." This quote simply means that people who are sad and depressed all the time are the one who doesn't move forward to the future, which is true in reality. People depressed of what they done in the past, thereby they refused to move forwards, which is no different from an "inability to construct a future."


Informations from:
1. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/may.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo_May
3. http://mythosandlogos.com/May.html
Pictures from:
1. http://www.tparents.org
2. http://www.amazon.co.uk
3. http://www.onlineauction.com
4. http://www.schwartzbooks.com
5. http://www.biblio.com
6. http://www.wwnorton.com
7. http://www.bestwebbuys.com
Quotes from:
1. http://www.brainyquotes.com/

Existentialism

Okay, first, what is existentialism? Well, it's a branch of philosophy dealing with human existence. Why are we here? What is life? Who put us into this world? etc. Anyhow, this is what humanist psychology focus on too. We discussed about it in class for some days and in this entry, I'm going to express how I feel about the topic.

Well, my first time hearing about this term isn't in the psychology class. It's in the English class during the discussion about the novel, Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto. My English teacher explained it as seeing everything around as fake and the world seems surreal. That's the first time I heard of the word. During psychology class this week, we began Humanist Perspective and discussed about existentialism. Though the meaning is a little bit different, they are somewhat similar. Existentialism talks about death, absurdity, anxiety, angst, etc. A lot of details are added to my meaning of existentialism.

Well, for me, this is quite dark. The topic itself make me think "isn't this darker than the psychodynamic perspective?" Well, the truth that recently, I tend to question all sorts of question about the world, such as "why is the cloud white?" and "why is there still war when people agree that it's one of the most terrible things?" and "why do people afraid of something they can't see, like ghosts or spirit?", also means I am too asking the question of why thing exists, not only myself, by where does all matters comes from if the matter can't be created nor destroy. I have be question this myself, so I feel like in this perspective, the Humanist Perspective, I might get some answer, some theories about why we do exist. So, how I feel? The topic is dark but I'm pleased to study this. ^ ^

Neo-Freudians

a) Outline two neo-Freudian theories
b) Explain how these theories modify classic psychoanalytic theories.
c) Evaluate the contribution of one of the neo-Freudians theories to the understanding of human behavior.

Two of the neo-Freudians, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, adopted some theories from Sigmund Freud and comes up with their own theories, which contribute another option to gain understanding of human behavior. Jung agreed with Freud about the unconscious, and at the same time, attacked the theories on unconsciousness with his theory of collective unconsciousness, modifying the classic psychoanalytic theories about the unconscious. Adler broadened Freud’s theories about human basic drives and come up with the theory about interiority and superiority, contributing to the understanding of people’s motivations.