Learning by observing others...Psych 101...

Albert Bandura was born on December 4th, 1925, in the small town of Mundare, Canada. Bandura's father laid tracks for the trans-Canada railroad, and his mother worked at a general store in the town.
Bandura attended the only school in his town- it employed just two teachers- and as a result, Bandura had to take his own initiative when it came to education. Following high school, Bandura attended the University of British Columbia. While originally majoring in biological sciences, Bandura stumbled upon the subject of psychology through happenstance. Because he arrived at the university much earlier than his classes began, he decided to take "filler classes" to pass the time. After thumbing through a course catalogue one day, he ended up choosing a psychology course. 
In 1949, Bandura graduated from the University of British Columbia in just three years, majoring in psychology, and went on to attend graduate school at the University of Iowa, where he would also get his Ph.D. After he earned his Ph.D. in 1952, Bandura was offered a position at Stanford University, where he continues to teach today. 
Bandura is most known for his social learning theory, which showed that not all behavior was lead by rewards or reinforcements, as behaviorism claimed to be the case. Instead, he offered an alternative and somewhat more nuanced view of the social pressures that contribute to learned behaviors- a more modern approach which is still valued. 

1. A person can learn behavior through observation: This can be from a live model (an actual person performing the behavior), a verbal model that provides instructions (an explanation or description of a particular behavior), or a symbolic model (behaviors portrayed in books, television, and film). 

2. The mental state is an important aspect of learning: While environmental reinforcement is one aspect of learning a behavior, it is not the only one. Satisfaction, pride, and feelings of accomplishment are examples of what Bandura called intrinsic or internal reinforcement. In other words, internal thoughts can play an important role in learning a behavior. 

3. Learning does not mean that a behavior will necessarily change: Behaviorists believed that learning a behavior led to a permanent change in the individual's behavior, but Bandura shows that with observational learning, a person can learn the new information without having to demonstrate this behavior. Conversely, just because a behavior is observed does not mean it will be learned. For social learning to be a success, there are certain requirements: 

• Attention: To learn, one must pay attention, and anything that diminishes attention will negatively affect observational learning. 
• Retention: One must be able to store the information, and the at a later time be able to pull it back up and use it. 
• Reproduction: After paying attention and retaining information, the observed behavior has to be performed. Practice can lead to improvement of the behavior.
• Motivation: The last part of successfully learning observed behavior is that a person must be motivated to imitate the behavior. It is here where reinforcement and punishment come into play. If an observed behavior is reinforced, one might wish to duplicate that response; while if an observed behavior is punished, one might be motivated to not do such an action.

THE BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT

To show that children observe and imitate behaviors around them, Bandura created the famous Bobo doll experiment.

In conducting his experiment, Bandura found that children who watched the aggressive models generally imitated a good deal more of the responses towards the Bobo doll than the children in the control or the children in the group who watched the nonaggressive models.

He also found that girls who watched the aggressive model expressed more verbally aggressive responses when the model was the woman, and more physically aggressive responses when the model was the man.The boys imitated physically aggressive acts more than the girls did, and they imitated the same-sex model more often than the girls did.

Through the Bobo doll experiment, Bandura was able to successfully show that the children learned a social behavior, in this case, aggression, by watching the behavior of someone else. With the Bobo doll experiment, Bandura was able to disprove a key notion of behaviorism that stated that all behavior is the result of rewards and reinforcement.

"Behavior is a mirror in which everyone displays his own image." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 

~Bella

Does your pet peeve should matter? (15)

Pet peeve...

If you do not know what it is, it's the little thing that annoys you, greatly annoys you!

Pet peeves...

These little things that keep bothering even if you try to ignore, daily...

I have a list of them, but there's always this particular one who keeps annoying you no matter how much you try to shake it.
Obviously, a pet peeve isn't something that just annoys you, it drains you with everything they got... Take my dear roommate, C, she has this incredibly annoying one which comes along each day, making her life miserable, slow walkers. C cannot stand slow walkers, the reason is simple, she walks faster than most people, I sometimes have to run up to her to catch up with her speed. Quite annoying as I'm smaller than her, but hey, at least I have fun.

So as you may imagine there are many pet peeves, some pretty insane, others are actually very common!

Alright, that said, are they important when you are in a relationship?
If your phobias are important, don't you think your pet peeve should be as important as well?!
You may also have relationship pet peeves such as "No more good nights or good mornings" or "Tells you how to drive whenever you take the wheel". These pet peeves will give you a high chance of losing interest in your partner. Getting frustrated of what they do or keep saying nonstop. It will ruin your life, but hey, guess what... You can communicate and talk about these pet peeves you have to your partner.
First, you have to let go of the slightly annoying ones and talk about the biggest ones, the ones you really cannot deal with. Priorities first, ignore the little ones.
Second, don't exaggerate and talk about the long list of your pet peeves. You will scare your partner away if you arrive with over ten of them. Go slowly, intelligently and two is recommended.
Third, don't be over dramatic when talking about the pet peeve. I mean to be responsible and compassionate about the subject. Don't be too crude.
Fourth, don't say "You're lazy", be nicer when saying these like this. Be more like, "I wish you would help more in the kitchen."
Fifth, ask and don't demand they change their behavior!
For my final piece of advice, thank them for listening and trying to change.

It takes a lot to change, to ameliorate, and being able to see how your partner's pet peeve may affect your relationship takes a lot. You should be proud if you are willing to move forward and take their pet peeve seriously. If they actually show some improvements, don't forget to let them know how grateful you are.

Pet peeves are and should be important, everyone has annoying things they hate dealing with like more roommate who cannot stand slow walkers.
I can't say I don't have any as I have an entire list of them, I blame my anxiety. Obviously, I have a few that are ruining my life in certain ways.
- When they have to change book covers depending on the country. If I buy a book from Britain, I expect to receive the same book as them not the American version! Or the movie poster on the book cover? Really? I just want the book, not the movie!
- Mystery organization in libraries. I expect to go to a library and look by the author's name or maybe the genre, but when they can't even figure the correct genre.
- Let's change their titles because we want to.  I recently bought a book from Ireland, and they gave me two option the American version or the Irish one. I obviously wanted the Irish version, but somehow they wanted to change the title. I was furious!
- People who won't stop interrupting me when I'm reading. Like, you see someone reading, please don't interrupt them nonstop, they want to be left alone, to read alone not to have someone next to them, talking to them nonstop. Good thing, I know how to block people's voice when I read, but still.

Now, I know these seem to be simple things that can be ignored but when you are a reader or a writer, it is life ruining. I'm thinking about my novel if it ever gets published, I don't want my novel to have different titles except when it's in a different language. 
Then again, I don't know what to expect with my pet peeves. 

"I don't have pet peeves; I have whole kennels of irritation." - Whoopi Goldberg

~Bella

The bloody question that never get answered!

WARNING: I won't say real names because I don't think it's necessary... I don't want you to continue reading if you don't want to know about narcissism! It's only my experience, what I saw and had to endure. I don't need you to lecture me about not having a psychology degree, I don't think I need one to know exactly what I saw. I did on the other side took classes, and read many textbooks, learned from experiences as well as others. Please, don't think you are living under the same roof as a person who may seem like a narcissist, just because you act a bit like one doesn't make you one! It's like you can be distracted, compulsive and not have a disorder.

Narcissism is a personality disorder which may impact those surrounding the affected person as much as themselves just like anxiety may does. Quite difficult to notice at first, but as the disorder progresses, the symptoms and associates traits/ behaviors become more pronounced. A personality disorder is simply a pattern of thoughts or behaviors that are significantly different from those expected in a specific culture or society. Just because you may have a set of pattern doesn't mean you have a disorder!

I have lived under the same roof of a narcissistic person, and to be honest, it wasn't a piece of pie, a joyful moment. Narcissists do not do well under overwhelming emotions, or feelings, when someone tells them their issues, the words come through, but the lack of concern about their emotion isn't present. Out of these emotions, anger and fear come along, fright the narcissistic person, who will find a way to transfer or assign blame to someone or something if these emotions rush in. Somehow, if the person breaks something, they will try and blame the person who gave them the object, not taking responsibility for their action. 
There are times when we have an angry reaction, throw plates onto the wall, or punching a chair, after all, if there is some type of stress in your life, it is understandable to be angry. Now, if it becomes a normal behavior, then you may consider it a sign of "something is wrong". 
I personally had to deal with grandiosity! This is overlooked by many of us; it could seem like it's bragging, but it's more than this! 
Grandiosity is being unrealistic! It's when an individual has a very inflated view of him or herself that they then portray to the outside world. They become louder than everyone else around only to show they are, the bigger person in the room. Tendencies of dressing well, showing off to the world in case someone important comes along... Feeling superior to others, even his wife or her husband becomes real. No matter what, they will say or do, nothing is good enough for the person who suffers from narcissism. The person uses his contacts for his own deal, nothing more, nothing less. 
Humans take advantage of people in general, but somehow we also manage to give something back, in return, but narcissistic people won't do anything for anyone, yet, they will continue to take advantage, use everyone, freely. The word, "sorry" doesn't go through, it never comes up, the responsibility of their actions are denied, and apologies are forgotten! Never will they apologize.

When you live under the same roof as a person who shows a narcissist side, you begin to see everything wrong with the person, nothing goes right. It's almost as you feel insecure around them, unaware of what the person may do next. Since, most of them are unpredictable when it comes to their emotions, and how manipulative they can be if something doesn't go their way, this may result in you being afraid, frightened. Again, seeing and accepting the traits that they are showing can be complex, not always easy to recognize the behaviors. After all, narcissists are generous with their advice, time, and often even their money. If they do give you their time, advice, it's not for you, it's for themselves! It's to show how intelligent they are to you, show how good they can manage situations, time, money. They know you are going to listen to them, confident enough in their own skin to think they are unpredictable. 
Don't think they can't love or form a bond, they can indeed do, just differently from us, they form bonds based on utility. They won't call you, check up on how you are doing, they only need to converse with you to get something... Narcissism isn't an easy disorder, it may be hard to recognize mostly because each trait that make up a narcissistic person could be given to everyone else. We all feel anger, fear, use people for our own good, like to be right, feel confident enough that we feel superior to others... But if this type of behavior is becoming "normal", you may consider it narcissism. 

Living with a person who only think about themselves, only listen what they want, understand what they want, and making everyone feel horrible for mistake they did. Some questions may help you recognize if you are one or they are...

1. Do you consider yourself smarter than most, if not, all of the people around you? If so, do you also tend to change the path of conversations to the things you know, think and have?

2. DO you consider yourself above reproach? Many times, a narcissist will think - the rules don't apply to me. They are in place to keep other people in line, but I can break a rule here and there, because I understand how rules work and should be applied. 

3. Do you get angry when someone offers your constructive criticism, or do you sometimes mistake other people's words as direct criticism of your personally? 

4. Do you apologize? Many narcissists refuse to ever apologize, even when they are entirely at fault. For example, if you unknowingly hurt someone's feelings, do you offer words of apology?

5. Do you blame your emotions on others? A narcissist is often unable to cope with or accept his or her own emotions. Do you attribute your anger to the actions of others? Do you rely on others to supply your happiness, leaving them open to blame should something go wrong?

6. Do you feel that your life and well being is more important than anyone else's? A narcissist will have very little genuine interest in other people. 

Now, if you are concerned about narcissism after considering your answers to these questions, then there is probably only a 50% chance that you, personally, are a narcissist. Don't get overwhelmed by it all though... If you are concerned that you are offending others with the behaviors mentioned above, you are taking the time to consider the impact of your actions and reactions to others. 

"When a narcissist can no longer control you, they will instead try to control how others see you."

~Bella