AP Psychology Exam

Hello everybody! So for those of you who are unaware, this week and next week are AP EXAM WEEKS! And this past Monday I had the extraordinary privilege to take the AP Psychology Exam! I was extremely nervous the whole morning leading up to it; I was even shaking. But in the end, all my hard studying paid off and I feel pretty good about how I did on the test overall! (: Now I get to wait until my scores are sent out! I really hope I get a high score, because Psychology is what I want to pursue and it is going to be for sure one of my majors and a 5 on the AP exam would benefit me on so many levels! FINGERS CROSSED!(:

Mindsets!

I recently completed an in-class general response essay in my AP language class on the topic of how a person's mindset can be easily swayed by teachers and the classroom and school environment and I was able to apply some of the knowledge on this subject that I recently acquired from my Psychology class. Part of the prompt described in small detail the characteristics of a person with a fixed-mindset and a growth-mindset. Psychologists, especially ones that focus their expertise in school environments, conduct experiments as well as observe students with either of these mindsets. It has been observed that students with fixed mindsets tend to not do as well when it comes to improving their learning skills, while a student with a growth-mindset tends to do very well in school due to their dedication to continuously improve, taking advantage of resources, such as study hall and tutoring, and have the drive to set goals for themselves.

A Figment of Our Existence

Today in my Psychology class, we had a discussion on the Freudian theories on defense mechanisms which turned very complicated very quickly! For those of you asking what defense mechanisms are; there are eight mechanisms formulated by Sigman Freud based on how we deal with our Id and Superego balances which most of you may know better as the "devil and angel on our shoulders". We began to talk about how our personality is affected by these two parts of our thought processes. One of the mechanisms is that of denial which is the process of our minds closing off towards threatening memories, experiences, or even desires. So to prevent the "evil" thoughts, we turn to denial and unconsciously pretend they never existed, according to Freud. If we are able to easily and unconsciously deny existence of a memory or a desire, is it possible that maybe we are able to unconsciously deny our existence all together?