This week on The Psych Files we take a stroll through the various phases of life: from childhood, to adolescence, into mid-life and then we listen to two interesting voices of men nearing the end of their lives and they do so with very different perspectives John Wayne and Roy.

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Memorize Erikson’s Eight Stages

Do you have to memorize Erikson 's Eight Stages of psychosocial development? Having trouble remembering which one comes after Trust vs. Mistrust? Well, here 's how I learned to remember the stages using the pegword technique.

Click on the play button above to listen to me talk about my mnemonic devices for Erikson’s stages, or download it to your ipod, Zune or other mp3 device.

Remember: pegwords are effective when they are:

• Bizarre
• Colorful
• Contain action
• Most important - when they evoke images that are familiar to you.

Here is the list of my keywords:

1. Bun - (Trust vs. Mistrust) a rusty red (rust-colored) bun

2. Shoe (Autonomy vs. Shame): a huge automobile (maybe a humvee?) stuffed into your shoe: license plate says shame

3. Tree (Initiative vs. Guilt) a tree with lots of quilts (guilt) (initiative)

4. Door (Industry vs. Inferiority): industry: you open a door and you see a factory (industry) with smoke coming out the top. It’s a very tiny (inferiority) factory

5. Hive (Identity vs. Identity Diffusion) picture a dented (identity) beehive that has one of those radioactive signs on it to remind you of fusion (diffusion)

6. Sticks (Intimacy vs. Isolation): picture two sticks in love (intimacy) they have their little twigs around each other and they kissing. I will also picture a stick all by itself (isolation).

7. Heaven (Generativity vs. Stagnation). picture a generator (generativity) up in heaven connected to the pearly gates and a stag (stagnation) is pulling the rope to try start up the generator. Or picture all your previous generations (grandparents, etc.) are in heaven. Granda riding a stag. OR: general: you could picture a general in heaven who just shot a stag

8. Plate (Integrity vs. Despair): picture a plate of grits (integrity) with a pear (despair) next to it on the plate.

Click to view or download an image of the above information that will help you to memorize Erikson's Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development

Click to hear brief audio snippets from the people in the podcast who are each at a different stage of Erikson’s stages of development

Resources for This Podcast

Shakespeare describes the stages of life in his “All the World’s A Stage” speech from “As You Like It.” It was read by Reed Martin of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Click here to go to their site.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

• Here’s a great webpage which describes all of Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development.

• I mentioned a website which discussed each of Erikson’s stages. Click here to go to Support for Change site where I found this interesting note about how adolescents “subsitute philosophy for experience”: “A significant task for us is to establish a philosophy of life and in this process we tend to think in terms of ideals, which are conflict free, rather than reality, which is not. The problem is that we don’t have much experience and find it easy to substitute ideals for experience. However, we can also develop strong devotion to friends and causes.”
• Click here to go to StoryCorps where you’ll find lots of interesting interviews with regular folks of all ages.
• Click here to go to the page on Archive.org where you can hear the original recording of John Wayne.

Here’s a great powerpoint presentation on Erikson:

 

 Erik Erikson's Eight Stages of Life [50:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 How to Memorize Erikson's Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Do feel slightly uncomfortable in the bathroom? How does the presence of others in the bathroom affect you? What about places other than the bathroom? How close is too close? A psychological study was done in 1976 in which psychology researchers hid in men’s bathrooms to observe…well, you’ll find out. Learn more about personal space in this episode of The Psych Files.
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The article discussed in this episode:

Middlemist, R. D., Knowles, E. S. & Matter, C.F. (1976). Personal Space Invasions in the Lavatory: Suggestive Evidence for Arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33 (5), 541-546.

Watch this episode from NPR video on personal space in Second Life: “Avatar gender and personal space invasion anxiety level in desktop collaborative virtual environments.”

Helpful Links:

Shy Bladder website
Paruresis website

 

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Image via Wikipedia Psychological Research in your life: does your local grocery store know more about you than you do? We take a look at the research that’s been done to learn more about your behavior in the supermarket and how that information is used to get you to buy more than you planned for.

Click to listen to this episode and learn more about how psychological research is used in your life.

From the MSN article “15 Ways Stores trick you into spending”

Read this article to find out more details on how observational research is used to design grocery stores.

• Shopping Carts: they are large and tend to be right near the entrance to entice you to use them
• Toys: far from the entrance
• The most expensive versions of items are at eye level while bulk options are at the bottom
• Items that are not on sale are arranged to look like they are on sale (placed at the end of the isle with a large sign)
• Commodity items, like socks, are surrounded by non-commodity items, like shirts and jeans (for example, peanut butter and jelly are placed near each other)
• There usually isn’t a section where inexpensive items are placed all together - inexpensive items are placed among expensive ones
• “Stores are designed to maximize the number of stops you have to make” because you buy when you stop
• Restrooms are placed far from the entrance to force you to go past things you might buy

From the article “The Theory of Supermarkets”

The New York Times Magazine, March 10, 1996

• The stock of your typical store (10 years ago) held about 30,000 items - tough competition among all these products
• have you noticed that the first thing you see when you walk in the door is produce? This is done to give you the idea of freshness and “bounty”. Notice also the colors, the water that rains down on the celery, etc. Gets you “in the mood” Other supermarkets begin with flowers
• Butchers have no blood on them because research has shown that this turns customers off (bloodier activities take place in the back)
• Cart behavior: when you turn the cart in one direction, you tend to look in the other direction. So, if we can steer you just right through the isles, we can put “specials” on the “strong side”
• you will buy more soup if it is not in alphabetical order
• store labels are always to the left of popular brands. Why? like reading, after your eye is caught be a familiar label, you tend to look left next. so, put the store brand on the left of the popular brand.
• The best viewing angle: the average eye height of a woman is 59 inches and a man: 64 inches, so 15 degrees below horizontal (51 to 53 inches off the floor)
• by the way, when you examine a shelf you’re likely to stand 4 feet away.
• background music: slow it down to about 60 beats/min and your cart will slow down as well and you’re more likely to see things you might purchase. classical music gives your products a higher degree of perceived value:
• play classical in the background - barnes and noble/ new agey
• play upbeat - clothes stores
• play rock - music stores, etc.
• Cereal arranged by type (flakes, brans) rather than by brand will decrease sales
• Also on cereal: make it difficult to compare them: create different size boxes, and call them by different names (Apple Cinnamon or Honey Nut) and it makes it diffiuclt to compare.

Other research:

• The smell of cucumber makes a room feel larger, while the smell of barbeque makes it feel smaller
• Lavender smell is relaxing
• Red colors tend to draw you physically closer

How to fight back?

• Use a list
• Don’t come hungry
• Don’t use a shopping cart unless you need to
• At the checkout re-think everything you put into your cart
• Start at the back and work forward
• Look at the bottom shelf first
• Carry a calculator
• If you don’t know for sure that something is a good deal don’t buy it (it’s probably not a good deal and you’re being tricked into thinking it might be)

Musical Resources

The classical guitar music you hear throughout the podcast is performed by David Temple and used by permission. You can go to David’s website by clicking here.

Rock Music: “Moonscape” by 37Hz. Click here to go to the site for 37Hz on Podsafe Music.

Upbeat Music: “If there was no people” from Chachi On Acid. Click here to go to their site in the Podsafe Music site.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Shoppers guided by satellite-navigation trolleys
• Sci-Fi Supermarket: Changes at the Grocery Store
• Is the grocery store ripping you off?

How do you really raise self esteem? This week we take a look at all the talk about young people, narcissism and the self esteem movement. Then we answer the question: how do you raise self esteem?

Listen to episode 9 on self esteem and narcissism.

Show Notes

Quick Summary of major points:

How self esteem grows:

1. Doing well (achieving your goals), on
2. Tasks that you value (are important to you)

How to give effective praise:

1. Be sincere
2. Don’t praise too frequently
3. Be specific - help your child learn what strategies lead to success
4. Be careful about attributing success to “smarts” - that can backfire. Try to focus on the effort that went into success

Links mentioned in this episode:

• You’ll love the movie The Incredibles. Look for the various references to self esteem throughout the movie.
• DVD review of The Incredibles which discusses the references to self esteem.
• Another review of The Incredibles which also points out the references to the controversy over self esteem.
• Here’s the link to the article entitled, “How Not To Talk to your Kids” by Po Bronson which addresses the self esteem issue.
• Here’s the link to Po Bronson’s great book “What Should I Do With My Life?” on Amazon: What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question

Blog of the Week

Here’s a link to the very interesting blog I mentioned that appeared on the Random Yak also about self esteem.

Blaming the victim - why do we do it? For example, are rape victims responsible for what happens to them? Are victims of car crashes or other accidents responsible for what happened to them? These are the kinds of questions we examine as we look at the strange human tendency to blame the victim.

Listen to episode 7 on Blaming the Victim and other biases.

Here is the concept map for the biases discussed in this show.

Here is my Concept Map Quiz!

Test yourself to see if you really know the difference between these types of biases (requires latest version of Flash).