I hate you. You are so ugly. Why would someone like you have been born? You will never amount to anything. You are not good enough. Nobody will ever love you. You’re so bad at that. Why don’t you just do yourself a favour and stop trying. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? Nothing could be further from the truth.
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I find words incredibly odd. They’re just random consonants and vowels strung together, pronounced in certain ways to give them meaning. But how is it possible that these simple, strange things that are so beautiful and delicate are used in such destructive ways? How is it that formations of letters that were once used with such care are now flung around without anyone thinking about what they mean? We have become so good at using words to get what we want, for manipulation, control and power.
Dr Louann Brizendine, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California wrote in the book “The Female Brain” that a woman uses about 20 000 words every day, while a man uses about 7 000. You have to wonder how many of those words are positiv...
Schacter, D. L., Gilbert, D. T., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Psychology. (2nd ed., p. 600). New York: Worth Pub.
In the essay “From Ancient Greece to Iraq, the Power of Words in Wartime” by Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Lakoff discusses the fact that words are a tool as well when it comes to wars. She talks about the differences between our natural want and ability to kill things, and the mental training soldiers receive to make it easier for them. Lakoff talks about the practice of dehumanizing the “enemy” through nicknames that make us feel superior then our foes, and the repercussions of using this type of language. In the essay by George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”, Orwell talks about the decay of the English language, especially in political writings. He discusses the fact that when it comes to writing, political being the main focus, it’s
Bibliography 3rd edition Psychology (Bernstein-Stewart, Roy, Srull, & Wickens) Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, Massachusetts 1994
Words hold great power and when used correctly can influence what people believe and how they act.
Language always conveys a message. Language can convey a message that is full of manipulation. In Robin Lakoff’s essay, “Everybody’s a Politician”, she discusses how manipulation is used in day to day conversations, even if one is not intentionally trying to manipulate. Language can be used to dominate others. In the essay, “the Language of Oppression” by Haig A. Bosmajian, he explains the power of using names to define others. Language can change the way a person thinks. In the same essay, “the Language of Oppression” by Haig A. Bosmajian, he also discusses the way someone thinks can be changed by language. Lastly, language has the power to degrade an individual. In another essay, by Robin Lakoff, “You Are What You Say”, she explains how
Gleitman, H., Gross,, J., & Reisberg, D. (2011). Psychology. New York: W. W. Norton & Co..
One of the most common narratives portrayed in the media consists of the bumbling husband or boyfriend who has forgotten about his partner's birthday, or their one-year anniversary, or even Valentine's Day. He scrambles around frantically in an attempt to disguise his lack of preparedness, lest his partner discover how poor he is at remembering crucial and symbolic milestones. Regardless of whether or not he succeeds, hilarity generally ensues and the stereotype of the careless, insensitive male is further cemented in popular culture. Indeed, the general population does express the belief that women have a better memory than men, and it is tough to say whether this recurring theme in entertainment is a product of this belief, or if it is the influence that has lead to the widespread assumption that women are better at remembering (Knox 1; Loftus et al. 19). In any case, research has shown that this universal notion can only be partially validated; while women are generally superior when it comes to long-term memory and aspects of short-term memory such as multitasking and remembering faces, men excel in other areas that require an equally high short-term memory capacity ("Sex Differences in Memory"; Knox 3; Speck et al. 2583).
As we all know the brain is one of the most amazing mysteries in the world; there is a lot to be discovered. This topic hits home for me because most of my life I have always wanted to know how is the brain any different between men and women.
Although, there is proof of cognitive and mental variations in the way that two genders process information. For example, women are shown to be more adept at verbal communication and comprehension while men tend to perform better in the visual-spatial category. On the topic of memory, studies show that women are more sensory and memory oriented. In one study at the University of Edinburgh, psychologist Stuart Ritchie and a team of researchers compared data from many different male and female subjects. As Micheal Price states, “Adjusting for age, on average, they found that women tended to have significantly thicker cortices than men. Thicker cortices have been associated with higher scores on a variety of cognitive and general intelligence tests. Meanwhile, men had higher brain volumes than women in every subcortical region they looked at, including the hippocampus (which plays broad roles in memory and spatial awareness), the amygdala (emotions, memory, and decision-making), striatum (learning, inhibition, and reward-processing), and thalamus (processing and relaying sensory information to other parts of the brain).” (Price 2017). So indeed there are differences, however the similarities between genders far outweigh the differences. McGraw-Hill Higher Education argues that “More equivocal are gender differences in activity level, dependency, timidity, exploratory activity, and vulnerability to stress. There are no gender differences in sociability, conformity, achievement, self-esteem, or verbal hostility (Child Psychology).” In turn proving many once believed facts such as “women and men communicate differently, it's biology” into preconceived
Gall, S. B., Beins, B., & Feldman, A. (2001). The gale encyclopedia of psychology. (2nd ed., pp. 271-273). Detroit, MI: Gale Group.
...clopedia of Psychology. Ed. Bonnie Strickland. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 322-323. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
A widely accepted myth that we all might hear everyday or might even think we experience is women do all the talking. In different languages around the world, there are many different sayings that say women talk too much. Myth 6, “Women Talk Too Much”, by Janet Holmes addresses the question if women are the ones who take up all the talking time or is this just a myth? I will address the main ideas and my reaction about Myth 6.
There are more differences than similarities in the way women and men communicate, as perceived by majority. From the start of 1990s, many authors and psychologists have written books highlighting this fact and portraying their conversations to be some catalogue comprising of misunderstandings.
Edited by Raymond J. Corsini. Encyclopedia of Psychology, Second Edition, Volume 1. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc.
Sabbatini, R. (n.d.). Are There Differences between the Brains of Males and Females?. "Brain & Mind" Magazine - WWW Home Page. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html