Thoughts of a Psychology Student

Happiness is a perplexing concept. I, like millions of others, live by the unwritten and elusive belief that happiness is a deserved emotion for the individual. The way our country exists has a certain sense of 'me-ness' about it. I consistently fall into the trap of thinking if I buy certain things, i'll be happy. Or if I travel around the world to 'find myself', then i'll be happy. For some people it might be: "if I had a boyfriend, i'd be happy" or "if I won the lottery, then happiness would be mine". All these thought processes have one thing in common: they're selfish cognitions. They run on a basis of: if  I get this, then I'll be happy. Recent studies however have shown that happiness is created in quite the opposite way. Happiness has been proved to be directly linked with gratitude. I came across this correlation on a youtube channel called SoulPancake, on a video entitled "The Science Of Happiness". ...

This blog post is going to be slightly different from previous ones in that I'm simply going to document my day as it's been an interesting mix of focussed work and nonchalant wanderings... My day began at The Natural History Museum in Oxford. My college had organised a biology workshop in which we would be taught how to extract our DNA to assess whether or not we possessed the TAS2R38 gene that enables us to taste a bitter chemical called PTC. The practical involved us learning many modern techniques used frequently in laboratories in many universities. These included the Polymerase Chain Reaction, HaeIII Restriction Digestion and Gel Electrophoresis. The fiddly and careful procedures that we carried out in order to complete the experiment were made worthwhile when we viewed our results under UV light - a clear representation of our individual genotypes; a considerably startling and fairly mind-blowing sight. I then had one of the loveliest afternoons I've had...

I'm going to start this blog post by introducing you to the "Baaer Meinhof" phenomenon. This is essentially a named phenomenon that you will have almost definitely experienced without realising it was named. The Baaer Meinhof phenomenon is that temporarily bizarre stage in life where you learn, hear or see a new piece of information, commit it to memory and as a result begin seeing it everywhere. This is exactly what has inspired this blog post, and before I start I want to state that I realise this topic is controversial. I don't claim to be an expert, I am simply a student formulating my thoughts on this topic. On Thursday the 3rd of October, I watched part two of the harrowing and challenging documentary "Women Behind Bars" presented by Trevor Mcdonald. The documentary followed the famous newsreader around Indiana Women's Prison and Rockville Correctional Facility as he interviewed a select few of the female criminals that were imprisoned ther...