IHA AP Psych

Friday, March 28, 2014

Stanford Prison Experiment

After visiting: http://www.prisonexp.org/ and taking the slide show, respond to the following questions. Watch this video to help further understand the study.

Was it ethical to do this study? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research? (The experimenters did not take this issue lightly, although the Slide Show may sound somewhat matter-of-fact about the events and experiences that occurred).
Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing our correctional system?

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Born Schizophrenic: Jani's Story

Watch Jani's story and respond to the following questions:

Why is this case of interest to the clinical community?
What issues does childhood schizophrenia present to the family?
What are your reactions to Jani's story?

For more info: http://www.janisjourney.org/

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Heroin Epidemic... What are we to do?

I think it's fair to say we are in the midst of a newfound heroin epidemic. Sadly, many of you are able to identify people you know (or know of) who have used, abused, and/or overdosed from heroin. Just today, I came across this piece on the Huffington Post, How A Big Drug Company Inadvertently Got Americans Hooked on Heroin, which connects Rx drug use to today's high heroin usage rates. It reminded me of an article I read on Facebook about a month ago about the 20 Towns in NJ with the top heroin use. That list included some towns that really surprised me, with others that did not. But heroin is not limited just to those towns (as you know) and NJ.com published this article in October 2012, Heroin use among young in N.J. is up, and in more suburban areas. But beyond NJ, heroin is a continuing problem that has grown tremendously over the past 10 years: Heroin Gains Popularity as Cheap Doses Flood the US.

What do you think after reading these 4 articles? What's going on with our society that has led to this problem? Why do I say I was surprised by some towns and not others? How can we start to fix it? Will drug hot-lines and better policing be the solution? What other solutions can you offer?