Assignment! - 51 views
started by ty frederickson on 17 Mar 13
started by ty frederickson on 17 Mar 13
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started by ty frederickson on 17 Mar 13
According to the article 'Keep Your Head' by Michael Bond, emotions are of value when we need to make quick decisions. In fact, it was this instinct that kept us alive during human evolution in life-threatening situations. We need emotions in decisions on who to trust and when, and it is most useful when time is limited. But we are not often in those same life-threatening situations anymore, but our brains are still wired the same way to make the same choices. But now that we face different scenarios, in this day and age our emotional response often gets in the way of making the most rational and effective decisions.
In situations where we need to weigh the risks vs. the benefits, emotions get in the way. The article gives the example of Americans' decisions after 9/11 concerning air travel. Though the fact is that air travel is far safer than travelling by car, the fear that people felt due to terrorism made them take the riskier decisions, and as a result the death rate caused by automobile accidents went up. Whenever we feel that we are a step closer to death, we go through whatever possible to prevent it, and we often don't look at the actual facts because we are scared of what we might find out.
The more easily that we can imagine something happening, we automatically think that it is more likely to actually happen to us. Therefore our emotions distort our thinking, as they influence our rational thoughts. Media's emphasis on certain graphic images is in many cases the root problem of our lack of logical decision making.
Therefore it is good that we have emotional responses to situations, since without those emotions the human race would not be here today. But now that times have changed, we need to be able to evaluate statistics and facts more to make well-informed decisions.
If you speak multiple languages-you are a polyglot, if you do-do you think differently in one language than you do in the other?
I speak three languages- English, Urdu and French. English is my first language, and I definitely speak it more than I speak Urdu and French. I usually think in English, because it is the language that I am most comfortable with and I spend more time speaking it. I can usually express myself best in it, because it's what I've grown up speaking and I have my broadest vocabulary in it. But when I'm at home with my family, I speak Urdu. I don't often think in Urdu, though sometimes I find that I do. But as it said in the article, different languages make you think differently about different things. For example, in Russian there are different words for specific shades of colours, making Russians more observant in chromatic details than English-speakers. Urdu is a very poetic language, and Urdu poems written by famous poets are very deep and descriptive. And I find that I am often able to express my emotions better in Urdu than in English. In Urdu there are more words to describe how a person is feeling than in English, and therefore I find that in Pakistan people seem to be able to tell how others are feeling faster and better than English speakers. Also, Urdu is a very descriptive language with many sayings. I find that this is the same with French. In French some descriptions of something are entire words in itself, and in French the five senses are very important, making French people more observant of tastes and smells, I find. Therefore I agree from first-hand experience with the article that different languages make you think differently and see things differently just because of the nature of the language.
Emotions are integral our lives, and its influence upon our thoughts and actions are undeniable and inexorable, however it can be said that it is bounded to a certain partial limitation: our learning. The value of emotions in the learning process is great, but only to a certain extent. With regards to particular areas of knowledge, emotions are vital in learning.
Subjects such as ESS or ITGS rely upon emotions to help produce thought and decisions of which inevitably lead to the gaining of knowledge. Take for example in ESS where ethical choices are concerns of near paramount importance: the decision of whether or not to kill a living organism in the pursuit of knowledge. Ethics derive from moral principles - the determination between what's right or wrong in our own view, and of which are determined by our emotions and vested sentiments. Though in a way, the gaining of knowledge through the study of a killed organism is determined rather by our lack of emotions or particular sympathetic sentiments towards the preservation of life. Even still, in following ethical guidelines (of which are enforced), the pursuit of knowledge is even still fulfilled through ethical, non-life threatening alternatives of which may yield the same or even worse outcomes. In 'Keep Your Head', Michael Bond argues that our emotions may actually be an irrational hindrance, and would be actually detrimental in achieving the best possible outcome. Emotions in this case would get in the way of getting the best possible results, and consequently our learning. Although Bond's approach within this scenario can be interpreted as being selfish, "but tell yourself it may not be appropriate since you are no longer living on the savannah; weigh up all the facts and remember, when it comes to risks, feel the numbers.". His ideal of pragmatic approach to learning through the disregard of emotions would actually be ignorant of the significant impact that one may present upon an environment. Ultimately, his way of thinking is applicable to certain aspects. On the other hand, emotions can be quintessential in prioritizing what to learn in a realistic and reasonable manner as mentioned in a previously explored article. Without emotions, we would lack the decision making drive to accomplish goals that are appropriate to situations; we would potentially endeavor in actions that are completely irrelevant in a scenario, and seemingly fruitless efforts of gaining knowledge. In the end, I think it's the matter of drawing the line between what is useful and relevant knowledge or not, as emotions determines which we resultantly pursue.
2. 'If you speak multiple languages-you are a polyglot, if you do-do you think differently in one language than you do in the other?'
As a speaker of both Malay and English, the way in which I think or process thought and ideas are not drastically different or even contrasting. Indeed the languages have substantial grammatical differences in terms of sentence construction and grammatical rules, but the inherent language 'constituency' of Malay lessens the expected though processing difference.
Truly I can agree with the points given out by Lera Boroditsky such as that of gender assignments to nouns, people's sense of direction and perception of the chronology of time. It is interesting to see that with different languages, the way we think is so drastically affected. This not so the case with Malay. Its roots in Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese and English lends this 'mix bag' of a language the ability to function quite similarly to modern systems/ways of thinking, of which are mainly propagated by English, the lingua franca. For example, significant aspects such as perception of direction is the same: it is relative. The left-to-right direction of writing in Malay too lends similarities in the perception of time. The only noticeable grammatical differences between the languages though as I'd believe are insignificant enough to the point that they do not have an adverse impact upon the way we perceive the world. Essentially, transitioning between the two languages does not lend me any particular ability to pick up nuances or attain a differing perspective. However my preference lies upon one of the two languages when one does not have the conciseness that its counterpart possesses.
Then the article goes on talking about how the incident of 9/11 effects people's decisions. This is opposite of what happened in Japan with the earthquake and mostly tsunami. I know as a fact that most Japanese people are trained and are used to getting earthquakes from a young age since we get them so often and are strictly trained that when feel the shake we automatically get into action. However, of what happened in Fukushima that was somewhat a wake-up call because we are so used to it and we do not really feel fear as much as other people from other countries. But I think it is biased that Japan gets more attention by the natural disaster than other countries that have suffered. I think this is just because that Japan is more or less in favor or well known than other countries and people feel more sympathy towards them. This is exactly the same as how people tend to pay attention towards the presidential election in US even though it does not have a direct impact on them. They or We care because US tends to be at the top of all countries and plays as a role model or something similar.
Then the article talks about how not only emotions can lead us to wrong decision-making but also past memories and experiences. And those two components do connect because if you have bad experiences of doing something (trauma) then you're more likely to not put yourself in that situation and avoid it as much as you can. So the fear or possibly anger comes in as a source of emotion. So memories and experiences lead to emotions.
As the article talks about trying to change our behaviors and what to do to make better decisions, thought they tell us how to I don't think it will have any or have very little effect on the readers because it is very hard to control emotions. When in a panicking situation everybody just does things to save themselves and get themselves out of it. And we tend to think that in those situations we have limited amount of time, that may be the reason why we make wrong decisions because of lack of thinking and thinking through.
So I think that emotions are very essential for decision making, as reasons listed above I think it really just gets in to the way of us making good and thoughtful decisions. It is very hard to hold back emotions while making decisions especially when you have some connection to the topic of decision-making. And if we keep making decisions based or somewhat based on our emotions we will never learn because of the trauma, memories or past experiences especially when they were bad. We'd keep making the same mistakes continuously.
I don't remember the question you gave us for the other article about language. And it says on the assignment sheet that you gave the questions to us on Sunday but we don't have TOK class on Sundays.
I believe that emotions can be valuable in the learning process, if they are channeled the right way. As I mentioned in the group presentation about emotions in mathematics last week, emotions like anger can either be very helpful or disadvantageous in the learning process. For example, if a student is doing a math problem and he gets the wrong answer, the student will most likely be frustrated at himself for making a mistake. This frustration can then either prevent the student from doing the question right the second time, because he will be distracted by his emotions, or it can be channeled into motivation to do the question right. The article said "experiencing anger can help us pursue our goals"; I agree with this statement, because often, we experience anger in these sorts of situations when someone tells us that we can't do something, so in return we experience anger and try to prove the person wrong. An example of this would be teachers giving predicted grades to students. Last year, one of my teachers gave most of the people in his classes predicted grades that were lower than what the students expected them to be. Many of these students were upset by these grades, and tried to prove the teacher wrong by getting higher grades in their IGCSE exam, which they did. So, in this case, anger can be a very good motivator in school.
Also, as the article stated, it's better to let your emotions out instead of keeping them bottled inside you because "suppressing anger raises blood pressure". If keeping your emotions inside you is bad for your health, then it will definitely affect your learning, since it's rather difficult to focus on learning when you're worried about your health.
If you speak multiple languages - you are a polyglot, if you do - do you think differently in one language than you do in the other?
I believe that I think differently in Russian than I do in English. I think this is because languages and cultures are a sort of 'package deal' when speaking a language, so thinking in different languages is like thinking from different cultural perspectives. I find myself thinking from a more multicultural perspective when thinking in English, than when I do in Russian. I think that this is because of the multicultural community and culture I'm surrounded by when speaking English, which is pretty interesting, and it makes it seem like you have a sort of 'double identity', as a speaker of different languages, and a member of these different communities.
I think that Russian speakers notice nuances more than English speakers do, because they are often relevant when talking about or describing a subject. The article gave examples of the word blue and the different conjugations of the word 'read'. I remember when I just started learning English at the age of six, I was a little confused about these things, but now I've learnt to adapt the shade of blue when I picture blue in English to a combination of the Russian 'goluboy' (light blue) and 'siniy' (dark blue). I think it's much more difficult for an English speaker to learn Russian, because there are many more different nuances that you have to notice in Russian than you do in English (despite the fact that English has the word 'the' which Russian speakers often have trouble adapting to, since there is no equivalent of 'the' in Russian).
The article also said that having feminine and masculine forms in a language makes you think of the object in a more feminine or masculine way. This is very true, especially in children's stories. Beauty and the Beast, an originally French story, has inanimate characters that have turned animate because of a spell - these characters are females or males depending on the conjugation of the object in French. It's similar in Russian, too. When thinking of animals in Russian, I think of the general masculine form animals as males, and general feminine form animals as females. In English however, I rarely think of animal genders, unless they're specified. So, yes, I think differently in different languages.
The article made a very good point, that you need your emotion especially fear to keep in check with reality. Fear in general terms is recognized as flaw in some society or in people thinking but I believe that fear is a necessity to one within a limit of doing certain action by which I mean that is without feeling fear humans go to an extent of harming others and himself by crossing a limit and most definitely to keep your decision more rational by acknowledging statistics and to what degree are you fearing from the topic like the example given in the article, cancer or terrorism. Another that I agree with is the way media shows studies and how they convey this message to people creating an emotional response to it. Which intern people to take following action if they feel that their life is at a threat. But to make a rational decision in these situations needs people to separate their emotions from it like fear.the question is how we separate our emotions when we are deciding. Every decision affects our emotion in some way or another, either before or after. Most people follow their instincts to make their decisions either for a convenience or just cannot make a choice between the two, most of the time it may give you a wrong answer, but following your instinct is best suited in split of second decisions not in long run. Emotions such as fear help us to learn to make decisions through experience or through statistics because you take the following action.
RESPONSE TO "HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?"
DOES THE LANGUAGE WE SPEAK AFFECT THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD?
I am not fully convinced with above statement / question. While language does help to communicate with other people, share ideas and values that may or may not change our perspective on topics, it does change the world one see. I clearly do not see the relationship between words (nouns) having a gender may change the way we think. But to some extent I do believe that id these words spoken again and again then the way we see it in our head may have a different connotation than other language with words of opposite gender. But what we see in the world are not constrained by language, our perspective still would be the same however the language is set. It may be possible tthat after a while we see the objects in a way of what we relate it to then these objects may have famine or masculine view. More than language I believe it is the society norms and culture that on is brought up in affects the way we. When the author uses the example of the Australian minority to some extent I am convinced that the way they use different words to refer space is because of the language but I believe that however they say it is still the space they are talking about. It's more like saying it another language, agree that they may have more knowledge about the direction but fail to see how it might change their perspective on the world as they what other people see and refer it in another term. So I don't think language changes the way we see the world.
1) Of what value are emotions in the learning process?
Keep your head
Within the article "Keep your head" I found the idea that once an individual goes into panic mode they could potentially exacerbate the original problem pretty interesting. By going into the panic mode a person would or could potentially make a bad decision. Bond uses the example of 9/11. This event changed not only New York but also the mentality of individuals. As a result of this crisis people started to avoid traveling by air and replaced it by car. An individual that did so actually increased their likelihood to die and this can be proven by the increase in deaths by car accidents after 9/11. I don't think an individual can be blamed for making a decision like this. They found a way to eliminate a possibility that they deemed as dangerous. In their terms they were actually successful. Whether they know the statics of deaths per method of travel or not they made a decision. Towards the end Bond extends the idea that when you come to a risk you should "feel the numbers". But smokers know its dangerous to continue their bad habit, some of them even know the exact numbers of deaths per year of smoking and yet still continue smoking. I believe a person should be allowed to make a decision based on their emotion because they would only choose a decision that satisfies them selves. A person would not swap their short plane ride for a tedious long car ride un-less they felt like doing so. In the end of the day it's their choice and they have made it.
How does language shape the way we think?
2) 'If you speak multiple languages-you are a polyglot, if you do-do you think differently in one language than you do in the other?'
I learnt Norwegian and English both from day one, side by side. However due to my lack of involvement within Norwegian compared to the amount of English I have been exposed to, I can safely title English as my prime language. This article has brought completely revolutionary thoughts to me. I have always thought about how different languages have different vocabularies and grammar styles but never ever thought it could change the way we think. From this it self I wonder if their any languages that we could call superior or even has the way humans developed to communicate limit the way we think?
I'm not exactly able to distinguish the possible differences or even barriers that Norwegian and English could carry but I think my limit to usage of Norwegian defiantly affects me. When I think of objects in English I am able to create multiple images of it and ties to other areas, however in Norwegian the object is just an object. Yet again this could just be the possibility of the lack of involvement I have with Norwegian. The more I practice it the deeper it may become.
Another area that Lera Boroditsky made an impact for me is how many of my friends could possibly be thinking in different terms constantly. For example Norwegian and English do not have any prime distinguishments between sex's. While in Arabic the actual word and grammar structure changes on who you speak with.
Different groups of people around the world are not only are different by their physical features but also their cultural backgrounds. Can cultures or mass ideological ideas drive a certain language to explore different area's of a language?
Another question that arises, can the more languages you speak make you more knowledgeable or even make you better at expressing yourself? Who knows…
The article I'm responding to is "Keep your head". Personally, I believe the value of emotions in the learning process varies depending on a number of different factors. Firstly, I think it varies from person to person. For example, certain people find it easier to acquire knowledge or learn about something if they are passionate about it or if it is of interest to them. This can be seen in schools where some students do better in the subjects they are interested in, in comparison to other subjects. So to these people emotions are of great value in the learning process as emotions help them learn and act as a source of motivation. On the other hand, there are people who can learn just as well without being passionate for what they are learning about. To these people emotions are not as valuable in the learning process.
Another factor which determines the value of emotions in the learning process is what is being learnt. For example, in a subject like physics, emotions are not essential in the learning process and one can acquire knowledge without feeling any emotions. However, with the social sciences subjects it is very helpful if not essential to have an understanding of human emotions and behavior. Therefore emotions are valuable to someone who is trying to learn about social sciences or other things which require an understanding of human emotions. Furthermore, the relationship of the person with what is being learnt also determines the value of emotions in the process of acquiring knowledge. If we are learning about something that is closely related to us and affects us then our emotions can either be helpful or obstructive in the process of learning. The article "Keep your head" illustrates some good examples of this. The article talks about how people in the USA began travelling by road instead of by air after the 9/11 attacks. These people were emotionally affected by the attacks through fear and these emotions prevented them from accurately acquiring knowledge about the probability of dying in a car crash compared to the probability of dying in a plane crash. This resulted in an increased number of deaths due to car crashes.
Does the language you speak affect the way you think about the world?
Before reading Lera Boroditsky's article about how language shapes the way we think, I hadn't given this topic much thought and had dismissed this issue as something we'd be unlikely to find the answer to. However, after reading the article I am convinced that the language we speak does in fact affect the way we think about the world. The article demonstrates examples of how languages affect the way we perceive the world around us. For me the clearest example was our perception of time. As an English speaker, when I talk about time, I give it a direction. For example, yesterday is 'behind' us and tomorrow is 'ahead' of us. Over the years this way of speaking about time has also molded the way I think about time as I now think of time as having a forward and backwards direction. However to someone who speaks a language that does not talk about time in this manner, their perception of time will be much different. For example, the Mandarin language has a vertical metaphor for time and so Mandarin speakers perceive time as having an upwards or downwards direction. Effectively, English speakers and Mandarin speakers have a different perception of time and this difference in perception is due to their languages. Therefore we can conclude that the language we speak does affect the way we think about the world.
Time however, happens to be one of the major aspects of the world around us. But the language we speak can affect our perception of the world down to even the smallest and most insignificant details. An example of this is how some languages assign genders to objects and like Boroditsky's research shows, this assignment of gender can actually affect the way the speakers of that language think about the object. This is what led German speakers and Spanish speakers to use contrasting adjectives to describe an object as small as a key. The German speakers mostly used adjectives with masculine connotations as a key is masculine in German. Whereas Spanish speakers used adjectives with feminine connotations as a key is feminine in Spanish.
So the language we speak not only affects the way we think about the major aspects of our world like time but it can also affect the way we think about small things like household objects.
Of what value are emotions in the learning process?
Emotions affect the way we interpret a lot of things and the way take information into account. However essential, emotions can also distort our ability to make decisions rationally. Regardless of how we react to statistics based on our personal types of thinking (analytical or emotional), we still have a similar response when it comes to reading statistics, because we think of them as cold and abstract entities (Slovic). I think that emotions have a high value in part of the learning process because the teach us to relate the information to ourselves. However, I think that decision making and the learning process are two separate topics and the value of our emotions tends to vary differently in each. For example, I think that in learning, like I said before, we need emotions to make the topic more relatable and effective to our everyday understanding. I think it would almost be impossible to learn without emotion, as you would have a difficult time with a lot of things as it teaches us to not only recognize others emotions but also teaches us to cope with it and give a suitable response. For example, writing something as simple as a analytical task for English would be totally inconceivable because of our inability to cope with the emotions offered. Another aspect of our learning is making decisions according to the situations presented to us. Often when doing that we don't feel the statistics, and so we dismiss the statistics as irrelevant, but when faced with something graphic like terrorist attacks we overdo our emotions and make our decisions based on only those. I think that even though we need emotions in the learning process, it's up to us to decide on how much emotion we put into a particular decision.
How does language shape the way we think?
Growing up, I learned 2 different languages: Hindi and English. However as I progressed through my academic career I started to acquire the ability to speak French. Regardless of this I always felt comfortable with English and replaced it with my first language (Hindi). It was not until I started to learn French that I realized that I had the ability to think differently. For example, the article references German and Spanish, and since both of these languages have gender pronouns people would describe them differently. In Hindi we have a similar concept; however I never really associated my words with a specific type of gender or description, but when it came to expressing my emotions to someone I used Hindi because I found it a little easier. Even though I agree with the argument that Boroditsky has to offer, I think that its not the only plausible explanation available. For example I have almost replaced my Hindi with English and use English more often, and I actually think that instead of thinking in a new way it has replaced my ability to think the same way in Hindi. I a, and I also feel the same way for French and I think this is largely to do with the cultural aspect of learning a new language. I don't live in either France or India and therefore I find it harder to express my ideas in these languages because I don't know the cultural aspects to them or the connotations some words offer. I think that it has broadened my ability to think in other languages but not my ability to think.