There is a popular myth that goldfish can only remember things for 3 seconds. That is not true. If you own a goldfish you have probably figured out that your little orange pet remembers something very important, when it is food time!
Rory Stokes proved the 3 second myth wrong at only 15 years old. He knew better than to believe everything he heard, and so he conducted an experiment. He put a red Lego block in his goldfish’s tank every time he fed it. It only took three weeks before the fish caught on and started to swim to the Lego block looking for food. He stopped using the Lego block, but a week later the fish still knew that the block meant food!
Rory discovered that goldfish could remember things for up to a week, but scientists have discovered that goldfish can remember much longer than that! Some scientists trained goldfish by playing music at dinner time. They let the goldfish go into the wild, and SIX MONTHS LATER they used a loud speaker to play the dinner time music. THE GOLDFISH CAME BACK!
Scientists are only just starting to understand fish intelligence. The Manta ray is thought to be the smartest fish in the sea, and there is more and more proof that they could compete with mammals for level of intelligence.
So is it time to start bringing your goldfish to school with you? Do you think you should start writing fishy math problems on the side of the tank? Probably not, but your fishy little buddy is much smarter than you think.
When you think of motivation you might think of a reward you’ve been promised if you complete your chores, a friend encouraging you to try something new, or maybe even just doing something you enjoy! Motivation is anything that makes us want to do something. Like everything else we do, motivation is controlled by the brain. Looking at how the brain works can help us understand why we love to do some things, but struggle to finish others.
Psychology of Motivation for Kids
Some of the simplest things we can be motivated to do are things that we need to do to survive, like eat and drink. Feelings of thirst or hunger drive us to eat or drink. After we have had something to eat or drink we feel satisfied which acts as an incentive for usto want to eat or drink again.
Need: something our body or brain needs to stay healthy or balanced.
Drive: something that pushes us to do something that will satisfy our need.
Incentive: something that satisfies our need or drive.
It is these needs, drives, and incentives that make up our motivation! For example if we are bored it is because our brain needs more stimulation. That feeling of boredom drives us to find something to do. The game or hobby we choose to play/ do to satisfy our boredom is our incentive.
Another example is when someone tells us we need to do something, like when we are given an assignment. When someone else tells us what we need to do sometimes it can be harder to find the drive to do it. That person’s expectations might be enough of a drive for you, but if it is not you might need help keep you on track. Your parent or guardian might create a drive by telling you that you have to do your work before you can play. Once it is finished the relief that it is done can act as an incentive, or maybe the incentive is the game you get to play now that it’s done.
How to motivate yourself with three simple steps
First identify what you want to motivate yourself to do. This is your need.
Second, figure out why you need to do that thing. This is your drive.
Finally figure out what kind of reward you need to complete your task. This is your incentive.
Did it work?
If you were not able to motivate yourself, revisit your plan.
You’re going to find that one or more areas of your three steps wasn’t strong enough.
Your need: The thing you want to do isn’t something that you truly feel you NEED to do. Decide if your goal truly is something that you need to dedicate so much time and effort to. If the answer is no it is ok to change your goal to suit your needs.
Your drive: You do need to meet your goal but you are still struggling to get it done. Ask yourself if your goal is something you need to do right NOW. If it isn’t ask yourself when you do need to meet your goal by. How much of your goal do you need to get started on now? That is your new goal. Set yourself due dates based on your need.
Your incentive: Your goal is something you need to do, and it’s something that is very important for you to get done now, but you are still struggling. This means that your incentive is not strong enough. Make a list of things that motivate you and figure out what you would like to work for. You might need to get a friend or family member to help you by giving them the incentive and instructing them not to give it to you until you have completed your task.
Incentives might include something you get like a favorite food, money, or time to do a favorite game or activity, but incentives don’t have to be complicated! Sometimes simply restructuring your day can make getting your goal done more incentivizing. For instance you might simply work on your goal for 15 minutes before your evening netflix binge.
What do we mean by schools of thought? Is that where your brain goes to study? Not quite! The word “school” has more than one meaning! It can mean a place where you go to learn, or it can mean a group of people who all share a similar idea.
When we say “school of thought” in psychology we mean a group of people who all believe the same thing!
Psychology (the study of the brain) has changed a lot in a short amount of time! That is not surprising because scientists still have a lot to learn about the brain! As psychologists have learned their way of thinking and studying the brain has changed as well. Each time a new way to study the brain emerges a new “school of thought” is created.
Structuralism
This was one of the very first schools of thought in psychology and started when people were first trying to understand the brain. To understand the brain they looked at all of the thoughts of the brain in small parts.
Functionalism
What good is a bunch of parts if you don’t know what they do right!? That is where functionalism started from! Functionalists focused on what the brain did not what it was made of.
Imagine trying to figure out what a puzzle was of by looking at each piece individually. It would be hard wouldn’t it? That is why this school of thought developed. Gestalt psychologists did the opposite of Structuralists and focused on the brain and mind as a whole!
It can be hard to really see what is happening inside someone’s mind can’t it? That is why people used to think that psychology wasn’t very scientific. Behaviorists proved them wrong! They realized that thoughts created behaviors, and that behaviors were easy to watch and study! Behaviorists learned a lot about what was happening inside the brain by watching what was going on outside of it.
While behaviorists taught us a lot, they still ignored what was going on inside the mind. Cognitive psychology turned that focus back to the brain! Cognitive psychology includes neuroscience. Among other things cognitive psychologists use MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines to look at what is happening inside the brain.
This school of thought can be very bizarre! It is an attempt to understand the subconscious mind, which is the part of the mind that acts automatically. It tries to understand what is going on when we sleep, when we say the wrong word by accident, and when react to something without thinking.
Humanistic
Humans are very complicated thinkers, so this school of thought developed to focus on that. Humanistic psychologists use psychology to help people live their best lives.
A psychologist named Sigmund Freud was responsible for founding the school of psychology called “psychoanalysis.”Psychoanalysis is the study of the subconscious mind (things our brain does that we are not aware of). A big part of what Sigmund Freud did was analyze dreams. Sigmund Freud was not very scientific in the way that he worked, so most of what he believed has been proven incorrect, but he did get us thinking about the subconscious mind and we have learned a lot more since he was alive!
If you want to have some fun you can take a look in a dream dictionary like this one and see what your dreams are “supposed” to mean. Just remember that these dream interpretations are not scientific, they are just for fun!
The Meaning Of Dreams
You think you are being chased by a T-Rex. Are you crazy? No, your brain is just interpreting some random electrical firings. In other words, youre dreaming.
So what is going on when we dream? Scientists now know that the brain doesn’t just shut off when we sleep, the whole brain is actually active! Scientists still have a lot to learn about why our subconscious mind is busy having a party while our conscious mind slumbers. What they do know is that sleep is important to help our brain store memories, grow new neural connections, and function properly.
A theory known as the Activation-Synthesis theory says that dreams are created because our mind is trying to make sense of all of that subconscious activity! Our mind likes to interpret things. If there are a whole bunch of nerve cells sending random messages around our brain, it wants to string them together to create a story. It is just like when you look up at the clouds and see different shapes in them!
Jean Piaget was a psychologist from Switzerland that studies brain development (how the brain grows). He noticed that children learned certain things and certain times, and he created a theory as to why. As children learn they add to the amount of information that they know, but something interesting happens as children grow. Piaget realized that there were changes happening in children’s brains as they grew. Those changes let the children think differently at different stages. He divided those stages up into four parts based on how the children thought.
What we know now.
Piaget gave us an idea of how children’s brains change and grow. It was really important to realize that children are not just miniature adults! His theory was not perfect though. Now scientists have a lot more tools to help them understand the brain. They have also done more studies to help them understand how children learn.
Piaget’s stages help give teachers and parents an idea of what they should be focusing on in class or at home, but children all develop at different speeds! Some 4 year old children might be able to think logically, and some 13 year old children might have trouble thinking abstractly. That is OK because people are individuals not robots!
This might sound crazy. Some scientists thought it was a good idea to wrangle up some crocodiles and put them in an MRI machine! MRI machines are really cool! They look like something you would find on a spaceship. They are used to take pictures of the brain. Normally they are used for humans, but scientists have started using them to understand animal brains too. They have used them to study dogs, and now crocodiles!
Crocodiles are very cool creatures. They have been on the earth for 80 million years! Scientists find this interesting. They think that understanding the crocodile’s brain will help them understand what brains were like 80 million years ago. So how different is the crocodile’s brain from other animals’ brains like birds and mammals?
The scientists tested the crocodiles to see how their brains reacted to sound and sight. They actually played classical music for the crocodiles! Do you think crocodiles like Beethoven? Surprisingly crocodile brains reacted to the music in a very similar way to bird brains. That answer might be yes! Unfortunately we might never know for sure unless we ask a crocodile.
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