Westerners to Cornellian[ers] :)

Hello everyone!!!
So far today is my third day and it is great! I’ve been learning all sorts of facts and ideas about psychology. The first day I learned about Evolutionary Psychology and how for years it has been affecting people in their behavior and beliefs. Also another interesting idea Professor Gilovich taught us was that later born children are meant to be revolutionaries and firstborn are to be more serious and conforming as well as traditional. Also later born are most likely to adopt new/radical ideas; firstborn and later born differ greatly in openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. With that in mind, Prof. Gilovich said that birth order affects intelligence. There was a study taken in families with different number of children. The first born always is the smartest. The later born will have a smaller IQ than their older sibling. One point made to explain why this happens is the fact that the older sibling teaches the later born as if they were actual teachers. Very interesting! Furthermore in the lecture, I learned about the social self. There is the independent and the interdependent. One tends to be more about the self while the next wants to honor the group they belong to. A study shows that pencils were given out to a certain group, but the pencils were given in different colors; there was always a color that was by itself. With this the researchers found that Westerners tend to head for the pencil that outstands from the others, while Easterners wind up choosing the common color, therefore showing that Westerners are individualistic and focus more on the “me”, whereas the Easterners choose not to be different, in the belief that they ought to honor the groups they belong to (e.g., family, job, dance team, etc.) So pretty much it has been intense, but we are there! Working hard has its benefits and for me it’s learning so much.
The seminars have been great and revealing on so many illnesses I never knew about. Our seminar instructor, Casey Carr has been so supporting in answering any question we might have. Hope you guys keep in touch and find our bulletins interesting. Stay tuned for every blog post. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Ana Garibo
Kennedy High '09
The Individual in the Social World
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Here at Cornell the food is yummy! Pasta, pizza, salads, burgers, sandwiches and tasty desserts such as lemon meringue pie are served. The cafeteria staff is very pleasant. In fact I met a cashier by the name of Wendy! She said “Oh, you’re name is Wendy too, there aren’t many Wendy’s around.” It made me feel welcome.
Lots of activities and workshops are offered. Trips to the museum and pie decorating are two of the activates. The workshops are titled “Everything you never knew”, “You, in 500 words or less,
“And the Fat Envelope goes to…” I will be going to a workshop later next week that instructs on healthy group study skills.


Wendy Espinoza
Pinole Valley High School
Class of 2009