Captain America vs.

Iron Man

Post-traumatic stress disorder

According to the textbook, post-traumatic stress disorder is defined as a condition

in which a person who has experienced a traumatic event feels severe and long-lasting

after effects. The textbook adds that this disorder could begin immediately after the

occurrence of the dramatic event or it could develop later. While not everyone who has

experienced something traumatic will get this disorder, those who are exposed

repeatedly or over a long period of time to something traumatic is more likely to have

this disorder.

In “Captain America vs. Iron Man", PTSD is described as something that is

diagnosed when a person experiences a traumatic, potentially life threatening event and

shows certain kids of symptoms that could interfere with life functions. This book also

gives information on what it takes for a person to be diagnosed. In order to be diagnosed

you have to have the symptoms of intrusions avoidance, negative changes in the person’s

mood or thoughts, and increased arousal symptoms for at least a month. Both books

seems to give great definitions and describe this disorder well.

Unlike the textbook “Captain America vs. Iron Man” goes more into detail when it

comes to PTSD. The first way it does that is by talking about avoidance. Avoidance is one

of the biggest contributors to developing PTSD. This could mean anything from stopping

socializing to using alcohol to numb their emotions. This is something that Tony Stark

did a lot of. Tony uses alcohol to avoid his problems. He feels a lot of guilt when things

happen so he drinks. While Tony was the only one who had PTSD, Steve Rodgers used

avoidance by refusing to date or be reminded of his lost love. Steve also uses excess

exercise to try and cope. This book also talks about how traumatic events can shorten

someone’s life. People who have been exposed to this have shorter telomeres. When these
are shorter, a person’s life tends to be shorter. Due to all the traumatic things Tony and

Steve have faced, they have a higher chance of shorter telomeres, which could shorten

their lifespan.

Superego and Sigmond Freud

As defined in the textbook, superego is the part of the personality that is the

source of conscience and counteracts the socially undesirable impulses of the id. The id

and superego come into conflict because neither is concerned with reality.

Freud saw that the psyche structured into three parts, the id, ego, and superego.

They are systems of the brain. According to the textbook the id is the part of the

unconscious personality that contains our needs, drives, instincts, and repressed

material. The ego is part of the personality that is in touch with reality and strives to

meet the demands of the id and the superego in socially acceptable ways. All of these are

able to interact to form a whole.

The pleasure principle is the what the id operates on. This principle was set by

Freud in 1920. The pleasure principle is the that that every impulse should be satisfied

immediately, regardless of the consequences. When the id achieves it, we experience

pleasure, and when it is denied we experience tension. This process of thinking is selfish.

The ego develops to mediate or compare use between the id and the real world.

This is the system that does the decision making. The ego works by reason. The reality

principle is what the ego operates on. The reality principle is when it works out realistic

ways of satisfying the id’s demands, compromising satisfaction to avoid negate

consequences of society. The ego has no idea of what is right or wrong. If the ego is
unable to use the reality principle it may experience and unconscious defense

mechanism.

The superego has both the values and morals of society that are learned from

parents and others. Usually this develops around the ages of three to five. The function of

the super ego is to control the id’s impulses, while it also persuades the ego to go to more

moralistic goals other than just realistic ones. The superego consists of two systems

itself, the conscience and the ideal self. The conscience punishes the ego through guilt,

the ideal self represents careers, treating other people, and how to behave as a member

of society. The superego can also make us feel proud.

Sigmund Freud said that the id is a horse while the ego is the rider. The ego is

“like man on horseback, who has to hold in check the strength of the horse.”

Tony Stark likes to satisfy his id, while Steve Rogers likes to direct that energy in

other ways. A good example of how he directs his energy in other ways when he could be

dating, he does a mission, or goes into work. Superego is a big part of him, but he won’t

let it run his life.

Batman

Bipolar Disorder

In both books, bipolar disorders is describes as a disorder in which individuals are

excessively and inappropriately happy or unhappy. In “Batman” it is a bit more

descriptive saying that the individual alternates between depression and extremely

energized/elated state. The textbook goes into more detail about the manic phase and

the depressive phase.

The manic phase is when the individual experiences happiness or elate, confusion

that is extreme, racing thoughts, and distractibility. In this phase the person also has
high self-esteem, and usually has irresponsible behavior. This state isn’t as easy to detect

because each person seems to be normal and just looks like they are happy. Usually in

this state there is less sleep, an increased amount of activity, and the loudness of the

person increases also.

The depressive phase is something that wasn’t really talked about in “Batman”

This is the phase in which the person is overcome by feeling of sinfulness, worthlessness.

and failure. Usually there is a lot of unresponsiveness in this phase. Some times there

may be manic type reactions, while others the person may appear normal and just sad.

The Joker cycles between the extremes of bipolar disorder. He generally will go off

for a sulk on his own, usually after something specific happens. He doesn’t seem to be as

happy as he was in his early days.

Classical Conditioning and Ivan Pavlov

Classical Conditioning is a learning procedure in which associations are made

between a natural stimulus and a neutral stimulus. While both books talk about some of

Ivan Pavlov’s work with classical conditioning, the textbook explains his work better.

Ivan Pavlov originally was researching the process of digestion but he noticed

that the sight or smell of food made the dog salivate. With that he used a neutral

stimulus, which in this case was a bell because it had nothing to do with the meat. He

would ring the bell than give the dog food. After just a couple of times, just hearing the

bell made the dog salivate. The food was the unconditioned stimulus. The dog wasn’t

taught to salivate when it smells the meat, the salivation was the unconditioned

response.

What the textbook didn't talk about that “Batman" did was the possibility that

classical conditioning may cause phobias.

 With the help of Pavlov’s observations, John Watson proposed that the process of

classical condition explained all aspects of the psychology of humans. Emotional

responses was patters of stimulus and response.

Bats scared Bruce (Batman) when they fly out. The shadows of a bat around the

town never scared him before, or if they did not this bad. With association to the fall and

the fear or unconditional stimulus and response, anything of a bat was a conditioned

stimulus, and a learned fear. The criminals of Gotham learn to fear anything that could

be related with Batman, like that bat-signal. The signal was intended to comfort the

citizens and discomfort the criminals.

Phobias

Aflred asks Bruce why is his “thing” bats, and Bruce simply responds, “Bats

frighten me. it’s time my enemies shared my dread” (68). Bruce wants people to be

scared of the bats, and dread the bats just as much as he does.

Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you have a phobia of it. A

phobia as described in “Batman” is a persistent intense and unrealistic fear that causes

such distress or so significantly impairs function that it counts as a mental illness.

Medication is able to be used to relax the symptoms of fearfulness, particularly for the

ones who have panic attacks. In order to help a phobia you may have to have training, or

specific methods, to help with your phobia. Phobias are often started though classical

conditioning, when associations are made between a natural stimulus and a neutral

stimulus.

Why is Bruce Wayne scared of bats? He was running where he should and he fell

in a dark cavity. It was quiet when all of a sudden bats are flying around filling the area

around him. He was terrified by his dad managed to save him. He became afraid of the
shadows when a man came out of the shadows and Bruce Wayne’s parents died because

a man shot them. Although he isn’t like other people and hide from his phobias, instead

he wears them.

Now while “Batman” seems to go in depth with phobias, the textbook doesn’t do

that as well. In the textbook phobia is defined as an intense and irrational fear of a

particular object or situation. Phobias are told to range in intensity from mild to severe.

People usually deal with phobias by avoiding the thing that scares them. While the

person is avoiding the thing that scares them the phobias are learned and maintained by

the reinforcing effects of avoiding it.

Both books give quite a few great examples of phobias that include acrophobia,

the fear of heights, felinophobia, the fear of cats, lygophobia, fear of darkness, and so on.

How do you treat phobias? Phobias are treatable, and once the person has started

treatment the phobia is likely to improve. There is cognitive behavioral therapy which

helps people identify and dress their patterns of that that can have a negative impact on

their well-being. There is also exposure therapy. This was described in the book

“Batman.” This treatment exposes a person to sources of the phobia in small, gradual

steps. This helps the person encounter the object of the phobia in day to day life without

having negative effects. There is also relaxation techniques that have physical exercises,

visualization, and breathing that could help. The visualization helps people to carry out

tasks, because it could help someone face their phobia by planning each step. Support

groups could also be helpful for people who have phobias. Sharing experiences and

coping methods help in the process of addressing a phobia.

Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler developed a birth order theory. Through his research he was able to

develop the idea that birth order affects a child’s personality. Neither of the books gave

me that great of information on Adler, but I found some great information about his

theory.

First born children in a family would get lots of attention. The attention usually

only lasted until there was a second child, and when the second child was born, the first

child wasn’t the main responsibility now. When the child loses the attention they react in

a couple of ways. Some of these actions include: the first child will protect themselves

against the reversals, can cause the child to be insecure, can cause the child to help the

parents with the second child. The first born may have some traits like reliability,

cooperativeness, they are organized, a people pleaser, assertive, perfectionist, and a

nurturer.

The second child shares the attention, it is allowed the child to cooperate. The

second child also has an example to follow, and they try to learn from the older sibling.

Adler thinks that the second child is more likely to adult to life. There are traits shared

by two kinds of second born children like competitiveness, flexibility, and attention

seeking. There seems to be two different types of second born children like, quiet ,

impatient, and shy, or there is patient, outgoing, and friendly.

Finally the last born. The younger child doesn’t have any followers. Usually the

youngest gets the most attention, due to the fact that the older children have moved on

in different parts of growing up. The last born are risk takers, attention seeking, and

sensitive.

What about only children? According to Alfred Adler, the only child has a hard

time sharing because there is little experience with sharing with siblings. They also
enjoy being the only child. They prefer to be around adults and using adult language,

because it is what they are used to.

Adler also believed that their were three things that contributed to a faulty family

lifestyle. These three things included pampering, neglect, or health problems. Bruce had

the pampering due to his families wealthy life, and being the only child, but was shifted

to neglect after not having parents anymore.

Star Wars

Stereotypes and Albert Bandura

Stereotypes are defined as a set of assumptions about people in a given category

often based on half-truths and non-truths. Stereotypes can be made about a lot of

different things like, women, men, different races, or different religious groups.

Stereotypes are bias to us. We us stereotypes to predict how people will behave.

While the book talks about the paragraph above, “Star Wars” focuses more on the

violence part of stereotypes. Stereotypes in films show women as submissive, smart,

dangerous, good, or just pretty. Women are often shown as prizes for men. Pop culture

tends to show men as violent and women as submissive. Doing this can increase

behaviors of these characteristics. Prejudice, hostility, and harassment toward groups

can lead to physical and mental health problems. People who experience harassment feel

depressed. If you get to know someone from a “stereotypical” group, it allows you to

become more empathetic toward that person and treat them more kindly.

A great example of the violence towards women in “Star Wars” is when Anakin

choses and almost kills Padmé. Padmé also feels a loss of control when she gives up her

will to live after Anakin abuses her.

 Albert Bandura was very hard to find in the textbook, so I didn’t get any

information there, but “Star Wars” had a great space about him that goes with the

stereotypes. Albert Bandura studied social learning. What he found while studying this

was that preschool boys and girls act aggressive after seeing researchers act aggressive

to a Bobo doll, either in a film or real life. There were different amounts of aggression

toward the doll depending on the gender. The boys displayed more aggression than the

girls did. He also found that girls and boys tended to be much more aggressive after

seeing aggressors of the same gender as themselves. What does this show exactly? This

shows that people are more influenced by role models of their same gender in order to

promote gender equality, media should include role models who are different in genre.

“The Cone Wars” did this when they included a Jedi Master who was female named

Luminara and a a Jedi Master who was male named Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Extraversion

What exactly is an extravert? An extravert is an outgoing, active person who

directs his or her energies and interests toward other people and things. Both books are

able to agree on this definition. The two books also agree that usually extraverts seek

excitement. Some traits of extroversions are boldness, boredom if left alone, excitement

seeking, external focus, need for people, outgoing nature, positive emotion,

talkativeness, and so on. Most of the extraversion traits include people or something to

do with that kind of thing. Extraverts also have more happiness-seeking activities and

have more positive emotions frequently and they are also more intense,

There is also kinds of extraverts called neurotic extraverts, who basically have a

roller coaster of positive and negative emotions. These people usually turn to the dark

side. Extraverts who are emotionally stable have greater happiness and life satisfaction,
and make better leader. There are very few people who are fully extraverted or fully

introverted.

In "Star Wars” it talks a lot about the characters in it, and how they are

extraverts, or what makes them not extravert. Luke Skywalker was eager when he

wanted to get to the exciting parts. Because introverts which are the Jedis like to

meditate and relax the extraverts have a hard time getting use to that.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

What is categorized as an antisocial personality? Both books talk about how it is a

disregard for and violation of rights of others. "Star Wars” doesn’t go into much more

detail in that other than that the villains are usually the antisocial characters. Darth

Vader seems to be the best character that is antisocial.

The textbook goes into a little more detail. It talks about how antisocial people

treat other people as objects. They don’t feel the same guilt as people without the

disorder feel. If the person gets caught, it doesn’t really effect them at all. They will never

learn how to stay out of trouble. People with antisocial disorders usually can get away

with their behavior because many of the times they are intelligent, entertaining, and

able to show emotions that they don’t really feel. They can even win affection of others in

which they take advantage of.

Around the age of fifteen is when people start to show symptoms of this disorder.

Although there isn’t exactly a cause for antisocial personality disorder, there are the

ideas that it an be caused by genes, or changes in the way the brain functions. There isn’t

any way to prevent this disorder so it is important to try and spot warning signs.
Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was a developmental psychologist. He said that from infant and on,

we are able to make connections between ideas and experiences. Piaget spent years

studying what is the reason of the dramatic changes between the ages of four and seven.

What did he come up with? Young children think differently than other children and

adults.

Both books talk about a mental structure called schema. Schema is a conceptual

framework a person uses to make sense of the world. Both books also know about the

processes of assimilation. New information that gets added to the schema is known as

the process of assimilation.When the schema changes the process is called

accommodation.

In the Textbook, Piaget also discovered object permanence which is when a child’s

realization that an object exists even when he or she cannot see or touch it. After this he

believed that a child is able to engage in representational thought, which is the ability of

a child to picture something in his or her mind. His daughter watched a tantrum of

another child, than the next day was able to do the exact same tantrum. This meant that

they are able to use symbols and soon the symbols will be more complex like language.

At the ages of five to seven most children know what conservation is, which is the

principle that a given quantity does not change when its appearance is changed.

Jean described the changed in four stages of cognitive development. Sensorimotor

stage, which is when the infant uses schema. This usually involved their body and

sensations. Preoperational stage is when the child begins to use mental symbols or

images to begin to understand things. Concrete operations, in which children are able to

use schemas that are logical but they are limited in understanding concrete object. And

finally formal operations stage, when the person is able to solve problems.
 Everyone goes through these stages in these orders, but may not be around the

same age.

Han Solo is a good example. Everyone’s first thought when they see him is he is

bad. Their schema might assimilate when they discover he is bad, but he also has great

features to him, like his loyalty.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html
https://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/phobias
https://wehavekids.com/family-relationships/How-Birth-Order-Plays-A-Part-In-A-Childs-
Development
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/
symptoms-causes/syc-20353928