Saturday, June 18, 2016

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

In chapter 9 I found the topic obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, to be interesting.  OCD is “a disorder characterized by persistent thoughts, impulses, or images (called obsessions), and response to the obsessions” (Powell).
I watched an episode of True Life, on MTV, about people who suffered with OCD on a daily basis. I know that one of the women on the show washed her hands many times in a row because she did not think they were clean. She most likely she had a fear of germs. Another man on the show had to make sure the door to his house and car was locked many times before walking away from it. There are so many different types of OCD and “OCD was once considered a particularly difficult disorder to treat” (Powell).
            In the show The Big Bang Theory, the character, Sheldon, exhibits OCD when he knocks on another character, Penny’s, door. He knocks three times and says her name, knocks three more times and says her name, and finally knocks three more times and says her name again. Finally, Penny opens the door. In the video that I posted below, Penny opens the door while Sheldon has only knocked on the door two sets of the three and said her name twice. After Penny opens the door Sheldon knocks on the doorframe for the final three knocks and says her name. He did not want to start talking to her until he completed his pattern of knocking on her door. He has a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONK1lR7T9y8

Powell, R. A., Symbaluk, D. G., & Honey, P. L. (2009). Introduction to learning and behavior. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.



3 comments:

  1. I really like the examples of OCD you used. I believe I have seen the episode of True Life that you are referring to and it was informative. I never fully understood OCD until I saw that episode. It seems like the Big Bang Theory has many examples of psychology in it; I also posted an example in my post from the Big Bang Theory.

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  2. I liked how you linked OCD to things that the general population sees in TV shows like Sheldon's behaviors in Bing Bang Theory with out ever knowing that that is what they are seeing necessarily. Its cool how we see examples of things like this in popular culture all the time and don't always know what it is until later.

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  3. I really liked the examples you used, too! I remember that episode well. Sheldon is a bit quirky and I think the Big Bang Theory has a lot of great examples that can be used for other psychology topics as well.

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