《Intro to Psychology》Shishak

5、Chapter 5

　　I remembered when I was in high school; there was a professor who taught me chemistry. He was humorous and very kind. I always liked his course because there was lots of fun. Suddenly, something changed about him. He stopped telling jokes and seldom smiled. When we asked him questions, he was not thinking about the questions, but something else. For almost one month, we experienced a terrible time. The quizzes were so difficult. We had lots of homework. He became so strict. If a student couldn’t answer a question, he had the student stand until class was over. All the class talked about him and wondered what happened.

　　There was a girl in our class, whose mother is an English teacher, sharing the same office with our chemistry professor. One morning before the class, the girl came in and told us the big news that our chemistry professor divorced his wife. His wife left him for another person. Suddenly, all his action had a reason. It’s a displacement (the redirection of emotional impulses toward a substitute person or object, usually one less threatening or dangerous than the original source of conflict). He put his unhappy emotion on us.

　　Day by day, the chemistry professor was recovering. He became humorous and nice again. But unfortunately, our class didn’t do well on the final exams. Actually, it’s too bad. Students told parents that it was the professor’s fault; the exam he gave was too difficult, just like what happened in that month. Parents understood and seemed believed us and blamed the professor. But, the fact is, the final exam was not difficult at all. What’s more, we were not only bad at chemistry, but also on other subjects. The entire class didn’t have a good performance that semester. I remembered that our local TV station was playing a very popular soap opera just before the final exam. Most students watched TV at night and didn’t study. So, I think this should be the real reason of the bad performance on the test. We didn’t attribute academic failure to our personal factors but to the professor. It’s self-serving bias (The tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational cause).

　　I remembered that I got a low score that semester. But I can’t remember clearly what my score was and whether I passed or not. To me, it’s a repression (the complete exclusion from consciousness of anxiety producing thoughts, feelings, or impulses; most basic defense mechanism).