Nature vs Nurture

I was born with blue eyes and blonde hair, but where did I get my athleticism, driven personality, and intelligence? Did I inherit these abilities from my parents, or did my environment aid in their development?  Throughout the field of psychology, nature versus nurture has been one of the most controversial debates on the topic of human development.

In the field of psychology, the term nature refers to the genetic material given to us at the time of conception. We all know that we get half of out genetic information from out mother and father. Also, we know that eye and hair color are encoded in our genetic information as well. Psychologists who believe nature is everything conclude that human intelligence level, sexual orientation, and personality are encoded within the genetic information as well. 

According to Socrates, human knowledge is innate. Socrates believed that we are born with all our knowledge. He believed that knowledge is not acquired through experience, but rather knowledge was already within us and the idea of reasoning was all it took to bring that knowledge to the surface.

The term nurture, when it comes to psychology, refers to the social and physical forces that affect our genetic information before we are born and throughout our lifespan. Psychologists that believe in the nurture aspect of development think that intelligence, personality, and sexual orientation are all influenced by the environment you are exposed to. The nurture theorists believe that the people in our lives, and the culture within which we live, have the greatest effect on our development. 

Locke knew that not all ideas were from experience. He wanted to determine how the mind works and how humans developed their knowledge. Locke believed that education is a critical part in development permitting one to understand their experiences. Locke says children acquire their knowledge through curiosity. 

Currently, many scientists believe that nature and nurture work together in the developmental process. The first concept in combining these theories is known as range of reaction, which means each person's unique genetically determined response to the environment.  Range of reaction consists of two main ideas. First, each person's predetermined genetic makeup allows them to perceive the same environment differently. Second, there are differences in the way genetics and environment influences can be combined to make two different people appear the same. 

PTSD In the Journalism Profession

September 11th has decisively transformed the everyday contexts within which journalists routinely operate evidence of this transformation is everywhere, not least with regard to the struggle to negotiate the complexities of the crisis in a suitably fair or balanced manner. 

Trauma cannot be resolved by sticking strictly to the facts and information gathered. For journalists, the need to work through trauma has not only been individual but collective repercussions too. Journalism plays a key role in moving entire populations from trauma to recovery, but journalists themselves need time to come to terms with what they have experienced. Journalists can experience trauma in their everyday jobs, such as reporting on car crashes or a death of someone they may know, not only from reporting from war zones. 

There are 8 safety principles for journalist reporting in war zones. 

1. Commitment: the media, public authorities and journalists themselves shall systematically seek ways to assess and reduce the risks in war zones or dangerous areas by consulting each other and exchanging all useful information.
2. Free Will: covering wars involves an acceptance by media workers of the risks attached and also a personal commitment which means they go on a strictly voluntary basis because of the risks they should have the right to refuse such assignments without explanation and without there being any finding of unprofessional conduct.
3. Experience: war reporting requires special skills and experience so editors should choose staff or free lancers who are mature and use to crisis situations. Team work in the field should be encouraged to ensure the safety of all journalists.
4. Preparation: regular training in how to cope in war zones or dangerous areas will help reduce the risk of journalists.
5. Equipment: editors should provide special correspondent working in dangerous areas with safety equipment.
6. Insurance: media management should take all necessary steps to provide this before sending or employing staff on dangerous assignments.
7. Psychological Counseling: media management should ensure that journalists who desire have access to counseling after returning from dangerous areas.
8. Legal Protection: journalists on dangerous assignments are considered civilians under the Geneva Conventions, provided they do not do anything or behave in any way that might compromise this status.

Journalists need to be aware that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can affect them, whether they report from war zones to car crashes on a daily basis. Journalists in the profession need to understand there is nothing wrong with receiving help if they feel overwhelmed. It is healthy to talk to someone than to bottle it all up and have it crash down on you later because it can eventually affect your personal life and profession one. 

A Sophisticated Killer

"Murder is not about lust and it's not about violence. It's about possession. When you feel the last breath of life coming out of a woman, you look into her eyes. At that point, it's being God."

Those are the words of Theodore Bundy. In his life, he was considered an attractive, well mannered and educated man. All through his life, he excelled in school and went on to becoming a lawyer. However, Theodore Bundy grew up to become one of America's worst known serial killers.

Bundy was a very sophisticated killer. The women Bundy targeted were all very similar. He targeted women between early teens to mid twenties. They all were caucasian with brown hair that was parted down the middle and all had dark eyes. It's believed that the women Bundy targeted resembled the women who broke his heart in his early adult years. She was a sophisticated, beautiful student with brown hair parted down the middle with brown eyes. She ended their relationship because she thought he was not mature enough for a true commitment. Some believe this was the trigger that started Bundy's killing spree.

He used very cunning ways to lure his victims, which is referred to as a signature. He would pretend to be injured or helpless. For example, he would wear a cast on his arm or use crutches while trying to carry books. He would also ask women if they could help him.

Once they were in his car, he would strike the women over the head with a crowbar until they were knocked out. He then preceded to sexually assault them and strangle them to death. The sexual assault gave Bundy a sense of power over the women which is usually the way a rapist maintain control. Then he would silence them by strangling.

Bundy killed many women across the nation. His first confirmed victim was Lynda Ann Healy. She was twenty-one when taken. He broke into her house, hit her unconscious and dressed her in clothes. Then he wrapped her in a sheet and carried her out of the house. A year later her body was found with her head decapitated.

Other victims were Chi Omega sorority girls, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, in Florida. Levy was twenty and Bowman was twenty-one. Bundy broke into the sorority house and killed them both from striking them over the head, but he sexually assaulted Levy. He was later convicted of this crime because of the bite mark he left on Levy. He beat two other women, but they survived the attack.

His finally victim was Kimberly Leach. She was twenty years old when murdered. He kidnapped, raped, and murdered her. He disposed of her body by throwing it under a shed. He was also convicted of her murder. This case is what gave Bundy the death penalty.

Bundy spent many years in prison before finally being put to death. Since he was a law student, he was able to use the justice system to his advantage by appealing his case for more than ten years. Bundy finally confessed to twenty-eight murders, but many suspect that there were many more. Many of his victims, to this day, have never been found. On January 24, 1989, Bundy was executed in the electric chair. Fireworks were used to celebrate his death.

Local Counselor Motivated to Improve Children's Lives

(AIKEN, SC)- Even though it can be challenging at times hearing the awful experiences, local counselor, Amy Loftus, is still motivated to undo the emotional damage her clients have endured throughout their lives.

“I want to do my part in bringing happiness and a sense of relief to as many lives as possible,” states Loftus. 

Loftus has a private practice in which she counsels young children, adolescents, adults, and families. Some of her cases include children who’s parents are going through a divorce, who are experiencing symptoms of depression, who are experiencing issues with their sexuality, and who may be suffering from the effects of bullying by their peers. She may appear in court as an expert witness for cases dealing with custody battles typically associated with divorce. 

“I am most passionate about children and adolescents who constantly hear that they are worthless, stupid, never will amount to anything, etc. as well as ones who go through life with parents who never give them the attention, love and support that they deserve,” says Loftus with a soft smile across her face. “My passion is for all children and adolescents whom I come in contact with to feel that they are valuable.”

Along with her private practice, she works in the forensic area of counseling. She works with juvenile offenders who have been adjudicated of a crime who have been court-ordered to participate in counseling. She deals with juveniles who have committed a wide variety of offenses but her specialty is working with juvenile sex offenders. 

She is a Clinically Certified Sex Offender Treatment Specialist, for adults and juveniles but only choose to treat juveniles, through the National Association for Forensic Counselors. 

“Hearing the stories that I hear day after day can be very difficult, especially hearing the experiences that my offenders had in various times in their lives that contributed to their criminal actions, particularly my sex offenders,” states Loftus. 

One of the most challenging thing she deals with is working with juveniles who have already adopted the criminal mindset and distorted beliefs about reality. Once those beliefs have been developed and acted on, it is very difficult to transform. 

Another challenging issue is to make significant progress with a child or adolescent when parents refuse to take responsibility for contributing to their child’s mentality. 

“If parents refuse to acknowledge and alter what they are contributing to their child's pathology or criminality, it can be near impossible to assist juveniles in making positive life changes,” states Loftus. 

In order to be mentally and emotionally ready for the day, Loftus focuses on what she has control over and makes peace with what she doesn’t. 

Cyberbullying Among Teens Today

Over the years, school’s have debated whether or not they need to develop policies regarding cyberbullying. The advancement use of technology to bully among young children stops school officials in their tracks. 

According to the National Conference of State Legislature, The Safe School Climate Act states that schools need to include cyberbullying within their existing bullying policy. The act prevents harassment, intimidation, or bullying to ensure a safe learning environment for students to achieve academic success. 

“It is very important that children feel like they can approach an adult, including a school official, about being a victim,” states counselor Amy Loftus. However, many students don’t report anything because their school will not take action over the situation and can sometimes make the issue worse. 

Teenagers not only bully at school but through the use of social media. This is known as cyberbullying which uses an electronic device to send  hurtful or threatening messages. Victims of cyberbullying no longer can feel safe at home because bulling continues where they should feel safe.

School psychologists, or counselors, can provide the school with guidelines in awareness promotion, prevention and policy making to address cyberbullying. It is important for school officials to become aware of the warning signs for victims. 

They may become socially isolated from other children that they would normally socialize with, passive when before they had an outgoing personality and show symptoms of depression. 

School psychologists can use a couple different way to bring awareness to the school’s faculty. They can develop workshops for understanding social networking sites and what specifically cyberbullying means. Also, they can start training programs for knowing how to deal with victims. 

In order to help students feel safe within the walls of their school, officials need to establish a prevention plan that both faculty member and students are aware of. The plan should contain what cyberbullying is and the impact it has on victims, to be respectful of others when online, the responsible use of technology, and the legal ramifications. 

Along with the prevention plan, a mentoring program helps students get involved with the issue. The program involves older students helping the younger with any issues of bullying or any other problems they may have in their lives.

The mentoring program helps students to get involved with the prevention of cyberbullying. With the use of students, victims may feel more inclined to come forward because they can talk to kids their own age or older that may have already dealt with their own issues. 

Schools have legal right to intervene with the issues of cyberbullying. In order for the programs at school to be successful, parental involvement is very critical.  

Privacy in Australia

The 'right to privacy' has evolved over the centuries to protect an individual's space and reputation. A major turning point came in Britain and Europe with the death of Princess Diana in Paris in 1997 after a car chase involving paparazzi. In 1998, the United Kingdom passed its Human Rights Act, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into British Law, including a right to privacy.

There is no common law right to privacy in Australia but there are a number of laws that went part of the way to protecting the privacy of citizens. The Privacy Act 1988 confers a degree of enforcement power upon the Federal Court and Federal Magistrates Court to protect privacy but focuses o private information held by government departments and large corporations.

Australia Law Reform Commission recommends Australia should have a privacy law that identifies several types of invasions: interference with a person's home or family, subjecting someone to unauthorized surveillance, interference with an individual's correspondence private written or oral communication and disclosure of sensitive facts relating to an individual's private life. However, the courts would have to take into account whether the public interest in maintaining the claimant's privacy outweighed the public interest, including the interest of the public being informed about matters of public concern.

There are privacy related law in Australia. Australia's Press Council published 'Privacy Standards' which contain a series of guidelines for media organizations to help ensure that individual's privacy is respected. They cover topics as the collection of personal information, the use and disclosure of the personal information, the quality of information and the anonymity of sources.

There are other laws to protect privacy, such as trespass, nuisance, surveillance/listening devices and obscenity and indecency. With trespass, a journalist has no special rights to entry to someone else's property beyond the ordinary citizen. Every person who is in possession of premises has the right to refuse others entry to those premises. However, a journalist can use material that has resulted from trespassing but not from unlawful surveillance.

The area of nuisance is very limited under the law. It protects an occupiers use or enjoyment of their land form unreasonable interferences. The nuisance has to be persistent and annoying for it to be actionable. Constant systematic surveillance and continuos phone calls persisting despite request they cease could be deemed as a nuisance. However, courts judge the actual definition of what is deemed a nuisance.

The Federal and State Laws affect the use of surveillance and listening devices and place varying restrictions on the publication of report gained through the use of these devices. Under the Commonwealth Law it is an offense to intercept communication passing over a telecommunication system without the knowledge of the person making the communication. Using, publishing or retaining a record of information gained in this way is considered an offense as well. Each state and territories have also legislation prohibiting the recording of a private conversation without the consent of all parties to the conversation by someone who is not a party to the conversation.

Obscenity and indecency is as much an issue of public taste as it is privacy. The public test defines what is considered good or bad and what is right or wrong. The decision rest with the publisher and editor rather than the journalist. A range of provision apply to obscene or indecent material and each state and territory have laws restricting this kind of publication. The public does not always want to know about a celebrities private life.

Intellectual Property

Journalists may come into contact with the laws related to ownership of ideas and their expression in two main ways: when they need to use the ideas or published work of others in their won reporting or publishing and when other media outlets want to reproduce the journalists' work in some new publication or broadcast. But in the field of intellectual property, journalist could well be either the user or the used, the complainant, the plaintiff or the defendant, depending on whether someone else has used their work or they have used the work of another.

Intellectual property law is defined as a group of legislative and common law rights affording protection to creative and intellectual effort and includes laws on copyright, design, patent, circuit layouts, plant varieties, confidential information, trade mark and business reputation. Plagiarism has significant ethical implications but also legal repercussions as well.

But a journalists' main concern is the law of copyright, in the Copyright Act of 1968, for the protection of their own work and the use of the work of others. There are four areas of the Copyright Act that are significant to journalist: Part III which deals with the copyright of original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work; Part IV which deals with copyright in subject matter other than works, such as broadcast; Part V which outlines the remedies and offenses applying; and Part IX which states the enforceable moral rights of authors.

An important thing to remember is that copyright does not apply to an idea only the material expression of that idea. An idea itself can't be protected by copyright law. There is nothing in copyright law to prevent journalists from gleaning ideas or information from other sources when creating their own work. Copyright operates to protect the work of the creator.

In Australia, there is no need to put the copyright symbol on 'work' because the protection is automatic form the instant a work is created. Under copyright, the 'author' of the work is the person who has created the work, not the person who has thought of the idea. There are situations when the author of the work does not own the copyright. For example, the journalist may not own the copyright but the media outlet they work for does. Copyright is protected for 70 years after the author's death and then it is considered 'public domain' meaning permission is no longer required in order to use the material.

Journalist need to take in considerations when reproducing the work of others, such as has the copyright period expired, has the copyright holder assigned copyright to you and copyright holders can 'license' you to use the material.

Ethics in Journalism

'A set of prescriptive rules, principles, values and virtues of character that inform and guide interpersonal and intrapersonal conduct: that is the conduct of people toward each other and conduct of people toward themselves.'-Edward Spence, 2005

Ethics govern behavior. Ethics can vary depending on the socio-cultural context, historical context, and political context. These all impact on what is considered to be normal and actions that are deemed to be deviant and beyond the bounds of ethical codes. Ethics are difficult to define to one set of beliefs because they are linked to morality and values and people's values are different all around the world.

Ethics should be considered as part of a set of social relations that govern the way news is gathered, written, and published. A reporters' ability to tell the truth, be accurate, fair and act without fear or favor are all affected by everyday decisions that are often related to what we call journalism ethics.

It is important to remember that journalism is an open profession meaning no license is required to be a journalist. People involved in journalism voluntarily accept professional obligations that come with it by belonging to regulatory bodies, such as Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) or Australian Press Council (APC). Journalism operates in a co-regulatory form of self-regulation where the codes are enacted by industry bodies, supplementary by legislation. Industry bodies detain the task of regulating professional conduct, which targets individuals, organizations and proprietors in order to offer a holistic regulatory framework.

For example, photojournalist Kevin Carter's photo of a starving girl trying to find food while being looked upon by a vulture. This picture won a Pulitzer Prize for this photo but there was some major ethical debate on whether Carter did the right thing.

Personally, I think Carter was unethical because he should have helped the little girl get food. I would like to think that, if I was in his situation and had witness children starving, I would have helped, but unless someone is put in that particular situation they don't know how they would react.

Professionally as a photojournalist, I think Carter acted ethically with the situation that he was put in. As a photojournalist, one should think does this moment need to be made public. In this case Carter did his job by making the world aware of the famine within Sudan. However, does this particular image capture that entire situation or just this girl's experience.

A photojournalist should consider if the subject's image is capture will it bring further harm to the them. In this case, photographing this young girl did not bring further harm to her situation because she did not even notice she was being photographed. A photojournalist should be at the least obtrusive distance as possible and this particular case it didn't matter his distance to the little girl but his distance to the food supply she was trying to reach because it was not far from them at all. Also, a photojournalist should be aware of acting with compassion and sensitivity. In this case, Carter did not act compassionately towards this young girl because he was waiting twenty minutes for the particular picture he wanted. He waited to see if the vulture was going to spread his wings for a more artistic picture. Now in Carter's case, he was mentally ill and was desensitized to the image because of every thing else he experienced in Sudan. So many people died everyday. Carter was also instructed not to touch any of the children because of disease so in this case it's keep yourself healthy and safe or help this girl with a chance of getting a disease.

This ethical issue can not be answered with one discussion or with one point of view. Ethical issue will always have a different answer for every person because some people many have other experiences that can allow them one point of view over another, people's values will always determine whether they think this issue was ethical or unethical, and until someone is put in that exact situation you will not know how you will truly act. People like to believe they would help others if they need it but if your life is on the line as well survival instinct kicks in order for you to get out of the situation alive so you can get back to your own loved ones.