You will be working with 3 different
texts for this blog entry!
1.
Read the two articles I gave you: "Why So Many Minds Think Alike"
by Elizabeth Landau and "Terror's Hidden Ally" by Laura Spinney.
2.
Write about something from the articles that you thought was
interesting or even puzzling. You can center your
discussion around one particular passage in one of the articles or some of the
writers' most interesting points. Just be sure that you are
talking about something specific from the text of the articles. No
generalizations!!
3. After you have discussed what you
found interesting or puzzling about the article, connect those ideas to
something specific you noticed in Act I of The Crucible.
You could connect to a specific character, quote, or exchange of
dialogue. Again be specific; no generalizations!
Tim Molino
ReplyDeleteIn the article “Terror’s Hidden Ally” Laura Spinney talked about mass hysteria. I found this really interesting because the criteria for mass hysteria matches the conditions the people in Salem were under. I didn’t know much about mass hysteria so I enjoyed this article because it gave me a better understanding of the topic. One part I found really intriguing was where she says that mass hysteria “tends to reflect a society’s beliefs”. This makes a lot of sense especially when it comes to Salem and The Crucible, because the people in Salem believed in witches so it would make sense for them to blame witches for the odd behavior. Mass Hysteria plays a big role in The Crucible, for instance at the end of act one, Tituba is accused of summoning spirits in the forest with the girls. The moment the people have someone to blame everyone starts acting out and eventually Betty and Abigail start to accuse people who they saw with the devil. At one point Abigail says “I hear her singing her Barbados songs and tempting me with” and Tituba tries to protect herself by blaming other women in the village. Mass hysteria is seen throughout act one but it is really emphasized at the end.
Nick Paquin
ReplyDeleteI thought both articles were interesting in the fact that they both dwelled into the psycho-analysis of stress and its effects on our health. Based on the first article "Why So many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau, I can easily relate the first act of the crucible to what the author is saying. In how when we don't go with the majority it causes the "error signal" to go off in our brains. This is shown with the whole accusations being thrown around when Tituba is called out on being a witch, and Abigail afterwards throwing Sara Good, and Osborn under the bus. Condemning them to witchcraft, that they have no part in. This also plays into the article about mass hysteria where you have Betty and Ruth ill from what everyone thinks is witchcraft. But in stead its probably heightened stress that's having a devastating effect on them. Linking that back to the second article, the same thing happened in Chechnya with the Russian government, and how the people didn't believe it was mass hysteria.
Chelsea Snide
ReplyDeleteI particularly found the article "Terror's Hidden Ally" by Laura Spinney about mass hysteria interesting because it under covers human nature and how we react to certain things in a certain situation. In perspective it really explains how the Salem Witch Trials could've started. In the article it gives an example of mass hysteria in the Shelkovsk region of Chechnya where students and teachers in the school suffered symptoms that were wide spread. They suspected it was poisoning from the Russians when in reality the symptoms were caused by stress. What I got from this is that when you and or a group of people really believe that its this specific thing they'll actually think its happening when in reality its all in their heads. In the case of the "Crucible" this can be shown through when Tituba, Parris' slave was accused of witchcraft. Although first denying it the men in the room kept insisting that she was that she ended up confessing it and ultimately believed she was taken by the devil. "But he say, "You work for me Tituba, and I make you free! I give you pretty dress to wear, and put you way high up in the air, and you gone fly back to Barbados!" And I say, "You lie, Devil, you lie!"" Here Tituba explains how the Devil tried to take her over. After Tituba confesses, Abigail later confesses "I danced for the Devil". Which I believe will start the mass hysteria of witchcraft soon after. Tying into the article "Why So Many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau which discusses how people's minds go with the crowd. Standing against the crowd will give an "error signal" making us believe the crowd is right whether they are or are not. Both Abigail and Tituba exclaim that Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn worked for the devil. Them being the crowd will ultimately bring the towns people in possibly believing that Good and Osburn are both witches.
Celine Fletcher
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that Landau would say that people will change their thoughts and beliefs to fit in with the group. She says that people tend to go along with the majority view even if it is incorrect. This idea of people all changing to the same idea is realistic because it can and does happen in real life. Even in books, like the Crucible, this change of ideas to fit in is visible. The characters in the main act all seem to change their opinions when they become afraid or frightened. Near the end of the first act, after witchcraft is spoken of, everyone starts to say why he or she thinks it is witchcraft while before many were pushing it aside. The article says that people often change their ideas due to “fear and anxiety”. The second article talks about diagnosed hysteria that might not be hysteria but a reaction to poisoning. The mass hysteria some believe was nothing more that reactions to something the human body didn’t agree with so it threw the body into fits. This may be an explanation to why the girls where acting strangely in Salem in real life. There is some evidence to suspect that there were some contaminated foods that may have been carrying any number of diseases. Some of those diseases like ergot poisoning and Lyme disease make the body appear to have bite marks on the skin and the victim may suffer from neurological and arthritic symptoms. The people of Salem thought that these strange behaviors and mars on the skin of the afflicted girls were the mark of witchcraft when it quite possibly could have been a reaction to some sort of poison or disease. This article talks about how these symptoms and weird occurrences have happened at other points in history which means it was not something about Salem or witches. People after 9/11 were said to be in mass hysteria but really they had inhaled some white powder that made the victims have very strange behavior. Both articles are relevant information into why the trials may have started and why people became to believe in them.
Michael Purvey
ReplyDeleteIn the article, "Why So many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau, Landau asks "You're in a room with 10 other people who seem to agree on something, but you hold the opposite view. Do you say something? Or do you just go along with the others?" I find this question to be interesting becasue people want to speak their own minds and say what they think if they don't agree on a particular topic but they just don't either becasue they are ebarrassed to state their opinion or becasuse they feel out numbered from all the other people. Landau says "Decades of research show people tend to go along with the majority view, even if that view is incorrect," this quote is true becasue people do that in real life. This happens in the novel, "The Crucible" by Authur Miller. In The Crucible, all the girls are not allowed to show emotions, such as anger and happiness, they can't dance, and they can not go outside becasue they are suppose to be in the house to clean and cook for the family, and always being watched every day in the house. The article connects to The Crucible because girls do not agree with the fact that they cannot show emotions or not be able to go outside because they feel like it is not fair for boys to be able to go outside and for them to have a little bit of freedom. Girls do want to speak their minds in The Crucible but they just don't becasue they are out numbered by all the people in Salem and they are affriad to get punished if they do speak out their words.
I found Laura Spinney's article "Terror's Hidden Ally" to be very interesting. As I was reading about mass hysteria, it began to make more and more sense, and it was even a reality a few years ago in the form of swine flu. Although some or even many cases of the symptoms can be true, a large number turn out to be false. It also made me think about drug trials, because it is sort of the opposite. Patients on the placebo pills often think or even show signs that they are becoming healthier when they are really not. There were also some key phrases that stood out to me because they rang true for the Salem witch trials. Spinney wrote about psychiatrist Simon Wessely, who referred to one type of mass hysteria that is “chronic...[and] tend to take place against the backdrop of social trauma”(Spinney 2). This idea is true for the Salem witch trials because they had just gone through King Philip’s war and the Indian raids, in which entire towns and cities were annihilated. They would have been extremely affected by this, and it would have caused them to be very cautious and even paranoid regarding anything out of the ordinary. The girls’ behavior and Betty being unconscious, and then waking up and behaving peculiarly to say the least, would definitely qualify as abnormal. Wessely also says that this type of chronic mass hysteria “has to be reinforced, at least at the start, by local experts”(Spinney 2). Toward the end of act I, Reverend Hale is called in. He is an expert on witchcraft and confirms Parris’s fears. He is also an outsider, which gives him the advantage of an unbiased reputation and opinion. His word is respected by the village people and only serves to make matters worse.
ReplyDeleteIn the article, "Terror's Hidden Ally," it was dubious that the girls in school that have medical conditions would be affected from mass hysteria. Authorities should have tried to dug deeper into what was really going on. "When the Russian authorities diagnosed mass hysteria, people dismissed this as just more official duplicity." When I read this part, it reminded me of a section in "The Crucible" that was talking about the spread of witchcraft and that the mass hysteria was just like witchcraft. People were babbled on what Tituba did when she actually didn't do anything and could do nothing to prove her innocence. "Hale: Tituba, I want you to wake this child. Tituba: I have no power on this child, sir. Hale: You most certainly do, and you will free her from it now! When did you compact with the devil? Tituba: I don't compact with no devil!" She tries to deny Hale's accusations, but Hale keeps accusing her by asking questions.
DeleteBrandon Farah: I think it is intresting that people can get sick and think they got sick because of poison, but one man went against the croud and said it was just stress. Plus since they got sick they have only show positive reactions to sycological rehibilitations and they have no evidence of posion. Its crazy that people could get that sick from just thinking that they are sick. It connects to the crucible by they have no evidence of witchcraft but yet since most people already think its witchcraft if anyone is on the fence about it/ think something diffrent they they will just jump to witchcraft because people go with the crowd
ReplyDeleteIn article one I read that the brain normally regards deviating from the norm is regarded as a punishiment. This probably explains why Puritans were so easily thrown into such fright when the rumor of witchcraft started circulating due to the group oppinion.
ReplyDeleteAbbie T
ReplyDeleteI wasn't surprised by the article " Why So many Minds Think Alike."It basically is explaining how conformity is played out in day to day life and how strongly it really does affect the creation and ways of a society, which when you really take a moment to reflect on the way you yourself live your life it’s a constant pressure per say that one must in some way give into on a daily basis. One of the things that caught my attention is how in “Why So many Minds Think Alike.” they used female participants for most of these tests. It’s not exactly a huge surprise though when you think about, women in general we care a majority of the time about what other people think of us, we want to fit and be accepted and the only way to do this is to create a concept of conformity and then subside to it. Like what the article says the women once they knew the results most changed their opinion on the pictures because the brain associates with fear and anxiety from the concept of having a different way opinion. This conformity can be seen The Crucible when the girls begin to copy Abigails acts and accusations towards other’s in their community about their strange behaviors and doings.
In “ Terror’s Allie” the article explains that mass hysteria is it’s causes tend to reflect the society’s beliefs, this is greatly found in The Crucible because these people abide by their religion every second of every day, that any said evil by Satan is surely the sign of an Angry God one who which will or is going to punish them. It is also suggested in this article that there are two types of mass hysteria: the first being a small series of events that are quickly happening all the time and then just as quickly disappear once their true origin is revealed. The second, which I dare say reflects Salem during this time , is a more serious long term and widespread event or effect that takes place during a time of copious amounts of social hardship, during which the trust that has been built between the people and their superiors is slowly beginning to degrade. Now one may think that this cannot be Salem from the book it is not a war torn country on the brink of extinction. Which is true it’s not but it is a society in which due their lifestyle people are taught not to show emotion, they are constantly living in fear of not only angering their God and in fear of physical beings such as Natives attacking them, and trying to harvest enough food to eat, they also must always abide by the preacher and the church. All of which is terribly traumatizing, so when something like is happening in The Crucible, something unexplainable comes along, is going to create fear and in order to release these built up emotions that have not been handled in a healthy way, they will create hysteria and it’s going to spread. Of course like I have mentioned before these people turn to Satan and witchcraft because of their Puritan lifestyle and strong fear in a angry God.
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ReplyDeleteWhat i thought was interesting was that Decades of research show people tend to go along with the majority view, even if that view is objectivly incorrect. For example Tituba said stuff about the three witches that wasn't true and she went along with the lie because she didn't want to get whipped or put in a hole.
DeleteI thought that it was interesting how lots of people got sick in Chechnya near Russia. Many people were scared that they got sick because mass hysteria. I thought it was interesting because everyone was bugging out like the people in the book were about the witchcraft stuff. In Chechnya, it was a lot of adolescent girls in a school who were sick and in the play it the three girls who also were teenagers.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteChad Rockwell
ReplyDeleteIn "Why So many Minds Think Alike" I found something interesting. I was fascinated when I read that "their brains produce an error signal." As I thought on it, it made more sense. The human brain takes in knowledge and one way we learn is by watching others, it is how we learn to walk. When our brain sees that others are doing something different than us, it is only doing what it should and is learning whatever the others are doing. I connected this to Betty from The Crucible. In the end of act 1, everyone is accusing people of being witches. Betty joins in and yells out some names in the mix of things.It is just the same as the articles were saying, she heard her sister yelling out names and, believing that she was bewitched, must have then thought that she had also seen witches. She just went with the flow following her sister Abigail. She is young and has been told about witchcraft her whole life. She is doing what other bewitched girls are doing because it seems odd to her to act otherwise. And it is certainly mass hysteria in Salem.
Austine Bodenstab
ReplyDeleteIn Laura Spinneys article, "Terror's Hidden Ally", I think the fact that mass hysteria has been documented from the middle ages to even just recently, in the 9/11 attacks is very interesting. Mass hysteria is common in places where disputes take place, and with people with poor physical and mental health due to anxiety and stress. In the book "The Crucible", the situation going on in Salem, Massachusetts is a perfect place for mass hysteria to start. The people in the town are freaked out by Betty and Ruth's conditions, and so they begin to become anxious and stressed out. Salem is split into Salem town, and Salem village. The people in Salem village are very jealous of the people who live near or in Salem town. Because of this, tensions are very high. This is the perfect place for mass hysteria to begin. Which is why the article, "Terror's hidden Ally" explains further as to the reasoning behind the Salem witch trials.
Maeve Gurbey
ReplyDeleteLaura Spinney's article "Terror’s Hidden Ally" interested me because it discussed mass hysteria and how it is caused. One thing that intrigued me was the conditions that spark these events. Communities that are, "ravaged by war, with poor health and anxiety," are areas that are more likely to initiate mass hysteria. When I thought about the conditions in Salem during the witchcraft trials I began to realize why it was possible that this mass hysteria could have started. At this time, Puritans from Salem were facing similar problems with their daily lives. These people had to worry about epidemics killing their families, disputes between Salem Town and Salem Village, and being able to support themselves. Another point from Laura Spinney's article that I thought could relate to "The Crucible" was that mainly adolescent girls were associated with the mass hysteria. In "The Crucible" Abigail Williams and Betty Parris are two out of the three people that made accusations of witchcraft. I think that mass hysteria correlates with adolescent girls because they do not understand the effects of their accusations. I believe that later in the novel these two young girls will realize what they have done and regret it.
I thought it was interesting how in article 2, an imaginary symptom got numerous people actually sick. The tough lifestyle that these people had to go through turned the community into powder keg ready to go off at any slight nudge. The anxiety of there poor girls was enough to cause mass hysteria believing that they were poisoned by the Russians. This relates to The Crucible because once witchcraft was mentioned, everyone lost their minds and actually believed that what they imagined was in fact reality.
ReplyDeleteIn the article "Why So many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau it was very intreging. When the passage says, "When people hold an opinion differeing from others in a group, their brains produce an error signal, while the "reward area" slows down, making us think we are too different." I can relate to this because when I think that I know that something is right and dead set on that answer but someone else says something different I begin to second guess myself. The "oops area" of my brain then makes me question to myself that my thinking was wrong all along. Sometimes I do infact change my answer/opinion because I don't want to be the odd one out. It has to do with fitting in and not being different. Nobody wants to be that one person who doesn't agree with the rest of the group so their mind forces them go along with everyone else even if they aren't sure that it is the right answer. Some parts have to do with fear, people tend to get scared when they have different opinions, it also has to do with the want to be accepted. This is relatable to The Crucible because when Abigail confesses about witchcraft right after Tituba does then in that very moment all of the girls in Betty's bedroom start shouting out the names of innocent girls, so that then they can convict them. They do this because they're not going to go against the denial of conjuring spirts if people have already admitted to it, then they will look likes liars or insane. All those girls are trying to fit in, and by going along with this they are able to be apart of the group of girls in which the minister is trying to "help".
ReplyDeleteMarcus Charland
ReplyDeleteIn the article I thought it was interesting when the people thought that they were sick after something strange was mentioned to the people in the article they suddenly got sick unlike in the book were some people were also getting sick when they got scared from getting caught and also from people saying it is which craft
I thought that it was interesting how lots of people got sick in Chechnya near Russia. "In December 2005 pupils and teachers at a school in the Shelkovsk region of chechya reported that they were suffering respiratory difficulties, seizures and faiting." Many people were scared that they got sick but it was really mass hysteria. I thought it was interesting because everyone was bugging out like the people in the book were about the witchcraft stuff. In Chechnya, it was a lot of adolescent girls in a school who were sick and in the play it the three girls who also were teenagers. In the book Abby and her friends were caught dancing in the woods. To cover it up they made up an entire story of witch craft. they didnt want to say that they were just dancing in the woods so they just lied. they wouldnt go against each other.
ReplyDeleteI believe that people conform to the majority group because of they are unsure of their own opinion and dont want to be wrong. my example is Mary Warren from the book the crucible, the reason i believe that she conforms is because she is apart of Abigails group and she is very easly influenced by people around here and it makes it worse especially when she has a whole group of over exaggrators like Abigail. It is easily believable for a girl like Mary when she is confused on her own opinion so she just follows the ones nearby her which is a bunch of fakers.
ReplyDeleteOwen McKinney
Haley Bialobzeski
ReplyDeleteIn the article "Why So many Minds Think Alike" by Elizabeth Landau, I thought it was puzzling when it said people look to the group because they're unsure of what to do, and that people go along with the norm because they are afraid of being different. Which is so stupid cause you should think for yourself. In Act 1 of "The Crucible" when Tituba and the girls were in the woods. The girls were coping what Tituba was saying and was listening to her, like they didn't have minds of there own.
Taylor Marshall:
ReplyDelete"Why so many Minds Think Alike: by Elizabeth Landau, I found this article was very relatable. "People go with the norm because they are afraid of being different." And also that people look to others because they are unsure of what to do. I am deffinently like this. I may have my own opinion on something and others might have a different view on it. Before i tell them my opinion i hear there's and I second guess myself. Or I can be afraid to speak up in front of people because i feel as if my answers are incorrect and different from everyone else. The brain produces an error signal in the part of the brain called the "oops area" while the "reward area" slows down. And that's why I think my opinions/answers on something are too different. Dr. Gregory Berns found that brain mechanisms associated with fear and anxiety do play a part in situations where a person feels his or her opinion goes against the grain. An example i feel fits this in "The Crucible" is when Abigail tells all the girls that they didnt do anything but dance in the woods and that Tituba was the one conjuring spirits. Marry Warren knows that it is wrong to throw Tituba "Under the buss" because everyone took a part in it too. But Marry didn't want to go "Against the grain" and be the only one who doesn't agree to the rest of the girls.