The Kind of Reader I Am

4. East Indians described the Africans as "impulsive hedonists who were always living for the moment and never thought of the future" while the Africans described the East Indians as people who "didn't know how to live and would stuff money in their mattress and never enjoy themselves" (51).

Interactionism- if a child is teased by a peer, he will become aggressive 

Strategic allocation of attention- instead of becoming obsessed with the "hot stimulus", the subject instead finds a way to distract his or herself until the prize is forgotten. 

Metacognition- thinking about thinking; what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings 

Working Memory- the relatively limited amount of information that we are able to consciously consider at any given moment 

Self Control- an ability to direct the spotlight of attention so that our decisions aren't determined by the wrong thoughts 

Frontal Cortex- the overhang of brain between the eyes

Dopamine Passageways- neurotransmitters believed to regulate both motivation and attention

These definitions vary from shorter and less detailed to longer and more specific. It depends on the context in which the definition is found. For a few of them I had to use the context clues around the words, while for others it stated the definition directly after the words. The descriptions of the Africans and East Indians were actually a quote spoken by Mischel. In aggregate this sequence shows the various scientific and anatomical approaches that researchers are taking toward the concept of self-control and delayed gratification.


5. I definitely have found metaphors in this text, and I'm not surprised that they were there. While scientific writing is obviously different from poetry or romantic writing, it still incorporates some of the same elements, such as metaphor.