Steven Strange's Short Answers To Dr. Strange

1.Over the weekend, I went and saw “Doctor Strange”. There is a scene where Steven Strange walks into a monastery in order to learn a special mystical art of healing from The Ancient One. He steps into a room and sees an old Chinese man in robes. This man is reading a book and has the very stereotypical ‘spiritual guide’ look. Dr. Strange automatically assumes this man is The Ancient One simply because his appearance matches Strange’s preconceived notion of what a spiritual authority would look like, much as many people assign authority to people because of what they think authority looks like as described in Robert Cialdini’s Six Factors of Social Influence. In reality, the man was a student and The Ancient One was actually a woman.

2.My dogs always get very excited when my dad comes home from work. In this case, my dad coming home is the unconditioned stimulus, and my dogs getting excited that he is home is the unconditioned response. Whenever my dogs hear a car pulling into the driveway, it usually signals my dad’s arrival and thus, the dogs get very excited. The noise of a car pulling into the driveway is the conditioned stimulus. If my dad is not home anytime a car pulls into the driveway, my dogs get very excited (conditioned response) regardless of whether it is my dad or not.
It is a grim satire of our modern and future reliance on technology. In the episode White Bear, a woman wakes up with no idea who she is. When she attempts to go outside to get help, everyone she sees is simply watching her through their phones, recording her every move but refusing to interact with or help her. This is clearly pointing out a typical reaction of people today: when others need help, oftentimes those in large crowds choose to ignore the calls for help in exchange for recording the event on their phones, believing that someone else will be the one to provide the help needed. This is an example of bystander