Uncategorized

“Obliviate”:The Secrets Behind the Memory Charm

/ lovegoodveritaserum / Leave a comment

The Memory Charm plays an important role in “Harry Potter” plotlines, but what are the limits of its powers? Is it consistent with how memory functions in the real world? Check out my newest MuggleNet post to find out!

http://www.mugglenet.com/2018/05/obliviate-the-secrets-behind-the-memory-charm/

Hermione’s Moral Development: From Good Girl to Activist

/ lovegoodveritaserum / Leave a comment

Check out my newest MuggleNet post analyzing Hermione’s moral development through the theories of cognitive scientist Lawrence Kohlberg. Hermione may start out as a teacher’s pet, but over time she learns to break the rules in order to protect not only her friends, but also the wider wizarding community.

http://www.mugglenet.com/2018/03/hermiones-moral-development-from-good-girl-to-activist/

 

The Magic of Memory: A Peek Inside the Pensieve

/ lovegoodveritaserum / Leave a comment

The Pensieve is, in my opinion, one of the magical world’s most fascinating inventions, because it appears to break not only laws of the physical world, but also laws of the human psyche.

My first question about the Pensieve is: when a person removes a memory from his or her head to put in the Pensieve, are they still able to access it in their minds? Snape’s Occlumency lessons with Harry in OOTP make me want to say no. Before each of Harry’s lessons, Snape removes three memories from his head and places them in the Pensieve, presumably to protect his privacy if the Legilimency backfires (as it does when Harry uses the Protego charm). On a second glance, however, this doesn’t make much sense. In Harry’s lessons with Dumbledore, the two of them discuss Dumbledore’s memories while the memories are in the Pensieve, not in Dumbledore’s head. This would be quite difficult to do if Dumbledore could not remember anything about the memories that he put within the Pensieve. It would also be significantly harder for him to convince witches and wizards like Bob Ogden or Hepzibah Smith to part with their memories if they would have complete amnesia of the event.

Another aspect of the Pensieve that confuses me is that the Pensieve rebels against the laws of how memory works. Psychology tells us that memories are not purely accurate representations of events that have happened in the past. We tend to remember only the gist of an event, and fill in the details based on our expectations of what should have been there. The original trace fades, and as we recall events and retell stories, more and more of our memory becomes fabricated and simplified. The Pensieve, however, shows events exactly how they occurred, with all the surrounding details and even sometimes more. Harry, for example, is able to listen to his father’s entire conversation with his friends even though Snape, whose memory it was, probably did not hear it (Snape’s Worst Memory, OOTP). The Pensieve also shows us events not through the perspective of the person who experienced it, which would make sense if it was a true memory, but through the perspective of a third party. Admittedly, there are some people who see their own memories through an observer perspective, but the observer in the Pensieve is an independent actor who is not always focusing on the person whose memory it is.

We are given one situation where a memory in the Pensieve is not purely accurate.This memory is Professor Slughorn’s recollection of telling Tom Riddle about Horcruxes. It is common for people, over time to attempt to recall uncomfortable memories of themselves in a more flattering light. Slughorn’s version of this, however, is not particularly normal. His involves thick white fog and loud, booming voices, which are not features that people typically incorporate into their memories. Dumbledore describes this as, “[Slughorn] has tried to rework the memory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish me to see. It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations” (A Sluggish Memory, OOTP). This description of Slughorn changing his memory makes me think that Slughorn did not “rework” his memory in a normal, natural way, but rather tampered with it through magic. When Harry finally gets Slughorn’s “true memory” it is just as accurate as any other memory they have viewed in the Pensieve.

All of this evidence convinces me that the Pensieve does not actually deal with memories, at least in the way that we think about and experience our memories. It is far more magical than that. The Pensieve accesses a moment in time, one that we happened to be a part of, and recreates that moment in time for us to watch. This makes me believe that, as far as the Pensieve is concerned, people are able to put this exact recreation of an event into a Pensieve and still keep their own biased, limited, inaccurate perspective. They are not able to access the accurate version of events without the help of a Pensieve, but they are able to relive their own memories within their head whenever they want.

What are the implications for this theory, then, on how Legilimency works? If Snape was trying to protect himself from Harry’s intrusions by putting the true, accurate “memories” in the Pensieve, then that suggests that Legilimency does not access our own changed, subjective accounts, but rather something more fundamental underneath. There is some evidence to support this view. During Harry’s Occlumency lessons we are told that he is forced to “relive a stream of very early memories he had not even realized he still had” (Seen and Unforeseen, OOTP). If these memories are early enough, it is possible that Harry would not be able to consciously or accurately recall them by himself. However, through Legilimency, or the Pensieve, he is able to “relive” them. When Harry breaks into Snape’s mind and observes his memories he is, once again, from an outsider perspective, watching young Snape, in a way that is similar to the Pensieve. If Legilimency is, after all, allowing access into the purer form of memory, then it is potentially even more dangerous as a weapon, treating the mind like a Pensieve of its own.

On Pottermore, JK Rowling has written about the history of the Pensieve, but she has not addressed any of my questions about how it works. We would need more information from Rowling herself to know if my theory is correct.

pensieve

Hogwarts Houses and Big Five Personality

/ lovegoodveritaserum / 1 Comment

In psychology there are five main traits that researchers argue make up the human personality. These traits are Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and Extraversion. Since the Hogwarts Houses are supposed to sort people based on their personalities, I decided to see if I could match combinations of these traits to the four houses.

First, a full description of the five traits:

Conscientiousness: Conscientious individuals are highly organized, and have a strong commitment to their duties. They are highly self-disciplined and pursue perfection in everything they do. They often make plans in advance and think before acting.

Agreeableness: Agreeable people are trusting, selfless, and often defer to others instead of pushing for their own desires. This is often divided into two factors: compassion and politeness.

Neuroticism: High neuroticism is characterized by a tendency to become anxious, hostile, sad, or embarrassed. In short, it involves being predisposed to experience negative emotions, and to be ing more emotionally reactive to situations.

Openness: Openness is possibly the most difficult trait to characterize. It involves openness to fantasy, a sensitivity to art and beauty, and curiosity about learning new ideas and values and trying new things.

Extraversion: People who are high in extraversion tend to desire lots of social stimulation, activity, and excitement. Other facets of extraversion include assertiveness, and a predisposition towards positive emotions.

If, as some personality researchers claim, all personality differences can be explained by these five traits, then the Hogwarts Houses should map onto these traits as well. In fact, it’s easy to see how they might.

Gryffindor: Gryffindors are known for their bravery and daring. This often manifests itself in reckless stunts, but Gryffindors usually have a big heart as well. It appears, therefore, that Gryffindors are probably high in the assertiveness and excitement-seeking areas of Extraversion. They are probably fairly high in the compassionate and selfless aspects of Agreeableness as well.

Ravenclaw: Ravenclaws are known for their sharp minds, and also their creativity. These traits connect fairly clearly to Conscientiousness and Openness. Ravenclaws work hard to complete their work, and are very academically focused. However, they are also characterized by curiosity, fantasy, and openness to ideas (think Luna Lovegood). Some Ravenclaws may be higher in one of these traits than the other.

Hufflepuff: Hufflepuffs are, quite obviously, very high in Agreeableness. They are selfless, welcome everyone into their group, and are unlikely to push others out of the way for what they want.There is some evidence that Hufflepuffs may also be high in Conscientiousness, based on the description of them as hardworking. As a result of the all-inclusive nature of Hufflepuff, however, the people in this house probably have an eclectic variety of traits.

Slytherin: Slytherins are known for their cunning, ambition, and willingness to do whatever necessary to get what they want. Slytherins are probably high is the assertiveness aspects of Extraversion, and low in Agreeableness. Gryffindors and Slytherins, therefore, are not too dissimilar, just scoring on opposite ends of agreeableness.

Neuroticism appears to be a trait that is not connected to any one house in particular, but is equally spread out among the four houses. This is probably a good thing, as a house filled with highly neurotic individuals would probably not fare well.

Any good scientist, however, has to test her hypotheses. Therefore, I decided to take Big Five personality tests from the perspectives of different Harry Potter characters. Although I did not test enough characters to come to conclusive results, I did observe enough to modify some of my earlier statements. Gryffindors, I found, are on the whole not particularly high in Agreeableness. The personality test I used was not refined enough to detect the differences between the two aspects of Agreeableness, but my guess is that Gryffindors are compassionate, but very low in politeness. This makes sense, as Gryffindors are known for doing the right thing with little regard for whether it upsets social norms or ruffles the feathers of important people. In fact, it might be Gryffindors’ very lack of politeness that allows them to be so brave. Slytherins, on the other hand, may sometimes be higher on the politeness aspect of Agreeableness. Like Tom Riddle, they often know how to be charming in order to get what they want.

Personality psychology does use questionnaires taken by friends to assess individual’s personalities, and considering how often I have read the books I consider myself like a friend to these characters. However, some of the traits were more difficult to assess for some characters than others, and my answers were based on my own interpretation of the characters. Below are the scores I found for each character, but other people might get different results. If you are interested in testing these out yourself, feel free to contact me and I can send you the materials I used.

2017-03-19 14-35-22017-03-19 14-35-2

2017-03-19 14-35-22017-03-19 14-35-2
Costa, P.T. & McCrae, R.R. (2003). Personality in Adulthood: A Five-Factor Theory Perspective, The Guilford Press, NY. 2nd ed. 47-50