Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Predicting Season 31 Second Chance Cast

Following the conclusion of Season 30's live reunion, Season 31 Second Chance cast will be announced. The potentials for next season encompass all returnees from Survivor's classic seasons to modern seasons. For the past two weeks, I have been voting online for castaways who I think should play in Season 31. Below are the ten men and ten women voted by yours truly to play, hopefully.

10 Men for Season 31: Second Chance

  • Jim Rice
  • Keith Nale
  • Shane Powers
  • Stephen Fishbach
  • Jeff Varner
  • Spencer Bledsoe
  • Troyzan Robertson
  • Terry Deitz
  • Andrew Savage
  • Vtas Baskauskas

10 Women for Season 31: Second Chance

  • Kass McQuillen
  • Monica Padilla
  • Natalie Tenerelli
  • Sabrina Thompson
  • Tasha Fox
  • Teresa T-bird Cooper
  • Kelley Wentworth
  • Kelly Wigglesworth
  • Kimmi Kappenberg

From these ten men and ten women, my favorites to win are Kass McQuillen and Spencer Bledsoe due to their blossoming rivalry dating back to Season 28 Cagayan. Either way, this season should be not only entertaining, but also intriguing to watch for many reasons.

--Corey

Prediction for Survivor 30 Winner

Once again, another season of Survivor is drawing to a conclusion. So, a final prediction is well in order for predicting who will become the Sole Survivor for Season 30 Worlds Apart. Last year, I correctly predicted that Natalie Anderson would win due to her actions taken during Season 29 along with her game play at the end. With that mind, here is my prediction for Season 30.

With just five castaways left, the obvious two choices, Mike and Carolyn, are the favorites to win. They have both won the majority of the immunity and reward challenges after the merge. However, each must win the final two immunity challenges in order to have a change to make it to the Final Tribal since they are the strongest players left at this point. This means if either Mike or Carolyn lose one of the final challenges, he or she will be voted out. In contrast, Will and Sierra are the weakest of the five remaining players. This would mean that they are not pressured to win, but in effect, able to lose both challenges and still make the Final Tribal Council due to their weaker game play, physical and strategic. Will and Sierra are most likely to be taken to the final three by either Mike and Carolyn which would make one of the stronger players, again, the winner and sole survivor. Will and Sierra may receive a vote or two for their efforts, but, in the end, it won't matter for either one of them.

Then, there is Rodney. The guy who has been imprisoned, or so to say, at camp escameca for the entire season. Besides winning a steak at the auction, Rodney has endured a unique journey when compared to the others this season, mentally and physically. He has not won any reward challenges nor taken part in any of them. A common visual of Rodney is his presence sitting in one of the camp chairs staring at the fire or eating a small portion of rice. His sitting at camp metaphorically represents his sitting on the sidelines of a basketball game or on a football field. This metaphor was developed earlier in the season by Rodney who suggested he was similar to the great Michael Jordan and Tom Brady for describing his game play. While attempting to vote out his number one nemesis Mike, Rodney has formed sub-alliances only to be denied by Mike winning immunity challenges. From the above statements and story line, my prediction is that Rodney will overcome Mike and then Carolyn for going on to win Sole Survivor this season. Rodney only needs to win one immunity challenge, the last one, to defeat either Carolyn or Mike, to go on to plead his underdog case in front of the jury. Undeniably, he receives more votes than Sierra and Will who receive, second and third places, respectively. Boston Rod's win solidifies his sports metaphors dictated earlier, his white air jordans worn, and his place among the other twenty-eight sole survivor winners as he becomes the twenty-ninth winner.

--Corey

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Survivor San Juan del Sur Winner Prediction

Keeping to my tradition of predicting a Survivor winner, I will attempt to offer evidence for who will win tonight's Sole Survivor title.

Throughout the last twelve weeks, the Survivor editors have been inconspicuously dropping visual hints that Natalie, one of the twinnies, will win this season. Early in the season, Natalie was shown finding the controversial lost flint which was an early plot point unbeknownst to most viewers and yours truly. Next, while sending everyone else at camp to collect water, Natalie took the initiative to find a hidden immunity idol buried by the campfire for someone to find eventually. Moreover, when confronted by this season's anti-hero, Jon, Natalie not only saved Jon by telling him to play his idol, but also beat him in a vase balancing challenge.

Adding to her winner's resume, Natalie then proceeded to deceive Jon and Jaclyn by saying she would vote out Keith, but instead voting out Alec which obviously frustrated Jon and Jaclyn after the vote. She then planned and implemented a plan to blindside Jon by splitting the votes and then easily voting out Jon from the revote. Enhancing her resume, many times Natalie's conversations were visually presented in subtitles to viewers which is used as an important moment by the editors for conveying not only what is happening, but also a pivotal moment in the game.

Finally, while at Exile Island, Natalie offers an emotional loneliness from not being with her twin sister for more than thirty days which pulls on the emotional strings of viewers. Script writers love to use this type of emotional mechanism against viewers for touching a broad range of emotions during a major motion picture, documentary, or other type of film production.

From the above evidence I provided, Natalie's winner montage will include all of the above moments I mentioned, if not more, when she is eventually crowned Season 29 Blood versus Water San Juan del Sur winner tonite as the Sole Survivor. This is my prediction.

--Corey

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Psychology of Survivor

Last week, the latest installment of the show Survivor began its 29th season shot in Nicaragua. This season's theme is Blood versus Water which matches up loved ones to compete for the one million grand prize. My fascination with the show stems back to my high school days where I was introduced to the book, The Lord of the Flies (LOTF) by William Golding. Golding's book mesmerized me then and still does today, which explains why I continue to be fascinated by Survivor, a show based on my all-time favorite book LOTF.

From my recent graduate studies, I was lucky to have studied psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for humans and animals. Maslow suggested all humans are motivated to satisfy their basic needs of food, shelter, excretion, homeostasis, breathing, water, sex, and sleep. After these lower level needs are satisfied, Maslow posit that other levels are then sought after by humans. The other levels are safety, social, esteem, and then finally self-actualization. Coincidentally, the players in Survivor attempt to satisfy these same needs suggested by Maslow's model throughout the show.

In an effort to enjoy watching this season while applying Maslow's psychological work, I developed a pilot fantasy scoring game. Somewhat similar to scoring in fantasy football, game players draft castaways on their teams for earning points during the season. The fantasy game player or tribal owner who accumulates the most points at the end of the season wins the game. My goal is to develop the fantasy game in HTML5 for eventually using as an educational tool in the classroom. To start out, the following is an alpha version of the scoring breakdown for the physiology level:

Physiology Points: Breathing, Food, Water, Sex, Sleep, Homeostasis, Excretion

  • +1 Player attempts to start fire.
  • +1 Player starts fire.
  • -1 Player puts out fire.
  • +1 Player looks for water.
  • +1 Player boils water.
  • +1 Player collects water.
  • -1 Player dumps out water of another.
  • +1 Player drinks water.
  • +1 Player eats food.
  • -1 Player wastes food.
  • -1 Player hides food from another.
  • -1 Player throws away food.
  • +1 Player fishes for food.
  • +1 Player gathers fruits.
  • +1 Player gathers wood.
  • +1 Player hunts for food.
  • +1 Player builds shelter.
  • -1 Player destroys shelter.
  • -1 Player burns down shelter.
  • +1 Player sleeps.
  • -1 Player is sleep deprived.
  • -1 Player is dehydrated.
  • +1 Player excretes.
  • -1 Player cannot excrete.
  • -1 Player loses tool.
  • -1 Player breaks tool.
  • As the show continues from week to week, I plan to post updates on the progress of the game.

    --Corey