So it is the final blog of Intro to Psychology 2018!!!
I have had so much fun in this class learning about psychology and all of the basics behind me. TO be honest I was not very excited that I was required to take this class, little did I know how much I would learn and take from it. Also, fun fact, I am now picking up a minor in psychology (; This class has helped me grow not only in my education and the way I learn but also as a person so here is some information about the highlights of what I learned and did throughout this semester!
We created our first blog about ourselves and discovering ourselves.
I had never written a blog before so this being introduced to us was very cool and interesting to learn about. I enjoyed writing the first blog because it took us through how to set up our blog and then I got to talk about myself and all of the important things in my life. During week two we went over what psychology was and why people choose to be psychologists. Psychology is the scientific study of how people behave think and feel. Psychologists study everything about the human experience from the way the brain works to personality and personality and mental health.
I have had so much fun in this class learning about psychology and all of the basics behind me. TO be honest I was not very excited that I was required to take this class, little did I know how much I would learn and take from it. Also, fun fact, I am now picking up a minor in psychology (; This class has helped me grow not only in my education and the way I learn but also as a person so here is some information about the highlights of what I learned and did throughout this semester!
Week 1 and 2-Getting to know me
We created our first blog about ourselves and discovering ourselves.I had never written a blog before so this being introduced to us was very cool and interesting to learn about. I enjoyed writing the first blog because it took us through how to set up our blog and then I got to talk about myself and all of the important things in my life. During week two we went over what psychology was and why people choose to be psychologists. Psychology is the scientific study of how people behave think and feel. Psychologists study everything about the human experience from the way the brain works to personality and personality and mental health.
Learning about psychology helps to better understand ourselves and to understand other people and groups. Psychology can help a person get motivated, improve leadership skills, become a better communicator, make more accurate decisions, and get better grades. Psychologists and Psychiatrists differ. While psychologists deal with people in their everyday lives to help them function better an prevent the development of problems in mental and physical health, psychiatrists are medical doctors who specialize in the treatment of mental illnesses which means that they can prescribe drugs for treatment.
The 4 main types of psychology we talked about were developmental psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and abnormal psychology. For this blog we talked about an interest we had in psychology which was a lot of fun to do because we got to relate it to something in our personal lives which made leaning about these topics more interesting.
During this module we learned about understanding the brain, biology and behavior and explored sensation and perception processes.We learned about the nervous system and the surrounding systems. The nervous system consists of the brain, spinal cord, sensory organs and all of the nerves that connect these organs with the rest of the body. The two parts of the nervous system include the central nervous system which directs mental and basic life processes and the peripheral nervous system which carries information to and from the central nervous system.
I thought it was really interesting to learn different facts about the brain. It weighs about 3 pounds which takes up about 2% of the total body weight. And our brain is made up of 5% water. At birth our brain was the same size that it is as an adult and contains all of the brain cells that you will use throughout your life
This section of psychology that we talked about was very interesting to me because I have a brain disorder so it was cool to get to learn more about the different parts of the brain and how they work and interact to make the body work.
We watched a video in class showing the stages of prenatal development which I found very interestinain sensory and perceptual development occurs. This is when hearing is developed (with preference for mother's voice) as well as smell, taste touch and pain.
We also talked about cognitive development and Piagets stages. His four stages were sensorimotor (0-2 years), preoperational (2-6 years), concrete operational (7-12 years) and formal operational (12 years-adult)
We performed the nature-nurture question to test if an animal or humans behavior was based on the way they were raised or the environment in which they grew up in. I found when testing this that it is a combination of both. The environment you
g because it was cool to see how just a ball of cells can turn into a living, breathing human.
During early childhood is when main motor development occurs which is the orderly, observable emergence of active movement skills. Early childhood is also when m
grow up in affects the way in which you behave but so does your family and parents.
In week 6 we talked about personality. For the experiential task for this module we did a personality character assessment which I found very interesting because we got to look into different age groups and see how their personality changes with time and age.
Week 7 and 8-Learning and Memory
For this module our objectives were understanding learning theories and principles as well as exploring human memory mechanisms.
We looked into the science behind learning like theories and models, personal learning and
real-world applications of learning.
Learning is the process by which life experience causes change in the behavior or thinking of a person or organism.
We did our blog in this section over a specific type of learning and I did mine over classical conditioning. This theory was discovered by Pavlov. Classical conditioning is a form of learning in which animals or people make connection between two stimuli that have occurred together.
One of the examples we looked at over this kind of learning was a baby that began to associate certain colors with certain emotions. Usually the baby would associate yellow with happiness and black with depression.
Week 8 we focused on memory. Memory is the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information.
This was by far my favorite experimental task that we did. We read a list of words to someone and then when we finished the list we had them write down as many words as they could remember. This showed something called false memory which is when we think something is there or happened but it did not.
There was one list we read off that had a bunch of words relating to medicine and hospital. Almost everyone I did this test to wrote down the word needle even though that was not part of the list because they associated it with medicine and the hospital.
This was also one of my favorite blogs that we did. We had to write a blog over an inspirational or emotional story of someone we know or are close to. This one was very emotional for me because I wrote a blog about someone very close to me and how they were going down the wrong path but found God and changed their life around
We talked about “Multiculturalism” which is the coexistence of diverse cultures and one’s ability to gain a deeper understanding of differences and shared commonalities.
An emotion is a mental and physiological feeling state that directs our attention and guides our behavior. There are many things that can affect someone's emotions like other people or events that take place throughout a person’s life.
Motivations are closely related to emotions. A motivation is a driving force that initiates and directs behavior. Some motivations are biological, such as the motivation of food, water and sex. But there are a variety of other personal and social motivation that can influence behavior including motivations for social approval and acceptance.
There are three theories that we talked about in class. The James-Lange theory which states that an automatic response precede and cause subjective emotional experience. The Schachter-Singer Theory states that an emotion is the result of cognitive interpretation of non specific arousal. The last theory we talked about was the Cannon-Bard theory which states that there are special areas in the brain that interpret emotional situations.
Social psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. We discussed the social behavior of individuals, group, and entire societies as well as the influences that our relationships to theses entities have on us as individuals.
Social cognition is studying how we think about and interpret ourselves and others and we often make snap judgements about people without fully getting to know them or even talk to them.
The 4 main types of psychology we talked about were developmental psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and abnormal psychology. For this blog we talked about an interest we had in psychology which was a lot of fun to do because we got to relate it to something in our personal lives which made leaning about these topics more interesting.
Week 3 and 4- Brain, sensation and perception
During this module we learned about understanding the brain, biology and behavior and explored sensation and perception processes.We learned about the nervous system and the surrounding systems. The nervous system consists of the brain, spinal cord, sensory organs and all of the nerves that connect these organs with the rest of the body. The two parts of the nervous system include the central nervous system which directs mental and basic life processes and the peripheral nervous system which carries information to and from the central nervous system. I thought it was really interesting to learn different facts about the brain. It weighs about 3 pounds which takes up about 2% of the total body weight. And our brain is made up of 5% water. At birth our brain was the same size that it is as an adult and contains all of the brain cells that you will use throughout your life
This section of psychology that we talked about was very interesting to me because I have a brain disorder so it was cool to get to learn more about the different parts of the brain and how they work and interact to make the body work.
Week 5 and 6-Developmental Psychology and Personality
Week five we talked about developmental psychology which is the study of age-related changes in behavior and mental processes and stages of growth from conception to death.We watched a video in class showing the stages of prenatal development which I found very interestinain sensory and perceptual development occurs. This is when hearing is developed (with preference for mother's voice) as well as smell, taste touch and pain.
We also talked about cognitive development and Piagets stages. His four stages were sensorimotor (0-2 years), preoperational (2-6 years), concrete operational (7-12 years) and formal operational (12 years-adult)
We performed the nature-nurture question to test if an animal or humans behavior was based on the way they were raised or the environment in which they grew up in. I found when testing this that it is a combination of both. The environment you
g because it was cool to see how just a ball of cells can turn into a living, breathing human.
During early childhood is when main motor development occurs which is the orderly, observable emergence of active movement skills. Early childhood is also when m
grow up in affects the way in which you behave but so does your family and parents.
In week 6 we talked about personality. For the experiential task for this module we did a personality character assessment which I found very interesting because we got to look into different age groups and see how their personality changes with time and age.
Week 7 and 8-Learning and Memory We looked into the science behind learning like theories and models, personal learning and
real-world applications of learning.
Learning is the process by which life experience causes change in the behavior or thinking of a person or organism.
We did our blog in this section over a specific type of learning and I did mine over classical conditioning. This theory was discovered by Pavlov. Classical conditioning is a form of learning in which animals or people make connection between two stimuli that have occurred together.
One of the examples we looked at over this kind of learning was a baby that began to associate certain colors with certain emotions. Usually the baby would associate yellow with happiness and black with depression.
Week 8 we focused on memory. Memory is the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information.
This was by far my favorite experimental task that we did. We read a list of words to someone and then when we finished the list we had them write down as many words as they could remember. This showed something called false memory which is when we think something is there or happened but it did not.
There was one list we read off that had a bunch of words relating to medicine and hospital. Almost everyone I did this test to wrote down the word needle even though that was not part of the list because they associated it with medicine and the hospital.
Week 10 and 11- Motivations, Emotions and Social Psychology
This was also one of my favorite blogs that we did. We had to write a blog over an inspirational or emotional story of someone we know or are close to. This one was very emotional for me because I wrote a blog about someone very close to me and how they were going down the wrong path but found God and changed their life aroundWe talked about “Multiculturalism” which is the coexistence of diverse cultures and one’s ability to gain a deeper understanding of differences and shared commonalities.
An emotion is a mental and physiological feeling state that directs our attention and guides our behavior. There are many things that can affect someone's emotions like other people or events that take place throughout a person’s life.
Motivations are closely related to emotions. A motivation is a driving force that initiates and directs behavior. Some motivations are biological, such as the motivation of food, water and sex. But there are a variety of other personal and social motivation that can influence behavior including motivations for social approval and acceptance.
There are three theories that we talked about in class. The James-Lange theory which states that an automatic response precede and cause subjective emotional experience. The Schachter-Singer Theory states that an emotion is the result of cognitive interpretation of non specific arousal. The last theory we talked about was the Cannon-Bard theory which states that there are special areas in the brain that interpret emotional situations.
Social psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. We discussed the social behavior of individuals, group, and entire societies as well as the influences that our relationships to theses entities have on us as individuals.
Social cognition is studying how we think about and interpret ourselves and others and we often make snap judgements about people without fully getting to know them or even talk to them.
Psychopathology and Psychotherapy
In this module we talked about different mental disorders and how common they are among American populations, especially adults.
Mental disorders affect one in four people worldwide and around 450 million people currently suffer from mental health conditions. Mental health conditions are among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide.
Abnormal behavior is patterns of behaviors, thoughts or emotions that are considered
pathological (diseased or disordered) There is four criteria for diagnosing abnormal behavior which include deviance, dysfunction, distress and danger.
It was interesting to talk and learn about the different methods that were used in the middle and stone ages to treat mental health disorders that now a days would seem inhumane. In the stone age they used demon possession in which they bore a hole in the skull (trephining) to release evil spirits and in the middle ages they used exorcism. During the renaissance witchcraft was treated by torture, imprisonment and death.
In 1792 Philip Pinel created the medical model which was the diagnostic perspective that assumes the diseases have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated and possibly cured. This theory gave rise to psychiatry which is the branch of medicine that deals with diagnosis, treatment and prevention of medical disorders.
In class we did a depression and anxiety test to see how we scored on the report. When it came to depression I scored a very low score, I believe that I live a moderately happy life and am not depressed but the anxiety test definitely shocked me. I scored pretty high on that one in relation to Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I do not necessarily have anxiety all of the time but it spikes more when I have big events coming up like tests.
This blog task was interesting because I interviewed two different people in my life that both had anxiety and compared their symptoms. It was very interesting because I picked someone my age along with my mom and compared the way they go about their lives to see if there were any major differences.
I really enjoyed this module because we talked about positive psychology.
For this blog we picked 3 good things that happened to us throughout the day and wrote about them and why they made us feel good. We did this for a week and recorded them at the end of the day. I found that this task really helped to ensure happiness because in life we can get way too focused on the negatives in our lives and we forget to focus on what makes us happy.
The group that did their activity I though had a really good one. They had us write out 10 good things that have happened to us lately. After we finished writing those out they had us write down 3 bad things for every good thing we wrote down. He had said something about how the average American can come up with 3 bad things for every good thing that happens in their life.
It is so easy to get caught up in the things that go wrong and it can feel like we are living under a rain cloud but at the same time we tend to adapt to the good things and people in our lives and take them for granted.
This module helped me to remember the good things and not ignore the negatives but not let them control my life. It is a habit that can change the emotional tone of your life, replacing feeling of disappointment or entitlement with those of gratitude.
Abnormal behavior is patterns of behaviors, thoughts or emotions that are considered
pathological (diseased or disordered) There is four criteria for diagnosing abnormal behavior which include deviance, dysfunction, distress and danger.
It was interesting to talk and learn about the different methods that were used in the middle and stone ages to treat mental health disorders that now a days would seem inhumane. In the stone age they used demon possession in which they bore a hole in the skull (trephining) to release evil spirits and in the middle ages they used exorcism. During the renaissance witchcraft was treated by torture, imprisonment and death.
In 1792 Philip Pinel created the medical model which was the diagnostic perspective that assumes the diseases have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated and possibly cured. This theory gave rise to psychiatry which is the branch of medicine that deals with diagnosis, treatment and prevention of medical disorders.
In class we did a depression and anxiety test to see how we scored on the report. When it came to depression I scored a very low score, I believe that I live a moderately happy life and am not depressed but the anxiety test definitely shocked me. I scored pretty high on that one in relation to Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I do not necessarily have anxiety all of the time but it spikes more when I have big events coming up like tests.
This blog task was interesting because I interviewed two different people in my life that both had anxiety and compared their symptoms. It was very interesting because I picked someone my age along with my mom and compared the way they go about their lives to see if there were any major differences.
Positive Psychology
I really enjoyed this module because we talked about positive psychology.
For this blog we picked 3 good things that happened to us throughout the day and wrote about them and why they made us feel good. We did this for a week and recorded them at the end of the day. I found that this task really helped to ensure happiness because in life we can get way too focused on the negatives in our lives and we forget to focus on what makes us happy.
The group that did their activity I though had a really good one. They had us write out 10 good things that have happened to us lately. After we finished writing those out they had us write down 3 bad things for every good thing we wrote down. He had said something about how the average American can come up with 3 bad things for every good thing that happens in their life.
It is so easy to get caught up in the things that go wrong and it can feel like we are living under a rain cloud but at the same time we tend to adapt to the good things and people in our lives and take them for granted.
This module helped me to remember the good things and not ignore the negatives but not let them control my life. It is a habit that can change the emotional tone of your life, replacing feeling of disappointment or entitlement with those of gratitude.
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