Psychology is the new science researching about human behaviors and why they alter. According to Feldman, psychology is the "scientific study of behavior and mental processes" (2013, p. 4). There are four basic goals of psychology, which are to describe, understand, predict, and control behavior. Suppose a group of psychologists are trying to investigate why some people express aggression more than others. They already described and understood the problem, so an experiment would be created. Based on the behavior pattern results, the psychologists must predict the reasoning and help certain people control their anger. The purpose of the four goals is to help researchers gain knowledge, and discover solutions to the problems (or disorders) that have been haunting humans.
To further explain human behavior in different ways, psychologists use the five major perspectives (neuroscience, cognitive, behavioral, humanistic, and psychodynamic). The neuroscience perspective includes how people and nonhumans function biologically (Feldman, 2013). It describes how the joining of nerve cells or how the characteristics of ancestors will affect behaviors. Neuroscience perspective understands that humans get their behaviors from either nature (heredity) or nurture (environmental factors). With the prediction that the nervous system affects performance, psychologists cured mental disorders to help people take control of their own behavior. As for the cognitive perspective, psychologists try to describe how people view and think about the world. They also understand that people's knowledge about the surroundings will influence their (people's) behavior. For example, if they are in a dark neighborhood, everyone stereotypically imagine shootings. Ps...
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... for both of my dilemmas, I will be able to strengthen my speaking skills. When I properly communicate with my future patients, they might feel more comfortable and come to my hospital. I will be able to assist more people; psychology would make me a better doctor, and overall a better human being.
Psychologists have been trying diligently to predict and explain human behavior, so everyone can improve their lives. The goals and perspectives of psychology are giving researchers more knowledge, so a better world is yet to come. However, there are still issues present (like nature versus nurture), but they all will be solved real soon.
Works Cited
Feldman, R. S. (2013). Psychology and Your Life. Boston: Mc-Graw Hill.
McLeod, S. (2007). Nature Nurture in Psychology. Retrieved from
http://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html.
Psychology is the scientific study of actions and behaviors. Psychologists often form hypotheses and test these through studies and research. They carefully follow the scientific method to gather data. The research methods used by psychologists vary by branches of study. These methods include controlled laboratory experiments, and personality, intelligence, aptitude, or performance tests. Other methods of research are interviews, observations, questionnaires, surveys, and clinical studies.
Psychology is the study of the behavior of living organisms. The people that study the behaviors are called psychologists. There have been many studies done by these people to try and figure out why people or animal do the things they do. Psychology's four main goals are to describe what occurred, explain why it occurred, predict what event is likely to occur next, and to change to prevent unwanted outcomes. Psychologists study the process of thinking, learning, cognition, emotions, motivations, and personalities. An example of one study that has been done would be why a dog salivates to the sound of a bell and show. This behavior is due to a conditioned stimulus becoming a conditioned response. Another experiment done was with a baby and a white mouse to see if the baby would be scared if something happened while grabbing for the mouse.
The birth of psychology was in December of 1879, at Germanys University of Leipzig (Myers, 2014, p.2). In 1960, Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener defines psychology as “the science of mental health” (Myers, 2014, p.4). However, two provocative American psychologists, John Watson and B.F Skinner, redefined psychology in 1920. They redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior” (Myers, 2014, p.4). The problem arose when psychologists realized people could not observe feeling or thought so they needed to come up with a new definition for psychology. We define psychology today as “the science of behavior and mental processes” (Myers, 2014, p.4). Psychology includes many subfields such as human development, social behavior,
Psychology has long existed in society; with records dating all the way back to the time of the early Greeks (Daniels, 1997). Throughout the years it has been modified, shaped and prodded by various inquisitive individuals striving for the utmost understanding of humanity, all the while impacting countless lives. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, psychology can be defined as “the science or study of the mind and behavior” and “the way a person or group thinks” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). It deals with an individual’s actions and thoughts, and provides an understanding as to why people might behave the way they do. As the world today deals with many challenges, both natural and man-made, people are exposed to a lot of physical and
There are many different subfields in psychology and people talk most about is the study of crazy people. That can be put into a couple of subfields like personality and social are some of the main areas. There are five big issues that will show up in the general study of psychology the first one is the person and the situation that can affect the outcome of what is happening. Then there is nature over nurture this show how a person grow up and how genetics pushed the person. Stability and change is how some one’s personality can change over time or stay the same. The next issues are diversity and universality this is the defenses/similarities that are between people. The last of the five big issues is the mind and body connection this just
What is psychology? In basic terms it is simply the study of the mind, but that very general description has a much wider application as the psychology of today differs from that of two centuries ago.
There are seven different perspectives in modern psychology, in which help us to try to understand and explain human behavior in different ways. The biological perspective looks at the physical causes of behavior. Evolutionary perspective looks at evolution and how natural selection influences one’s behavior. Both the biological and evolutionary perspective sees that behavior is effected by one’s biological background. Cognitive perspective is based on how the behavior is influence by a person’s mental process. Psychodynamic perspective looks ones unconscious mental process and how their childhood can have impact on their behavior. Both the cognitive and psychodynamic perspective looks study inside the mind. Behavioral perspective looks at
The term psychology has many meanings to different people, even to those who work within the psychological field. The word psychology derives from two Greek roots; 'psyche' refers to 'soul' or 'mind' and logo refers to 'the study of'. A more update definition of the word psychology can be found from Atkinson, et al (1991) “The scientific study of behaviours and mental processes.” However on Google Definitions the definition of psychology is “the mental characteristics and attitudes of a person” [accessed 16 September 2011], which gives somewhat of a contradiction. In this assignment I will be outlining and evaluating four key psychological perspectives. The psychological perspectives I have chosen are the behavioural approach, biological approach, cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach.
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior and translates as science of the soul. It is the study of human behavior and deals with how we think, feel, and act. Some areas of psychology are clinical, industrial, physiological, experimental, personality, social, and developmental. Psychologists can work in hospitals, schools, rehabilitation facilities, in public and private clinics or in the research field. They usually treat persons with mental and emotional disorders, so one may ask; why bother with psychology if you do not want to actually work as a psychologist? Even though it happens that i do want to study psychology, this year that i was introduced to it,i discovered that even if i wanted to study something entirely different, psychology would still be useful to me. So when studying psychology, you learn about human nature. This means that psychology actually has impact on every aspect in life. It helps see through the motives other people too have more importantly, it will help you to understand your own motives better. As a result
The five major theoretical perspectives in psychology are biological, learning, cognitive, psychodynamic, and sociocultural perspectives. Each one of these perspectives searches for answers about behavior through different techniques and through looking for answers to different kinds of questions. Due to the different approaches, each perspective form their own assumptions and explanations. Some perspectives are widely accepted while others struggle for acceptance.
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior. In psychology, and all of the other sciences, relying on opinions is abandoned in order to find out which explanations best fit the evidence or data given. Science continually forces us to question our findings and conclusions. Over time, psychology has advanced greatly and a main reason for such progressiveness is because of the change in the research model used.
Psychology can be defined as the systematic study of mental processes, couple with behaviors, and experiences (Kalat, 2011). There are many ways in examining, mental processes and behaviors among people, and therefore psychologist uses different perspectives to understand how human beings, think, act, and behave. Some psychologist uses one perspective to analyze behaviors, and other uses a multidimensional approach. Carter & Seifert (2013) identified 7 major perspectives that are used to study people’s behavior, and mental processes. These perspectives are the biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and the sociocultural perspective.
The future of psychology is getting more and more precise. For instance advance science, understanding how the brain functions and the nerve system, scientific advance in genetics and gene therapy, will let psychologists to prevent any disorders rather than other treatment.
Psychology has big role in my future career because I will be working with patients every day and I need to understand them and help them. Things I learned in this class are the most important things that helps me achieve my goals. If I understand basics of human behavior, I will better able to understand and treat patients. I want to understand my patient’s emotional needs and reactions in order to communicate with them. Most of all, I need them to trust me because patients who trust their doctors are more likely to open up with their symptoms and problems. For example: young patients may be more afraid than adults. They may have difficulties in understanding their illness. Doctor can apply his/her knowledge of child development and psychology and relate to the young patients in a way that is helpful for both of them. Moreover, it also helps me see how patients are describing their illnesses. Most of the patients describe their illness in a negative way and only few are optimistic. So psychology plays really big role in medical
Psychology is the scientific study and practical application of observable behavior and mental processes of organisms. Psychology differs from other social sciences such as: Sociology, History, or Economics, because psychology specifically deals with the study of an individual. The other social sciences will study groups, or history. Psychology is less a science of reported findings, it attempts asks and answers questions using observable behavior and what can be determined as mental processes of the subject. The symbol for psychology is the Greek letter “psi” (Ø). The subject matter of psychology is, affect, behavior, and cognition. The affect for psychology is the actual mental processes that make up: moods, feeling, and emotional state. An example for affect would be feeling sad about something happening. Behavior includes the actually actions and responses of organisms. Behavior can include the way we act in any given situation, for example when we get up in the morning. The order in the way we prepare ourselves for going out into public can be categorized as our behavior. Cognition is the actual mental events and the processes that result from them. Memories of an event are a great example of an organism’s cognition. The components and corresponding faces of psychology include the body of knowledge which is considered the teaching face, set of investigative methods or research face, and array of techniques the therapy face. The goals of psychology are: to explain behaviors, to describe behaviors, to predict behavior, and to modify inappropriate behaviors. Explaining behaviors would be a question similar to “Why does this happen?”, and example of how describing behavior could be accomplished would be asking “What causes this behavior, where does it come from?”. Predictions can be elaborated on by asking “When will the behavior occur?”. An example of a behavioral modification question is “What can be changed in the environment to alter this behavior?”. A specialized subfield of psychology that most interests me is, Forensic Psychology, because it would be appealing to me to understand a potential criminal mind and to make the determination if the criminal was sane at the time the crime was committed or if he/she was operating with full judgment. In studying the 9/11 attack on America, a Forensic Psyc...