Psychology 101

When I chose to tale a psychology class, I had no idea of the journey I was about to embark. Or the things I would learn about myself and others. If you asked me what psychology means to me, I would respond with the study of the mind, its processes, and behaviors. But that answer is only the tip of the iceberg and psychology is so much more. Yes, it has to do with the mind and the brain, but there are more disciplines that make up psychology. These disciplines are explained more in detail through theories. Developmental theories introduce principles that affect individual’s development (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2010). Psychoanalytical theories study age-related changes that result from conflicts at certain stages of life (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2010). Cognitive theories study a person’s action in response to the environment and the changes it brings. Learning theories believe the environment shapes an individual. Biological theories focus more on the body’s structure and composition to explain behavior and mental processes (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2010). This includes explaining our senses and perception of how we take in the world around us. Intelligence is also studied and offers some insight that each individual is unique in their abilities and talents. Memory allows us to store, retrieve and remember experiences and events. Emotions are the links between our mind and body processes. Personality theories suggest each individual different from the next with traits, thoughts, and feelings.

This psychology class also went in depth about psychological disorders. When someone mentioned psychological disorder, my first thoughts are crazy, abnormal, atypical, or psychopath. But my stereotype is far from the truth. Psychological disorders doesn’t mean a person is crazy, with crazy hair, a kitchen knife, and mumbling to themselves. It is a mental illness that maybe was influenced from childhood experiences, current life changing experiences, or biological factors. Psychologist who study and specialize in psychological disorders focus on diagnosing, classifying, and treating disorders.

In this brief summary, I will explain how taking this psychology course opened my mind to broaden my thinking of others behaviors, my own behaviors and makes me a better person to get along with, I am able to understand and apply different theories of psychology to justify reasoning behind my experiences. I can go forever trying to explain each separate discipline in psychology, so I will just summarize what I learned about psychology, and my own behaviors compared to before I took this course.

To begin, I am going to touch on a topic that almost always stand out when psychology is mentioned. The mind and its affect on behaviors. When a person is different, in my point of view, I tend to avoid them. When I say different I don’t mean specifically not liking what I like, or dressing how I dress. Those are contributing factors but different as in their behaviors or mind frame. For example, someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder strives for control, orderliness, cleanliness, and perfection. I would avoid this person thinking they have a serious problem. Why does everything have to make up so perfect, lets just get the job done. I wouldn’t want to work with them. I have worked with someone with this disorder and I felt they were never happy with any results. It took ages for them to make decisions, or complete tasks. When things didn’t go their way, they either became angry or felt out of sorts, disoriented. This interferes with personal and professional relationships. Now, I just see that there is nothing seriously wrong and I have a better understanding of their behavior which I can adjust my own behavior. I will have more patience and adjust when interacting with them.

Another example is at work my supervisor is labeled as Bipolar. I thought this means they often switch from being an agreeable person to a hard to work with person in a matter of minutes or seconds. That is not true. This class explained that bipolar disorder is a type of depression that causes individuals to have unusual shifts in moods (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2010). They experience high points with lots of energy and low points where they don’t feel like doing anything. This opened my eyes because depression can lead to suicide and what worst feeling to know that this person may be at risk for suicidal feelings. Trying to avoid those who seem abnormal or different may be the wrong approach. Just showing some type of care or friendship can be the difference between life and death.

Being open to recognize and respect other’s differences in behaviors will not be a challenge after taking this course. This quality will not come right away but with time, practice and patience. I hold stereotypes based on first impressions. When I meet a person, and all they do is complain or criticize procedures or other people my initial thought is they are rude, unpleasant, unhappy or mean. That can be a misconception on my part and after understanding and analyzing their behavior may be internal reasons why they act like that. This course helps me understand that though their behavior may be odd to me from what I am used to, but perfectly normal for them in terms of how they cope with their conflicts. They may project their feelings outward just to hide internal feelings. So me telling a person who always puts down other people’s work, how I really feel that they are being jerks may not help the problem but make it worst. An understanding and by coaching myself to inhibit negative impulses to yell, shout, and scream when in reality being a jerk may be how they ask for attention or justify their own shortcomings. So before I define someone’s behavior based on my first impression, I will try to apply psychological theories to find out influencing factors beneath the surface.

Skepticism is to doubt the truth about something. This is done everyday as we listen to people talk on radios, television, and around us. One might say that a guy won the lottery but how do we know if this is true? Intelligent skepticism is being able to differentiate between whether or not there is enough evidence to support the truth of any claim. In psychology, we use skepticism towards other people. I use it when people say I have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Post-traumatic stress disorder is when an uncontrollable and unpredictable traumatic experience happens that causes stressful re-experiences such as nightmares and flashbacks (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2010). Some doctors believe that something as simple as a favorite cat dying is PTSD. I disagree, yes it may be stressful but not as serious as a rape, car accident, or a bomb going off. So I am skeptical when people say I have PTSD. When a person say they are depressed or suicidal, I am skeptical too. They believe for sure that the world for them would not get better and maybe suicide is the only way out. I can try to convince them otherwise, but they are set in their beliefs. On another note, with the media, I use intelligent skepticism. This was developed because sometimes they only feed you half of the truth. With your own research you can find out more information than what they give you. I have intelligent skepticism towards the ebola outbreak that we are experiencing. The media says the virus is spread only by body fluids. I believe differently because the rate of infections and those dying from this virus is alarming. I believe it is spread through the air as well and the Center of Disease Control (which is a credited company) is only providing us with half information to not cause an uproar. This makes me want to change my behaviors in interacting with people as well. I will be more stand-off than I was before, afraid to catch any viruses someone may contain.

Everyone, including me, has the freedom of choice to shape our future towards our goals in life. But there are factors which may limit this from happen the way we would like it to. These factors include experiences, traumatic memories, social pressures and obligations. Experiences and obligations now prohibit me from choosing some of the choices I want to make. For example, on weekends I would like to watch television all day or go do an activity outside, but I cannot because I must fulfill my obligations of being a mother and a student. Past experiences of putting my work aside proved negative and added more stress to me by trying to get things done at the last minute. Another example is when my younger sister came to live with me and I felt pressure to be a role model for her. Her father sent her to live with me because he said he was proud of my accomplishments and wanted her to look up to me and follow in my foot steps. It was a compliment and something I needed to live up to. So when she decided she didn’t want to live like me or how her father wanted her to, she got pregnant before going to college, obtaining a job or a driver’s license. Naturally, I felt guilty and felt like a failure. This deterred me from trying to help family members who did not show potential to help themselves.

This psychology class helped me understand meaning behind what people do and how they interpret different things. I can apply this at work, with personal relationship and addressing my children. I was taught patience and to see things from others point of view by not being egocentric. I learned stress can cause many underlying issues such as eating habits increase or decrease, high blood pressure, depression, or anxiety. I was also taught ways to combat this by getting more sleep, and not being afraid to ask for professional help. Asking for professional help is not a sign of weakness or mental problems, and can help me live a long, healthy, desired life.

(Bee & Boyd)
(Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2010)
References

Bee, H., & Boyd, D. (2010). The Developing Child (12th Ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Gerrig, R., & Zimbardo, P. (2010). Psychology and Life. (19th Ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.