Psychology

Ivana Stepanović Ilić

Psychology

Learn: • What the psychological world is • How intelligence is measured • What temperament is • What defence mechanisms are • What photographic memory is

• To recognize someone’s feelings •T o find motivation behind somebody’s behaviour •T o get to know different personality traits • To learn the rules for good learning •T o discover how first impressions about others are made

Ivana Stepanović Ilić

Probaj:

Edicija Learn and Try

Psychology prvo izdanje

ideja: Ljiljana Marinković autor: dr Ivana Stepanović Ilić • ilustrator: Marko Somborac • grafički dizajn: Dušan Pavlić • urednik: Milena Trutin lektor: Violeta Babić • tehnički urednik: Nebojša Mitić • za izdavača: Dejan Begović, izvršni direktor izdavač: KREATIVNI CENTAR, Gradištanska 8, Beograd telefoni: 011/ 38 20 483, 38 20 464, 244 06 59 www.kreativnicentar.rs • e-mail: info@kreativnicentar.rs štampa: Publikum tiraž: 2.000 Copyright©KREATIVNI CENTAR 2013

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Ivana Stepanović Ilić

Psychology Illustrated by

Marko Somborac

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What do you like the most?

Contents 5...... The world of psyche 6...... What does psychology study 7...... Same face – different impressions 8...... Exploring psychological life 8...... Imagine an experiment 10.... Perception 11...... Stimuli that tempt us to perceive them as units 12..... Learning 12..... Advice from the school psychologist 13..... Memory 14..... Check the capacity of your short-term memory 16..... Intelligence 17..... Tasks from Thurstone’s test

I don’t feel shy if the puppet is speaking.

18..... Emotions 19..... Faces and temperaments 20... Motivation 21..... Psychologist detective 22.... Personality 23.... Two sides to a trait 23.... Five groups of personality traits 24.... Psychological development 25.... Testing Piaget’s teaching on the development of thought 26.... Great psychologists 29.... What you can do as a psychologist 30... Glossary 32.... Index

Hey, Mary, would you like to go to the movies with me tomorrow?

How can I ask Catherine to go to the movies when she doesn’t even notice me?!

The world of psyche

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Hey, Catherine, did you see Philip from class VII4?

hat kind of a person am I? What do others think about me?

How do my friends feel? What do they think about? These are some of the questions that we often ask ourselves, but it’s not always easy to find the answers. They require peeking in the inner world of human beings – the psyche.

Even though the psyche is hidden, all of us know at least something about it – we know that we’re happy when we achieve something important; we get angry if somebody insults us; we have different interests; and we treat persons that mean something to us in a different way than we treat all others.

Maybe you’re wondering why the science of psychology even exists if all of us have different experiences related to the psychological world. Still, scientific study is something different. It is performed through scientific procedures. The information is gathered and tested, and connections are made within the obtained knowledge. This enables explaining, and even foreseeing a psychological occurrence.

You’ll read about this in this book, and you’ll also be able to try out various tasks which will bring the world of psychology closer to you.

You’ll see that uncovering this world is very exciting even though it requires great effort.

Yes, he’s the cutest guy in school!

We yearn to find out as much as possible about us and to solve problems that bother us. This is why there is such a huge interest in psychology books. By writing in a popular way, psychologists try to bring the knowledge they discovered closer to everybody.

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What do you feel now?

Mmm ... nothing! Double the dosage!

Yummy!

The first psychological laboratory was founded in Leipzig by the German physician Wilhelm Wunt. It was used for the conducting of experiments, which signified the start of scientific psychology.

Professionals in pedagogical psychology work in schools. They assist teachers to adapt their teaching to the age and the level of development of their pupils.

They also assist pupils to learn more easily and more efficiently.

School psychologist How did you feel when you pulled Mary’s hair?

What does psychology study

P

eople have always been interested in psychological occurrences. But still, psychology is not so old. The first psychological laboratory appeared only in the 19th century, and its development has been extremely quick ever since. Today, psychologists deal with different fields of psychological life.

Within general psychology, the following is studied: observation, learning, thinking, memory, emotions; the functioning of each psychological process is tested independently, whereas the psychology of personality deals with the way these processes are connected within a single personality.

Stay put until I come back!

Mom, he’s talking to the train!

Let him!

You also did it when you were little!

The world of psyche is not the same in children and in adults. The manner in which psychological processes change during lifetime is the subject of developmental psychology.

The subject of clinical psychology studies are disorders in psychological life. Psychologists are trying to prevent their occurrence, define the type of psychological disturbances, and to help those that suffer from them.

What can I tell you – it was GREAT!

Each of us belong to a family, class, enterprise or a group in which people socialize, work, study or have fun. The manner in which we perceive people around us and our behaviour in different groups is studied by scientists who deal with social psychology.

Same face – different impressions When we’re meeting a person for the first time, we get the first impression about them. These impressions can be positive or negative, depending on how much we liked a certain person. The first impression is the general picture that is created immediately, even though we only have a few pieces of information about this person.

Each individual piece of information can affect this picture.

In order to establish how the individual pieces of information quickly create the general picture, an experiment can be performed.

You need between six and ten respondents. They can be your friends or family members, and you will divide them in two groups (group A and group B). Find a photograph of an adult, such as the one in a passport or ID card, and make a copy for each respondent.

This exercise requires that your respondents aren’t familiar with the person in the picture.

For each respondent prepare a sheet of paper with the picture and the following characteristics.

GROUP A intelligent, organised, cordial, successful, wealthy

GROUP B intelligent, organised, cold, successful, wealthy

Everybody should then try to imagine the person from the picture and their life and write a few sentences about the person. When you read the descriptions, you’ll notice that they attribute characteristics to this person which were not listed in the list of qualities. You will notice that the impressions of groups A and B are different, and that one different trait was quite enough for the same person to be seen in a completely different light by people.

I’m sorry! I’m not sure what kind of a person you are even after a ride in your yacht. Maybe after carting...

The first impression arises quickly and on the basis of a small amount of information, which means that it’s superficial, and even wrong. This is why it should be taken with a grain of salt and the final judgement should be reached only when we find out more about the person in question.

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