Psychology Essay Introduction

Child Psychology

Introduction

Psychology involves studying the mental functioning and general behaviors of both humans and animals. Social behavior and mental functioning of an individual are explained by exploring the neurological and physiological processes. These include emotions, cognition, perception, motivation, attention, brain functioning and personality. Childpsychology is as well stated to be the application of psychological techniques to children where it involves carrying out research on mental states and development of children. The development of the child both physically, mentally and emotionally, with the help of a parent allows the identification of helpful information to any evolving challenges in child's behavior and...show more content...

Successful levels and stages of development are majorly associated with the increasing efficiency and memory capacity. These explain a progression to higher stages and individual differences which increases by same age persons and cognitive performance. Research indicates that the performance of children at a given age is changeable from domain to domain such as the understanding of social, mathematical, and spatial concepts that it is impossible to place the child in a single stage. This level involves processes that define the volume and kind of information that the individual child can process. For example, reflexes arise before birth and are still present in newborns. Sometimes, prenatal development and birth complications may also be connected to neurodevelopmental disorders. Young children react to various motivations in various ways (Damon & Lerner, 2006). For example infants' sight blurry in early stages improves over time.

Habituation is applied in discovering the perceptual systems which indicates that children advance earlier in developing perception compared to the acquiring the idea of the permanence of objects. Vision, hearing, smell and taste, language, touch, and pain are the early infant sensorimotor perceptual improvement in the infants' mental growth. Motor development, required for the child to create relationships between vision, touch and Get

DIFFERENT

PERSPECTIVES

ON PSYCHOLOGY 1 Abstract: The following paper consists of an explanation, of what the history of psychology taught us about the human behaviour. This explanation consists of summarising the different perspectives in psychology. Each perspective is trying to view the human mind and behaviour from a different angle, i.e. the biological perspective tries to analyse the human behaviour by understanding the biological and physical structure of the brain and the nervous system, whereas the psychodynamic perspective focuses on, how the behaviour changes according to our infant and child experiences. The different perspectives are shown below with the following order: a) Psychodynamic b) Humanistic c)...show more content...

He also believed that the unconscious consists of three main areas. 1. The Id 2. The Ego 3. The Superego The Id area is divided into two main human instincts. One is the "EROS" which is the instinct of life, which involves the self–preservation and sex instincts. The other one is "Thanatos" which is the death instinct. It is far less powerful than Eros and therefore its energies and thoughts are channeled away from ourselves or are expressed by aggression towards others. Defence mechanisms are often used by people to reduce anxieties that are caused by the inner conflict between the Id and Superego. Psychoanalysis is a therapy performed to patients in order to help them resolve this inner conflict. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY 4 HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE: The humanistic perspective of psychology is a field that studies the human as a whole person to understand its behaviour. Humanistic psychology is a study that looks the human behaviour through the eyes of the person behaving in a certain way, and not from a third person aspect. In addition to the psychodynamic perspective, where Freud believes that the behaviour of a human being is determined by its childhood, the humanistic perspective supports that each and every person is unique and individual and has the free will to change his behaviour at any time of its life. Humanistic psychologists believe that every person is responsible for his own happiness and

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Psychology Experiment Essay examples

Title: An investigation into the impact of group pressure on an individual's estimate of the amount of beads in a pot (ginger granules in a jar).

IV = Group/Individual

DV = Individual beads estimate

Abstract

This experiment investigated the impact of group pressure on the individual. The hypothesis is that group pressure does indeed impact on the individual and in this case the individual's estimate of the number of ginger granules in a jar. Participants were asked to make a judgement of the number of ginger granules in a jar, first individually and then as a group. The individual participants were then interviewed again to see if their estimates had changed. The results proved the hypothesis that group pressure does make an impact...show more content... It will be performed using a method similar to the one used by Jenness in his experiment. This will in effect test the reproducibility and validity of the Jenness experiment. There are no contentious or controversial issues surrounding this experiment and its method, and it is certainly within the law i.e. there are no deceptions or misleading intentions toward the participant; it is fair.

Hypothesis

The influence of group pressure will affect individuals' estimates of the number of ginger granules in a glass jar. The estimate of the individual will change after a group decision to lie closer to the figure of the group.

Method

The IV was the group or individual, and the DV was the number of ginger granules in the glass jar. Two separate rooms were used; one for interview of the individual – one at a time. When not being interviewed the individual was instructed to go the second room where the rest of the group resided – for the period of the experiment. Both rooms contained only the subjects of the experiment, and of course the experimenter, and no one else was permitted into the aforementioned areas. Television, radio and other forms of communicative devices were forbidden from these areas.

The participants were three members of a family. The first was male and 67 years of age. The second was female and 52 years old. The third member of the family was male, and 25 years old.

Materials: * Jar of ginger granules * Watch * Sheets of paper

I chose Gestalt Psychology for my first perspective, it is how people experience objects and perceive things as a whole. Gestalt allows us to look at everyday objects and distinguish them from their surroundings. Without the Gestalt Theory people would see every atom that made up a whole object. As I look at my computer screen, I do not see every little atom, I see the screen as a whole. From this perspective, learning objects as a whole instead of each individual part is beneficial because it allows us to open our minds for new learning experiences. However, there may be things in life that do not provide enough visual clues to determine what it is supposed to be. The Functionalist Theory is based on behavior and mental life. It...show more content...

This allows us to be able to avoid waling into a hole or hitting our head on a door. Humanistic Personality Theory is more of a behavioral theory. I can say they both deal with the "here and now" issues though. The Functionalist Theory however is associated with the Humanistic Personality Theory because they are both behavioral and mental theories. Functionalism is based on experiences and how it affects our current behavior. With the Humanistic Theory and its beliefs of dealing with the present functionalism allows you to retrieve memories to help you make your decision. I believe that functionalism also contributes to self worth. My whole life I have been achieving accomplishments, whether big or small, and it gives me a self worth to look back at all of them. "Cognitive theory is focused on the individual's thoughts as the determinate of his or her emotions and behaviors and therefore personality. Many cognitive theorists believe that without these thought processes, we could have no emotions and no behavior and would therefore not function. In other words, thoughts always come before any feeling and before any action." ("Cognitive theory in," 2004) Cognitive theory could have an effect on Gestalt Psychology because if a person has a learning disorder is can change how they perceive things. They may not be able to distinguish every day objects for what they truly are. My six year old cousin has down syndrome.

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It's human nature to wonder why we act the way that we do and why things happen. So many scholars over the years have come up with numerous theories in order to categorize the things that are known and explanations of what it all means. Life is full of trials and tribulations and those who study maladaptive behavior usually focus on the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and skills one uses during daily living. Feelings, thoughts, perceptions and skills all combine to aid in creating our mental states and lead to behavioral abnormalities. Thoughts are made up of ideas, concepts and the internal dialogue a person has within their mind. Perceptions are how one interprets incoming sensory signals through processing and organizing the...show more content...

This perspective truly focuses on the mind–body connection (Sarason & Sarason, 2005, p.47). The psychodynamic perspective believes that biological and mental are both equal contributors to human life. Those who support the psychodynamic perspective believe that personality is shaped by combining inner and outer events, with emphasis on the inner events (Sarason & Sarason, 2005, p.59). Basically, our experiences shape who we are. Sigmund Freud is the most well known theorist of this type with the basis of his concept involving the conscious and unconscious psychic connection (Sarason & Sarason, 2005, p60). The third theory of abnormal behavior is the behavioral perspective specifically focusing on how the environment affects how we behave. Those who formed the behavioral perspective felt that Freud's ideas were too complicated and that this was a simpler way to explain human behavior– simply that we are a product of our environment (Sarason & Sarason, 2005, p.67). The cognitive perspective puts emphasis on how people acquire and interpret information and use it in problem solving. This perspective also emphasizes the mental processes that people are unaware of or can be made aware of. The cognitive perspective focuses on our present thoughts and relationships between emotions, motivations and

INTRODUCTION

"Don't treat the disease, treat the patient" [9]. The concept of health has seemed to become complex in definition over the centuries as science improves. "Health is a complete state of physical, mental and social well–being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity."–World Health Definition of Health (1948) [9]

In order to understand health, different models or frameworks for thinking have been developed which have been useful. The Biomedical model which evolved since the 19th century from Galen's (Greek physician 200AD) concept of pathogen, focused on removing the disease/disability and not on prevention or general well–being [9]. The Biopsychosocial model however, doesn't merely focus on the physical state of...show more content...

It is reductionist because it reduces illness to low–level processes such as chemical imbalances, pathogens, genetic predispositions and disorders. According to this model, individuals are not responsible for illnesses caused by factors beyond their control and treatment should include vaccination, surgery and the like which all aim to remove the cause of the illness. In this model of practice, an individual can either be healthy or ill because there is no continuum. That a psychological disorder can lead to an illness but there is no in–between. The biomedical view thus identifies treatment of various parts with the ultimate goal of a cure. If success in this model is defined as a cure, death is defined as ultimate failure, to be avoided at all cost. Patients whose diseases cannot be "cured" are deemed as "incurable". [7]

The Biopsychosocial (BPS) model greatly differs because while the biomedical answers the main question "why do people get sick?" the BPS also answers the question "why else do people get sick?" [9] According to the BPS model, the human being is complex and must be understood as a whole. That there is a relationship between body, mind and environment and that one aspect affects the others. Health and illness are caused by multiple factors and have multiple effects, from the biological or cellular level

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One of the more popular areas of psychology is Educational Psychology. Educational Psychology can be explained several ways. The idea is to study theories and concepts from different parts of psychology and apply them in educational settings. These educational settings may occur in different school settings such as preschool. The goal of educational psychology is to create a positive student–teacher relationship. Educational psychology uses five different types of psychology, behavioral, cognitive, developmental, and social cognitive, and constructivist in this research paper I will be briefly discussing each type of psychology listed above. Behaviorism is the point of view where learning and behavior are described and explained in terms...show more content...

Some examples are belief, desire, ideas and motivation. Next, cognitive psychologists think memory structures determine how information is perceived, processed, stored, retrieved and forgotten. Cognitive psychology include perception, categorization, memory, knowledge representation, language and thinking processes. "The relationship of cognitive psychology to classroom is like the relationship of physics to engineering. Knowledge of the mind gleaned from cognitive psychology experiments will not tell teachers how to teach children, any more than knowledge of physics can prescribe what a bridge should look like" (Willingham, 2009) Developmental psychology is the point of view that occurs in learners over the course of a period of time. The developmental perspective includes theories that are continuous and discontinuous. Discontinuous theories are stage–like. The processes of learning and development involve distinct stages, which are characterized by qualitative differences in behavior. Theorists who use discontinuous theories use a specific beginning and end period for each stage. Continuous theories explain that learning and development generally happen in incremental processes. Learning involves changes throughout the lifespan. "Contemporary views on the nature of cognitive development have been vastly influenced by the work of one man. This was Jean Piaget (1896–1980), once a biologist, who turned his

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Clinical psychology aims to understand, treat and prevent psychological distress and dysfunction thus to encourage good health, good adaptive thinking and a healthy lifestyle. People working in this field research into mental dysfunction suffered by the patients, assess their cognitive state of mind and perform psychotherapy to decrease the psychological symptoms and/ or the underlying causes.

There are many sub divisions of therapies focusing on different routes of cure/prevention. Biologically, chemotherapy and psychosurgeries are available; but below I will discuss the treatments available psychologically. Psychologically, there are various treatments mainly the psychodynamic and the behavioural approach. The main psychodynamic...show more content...

In contrast behaviour in the unconsciousness state lacks awareness of self and the environmental situations. In between these is the preconscious state where thoughts from the unconscious state, that are not suppressed, thus can be brought to the conscious by slowly recalling the thoughts.

Upon this differentiation Freud discovered that these symptoms resulted from the unconscious decisions made following psychological conflicts experienced at the present moment. One specific case, involved a young boy, who mother was asking him to sign a letter accusing the father of abusing him, in order support her in their divorce. However the boy, knowing that both parents are of no harm couldn't decide whether to sign the letter in favour of the mother or not to in favour of the father (unconscious psychological conflict). Thus this resulted in the boy suffering paralysis (mental neurotic dysfunction).

Such neurosis are maladaptive behaviours, that doesn't resolve but instead avoids the under lying situation. This initiates from childhood feelings, memories, wishes and experiences that are emotionally attached.

Freud's theory of personality defines that the psychological conflicts experienced by the individuals' link to the compromises made against the forces of cognitive construct. Id, this form of cognitive construct is from the unconscious that follows the

INTRODUCTION Industrial psychology is concerned with people at work. It is also called personnel psychology. A closely related field is known as organizational psychology. Traditionally, industrial psychologists have assessed differences among individual workers and have evaluated individual jobs. Organizational psychologists generally seek to understand how workers function in an organization, and how the organization functions in society. The distinctions between industrial psychology and organizational psychology are not always clear. Thus, the two areas are often referred to jointly as industrial/organizational psychology, or I/O psychology. I/O psychologists work for businesses, consulting firms, government departments, and...show more content...

To have value, a system should maximize the accuracy with which people rate performance, and minimize bias. Industrial psychologists commonly develop training programs. This function involves identifying performance or technical needs of employees that can be met by training. It also deals with evaluating the effectiveness of the training program. Training needs may include ways to (1) help new employees get used to the organization, (2) update technical skills of current employees, and (3) prepare employees for new responsibilities. Techniques used in training include classroom lectures, work simulators, computer–assisted instruction, and role playing. Industrial psychologists devote much time to job satisfaction. They investigate factors that have been found to relate to satisfaction, including employee turnover, absenteeism, age, pay, and attitudes toward unions. Industrial psychologists also study motivation because evidence suggests that both motivation and ability are necessary for employees to succeed in their jobs. Thus, psychologists develop systems for rewarding good performance, and they redesign jobs for greater interest and challenge. Another important concern of industrial psychologists is what makes an effective leader. The psychologists help identify the personality traits of a good leader and the types of leaders who should be selected for a particular position. Industrial psychologists also help maximize efficiency by Get