Four Goals of Psychology Essay

1. Psychology has contributed to the advancement of social issues in many ways. Psychologists challenged societies way of thinking on many social issues, one being segregation in schools. Psychology was used to show the affects of segregation and that psychologically homosexuals were no different than heterosexuals. Psychology has helped drop stereotypes and stigmas and helped create the way of thinking that most of society now has.

Psychology is a science that has different fields and subfields. It’s also an evolving science that keeps changing and many fields are added to constantly. What holds these fields and unifies them is something called “the five enduring issues.” The five Enduring issues are the backbone that holds psychology together. These issues are shared by all psychologists as a common interest and overlap in all fields and subfields of psychology.

Psychology is a term derived from two Greek words that translate to life explanation, which makes it an important element of daily life. The field of psychology can be described as a discipline that focuses on the study of mind and behavior. This discipline is characterized by several concepts and approaches that are used by psychologists in understanding human behavior. Since psychology is a broad field, psychologists not only use these concepts and approaches but also conduct scientific research that enables them to understand human behavior. Some of the most common psychological concepts that are used to modify or change an individual’s behavior include operant conditioning, positive and negative punishment,

Walter Bowers Pillsbury (1911) described psychology as 'the science of human behaviour '. This indicates a significant similarity between psychology and sociology. However, sociology focuses on group dynamics and the collective behaviour of society, whereas psychology mainly focuses on the behaviour of people as individuals. Psychologists aim to gain understanding of the mind, and the affect the mind has on individual behaviour. Sociologists research topics such as social stratification, hate crimes, addictions, and injustice, always focusing on the issues of society as a whole. Psychologists, on the other hand, research the cognitive processes behind the issues. They explore emotions, dreams and memories, and seek explanations for these in order to improve the mental well-being of an individual.

The ultimate goal of counselling is to enable individuals to make own decisions in life and act accordingly in order to change habits or overcome difficulties that had prevented them to achieve self-actualisation, build self-esteem or just live happily as general.

The behaviourist perspective is an idea that we can understand any type of behaviour by looking at what the person has learner. This includes personality traits such as shyness, confidence, optimism or pessimism. Behaviourist psychologists explain all human behaviour as resulting from experience. Two key psychologists are Pavlov and Skinner, although these two theorists believed that different processes were involved, they both explained all types of behaviour as being the result of learning. This is everything from shyness to aggression and happiness to depression.

Throughout the course of the first semester we as a Psychology class learned a whole variety of different and varying concepts of Psychology. Chapter one we went over all the different ways psychologists study behaviors and mental processes. Included were the contemporary perspectives, such as behavioral, which focuses on behavior that is observed. Psychodynamic focuses on our fantasies and our hidden motives. Humanistic is all about our free will and conscious choices. Physiological is the relationships between biological processes and behavior. Cognitive perspective is our acquired knowledge, and last but not least is sociocultural, which places great value on the role of cultural and social influences on our behavior.

___________________ psychologists study how roles, attitudes, relationships, and groups influence people to do things they would not necessarily do on their own

There are six goals the Commission Report outlines and those are: Americans understand that mental health is essential to overall health, mental

Psychologists study human behavior by observing, interpreting, and recording how people and other animals relate to one another and the environment.

Researchers can examine an MRI result to see how personality is created by neurons in the brain. In the evolutionary perspective of psychology, behaviour is adaptive,hereditary, and cultural due to the way we have evolved and natural selection. A researcher in this field could observe a flock of birds to see how behaviors change from one generation to another. The behavioral field states that all behaviour is learned through the environment rather than from ourselves. A behavioral researcher could possibly train a dog to see how fast it can learn certain behaviors. Psychologists of the psychodynamic perspective believe that our actions are influenced by unconscious motives. A researcher in this field may examine a person’s dream and compare the meaning of the dreams to the patient’s everyday life. The developmental perspective focuses on the change that happens within our lifespans and how that affects us. A researcher of this perspective could follow two children, one with both parents and one that had a single parent (due to divorce or death), to see how that change impacts the child’s life compared to the one with two parents. The cognitive perspective believes that the way we act and our actions is due to how we process information from our environment; a possible experiment that a researcher might conduct

(TCO 2) Because Timothy was laughed at by his second grade peers, he was reluctant to speak out in class. This is a demonstration of which goal of psychology?

These goals should remain unconscious during therapy, identified only in looking back. The therapy should also improve behavioural congruence, enhance independence and free choice, and expand the experiencing of emotions.

over time, due to psychologists coming to light in the modern world. This essay will also

The goal for therapy should be to create a second order of change. My therapy goals are heavily rooted in solution-based therapy. In this sense, the goal of therapy is to “unstick people from their current patterns and perceptions and help them discover new, concrete possibilities for their immediate futures” (Bitter, 2009, p. 223) Goal-making in my eyes is a collaborative process between therapist and client. It’s the therapist’s role to engage the client in optimistic conversations about the present and future and guide them toward goal-oriented solutions. This type of approach fits my personality as I am naturally upbeat and look for the positive exceptions in situations. Steve de Shazer believed that effective goals are: “small; meaningful to the client; described concretely; fit the actual lives of the participants; require in them that they are working hard; and start something