PYC2604 Assignment no2

(P1)The biological approach means that our behavior is the cause of biological factors. This approach looks at our genetics to construct a reason why we act the way we do and why we develop abnormal behaviors. The brain and nervous system are the biological approach and so are chemical changes in the body .This can mean chemical reactions in the brain. For instance, in eating disorders - twin studies were carried out and it was shown that if one identical twin suffered from an eating disorder then the other twin would also be more likely to suffer from a disorder as well. This did not happen with non-identical twins, suggesting that the

An example of culturally specific psychology would be that of the work done in Phillip’s NTU Psychotherapy model. Fred Phillips and Laurence Jackson utilize an African-centered

Psychology is one of the newest sciences. Because it is the science of the mind and behavior, it is also less concrete than some of the other sciences. Over the years, social scientists have developed theories or perspectives based off of their observations, research, and the perspectives of other scientists. Although there is some overlap, each of the major perspectives of psychology is unique. As a result, they each have strengths and weaknesses and explain psychology in a different way. One theory, the sociocultural perspective, is exactly what its name suggests. It’s the idea that the society and groups that an individual belongs to are what influences development, thoughts, and behavior. The sociocultural perspective was

People that live in socially deprived areas are more likely to have mental illness, poverty, poor education and low socioeconomic status. This is mainly because of the conditions they have been brought up in and live in; if they lived in better conditions then they probably wouldn’t have health problems like this.

Low socioeconomic status is often associated with higher prevalence of depression. Depressive disorders which develop in socioeconomically tight situations have lower rates of remission and higher risks of becoming chronic, hence increasing prevalence (Bramesfeld, Platt & Schwartz, 2006). Mental health problems like depression and anxiety have a higher prevalence in

Biological psychology, of biopsychology, is the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental processes in terms of bodily mechanisms. The view that psychological processes have biological (or physiological) correlates, is the basic assumption of the whole field of biological psychology. Biological psychology is a hopeful domain, one that has much to offer in terms of improving the quality of life of the healthy as well as those suffering from disorders. It also contributed important therapeutic data on a variety of conditions, including: Parkinson 's Disease, Alzheimer 's Disease, Clinical depression, Schizophrenia and a lot others. Humans have very complex nervous system, they use neurons and neurotransmitters to make the highest active communication network throughout the body. “most of the body’s neurons are found in the central nervous system(CNS), which consists of the brain and spinal cord” (psychology 5th edition). “Neuroscience emphasizes that the brain and nervous system are central to understanding behavior, thought, and emotion. (Van Horn, 2014; Zhao & others, 2014). Therefore, for biological psychologist all that is psychological is first physiological. All thoughts, feeling & behavior ultimately have a biological cause.” We are benefited from biological approach for diagnosing and treating human brains Ex. Schizophrenia. Scientists are also able to create medications for different types of illnesses. Besides having psychologists

Whether it is the study of biopsychology and other fields of psychology or neuroscience, all psychologists and scientists are trying to understand the functions of the brain. The body and mind connection and how it reacts to certain behaviors or illnesses. Most all psychological functioning can be reduced to underlying brain processes. This should serve as reason alone as to why biology plays an important part in the study of psychology. Psychological factors play a role in whether a person develops a mental illness and in how well they recover from a mental illness, yet biological and genetic risk factors, or predispositions, are

The British Psychological Society states that ‘Psychology is the scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour’ (BPS). In this essay I will be discussing what is actually meant by this and whether psychology fits into both the traditional views of a science, as well as more contemporary perspectives. It is widely suggested that Psychology is a “coalition of specialities” meaning it is multi-disciplinary (Hewstone, Fincham and Foster 2005, page 4). I will therefore examine whether it could be considered wrong to think that all parts of the discipline should neatly fit into one view of a scientific approach.

One of the most important cause of mental illness is our environment. Several environmental components can increase our chances of getting a mental illness. Factors like feeling low in self esteem or anxiety, living in poverty, death or divorce in the family, social or cultural expectations can deeply affect or shape our risks of getting a mental illness. In the article “mental illness is nothing but brain illness”, Ian Gold mentions about this unique disease called schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a “psychiatric brain disease par excellence.. marked by hallucination and delusions.” He explains how the risk of developing this disease can increase when a person experiences “childhood adversity like abuse and bullying”. I agree because this can cause people to have low esteem and they might not be able to stand up for themselves and will feel people are abusing even when are not. Similarly, in an academic journal (2012) written by Luhrmann, he argues how this mental illness like schizophrenia can be effected by low self esteem. Luhrmann argues that your chances of developing schizophrenia increases if you are dark skin, which will negatively impact their self-esteem. He also claims that your risk also increases if you are “beaten, taunted, bullied, sexually abused or neglected as a child”. All these reasons will negatively impact the person self esteem and cause anxiety. This article also supports that living in poverty or being born poor can also increase the chances of

This essay will outline and compare both biological and behavioural perspectives on human behaviour. The history, major discoveries and theories will be discussed along with some of the most influential theorists in each of these two areas of psychology. This essay will also compare the two areas strengths and weaknesses in the field of psychology.

Psychology, the study of the mind and its functions, is a huge field of scientific research and one that pertains to everybody. From this field, a number of sub-fields have arisen that study the mind in relation to a particular culture or demographic of people, such as African-centered psychology, or simply African psychology. African psychology is defined by Clark (!) as “the recognition and practice of a body of knowledge which is fundamentally different in origin, content, and direction than that recognized and practiced by Euro-American psychologists.” Thus, African psychology is different from Euro-American psychology, which is considered to be the so-called regular psychology, in a way that reflects the differences between black people and white people, Africans and Europeans.

The movie A Beautiful Mind is one that offers psychologists with a lot of fodder to think about and its storyline brings out various aspects of psychology that can be analyzed to bring a more conclusive close to this debate. The thesis statement of this essay is that psychological disorders need to be understood independently of various factors such as biological and environmental factors. This is because the world of psychology has always tried to attach the above factors to various psychological disorders but I strongly feel that psychological disorders need to be understood and analyzed independently so as a true and deeper understanding of these disorders comes to the fore. The movie A Beautiful Mind is about a genius mathematician Nash who has a psychological disorder, which is later diagnosed to be paranoid schizophrenia. The effects of this disorder are evident in the movie and the essay tries to see how the need to study psychological disorders independently could be helpful in helping various examples of cases such as that of John Forbes Nash.

Psychology is an academic discipline built on various explanations and perspectives to understand human behaviour. In a comparative essay, the fundamental tenets of African and Western psychology will be discussed. Recognising Western’s goal for individualisation contrasting African’s goal for socialisation. Testing the validity of Indigenous knowledge systems by observing the upbringing of the Samoan Fa’afafine as well as contrasting the two perspectives in terms of orientation towards nature, time, human activity and orientation. We begin by defining the fundamental principles of psychology, then stating the western and indigenous approaches to psychology.

Psychology is made up of many perspectives, such as, behavioural, biological, cognitive, social, humanistic and finally, psychodynamic. This essay will focus on the behavioural perspective and the biological perspective. According to J Walker (2012) the behavioural perspective is based on behaviourism and is the study of observing behaviour when in certain contexts and events. The biological perspective however, explains behaviour by focusing on the function of the nervous system, genes and the brain.

Both critical and experimental social psychology form the modern social psychology, due to their important historical context. Experimental-social psychology is argued to have been derived from the American tradition, and a critical-social psychology is argued to have been derived from the European tradition. Although this has formed two distinct approaches in the use of methodology within psychology, there are still on-going debates over psychology as a science or not.