Personal Reflection Of Psychology

Taking a Psychology class has taught me a lot about others and myself. I have learned a lot in this class and the information I retained will stick with me for the rest of my life. The knowledge I have gained will help me in the future by allowing me to be a better actress, CEO, and mother. The most important topics I will need are Lifespan Development and Psychological Disorders. These subjects can be unknowingly important when crossing paths with other people.

I’ve always loved the thrill of a challenge, and what’s more challenging than attempting to study the most mysterious thing known to mankind: the human brain? Dr Oliver Sacks said ‘If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a log or an eye; but if he has lost a self – himself – he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.’ Without memory, what are we at all? Memory makes us the person that we are; we build from our past experiences and use them to adapt our personality, and the complexity of it all is what intrigues me to pursue psychology at university and into a career as a neuropsychologist. In 2009 a family member of mine was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. This was one of the first elements that sparked

Through the last two years as a student at Manchester Community College, I have been able to experience numerous classes and meet wonderful professors. In my first semester of college, I decide to take a general psychology class with Dr. Francine Rosselli-Navarra. She taught me that psychology is a science, which studies our minds and behaviors. After that class I knew that I did not just want to study the physical feature of the brain and the brain process, but how the interactions with and within our brains that produce our cognitive functions. After completing that psychology class I realized that I did not wish to be a biology major anymore, instead I wished to study in the field of Neuroscience, which is a combination of both biology and psychology.

A human’s development is a lifelong process beginning before birth and extending until the moment of death. In every moment of life, every human being is constantly evolving in their own person way. Some evolve mostly with physical changes while other evolve based more solely on mental evolution. However, as humans grow their cognitive abilities advance and decline in response to the brain’s growth from childhood and reduced function in their old age. Psychosocial development is also significantly influenced by physical growth, as our changing body and brain, together with our environment, shape our identity and our relationships with other people.

Over the course of this class I have pieced together many things about my own life that before went unnoticed. I am now able to see things in a bit of a different light. Now that I have been introduced to the realm of psychology I understand some of the reasons for behavior around me. I have learned that there is a reason for most everything and a lot of our behaviors and mental processes can be explained through psychology. Studies have been conducted for many years to try and pinpoint the source of our behavior and it is not something that most people think about every day. Having a better understanding of why we operate the way we do will help me to better understand myself and the others around me.

Psychology can be defined as the systematic study of mental processes, couple with behaviors, and experiences (Kalat, 2011). There are many ways in examining, mental processes and behaviors among people, and therefore psychologist uses different perspectives to understand how human beings, think, act, and behave. Some psychologist uses one perspective to analyze behaviors, and other uses a multidimensional approach. Carter & Seifert (2013) identified 7 major perspectives that are used to study people’s behavior, and mental processes. These perspectives are the biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and the sociocultural perspective.

When I started this class this pass September I had a little knowledge of psychology. In my junior year of high school I took Psychology as an elective class. I really enjoy it alot, it amaze me how much there was to know about our brains. This September I came with the feeling that this psychology class was going to be way different from my psychology class from high school. And that my knowledge from my class before wasn’t going to be useful at all. But I was wrong, this class has actually been better than my other class. Because it has help dust off some of the concepted that I had learn before. But it has also made gain more knowledge about psychology that I didn’t knew before. For example the next concepts are the ones that had impacted me the most: critical thinking and the eight essential, implicit learning, short term and long term memories. I chose these concept because they have not only taught me more about psychology, but they have made a big impact on me.

The cognitive approach to development psychology; developed by Jean Piaget in 1934, deals with nature of knowledge, and how human intelligence is developed and utilized (Piaget, 1983, p. 46). In this theory, Piaget asserts that reality, which is defined in two conditions that explains change brought about by dynamic systems, involves states and transformations. Transformation refers to all kinds of changes a living organism undergoes and state is the condition in which the living organism can be found between the transformers. He further argues that humans should have functions to represent reality and the transformational process if their intelligence is to be adaptive.

Piaget believed that human development involves a series of stages and during each stage new abilities are gained which prepare the individual for the succeeding stages. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the differences between two stages in Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory—the preoperational stage and concrete operational stage. Cognitive development refers to how a person constructs thought processes to gain understanding of his or her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors. The development of new cognitive structures (mental maps or schemas) will be a result of the individual's ability to adapt through mental processes such

Boundless. “Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 27 Jun. 2014. Retrieved 05 Apr. 2015 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/human-development-14/theories-of-human-development-70/piaget-s-theory-of-cognitive-development-270-12805/

Already getting started next year, I enrolled into a psychology class to get a jumpstart for when I go into college. I chose to enroll into the psychology class because the human mind is something that is very complex and diverse. By me taking this class, I am partially more ahead and more taught than that of a student who doesn’t take the class. And that way, when I get into the psychology major, I have a small intake of what it is all about.

For this paper I will be exploring Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget, theorized that children progress through four key stages of cognitive development that change their understanding of the world. By observing his own children, Piaget came up with four different stages of intellectual development that included: the sensorimotor stage, which starts from birth to age two; the preoperational stage, starts from age two to about age seven; the concrete operational stage, starts from age seven to eleven; and final stage, the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and continues into adulthood. In this paper I will only be focusing on the

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

As a physical therapy student, many peers have asked why I chose to minor in psychology rather than taking a simple course in human performance and fitness or biology. Taking this course, I am confident in my minor decision and realize the importance of mastering and utilizing effective communication, genuine listening, and authentic presence, especially in a physical therapy setting. Several counseling theories were presented over the course of the semester looking at their basic philosophies, the relationship between client and therapist, and key components to effective treatment. There were three theories in particular, Adlerian therapy, existential therapy, and rational emotive behavior therapy, which I found to really resonate with my beliefs, values, and experiences. By integrating these three theories together, using the common factors approach, I was able to identify similar core beliefs and principles in each to create my final theory of change.

The writing I did this semester for Engl 110c has meant alot to me because I was able to pick a topic that has such a huge impact in my life. I was able to do the topic about Navy Wives, which has a huge impact on me. I recently became a navy wife a year ago and my life has changed drastically. I was able to share everything I wanted to about the life of a military wife through my writings, as well as share to my classmates about my topic. I really enjoyed creating my ePortfolio because I could come out of my shell and be me. I made a ePortfolio website that would be for military wives to read. I believe this website would be perfect for any military wife reading it. I was able to give tips and information on what it’s like to be a military wife, how to prepare for deployments and how to stay strong being a military wife.