Essay on my interest in psychology

Explain the reasons for the development of psychology as an academic discipline in the 19th and 20th centuries, making explicit the important turning points and breakthroughs.

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,

To me psychology in itself is a beautiful mosaic piece hanging in museum and a Mozart’s symphony piece paying in the background. My interest in clinical psychology dates back to my years in high school, where I excelled in psychology. When I was a senior, I took a second-year course in psychology at my high school. This advanced-level AP psychology class was engaging and interesting, and earned an A. Since then all I can remember, I have been motivated to understand human thought, feeling, and behavior. It seemed only logical that I pursue a career in clinical psychology.

Throughout my education I excelled in every subject, until I entered high school. I began to take more rigorous courses and my grades began to drop. The coursework was a dozen times harder than any other courses I’ve ever taken and I struggled greatly. Instead of taking one AP course my junior year, I took three: English Literature, Physics 1, and Psychology.

Psychology has always fascinated me, learning about classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov), personality the id, ego, and superego (Sigmund Freud), were all interesting subjects in my high school introduction to psychology class. This subject was very interesting that it planted a desire that I had never forgotten, the desire of wanting to be a psychologist. The dysfunctional home environment in which I grew up also played a role in my decision. Although, I presently I hold a BA in Information Systems, I decided to return to school for my masters in psychology, since it was my first love. Choosing clinical psychology with a specialization in forensic was an easy decision, I love psychology and learning about the law of our country and the United Kingdom. One of my favorite past times is watching television shows old and new alike, such as Perry Mason, The Good Wife on CBS, Law and Order/Special Victim Unit on NBC, and Damages on Netflix. Television shows in the United States and the United Kingdom are not my only pass time, I love to cook, growing up in a Jamaican household undoubtedly allowed me the ability to learn to cook, some of their main dishes such as ackee and salt/cod fish, escovitch fish, curry chicken and much more. My mother also taught me to cook Italian dishes, and within the last three years I’ve learned to bake challah bread. The field of psychology is important to because I hope to comprehend violence

Haling from a family that puts major emphasis on the importance of education, the thought of college was never a yes or no question in my mind. I was to attend a university after I graduated high school. My upbringing taught me that formal education is not something to take lightly and was inevitably expected of me. With the added pressure of graduating with a class of over 1200 students, I felt great accomplishment in attending my parent’s alma mater. However, the path towards my future career was still opaque. My passion was so unclear. Beginning college in a field of study I did not enjoy, my freshman and sophomore years proved to be greatly disheartening. It was not until I took a course contrasting graduate school and medical school that I finally felt the spark that I had been so desperately searching for. Fortunately, the opportunity to shadow a physician was readily available, and that’s when it dawned on me what exactly my future was fated to entail. The trials of of unhappiness in my early studies, coupled with the two monumental realizations in my sophomore year, set forth my personal journey towards a lifetime of medical practice.

In this essay I will be looking at different approaches and theories used in psychology.

This essay will aim to describe and evaluate the behaviourist approach while referring to other perspectives and the key debates within psychology. Behaviourism believes that human behaviour can be explained in terms of conditioning, without the need to consider thoughts or feelings (Cardwell & Flanagan, 2015).

I believe that the answers to the greatest questions and problems in life could be gained through a better understanding of the human mind. Psychology is a study of human behaviors and trying to understand why we do the things we do. Because of this I would be interested in a career in psychology though there are many different career fields within psychology. I would be most interested in a career in health psychology though there’s an extensive learning process. It is important to understand the education or training requirements,skills,and talents needed salary and benefits offered and duties for a particular career when making this decision.

The History of Psychology In order to discuss Psychology's history, it is important to understand that psychology still does not have one unifying approach unlike the natural sciences; even the definition of Psychology and what it truly means is still undecided. However I shall attempt to review chronologically its philosophical origins, include how the science of Physics and Biology were placed in history and how they influenced research and determined the development of Psychology as its recognised today. Beginning with the philosophers Plato and Aristotle (between 428- 347) in ancient Greece, they began to ask

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.

Psychology is the study of the mind, its biology, and behavior if the individual. The father of psychology, Wilhelm Wundt, used objective measurement and controlled analyzing to find and emphasize separation between psychology and philosophy (McLeod). Wundt opened the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879, using his background in physiology to study reactions and sensations (McLeod). There is no doubt that he, along with the later help of Sigmund Freud, launched what is now modern psychology. Psychology and its research helped the world understand the inner workings of the mind and how it affects everyone around us.

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.

The human mind is designed with the innate ability to achieve anything. The interesting part of this paper is how we all use different triggers and motivations to goad us into gear. Motivation is an area of psychology that has gotten a great deal of attention, especially in the recent years. There are several distinct theories of motivation we will discuss in this section. Some include basic biological forces, while others seem to transcend concrete explanation. All creatures are born with specific innate knowledge about how to survive. Animals are born with the capacity and often times knowledge of how to survive by spinning webs, building nests, avoiding danger, and reproducing. These innate tendencies are preprogrammed at birth,

     Intrinsic motivation can be defined as “motivation associated with activities that are their own reward” (Perry 2003). It is motivation that stems from your inner feelings and views which feed your desires to accomplish and perform. Oppositely, extrinsic motivation is “motivation created by external factors such as rewards and punishments” (Perry 2003). When you are extrinsically motivated, you are only performing the task for what you will gain from completion. On the other hand, when we are intrinsically motivated, there is no requirement for external rewards or punishments