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What is psychology? “Psychology is currently defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes” (Roesch). Psychology allows us to figure out what a person is feeling and going through psychologically and it seems like a vital subject for those that will have constant interactions with people. For example, lawyers, teachers, policemen and even doctors have daily interactions with people and yet many have not even given psychology a second though after taking an introductory class in high school or college. How can a subject that focuses on the way people behave and think be regarded as just another requirement to graduate? The thought is quite unsettling and it is unfortunate that psychology has not been given the importance and recognition it deserves.
Times are however changing and with these changes, people are beginning to realize that psychology may be the key to understanding why a person does what he/she does. In hopes of being a doctor, I have realized that learning the way a body works is not enough. “The World Health Organisation attempted…defining health very broadly as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’” (Ayers 6). If being healthy requires physical, mental and social stability, how can a doctor just focus on the physical part of their patient and treat their problems based on just one of the three key components to being healthy? Sure, knowing what an organ does will help me understand what is going on with a patient’s body, but will it help me understand what a person is going through psychologically and emotionally? Of course it will not. Psychology provides a means of understanding a patient’s mindset by relating to what a p...
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...his course showed me that it is very important to be willing to accept the fact that not everyone is like you. I learned to embrace a person’s unique personalities and I feel that that will help me interact with my patients very effectively.
Works cited:
Ayers, Susan, and Richard Visser. "Psychology and Medicine." Psychology for medicine. London: Sage, 2011. . Print.
Grunstein, Ron R.. "Integrating psychology and medicine in CPAP adherence – New concepts?." Sleep Medicine Reviews Volume 18 (): Pages 123–139. Print.
Myers, David G.. Psychology. 8th ed. New York: Worth Publishers, . Print.
Roesch, Ronald. "Psychology and Law: The Overview." Psychology and law: the state of the discipline. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999. 2 . Print.
South, S.C.. "Behavior Genetics of Personality." Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (Second Edition) (): 311-318. Print.
Psychology can be broadly defined as the scientific and systematic study of people’s behavior and mental processes.
In the past few decades, clinical treatment has moved on from biomedical approach to the biopsychosocial approach. Scientists now believe that health of an individual is not merely due to physiological conditions but may also depend on psychological and socio-cultural perspectives(Engel, 1977). The term health psychology was developed by the American Psychological Association to describe health and wellness issues that arise from psychological problems. Health psychology stems from Systems theory, which says that human events such as injury and illness exist within several interconnected systems, such as our peer relationships, childhood experiences, personality and other factors (Schwartz, 1982).
Rivas-Vazquez, Rafael A.; Johnson, Sheri L.; Rey, Gustavo J.; Blais, Mark A.; Rivas-Vazquez, Ana. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 33.2 (Apr 2002): 212-223.
Psychology is a social science that aims to study the mind and the behaviors of humans. It aims to understand what drives humans to act the way they do. It differs from sociology and anthropology in that it takes accounts the individual rather than society as a whole.
Costanzo, M., & Krauss, D. (2012). Forensic and Legal Psychology: Psychological Science Applied to Law. New York: Worth Publishers.
“Law and psychology are two separate disciplines, but have much in common. While psychology’s goal is to understand behavior and law’s goal to regulate it, both fields make assumptions about what causes people to act the way they do...”
Liddle, H A., Rowe, C L., Dakof, G A., Henderson, C E., Greenbaum, P E.; (Feb, 2009). Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology; Vol 77(1); 12-25. Doi: 10.1177/0306624X10366960
A layman would define personality as an individual’s characteristics in terms of how they think and behave. Many theorists, however, interprets personality differently resulting in various personality theories. Personality is determined by traits which are behaviours displayed by a person in most given situations. How a person reacts to common circumstances may also be used to foresee future behaviours. Traits are then categorized into types that allow easier comparisons to be made between each individual’s attributes. The focus of this paper would be on the biological aspects of personality whereby traits are thought to be inheritable through genetics and associated with the central nervous system. Behavioural genetics are research that makes use of results from studies done on family, twins and adoptions. The findings of how both genes and environment influences personality from the studies will be discussed. Some researchers found possible issues with the representativeness of such studies. The outline of Eysenck’s biological model of personality and arousal, Gray’s BAS/BIS theory and Cloninger’s biological model of personality will further explain the biological effect on personality.
A complex and relatively new field of study, behavioral genetics is particularly interesting because is sheds light on the inner workings of a favorite subject: ourselves. Human behavioral genetics is broadly defined as the examination and characterization of genes as a basis for human behavior. The link between genetics and behavior was first recognized by Sir Francis Galton, a 19th century scientist and cousin of the very famous Charles Darwin, who studied the heritability of mental abilities of close relatives and family members (Stigler, 2010). Since then, genetics has been linked to many more behavioral phenotypes from eating and mating activities to substance abuse, social attitudes, violence and mental abilities. Geneticists are able to study this by analyzing parallels in physical and behavioral characteristics of families and populations (Rothstein, 2005). However, as with many other new scientific fields, the study of behavioral genetics and its implications has been the subject of increasing scrutiny and co...
Mcbride, Carolina. Zuroff, David. Ravitz, Paula. Koestner, Richard. Moskowitz, Debbie. Quilty, Lena. Bagby, Michael. (2010). British Journal of Clinical Psychology. , 49(4), p529-545.
Spellman, B., & Busey, T. (2010). EMERGING TRENDS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW RESEARCH: An editorial overview. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17(2), 141-141-2.
Raymond B. Cattell (1906-1998) studied the personality traits of large groups of people, calling the visible features of their personalities “surface traits.” During his studies, Cattell observed that certain “surface traits” would appear simultaneously in individuals. When Cattell noticed this trend occurring frequently he renamed the group of “surface traits” “source traits”. At the conclusion of his research Cattell identified sixteen “source traits.”
Matthews, G., Deary, I. J., & Whiteman, M. C. (2009). Personality traits. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Knowing psychology can help you in your everyday life. I believe that you are able to apply it to many situations and make it the best you can. I really look forward to earning more in depth about many of these topics in psychology, especially social psychology.
... prone to the illness. The role that psychology has played and continues to play, is that of psychological awareness that only the individual can control the outcome, once the process has taken place. The individual person can then control how to continue the journey to recovery.