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Research methods in psychology : their advantages and disadvantages
To What Extent Should Psychology Be Considered A Science
Discuss critical thinking and decision making in psychology pdf
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Seeking Knowledge in Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind, so how do psychologist know anything about my mind that I don’t already know for myself. You are the only one that truly knows and observes the inning working of your mind. How psychologists study your mind is by having you examine your own mind and then accurately tell them what you observed. Doing it that way was soon thought to be unscientific do with the fact that introspection was too flawed. Psychologists accept the fact that the mind can’t fully be understood from another person 's point of view. Because of this we now changed the way we define psychology. Today we now define psychology as the scientific study of undisguised behavior and mental process. Behavior is defined in psychology as anything that you can directly observe, such as actions and response. Overt behavior is doing things such as studying, hanging out with your friends, and tying your shoes. Psychologist also studies subjective mental events such as remembering or dreaming. When it comes to the process we take in psychology, we usually develop research methods or systematic scientific ways to answer questions. Some people in this world said they never dream so psychologist invited the brainwave machine to see if they people really never dream. They found out that the people who thought they weren’t dreaming actually were and dreamed quite frequently. If you are awakening during a dream you will remember it and this fact made the EGG develop the study of dreaming more scientific. Psychology has been studied for centuries; making everything we know about it, common sense but some of what we think is common sense is false. People think that some people are left or right brained but this be...
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...rstanding” what we can explain or what we think we can explain from what we learned from the description. The third goal is the prediction. Prediction is having the ability to forecast behavior accurately. If someone gets hurt you predict that someone else around will help so you don’t. The next goal is control. Control means the ability to alter the conditions that affect behavior. Being able to over come your fears is control to psychologist. The objectives of psychology are normal extensions of our wish to comprehend behavior. Psychologists trust that the scientific method and critical thinking will help them achieve their four goals.
Critical thinking plays a rule in psychology from the fact that if something is really expensive and someone is trying to sell the same thing for cheap you would second guess it because how could it be the real thing but so cheap?
1.) Psychology is the study of how humans think, behave and feel and how the brain receives and processes information. Five major aspects that psychology focuses on are mental activity, behavior, critical thinking, social interaction and emotional processes. Mental activity allows us to use our five senses to perceive our surroundings. Our behavior is how we react to the information we receive about our surroundings. Critical thinking that helps us evaluate information to find a sensible, well-supported conclusion. Social interaction allows us to communicate with others while emotional processes helps us understand and effectively integrate our emotions in our daily lives.
The practice of researching human behavior, which dates back to most ancient civilizations, has become better understood and more effective over time. This research led to modern psychology and has become increasingly broad since the first notion that one person could observe and measure the reasoning behind another person’s actions. Researchers in the field can study psychology as a whole or one of the various sub-disciplines that psychology breaks down into. These sub-disciplines range from the psychology of learning to fringe theoretical psychology. The men and women who conduct studies in the psychological field, referred to as psychologists, continue research in their sub-disciplines to add to the knowledge of the community. Psychologists focus on the study of the mind while clinicians treat individuals that suffer from psychological disorders. Now that I have covered psychology’s growth, I will move on to the ways that psychology currently impacts the world.
In my head I think I have gone over tons of different degrees and career ideas and none of them seemed to really jump out at me. That was until I found Psychology it was very interesting to me and I found that I could be passionate about it. A Psychologist is a professional who studies behaviors and mental issues in order to help them cope with life. A Psychologist tries and diagnoses people who people might call crazy and in other words are unable to cope with day to day life. There are many types of Psychologist and one of them is someone who studies criminals and their behavior to get a better idea of how or why they committed a crime. They also make guesses based on the evidence at hand so they can try and recreate how the criminal committed
Psychology is the study of the behavior of living organisms. The people that study the behaviors are called psychologists. There have been many studies done by these people to try and figure out why people or animal do the things they do. Psychology's four main goals are to describe what occurred, explain why it occurred, predict what event is likely to occur next, and to change to prevent unwanted outcomes. Psychologists study the process of thinking, learning, cognition, emotions, motivations, and personalities. An example of one study that has been done would be why a dog salivates to the sound of a bell and show. This behavior is due to a conditioned stimulus becoming a conditioned response. Another experiment done was with a baby and a white mouse to see if the baby would be scared if something happened while grabbing for the mouse.
The term psychology has many meanings to different people, even to those who work within the psychological field. The word psychology derives from two Greek roots; 'psyche' refers to 'soul' or 'mind' and logo refers to 'the study of'. A more update definition of the word psychology can be found from Atkinson, et al (1991) “The scientific study of behaviours and mental processes.” However on Google Definitions the definition of psychology is “the mental characteristics and attitudes of a person” [accessed 16 September 2011], which gives somewhat of a contradiction. In this assignment I will be outlining and evaluating four key psychological perspectives. The psychological perspectives I have chosen are the behavioural approach, biological approach, cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach.
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior. In psychology, and all of the other sciences, relying on opinions is abandoned in order to find out which explanations best fit the evidence or data given. Science continually forces us to question our findings and conclusions. Over time, psychology has advanced greatly and a main reason for such progressiveness is because of the change in the research model used.
What is not easily recognized is the fact that the very fabric of life is dependent on the ability to think properly and make good decisions. Improper thinking is costly in the quality of life and monetarily. The result of a critical thinker that has worked to cultivate proper thinking skills includes: the ability to ask vital questions and to identify problems with clarity. A critical thinker also collects relevant information while effectively interpreting it, thinks with an open mind, uses alternative systems of thought, and understands how to communicate while working to formulate a strong solution. In summary, critical thinking is self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. Above all else, the standards of excellence are rigorous, and it entails the prospect of overcoming the challenge of sociocentrism and
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.
Critical thinking allows for individual assessments of topics and can be applied to any question posed in any situation. It allows for individuals to think for themselves and evaluate situations on their own to determine the final outcome. In behavioral science and in respect to social work, critical thinking is imperative in order for case workers to make the best decision in any given situation dealing with human interactions and human behavior. This is witnessed in Evidence Based Practice (EBP) and can be further applied in Person-In-Environment (PIE) theory.
In this essay I am looking at where Psychology as a discipline has come from and what affects these early ideas have had on psychology today, Psychology as a whole has stemmed from a number of different areas of study from Physics to Biology,
I never noticed how much psychology could be incorporated into everyday life. But really, any decision or action you take is related to it. I have personally been extremely interested in social psychology: why people do things because of social norms, what people do in order to look socially acceptable, etc. Others topics I also find interesting are sensation and perception; how past experiences can influence how you perceive the things around you, states of consciousness; how things that have happened in your day can be transferred into a mash of events in your dreams, motivation and emotion; what makes a person do something or what makes a person start or stop procrastination, and lastly: personality; what characteristics and traits stand out the most in a person, what makes a person who they are.
The Science of Psychology “Psychology is the scientific study of mind, brain and behaviour. Some of what you do learn may seem like ‘common sense’, or at least familiar to you because you are learning about topics in which you can relate to. However some things you may believe is true, but is incorrect. The way we know this is through the application of scientific methods.” Mark Leary suggests that the subject matter of psychology is much more familiar to most people than is the subject matter of physics or biology; we see behaviour all around us.
Critical thinking regularly involves the capability to interpret information and make knowledgeable decisions based on such information. Additionally, problem solving is frequently theorised as the use of critical thinking skills towards the effective solution of a specific problem or towards a specific end goal. Critical thinking is the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances. The general goal of thinking is to figure out some situation” (Critical Thinking, 2001, p.1), solve some problem, answer some questions, or resolve some issue. It also is a process in which a person pursuits reliable and pertinent information about the world. Critical thinking is often described as reasonable, ruminative, trustworthy, and a well-practiced form of thinking that assists people with deciding what they should believe in and what actions should be taken. A practiced critical thinker will ask good questions, collects pertinent data, categorizes common characteristics, logically reasons with the new data and then he or she will come to a trustworthy and dependable conclusion. Critical thinking makes use of many processes and procedures. Some processes include but is not limited to asking questions, making judgments, and identifying
“Critical thinking is the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances” (Paul & Elder, 2006, p. xviii). Critical thinking involves the capability to think rationally and fair-minded. One must have the ability to employ his thinking reflectively and independently. Critical thinking is more than just thinking "naturally." It involves analyzing oneself and self improvement. One needs to do more than gather information when making a good decision to think critically. Even if someone has a good memory and knows a large amount of facts is does not necessarily mean that he thinks critically. As a critical thinker one needs the ability to determine the consequences from what one knows, to know how to make use of information to solve problems, and seek reliable sources of information to inform oneself ("Module: About Critical Thinking", 2011). Critical thinking in business in important because it helps one recognize the prejudices, false beliefs, and habits that may lead to flawed decisions.
Psychology is the scientific study and practical application of observable behavior and mental processes of organisms. Psychology differs from other social sciences such as: Sociology, History, or Economics, because psychology specifically deals with the study of an individual. The other social sciences will study groups, or history. Psychology is less a science of reported findings, it attempts asks and answers questions using observable behavior and what can be determined as mental processes of the subject. The symbol for psychology is the Greek letter “psi” (Ø). The subject matter of psychology is, affect, behavior, and cognition. The affect for psychology is the actual mental processes that make up: moods, feeling, and emotional state. An example for affect would be feeling sad about something happening. Behavior includes the actually actions and responses of organisms. Behavior can include the way we act in any given situation, for example when we get up in the morning. The order in the way we prepare ourselves for going out into public can be categorized as our behavior. Cognition is the actual mental events and the processes that result from them. Memories of an event are a great example of an organism’s cognition. The components and corresponding faces of psychology include the body of knowledge which is considered the teaching face, set of investigative methods or research face, and array of techniques the therapy face. The goals of psychology are: to explain behaviors, to describe behaviors, to predict behavior, and to modify inappropriate behaviors. Explaining behaviors would be a question similar to “Why does this happen?”, and example of how describing behavior could be accomplished would be asking “What causes this behavior, where does it come from?”. Predictions can be elaborated on by asking “When will the behavior occur?”. An example of a behavioral modification question is “What can be changed in the environment to alter this behavior?”. A specialized subfield of psychology that most interests me is, Forensic Psychology, because it would be appealing to me to understand a potential criminal mind and to make the determination if the criminal was sane at the time the crime was committed or if he/she was operating with full judgment. In studying the 9/11 attack on America, a Forensic Psyc...