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Running head: INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
Introduction to psychology: reflection
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Institution
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INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
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Psychology is the study of human behavior and mind, and in this introduction course, the
topics have been insightful as they have introduced me to the history of psychology and the
entire field. During this session I learned about the history of psychology among other things. In
the history of psychology, I got to know that psychology began in 1879 and one of the major
scholar who was involved in pioneering this field is Wilhelm Wundt who founded the first
laboratory that was set apart exclusively to psychological research (Grison, Heatherton &
Gazzaniga, 2015). Other significant names that I came across were Hermann Ebbinghaus,
William, and Ivan Pavlov.
Having been introduced to the world of psychology and having studied about its history
and the key personalities, the next chapter focused on the role of biology in psychology. In this
section, I learned that psychology cannot be studied without connecting it to biology. In fact, I
learned that psychology could be studied form the biological perspective because the way in
which the body changes and operates has a direct impact in the psychological process of a human
being. The nervous system and their functions, the brain and its development from childhood to
adulthood and the way the body changes and functions can all affect behaviors (Grison,
Heatherton & Gazzaniga, 2015). Therefore, the biological makeup of the body has a direct
impact on psychology and as such students studying psychology ought to know Biology.
In as much as biology forms an integral part of psychology, in this introduction course, a
connection was made between psychology and philosophy, and this is in the area of
consciousness. In this chapter, one thing that struck me was that consciousness was first studied
by philosophers and was a part of philosophy. However, William James an American
psychologist studied consciousness and stated it as something continuous and unbroken despite
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
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the constant shifts and changes (Grison, Heatherton & Gazzaniga, 2015). Further, I determined
that knowledge as a state of self-awareness had been studied mainly with interests in the
observable behaviors. In the topic, I also came across integrated information theory and the
global workspace theory that try to explain the physical processes that underlie our
consciousness.
Having been taught about consciousness, I learned that children are aware of their
environment right from the point when the child is still in the womb. This chapter on
consciousness was a fascinating chapter that dealt with development across the lifespan of a
person. In this section, we learned about growth and development from childhood to adulthood.
The several changes that take place such as the development of senses from childhood to
adulthood, as well as the physical changes, are among the things we learned in this topic (Grison,
Heatherton & Gazzaniga, 2015). What struck me was the fact that the emotional development of
a person begins at a very early age and as such, the lifestyle of a child determines their emotional
characteristics when they become adults.
Feeling and perception was another very informative chapter in the introduction to
psychology course. What struck me most was how much perception and senses affect our
psychological interpretation of the environment. In this section, we also learned about the
auditory deficiencies. Among them were a conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss,
and mixed hearing loss.At this point, I was getting to understand just how much biology has an
integral connection with psychology (Grison, Heatherton & Gazzaniga, 2015).
Learning was one chapter that had a good number of theories. Most importantly though,
in this section, I learned that people learn from experiences. The learning theories that were
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
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discussed were conditioning theory. The classical conditioning theory by Pavlov was a learning
theory that explained that learning could be achieved through a procedure where a biologically
potent stimulus like food is paired with a previously neutral stimulus like a bell. Then the operant
conditioning theory by Skinner focused on changing people’s behavior through reinforcement is
given after a response that is desired. This topic made me learn that psychology has a role to play
in the learning process (Grison, Heatherton & Gazzaniga, 2015).
Once people learn the need to ...
