Applied Psychology Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior of humans. Initially I thought that it was just people studying people’s mind but in reality psychology has different types of branches and it is a very broad topic. The field of psychology is crucially important to humanity because psychology helps us understand why humans behave the way they do. Studying psychology helps you understand how the body and mind of a human works. One psychological concept would be self-concept, it is the way you view yourself, either you have a high or low self-esteem. In this self-image project, research was made and many young girls suffer psychologically because they don’t think they are good enough. There idea of being pretty is if they wear makeup and other products that are advertised. They think that by looking like the models that come out on tv that everyone is going to like them. Another concept would be the looking-glass self, it is how people shape their self-concepts based on their understanding of how others perceive them. In a dove campaign they had a women describe how she sees herself and they had another person describe her. The drawing where she described herself she came out looking ugly, the drawing where someone else described her she came out looking pretty. This shows that maybe at times we see ourselves in a negative way because that’s how your peers see you, but in reality you are better than what you think. Ideal self is another psychological concept which consists of how your real self is who you actually are, while your Ideal self is the person you want to be. “The ideal self is an idealized version of yourself created out of what you have learned from your life experiences, the demands of society, and what you admire in your role models (Ideal self, 2014).” Media has influenced young girls to think a certain way, we have to create a way in which media affects young girls in a positive way. Schemas may help the people that think of themselves a certain way. For example, media targets young girls to look a certain way so when they have all these advertisements with really skinny, full of makeup models, then there mentality is that they should look that certain way so they can feel pretty. If media where to have girls that are overweight and not full of makeup, then young girls will be able to think differently and not think that since they are overweight that they are not pretty. The field of psychology can be used to positively change the world because going in depth in psychology you realize that you can control a way someone acts or thinks. With psychology we can know when someone has a mental disorder or a psychological problem and psychologists can help this person. It has positively changed the world and it will continue to do so because research is being made and they are finding more ways to help people, it helps us know why people think and act the way they do. The major takeaways i’ve had taking this psychology class is that there is many people with psychological problems and i find it fascinating how the field of psychology is so broad. Before taking this class I didn’t think there was so many branches of psychology or all those new terms I learned by taking this class. I found this class so interesting that I will continue on with psychology because knowing how fascinating the human brain is, I will want to acquire more knowledge about psychology. |
Applied PsychologyA lot of people have different definitions to psychology. To me psychology is the study of human minds and how the mind functions. Also I believe that it has to do with how a person behaves or acts. Psychology is important to humanity because it’s important to know how a person behaves the way they do. Three psychological concepts that can be used for would be self-concept, looking-glass self, and ideal self.
Self-concept is the way a person sees themselves. A person can have a negative image of themselves or a positive image. In my fire project issues there were a lot of young girls who would have a negative self image of themselves. These young girls would be doing negative things to supposedly make themselves look better. Young girls are targeted by advertisements that would have a certain message about how they should see themselves. Looking-glass self is how you think others see you. So my issue of self-image has a lot to do with this concept because there are a lot of young girls that are really skinny that are thinking that society wants them to be in a certain figure and are causing themselves health risks, others young girls are skinny and they think others look at her and say shes fat. There are many examples of how different young girls think others see them differently, and negatively. Ideal self is another concept that I am using for my issue. Ideal self is the person you want to be. You create a particular person that you think is what society wants and how you think you should act. Self-image consists of this concept because young girls see how to act based on what society says a young girl should be acting. They buy products that advertisements say that they should buy just so that young girls can fit in. A Psychological concept that can be used to reduce or solve the problem is through operant condition. Operant conditioning is “learning that occurs when an active learner performs certain voluntary behavior and the consequences of the behavior (pleasant or unpleasant) determine the likelihood of its reoccurence.” (Laura Lincoln Maitland, “5 steps to a 5”) This would help reduce the negativity of self image in teen girls because you can condition a girl to believe that everyone is beautiful without having any kind of product on them, and showing them that its a health risk for themselves. Another concept that would help reduce the problem of negative self image is egocentrism. Egocentrism is “seeing the world from one’s own perspective; the inability to see reality from the perspective of another person; characteristic of the preoperational child,” (Laura Lincoln Maitland, “5 steps to a 5”). This would mean that if you teach young girls egocentrism they would only focus on their opinion and not what others think. So young girls wouldn’t be focusing on what the media and advertisments are saying about beauty. The field of psychology can be used positively to change the world by using it to diagnose young girls or figure out why a young teen has a low self-esteem or to figure out why they think they aren’t beautiful. Some kind of therapy for the young girl would be useful so that young girls would start thinking positively of themselves. This would be globally so it would change girls in every country to think good about themselves. Some major takeaways that I have acquired from my experience in Ap Psychology is applying some concepts into the real world. Using some information that I have learned in psychology, I find myself asking questions like if a certain person behaves a certain way, why? and I just find myself doing this. I also have learned that the brain has different roles in how it functions, and that it's very easy to manipulate someone into doing certain things, and acting a certain way. |