In the current essay, I am going to give a brief review of the information studied during the whole semester on the subject of psychology. The course met my expectations on it in the full sense; it happened to be very interesting and thought-provoking to learn different aspects of psychology and get to know that a lot of information can be proved by the situations we encounter in our everyday life.
I was thrilled that the book was aimed at our better comprehension of the subject with minimum effort and maximum result. The book for the course is written by Spencer A. Rathus who is famous for his style of narration and great experience in introducing different education matters into life.
The author makes every reader (student) think about the events happening in our everyday life to connect them with the psychological concepts, theories, and aspects of theoretical and practical study. The book is very interesting and thought-provoking; it involves the readers into a fantastical world of different theories explained in readable and understandable language, it makes everyone think about personal experience and the ways of connecting it with the psychological issues.
Every phenomenon of psychology becomes clear when one comes to know that we experience it in our everyday life. The author of the book uses a brand-new approach to the explanation of the extremely complicated and intricate information. The style of representation permits the readers a clear understanding of classical theories in psychology as well as the new investigations and innovations in the sphere of human mental, perceptive, cognitive abilities.
Throughout the text, there are different kinds of mentioning about the evolutionary perspective; also the author of the book gives a great number of references to the available resources. The subject is very important because it helps us to understand the personal actions and analyze the motivations, to react to statements with appropriate emotions and feelings.
Thus I would like to share my personal experience and a piece of knowledge acquired during the semester of studies. The first issue I am going to discuss is the notion of psychology and its interrelations with other branches of science. Thereby psychology is defined as the branch investigating consciousness and mental health. Different mental aspects and notions of consciousness are the basic issues of the field of psychology.
Psychology is a very difficult subject from the point of view of explanation because it involves a great number of other different sciences that are interconnected into the single unit of the human mind. The definition of psychology may vary depending on the personal preferences of the researcher and the classical theory according to which the scientist explains his/her experiments.
It is necessary to mention that the classical theories are very important for perfect comprehending the psychological matter, but the new experiment is of great value for the further investigation of the issue of the human mind and consciousness. Thus while studying and analyzing the notions of psychology it is of crucial importance to take into consideration several various approaches that can be applied during the research.
According to common human knowledge, people think that the science of psychology concerns only the matter of consciousness and mind. From one point of view, this opinion can be considered as a universal truth, and undeniable fact; from another point of view the subject of psychological study is too complicated to explain it simply by two notions.
Thus the psychology deals with a wide range of questions concerning the human mental activities; motivations of the actions; gender distinctions; memory and the ability to remember a great number of facts, figures, events, people, and its malfunctions; consciousness and unconsciousness, and the actions made in these two conditions; cognition of the world with the help of diverse means; emotions and ways of their expression, different abnormalities connected with this issue; perception and sensation, and a great number of different aspects associated with the psychological matter.
Moreover, psychology is closely connected with many different sciences dealing with the activities of the human organism, its disorders, and malfunctions to know how to prevent and treat different diseases. Thus chemistry, biology, and physics are sciences involved in the process of research of the human mind and consciousness.
Biology is one of the sciences associated with psychology because it is commonly considered that the research on the human mind is somehow related to the human brain; it is true but not in the full sense. It is necessary to say that biology and psychology are connected but not to the extent that the aspect of consciousness can be explained from the point of view of evolution, the process of metabolism, or mental disorders.
Psychology is one of the most important aspects of our life from the point of view of our mental activity, consciousness, and relations with other people, intelligence, memory, and learning abilities. It can be represented in a wide range of experiments and studies, but the most significant one is the influence of the psychological aspects on our everyday life, to be more correct, the expression of aspects in our life.
Psychology usually deals with several fields involved in this study, they are represented by general psychology which deals with the normal state of consciousness of human beings; child psychology which is connected with mental activities of the children taking into consideration the fact of growth; abnormal psychology is occupied with the sphere of malfunctions, disorders and other unusual processes of the human consciousness; individual psychology concerns the individuals, not regarding the interrelations and mutual influence of the individuals on each other.
Also, there are such branches of psychology as variational, social, and animal. Every field deals with a specific sphere of consciousness which is influenced by a great number of different factors and affects other people’s consciousness and relations with other people. The human consciousness is the subject that has to be researched in various situations, relations, and influences.
One of the most important aspects within the field of psychology is the aspect of sensation and perception. It includes biological, physical, and chemical approaches into the experiments and acquirement of the knowledge. The perception can vary for different people as it involves not only the sense of something but also the reaction, emotions, and other factors that seem to accompany the aspect of sensation and perception.
Thus perception is the consciousness of specific things familiar to the individual according to the sense organs. The sensation is reported into our consciousness due to the sensory-motor circuit. The subject of sensation deals with a sense of smell, sense of touch, hearing, vision, and taste researched from the point of view of physical processes in the human organism. It is associated with the relations of physical reactions with consciousness. And perception is the successive recognition and understanding of the facts or feelings sensed by the human organs of sense.
Thus while the sensation means more physical aspects and involves physical sensations experienced by the individual, the perception concerns more the recognition and consciousness of the experienced sense. These two processes are interrelated and are of crucial importance for the human organism because of the emotions and other reactions caused by the perception of the sensation.
Another important issue for the psychological aspect of the individual is consciousness and memory because it is necessary not only to perceive but to remember the feelings and the reactions, try to analyze the previous emotions, and react in the way appropriate for the situation. Nevertheless, people cannot control the wide range of their reactions on senses, but can further recognize the sense by the organism’s reaction on it.
The aspect of memory is even more complicated than the distinction of sensation and perception because this field of psychology is represented in many ways and there exist a great number of abnormalities connected with memory and remembrance. There are two concepts within the concept of memory: substitution reaction and displacement. They both function on an equal basis. These two principles of functioning of the memory help to avoid the stress and different abnormalities of the organisms to protect it.
The mechanisms of consciousness are aimed at the protection of the organism. The main functions of these mechanisms are the functioning on the level of unconsciousness and the denial, misrepresentation, or falsification of the threat. The process of substitution and displacement are connected with other concepts of the emotional aspect of the psychological sphere.
The next aspect of psychology that seems to be of great importance is cognition which is closely connected with the notion of language. Language is the concept which possesses all basic characteristics of human beings and with help of it the individual is capable to communicate, acquire knowledge and be a full-fledged member of society. The aspect of cognition here represents the human ability to acquire knowledge, whereas language is one of the numerous parts of the system of human knowledge.
Cognition is the basic issue that makes the human mind distinct from one of the animals. Cognition can be view both as a process and as a result. It is considered a process when a person is engaged in the study and absorbs a wide range of different kinds of information. As the result, cognition is represented by the knowledge and experience gained in the process of study. The aspect of cognition can be the subject of research as well as the ability of cognition.
But not all individuals can acquire all kinds of knowledge and experience. Here people with different psychological disorders are meant. But it is necessary to differentiate between people with psychological disorders from people with mental abnormalities because these two notions do not always mean the same thing. Thus the psychological disorders include stress and different mechanisms of the human organism used to protect the consciousness and body.
The abnormal behavior can be the result of exceptionality. An example of an exceptional individual is a person with autism. It is commonly known that the people who are considered to be influenced by autism are not very intelligent in the general sense. Thereby those people who are thought to be mentally abnormal in many cases appear to have some extraordinary qualities, though they lack in the general development.
Autism is not so terrible a disorder as many people think because like a great number of different psychological disorders it has different phases of development and is expressed in various forms. People with autism can be called exceptional ones because their perception of the world is specific and their consciousness is not always understandable to other people. This is one of the reasons why normal people are afraid of people with different disorders; they are afraid of what they cannot understand.
One more common disorder which is spread all over the world and is discussed everywhere is psychological stress. The definition of the notion can be expressed as the lack of ability of the organism to react to different external factors; it can be the result of some malfunctions of the organism which can be caused by tiredness or some other factors, suchlike lack of support from the members of the family during the preparations for the presentation.
Stress as a disorder of the psychological health of the individual can cause the malfunctions of the whole organism and other concepts of consciousness. Because the main characteristics of stress are the memory becomes worth, it becomes more difficult to concentrate the attention on a specific subject, the organism gets tired quicker than before, and the reaction on different external irritants does not correspond to the situation.
Most people think that stress can not affect them, but the environment at work and home, during various activities, and peaceful relaxation do not always correspond to our inner state, our mood, and condition of consciousness. The organism of human beings is an extremely fragile thing that is commonly affected by a great number of external irritants.
The reaction of the organism is not always expressed by emotions, sometimes it is accumulated inside causing the decline of the memory, tiredness of the whole organism, and other malfunctions. Thus it can be dangerous to think that one does not have any problems with the health and psychological condition.
In a conclusion, I would like to say that the most complicated subject of human history which concerns the concepts of the human consciousness appeared to be one of the most interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining, capacious, and extensive. It made the whole concept of the human consciousness so simple and understandable, that I cannot believe in the fact that the concepts of memory, cognition, sensation, and perception seem to be the aspects of everyday life.
The current essay is a reflection of the knowledge and experience acquired during the semester on the subject of psychology. The course met my expectations on it in the full sense; it happened to be very interesting and thought-provoking to learn different aspects of psychology and get to know that a lot of information can be proved by the situations we encounter in our everyday life.
I was thrilled that the book was aimed at our better comprehension of the subject because usually, the information in books on complicated subjects seems to be made even more complicated. The book for the course is written by Spencer A. Rathus who is famous for their great experience in introducing different education matters into life. The subject of psychology appeared to be one of those that make an individual think over the previous experience and analyze some mistakes and opinions.
Works Cited
Rathus, Spencer A. Study Guide for Rathus’ Psychology: Concepts and Connections, 9th. London: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004.