American Military University Learning Goals Discussion

 

 

Part I

Identify 3 learning goals you want to achieve.

Part II

The history of any subject is of great importance in the process of analysis. What is gained by studying the history of psychology? Discuss why psychology can be described both as a science and as a non-science. Include in your answer the characteristics of science that some psychologists are unwilling to accept while studying humans.

Classmate #1:

PART I
Hello class! I am Laura. I am currently 5 classes away from finishing my Bachelor’s in Legal Studies with a Minor in Psychology. I hope to attend law school after I finish my degree. My husband is active duty army so we currently reside in Texas, but I am back home in Minnesota with family while he is deployed. This course is a requirement for my minor, however, I think it’ll definitely be an interesting one! Through this course I hope to learn different theories that established and helped develop psychology as a field, a deeper understanding of where psychology came from, and some important people in psychology.

PART II
By studying the history of psychology, one can begin to understand the field. The lesson described psychology as being a relatively new field; being established only in the last 200 or so years. Through this understanding of where psychology began as well as concepts in psychology that have evolved, professionals have a greater understanding of different disorders, diagnoses, and treatment for those suffering from a psychological disorder. It also gives a greater understanding to the way the mind works.

Psychology can be considered a science in the fact that it is the study of something. It is the study of the brain, how it functions, and how different things can alter that-for instance disorders such as depression which has been found to be a chemical imbalance. Through the use of talk therapy, psychologists have been able to further understand what makes a person “tick” so to speak, and that is where the non-science comes in. As we are discussing in another course, what is functioning for one person could potentially be debilitating for another; this leads to conflict in diagnosis and disorders which is where it becomes less of a science and more of a personal situation.

References
Week 1 Lesson

Classmate #2:

Part 1

Hello Professor and my fellow classmates, my name is Paula Bogard. I’m 42 years old and from Louisville, Kentucky and I am a 5th year senior. My education journey has not been an easy one, I have been in school off and on since November of 2011; having to take breaks to caretake for my parents. I started at APUS as an accounting major as that was the job history I had. When I realized that the major had more business and marketing courses than accounting, I knew I would never get through it, so I switched my major to Criminal Justice with a concentration in Forensics. Since my early teenage years, I have had a fascination with the criminal mind and how it works. I absolutely loved my courses until I got to the forensic side…while still fascinating, I ran into problems when it came to the scientific side. At that point I needed to take one of my breaks, during which I started helping my friend study for her bachelor’s in psychology. During those months I realized that my skills would best be suited for this field as well. My ultimate career goal is to work in the correction system. I have been struggling to get back into the school groove, so my goal in this class is to improve in my performance. Another goal is to thoroughly understand the history of psychology; the only way to use your education to its fullest ability is to truly understand its origin and purpose. My last goal is to get an A and improve my GPA, lol. I’m a pretty big introvert so I don’t have a lot of activities outside of reading and cooking, but I did just get back from an amazing vacation to New Orleans and a cruise to Mexico and the travel bug has finally bit me!

Part II

The only way to understand why we do something is to understand the history of the something, same goes for why we study and practice psychology. It’s so interesting to me that the root of psychology is philosophy; French philosopher Rene Descartes is credited with introducing the idea of dualism, which states that the mind and body are separate entities that work together to form the human experience (Cherry, 2019). One of the major debates and discussion in psychology, Nature vs. Nurture is rooted in philosophy. Physiology is also important in the study of psychology; we must study the biology of the brain to understand how it works with determining behavior. There is still great debate today on whether psychology is a science or not; I personally think it is both. It is a science when dealing with human behaviors and cognitive functions. I just finished a course in perception and it without a doubt is a science! Psychology also deals with the introspection of feelings and emotions which is not a discipline if science. Psychology is such a vast topic with so many different fields that psychologists specialize in; clinical, psychotherapy, educational, social, neuropsychology, forensics, occupational, etc. Every field has different theories and practices with which they diagnose and treat issues. They are not all going to see eye to eye on methods or agree on the characteristics of the different disciplines of sciences.

Good luck to everyone!

References

Cherry, K. (2019, March 9). The Origins of Psychology: History Through the Years. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/a-brief-history-of-psychology-through-the-years-2795245.

Part #3:

Hello Professor and classmates,

Part 1.

My name is Michael Logan and I live in the very northwest corner of Missouri. I was born and raised here but left to explore the world, courtesy of the US Army. After finishing 9 years, I decided I had my fill of deployments, so I moved back to KC and became a civilian police officer. Tragedy has its way of creating new paths for people. I lost my son in Oct of 2014 and my father shortly afterwards. I decided to move back to where I originated from to find peace and heal. I decided to finish my schooling as I had begun the pursuit of a degree way back in the 90’s, (yes, I am a wee older). Through therapy sessions, counselors, and even psychiatric help, I found no relief from my loss. It was then that I decided to go back to school and finish my psychology degree. I felt that if others couldn’t “fix me”, I’d fix myself. I have 2 more classes after these 8 weeks, and I will be graduating (in June), with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. I am still a cop and I work as a detective for a sheriff’s office in Missouri. I am also a TFO (task force officer), attached to the Homeland Security here in Missouri. I am married and have three stepchildren and a 23-year-old daughter and of course, my deceased son “Fighter”. My wife and I had “my rainbow baby”, on February 3rd of this year. Life couldn’t be better.

The three learning goals that I have for this class is to learn more on how psychology developed into a scientific inquiry. I just finished the class, Perceptions. and realized that psychology has branched beyond Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or BF Skinners Operant Conditioning. Psychology is so much more than placing an emotion or attempting to identify why a person reacts to the environment they exist in. I want to know how things like perception, personality, and behaviors, were all first questioned and why? With that, how did theorist parallel this with our cognitive development? This would lead me to my second goal as I am curious how early philosophers were able to gather information that led to the infancy of psychology. My third goal is to find what the golden age per say, was, involving the common theories that we utilized today.

Part 2.

The history of psychology is rooted in the early exploration of why men and women act and behave a certain way. In my line of work, we look for the “how’s,”, “who’s” “what’s” and the “when”. We try to look for the “why’s” a person does something which in this case would usually be criminal in nature. Early philosophers left a world of myth and magic towards a new world of science. They too, were inquisitive in finding out the why’s of people’s behaviors. They reasoned that the body and mind influenced each other. As theorist in psychology grasp one area, they can build upon that area and perhaps answer new, never thought of questions about the mind. This is important in that society influences our minds and is ever changing. With this, newer, more innovative theory on the mind will need to come into fruition. “In work psychology, we aim to study human behavior in organizations and apply the knowledge we gain for beneficial ends”. (https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/, 2020).

Psychology is both a science and as well something that is not scientific in nature. In the act of science, the brain responds to a stimulus that our senses detect. Scientist can explain the principles of the stimulus and how they interact within our brains. The science of psychology can utilize a hypothesis to form a theory and conduct research using the scientific method. As each step is thoroughly researched, a conclusion can be generated to find either merit in the theory or find that the hypothesis is incorrect. A non-scientific approach to psychology would be quantifying emotion. What is happiness?? Why does a certain song make a person sad? The five basic tenets of the scientific method is terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experimental conditions, reproducibility and, finally, predictability and testability. (Casadevall, A., & Fang, F. C. 2016). Psychology is often internal and cannot be tested. Emotion, like pain, is subjective. Therefore, dealing with the human behaviors and perceptions are all theory based. No two person are the same therefore no two minds are alike.

Thanks everyone and good luck this next 8 weeks!

Michael

Casadevall, A., & Fang, F. C. (2016). Rigorous Science: a How-To Guide. mBio, 7(6), e01902-16. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01902-16

Why do we need psychology? And what does psychology need? (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-32/march-2019/why-do-we-need-psychology-and-what-does-psychology-need

Minimum 200 words answer to each