Does psychology make a significant difference in our lives ?

Research question

Does psychology make a significant difference in our lives?

Introduction

All the activities that a person performs in a day to day life, the brain has to play an active part. In that aspect the question that arises is does psychology really make a significant difference in our lives? . Many research works has been put forward to show the importance of psychology, the professional life of each individual, the way a person thinks, and behaves plays a major role in making life better. This paper will look at the importance of psychology and its contribution to the lives of all human beings. According to Philip G. Zimbardo, the importance of psychology has been felt for quite some time, he gives the example of how during the world war II pilots where he had to train pilots how to overcome fear and go back to war. He goes ahead and refers to the work of one of his mentors by the name of Seymour Sarason who did some research on the anxiety in children (Zimbardo, 2003).

Methodology

To help to show the importance of psychology in the day to day lives in the human beings, I had to look at some of the research work carried out by Zimbardo. I had to look at some of his various work and analyze them so that I could come up with proof that indeed psychology was very essential to the lives of a human being.

Psychological Testing and Assessment

Psychology has been used to develop, asses, human beings talents, their abilities, strengths and even weakness. Systematic assessment has proven to be very useful than the subjective mode that has been used for normed tests. Normed test is usually carried out on people in authority such as teachers, clinicians, and even employers. Psychology has also been very useful in assessing the intelligence of human beings, personality, and achievement. STA and GRE are well known standardized tests, but over the time as a result of critiques much have done to improve the tests (Zimbardo, 2003).

Positive Reinforcement

For a very long time young children have been punished for errors committed or for behaving inappropriately, but over the time the system of punishing children is being replaced by positive reinforcement. Under this system a child is encouraged to do more of the positive things that they do and on the other hand discouraged from doing negative things.” Punishing the undesirable person has been replaced by punishing the undesirable behavioral acts” (Zimbardo, 2003).

Results

Psychology is very essential in every day to day life of any person; it has proved to be very useful in enhancing positive behavior in children. It has also been used to enhance the personality of human beings, it has also been very crucial in carrying out tests on people who are considered to be in authority. The use of systematic assessment has proved to produce very reliable results that the subjective mode. There are other areas of life where psychology has proven useful to the human beings, thus it can be concluded that psychology has very significant difference in our lives (Zimbardo, 2003).

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Discussion and conclusion

Every activity that a human being takes place in has that special connection with psychology, when a person shows signs of mental stress the first thing that comes into mind is psychology. When a person shows and continues with undesirable behavior, psychology is what can be used to determine why the person is behaving the way they are. In that aspect psychology can indeed make very significant difference in our lives.

Reference

Zimbardo, P. G., Weber, A. L., & Johnson, R. L. (2003). Psychology: core concepts (4th Ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon

Personal reaction

The research has been very useful as it has been able to help me know how psychology can be used in almost every aspect of life. Initially I thought psychology was only helpful in dealing with mental cases but I was able to realize that it can be used to help children behave better.