Psychology

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Introduction to Psychology homework

Introduction

Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mind, which involves both conscious and unconscious experience and thought. It seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases. Psychologists explore different concepts such as attention, perception, emotion, motivation, intelligence among many others so as to understand the human mind, (Lepper & Greene, 2015). Psychology is very important since it helps in understanding, explaining and predicting human behavior, emotions and mental process for better human relationships. Below are the concepts and principles of psychology and their application in a real life experiment.

Basic Concepts of Psychology

The basic concepts in psychology include behavior, personality, motivation and intelligence. Motivation is about values and rewards and its theories tend to assume that every learned human response is as a result of motivation. Personality refers to an individual’s unique behavior and cognitive patterns. It assesses why humans engage in different actions in particular ways. Psychologists have developed different theories to explain how and why different personality traits rise. Human behavior is one of the most complex concepts of psychology. Psychologists in the study of human behavior ask many questions around mental, physical and social processes that contribute to the different behaviors. Finally, intelligence is also a widely used concept of psychology where it encompasses a range of aptitudes, skills and talents.

Basic Principles of Psychology

The most basic principles of psychology include will, emotion, habit, and stream of consciousness. The principle of human habit is formed to achieve particular results as a result of an individual’s strong feelings of desiring something. Habits are capable of causing bad or good actions, where once a behavior has been established it is very difficult to change. The principle of will explains whether free will exists or not. Effort of attention is the most important phenomenon of will. Emotion refers to the expression of bodily experiences associated with expressions. Stimulus causes a physical response and emotion follows the response. Stream of consciousness refers to a person’s thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow. Humans are believed not to experience the same thought or idea more than once.

Ethical Issues in Psychology

Ethical issues in psychology are very essential since psychologists often work with vulnerable individuals in sensitive situations. The ethical issues include: competence, informed consent, confidentiality and better relationships with vulnerable individuals. Confidentiality is very important where private information about an individual should not be revealed to other parties. However, it has its own limits in extreme cases such as illegal behaviors. Competence is the next ethical practice where psychological experts are should undergo training and have the necessary experience for high competence. Informed consent as an ethical issue requires that psychologists offer the customers a variety of services, where they have the right to reject them. The experts should also reveal the type of services they offer and their benefits. Psychologists should also act in the best interest when they interact professionally with less powerful clients, because of age, legal status, emotional insecurities among other attributes. Psychological practitioners and consumers need to be aware of the role of ethical practices, so they can effectively apply them.

Robber’s Cave Experiment

The experiment was conducted by Muzafer Sherif in order to give a psychological understanding of groups and its members. The theory was known as Realistic Conflict Theory, and accounts for group conflict, negative prejudices and stereotypes as a result of competition between groups for desired resources. The study showed that conflict exists between different groups inform of competition, (Reicher & Haslam, 2014). It showed that when people compete for scarce resources, for example jobs, there is a rise in hostility between groups.

Nature versus nurture influences refers to the importance of a person’s qualities and character compared to the person’s experiences in causing individual differences, especially in personality and behavior, (Coll, Bearer & Lerner, 2014). In the study this concept is applied where all the boys gets placed in the same environment than they were earlier used to. Due to this reason they bonded with one another instead of using their hereditary nature. The experiment clearly illustrates changes that face different individual in different environments.

Social observational learning is learning that occurs through observation of others behavior. It is demonstrated in this experiment where each group behaves like their own group towards the rival group. It indicates that once an individual starts behaving in a particular way, the others observe and start doing the same thing. In the study, the rivalry started verbally and later became more intense to a violence one after every one observed that they were supposed to act that way in such an environment.

I think the experiment was ethical according to APA guidelines. This is because the guidelines urges that researchers should obtain human characters, protect them from harm and discomfort, ensure confidentiality of their information and give an explanation afterwards. All the above guidelines are seen to be well displayed in Robber’s Cave Experiment, thus the experiment was ethical.

References

Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. A. (2014). Camps, conflict and collectivism.Psychologist, 27(11), 826-828.

Lepper, M. R., & Greene, D. (Eds.). (2015). The hidden costs of reward: New perspectives on the psychology of human motivation. Psychology Press.

Coll, C. G., Bearer, E. L., & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.). (2014). Nature and nurture: The complex interplay of genetic and environmental influences on human behavior and development. Psychology Press.