Psychology

In Chapter One, "What Is Psychology?," Lahey defines psychology rather loosely as "the science of behavior and mental processes" and enumerates its goals of describing, understanding, predicting, and influencing human behavior. My personal goals in studying psychology fit this format also. That is, I want to be able to understand why I and others around me act as we do; and I would like to be able to predict how I and others will react to certain situations in the future since knowledge of this sort is likely to enhance both my personal growth and my success in life.

I must admit that I also want to be able to influence others more effectively. Naturally, I realize that in order to understand, predict, and influence behavior, you must first be able to accurately describe it. After all, you don't have a hope of controlling X unless you know fairly precisely what it is. Thus, as Lahey points out in the "What Will This Course Be About" section, I find psychol

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sucking and non-sucking schemas instead of just automatically putting everything into its mouth as a means of exploring its environment? I have also read elsewhere that Piaget's methodology has some serious flaws and that his conclusions are far too broad to be justified by his actual research. Another part of the chapter I found particularly interesting concerned the nature/nurture controversy and sex role development. It would be fascinating to know how much of a role genetics play in sex role development as opposed to environmental factors. Lahey says that children as young as two act in sex-typed ways and play with gender-role appropriate toys. While it is obvious that there are biological differences between boys and girls, it seems equally plain at this point that, contrary to Freud, anatomy is not destiny. In other words, although there may be a biological predisposition, at least in terms of statistics, for girls to be physically weaker and more verbally skilled than boys, this has little to do with individual children and the rigid sex roles in our society. For instance, just because males do not physically bear children does not make them biologically unfit for nurturing children; this division of labor is purely
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Piaget's Erickson's, Behavior Lahey, Consciousness Lahey, Rogers Perls, Perl's Gestalt, Therapies Lahey, Maslow Rogers', Chapter Consciousness, Pythagoras Freud, Psychology Lahey, abnormal behavior, child development, infant child development, dream sleep, toilet training, personality disorders, flowing consciousness, lahey discusses, lahey describes, nature/nurture controversy, mood disorders, directed consciousness flowing, chapter thirteen abnormal, including directed consciousness, awareness including directed,
Approximate Word count = 3304
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)