Personal Narrative: My Interest In Social Psychology

I have always been interested in the human mind; always questioning why people think the way they do, or why people react the way they react in certain situations. When I was about twelve years old I kept asking my parents all of these questions they couldn 't answer, so they told me to read about it. Within a few weeks I was reading three different psychology text books that I had found at Goodwill. One thing that peaked my interest in social psychology was learning of Peter Zimbardo 's Stanford prison experiment. They chose twenty four normal mentally sound college students and made half of them guards and the other half prisoners. The experiment was initially meant to last for fourteen days in total, observing the reactions and relationships …show more content…
Zimbardo 's conclusion held that evil is not innate but dependent on the situation. This amazed me. The fact that someone that is put into power could become so overwhelmed with that power, that they become abusive and corrupted made me question what kind of occurrence could cause such evil acts to surface in someone. Questions like these have driven my search for knowledge. By about this time I was hearing about the sentencing of the torturous guards of Abu Ghraib. This only furthered my interest. Philip Zimbardo began drawing parallels between the two incidents and reported his findings in his book The Lucifer Effect. Another thing that pushed me into this career Is my mother 's completely irrational fear of spiders and snakes. One day in Walmart when I was nine, I picked up a plush toy snake. Seeing me out of the corner of her eye she screams obscenities in the middle of the children 's toy section. I 've always wondered why she would fear something so much. I have a much better understanding of why and how phobias develop. In researching this I learned that I love researching and learning about psychology. I enjoy debunking the mysteries of our minds. The final thing that lead me down this career path is my experience dreaming. I have always been fascinated by …show more content…
I am working on this now. I have taken the Advanced Placement Psychology class and passed the exam, and am enrolled in this university 's freshman learning community for psychology. A major in general, social, or behavioral psychology is expected, but it 's very helpful to have a diversity of classes dealing with different psychological fields. These majors will give you a basic understanding that 's necessary for completing the qualifications of becoming a bachelors degree. Behavioral psychology is in my opinion the best route to take as it teaches you the primary understanding of why people behave the way they do in certain situations. However many other classes are very useful for any kind of psychology degree. These include behavioral, social, anthropological, and general psychology. Having credits from any courses pertaining to the discipline will be tremendously helpful in not only my expedition for a bachelors degree, but also in my future. I believe that anything that I ever learn will aid me in some way later on in my life. Through working along side my grandfather I know how various home appliances work, how to fix them, how to strip and lay carpet, and many other things that, at the time seemed boring and irrelevant, but I know that I will need them later in life. I know that I have a sort of head start in life. While others are struggling