Psychology Reflection

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Throughout this semester in Intro to Psychology, I have gained a deeper understanding of the entire field of psychology. This has allowed me to better understand how and why people act in certain ways. I have learned about human tendencies, different health or psychological disorders, and a variety of other human characteristics. Through this knowledge base that I have gained during my time in this course, I have learned more about myself and what influences how I experience and view the world. A few concepts that I have applied to my own life and influence me, deal with the ideas of mindset, motivation style, and my developing understanding of social situations. Studying psychology has resulted in a better personal understanding of the proper …show more content…
Motivation is defined as a reason that one chooses to do something. Often times, motivation may be caused by a reward or a feeling that one gets from completing a task. Great satisfaction can result from something that requires a significant amount of work. There are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the pursuit of an activity for one 's own sake and extrinsic motivation is the pursuit of an activity for external reasons or rewards. In everyday life, it is important to overcome obstacles and complete tasks that one may not wish to complete. Therefore, people often need a driving force or a reward to aim for in order to complete that task. Identifying this has allowed me to understand what pushes me. Through my own exploration, I have had the ability to identify my goals and what motivates me to complete these, such as finishing school work. As a result of the knowledge that I have gained about this topic, I have identified myself as someone who is more extrinsically motivated than intrinsically motivated. I now understand that offering myself a reward, like chocolate or watching an episode of my favorite TV show, has given me the drive to complete the assignments that I need to for school. I am also slightly intrinsically motivated. I feel that I put a great amount of pressure on myself to do well in school and make my parents proud which allows me to …show more content…
It is human nature to act and respond in specific ways to different scenarios, especially in times of stress and hardship. One example of this is the bystander effect. The idea of this concept occurred when a woman named Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York City about 50 years ago. She was murdered in the streets of New York City and was crying for help the entire time, however nobody came to the rescue. As a result, a few psychologists by the name of Bibb Latané and John Darley looked into the event to understand why no one helped her (Wade, 2016). They came to the conclusion that humans in social situations often look for other people to step in and help those in need. This is so that they themselves don’t have to be the first person to step up and provide aid. Using this concept, I have been able to better understand my own choices in social situations and that I can’t fall into these sorts of traps in everyday life. For example, when I was in high school or in other social settings, I witnessed various kids being bullied. During these situations, there were many bystanders. No one went out of their way to put a stop to it, including myself. With that being said, I have realized that maybe I should have said something when this occurred. For example, a kid in my gym class once was being made fun of for his shoes not being

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