REFLECTION PAPER INPSYCHOLOGY
I am reminded of a line in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities that says “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other” (GoodReads.com, 2013) when in fact psychology aims to uncover the secrets and mysteries. Yes, I believe it is not possible for anyone, even professional psychologist themselves, to uncover all the secrets and mysteries of a person. However, I believe that psychology helps in understanding behaviors of people.
Upon reflection of some of the topics discussed in class like the theories trying to uncover the behavior of people, I realized that I myself don’t completely know how I would react to certain things. How can another know how I will behave? Although the theories like the classical conditioning theories and operant conditioning theories helped me understand how I behave in some situations. I also believe although behavior can be inherited for they say that how can an eggplant produce a tomato, I consider that theory saying that behavior of a person is affected by his training or the environment around him. I know a friend who was once chain smoker and a drunkard but because he moved to another locality where there were no smokers and drunkards around them, he stop being one on his own. I don’t believe that the desire to smoke or drink is totally gone, but was just taking a repression, and that when triggered, the specific behavior could resurface.
I agree to what Nicolas Sparks wrote in his book message in a bottle “If you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it.”(GoodReads.com, 2013) I believe that this behavior or approach of trying to learn about once behavior or reaction to things is important in understanding your wants and satisfying them. For example, when I go home and no one is around I always feel angry but I don’t know the reasons. Now I tried to find reasons why I feel such and came to the conclusion that maybe because I always expect someone to be home when I am there so I feel disappointment.
The brain is somehow central to the study of psychology because I believe that the brain is the one triggering our other systems to behave such or to do something. However, we could not totally control our brains to think only of what we like. Two years ago, I was eating with my friends in a fastfood chain when I saw a family entering and dining together. My mood suddenly changed at that time – from being happy to subdued and feeling down. I tried understanding why I feel such and later realized that I must be homesick and I missed my family. This reaction came abruptly even though I was not thinking about them before the family came in. This is an example of how we cannot manipulate our brain. This reaction could have been triggered because I thought about how we used to do the same thing. Although our brain is the one thinking, our past experience could also influence the way our brain thinks and our behaviors.
Psychology maybe full of theories and is not capable of fully discovering the mysteries buried in every person but it is still helpful in understanding ourselves and the behaviors we see around us.
References:
American Psychological Association (2013). Personality. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/topics/personality/index.aspx
GoodReads.com (2013). Quotes About Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/psychology
