Summer Assignment: AP Psychology

AP Psychology Summer Assignment

What is psychology? Elaborate beyond a “textbook” definition

Psychology is the the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context. The mind being the source of all thought and behaviour. It basically helps us explain how we think, feel and act both individually and in a social context.

Psychology can be traced back thousands of years to the Ancient Greeks, with the roots of the subject developing from both biology and philosophy. Because of this we know that Psychology lies at the intersection of many other different disciplines, including biology, medicine, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and artificial intelligence. It draws

He was both a professor of psychology and of philosophy at Harvard University, becoming the most famous living American psychologist and philosopher of his time. He cobbled together a psychology rich in philosophical implications. This is because his theory of the self and his view of human belief as oriented towards conscious action raised issues that required him to turn to philosophy. Thus he was able to develop a pragmatic epistemology, which considered the meaning of ideas and the truth of beliefs not abstractly, but in terms of the practical difference they can make in people’s lives.

B.F. Skinner

B.F. Skinner was born on the 20th of March 1904. He was an american psychologist who coined the term operant conditioning, meaning the changing of behavior by the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response. Skinner believed that we do have such a thing as a mind, but that it is simply more productive to study observable behavior rather than internal mental events. He thought that classical conditioning was far too simplistic to be a complete explanation of complex human behavior.

Jean

It examined how the nervous system develops, it’s structure, and what it does. It also focuses on how the brain impacts on behavior and cognitive functions. People in that field might research anything from the cellular, functional, evolutionary, computational, molecular, cellular and medical aspects of the nervous system.

Evolutionary Psychology is the science that tries to explain through a universal mechanism of behavior, why humans act the way they do. In this field of work one might seek to reconstruct problems that our ancestors faced in their primitive environments, and the problem-solving behaviors they created to meet those particular challenges.

Behavioral-Genetic is the study focused with the genetic and situational influences on behavior. Within this perspective you would be predominantly focused on the debate of “nature vs. nurture”.

Psychodynamic Psychology ignores the science part of phycology and instead focuses on trying to get inside the head of individuals, so as to make sense of their relationships, experiences and how they see the world. In this field you would predominantly be preoccupied with researching how humans work based on the unconscious, and between the different structures of the