Cognitive Psychology: From My Migration To The United States

America is a country of dreams. Many people of different countries dream to come and live in the United States. America is usually called "a melting pot". It welcomes people from different countries, races, and religions, who hope to find freedom, new opportunities, and a new way of life. American history is built by immigrants, who bring their own cultures and traditions to an enormous new country. America looks like a mosaic where exists diversity of nations. The overall ethnic mosaic is made up of different components. It is true that the diversity makes America what it is now, and creates the challenges it faces.

As we develop, we learn many of our beliefs, attitudes and values from our parents. They are based on our own experiences

That is, we can discover what is associated with a label and so determine whether it is useful. Thus, cognitive psychology does not deny past learning but contends that we need not be governed solely by it. We can redefine what a label means, just as we redefine our beliefs and attitudes (Chapter 2, pg. 45). I moved to the United States, and came to Armenian society. The neighborhood was the “same” as in my own country. However, being away from my hometown and people who were my friend, made me think and wonder why I am here where nothing is familiar to me. After living in hell for two months, I realized that I have to forget everything that was in my past and start to get to know the new life style, new customs, new rules and new people. The environment was new, and it was hard for me to pass the language barrier. Even though, I graduated High School in my country, I had to start High School all over again. It was a hard time for me to adjust the new life and surroundings. I know Armenian, Russian and I have to learn the third main language which will help me to communicate with the people around me. Most motivation theories have addressed the issue of how much positive or negative affect is associated with a particular event. A central assumption of affect theories is that people approach things to experience positive affect and avoid things to guard against experiencing negative affect (Chapter 1, pg.

The idea of will implies that people can create their own destiny. In other words, humans can dream about possible selves-about achieving some goal, becoming a different person, or doing something they have never done before. Next, they can adopt one of these possible selves as their goal and then, by coupling such a goal with knowledge of how to achieve goals, can make their dreams a reality (Chapter 1, pg. 9). Personality is a person’s fairly consistent patterns of acting, thinking and feeling. Person’s personality is created by society surrounding that person. Person gets own personality by society where it defines what is right or wrong. The surrounding environment or atmosphere has a huge influence on me. Coming to this country I created my own personality, because I became a part of society where person chooses its own lifestyle and people to surround him/her. Living in this free country, which provides you with a lot of opportunities, I realized that I had to get education parallel to my work. I went to community college and now I am a student of California State University, Northridge. My dreams come