Personal Statement

My majors are Psychology and Religious Studies. Psychology can easily be described as the study of people. Throughout psychology’s various fields of specialization, there is a common thread in that they all strive to reach a better understanding of people by conducting research on their brains and behaviors. Similarly, Religious Studies provides a better understanding of people through studying their beliefs. Studying religion gives insight into how belief shapes people’s worldview and how that subsequently shapes behaviors, for both the believer and the surrounding society. Both of these disciplines help to explain the fascinating complexities of humans and how those complexities affect the individual themselves, as well as the outside world.

However, in my General Psychology class my first semester at college, I quickly realized that my true interest was in social psychology—which studies the various ways the environment, and the actual and perceived presence of others, affects people’s behaviors. Social psychology includes the study of persuasion, aggression, love and relationships, obedience, and a multitude of other fascinating subjects. However, when I took the introductory Social Psychology class, my interest was caught by the study of prejudice. Everyone is prejudiced, and those biases greatly affect the ways in which people view others and interact within the world. Unlike with my Psychology major, I never planned on majoring in Religious Studies. I took Religion and Society because religion, after going through some religious transitions myself, I realized how much religious belief impacts people’s lives on a daily basis. After taking the course, I realized that the discipline answered so many questions I had about human behavior in ways that psychology never even attempted to ask. In taking Cults and New Religious Movements, I found my niche in studying fringe religions because of its integration of my favorite things: prejudice, perceptions, and

Psychology has given me theories and experiments that illustrate a very academic understanding of why people behave the way they do, especially in terms of prejudice and discrimination. As aforementioned, everyone is has biases against certain groups of people, and psychology has changed my perception of those biases and given me an understanding of how to affect change. On the other hand, Religious Studies allows me to understand people through a more immersive methodology. It has given me the ability to suspend my judgement and biases for a moment in order to understand what they believe, why they believe it, and how that belief then affects their life. This discipline has helped me develop the ability to empathize with and comprehend perceptions of the world that differ from my own. Overall, these two fields of study have made me a more open and accepting person, while giving me the academic toolset to do research that I feel is