INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

The definition of psychology as a science is the study of the human mind and behavior. It is an intensive understanding of how a person acts, responds, or behaves in a certain way if exposed to different conditions and environments. Psychology is a critical discipline in understanding human behavior and has various branches of study in an area such as human development, in sports, cognitive processes, social behavior among people as well as clinical. Therefore, psychology can be said to be the study of how human beings behave or respond to something, someone, or situations.

The study of human behavior has existed for a long time, has only recently gained traction in massive ways as people want to understand why different people would respond differently in particular situations. This has led to many answers being formulated and has so far helped in understanding the human mind.

Physiological factors are things that are related to the physical body that influence the thought process of a person. These factors, which may include body chemistry being off due to alcohol influence, dehydration, exhaustion, or unbalanced nutrition, affect a person’s thinking process and thus may influence their behaviors. Physiological factors can also be due to change in the brain structure of a person from an injury sustained earlier, long periods without physical activity, or in isolations example in detained persons, as well as physical stress. Gender is also a physiological factor that influences how people behave in that a male person facing a particular challenge, especially a physical problem that requires strength and agility, by a high probability most likely to excel than his female counterpart. The difference in race and color might also be a contributing factor in human behavior. For instance, due to past treatment of people with color, there might exist challenges when they want to access, for example, education or facilities that were usually reserved for white people.

There are psychological factors that influence human behavior. Personalities, for instance, are psychological factors that may affect human behavior in that different personalities would determine success or failure in interactions between people. Sickness in people is also other psychological factors that impact human behavior in that when someone is ill, their body language is different from that of a healthy person (Hebb, 2013). Different lifestyles taken by different people are also other psychological factors that influence human behavior. A wealthy person, as expected, will behave entirely different from a person who has little to nothing in terms of wealth. An educated person will use his intelligence to maneuver around a challenging situation, unlike a person who has never set foot in a classroom even though education isn’t a measure of information, but usually, these two people act differently.

Psychology, as mentioned earlier, has different branches from clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, health psychology, etc. to mention a few. In this particular paper, I am going to talk about health psychology.

Health psychology is a specialized area that looks at biological factors, human behaviors, and social factors that affect their health and illnesses. Medical psychology or behavioral medicine are other terms used in place of health psychology (Safarino, 2014).

Health and diseases are affected by a wide range of factors. Several psychological and behavioral aspects affect physical well-being and other medical conditions. Health psychology focuses on promoting health and prevention as well as treatment of illnesses and diseases. Psychologists in the health department try to understand how people cope, react, and recover from sicknesses. Health psychologists also work with government systems such as the health ministry to improve health care systems and understand while trying to eliminate some diseases.

I picked this topic on health psychology because illness, as existed for as long as people have in the world and is that not all diseases, will be eliminated, but a world with one less disease is the kind of place everyone with being happy to be. My interest in this topic came about from witnessing helpless people succumbing to illness such as cancer. Cancer in the recent past has been the cause of many deaths whole across the world only bettered by malaria. Everyone knows someone who has succumbed to the disease or knows people who are relatives of people with cancer. Being that this killer disease is by each day growing its menace, it needs an immediate response and ways to curb it before it becomes the cause of the end of humanity.

This unit is relevant to me in that I have when I was young I witness a very close person die from cancer, and ever since I have always wanted to understand what causes it and how can it be prevented and eliminated before it kills more people. To make matters worse is that many people across the world are not aware or are ignorant of the epidemic that cancer is becoming, and many are still living in poor lifestyles that are significant contributors to the spread of this disease. Poor diets are one of the significant causes of cancer, and if people get educated on what foods not to consume, then we are likely to witness a drop in cancer-related deaths. Other factors contributing to fatalities are people not doing regular health checks for cancer screening as early detection means that the disease can be controlled and even treated. Health matters have also been of relevance to me because there is no greater good in the world than to help other human beings out of their misery and outing smiles on their faces because I believe life is worth living when happiness reflects across every person.

HIV/AIDS is also one of the illness that is related to psychological and factor that affects the human psyche. With millions already dead from this disease, while others are still concerned, it continues to wreak havoc in the human population. Scientists and psychologists have, for a very long time, now tried to understand how to deal with it and until recently, there has been a breakthrough in a way to minimize its spread through sensitizing and educating people while issuing antiretroviral drugs. Other health problems that affect human behaviors include stroke, heart diseases, birth effects, and infant mortality, and other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, herpes, and the common cold.

Health psychology differs from other psychology disciplines in that it focusses on health and illness that affect the human body. This branch of psychology tends to understand why people are susceptible to some health problems as it tries to answer this question while also playing a role in coming up with a solution to it. Other psychology disciplines, as I had mentioned previously, include the following.

Forensic psychology is mainly the use and application of psychology in matters related to investigations of crimes committed. A psychologist practicing this kind of psychology works within the judicial system around maintain law and order in the community by solving hard cases and crimes determined by figuring the motive behind the perpetrator’s action.

Cognitive psychology analyzed the internal mental process of people, such as their memory and ability to retain information, their problem-solving skills, learning, and their use language as a skill acquired.

Evolutionary psychology, on the other hand, looks into how human behavior such as language has been affected from time to time. These effects could entail the changes it has undergone over the years.

Developmental psychology is the study of the psychological changes a person undergoes throughout their lives. It focuses on people of all ages from infants, young children, adults, and older people in the community.

Occupational psychology is done by organizational psychologists who are involved in assessing while making a recommendation about the performance of people at a work environment or organization, and factors influencing their levels of productivity.

Social psychology is also another branch of psychology that looks at how social influences affect human behavior. A social psychologist will examine a group behavior, non-verbal cues in communication, conformity, aggression in people, prejudice, and their leadership (Hebb, 2013).

The nature of the questions asked about differentiates health psychology measurements. Measurement techniques and issues in health psychology are almost similar to measures in other areas of psychology, which are characterized by assigning figures and numbers in a meaningful way to human behavior and health problems as it affects a given population under study. A health psychologist would first need to understand the problem measured before allocating it a number, which will depend on how it reflects a reference figure.