Psychology Term Paper

Cognitivism

Cognitivism theory is a scientifically psychological approach which study about mind as a processor to every information that we receive.  Cognitivist try to examine the relation among perception, language, attention, memory and thinking so that we know why we think in certain way and how we do it continuously, either we are conscious or unconscious. Simply, cognitivism theory explained that we can receive countless information every day, then our mind will respond to the information by working together with memory and emotion to create a proper respond which we will then store it in our memory. It happens continuously, previous information that we have processed and stored in our memory, will have role in responding to the next information that we receive, and sometimes we can use it as such guidance on how to respond for the upcoming information or even give insight on how to solve the next problem which mostly expressed into what we called as language. Personally, this cognitivism theory make me understand why sometimes I easily solve the problems and sometimes I do not understand on how to respond to certain information. Cognitivism concept made me realize that those problem that I can easily solve are the problems that ever happened to me, so I have the insight, I have known the emotion and I already have a memory about those kind of problems, and for the new information, I do not know how to respond because I really have no idea what the information is and it is my first time knowing those kind of information.

Structuralism

Structuralism concept is breaking down the consciousness into structural basic elements by using introspection or internal perception.  This introspection considered as the easiest way in examining our consciousness as objectively as possible to understand on how our mind completed various task in one time. In structuralism theory, Wilhelm Wundt as the person who asserted this theory tried to differentiate between sensation (stimulus’ effect) and perception (brain’s interpretation to the stimulus). This has correlation with the introspection mentioned before,  as while we in do the introspection about the basic element, we find it different between sensation and perception that we have toward certain thing that we feel as the we receive the stimulus. Personally, I often do introspection about certain thing that happen in our life, and this concept of structuralism is obviously correct in term of breaking down that basic element of something so that we can do objective evaluation which contribute to the way we respond toward stimulus.

Learning

Before I learnt psychology, I always thought that learning is only a process of knowing something that we have never known before. I was wrong not to mention that learning is not merely process of getting new information but also change in knowledge and behavior with the role of experience. Experience plays a big role in part of learning with the repeated observation that we do it, either conscious or unconscious.  Conscious observation example is when I carefully watch a video on youtube about how to make Macaroni Schootel. I did observation, and I recalled experience related about cooking in my memory until I successfully imitate the chef on the video in making the food. However, there are many unconscious observations in the process of learning in my daily activities. For instance, when I was in coffee shop, unconsciously I watch the barista in making the coffee while I wait for my coffee. I did not have intention to learn how to make coffee but I just watch them while I wait. Then, there was one time I had a chance to make a coffee, and I remember I did watch on how to make coffee even the detail on how much each ingredients should be mixed, and  I use my memory and about the “unconscious observation” which helps me learn how to make coffee in much more easier way.

Humanistic

Humanistic concept explained the ability human to grow and development psychologically, intelligently, and ethically. This concept has strong relation with Maslow hierarchy which state that human will achieve its self-actualization step by step, or in other words this concept emphasize about self-realization.  Maslow has five steps in which human will achieve self-actualization, as what humanistic concept is all about. Measuring myself with those five steps, I do not really know where I am, my physiological needed are already fulfilled, my security is also enough as I still feel safe, and I have family and friends to complete my social stage needed, and I think I know I am worth it for my self-esteem needed, but I do not think I already in the stage of self-actualization, I still feel like something is missing and I think I miss some component in previous stage before I am on the self-esteem stage and I try to figure out which part is missing so that I can be and feel like more human based on the humanistic concept.

Emotion

Emotion is not equal with feeling, to be exact, emotion is not merely about feeling. Emotion is made of three components which are physiology, psychology, and experience. Combination of these three things produce a response or expression toward something which called as emotion. My happy expression when I see my mom after a long time is combination of physiology arousal (the hug that I get from my mom), psychology appraisal (my mind and my soul process the happy stimulus from my physiology arousal), and the experience in term of memory that I store if I would show my happy expression which most of the time the emotion is too deep until I cannot even describe it. In addition, in the concept of emotion, there is cognitive which is considered to influence or affect the emotion, and I personally agree. The cognitive concept, along with environment and background and culture has contributed to the different emotions that human has. This due to the fact that every human has different cognitive skill, different background, culture and environment which hence resulted into different emotion, and it clearly explain why every human has different emotion in term of respond toward same issues or problems.