Reflective Journal On Psychology

Before I contact with psychology, I know nothing about it.All my opinions about psychology are just from my imagining.I believe naively that if someone masters psychology, he or she can know others’ thoughts in mind just from their eyes and expression.Sometimes I think psychology is far away from me and I can be only for viewing but cannot use. However, fortunately, all my maybe the wrong viewpoints about psychology were changed since I began to take the “Introduction to Psychology” in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. With the feelings of expectation mixed with a little excitement, I began my first psychology class.My psychology teacher is Dr.Kevin Chan, a handsome man.When he began to introduce the course to us, from that moment, the mystery of psychology was unveiled. In the unit one, I know more details about the psychology.Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors(Carole.W.,&Caro,T.,2012).I also know the development of the psychology.

It is a long time from its birth to development gradually.Wilhelm Wundt campaigned to make psychology an independent discipline and established the first laboratory for the study of psychology in 1879(Carole,W.,&Caro,T.,2012).Since then many thought was born.Structuralism, behaviorism, humanistic and so on were born and became well know.Many psychologists put their lives into the study of psychology.Besides, many unknown people also contributed to the psychology.They are all worthy of our respect and memory.Apart from the development, I also knew the research methods are describing, predicting, explaining and applying. In the unit two, I knew a famous person of psychology, Freud, and his famous theory, psychosomatic theories of personality.According to Freud, the healthy personality must keep id ego and superego in balance.And there are also genetic, environmental, cultural influences on personality. “Development over the life span” is the title of the unit three which I’m most interested in.

It is closely related to us.This unit tells me how people grow and change over the life span. While I was studying this unit,I was reminded of my little sister,Ting.She is five years old now, and I am thirteen years older than her, so I witnessed her growth. Some of the situations about I don’t understand at that time is explained in this unit.It’s really astonishing to me that so many factors can affect the pregnant women’s baby and I know why my mother was so careful when she was pregnant. After Ting’s birth, there was often noisy in our house because of my sister’s crying. If I want to embrace her, Ting will cry more loudly.But it is strange that when Ting was in my mother’s arms, she would stop crying. I have known the reason so far.It is because my sister created the “contact comfort” and “separation anxiety”. It is said that “babies are wary or fearful of strangers and they wail if they are put in an unfamiliar setting or are left with an unfamiliar person”.

How persuasive it is! With her growth,she brings a lot to me.After hundreds of teaching, I felt happy when she called me “gege”(elder brother).When my family went to the supermarket, she knew that she should go to the female toilet.Besides, she gradually knew what is good and what is bad.According to the content in the unit three, Ting gradually developed cognition, morality and gender identity.But I still have a question.My parents and I my taught my sister a lot during her growth.Will my sister will develop cognition, morality and gender identity without our teaching?I don’t know and I can’t go back to that time to have an experiment to compare with.It’s a riddle. My sister will go into adolescence which I have already went through.I knew more about the adolescent after studying.

Though I am far away from my parents and sister, I will tell my parents how to get along with my sister.What I learn from the psychology is really useful at this moment. After the interesting unit three, it is unit four which teaches me about the nervous system of the human body. Though it is the biological knowledge, I think it’s the foundation of psychology and mastering it is necessary. I have just studied four units so far.They are just a few drops of water in the sea of psychology.I am looking forward to learning more psychology knowledge to explain the phenomenons and solve the problem in life.Put psychology into use!

Reference
Carole, W.,&Caro, T.(2012). Invitation to Psychology.United States of America:Pearson Education.