Free College Classes Make Taking An Intro To Psychology Course Easier
What’s the deal with psychology, and why does every college major require students to take an Introduction to Psychology course? It’s actually quite simple. The intro course helps us to understand our own human developments, which include the effects of physical change, how we develop in term of personality, how we relate to others, and how we think. Human development is key to developing educationally.
Intro to Psychology class spends a good amount of time covering cognitive development. Cognitive development refers to the changes by which the mental process becomes more complex and sophisticated. Hence, this is the reason why the course is important for education as a whole, not a specific major. To truly understand psychology, one must understand the brain.
In taking this course, students will review and learn for the first time, a lot of information that has to do with the physical body and how it operates, and how we learn what we learn. Students learn that the thalamus is connected to how we best learn new information, which is through verbal communication. But the subject that garners the most attention is the brain, and that is because the brain affects our entire body, including how we think, how we respond, and how we physically move.
No Intro to Psychology class would be complete without the study of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development. Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget devised a model that describes how humans interpret their surroundings by gathering and organizing information. His theory is highly recognized because it explains the development of thinking from infancy to adulthood. He thought our thinking processes change radically. From birth to maturity, humans constantly change their thought process because we strive to make sense of the world.
Piaget believed every person has basic tendencies in thinking. The tendencies include two principles: organization and adaption. Organization means that we take our thoughts and select information and rearrange them into some logical system. Case in point, an infant must either look at an object or grab it. At this stage in the baby’s life, he or she cannot coordinate efforts to do both – look and grab. But, over time, cognitive development allows for the child to discover the two separate structures can be can be used in conjunction with each other.
The second basic tendency is adaption, which refers to adjusting to the environment. Adaption involves two basic processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation involves trying to understand something new by fitting it into what is known and familiar. A good example of assimilation is when a toddler sees a skunk for the first time and calls it “kitty.” He or she is trying to use what he or she already knows to make sense of what is new.
Accommodation, on the other hand, refers to a person changing in order to respond to a new situation. Instead of adjusting the information to fit our thinking, we turn it around and adjust our thinking to fit the new information. You may relate to this illustration. A student goes away to college. The first year, he or she is in unfamiliar surroundings from his or her physical environment to the classroom setting. The surroundings are unlikely to change, so he or she must accommodate his or her thinking to make sense of the new surroundings.
This article gave a small bit of insight into what Intro to Psychology is all about. However, the terrain covered reveals the importance of the brain and how cognitive thinking is key to us growing and developing mentally, intellectually, and socially. When you enter psychology courses on line, you will be awed by the amazing concepts and theories about human development that you will explore. Take advantage of school scholarships to gain a true understanding of the importance of psychology for every college major.
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