What is Psychology?
Psychology is the study of the mind and the mental processes. As a subject it is as diverse as it is fascinating. The human mind is the most complex thing on the planet and what do we do as humans? - somehow try to understand this elusive, mysterious and complex entity!
Psychology aims to understands individuals and groups by in large researching and observing general principles. Whilst psychology is most often associated with the treatment of abnormal mental health issues in fact for the most part the understanding of normal mental processes make up the majority of psychology.
The exact placement of the mid-priced packaged item that caught your eye on the grocery shelf is an example of something you’ve paid little attention to but psychologists have!
Careers in Psychology
Psychology being as it is the study of the human mind and behavior - there are not many areas that is doesn’t cover! There are so many types of psychologists that we’ve organized them in to types but this is by no means an exhaustive list:
- Biogerontologists/geropsychologist
- Air force/army/military psychologist
- Child/developmental/school psychologist
- Organizational/industrial/personnel psychologist
- Comparative psychologist
- Consumer psychologists
- Criminal/forensic psychologist
Consumer psychologists are experts in analyzing what sells and personnel psychologists arrange psychological testing for applicants and manage staff morale. Criminal psychologists typically might work for the FBI and would put together a psychological profile of an offender being investigated in relation to the known criminal behavior being exhibited.
Forensic psychologists conversely would evaluate a defendant's mental capacity to stand trial in terms of sanity as well as offering advice on sentencing and treatment. Geropsychologists and biogerontologoists aim to better understand and help people as they age.
Psychologists don’t just study human behavior - a comparative psychologist studies animals such as social groups of lions or apes to learn meaningful information applicable to humans.
Check out Robert Sapolsky’s fascinating work in regard to patterns of stress-related disease, personality and cortisol levels among alpha and subordinate baboons.
If you are interested in Psychology then you can read more about it at The American Psychological Association and The Association for Psychological Science. You can also check out this video from the Crash Course team.
Learning Psychology
You may study psychology as part of a combined health studies or social work degree incorporating anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, and sociology.
Psychology students will deal with scientific terminology and be required to remember a vast quantity of information and concepts. Students must also present data analytically and therefore if Math is not your favorite subject you can brush up on statistical methods in the Math Pages.
Brainscape can help Psychology students by cementing key scientific concepts while making the process of memorizing so many facts and information as efficient as possible.
Psychology in Brainscape
Brainscape is proud to present thousands of Psychology flash cards created by top students and professors from Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and many other undergraduate and graduate programs.
There are thousands of free flashcards to study or you can take a look at our premium content such as GRE Psychology, Psychology 101, or AP Psychology. Alternatively some students prefer to make their own flashcards and that’s easy and also free to do.
Learn faster with Brainscape
Brainscape has developed a system that we call confidence-based repetition (CBR) which allows students to learn twice as fast and remember longer!
This remarkable result in efficient learning achieved by CBR is due to uniquely incorporating three proven key mental learning processes. An unrivalled blend of active recall, metacognition and spaced recognition makes Brainscape the most powerful education engine available today.
Whilst it’s a highly developed system, in terms of user experience the Brainscape system could not be easier. You might be studying The Stanford Prison Experiment and perhaps you‘re still getting up to speed with related studies, findings and conclusions. After you evaluate each note card in Brainscape you also attach a score to the flashcard in terms of how well you assess your knowledge.
If you rated this card a “3” midway from 1-5, the flashcard will attach an appropriate and optimal frequency to show that card again. Cards that you score a “1” will be the most frequently shown and those you record as a “5” the least. The metacognition in the process invokes memory recall in addition to powering the algorithm.
The Brainscape flashcards also involve active recall. You’ll realize when you use Brainscape that all the questions and answers are set so that you need to recall answers. Some online computer-aided tools will provide multiple-choice style questions. You’ll notice when you are using them that it feels a little like cheating because you’re just recognizing correct answers. It’s harder to recall information than recognize it, but that’s why it works better. The neural pathways are strengthened in the process of recalling information and thus when you try to retrieve the information later, the memory trace is stronger.
Brainscape also uses spaced repetition, another proven way of showing students fragments of information at carefully ordered intervals, which allows for optimal memory retention.
Brainscape has helped thousands of students achieve their potential by revolutionizing their learning. Want to start learning the smart way? Here’s how.
How to get started
Getting started learning Introduction to Psychology with Brainscape is super easy.
If you want to try out creating your own personal learning catalog then just click “make flashcards” at the top of the page and get started now. When you write and organize your content you’ll be improving your memory trace, and once you’re done, you have your own flashcards ready to use whenever you wish. Don’t forget you can choose to share your note cards or keep them just for yourself.
You’ll see however there are thousands of flashcards already prepared by other students and experts so why not give them a try?
Choose from maybe a topic you’d like to recap or start learning from scratch, maybe you’d like to learn about Schizophrenia in an Abnormal Psychology deck, or Prejudice in a Social Psychology deck?
All the flashcards are labeled so you can easily select the learning level for you and it’s easy to switch between decks to find a learning style perfectly in sync with you.
It really is that easy. We hope you enjoy learning with Brainscape and wish you the very best in your Psychology studies and beyond.
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