If there is one thing that I learned from this class, it is that these topics are very relevant to our lives, as so many people are affected by different parts of psychology in so many ways, all the time. Always. I realized that it is very important to be aware of these different aspects. Going out and doing activities really helped with this too, as I was able to see examples of the different parts of psychology taking effect in the real world.
My favorite activity we did was when we had to go out and ask people a bunch of true or false questions. Some of them seemed kind of easy, and others seemed really out-of-the-ordinary and pretty difficult to figure out. Later on, once we came back, we found out that all of the answers to the questions were false. Any answer that was said to be true was an incorrect stereotype, usually associated with a stigma toward whatever it dealt with. This activity made me realize how little a lot of people know about people and situations. The idea of associating certain groups with certain things or problems was in itself an example of Psychology.
We also did many module experimental tasks outside of class, ones that we had to do for homework. While there were a lot, there was one task that stood out to me specifically. It was the task about memory. Before I even did the task, I was curious as to how it would go because I already knew I myself had a bad memory. I was intrigued once I read what the task was. I then watched a video about how someone else had responded to it. The results were very interesting. The task consisted of me reading a list of related things (like things having to do with sleep), but not saying the actual word that they were about (so I would leave out the actual word "sleep"). The person hearing the list of words would then have to write as many words that they could remember that I said, once I was done. In the video, the person that was being tested ended up writing what you would think to be a word said (like "sleep"), even though it was incorrect. I thought it very fascinating that our brains could be tricked into thinking something had been said that really had not been. I then proceeded to perform the experiment with my brother. The result was the same, for the most part. I also had my girlfriend do the test, and the same happened with her. It was pretty cool being able to see firsthand how easily our brains' memory can falter and be tricked into something.
One of the harder parts of the class for me were the assigned videos and TedTalks we were supposed to watch. Do not get me wrong, I thought the videos I watched were interesting, but the problem I had was that I did not have time to watch as many as I was supposed/wanting to. But again, the videos I was able to watch, I thought, were very interesting and informative. There was a TedTalk about sleep that drew my attention, talking about how it is when we are in our deepest part of sleeping that the brain goes through the most healthy rest and activity. Since I am a college student, I am not able to get that much sleep, so watching the video really made me appreciate the little sleep I am able to get all the more, and helped me to try and get more sleep if I got the chance.
There was one activity that stood out to me, but mainly because I did not think it was very accurate. We did this "privilege race," where we all stood in a line, and were about to run to the other side of the football field. Whoever got to the other side first got a prize. However, before we began, a list of "privileges" were called out. If we had them, we had to take a step forward, giving us an advantage over the others behind us. I did not like this activity because I did not think it properly illustrated our lives correctly. First off, many of the things listed either did not seem like something that would greatly affect how we were able to live our life, and most were things that would be the outcome not of something that we could not control, but of something as the result of our own decisions. Also, just because some people have more "privileges," does not mean their life is any easier than someone who does not. And finally, what truly made the activity incorrect was the goal. The goal was to get the prize first. As if there was only one person that could really get to it. In real life, metaphorically speaking, the goal is not to get there first, but to simply get there. In our lives, if we do not have the same outcome as someone else, that is okay. That is the whole point. The main goal is not to beat everyone else or get the exact same amount of gratification from a certain thing as everyone else. The goal of life should be to lead a life well-lived. There should not be one prize at the end of the field. There should be a prize for everyone at the end. But everyone still needs to run their own race to get there. Some may finish before others, but everyone should be able to get there.
Overall, Psychology was a very thought-provoking class. I really enjoyed the interactions with the other students. I will not lie, it was kind of an awkward class at first, but once the semester got going, it felt a lot more comfortable to be there. The subjects covered were very interesting and I was shown many examples of how they can affect us in our lives.
- Christian Fortner
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