Thao Xuan Do
Professor: Lara Fields
PSY 1100-054
05/1/2012
Final Reflective Writing
I will talk about some general knowledge in psychology when I have studies this class in
this semester. Psychology has a broad range of real world applications in everyday life, ranging
from stress, health, mental illness, artificial intelligence and human machine interaction, to
personal development, social interaction and the environment. Psychology we study people.
Psychology includes how a child develops into an adult, how personality and differences
between individuals affect us, how our brain works, how we deal with emotions and how we
motivate ourselves and others. It also looks at how we learn, the differences between cultures,
and how we interact with other people, as well as the more traditional topic of understanding
how psychological disorders affect people.
The concept of cognitive development may have arisen as a result of the convergence of
two major perspectives in psychology; cognitive psychology and life-span development, to
begin to understand the causes of cognitive change, it is empirical to investigate the four major
areas of cognition, intelligence, memory, creativity and information processing, and then
compare and contrast them across the three stages of adulthood; early, middle and late. It is also
important to consider different stages of development, research designs and the physiological
changes of a human being to be able to completely understand the causes of either the growth or
decline of cognition as we age. Cognition can be broadly defined as the mental processes and
activities used in perceiving, remembering and thinking.
In early adulthood, Piaget believed that cognitive development culminates in
adolescence with the emergence of formal operations. According to Piaget, it is the final adult
stage that is characterized by abstract thinking and an approach to problems in an orderly and
systematic way. Adult thinking differs from adolescent thinking in many ways. Adolescent
thought is less abstract and absolute, is more adaptive and more dialectical. There are also many
other areas of cognition in which early adults differ from their older counterparts. This is perhaps
an indication that we don’t fall straight into formal thought as we reach adulthood, instead we
take on a different path and reach the end stage sometime in middle adulthood. As with all
thinking, it is widely subjective to change, and in early adulthood, this is no different. It has been
suggested that many life events can trigger new patterns of thinking resulting in cognitive
growth.
When a person reaches middle adulthood, changes in cognitive growth become more
evident. Intelligence is something people fear will decline with age. Some intellectual functions
increase with age, some peak early and are maintained and others show decline into early
adulthood. Obviously conclusions regarding changes in intellectual ability will differ depending
on the functions that are being evaluated. Creativity is also another area of adult cognition that is
subject to change. Much has been written about developing creativity in children, but little about
developing adulthood creativity. This may lead people to believe that creativity declines in
adulthood. As a person moves into late adulthood, it is a stereotypical belief that everything
starts to deteriorate, especially memory. All studies of memory recognize three basic processes;
acquisition, storage and retrieval. Memory efficiency depends on all three of these processes. It
is true that memory declines with age when measuring it in terms of speed .
Apart from declining memory and other negative changes in cognition that occur with
old age, there are also some positive ones. Many of the major theorists on human behavior
believe that older adults can develop new interests, new patterns of thought and a deeper
wisdom. In old age, many people become more reflective and philosophical and may review
their life. This is where a person remembers various highs and lows, compares the past to the
present and renews links with people. There is also an aesthetic sense that accompanies life
review. Many older people begin to appreciate nature and aesthetic experiences in a deeper way .
One of the most positive attributes associated with old age is wisdom. Wisdom is
clearly an elusive concept and is bound to be partly subjective. Wisdom involves elements of
both dialectical thinking that emerges in early adulthood, and the refinement of thinking that
comes with years of personal experience. It does seem that the idea of growing wise with age
may be one of the benefits of growing older. Because adult cognition is so extensive, there are
two very different viewpoints; the decrement a list view and the continued-potential view. The
decrement a list view follows a pattern of universal, inevitable decline in cognitive growth over
the adult years, but there are no real meaningful conclusions that can be drawn from the data.
Although there is a weakening in certain cognitive abilities over time, results are too unreliable.
On the other hand, the continued-potential view is more favorable. Accumulating evidence
supports the view that although some cognitive abilities may decline, age can also offer new and
improved cognition. This is a more balanced view in which cognitive development is
characterized by growth and decline, but cognitive change is a difficult thing to measure
accurately because of the different causes and factors that can interfere with results. Simple
things such as gender, socioeconomic status and even diet have been shown to affect results.
Culture has also been shown to cause change in cognition. Brain function is also a major cause of
cognitive change. There are notable differences between neurons as the aging process occurs.
The brain also becomes markedly smaller in late adulthood than it was in the earlier stages.It
does seem that out of all the causes of cognitive change, problems with research seem to be the
biggest. This is because it can lead people to believe things that aren’t necessarily true. Some
research procedures exaggerate cognitive decline because their designs inadvertently stack the
deck’ against older people . Because of these reasons and countless others, it is extremely
difficult to pinpoint specific causes of cognitive change across the adult life span.
In adult cognition is vast, but is still in need of clear and precise findings that can
make sense of it all. It is almost impossible for anyone to know the direct causes of change in
intelligence, memory, creativity, information processing or any other cognitive ability because of
the unsure testing methods and the inconsistent research. We should now be optimistic that the
future will bring a better understanding of this most precious human capacity.
Psychology is an important course that everyone should take. Everyday , we encounter
situations that require more patience than what we expect, during these difficult times , we need
to possess some knowledge about people 's personalities , and the reasons for their behavior .
Psychology offers this knowledge , making us obtain an overview of the whole situation ,with
background of psychology , we will see different aspects of a situation . We can identify that
most troubles we encounter are by products of the way we were raised by our parents , or what
our grown-up culture taught us ,by studying psychology , we would also know how to react
accordingly to situations , and avoid repeating the mistakes that we commit . If everyone studies
and apply psychology in everyday life , our world will truly be a better place to live in, the
basically , if we know ourselves , we could be in full command of our lives . We would have
control of everything
Psychology is the study of human behavior and thinking. It is important because it helps
us to understand our self better. It also helps us to understand other people. If we understand
psychology, we can change our own behavior and help other people to change theirs. We can
also predict how other people are going to react to things. I have learned a lot in my psychology
class. I have learned a lot about introductory psychology on topics including learning,
motivation, perception, personality, and physiological basis of behavior, but more importantly, I
have learned a lot about implications of psychology in my everyday life. Studying psychology
has been very influential to me and has given me a better understand of my thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors. Three concepts that stand out to me that apply specifically to my life are
parenting styles, memory techniques, and the powers of social influence.