In our daily lives, there are a lot of psychology concepts that we used to cope with the surroundings. As for me, as a student, I also use some of the psychology concepts or principles indirectly. In other words, I have been using the concepts since I was in the primary school and until now when I am in college without realising it.

I always heard the term "psychology" but did not know what is the actual meaning of the term. It is actually the scientific study of mental processes and behaviour. So, I can relate that it is a subject that revolves around studying human and animal nature.There are also a lot of professionals from this kind of course that deals with human problems nowadays.

First of all, one of the concepts that I have been using or experienced until now is conditioning. There was this time when I knew the teacher was nice but then the teacher become my worst nightmare. Every time I see her I feel scared even though I did not do anything bad during her class. This is because of the conditioning I have been through with her. At first, when I see her, she (NS)  is nice . Then, she always scold the class for not sending her homeworks (UCS). Then, I will feel scared of her because everytime I see her (CS) I will always be scared (CR).

Next psychology concepts that has been happening in my life is the use of memory. As a student, I use a lot of my memory to cope with my studies. Sometimes, I failed to memorize certain subjects and cause myself to flunk in the examination. However, I have noticed that memory is a part of psychology. The reason why I tend to forget is because of I did not revise or always use the information I had learned in class (decay or disuse). Furthermore, there are a lot of informations that interfere with one another that make it harder for me to remember certain information (interferences). Moreover, during my years of studies, there are a few significant event that happened in my life. I could not easily forget them because the event or situation entered my long term memory without any effort (automatic encoding). There are also a few tragedy that happened in my life such as my cat died and I got "friendzoned" by my crush. It is actually called as flashbulb memory because it contains emotions and I could not forget about that memory.

Studying for your future and to achieve success will lead you to either a good stress or a bad stress. In psychology, there are terms for these stresses which are distress (bad stress) and the eustress (good stress). For me, having stress to achieve success is an eustress. I also have experience and still experience pressure like time pressure. For example, in finishing this blog hehehehe. However, it is a good stress so that I will finish writing this blog in a given time by my beautiful lecturer, Miss Nusrah :) Forgive me for not focusing on writing about stress. So, stress is a big deal to each one of us. Some of us might have stress because of catastrophe, major life changes and hassles. I have friends that are from Kelantan and they have an awful catastrophe which is a big flood had crushed their beloved hometown. Some of them could not deal with their emotion about this incident and experience stress (distress). One of the way they overcome the stress is by withdrawal which is forgetting about the incident and keep moving forward. They will have to do that in order to reduce the stress that they are experiencing at the moment.

During my studies, I have to think a lot to solve problems in life. In calculus, I have to solve the questions by using algorithms. Besides,  if I have no idea how to solve the problem, I will use trial and error until I have found a solution. There was this time, when I forgot to bring my scissors to cut a piece of paper. So, without thinking of functional fixedness, I use a ruler to cut the paper. Although a ruler is used to make a straight line, but with divergent or creative thinking, you can use the ruler as anything to solve your problem.

Different people have different intelligence. That is why we are different from one another. I have a friend who always excel in his sports but does not perform well in his maths. On the other hand, I excel in maths but does not perform well in sports. It is because he has body movement intelligence while I have logical-mathematics intelligence. In total, there are 9 intelligences that people might have. 

Last but not least, with psychology, I have learned that there is a reason why some of the students are explaining why they are late to class. For example, my classmates, Umar and Hakam, they are always late to class. When my lecturer asked why they are late, Hakam will say that he overslept (dispositional) but Umar will say it is because of the bus was late (situational).

Another things is, I also have done a few techniques in psychology in my daily life. For example, I did not know that all of this time I have been using the door-in-the-face technique to achieve my request. It is a technique where you want to request for a small thing but you are asking a big thing in the first place. For instance, I wanted to ask my mom for RM300 but I will know she will not give. So, I asked for RM500 at first and she will surely reject my request. After that, I will ask for RM300 which she will feel guilty for not giving me a lower request. In the end, I have achieved my desired goal. I know I am smart. Am I? Hehehehe (please do not tell my mom). Furthermore, there is another technique which is the lowball technique ( a technique where you will have to give more commitment as time goes by). For example, last year, I agree to help my sister by driving her to the book store. Then, she asked me the best book for Mathematics. After that, I have to search for the book and pay for it. Obviously, I have a very smart sister because she tricked me into helping her. In the end, I had helped her to drive to the book store, search for the book, pay for the book, treat her lunch and brought her back to home.

So, that is all from my experience that can be related to psychology. In conclusion, psychology has a lot of connections to our lives and without psychology, we wouldn't understand the nature of our lives.

THINKING is a mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is organizing and attempting to understand information and communicating information to others.

CONCEPTS

PROBLEM SOLVING METHODS

• Trial and error – problem-solving method in which one possible solution after another is tried until a successful one is found.
• Algorithms - very specific, step-by-step procedures for solving certain types of problems.
• Heuristic - an educated guess based on prior experiences that helps narrow down the possible solutions for a problem. 
• Insight - sudden perception of a solution to a problem ("aha!" moment)

PROBLEM SOLVING BARRIERS

• Functional fixedness is a block to problem solving that comes from thinking about objects in terms of only their typical functions.

• Mental set is the tendency for people to persist in using problem-solving patterns that have worked for them in the past.
• Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for evidence that fits one’s beliefs while ignoring any evidence that does not fit those beliefs.

CREATIVITY

• Convergent thinking - type of thinking in which a problem is seen as having only one answer, and all lines of thinking will eventually lead to that single answer, using previous knowledge and logic
• Divergent thinking – type of thinking in which a person starts from one point and comes up with many different ideas or possibilities based on that point

INTELLIGENCE 

Theory of intelligence;

• Spearman’s Theory

1.          g factor – the ability to reason and solve problems, or general intelligence.
2.          s factor – the ability to excel in certain areas, or specific intelligence.

• Gardner’s Theory

Multiple intelligences - ranging from verbal, linguistic, and mathematical to interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence.

• Sternberg's theory - Triarchic theory of intelligence

• Emotional intelligence – the awareness of and ability to manage one’s own emotions as well as the ability to be self-motivated, able to feel what others feel, and socially skilled. Viewed as a powerful influence on success in life.

Stress & Health

Stress ► Used to describe the physical, emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses to events that                 are appraised as threatening or challeging

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Stressors

Stressors ► Stress-causing events

     i) Distress

           ►The effect of unpleasant and undesirable stressors.

     ii) Eustress

           ► The effect of positive events or the optimal amount of stress that people need to promote                      health and well-being.

  Example of stressors :-

•     Enviromental/Physical factors:
• Catastrophe
• an unpredictable large scale event that create a tremendous need to adapt and adjust.
• fire, floods, earthquake, etc.

• Major life changes
• ordinary life experiences, not necessarily negative events.
• marriage, going to college, etc.

• Hassles
• the daily annoyances of everyday life that leads to the causing of stress.
• picking what to eat for lunch, etc.

• Psychological factors:-
• Pressure
• produced by urgent demands or expectations for a person's behavior that come from outside source
• a student have to submit assignments on time.

• Uncontrollability
• when a person is prohibited from having any control over a particular events or situation.
• the less control the person has, the greater degree of stress.

• Frustration
• produced by the blocking of a desired goal or fulfillment of a perceived need.
• ways to overcome frustration;
• persistence ► continuation of effort.
• aggression  ► actions meant to harm.
• escape        ► leave the presence of stressors.

Conflict

     1. Approach-approach conflict

• conflict occurs when a person must choose between 2 goals.

     2. Avoidance-avoidance conflict

• conflict occurs when a person must choose between 2 desirable goals.

     3. Approach-avoidance conflict

• conflict occurs when a person must choose a goal that has both positive and negative impact.

     4. Multiple approach-avoidance conflict

• conflict in which the person must decide between more than 2 goals, with each goal possessing both positive and negative aspects.
• also known as double approach-avoidance conflict.

Coping with stress ► action that people can take to master, tolerate, reduce or minimize the effect                                           of stressors.

       1. Problem-focused coping

• eliminate the source of the stress or reduce the impact through direct action.

       2. Emotion-focused coping

• change the impact of a stressor by changing the emotional reaction towards the stressor.

       3. Meditation

• mental series of exercises meant to refocus attention and achieve translike state of consciousness.

        4. Culture/Religion

• on individual culture/religion beliefs can affect the appraisal of events as more/less stressful, the coping strategies adapted and support systems that can offer assistance.

Hey guys! Recently, our lecturer, Miss N held a class activity. Basically, one of the activities is to create a song based on the topic and the melody we got. Melody based on the song Rasa Sayang.

Intro

Hi guys we are from group number one,
Today we are going to tell you about scientific method.

Pok Jak what is the scientific method?
Scientific method is data is gathered so that bias and error are burnt into ashes.

Chorus

There are 5 steps hey in the scientific method,
First we perceive the question and form hypothesis,
Before we draw a conclusion hey we must test the hypothesis,
Finally we can report to others to replicate.

WHAT IS MEMORY?

Memory is processes involved in retaining, retrieving and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.

Basically, memory is information that we have stored in our brain or mind and we will retrieve it back to use it in the present day. In other words, we tend to remember information that is way back in the past or the things that we have learned before. That is what we called as memory

Our memory involves the process of encoding which is similar to typing on a keyboard to key in information into the computer. When we learn new information, our brain will encode them into the brain and the brain will act as a hard disk or a thumb drive to save those information.Then, when we recall back the information which is the memory it involves recovering of information from the memory stores.

There are 2 types of models of processing which are information processing model and levels of processing model. The information processing model focusses on the way the information is processed through different stages or memory. On the other hand, the levels of processing model focuses on the depth of processing associated with specific information. Deeper processing associated with longer retention.

INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

SENSORY MEMORY

The first stage of memory and the point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems.

There are 2 types of sensory memory which are iconic memory and echoic memory

ICONIC MEMORY: visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a second

• Capacity - everything that can be seen at one time
• Masking - information that has been entered into iconic memory will be pushed out very quickly by new                    infromation

It is actually a type of memory where we see something and we remember thus making the brain to save it as memory. For instance, you will remember the color of coca-cola bottle drinks which is white and red because you always see the bottle drink and you keep it as a memory inside your brain

ECHOIC MEMORY: auditory sensory memory; the brief memory of something a person has just heard

• Capacity - limited to what can he hear at any one moment
• Duration - last longer than iconic (2-4 seconds)

For example, you are listening to a song and after that you caught yourself singing the same song again without the need to memorize the lyrics.The next day, you listen to the same song again and you automatically sing the song by trying to retrieve the sound from your memory. This shows that you are using you hearing to produce an echoic memory.

SHORT TERM MEMORY (STM): the memory system in which infromation is held for brief periods of time while                                                   being used.

1. Selective attention - the ability to focus at one stimulus among other stimulus. For example, you can hear your friend calling your name in a party situation because you are being selective in giving attention
2. Digit-span test - memory test in which a series of numbers is read to subjects in the experiment who are then asked to recall the numbers in order. For example, you are given 10 numbers and you will have to remember and write all the 10 numbers back.
3. Chunking - bits of information are combined into meaningful units.
4. Maintenance rehearsal - practice of saying information all over again so that you will not forget about it

Duration of STM - last from about 12 to 30 seconds without rehearsal

LONG TERM MEMORY (LTM) : the system of memory into which all the information is placed to be kept more                                                     or less permanently

• Elaborative rehearsal - a method of transferring information from STM into LTM by making that information meaningful in some way.

TYPES OF LTM

• Procedural memory - type of long-term memory including memory for skill, procedures, habits and                                            conditioned responses
• Declarative memory - type of long-term memory containing information that is conscious and known
• Semantic memory - type of declarative memory containing general knowledge
• Episodic memory - contain personal memory or information
• Semantic and episodic are forms of explicit memory

LEVELS OF PROCESSING MODEL OF MEMORY

RETRIEVAL CUES

• Retrieval cues - words, meanings, sounds and other stimuli that are encoded at the same time as a new                               memory. For example, you hear the sound of air-cond in the class during a lecture                                     and similarly, you hear the same sound of air-cond in the exam hall. So, you will                                       recall back the information that you have learned in the class to help you in the                                           examination
• Encoding specificity - occurs when physical surroundings become encoded as retrieval cues for specific                                     memories
• State-dependent - memories formed during a particular physiological state will be easier to recall while in similar state

RECALL - the information to be retrieved must be 'pulled' from memory with very few external cues

Basically, we as humans have the ability to recall information from our memory. There are also times when we fail to retrieve information from the memory. For example, we forget our friends' names but we know the person and their names are actually at the 'tip of our tongue' but we fail to recall their names.

Other than that, there are also the primary effect and the recency effect. Primary effect is when people remember the information at the beginning while the recency effect is when people remember the information at the end of a body.

RECOGNITION 

• Recognition - the ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored image or fact

For example, you are answering multiple choice question and you are matching the question to the answer in your memory

• False positive - error of recognition in which people think they can recognize some stimulus that is not actually a memory

AUTOMATIC ENCODING AND FLASHBULB MEMORIES

Automatic encoding is we use less effort or no effort in encoding the information to become our memory. For example, a person with a photographic memory does not have to use a lot of effort in memorizing information

Flashbulb memories - a type of automatic encoding that occurs because of an unexpected event that has strong emotion. For example, a person will automatically remembers an incident that involves the death of the family or failures in life

Have you ever ask yourself why do we keep on forgetting? In psychology, there are explanation for that. 

Firstly, is because of failure in encoding. The information is not attended to and fails to be encoded

Secondly, the information that is not being used will decay from time to time

Third, is because of the proactive interference. Old information will interfere with the newer information

Fourth is the retroactive interference. New information will interfere with the older information

AMNESIA

Have you guys wonder what is amnesia? How is it related to psychology?

• Retrograde amnesia - loss of memory from the point of some injury or trauma backwards or loss of                                          memory for the past
• Anterograde amnesia - the loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

• One of the example for anterograde amnesia
• There are various drugs can be used to slow down or stop progression of Alzheimer's disease.

Learning 

Means any relatively change in behavior brought by experiences or practice

Classical conditioning

Learning to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces the reflex

Pavlov's theory

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist who discovered classical conditioning

Classical Conditioning Concepts 

Neutral Stimulus (NS)	A stimulus that does not produce a response.
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)	A stimulus that elicits a response innately or without conditioning.
Unconditioned Response (UCR)	Automatic response elicited by the unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)	A neutral stimulus that when paired with an unconditioned stimulus elicits a similar response.
Conditioned Response (CR)	A response that is learned by pairing the originally neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus.

Pavlov's dog model 

Other examples of classical conditioning;

Terms	Definition
Discrimination	When a CR does not occur, there is a difference between the presented stimulus and the original CS
Extinction	The extinction phase is when the CR no longer occurs after introduction of the CS.
Generalization	When there is a small difference in the presented stimulus and the original CS.
Higher-order conditioning	Refers to a situation in which a stimulus that was previously neutral is paired with a conditioned stimulus to produce the same conditioned response as the conditioned stimulus.
Spontaneous recovery	Reappeared of a learned response after extinction

Principles of classical condition :

• CS must be before UCS
• CS and UCS must come very close together (7 seconds)
• CS must be paired with UCS many times before conditioning take place
• CS stand out than other stimuli

Conditioned Emotional Response (CER)
Emotional response that become classically conditioning, usually from the association of a relatively neutral stimulus with a painful or fear-inducing experience

When a person becomes nauseated some time after eating a certain food, which then becomes aversive to her/him

When you watch other people's reaction on certain things (in this case fear of riding a roller coaster), you become afraid of it as well. 

Operant Conditioning

Learning of voluntary behavior through effects of pleasant and unpleasant consequences to response

     

   

"Any behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped."

Thorndike's Law of Effects

Skinner's Box Experiment

Reinforcement and punishment 

How to make punishment more effective?

• Punishment should immediately follow the behavior it is meant to punish
• Must be consistent
• Punishment of the wrong behavior should be paired whenever possible, with reinforcement of the right behavior

Problems with punishment:

• Wrong response (fear of the punisher)
• Tend to lie to avoid punishment
• Does not promote learning
• Hitting by the punisher creates aggression

Observational Learning

Learning behavior by watching or observing 

The elements & examples ;

What is Psychology?

• is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

• Behavior : All of our outward and overt actions and reactions such as talking etc.
• Mental Processes : All the internal, covert activity of our mind such as thinking etc.

• Why scientific?

• To prevent possible biases from leading to faulty observations

Psychology Goals

• Description
• What is happening?
• Involves observing behavior and noting everything about it, what, where, to whom.

• Explaination
• Why is it happening?
• To come out with a tentative explaination on certain behaviors.
• To explain the observation.
• To form a theory. (general explaination of a set of observation or facts)

• Prediction
• When will it happen again?
• To determine when will a certain behavior happen again in the future.
• Predict based on previous results and apply to similar situations.

• Control
• How can it be changed?
• To focus on the control or modification of some behavior. (to change a behavior from undesirable to a desirable)

Types of Psychological Professionals

• Psichiatrist
• Medical doctor that specializes in diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
• Can prescribe medication.
• Only for medical course doctors.

• Psychologist
• Has a doctrate degree and works with either humans or animals in a variety of setting based on the area of specialization.
• Must be licensed to practise independently and does not prescribe medication.

• Psychoanalyst
• Usually a psychoanalyst or psychologist who has special training in theories of Freud.

• Psichiatric social worker
• Has training in area of social works and often has a professional license to practise.