Question

Chapter 1 Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Some controversial issues existed throughout the development of psychological theorizing and are still current and relevant.

For example:

1. Mind vs. body: are they both part of psychology? Are they parallel (connected)? Is the mind a separate entity?

2. Stability vs. change; Do out personalities change or persist as we age? Do they change in different situations?

3. Determinism vs. free will; Is present behavior the result of events that happened in person's past history (hence predetermined)? Is it guided by future goals (hence free will)?

4. Nature vs. Nurture: Do our traits develop through experience or are we born with therm? What are the relative contributions experience and biology?

Please write a SHORT answer to each of the four questions. You may use your text or any other literature to support your opinion.

Answer 1

1) Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Psychology has some controversial issues from the very beginning and still continues. Mind vs. Body, are they both part of psychology? As I support that psychology studies both mind and behavior, mind is mental aspect which can not be seen but behavior is physical aspect and can be seen. Both are connected or parallel, our body contains brain and brain is the place of thought and mental processes. So mind and body both connected we can’t separate the two as both regulate each other. Body has brain and brain is the centre of all mental processes which controls whole body.

2) Stability vs. change, this is a fundamental controversial topic in psychology from very beginning.Some psychologists believe that our personality traits remain unchanged throughout our lives this view is called stability view of personality but some psychologists believe that personality traits change over time as we interact with our family, friends, school, college, office. This view is called change view of personality. We can give answer to this question by our observation and experience, we see that as we grow we learn different things from different people which results in some changes in our thought pattern. We interact w number of people throughout our lives and we change our perception on different topics. But is is the truth that one’s personality traits can not be changed completely. An introvert person can not be full extrovert, he or she may change their personality a little and become little bit extrovert. So, personality traits are stable though we can change them till a certain level.

3) Determinism vs. free will, this topic is also a burning topic in psychology. Determinism argues that our behavior is guided by some internal or external factors hence we have no control over our behavior. Free will suggested that human behaviors are controlled by human. This view suggests that we have full control over our behaviors, our behaviors are determined by our future goals. In some extent both views are correct. We can’t control over our all the behaviors, yes we can try our best to behave according to our goals but it is not possible completely. On the other hand determinism view is that all our behaviors are the result of internal and external factors, we are just viewers to see our behaviors, this view also has some extremes as this view doesn’t regard our own control.

4) Nature vs. Nurture, this question is somewhat related to stability vs. change. Nativism supports the importance of inherited genetic factors for our personality traits. It argues that we get all the traits hereditary, there is no importance of environmental factors on development of personality traits. Empiricism supports that our all traits are the result of environmental factors, we learn and develop all traits through experiences. Behaviorist are the core supporters of empiricism. We can conclude that our all personality traits are the result of both genetic factors and environmental factors.

Above written controversies can be solve in short span of time as there are division of people on each pole.