Applying Psychology to Everyday Life.

Erikka Walker

PSY-102

March 03, 2019

Instructor Lori Cooper

Applying Psychology to Everyday Life

The word psychology comes from the Greek word psyche, which means vital breath or human soul (Grison & Gazzaniga, 2017). Psychology encompasses all aspects of the human experience, in which it involves learning how individuals think, feel, learn, interact, understand, and perceive, whether alone or when interacting with other people or the environment (Grison & Gazzaniga, 2017). Understanding the many aspects of psychology and applying them to my life, will enable me to become a well-rounded person. In this paper I will be discussing psychology and how I will apply it to my professional life, personal life, and academic career.

In my professional life, psychology will play an important role in dealing with stress in the workplace. Stress is defined as the body’s nonspecific response to any demand, whether it is caused by or results in pleasant or unpleasant stimuli (Grison & Gazzaniga, 2017). Working for a hospital in an operating room setting can be stressful most of the time because I must make sure that I meet high demands and do my job precisely. I do not have the best track record when it comes to handling stress, and I tend to let it build up, which causes me to physically get sick. Stress can have a wide range of effects on individuals such as headaches, high blood pressure, musculoskeletal issues, and cardiovascular disease (Lal & Singh, 2015). These issues are preventable with the help of healthy coping mechanism like relaxation techniques, meditation, and daily exercise. Learning how to deal with stress in my professional life and applying what I learned has been beneficial to me because, now I have a better understanding about the warning signs, long-term effects, and healthy coping mechanisms.

Understanding my personality type and the personality types of others, is an essential part to forming healthy and long-lasting relationships. Personality types refers to a group of personality traits that are determined by a certain pattern of responses to a personality inventory (Halfond, 2018). In my personal life, psychology has played a major role when it comes to applying what I learned about personality types. After taking the Carl Jung’s typology test, I discovered that my personality type is ISTJ (introversion, sensing, thinking, judging), which is a true description of how I see myself. My personality type is sometimes called “Inspectors” that have an undeniable sense of right and wrong when it comes to responsibility and relying on the facts (Halfond, 2018). By learning more about my own personality and the personality types of others, I can come to a better understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. In any healthy relationship, communication, expectation, and compromise are the most important aspects to understanding personality types. Realizing that some areas of my personality are engaged on different levels each day with family, at work, or with my spouse, is one thing. Understanding how to use that knowledge is another. Being able to identify personality types can help me to exert my influence, improve relationships, communicate effectively, and achieve success in all areas of my life.

Applying psychology to my professional and personal life have been beneficial, but it could not be a complete circle without applying it to my academic career. When it comes psychology and applying it to my academic career, the one thing that comes to mind is my learning style as a visual learner. Visual learning style, also called the spatial learning style account for 65% of the population, can be defined as a way of learning information by using charts and graphs to understand concepts, pictures, taking notes, and remembering what is read rather than what is heard (Leopold, 2012). Understanding the different learning styles will be beneficial to me when working on group projects, because some people are auditory or kinesthetic learners and I must adjust to the different styles of learning to create a more engaging group. Auditory learners (35% of the population) like to process information orally while kinesthetic (5% of the population) learners prefer to learn to do things with complete physical movement (Leopold, 2012). By understanding my learning style and the learning style of others, I can employ techniques that will improve the rate and quality of learning on my own or in a group setting. My learning style as a visual learner has some overlap into my personal life as a Sunday school teacher because when I teach my class, I always use pictures, drawings, and mind maps, which has enabled my students to memorize and understand the information that I teach.