The diverse nature of psychology is a complex phenomenon. Psychology is a large field encompassing many perspective, theories, and concepts. In this paper, the influence of diversity on psychology’s major concepts will be evaluated. A couple of sub-disciplines including their sub-topics will be identified and the ways in which they can be applied along with their contributions to the world psychology.
Diversity
Diversity is usually describing many differences between variables, or variety. In psychology, diversity ranges among similarities and differences not only among individuals’ race, ethnicity, and culture but also by their individual traits and characteristics, including interpersonal skills. Diversity also includes social class, sexual orientation, religion, weight, disabilities, and political affiliation (Hussey, Fleck & Warner, 2010).
Diversity in education is of the utmost importance to teach students about these differences not only learn about them but also to understand, respect, and accept them. There are just as many diversity topics as there are sub-disciplines and categories in psychology; therefore, diversity has influenced psychology’s major concepts by vastly enriching research and studies. Diversity has allowed researchers to widen the spectrum of the study of human behavior by allowing the insight of other races, ethnicities, and cultures to contribute to psychology and furthering education.
Motivation
Motivation is the force that initiates behavior. Motivation is the guiding force that also maintains goal-oriented behavior. Motivation is the driving force that makes people eat food to satisfy hunger, to exercise, to wake up and go to work, to go to college, and so on. Motivation in psychology has many approaches and theories.
The Essay on Psychology of Human behavior
Psychology is an aspect of science which basically study behavior and the human mind. The definition is a triad of component in that it contains a scientific scope or aspect, the human behavior and the human mind. The scientific study approach each aspect of it study in a systematic approach and in an objective manner of observing the changes and the experiment as a whole. Behavior see the changes ...
Of the many motivation theories, the achievement goal theory is the most famous theory. The “achievement goal theory was developed to understand students’ adaptive and maladaptive responses to achievement challenges” (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011, p. 27).
Two types of goals were categorized: mastery goals and performance goals. Mastery goals are acquired and developed competence (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011).
A performance goal is the ability to outperform others, or demonstrate competence, which may reveal they (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011).
Performance goals have been further divided into two approaches. The performance approach is to appearing talented by out performing others (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011).
Performance avoidance is appearing less talented by striving to avoid doing worse than others (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011).
Mastery goals were also separated into two approaches. Mastery approach is striving to improve skills (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011).
Mastery avoidance is striving to avoid knowledge decline (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011).
These approaches can be applied to all learned behavior, outside of the motivation theories. However, there are many other perspectives throughout psychology, which allow these approaches to be analyzed differently, allowing more room for revisions and new theories to be created and proved.
Cognition
Cognition is another large discipline of psychology. Cognition is the mental processes, which include thinking, talking, learning, attention, solving problems, and all that the brain operates. In the study of cognition in psychology, there are many theories, approaches, and perspectives. Cognitive dissonance is “when a person’s actions conflict with his or her prior attitudes, so he or she will change his or her mind to be more consistent with his or her actions” (van Veen, Krug, Schooler & Carter, 2009, p. 1).
The Research paper on Achievement goal theory: ‘An athlete’s motivation should always be to aim to be the best’
“Success and failure are not concrete events. They are psychological states consequent on the perception of reaching or not reaching goals” (Maehr & Nicholls, 1980. p. 228). The quality of an athlete’s sporting experience is shaped by the way in which success is defined, and by how capabilities are judged (Duda, 1993). Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) (Nicholls, 1984; 1989) outlines that ...
It is common for people to want to strive to keep their thoughts and actions consistent with their attitudes and behaviors. This is just another sub-topic of many that contribute to cognition and psychology.
Conclusion
As diversity includes variation, so does the field of psychology. Diversity in psychology comes in many forms, variations, and practices. There are many perspectives, theories, concepts, approaches, and disciplines, all of which are mostly valid and relate to each other. As diversity encompasses the races, ethnicities, and cultures of individuals along with their personality characteristics, it also encompasses the many different ways to study, research, view theories, and approaches. All connect in one way or another because they all primarily focus on human behavior. This also applies to everyday life, school, work, and health of all of kinds of people, regardless of their background. These are the studies that improve the quality of life. Every individual breathes, thinks, and behaves.
