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Kylia Wormely

Vonia Muhammad

AP Psychology

15 May 2017

AP Psychology Project Component 2: Reflection

While taking AP Psychology, I began to get familiar with the terms that dictate my

everyday life. Classical conditioning, perception, sensation, all of which shape how I view the

world. It is due to psychology that I am able to think the way that I do, form the experiences and

memories that I can recall, and how I judge and interpret the world. With the excess knowledge

Ive gained from psychology, I take a different approach in how I judge people and the situations

around me. Ive always been a very observant person and took other peoples emotions and

situations into consideration. Now I can analyze a persons behavior and see how it is influenced

by different stimuli, or maybe how their background and past experiences have shaped their

personality. Sometimes I may not apply psychology into every aspect of my life but that is due to

the fact that life does not condition a person to put serious thought into everyday life, the school

system is mostly based on a linear path of reiterating the same concept over and over again

without giving much thought into answers, which is why people have argued about standardized

tests. Another aspect that Ive been more alert about my dreams and have paid more attention to

them.

The examples that I observed in the movie Mean Girls were easier to spot with my

learned knowledge Ive acquired in the duration of this class. This recent project has also shown

me that social psychology can be applied to almost any situation in reality TV. My category was
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social reality TV, filled with fake drama and even more examples of conformity, conflict,

stereotypes and attitude than your regular high school. But they are highly relatable in context

and give a good basis on situations we may face in real life. It seems easier to make logical sense

of a situation that other people may not be able to comprehend or deem unexplainable.

Psychology has also brought to light many interesting cases that I would not have known of

otherwise, or later on in life like the Milgram study, the Monster study and their contribution to

ethics in experimentation. Terminology in psychology has helped me to understand the conflict

in the book I read for my senior project.

Last year, I got a small glimpse into what psychology entailed when I became apart of

my friends psychology final exam project. I was told to take a survey based on my experience

and knowledge along with other persons from our class. The results were surprising to me

because we all pretty much ended up with the same results. Later would I realize that this was

due to classical conditioning and our perceptions that shaped how we viewed each survey. That

was my first time being apart of an experiment. I was so fascinated and frightened on what

exactly psychology would be like and the difficulty of it that I put off taking the class until it was

a requirement. Now that Ive gotten the chance to experience it firsthand, I really enjoyed my

time and the things Ive learned in this class. The next obstacle is tackling any situations I may

encounter in the outside world and in my time as an adult. In the near future I may be able to

apply this knowledge to diffuse different conflicts in my life.

The short-end of it is this: I feel that psychology has broadened my mind and given me

insight into what drives humans to do the things that they do and given me an opportunity to see

the kind of work I would experience in a college environment. Granted, the class itself is not a

reflection on the content, but on the environment. The projects were interesting and engaging,
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thoughtful and good for getting a person to think, which is hard to do in this society at this day

and age. It also has given me a chance to reflect on my own morals and beliefs, to question the

world around me and put my thoughts into what really counts. It gives me an opportunity to

inform people about the importance of psychology and make the world a more sensible place

because we all know that some people lack humility today. Its imperative that we understand the

influence psychology has on everyday activities, the behaviors we encounter, improvements for

mental illnesses and how to shape ourselves to accommodate and appreciate it.