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Erick Israel Rojas Torres

Crash Course – Psychology


Episode 1 – intro
In this episode, Hank talks about some misconceptions of psychology, about how diverse
psychology is and also about the different personalities in the field, like Sigmund Freud or
Wilhelm Wundt. He also talked about some main points of view in the field, like the
structuralism, functionalism or the psychoanalysis. The idea that surprised me the most is
that Freud discovered that we could ‘heal’ ourselves (at least in a mental-psychological
way) by just talking it out and making introspection.

Episode 2 – Psychological Research and


Experimentation
This episode talks about intuition and about how it works, how we react regarding it and
how it affects us.
Then he talks about ‘Operationalizing’ following the scientific method. That is, making a
question and a theory, a hypothesis, and testing it out with a replicable experiment.
Is mentioned that ‘Case studies’ are done to individuals and that they can’t be replicated,
and thus are often misleading.
Naturalistic observations are great at describing behavior, but they’re very limited in
explaining it.
A good way of collecting information is by making questions and interviews.
Once behavior is described, it is possible to start making sense out of it and even predict
future behavior. This can be done by looking at how one trait or behavior is related to
another one, or how they correlate. Correlations predict the possibility of cause-and-effect
relationships, though they can’t prove them.
On the last part of the video, Hank talks about experiments, how they work. He mentions
how placebos double blind procedures are used.

Episode 3 – The Chemical Mind


Everything psychological is biological.
In this episode, Hank talks about how the chemicals in our body influences how we think,
sense and feel basically anything that surrounds us.
Erick Israel Rojas Torres

He talks about what and how neurons work and about the different kinds of neurons that
exist, it’s a really good explanation, as he even talks about how each one of their parts
work and how they are related to our body.
Neurons transmit signals when stimulated by sensory input or triggered by neighboring
neurons.
He then also talks about neurotransmitters, like endorphins, which are opiatelike
transmitters linked to pain control and pleasure. There are also excitatory
neurotransmitters, inhibitory neurotransmitters, gamma-aminobutyric acid
neurotransmitters and about dopamine.
Two major mental illnesses are discusses, Alzheimer’s (which is a progressive, neurological
deterioration that can occur in middle or old age, due to generalized degeneration of the
brain.) and schizophrenia, which is a psychiatric disorder involving a breakdown in the
relation between thought, emotion and behavior.
On the last part of the video, Hank talks about what and how hormones work, about the
different types of hormones that exist and how they react and interact with our body and
the things that happen around us.

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