Understanding our world and our reality is much more complex than we think, which is why we need psychology. While some people say that it is common sense, there are those who have demonstrated the potential and importance of the study of psychology. We are complex beings who need to understand why they do certain things and what the consequences are beyond the immediate.
If we didn’t really need psychology, our lives would be very different: we wouldn’t eat junk food and we would never behave violently. That is, nobody would do it in society. But the reality is that we are quite complicated beings full of impulses that are difficult to understand.
Instinct, reason, drives and more are only a part of what different branches of psychology seek to understand, so their focus can be developmental, social, humanistic, cognitive and more. These are just some of the things that psychology can teach us
We act by competition
One way to make us act in certain situations is by comparing ourselves with friends or acquaintances. A power company got people started saving energy by telling them that their neighbors had reduced their energy use. That comment saved more than 2% electricity, yet when people were told to save energy to spend less money or help the environment, no one would listen and sometimes even consume more energy.
The more you expose yourself to something, the more you’ll like it.
This is the reason why subliminal advertising is completely prohibited. Our brains can register images that fade in and out in milliseconds, and the more we see them, the more we like them. That is why you can see so many ads for a product, the first few times it will not attract your attention, but your brain registers it and when you least realize it, you will be consuming it.
We care more about fitting in than being right
We think we are aware of what we do and the decisions we make, but the reality is that we are very susceptible to following other people because we feel that we belong. In one experiment, everyone was told to answer a basic question incorrectly, then another participant who didn’t hear the prompt entered the room and answered along with the other people. After repeating the experiment with 50 participants, 37 of them had answered incorrectly just because the rest of the people gave the wrong answer and they did not want to be that person who goes against it.
Our motivation is strange
Despite the fact that whenever there is a reward we try harder for something, if the reward is already expected, our motivation is less, while surprise rewards motivate people much more. Likewise, goal-set rewards are less important to people than performance-based rewards.
Psychology has shown that under a sense of power, people can quickly adopt tyrannical attitudes, it has also shown that if a child has self-control it is possible for them to be more successful as an adult or that under an emergency situation our most supportive side emerges. It is a fascinating field of study that despite being young has helped us find meaning in this world. How about?