Introduction to Anthropology Sociology and Psychology
Psychology: Psychology is a study which focuses on the behaviour of the human brain from all aspects, even if it is unconscious. There are many different versions of psychology which we study. Some of these versions include Social psychology, Clinical psychology, Cognitive psychology, and also Developmental psychology.
Social Psychology: This type of psychology is the study of how one's mind, thoughts, and behaviour are affected due to the presence of others. A good example could be how someone feels when it is their very first day of school at a new school, they might feel extremely excited or nervous depending on the people they meet over there.
Clinical Psychology: This type of psychology is basically a collection scientific data to help understand how to treat or prevent any psychological disorders or distress anyone may have. A good example of psychological stress includes psychopathic killers who have the type of people with a complete blank expression of any thought or any feelings, they only kill to satisfy a developed blood lust and do not care for any of the consequences they may face in the long term, for example Richard Ramirez aka the Night Stalker had killed more than 10 people without even feeling guilty of his actions at court, very similar to the Colarado movie theater shooter back in 2012.
Personality Psychology: This is actually a branch of psychological studies which revolve around the different types of personalities depending on the individual's attitude towards other people as well as their behaviour, that way in case one's personality is not the best around others, people can easily determine the issue and later resolve it.
Developmental Psychology: This type of psychology studies on how the human mind and behaviour changes over time someone begins to grow up. For example why is it that when boys and girls found each other icky and gross at a young age to finding each other attractive in their teenage years.
Sociology: Sociology is defined as the study of the human society which circulates on how humans tend to interact with one another physically and mentally in either a good or bad way and how it can have an affect on that person. It also tends to focus on how humans behave based of many different factors which include their social structure, social groups, and social society.
Social structure: This is defined as the patterned social arrangements within society which can have an effect on ones behaviour and actions with others.
Social category: Social category basically singles out a certain number of individuals based off their unique features which include race, hair color, facial features, height, and so on.
Social institutions: A band of individuals formed together in pursuit of one specific purpose. Examples include politics, religion, and debates that occur in classrooms on who is the better singer and so on.
The studies surrounding the characteristics of anthropology, sociology, and psychology that I have learned so far while studying in this course revolves all around one thing, a human being. For thousands of years human beings have evolved in their mental and physical behaviour, from having to hunt for their food to simply going to a supermarket and shop for it. But what has triggered some of these changes, why did we not just stay as savages and roam the world hunting and feeding on the things around us like how normal animals would such as lions or elephants? The study of anthropology, sociology, and psychology revolves around
Anthropology: Anthropology is defined as aspects of human beings with in the past and the present societies. However there are different versions of anthropology that many of us study. Some examples include,
Linguistic Anthropology: Linguistic Anthropology is the study which focuses on how certain languages can have in influence on ones life. Originally this study had been originated to document some of the endangered languages around the world. Some examples of endangered languages around the world include the Benin and Botswana language which originates in Africa.
Social and Cultural Anthropology: Cultural anthropology studies the cultural variation among human beings, whereas socialization anthropology is defined as the study of human social behaviour. A very good example that almost every child knows of social and cultural anthropology is our studies on some of the ancient civilizations which included the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans on how they lived and what were some of their religious views. Another example includes the study of Canada's indigenous population.
Biological and Physical Anthropology: This study involves the biological and physical behaviour of the human body as it is in development, which is something that every one of us experience since we are constantly changing until the day we die. We experience changes such as puberty which is something all of us students are going through right now, and we will later begin to experience changes such as old age and having to deal with certain limitations now and begin to accept the fact that we can no longer do things that we were able to do when we were young.