Tag: Personality Psychology

Psychology in Medical Education

Psychologists have to acquire a much better knowledge of the fundamental biological sciences if they wish to engage in a much bigger position in educating medical students, and take part in study and treatment inside the health care process.

Health-related schools are switching from being organized on biologically based departments to multidisciplinary organizations, and that study funded by the National Institutes of Health is requiring a much more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary strategy. These changes generate a chance for psychology to play a better role in medical instruction and health investigation.

The inability for making psychology highly relevant to the biological fundamentals of medicine can lead to psychology getting minimally highly relevant to medical education and practice. For instance, a psychologist who would like to work in an interdisciplinary treatment plan targeting cancer must provide expertise about a few of the behavioral aspects in the start of cancer – but should know something about oncology and defense mechanisms function, as well.

Definitely, in order to comprehend and educate about these topics, it is essential that we have a number of this fundamental knowledge. There’s a necessity for clinical health psychologists to understand more about anatomy, physiology and pharmacology. For college students studying to become pharmacists for example, psychology offers quite a bit to educate about patient decision-making, social support and problem management and self-care. For example, research has discovered that asking a patient, “Any questions?” when they pick up a prescription decreases the likelihood that a patient will in fact ask a question. By contrast, asking, “What questions do you have?” results in more connection between patient and pharmacist.

Psychologists may also provide important communication instruction on how to build a connection with patients – whether it’s working with children who won’t sit still in the chair or adults who become stressed when dealing with a dental appointment.

A lot more has to be completed to help make education and training possibilities readily available for psychologists within educational health centers.

Personality and Social Psychology

What exactly is the distinction between personality psychology and social psychology? Essentially, personality psychology concentrates on the person, while social psychology concentrates on the situation, how people act in different circumstances, or how circumstances impact people. In a guide that covers subjects as different as inspiration, prejudice, relationship, authority, connections, assisting actions, and anti-social behavior, each subject researched from the two viewpoints of personality psychology and social psychology; a lay audience is likely to discover several subjects of attention. For example, in a section on multiculturalism, it is shown how the research of multiculturalism can be valuable to both personality and social psychologists.

Much of what psychologists have discovered in the last few years has been depending on new calculating techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG). In a section known as “Neuroscience Techniques in Social and Character Mindset,” Bob M. Amodio and Eddie Harmon-Jones talk about how these relatively new techniques evaluate brain activity, and explain several concepts that have been suggested depending on these techniques. One concept that of the mirror neuron system posits “a brain network dedicated to knowing other people through their activities.” Amodio and Harmon-Jones state that the phrase mirror neurons refers “loosely to places of the brain that are triggered both when an individual notices the actions of another person, and when one functions the same behavior”—i.e., when one imitates someone else’s activities.

Out of fascination, I tried a search of PubMed for mirror neuron, and it raised more than a million content. I found it exciting to consider how much interest mirror neuron analysis has drawn, considering what Amodio and Harmon-Jones say about the concept. They tested it as having “intuitive appeal” but state that research queries the credibility of the concept, concluding that “more analysis will be needed” since “so many public communications often need supporting responses…rather than mimicry.” More recent concepts, they tell us, such as mirror-touch synesthesia (a trend believed to be due to mirror neurons), have been depending on what may still be a misguided program.