formal blog 1

Before I read chapter one I thought psychology was just the study of how people react to a stimulus or how different things affect their behaviors. After reading the chapter I realize that it is much more than that. There are many different types of psychology and each of them are different. Some study how a person's mind develops from womb to tomb while others study how a person's environment can affect their mind. Also psychologist use many different techniques to study people. Some study their subjects without interfering while other introduce a stimulus to see how it affects the subject.
I believe psychology affects my life in a variety of ways. Through study scientists have come up with ways to help people develop certain skills that can benefit them in life. These skills can be applied to help myself become a better leader, friend, student, ect. Also psychology can affect how others are around me, and by affecting the people around me it can affect me as well. If i were surrounded by a bunch of depressed people, I would more than likely feel depressed too.
One thing i learned is that people look for order all the time. We see patterns in sequences that are completely random. It seems like the odds of flipping a coin six times and getting all heads is nearly impossible, when in reality it is just as likely as flipping HTHHTH. Another intriguing thing i learned is just because two things correlate does not mean that they cause each other. It only shows the possibility of the cause-effect relationship. It does not prove that one thing causes another.