psychology essay questions

psychology essay questions

Exploring the Complexity of Human Behavior: A Comprehensive Analysis of Contemporary Psychology Essay Questions

1. Introduction to Psychology Essay Questions

The results section of any article examines its capacity to inform, is as important as the why section that appears in an empirical paper’s introduction. This guideline proposes a set of essay questions about what is important in nearly three dozen psychology textbooks. This interest in the scholarship of teaching, and the pedagogical goal, ensure that the majority of essay questions do not appear in a typical textbook. Nevertheless, I suggest that a remarkably general class of questions about vocabulary and important/classic readings are worthy of special attention. Indeed, some of these questions may also have been under-emphasized in popular online sources of essay prompts. Such sources generally list essay prompts by applying a keyword search function to locate questions. This textbook-based approach can be viewed as generating essay prompts by cross-referencing: the unique questions are determined by examining the index as is described in the methods section, and cross-referencing relevant authors or topics from the index with books that reference them in a chapter-exclusive manner.

2. Key Theoretical Frameworks in Psychology Essay Questions

3.3. How is it that people are so successful at communicating with one another using symbols? Bear in mind that symbolism is an important way in which we spell out the significance of something.

3.2. How is it that people become obsessed, and more generally, what is the dynamic unconscious?

3.1. How does 1) structuralism and functionalism; 2) Freudian psychoanalysis (ego, id, superego); 3) behaviorism (reflexes, classical conditioning, learned fears); and 4) attachment, language, critical periods, and morality centers in the brain provide insight into human behavior?

This section includes essay questions on the major psychological perspectives in FIU’s exploration in contemporary psychology. The essay prompts will help students deeply explore psychological concepts such as structuralism and functionalism, Freudian psychoanalysis, behaviorism, attachment, language, critical periods, and the morality centers in the brain. Students and faculty can use this research to help students better understand psychological theories as well as to give students practice writing about the core ideas in psychology.

3. Current Trends and Debates in Psychology Essay Questions

At present, psychology oscillated between theoretical rigidity and vague classifications, an oscillation that expressed a responsible awareness of both the wealth and diversity of its subject matter. How then might some spirit of unity be restored to psychology? Researchers must remain faithful to their subdiscipline but not to the point of renouncing the unity of human nature. When working in his own particular area, each researcher must be aware of studying a fragment and must seek to integrate the data obtained with fragments – different and yet partial – as these. He must also be receptive to other types of answers – to the ‘probable substantial differences’ between the fragment produced by a natural science style and the rest of the vast diversity of more or less unattainable depths of human nature. Finally, the researcher must be willing to move from the position of psychologist-scientist to that of a daily citizen.

Different subdisciplines of psychology seemed to be just now getting nearer to each other, and the work on human nature held no more unity than before, in spite of the advances made. And there was more agreement on these points because the majority of those participating in the discussion carried out their work within a natural science framework. It was natural to ask what type of work would arise if researchers transcended their respective psychological subdisciplines, in part by getting closer to the work of moralists and theologians; if, in other words, those working in distinct subdisciplines were to try to direct attention not only to the forms exhibited by particular elements of evidence but to the whole of the phenomena themselves.

4. Methodological Approaches and Research Designs in Psychology Essay Questions

A systematic literature search was carried out in January 2013 to identify items consisting of essay questions in the field of theoretical psychology and the division for Positive Psychology. The literature search led to a total of 1770 essay questions. Apart from titles, sources of the list were identified. This online source is to offer essay questions to students and can be used especially as an index or source to facilitate searching for appropriate essay questions. It offers teachers the possibility to obtain a substantial amount of items focusing on different areas of psychology in the course of studying. Later, the list may be replicated and items might be processed in order to detect relationships. In total, the list provides students with access to a considerable number of issues they are able to examine. The lists of essay questions may contribute to the spectrum of research topics a department may deal with.

5. Conclusion: Reflecting on the Importance and Impact of Psychology Essay Questions

This paper provides readers with 50 original essay questions and answers that could be used in a variety of settings, including professional psychology courses and other related courses in which psychological knowledge is necessary. The questions are geared towards content from undergraduate level introductory psychology, developmental psychology, and abnormal psychology courses and could be used in any of these undergraduate-level settings. The essay questions have been created and used by psychology faculty over a number of years in an undergraduate psychology degree program. They have also been refined from feedback provided by students to promote clarity and understanding. We propose that the questions could be used broadly across undergraduate psychology courses, in addition to other related disciplines when basic psychological knowledge is needed. If instructors choose to use these questions, they have the potential to lead to different types of student engagement and investment in the material, and to improve various types of students’ communication skills.