Introduction

According to books and Google, the definition of psychology is “Psychology is the scientific
study of mind and behavior in humans and non-humans. Psychology includes the study of
conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts”. But for me,
psychology means getting to know the pattern of my behavior and the pattern of the behavior of
people around me.
This is my second semester at North-South University. I took this course psychology 101 in
order to get an idea of how people behave the way they behave and what is the whole procedure
called. Sometimes, I fail to understand myself and the people around me. I fail to understand
why I’m acting in a certain way. And I believe this is the problem with our whole generation.
Things were easier in our parents’ generation but since we are dependent on technology in a very
serious way, It has affected our minds mostly in a negative way. At least this is what I think.
After doing this course, I got some of the answers that I was seeking. Now I know, quite a lot of
things about the behavior pattern and what those are called. in this course, my 3 favorite topics
are:
 Memory
 Stress and coping
 Personality

Memory

During my childhood, I was always a good performer academically. I used to get good marks in
school. I used to achieve good marks because at that time our learning was based on
memorization. The school used to provide us with some content that we were supposed to
memorize and write in the exam paper. It was always easier for me to memorize big paragraphs
and answers. I never faced any difficulties while doing that. But as I grew up things began to
change. Especially after COVID, I found out that it was difficult for me to keep information in
my mind. I couldn’t keep any information that are stored in my mind for a very long time. At that
time I realized that something has changed. After learning this chapter, Memory, I came to know
that this was happening because I was exposed to too much information that mostly came from
social media. As I was exposed to so much information in a very short period of time. From this
topic, I got to know that there are two types of interference radioactive and proactive.
Radioactive interference is the interference because of which we failed to remember or recall
old memory due to being exposed to new Information. Proactive means we fail to remember new
memory due to old information.

From this topic, got to know how memory stays in the mind and the journey from sensory
memory to long-term memory Which is first, pattern recognition from there to attention from
there to short-term memory from there with elaborative rehearsal to long-term memory. How we
keep certain information in our mind by rehearsing and how we lose information from our mind
by not rehearsing enough. How we forget unpleasant memory and how it is not allowed to enter
consciousness. How we also get flashbacks of a very important event whether it is positive or
negative and how we have false memory which means believing something that has never
happened. All this content, Taught me everything I needed to know about memory. It taught me
how to store important information in my mind for a long time.

Stress and coping

From my early teenage years, I started to encounter stress. At that time I realized that I was
stressed. At that stage the stress it was mostly due to academic pressure. In Bangladesh parents
and the education system are somehow responsible for It. The competitive academic
environment that is created but parents and teachers is the first stage where a child starts to
experience and encounter stress. For some children, a Quarrelsome family environment Creates
major stress. A parent’s death or a close family member’s death Is a personal stressor that can
disturb the mental health of a person and keep on disturbing it for a very long time. Most
teenagers these days face PTSD due to something very bad happening to them. This leads to
suicide and thus the suicide rate is increasing day by day. Personal stressors can also be a cause
of suicide. A few days back, a school-going student from Holy Cross School committed suicide
because of not getting good marks in an exam. This event proves that academic pressure creates
so much stress in a person that it leads to the death of a person. Not only did stress is hampering
our physical health as well high blood pressure and heart attacks are also caused by stress. Due to
stress, people are not being able to concentrate on many activities in their life. Since students are
constantly stressed their deteriorating academic performance is proof of how stress is hampering
us. Procrastination and laziness are also side effects of this.
In order to cope with stress we should stop procrastinating and get things done in time. We have
to motivate ourselves to increase our productivity so that we do not delay our work and later get
stressed about it. In my opinion, being physically active like going to the gym or playing a sport
you can also help a person cope with stress.
People get into bad habits because they want to overcome the stress. A person starts taking
nicotine drugs and alcohol in order to reduce stress and then they keep on repeating these
activities and it results in a habit. These habits pamper their health and eventually takes their life.
So we can say that stress is directly proportional to death in one way or another.
The positive way of coping with stress has two categories
 Emotion focused coping: this means people should manage their emotions in such a way
that when they are stressed they should perceive the problem in a different way. They feel
that the situation cannot be changed.
 The problem focused coping column people should modify the stressful problem or
source of stress

What is happiness?

Many people have the answer and many people don’t. A person can be called a happy person
when he has high self esteem the farm sense of control who is optimistic and who like to be
around other people. When people of my age come across this definition they immediately
recognize that they are among the unhappy people. Either stress or PTSD Has taken away this
feeling from them. people these days are not optimistic at all but neither do they like being
around other people and high self-esteem is nowhere to be seen. This generation is unhappy even
after having everything in their life. Even the biggest or the smallest things failed to make people
happy these days.
Personality

After reading this topic I got so many answers t that was looking for. My question which was
why I behave the way I do is answered. Now I know what personality I have and why I have it.
Personality is motivated by inner forces and conflict about which people have little awareness
and over which they have no control. That means whatever we are doing that we are doing
unconsciously and we cannot control our own behavior patterns. But if it is negative we should
change it. In our unconscious mind there’s a lot about our personality. When you listen to a
person’s slip of the tongue, fantasies, and dreams you get an idea about the personality of a
person even if that person doesn’t have any idea about himself or his personality. The
unconscious part contains the person’s needs, Fear, and motives. In my opinion, this is the
Background of behavior. The unconscious level makes people do things, that they have no idea
that they wanted to do it. For example, saying a mean thing to a friend might be true but later the
person realizes that he does not want to say this. But eventually, he did because the fact and
feelings has been buried deep down inside his mind. Preconscious and conscious level acts
based on known information and experience.
Our personality consists of three separate but interacting components: 1)the ID,
2) the Ego, and
3) the Superego.
The ID part is where the person becomes stubborn and impulsive he wants what he wants and he
has to gain it in any way. These are the desires a person has to fulfill and he thinks he cannot live
without them.
The ego is the balance between the desires of ID and the reality of the outside world. The ego
decides if the pleasure that we are seeking because of ID. It can be fulfilled by maintaining the
rules of this world.
Superego prevents us from behaving in an immoral way it helps us control our desires and
refrains us from behaving in a negative way. This helps us stand by our morality.

A lot of times have heard from people that I am an egoistic person. And for a very long time, I
was confused if I really was an egoistic person. I thought if I had impulsive behavior, I was
stubborn about getting what I wanted. From this topic, I learned the ID part in my subconscious
level had an impact on my personality. The impact is not major. I believe I can control it and let
my Super ego create a balance between what I should do and what I shouldn’t. Does my ego has
to stand between superego and ID both satisfying my needs without which I cannot live and also
behave in a morally correct way.

I agree with Feud’s defense mechanism

The defense mechanism that I have in myself are 1) Rationalizing and 2) Denial.
Rationalizing: I rationalize the decision of eating junk food every time I get stressed And every
time I have a relaxed day. The junk food is responsible for deteriorating my health but I still eat it
because I feel like I deserve to enjoy it. I binge-watch Netflix all day after having a tough day
and rationalizing my decision by saying I deserve it.
Denial: every time I make a mistake I refuse to believe it that I made a mistake.
I also encountered projection. Once a friend of mine did something really bad to me and
supported her own behavior by saying the fault was in me.
I, myself am an introverted person I don’t like socializing much and I enjoy a long time I prefer
small groups. But once I’m comfortable with someone I become an extrovert person.

Conclusion

I will utilize the knowledge that I got from this course in my work life and personal life because
all of these things Are relatable. If you know the problem you can solve the problem. So if I
know Why I’m behaving the way I’m doing it I will easily be able to help myself and others.

Psychology is a subject that many schools are not teaching. This subject is important for people
of all ages because nowadays people are suffering from mental health disorders but they don’t
know that they’re facing them. By talking about mental health problems we can save a lot of
people from a lot of problems. Teenagers are in much need of guidance. Parents also need
guidance on how to tackle their children and cope with their mental health. Many times parents
are the reason their children are depressed or facing difficulties. So parents also need counseling.
They need to know where the problem lies and how to solve it. People in our country of all ages
tend to deny that they are facing mental health problems. In order to solve it, there should be
enough psychiatrists and psychologists in the country. Thus this career should be given the
importance that it deserves. In our country whenever people hear that someone is doing a major
in psychology they tend to think that the person will not have a good career. So just like other
subjects this subject should also be given importance as it deals with the most important part of
us.

Lastly, I would like to say that I have learned a lot in this class. Our faculty, Mollika Roy Ma’am
delivered the lectures in such a way that our concepts became clear. Even though I interacted less
in class, I got to understand everything. She made sure the whole class got to understand her
lessons by repeatedly asking about them. I have not faced any difficulty while doing this course.