Английский язык. Сборник текстов. Учебно-методическое пособие

МОСКОВСКИЙ ГУМАНИТАРНЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ Кафедра иностранных языков

АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК. СБОРНИК ТЕКСТОВ

Учебно-методическое пособие

Автор-составитель О. В. Заеко

Издательство Московского гуманитарного университета 2015

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Psychology education in the USA

You can get the psychology education at any university of the USA. For example, Psychology Department of the University of California, Los Angeles is ranked as one of the top department of this kind in the USA.

The psychology curricula focuses on psychology as a scientific discipline that uses systematic methods of investigation to understand general principles of human behavior, cognition, and emotion. The curricula treats psychology as a bio-social science, human behavior is viewed from both biological and social viewpoints.

The biological perspectives allows students to study a broad range of topics such as psychology, animal behavior, learning, motivation, perception, cognition, measurement, memory, social psychology, personality, and clinical, developmental, community, and healthy psychology.

The undergraduate curriculum does not focus on training students to be only professional psychologists, but also provides a basic liberal arts foundation.

There are so called Lower Division Courses and Upper Division Courses. Lower Division Courses are preliminary introductions to the subject field. For example: Introductory Psychology, Psychological Statistics, Principles of Psychology, research Methods in Psychology, etc. They are designed primarily for freshmen and sophomores. Preparation generally includes at least one lower division course in the subject or two years of college work.

And the Upper Division Courses are open to all students, who have met the necessary prerequisites. Among such courses there are: History and Systems of Psychology, Fundamentals of Learning, Basic Process of Motivated Behavior, Psychology of Fear and Anxiety, Comparative Psychology, Stress and Bodily Disease, Evolution of Intelligence, Abnormal Psychology, Death and Suicide , Environmental Psychology, etc.

So, after mastering the foundation students must select what is called a concentration. A choice of 3 majors, leading to either BA or BS degree is offered. There are psychology major, the cognitive science major, and the psychobiology major. The first two lead to a BA degree; the third leads to a BS degree.

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The psychology major deals with general psychology. It emphasizes the experimental and research aspects of the field. It’s a good choice for students with an interest in human behavior who wish to receive a general education in the liberal arts and sciences.

The cognitive science focuses on the study and implementation of intelligent systems, both human and artificial. Cognitive science involves the study of cognitive psychology, computer science, mathematics, and related disciplines. It also concentrates on quantitative methods which intend to give students more extensive preparation in statistics.

To receive BS in Psychobiology you should major in psychobiology. This major is designed for students who plan to go on to postgraduate work in physiological psychology, behavioral aspects of biology, or the health sciences. Psychobiology involves the study of brain-behavior relations and laboratory training in standard brain research techniques.

Psychology as a science. Fields of study. Branches of psychology

Psychology is the science of mind and behavior, and it emerged in nineteenth century.

Psychology is one of the most rapidly developing social sciences, touching almost every aspect of our life. Society is turning more and more to psychology to answer the serious human problems of our day and age. Psychology finds solution of such diverse problems as mental illness, human factors in space exploration, as well as in helping persons become more self-actualizing.

Psychology is the branch of biological sciences which studies the phenomena of conscious life and behavior, in their origin, development, and manifestation. The main task of psychology is the highest forms of human mental activity in the process of socio-historical development, and of the fundamental laws of their operation.

Psychology is concerned with a wide variety of problems, some are of broad concern: such as child’s development methods, or how to prevent mental illnesses, and the like.

There are different approaches to psychology: biological and social. Inside these approaches there are different scientific schools, such as behaviorism, psychoanalysis, Gestalt theory, humanistic school and many others.

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For example, one of the most influential schools of psychology is the school of Jean Piaget, who is called “Mr. Child Psychologist”. His theory affirms the development of new cognitive structures in series of age-related stages. In other words, certain functions must mature and development must reach certain stage before the school can begin teaching knowledge and skills effectively. But Soviet psychologist Vigotski, the founder of the cultural-historical theory of a person’s psychological development, on the contrary, believed that development of the child “results” from learning. Development of highest functions doesn’t just happen because of maturity.

We also can’t but mention such great Russian scientists as Pavlov, Bekhterev, and Orbelli who were linked with the development of research into psycho-physiology. The theoretical and experimental study of the basic problems of psychology was carried out by Luria, Leontyev, Rubinstein and others.

Present-day psychology is a complex and differentiated research system which extends throughout general, social, developmental, pedagogical, child, medical engineering psychology.

Feelings and emotions

There are two best known theories of emotions: the theory of JamesLange and the theory of Cannon-Bard. The theory of James-Lange states that our felt emotion is the feedback from the bodily changes that occur in the response to a frightening or upsetting situation. The theory of Cannon-Bard states that the bodily changes and the experience of emotion occur at the same time. As the practice shows, in some cases the theory of James — Lange seemed to be correct, in other cases the theory of Cannon-Bard is true. Indeed, emotions are difficult to study because of the complexity and interrelatedness of the physiological responses involved and because the kinds of emotions that can be aroused.

Motivation and emotion are closely related. Emotions are usually aroused by external stimuli, and the emotional expression is directed toward the stimuli in the environment that arouse it. Motives, on the other hand, are more aroused by internal stimuli and are “naturally” directed toward certain objects in the environment (for example, water, food or a mate).

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When we talk about motivation we usually focus on the goal-di- rected activity; in discussing emotion our attention is drawn to the subjective, affective experiences that accompany the behavior. We are more aware of our emotions, when efforts to achieve a goal is blocked (anger, despair) or when the goal is finally achieved (pleasure, joy). Emotions can be divided into those that are pleasant (joy, love) and those that are unpleasant (anger, fear). In addition, many of our emotional terms can be classified by intensity. Word pairs such as displea- sure-rage, pain-agony, sadness-grief convey differences of intensity. Psychologists reserve the term emotion for the more intense states that are accompanied by widespread changes in body physiology and call the milder affective states feeling.

If some features of emotional behavior are adaptive and other features are disruptive, we need a hygiene of emotions so that people enjoy emotional expression without suffering the damage caused by emotional excesses.

Civilization requires us to suppress much overt emotional expression. Many of the physiological aspects of emotional expression — muscular tension or blushing — are not under voluntary control. But even repressed emotions are not lost; it is possible to find signs that they are still active. Nowadays psychologists doubt the desirability of a general suppression of emotional expression.

The theory states — теория гласит; felt emotion — чувствуемые эмоции;

feedback from the bodily changes — ответная реакция на физические (телесные) изменения;

to occur — происходить, случаться; interrelatedness — взаимоотношение;

to arouse — будить, побуждать, вызывать; to be aware — осознавать;

affective experience — эмоциональное переживание to convey — передавать;

milder affective state — более умеренное эмоциональное состояние;

feature — черта;

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emotional excesses — эмоциональная чрезмерность, неумеренность;

to suppress — подавлять; sign — признак;

desirability — желательность.

Motivation of being a psychologist

1.I’d like to be a psychologist because I think it is a very interesting profession.

2.But I don’t know yet what to choose: the experiments and research aspects of the field or practical psychology.

3.We know that psychology as a scientific discipline uses systematic methods of investigation to understand general principles of human behaviour, cognition and emotion.

4.I like to treat psychology as a bio-social science. I mean to treat human behaviour from biological and sociological viewpoints.

5.The bio-social perspective allows to study a broad range of topics, such as psychology, animal behaviour, learning, motivation, perception, memory etc. Social psychology, personality and clinical, developmental, communicative and health psychology.

6.Now my knowledge of psychology is not enough to define the field of my future work.

7.The historical development of this science shows that scientists at different periods of history had different viewpoints on different phenomena and aspects of life.

8.Their viewpoints influenced the development of the science.

9.Now I am in the process of learning and researching of all these facts and methods of studies.

10.And I hope, I’ll find my own way in this wonderful science.

11.Psychology is translated from Greek as a science on human soul. (“psyche” means “soul” and “logos” means “teaching”)

12.Psychology deals with human psyche and mind, with mental and emotional processes, with human behaviour.

13.Psychology views (рассматривать) human behaviour from both biological and social viewpoints.

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14.Psychology studies:

——human and animal behaviour; personality traits (личностные черты)

——learning, cognition, perception, memory, motivation, basic human emotions

——psychology also studies how to transfer negative emotions into positive.

Students very often say “I want to help people, I want to help my relatives and friends to understand each other.

15. But it isn’t easy to help people in practical life. A professional psychologist should demonstrate high qualities and skills, such as:

——a maturity of judgement

——an openness and flexibility

——love for people and readiness to help them

——acceptance of differences in people

——perseverance (настойчивость)

——efficiency (мастерство)

——interviewing

16.These qualities are very important, but the list is far from being complete.

17.I believe a good psychologist should be a personality.

Different approaches to study: theoretical and empirical, academic approach.

Communication as a skill

1.The art of conversation is very important for people especially for psychologists.

2.We must remember 12 golden rules:

3.Avoid unnecessary details when you speak with somebody.

4.Do not ask question number two until number one has been answered.

5.Do not interrupt another while he is speaking.

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8.Do not be the hero of your own story and on the other hand do not leave your story without a hero.

9.You should speak about subjects of mutual interest.

10.Be a good listener.

11.Make your speech in harmony with your surroundings

12.Do not exaggerate.

13.Use quotation, but not so many (используйте цитаты, но не часто)

14.Cultivate tact.

15.When we communicate with other people we must remember that there are situations, when we can’t control our feelings.

16.In this case we have two basic choices: confrontation and criticism.

17.When we criticize people we usually don’t have any concern about their feelings.

18.Very often we hurt feelings of people whom we criticize.

19.Criticism always tears people down (подрывает иммунитет)

20.Criticism is very abusive behaviour (verbal abuse) (словесное оскорбление).

21.Criticism destroys relations between people.

22.When we criticize people, we usually say that he or she is a bad person or inadequate person.

23.Criticism always focuses on the negative and always blame people.

24.Confrontation creates dialogue between people, it provokes feed back .

25.When we speak we can exchange our views and counterviews and compare them, analyze our feelings and emotions.

26.Besides confrontation helps people listen.

27.Confrontation provides (gives) useful information and promotes friendship.

28.When we use confrontation we become more caring (заботливый), maturate (зрелый), happier people.

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