Is Psychology Hard?

Introduction

Every day we’re surrounded by people who act very differently, they have their own set of emotions, feelings, behaviors to exhibit and thus humans are considered complex to understand. A key to understanding them at a deeper level is psychology. It teaches the complex behaviors elicited by individuals using simple, easy theory-based, and experiment-based explanations that can be comprehended.

Many believe psychology to be a complex subject because it teaches us to deal with complex human expressions and the real meaning behind them. If you are planning to pursue a psychology degree, then you need to understand that it is hard. Psychology is hard to understand due to its complex varying theories of similar subject matter. Therefore a psychology degree is considered hard. But if you have an interest in psychology then it is worth pursuing the degree because with its complexity the degree has the potential to unlock your inner turmoil and make you understand yourself.

Personally coming from a psychology background I do feel psychology to be easier than other subjects because I like the subject a lot. Any degree you purse is will be

hard whether it be a psychology degree or a math degree. So choose what your heart wants.

Psychology as a Subject

Psychology as a subject deals with human beings and tries to understand human behavior and the underlying factors that motivate those behaviors. Psychology focuses on understanding humans and finding ways to shift those behaviors, to lead a healthy and happy life.

The subject is considered to be a part of science and studies complex cognitive processes, behavior, and experiences in different contexts. This is done by employing biological and scientific knowledge to gather data and work on it.

Psychology is made out of two Greek words “psych and logy” where psych means soul and logy means study. Together it is known as the study of the soul. Earlier psychology had different meanings and was an integral part of philosophy. There wasn’t a clear line between both subjects. But after many advancements the subject today focuses on humans only.

The two men who are known for their works in psychology were the ones who framed and gave meaning to the word and shifted its base from philosophy. Earlier psychology was also called mental philosophy but didn’t focus on human behavior. Two men who are credited the most for their incredible work are William Wundt and William James. William Wundt today is considered the father of psychology.

The end goal of psychology?

People often live a life where they aren’t happy, motivated and suffer from various disorders and fears. Life is meant to be cherished and lived rather than mere survival. The psychology end goal is to replace those negative behaviors and feelings that cause pain and harm with more positive thoughts and behaviors that help lead a healthy and successful life where you enjoy living it.

It focuses on freeing people from the fears that developed in their childhood and correcting them to live a healthy and fulfilling life.

Factors that influence subject difficulty

The difficulty level of the subject often depends on the individual studying it. Various factors determine the intensity of the subject which are completely not related to the subject but are related to the individual studying it.

Factors that affect the difficulty level of a subject includes

Interest

Any subject you study requires some amount of your interest in it to understand the subject. Interest is a psychological term that refers to the ‘preference of any individual to engage in a particular activity.’ Till you don’t have the interest to enjoy the activity you would find the subject hard. An inner willingness is required to get you up and hold the book to understand what’s written. This willingness can only come when you have an interest in the subject.

Grasping Power

You need good grasping skills to increase your knowledge base and pass the exams. Grasping skills in simple language means the power of understanding and retaining information faster. This skill is something that a person learns and develops from their childhood. It’s an important skill that helps you solve complex problems by accessing the retained information from your short-term or long-term memory. To understand any subject you need to have a good grasping power to understand concepts easily.

Subject Anxiety

Some people can face subject anxiety. It’s quite common. They don’t have any hatred towards the subject, over here psychology, but due to disturbed internal thought patterns can experience anxiety. These thought patterns include fear of failure, procrastination, fear of poor grades, parental pressure, etc. can cause subject anxiety in an individual.

When an individual is stressed the cognitive thinking skills cease and the fight or flight responses unfold. This can cause problems in understanding the concepts and thus increase your subject’s anxiety.

Certain ways to reduce this anxiety include-

Observe- Every day observing your thought patterns and behaviors to understand wants triggers your subject’s anxiety. Is it the subject or the people around you, your thoughts, or someone’s behavior and then try to fix it?

Meditation- This practice can do wonders. It helps in calming down the body thus helping you focus better on the subject than the actual problem that is causing the anxiety.

Ask for Help- Whenever you feel anxiety always ask for help. You can ask for help from teachers, professors, your siblings, family members, etc. Asking for help doesn’t mean you don’t know anything; it simply is a way to control your emotions so you can focus better.

Positive Self Talk- The root cause for your anxiety is the negative self-talk you give to yourself every day. Try positively talking to yourself and give yourself rest when you need it. Do not pressurize yourself.

Teachers

A teacher’s influence can make the subject feel easy or hard. The way a teacher teaches and explains can play a huge role in developing anxiety towards a subject. Some teachers often undermine performance, as well as some, might not support your notions. This often leads to an inferiority complex which can induce anxiety when dealing with the subject.

Teachers can use sarcasm, ridicule children in school, colleges which is generally a type of child abuse. They also use other methods such as criticism for low achievements and scolding etc. If they are punished more than they are appreciated this can cause negative feelings towards the teacher and will eventually cause a negative feeling towards the subject as well, due to the teacher teaching it.

This type of treatment can cause school trauma and will stay with the student for a long time. The most common side effect of such behavior is a reduction in self-esteem which hampers learning and perceiving the subject.

Some ways to overcome feelings of inferiority are-

Whenever you find yourself lonely and comparing yourself with others, use this moment to look at the uniqueness within you. This approach can make you believe in yourself and can help build confidence and self-esteem. Undermining one’s abilities isn’t the right choice and thus you need to start motivating yourself.

Try to spend more time with people who help you grow and become a better version of yourself rather than those who try to push you down by using negative talk. When you are in positive company, you feel valued and this helps to overcome feelings of inferiority.

Approach a therapist, psychologist when needed. They help you understand why you are feeling a particular way and thus help make proactive shifts in your life.

What makes psychology as a subject hard?

Psychology as a subject is often interpreted to be hard because it deals with real-life individuals and has certain research that backs the findings. Every student needs to understand the concept and the research behind it which is quite complex to comprehend together. The subject also demands you to write a lot and have a lot of sources to prove your findings as well. You need to conduct tentative research which is quite detailed.

The subject has a lot of reading material. You need to read a lot and, from different sources, to understand a concept. Every concept has different theories and it’s hard to distinguish between them. Psychology is considered a part of science. It has a lot of terms and explanations that need to be written as they are described, and writing in your own words is not accepted at the university level.

Psychology requires you to study math and statistics. It’s a prerequisite when you study psychology. You may wonder why we require math?

In psychological research and experiments, the findings are calculated using statistical methods and math is thus an important subject in psychology.

You are also required to understand the various disorders and their symptoms which is hard to memorize because there are a lot of disorders with similar symptoms but they fall into different categories. The DSM- 5 which is a manual of mental disorders and malfunctions has approximately 297 disorders listed in it.

Psychology requires you to conduct research as well as conclude those researches. In certain research, you are required to use psychological tests or even develop certain tests to understand your subject. These tests use statistical methods to find the result. Certain psychological tests that are quite famous include the Perceived Stress Scale, The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire, etc.

How to make learning psychology fun?

Like every subject, you need to make certain changes in your learning style to make the subject fun and easy. Some changes you can make while learning psychology include-

TEDx Talks- They are a great way to get an overview of deep concepts in a fun and interactive manner. These people know what they are doing and know to attract the audience’s attention, thus are a great choice to learn. You can get an overview of the concepts and then this will act as a foundation to learn the concepts at a deeper level.

Connect the book with reality- Psychology is a human science and thus has various instances which can be connected to the real world and, thus learned. You can connect the various theories and personality types to people and situations from your everyday life to make concept comprehension easier.

When you connect written theories and concepts with the real world it makes learning more fun and experience-oriented.

Using psychology techniques to learn better- Psychology has stated a lot of techniques that can help with memory retention. One such technique in psychology is called mnemonics.

It’s a simple and easy way to retain information. It’s simply a way to create associations between new information that needs to be retained and the old information that already exists in the cognitive system.

Application of Psychology

Psychology is an application-based field. We have curated a list of the various other applications of psychology and their difficulty level. The list goes as follows-

Clinical practice – Psychology is used in clinical practice to diagnose individuals with mental disorders and solve their daily life problems. This field demands practical as well as theoretical knowledge. The difficulty level of the subject often depends on the person studying it.

Teaching- Psychology as a subject is a prerequisite in the teaching field because it includes direct contact with children in their learning stages. Teachers need to understand the psychology of every child. The difficulty level of the subject often depends on the person studying it.

Marketing- Psychology is important in the marketing field because here marketers have to deal with real people and understand their choices and emotions to make a sale. Interest determines the difficulty level of the subject.

Who can learn and develop an interest in psychology?

A subject like psychology can only be grasped by people who have an empathetic nature. In this field, you need to deal with humans who have emotions thus empathy plays a huge role. They also need to have patience and willingness to learn new things about themselves and others. They should follow ethics and have good communication skills because here we are dealing with humans.

Conclusion

Psychology as a subject isn’t hard to learn. All you need is the right inner motivation and interest. It isn’t really that hard. You need to have patience and good comprehending skills to understand psychology.