Have you ever wondered why there are mirrors in lifts? Well, psychologists understand that
mirrors allow us humans to get distracted - so instead of thinking about how slow the
lift is or even causing damage to the lift we're occupied with looking at ourselves.
And that's not all you - probably never heard that fact before, so you can see what I did there. I just hooked you in.
You see, psychology is a study of mind and behavior. This goes from the importance of
diagnosing and treating those who are experiencing psychological distress and mental illness through to understanding human behavior when shopping.
It's a very diverse field as you'll find out in this video. You must have watched a GoPro advert at some point - incredible soundtracks with mesmerizing scenes.
This is consumer psychology at play, but what are they really selling you?
A waterproof 4k camera? Please, that doesn't sound appealing at all! What they're really selling in their adverts is a lifestyle.
They're meant to make you feel - to feel like an explorer in this
beautiful world and really what you could be doing in your spare time if you bought their product.
Or even YouTube - this is quite different to the GoPro adverts, this isn't one advert, this
instead is billions of different people with different likes, desires, and wants.
How does YouTube ensure that the next recommendation is specific for you? How does it ensure that only the best content is shown your way?
This is all human psychology at play - but let's move away from consumer psychology and on to something very very important in today's world.
Mental health. Psychologists who work in mental health help people work through their problems
to live more happier, healthy, and productive lives. They look at trauma, habits, upbringing, environment,
friends, thought processes, behavior, sleep, relationships, substance abuse, and so much more.
With this knowledge they're able to come up with appropriate treatment plans to get you where you want to be mentally.
This could be through counselling or even referrals to psychiatrists who can prescribe medication and so much more. But it's not as easy as you think, psychologists require a
huge amount of empathy! Something that we may find easy may be extremely challenging for someone else.
How can you get your head around that? Their feelings are completely different to yours.
Telling someone to just go ahead and make your bed or just change job, what's the worst that can happen isn't something that's realistic nor correct - there are many other factors to consider.
Psychologists need to be able to empathize with their patients to get them to understand what
is causing this belief or way of thinking or even do they actually want to change?
What are the fundamental problems? Is this due to brain imbalance, bad habits, or even being overwhelmed with stress?
There are so many reasons - understanding the patient and why they're thinking this way is something psychologists do so well.
Now let's move over to military and aerospace.
How are fighter pilots so good at what they do? Well, they're trained using something called the OODA Loop - observe, orient, decide and act
and this is happening fast - almost instinctively.
So the challenge psychologists are faced with is how can we train our pilots to be good at this?
What programs and simulations do we need to put our pilots through so they can be, you know, the best pilots?
And it goes beyond this - think about a military operation with high potential risks.
What is the military officer thinking after making a decision? Whether they press the trigger or not, could this lead to
PTSD, depression, grief, anxiety, or even overthinking?
Military psychologists here ensures strong stable mental health of all officers.
Moving away from the military, have you ever heard about Pavlov's dog? You know, the classical conduction experiment
where the dog salivated in response to a bell tone? This dog was conditioned to associate the sign of a bell with the presentation of food.
This is classic comparative psychology - the study of animal behavior. It's very important so we can understand human behavior better.
Experiments have been done in the past where monkeys that were separated from their mothers
suffered irreversible social and emotional damage - this led to the discussion and argument that human infants have this critical attachment period too.
Granted, this research has provided valuable data on animal and human behavior.
The other question psychologists need to think about is whether this is actually ethical.
Who is to weigh up these costs and benefits? Who really is to judge whether the ends justify the means?
Well that's a question I'll leave with you to discuss in the comments.
Okay, now on to crime - you must have seen a crime series where they analyze a video.
You know, when a right arm over a left arm says something completely different to a left arm over a right.
While something like this is a little dramatized, looking at which ways the eyes are pointing, the tonality in voice, or small cues like swallowing or twitching
tells forensic psychologists so much.
Here psychologists can be consultants in criminal cases or civil disputes or even as well as going through an apartment to understand how a certain person lived
to try and match this to an identity.
But wait - I'm not done yet. There are those who look at how the brain changes across the lifespan of a human life.
Well, why is this so important? Well, we can prevent diseases such as dementia or Alzheimer's by truly understanding how the brain changes
Or even the world of education. Right now you're learning something on YouTube (oh yeah, make sure you subscribe!),
but this was not even considered a platform for education 20 years ago - imagine what could happen in 20 more years,
when more educational videos surface. Are there better ways to teach human beings?
There's so many different fields in the world of psychology - basically if something has a feeling or emotion to it, you know a psychologist has been involved in some capacity.
even something like trying to motivate a team in a company.
So the real question is, where are you going to shine and change the way someone feels?
If you like this video and you're thinking about psychology a little more, watch our video on biology - there's a lot more similarities between human and animals than you would imagine.
And if you're into saving lives head over to our medicine video.