Journal Writing - Assignment Example

Key concepts in psychology In reference to chapter 5, Assimilation and accommodation is a theory by Piaget in children. The two terms share different common aspects tough they appear on two distinct sides. The theory is interested in how children learn, think and understand certain issues in life. Even if the two words are distinct they both deal with ideas or perception and modes of reality. This is evident when accommodation focuses on understanding and dealing with children and adults which is the same case in assimilation.

However, even if the two words share a common goal, they differ in some aspects. Assimilation is an aspect that gives an overview of how children take the outside world. In this theory, the child can change what he perceives in the outside world so as that it fits his internal world. The common results of assimilation aim at fitting the external world in to the head. On the other side, accommodation takes a more complicated version of perception and learning. Accommodation proves to be the opposite of assimilation in that accommodation states that the internal world ought to fit the outside world.

This means that the child perceives information that can’t fit the internal world so he alters this information to fit the outside realities (Winstanley 402). Chapter 6 gives the comparisons between bottom-up processing and top-down processing. First of all, bottom-up and top-down processing are same in the sense that they both deal with the aspect of sensation and perception. However, bottom-up processing starts with sensing receptors and working on higher levels of processing. Bottom-up processing gives a chance to our sensory systems to detect the lines, angles and colors that create the flower and leaves.

On the other hand, top-down processing gives a construction of the perceptions from the sensory input by drawing on our experience and expectations. This is when we interpret what our senses detect. For example, can detect when somebody is on emergency using the bottom-up processing and then the type of emergency is interpreted by the top-down processing. Additionally, when staring at a movie and realize a movie, you can be able to say that the bottom down processing influences this sector but when you interpret what the type of movie it is, it means you have employed top-down processing (Winstanley 522).

In chapter 7, there is a difference between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement provides strength to a response in a way that involves presenting a typical pleasurable stimulus after a response. Negative reinforcement on the other hand provides strength to a response in a way that deducting or removing something negative. This reinforcement is applied in the real life situations for example jack’s intention of convincing Jane to skip a lecture is supported by positive reinforcement when Jane agrees to skip a lecture and spend time with Jack since Jack gains the attention he needed from Jane.

Negative reinforcement is applied on Jane’s side when Jane agrees to skip a lecture and spend time with Jack since Jane will lose the contents of the lecture. Additionally, when George decides to quit a gang in his school, he gains the value of not being a drug addict thus positive reinforcement to his side. But towards the gang, negative reinforcement applies since the gang loses George as one of its members (Winstanley 602).Works citedWinstanley, Julie. Key concepts in psychology. Basingstoke [England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print