Personally I have always tried to be an understanding person In both how things work and why people act the way they do. In AP Psych, you learn about the cause and effect leading to why people act and think a certain way. It is not entirely because of the way they were raised. Plenty of people differ from their parents while others are alike. There are sociological and biological reasons for this.
Taking psychology the same year as I took sociology was a great decision because a lot of the vocabulary overlapped courses. During the social psych unit I understood more then others because that was the basics for sociology and we have already finished the basics in the other class. I also took regular psych last year. Don't think that because you take regular psych before AP Psych that AP will be easier because I had to re-learn everything all over again. Most people probably would not want to take psych before AP or even sociology at all, but if you like the subjects just about as much as I do then I would greatly recommend it. It is very helpful when taking the course.
At my school, you cannot take AP Psych freshman or sophomore year (which is why I took regular psych sophomore year). Looking back on those years I feel like I was walking around blind to everything. I would judge people based on the typical high school standards set by the movies and gossip. Never trying to understand why someone acted the way they did, and why I acted the way I did. Always worried about what others are thinking and trying to match the crowd. But when people differ from the crowd, or follow to closely, is when you should stop to ask yourself, "Why?".
Abnormal psychology was my favorite unit in that class because you learn about new mental illnesses that you may not have heard of before. We have all heard of depression and anorexia before but we don't all understand why or how the illness develops. Believe it or not some of the illnesses are genetic, but can be triggered by events in life. These are the biological and sociological aspects of psychology. The brain chemistry also influences the severity and type of illnesses. Increase and decrease of certain chemicals can influence an illness. A biological influence on depression involves the re-uptake of the serotonin, to much re-uptake can influence depression. Which is why people are prescribed for an SSRI or selective serotonin receptor inhibitor. The SSRI helps to delay the re-uptake process.
After taking psychology I noticed that I have began to analyze individual people and think of reasons why they feel or are acting in a strange way. Strange as compared to social norms. Contributing from my sociology course, I can think of what exterior factors influence them. Next time you notice someone standing out from the crowd try to figure out why. Not everything is an internal conflict as it may sound. Sometimes they need to follow pigeons around in order to develop an algorithm for the way they walk.
Other times someone may say there not hungry at lunch every day. Learning to identify the cues to a psychological disorder is a good skill to learn. You may be able to give someone the help they need, even if your not positive if there is a problem it is always better to be safe then sorry. It is okay to get involved to help someone, but you need to have some knowledge on the topic.
