Running Head: APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 1

MLO #4: Application of Psychology

Kayleigh Yaxley

California State University, Monterey Bay

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MLO #4: Application of Psychology

The fourth major learning outcome that should be attained is “By applying psychological

training, the interdisciplinarity of the program becomes evident. Students understand and apply

psychological principles to personal, social and organizational issues. Outcomes include

identifying psychology's major applications, articulating how it can be used toward social

understanding and public policy, and recognizing the ethical complexities of applying

psychology.” At California State University, Monterey Bay, psychology majors learn about

human behavior and how it is influenced by different environments and experiences. With

learning this, students studying this topic are expected to apply their new knowledge and skills

when observing natural phenomena and then test it to apply their findings in real world

situations. This major learning outcome is definitely created to make sure CSUMB students are

ready to conduct their own studies that will be positive for humans and psychology. Without

learning how to actually apply the knowledge from class, it would be difficult to have an

understanding of psychology behaviors and its influences.

One class that helped me accomplish this major learning outcome was my Psychology

225, or ​Developmental Psychology,​ class I took at Citrus College. At the end of this class, my

professor assigned a project where we had to pick a Disney movie and compare it to

developmental stages by psychologists. My group chose the movie Lilo and Stitch and compared

it to Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages. We concluded that the main character Lilo experienced

a discrepancy during Erikson’s stage four, or industry versus inferiority stage, when her parents

died and it was just her older sister trying to take care of the both of them. This stage is for ages

6 to eleven where children’s relationships with their parents begin to change. (Elkind) Lilo’s
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sister Nani took up the role of same sex parent rivalry during that stage of Lilo’s childhood. This

project stuck out to me on really being able to apply psychology to real situations. It was my first

time actually looking deeper and dissecting further on the meaning of behavior and how our

experiences can change us.

Another class that has helped me with this major learning outcome is ​Psychology of

Human Sexuality.​ I was able to take this class while studying abroad for the first time in London,

England and taking this class is one of the reasons why I became a psychology major in the first

place. Not only was this one of the first classes that really broadened my mind, but my professor,

Professor Guttman, would give us assignments that required us students to explore the country

and observe the diversity of the city. Our final project was to form a group and talk about a

psychology issue we have noticed during our semester abroad. A major subject that stood out to

all of us was the separation of basic products between females and males. Objects would be sold

differently for women than they would be for men. For example, when browsing through a drug

store, deodorant for a woman is usually more colorful, has more cute like titles, and fruitier or

floral scents. Also, they cost about $4. Contrastingly for a man, deodorant has a darker base, like

the color black or navy blue, more fierce names such as Phoenix, and they cost almost half of

what women pay for the same type of product. In short, we talked about the “pink tax” and how

women are targeted to pay more. (​Stevens, Shanahan) While taking in what I observed in the real

world, I applied the information I learned from class to point out the differences in consumer

goods between women and men.

At California State University, Monterey Bay I signed up to take Psychology 302, or

upper division​ Research Methods and Data Analysis​ in Psychology. This class really prepared
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me for the application of my knowledge of psychology. The whole semester the class was put

into groups where we had to come up with a research question to conduct a study to test on the

CSUMB student population. My group was interested in if regular cannabis intake, which was

identified as someone who consumes four or more times per week, had an affect on one’s

academic approval. We even went further into asking if that affect was a negative or positive

one. The original prediction, also known as the hypothesis, was that there was no relationship

between regular marijuana consumption and academic performance. We had to create our own

variables and survey to distribute to students in order to find if we would accept or reject our null

hypothesis. Through our extensive research on past studies on the same topic and gathering our

own data from the survey, we were able to find our results of there being no relationship between

the variables. Research methods in psychology is a very important class on learning how to apply

the information learned into real life. I now know the steps on how to create and carry out my

own study of psychology.

All of my classes while being a psychology major somehow incorporated how to apply

what I am learning into my future. These three stood out to me the most on getting me ready to

design experiments of my own no matter what I am questioning or observing.

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Works Cited

Elkind, D. (1970, April 5). Erik Erikson’s Eight Ages of Man . The New York Times

Magazine. doi:

https://www.pdx.edu/sites/www.pdx.edu.ceed/files/sscbt_EriksonsEightAgesofMan.pdf

Stevens, J. L., & Shanahan, K. J. (1970, January 1). Structured Abstract: Anger,

Willingness, or Clueless? Understanding Why Women Pay a Pink Tax on the Products

They Consume. Retrieved from

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-45596-9_108.