Should people be made to take at least a basic psychology class?

Far too often do I see people judging people for things that have simple psychological explanations, or ridiculing people who have mental disorders (everything from the more common major depression to more obscure disorders such as Body Dysmorphic Disorder), and much of it comes out of a lack of understanding. Similarly, media portrayals of mental disorders and even psychology in general only further wrongly-held stereotypes about them.

I personally feel that since I began studying psychology, I've grown more of an understanding about how people act (though obviously nobody can ever fully understand), and I feel that if everyone was required to at least be given a crash course in psychology they'd be greatly cured of a lot of ignorance they might hold in this regard. What do y'all think?

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Might be a good idea, but I don't know enough psychology to be able to comment further. What should such a course contain?

edited 25th May '12 12:10:39 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I'm against it to be honest, because all I need is for American youths to get ten times crazier because they suddenly all develop interns syndrome. God knows they self-diagnose themselves with every fucking mental condition under the sun as it is. All we need is for them to learn about more things for them to webMD the symptoms of so they can say they have them.

I was a psych major in college when I first enrolled. I like psychology, and I always enjoyed the classes I took, but there's a certain intelligence and level of understanding that is required. It isn't knowledge we should arm every freshman in high school with.

edited 25th May '12 12:21:59 PM by Barkey

Barkey, I was going to say something along the lines of that. More specifically: when would we teach them? Many seniors in high school aren't mature enough for this kind of thing, even waatered-down, and college isn't mandatory.

Don't get the wrong idea, though. I'd love for there to be fewer misinformed, unsympathetic, "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" types.

edited 25th May '12 12:33:39 PM by Muramasan13

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Elementary school.

No, don't teach them psychology per se. But introduce the fundamental attribution error and fixation (not those terms) in grade school. There's a bunch of psych which, practically applied, would be fun and useful to kids.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Also, something about popular psychology misconceptions might be useful. Basic stuff like "schizophrenia is not multiple personality disorder".

Plus, one thing that I think would need work is removing the stigma of requiring psychological or psychiatric help. Statistically, more than a few students will need it in the future; and they might be more willing to get it if they did not have this sort of overreaching idea that going to the psych is for loonies.

edited 25th May '12 12:41:28 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

That's also something to address while they're young.

That said, I'm leaning more towards cultural rather than curricular changes here...

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

No. It is my experience that psychologists tend to look for mental causes for everything and overlook the obvious physical explanations. We need a mix of approaches.

Far better to teach scientific method. Let people look at studies and assess their worth themselves instead of just taking something at face value because a scientist said it.

^ Agree with your second point very much. Teach them to think, to love learning. Everything else stems from that.

Trying to drill down to "should people be made to take at least a basic X class" will leave you with a huge amount of basic stuff to learn. Some theoretical, some pratical.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

If we're going that direction, just teach them philosophy.

The ability to work through ideas and concepts in a logical fashion is the underpinning of literally everything.

"When you cut your finger, I do not bleed." Response of a man who lived on the outskirts of a concentration camp.

Well I was thinking this would be more along the lines of a university degree, but requiring it is a bit extreme. It doesn't fit in to most people's education, only some, so it's more like giving people a choice between several subjects they want to learn.

I suppose one doesn't need to know straight-up Psychology. I think adding a 'psychology' component in say, citizenship or a civics class may help. We could teach it (at least, in England + Wales) as a component of PSHE.

Probably most of mental disorders stuff should be in a health class. How screwed up most health classes are is another story, though.

Then again I do think students should take a basic logic class.

Quite honestly, I don't think this is much of a top priority issue. At least in the U.S., I'd rather see some work done on our lower tier history classes than on something as oblique as this.

They never travel alone.

Hiya, Vellup. You are clearly not someone with a severe mental disorder or mental illness, and probably not someone with friends or family who do. You may not have been around when I dropped this statistic previously, but two-thirds of all people who kill themselves in the US had a depressive disorder. Depressive disorders which are usually highly responsive to simple treatments, but are not taken seriously and/or diagnosed. That's twenty thousand lives annually. Many more live in reality made hell, drained of the strength to kill themselves. All told, nineteen million people in the US are diagnosed with depression, and countless more suffer undiagnosed, untreated, and frequently mocked.

So, no. It is highly relevant to many, many people.

Well, being the most common mental illness and highly misunderstood by a lot of people, it's a good place to start.

edited 25th May '12 4:24:44 PM by Muramasan13

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I don't think "Depression 101" is the point of teaching psychology to kids.

The problem with this isn't so much not having heard what psychologists have to say, so much as not believing it. So, making them take a psychology course isn't necessarily going to change their mind. If anything, it might create backlash. Have you seen how often the "brainwashing" label gets thrown around even without it being required?

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

In my limited experience, it isn't disbelieving what the psychologists have to say, it's creating a culture of not "needing" them- and thus never hearing from the psychologists in the first place. Those suffering are ignored or told they don't exist, which frequently leads to denial on their part. Thus, professionals are underinvolved, and mental illness goes underdiagnosed and undertreated.

edited 25th May '12 4:40:34 PM by Muramasan13

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A whole class devoted to the alleged science of Psychology?

Short of 'media studies' or 'sports science' I can't think of a bigger waste of educational resources.

edited 25th May '12 5:11:12 PM by InverurieJones

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

I think the issue with the mass amount of mental disorders in America has to do with poverty and income gap, not the lack of teaching about psychology. It's not like Nepal has one of the lowest rates of mental illness because of psychology education.

Psychology education is useful, in general use, and generally speaking more information learned is better but I wouldn't put it on the priority list above certain other aspects when America is lagging in basics like math and science.

edited 25th May '12 5:13:08 PM by breadloaf

Psychology is a science, though... or did you just mean more economically practical sciences like physics and chemistry?

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

I think he's basically saying that he thinks Psychology is BS, since it's a "soft" science.

-sigh-

That's why basic Psychology classes are needed. Calling it BS is equating it to something like Media Studies. It's a real science, and it has practical applications. I'm not sure that you know... society would exist without individuals. And psychology, is the study of what makes said individuals tick.

No, a formal logic class would have the most benefit.

Fight smart, not fair.

Me and Deboss agree on something?

Well that's it. Apocalypse imminent. I'm not even going to bother to find a bunker.