subconscious

Assignment 4, Psych 101

The topic that I found the most interesting was the concept of the subconscious. The subconscious was alluded to in many of the chapters. The fact that we can know something but not consciously know it was very intriguing. When the term implicit memory was brought up, it showed how we interacted with our world without having to consciously think about it. Other terms that dealt with our subconscious were the conditioned response, unconditioned response, conditioned stimuli. This intrigued me because we could be trained to be predisposed to react to a certain stimuli without making a conscious effort. We also covered hypnotism and the power of suggestion which hinted at how our own experiences are not even safe. The whole concept of the subconscious implied that there is apart of us where our true motives lie and that our consciousness can be deceived by ourselves through defense mechanisms. The fact that we can never really understand our subconscious is very mysterious and that’s why I found it the most interesting.
Looking back at this past semester the theme that stood out in every lesson was the theme of the Multifactorial causation. That point was really driven home in every study that we did. So many of us assign reasons why things happen without keeping an open mind and examining all the possible branches of why said event happened. I now understand why such weight was placed at the beginning of the semester on this theme.
The theme helped clear up so many false assumptions that I had already had ingrained in my mind of what the cause of certain events was.