Three Disciplines

The Three Disciplines all appeal to me in some ways, but if I had to choose between anthropology, psychology, and sociology, I would have to choose psychology. The reasoning behind it will be explained in detail but it can be broken down to three main reasons; being the first discipline with verified results and facts rather than unproven theories, having more post-high school opportunities considering that I wish to pursue a career in business, and being the most in-depth discipline. Psychology has more quantitative information, more interesting career opportunities and more systemized in comparison to anthropology and sociology.

My character is very self-assured and I am not convinced easily, so with all my stubbornness, I cannot be persuaded by theory, I need proof. In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt opened the first experimental laboratory in psychology at the University of Leipzig, Germany (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2001). Obviously one would know that the beginning of psychology did not start exactly when the laboratory in Germany was opened, but the first sign of actual documentation and recording of results in a scientific environment was created.

Laboratories were places where psychologists like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner and more would be taken seriously when they would introduce their ideas of psychoanalytic theory, the conscious and unconscious mind, analytical psychology, collective conscious, unconditioned and conditioned response and stimulus, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning (Collinshaw & Kritzer & Warecki, 2011, p. 59, 61, 64, 65). In the 1870s, zoos became unattended “laboratories”, especially with the so-called “ethnological exhibitions” or “Negro villages”. ” (Wikipedia, 2011). The earliest anthropological laboratories were the use of zoos, which is very hard to take seriously, even though it makes sense. Anthropology is the scientific study of the origin, the behaviour, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans, so studying animals first would be an adequate place to start, since animals are much less complex. Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline. It emerged in the early 19th century in response to the challenges of modernity. ” (edu. learnsoc. org, 2011). Sociology itself is behind in comparison to psychology and anthropology so it is expected that it would not have as many legitimate records or working environments as psychology. In the future, I wish to pursue a career involving mainly business courses, just because that is what I like. I enjoy economics, which is basically applying the thought of people to numbers and prices, to get an outcome.

I researched the economics program and psychology program at the University of Toronto, and they in fact have no relation together, but within my undergraduate years I am able to take psychology courses along with economics courses. In my perception, I feel like I can use certain psychology courses to understand the mind better and take advantage of that from a business point of view, and generate profit. Courses like Cross-cultural psychology, and Special Topics in Human Communication can help me delve into the human mind.

Cross-culture psychology is the examination of culture-blind and culture-bound aspects of traditional psychology that includes issues of diversity, cultural influences on basic psychological processes, and the impact of culture on social and developmental processes (University of Toronto, 2012). By studying cultural influences, I could maybe create a product that is appealing to today’s Canadian culture. Special Topics in Human Communication is the examination of selected topics in psychological approaches to human communication (University of Toronto, 2012).

Communicating better or more efficiently could increase sales of some sort where I would have to encourage and convince people to purchase something. There definitely are courses in anthropology that can be tied into an economics program that would actually help me in my future career, like Social Theory Through Everyday Life, which explains theories of culture and society, with examples from ordinary life and fantasy and their popular expressions (University Of Toronto, 2012), but the issue is that I have no interest in the study of society as a whole, I would rather study an individual.

Sociology courses once again pertain to groups of people rather than the individuals in them, with courses like Women and Work, and Race Class Gender, which are pretty self explanatory (University of Toronto, 2012). As a person of specificity and depth, I wish to study individuals rather than crowds. As I already mentioned, I am a person of depth, and psychology is deep because it is broken up into so many sub-fields or “Schools of Thought” as our course book labels them. Anthropology only has four sub-fields, and sociology is broken up into several issues to study rather than sub-fields.

Psychology consists of biological, clinical, cognitive, comparative, developmental, education and school, evolutionary, industrial, personality, social, and positive (Wikipedia, 2012). In our course so far we have not even covered half of those sub-fields. Anthropology consists of cultural anthropology, archeology, linguistic anthropology, and physical anthropology (Wikipedia, 2012). Our course has covered three out of those four sub-fields already. Traditional focuses of sociology have included social stratification, social class, culture, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, and deviance.

Our course has covered some of those issues. Psychology leads with the most sub-fields that probably needed a lot of work to organize and separate, which is why psychology appeals to me the most. In conclusion, psychology is a much more interesting and diverse discipline since it deals with the individual mind rather than society itself. In my future career psychology courses could be very affective if I deal with people face to face. This essay has proven to me and to the reader what opportunities psychology has for me in the future. References * edu. learnsoc. org. History of Sociology. Retrieved from http://edu. earnsoc. org/Chapters/1%20introduction/3%20history%20of%20sociology. htm * University of Toronto. Arts & Science 2011-2012 Fall/Winter Session Timetable for: Sociology [SOC courses]. Looking for the official U of T Faculty of Arts and Science home page?. Retrieved from http://www. artsandscience. utoronto. ca/ofr/timetable/winter/soc. html * University of Toronto. Course Descriptions — Anthropology. (n. d. ). Welcome to the Department of Anthropology — Anthropology. Retrieved from http://anthropology. utoronto. ca/undergraduate/courses * WGBH Educational Foundation. The History of Psychology.

Retrieved from http://www. learner. org/discoveringpsychology/history/history_nonflash. html * Wikipedia. Anthropology – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Anthropology * Wikipedia. History of anthropology – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/History_of_anthropology * Wikipedia. Psychology – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Psychology * Wikipedia. Sociology – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Sociology * * * * * *