Professor Teresa Wilburn

PSY 105

November 1, 2012

Assignment 1: Preferences

` I coach track and field and until a year ago, I could not run one lap around the track. I started out slowly but I am now able to run miles without stopping and I love it! Track and Field is a competitive sport with various athletic contests that include running (road, cross-country and race walking), jumping and throwing. It is normally an individual sport with athletes competing against each other to decide a single victor. The racing events, which are categorized as sprints, middle and long distance, hurdling and relays, are won by the fastest times. The jumping (long jump, triple jump and pole vault) and throwing (shot put, javelin, discus and hammer) events are won by the athlete with the furthest distance or height. I was first introduced to the sport of track and field in 2001 when my daughter who was six years old at the time, took a liking to running. Five days out of the week, I would take her to practice and before I knew it, I was assisting the coaches. By 2003, I was an assistant coach of this local track club and in 2005 I became certified by U.S Track and Field to be a coach. In 2011, I started my very own track club in my area. Although it is not a requirement to have been a track and field athlete to become a coach, I felt like I needed to put some experience with the book knowledge I had gained. I saw the physical and emotional difference in those I trained and knew that if I put my mind to it, I could experience that same satisfaction. So, in September 2011, after our track season was over, I decided to train and set a goal to be able to run two miles without stopping by March 2012. Developmental psychology is the subfield that I believe is best suited for providing psychological insight into my like for running. Developmental psychology studies how people change physically, cognitively and socially over the entire life span. I choose this subfield because it would help me to understand the physical changes that would incur in my body, what I would need to do mentally to prepare for training and how running would affect me over time. Perception is the process through which we select, organize, and interpret input from our sensory receptors (Baron, Kalsher & Henry, 2008). Sensory receptors are cell that are located in our eyes, ears, nose, tongue and elsewhere that are responsible for converting physical energy into neural impulse. My perception of running was that it was hard work and I would feel exhausted after doing so. I gathered these feeling just by watching my athletes during practice however I found that this was partially true. Yes, it is hard work (painful) and depending on how far you run and the energy used, you could feel exhausted afterwards. Cognitively, I knew that my body would experience great pain but had to turn my attention from the body aches and focus on. Sensation is concerned with the initial contact between organisms and their physical environment and focuses on describing the relationship between various forms of sensory stimulation and how these inputs are registered by our sense organs (Baron, Kalsher & Henry, 2008). In other words, sensation has to do with how you feel. For example, after running, you may feel pain (sensation) in your feet or ankles. You can also have a mental sensation, such as fulfillment or satisfaction. Each time I ran, I knew that I was getting closer to my goal. I was getting stronger, more in shape and feeling less stressful. My state of consciousness when I’m running is focus. Although there are many things going on around me, like the temperature, people, cars and other noises, my processes are both automatic and controlled. My controlled process involves me staying on task and running the desired distance that I set out to do. Automatically, while running, I listen to music. I’m so focused on meeting my goal that I’ve determined that nothing, including the weather, will stop me from reaching it. Learning is a permanent change in behavior that comes about as a result of some experience. It comes in the form of classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning. My learning took on the form of observational learning, which resulted from me observing my youth athletes and seeing their results. I wanted to become more knowledgeable about running, get in shape and feel healthier. This inspired me to what to run. In February 2011, I exceeded my goal of running two miles. I was able to run three miles, lost 18 pounds and was in the best shape of my life. When my athletes returned at the beginning of our next track season, I was able to do the warm up laps (twice around the track) with them instead of just instructing them to do so. As a result of running, I feel and look great!
I have decided that I will continue to run because it is something that I enjoy doing.

References

Baron, R., Henry, R., & Kalsher, M. (2008). Introduction to Psychology. Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.