When the word psychology is mentioned, most people automatically think of mental illness or the popular television series like CSI, Mentalist and talk shows that give personal psychological advice like Dr Phil. But these opinions and sources led us to a very narrow scope of its definition. Psychology is defined as the scientific sturdy of mind and behavior. The first part of the definition calls psychology a scientific sturdy, as a science it is a body of systemized knowledge that is gathered by carefully observing and measuring events. The scientific methods are important to the psychologists and researchers who apply such knowledge and researches in areas like forensic, industrial organization and clinical. The second part behavior in the …show more content…
Freud himself was strict on been irrefutable as his brightest and best colleagues like Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, and Karen Horney ideas were rejected by him. Hence they had to step out of Freud’s psychoanalytic circle to develop their own theories thus, forming neo-Freudians, (Daniels, 2011) depicted in his research. Psychoanalytic approach still remains influential with more innovative ideas and researches applied in the clinical areas. Just as Freud’s theory John B. Watson theory received criticisms by many in and out of the psychological field. Watson was labeled of been an extreme environmentalist after he acknowledged that physical characters are hereditary but dismissing the possibility of “mental traits” can be determined by genetic, Watson labeled down that human are born with simple set of instincts narrowing to fear, rage and love for been the only response (Rakos, 2013). Behaviorism school of thoughts remains a major in modern psychology with the embodiment of B.F Skinner’s work and the rise of operant interventions that can be still found in the many works in the present day to solve increasingly complex social problems (Rakos, 2013).
The modern psychology has evolved in the past centuries bringing about vast number of fields in psychology. There are about fifty four divisions organized by the American psychological association which is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in United States of America (APA). There is more number of subfield running under these divisions. Some of these divisions are Developmental psychology, Educational psychology, Clinical psychology, Rehabilitation psychology, Experimental psychology, American Psychology- law and many
Psychology comprises of two words originally used by the ‘Greeks’, ‘psyche’, defining the mind, soul or spirit and lastly ‘logos’ being study. Both words define together the ‘study of the mind’. Psychology perspectives evaluate the normal and abnormal behaviour and how persons’ deal with different concepts of issues and problems. Psychology theories’ are based on ‘common sense’, but its scientific structure, everything needs to be evaluated and tested, therefore, promoting different psychological theories’.
The birth of psychology was in December of 1879, at Germanys University of Leipzig (Myers, 2014, p.2). In 1960, Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener defines psychology as “the science of mental health” (Myers, 2014, p.4). However, two provocative American psychologists, John Watson and B.F Skinner, redefined psychology in 1920. They redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior” (Myers, 2014, p.4). The problem arose when psychologists realized people could not observe feeling or thought so they needed to come up with a new definition for psychology. We define psychology today as “the science of behavior and mental processes” (Myers, 2014, p.4). Psychology includes many subfields such as human development, social behavior,
Psychology can be broadly defined as the scientific and systematic study of people’s behavior and mental processes.
Psychology is a social science that aims to study the mind and the behaviors of humans. It aims to understand what drives humans to act the way they do. It differs from sociology and anthropology in that it takes accounts the individual rather than society as a whole.
During the zeitgeist of Watson’s early career, the focus of psychology was on the analysis of the conscious mind. During the late 1800’s, Sigmund Freud, a leader in psychology at the time, had proposed theories of psychology that focused on the conscious and unconscious mind. He explained behavior as a response to the desires of our unconscious and conscious minds, implying that individuals did not have much control over their behaviors or thoughts. In the early 1900’s, during Watson’s career, the country was recovering from the First World War. American societies were trying to cope with the feelings of loos of control that were brought about by the war. Freud’s idea of human consciousness and uncontrollable thoughts and behaviors did not easily explain any of the traumas that the American people had just lived through.
The field of psychology is a discipline, originated from many branches of science. It has applications from within a complete scope of avenues, from psychotherapy to professional decision-making. The flexibility and versatility of this field reflects its importance and demands in-depth analysis. Psychology was a division of philosophy until it developed independent scientific disciplines. The history of psychology was a scholarly study of the mind and behavior that dates back to the beginning of civilization. There are important details from previous theory psychologist, research have contributed to behaviorism approaches and have contributed towards specific current behavioral practices. Contemporary behavior therapy began to emerge into distinct practical and core learning theories concerning the needs and knowledge engaging cultural and professional differences.
Psychology is an ever growing field in today’s job field. Psychology comes from the Greek words “psych” meaning soul and “ology” meaning logic, it translates to “the science of the soul” (Ferguson). It was founded by a man named Wilhelm Wundt, he founded experimental psychology which later led to others discovering more in psychology Psychology is both a science and a profession, it is counted as a science because it’s about understanding people's behavior (Ferguson). Psychology is a great and interesting career choice for many generations
Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, was the principle proponent of the psychoanalytic personality theory. Psychoanalytic personality theory is tells us that the majority of human behavior is motivated by the unconscious, a part of the personality that contains the memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings urges, drives, and instincts that the individual is unaware, and that only a small part of our psychological makeup is actually derived from the conscious experience. The problem is our unconscious mind disguises the meaning of the material it contains. As such, the psychoanalytic personality theory is ver...
The term psychology has many meanings to different people, even to those who work within the psychological field. The word psychology derives from two Greek roots; 'psyche' refers to 'soul' or 'mind' and logo refers to 'the study of'. A more update definition of the word psychology can be found from Atkinson, et al (1991) “The scientific study of behaviours and mental processes.” However on Google Definitions the definition of psychology is “the mental characteristics and attitudes of a person” [accessed 16 September 2011], which gives somewhat of a contradiction. In this assignment I will be outlining and evaluating four key psychological perspectives. The psychological perspectives I have chosen are the behavioural approach, biological approach, cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach.
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior. In psychology, and all of the other sciences, relying on opinions is abandoned in order to find out which explanations best fit the evidence or data given. Science continually forces us to question our findings and conclusions. Over time, psychology has advanced greatly and a main reason for such progressiveness is because of the change in the research model used.
Sigmund Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory suggests that human behavior and personality is influenced by unconscious motives. In the early 1900s, Freud proposed this theory, stating that the personality consists of the id, the ego, and the superego. Psychodynamic psychologists see behavior as a compromise between the three areas of our psyche. These psychologists study human behavior by looking for deeper meanings in peoples’ thoughts and actions. Today, many of Freud’s ideas have been criticized for being too abstract and objective, but that does not mean that his work is without merit. The Psychodynamic Theory has redefined patient-therapist relationships and our understanding of thought processes and response patterns.
Psychology is about People The book addresses various social issues spanned across different topics that can be understood independently. However, as a whole, the book covers several concerns that are common to each issue raised in each topic. The first concern Eysenck addressed is the scientific study of social problems. He argued that psychology should be subjected to scientific methods of investigation and that there are indeed psychological concepts and theories that can be applied to this rigorous process.
The Science of Psychology “Psychology is the scientific study of mind, brain and behaviour. Some of what you do learn may seem like ‘common sense’, or at least familiar to you because you are learning about topics in which you can relate to. However some things you may believe is true, but is incorrect. The way we know this is through the application of scientific methods.” Mark Leary suggests that the subject matter of psychology is much more familiar to most people than is the subject matter of physics or biology; we see behaviour all around us.
Psychology is a branch, which scrutinizes the human conduct by exploring the views and activities of an individual in a scientific or vox populi manner. The aim of this branch in the domain of psychology is to define the realistic or popular concepts behind the behavior and actions of individuals (Plotkin, 1998). However, over a period of time, pop or popular psychology and professional psychology increased to the highest extent to disseminate psychology domain’s influence in the society. The pop psychology is pseudo psychological philosophy (lacking scientific evidences and involves myths), counseling, or notions to help masses to understand about humans’ behaviors.
Psychology is the scientific study and practical application of observable behavior and mental processes of organisms. Psychology differs from other social sciences such as: Sociology, History, or Economics, because psychology specifically deals with the study of an individual. The other social sciences will study groups, or history. Psychology is less a science of reported findings, it attempts asks and answers questions using observable behavior and what can be determined as mental processes of the subject. The symbol for psychology is the Greek letter “psi” (Ø). The subject matter of psychology is, affect, behavior, and cognition. The affect for psychology is the actual mental processes that make up: moods, feeling, and emotional state. An example for affect would be feeling sad about something happening. Behavior includes the actually actions and responses of organisms. Behavior can include the way we act in any given situation, for example when we get up in the morning. The order in the way we prepare ourselves for going out into public can be categorized as our behavior. Cognition is the actual mental events and the processes that result from them. Memories of an event are a great example of an organism’s cognition. The components and corresponding faces of psychology include the body of knowledge which is considered the teaching face, set of investigative methods or research face, and array of techniques the therapy face. The goals of psychology are: to explain behaviors, to describe behaviors, to predict behavior, and to modify inappropriate behaviors. Explaining behaviors would be a question similar to “Why does this happen?”, and example of how describing behavior could be accomplished would be asking “What causes this behavior, where does it come from?”. Predictions can be elaborated on by asking “When will the behavior occur?”. An example of a behavioral modification question is “What can be changed in the environment to alter this behavior?”. A specialized subfield of psychology that most interests me is, Forensic Psychology, because it would be appealing to me to understand a potential criminal mind and to make the determination if the criminal was sane at the time the crime was committed or if he/she was operating with full judgment. In studying the 9/11 attack on America, a Forensic Psyc...