Psychology Of William James: The Field Of Psychology

“Humans can only use 10 percent capacity of their brain. What if humans can access all 100 percent of the brain? The potential is unlimited.” This statement has been recorded since the early 1900’s. This is the exact time period that William James began writing his many books about psychology. In fact, historians have debated that the statement came from his book in 1908 called The Energies of Men saying, "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources." James wrote over a hundred books relating to psychology. He wanted to understand how human nature works, how the mental process of things works and why they dictate our actions. The research behind it is used to provide a framework for future human-based research to give reasons why people do the things they do.

Before people dive into the depths of psychology, they need to at least know who William James is since he is the father of psychology and how much he’s done in this field of study. William James was born on January 11, 1842 in the Big Apple to a upper class family. According to psychology.com’s biography of James, his father had a lot of interest in theology and philosophy, which would obviously rub off onto James. He would go to the best schools in Europe for his teenage years. Psychology wasn’t his first love even though his father wanted him to be in science or philosophy. James loved art and would be William Morris Hunt’s apprentice for over a year, a famous painter, according to his journal writings late 1850’s, early 1860’s, psychology.com

He would eventually drop the apprenticeship and enroll at Harvard University to study chemistry. When the money that funded James’ college payments started to decrease significantly, he tr...

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...understand human nature and explain why humans commit the actions they do. Psychology is the study of human nature and the research behind it provides insights on studies regarding the human brain, human behavior and the “why” behind the actions that people take. Psychology has many pros to it like stated before but there is many more to add to that. It improves communication skills because it allows you to read behaviors and avoid conversations and topics that could cause distraught. Psychology also improves a better understanding of themselves by showing how and why people feel the way they feel and help you cope with unwanted emotions, dealing with pain and resolving undesirable situations. By being able to understand themselves, psychology can teach people to understand the actions and behaviors of others and even predict the actions based upon what they know.