psychology
Encyclopedia Britannica Article
scientific discipline that studies mental processes and behaviour in
humans and other animals.
Psychology is the science of individual or group behaviour. The word
psychology literally means ?study of the mind?; the issue of the
relationship of mind and body is pervasive in psychology, owing to its
derivation from the fields of philosophy and physiology. Psychology is
intimately related to the biological and social sciences.
The broad reach of psychology sometimes gives it the appearance of
disunity and promotes the lack of a universally accepted theoretical
structure. Some of the divisions within psychology are applied fields,
while others are more experimental in nature. The various applied fields
include clinical; counseling; industrial, engineering, or personnel;
consumer; and environmental. The most important of these specialties,
clinical psychology, is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of
mental disorders. Industrial psychology is used in employee selection
and related contexts in business and industry. The broad field known as
experimental psychology includes specializations in child, educational,
social, developmental, physiological, and comparative psychology. Of
these, child psychology applies psychological theory and research
methods to children; educational psychology is concerned with learning
processes and problems associated with the teaching of students; social
psychology is concerned with group dynamics and other aspects of human
behaviour in its social and cultural setting; and comparative psychology
deals with behaviour as it differs from one species of animal to
another. The issues studied by psychologists cover a wide spectrum,
comprising learning, cognition, intelligence, motivation, emotion,
perception, personality, mental disorders, and the study of the extent
to which individual differences are inherited or are shaped
environmentally, known as behaviour genetics.
Methods
Experimental work using humans as subjects involves legal and ethical
limitations. Therefore, a significant amount of research is done with
animals, with the hope of transferring the knowledge gained concerning
psychophysiological or behavioral functioning to humans.
The methods used in human research include observation (sometimes in
nonlaboratory settings), interviews, psychological testing (also called
psychometrics), laboratory experimentation, and statistical analysis.
Psychometrics has in fact become a field in its own right, with
psychometrists devising new tools for data collection, analysis, and new
designs for experimental research.
Licensing requirements for American psychologists are regulated by their
professional organization, the American Psychological Association (APA).
The APA stipulates that in most divisions the bearer of the title
?psychologist? must have a doctoral degree from an accredited
institution. Principal employment settings include educational
institutions, hospitals, prisons, business and industry, military
establishments, and private practice. Many psychologists pursue a
combination of private practice or consulting, research, and teaching.
History
The history of psychology is the history of thought about human
consciousness and conduct. Psychological theory has its roots in ancient
Greek philosophy and has been fed from streams such as epistemology (the
philosophy of knowing), metaphysics, religion, and Oriental philosophy.
Over the centuries psychology and physiology became increasingly
separated. A split developed between the essentially phenomenological
(experiential) and mechanistic (physiological) conceptions of
psychology. In general, through the end of the the 19th century the
British and German traditions were phenomenological, while the French
and American were mechanistic. The history of psychology from the 19th
century may be viewed as a debate between schools of systematic thought
concerning the mind, such as associationism, structuralism, and
functionalism; or alternatively, as a history of experimentation and
research in various areas. Twentieth-century psychology began with
structuralism, which employed the method of introspection to describe
mental events. It then evolved into psychoanalysis, a derivative of
psychiatric tradition, and produced behaviourism and Gestalt psychology,
which were reactions against structuralism. Humanistic psychology
represented a rebellion against the reductionist and deterministic
leanings of earlier schools.
By World War II, ?schools? of psychology had largely faded away, leaving
a common pool of psychological knowledge to which theoreticians,
researchers, experimenters, and clinicians all contributed.
Biopsychology, a study combining psychology and physiology, grew in
conjunction with these developments.
To cite this page:
MLA style:
" psychology ." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia
Britannica Online. 14 Apr. 2007 .
APA style:
psychology . (2007). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 14,
2007, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online:
http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9061727