Psychology

by Nancy Singla ECE

Introduction:

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior, cognition, and emotion.

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness.

Psychology differs from the other social sciences anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology in seeking to explain the mental processes and behavior of individuals. Psychology differs from biology and neuroscience in that it is primarily concerned with the interaction of mental processes and behavior on a systemic level, as opposed to studying the biological or neural processes themselves. In contrast, the subfield of neuropsychology studies the actual neural processes and how they relate to the mental effects they subjectively produce. Biological psychology is the scientific study of the biological bases of behavior and mental states.

It is largely concerned with humans, although the behavior and mental processes of animals can also be part of psychology research, either as a subject in its own right.HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/comparative_psychology"

Psychology is commonly defined as the science of behavior and mental processes.

Psychology does not necessarily refer to the brain or nervous system and can be framed purely in terms of phenomenological or information processing theories of mind. Increasingly, though, an understanding of brain function is being included in psychological theory and practice, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, neuropsychologyHYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/neuropsychology", and cognitive neuroscienceHYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cognitive_neuroscience".

Psychology describes and attempts to explain consciousness, behavior and social interaction.

Empirical psychology is primarily devoted to describing human experience and behavior as it actually occurs. In the past 20 years or so psychology has begun to examine the relationship between consciousness and the brain or nervous system .

The late 19th century start of it is a scientific enterprise. The year 1879 is commonly seen as the start of psychology as an independent field of study, because in that year German scientist Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany.

History-

Early development-

The first use of the term "psychology" is often attributed to the German scholastic philosopher Rudolf Goeckel  published in 1590.More than six decades earlier, however, the Croatian humanist Marko Maruli used the term in the title of a work which was subsequently lost.This, of course, may not have been the very first usage, but it is the earliest documented use at present.

The root of the word psychology (psyche) is very roughly equivalent to "soul" in Greek, and equivalent to "study". Psychology came to be considered a study of the soul  much later, in Christian times. Psychology as a medical discipline can be seen in Thomas Willis' reference to psychology in terms of brain function, as part of his 1672 anatomical treatise "De Anima Brutorum".

Early modern era-

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), known as "the father of psychology", founded a laboratory for the study of psychology at Leipzig University in Germany. The American philosopher William James published his seminal book, Principles of Psychology, in 1890, laying the foundations for many of the questions that psychologists would focus on for years to come.During the 1890s, the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, who was trained as a neurologist and had no formal training in experimental psychology, had developed a method of psychotherapy known as psychoanalysis.

psychology "is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science," that "introspection forms no essential part of its methods", and that "the behaviorist recognizes no dividing line between man and brute." .

Branches of Psychology-

Psychology is an extremely broad field, encompassing many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior.

1) Abnormal Psychology-

Abnormal psychology is the study of abnormal behavior in order to describe, predict, explain, and change abnormal patterns of functioning. Abnormal psychology studies the nature of psychopathology and its causes, and this knowledge is applied in clinical psychology to treating patients with psychological disorders.

2) Bio psychology-

Biological psychology is the scientific study of the biological bases of behavior and mental states.

Because all behavior is controlled by the central nervous system, it is sensible to study how thebrain functions in order to understand behavior. This is the approach taken in behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology. Neuropsychology is the branch of psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to specific behavioral and psychological processes. Often neuropsychologists are employed as scientists to advance scientific or medical knowledge. Neuropsychology is particularly concerned with the understanding of brain injury in an attempt to work out normal psychological function.

 3) Clinical Psychology-

Clinical psychology is the application of abnormal psychology research to the understanding, treatment, and assessment of psychopathology. This primarily includes behavioral and mental health concerns. It has traditionally been associated with psychological treatment and psychotherapy, although modern clinical psychology may take an eclectic approach, including a number of therapeutic approaches. Typically, although working with many of the same clients as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists do not prescribe psychiatric drugs. Some clinical psychologists may focus on the clinical management of patients with brain injury. This area is known as clinical neuropsychology.

In recent years and particularly in the United States, a major split has been developing between academic research psychologists in universities and some branches of clinical psychology. The work performed by clinical psychologists tends to be done inside various therapy models

4) Counselling Psychology-

Counselling psychology is a psychology specialty that facilitates personal and interpersonal functioning across the lifespan with a focus on emotional, social, vocational, educational, health- related, developmental, and organizational. Counselling psychology differs from clinical psychology in that it is focused more on normal developmental issues and everyday stress rather than serious mental disorders. Counselling psychologists are employed in a variety of settings, including universities, schools, businesses, private practice, and community mental health centers.

5) Cognitive Psychology-

 Cognitive psychology studies cognition, the mental processes underlying behavior. It uses information processing as a framework for understanding the mind. Perception, learning, problem solving, memory, attention, language and emotion are all well researched areas. Cognitive psychology is associated with a school of thought known as cognitivism, whose adherents argue for an information processing model of mental function, informed by positivism and experimental psychology.

Cognitive science is very closely related to cognitive psychology, but differs in some of the research methods used, and has a slightly greater emphasis on explaining mental phenomena in terms of both behavior and neural processing.

 6) Developmental Psychology-

Mainly focusing on the development of the human mind through the life span, developmental psychology seeks to understand how people come to perceive, understand, and act within the world and how these processes change as they age. This may focus on intellectual, cognitive, neural, social, or moral development.

7) Educational Psychology-

Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations.

8) Evolutionary Psychology-

The basic idea of evolutionary psychology is that psychological characteristics, like biological characteristics, may be passed on from one generation to another through hereditary material.

Present-day psychological traits may be analyzed in terms of their evolutionary advantage for our ancestors.

9) Psychology and Law-

Pychology is practiced by clinical psychologists, and involves a clinical analysis of a particular individual and an assessment of some specific psycho-legal question.

Legal psychology is a research-oriented field populated with researchers from several different areas within psychology .

10) Health Psychology-

Health psychology is the application of psychological theory and research to health, illness and health care. Whereas clinical psychology focuses on mental health and neurological illness, health psychology is concerned with the psychology of a much wider range of health-related behavior including healthy eating, the doctor-patient relationship, a patient's understanding of health information, and beliefs about illness. Health psychologists may be involved in public health campaigns, examining the impact of illness or health policy on quality of life or in research into the psychological impact of health and social care.

11) Neuropsychology-

Neuropsychology involves the study of both healthy individuals and patients, typically who have suffered either brain injury or mental illness.

Cognitive neuropsychology and cognitive neuropsychiatry study neurological or mental impairment in an attempt to infer theories of normal mind and brain function

Computational modeling is a tool often used in cognitive psychology to simulate a particular behavior using a computer. This method has several advantages. Since modern computers are extremely fast, many simulations can be run in a short time, allowing for a great deal of statistical power.

12) Industrial-Organizational Psychology-

Industrial and organizational psychology (I/O) is among the newest fields in psychology. Industrial Psychology focuses on improving, evaluating, and predicting job performance while Organizational Psychology focuses on how organizations impact and interact with individuals. In 1910, through the works and experiments of Hugo Munsterberg and Walter Dill Scott, Industrial Psychology became recognized as a legitimate part of the social science . Organizational Psychology was not officially added until the 1970s and since then, the field has flourished. The Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology has approximately 3400 professional members and 1900 student members. These two numbers combine to make up only about four percent of the members in the American Psychology Association but the number has been rising since 1939 when there were only one hundred professional I/O psychologists [3].

I/O psychologists are employeed by academic institutions, consulting firms, internal human resources in industries, and governmental institutions

psychology is to better design objects by taking into account the limitations and biases of human mental processes and behavior.

Personality Psychology

Personality psychology studies enduring psychological patterns of behavior, thought and emotion, commonly called an individual's personality. Theories of personality vary between different psychological schools. Trait theories attempts to break personality down into a number of traits, by use of factor analysis. The number of traits have varied between theories.

13) Social Psychology-

Social Psychology is the branch of Psychology or Sociology that deals with the study of individual behaviour in a society. Psychology is the study of mind and behaviour and the basic subject matter for the study of psychology is the individual difference. The individual becomes the part of a society by the process of socialization. The major and most determining part of socialization occurs in the early childhood. This is the time when the child learns all the social norms and values.

The social psychology can be divided into two major categories based on the emphasis given to either of the constituing disciplines, Psychology and Sociology,Sociological Social Psychology (SSP).

Social psychology is the study of the nature and causes of human social behavior

Judgment and Decision Making

The psychology of judgment and decision making deals with numerous psychological factors and events, including moral intuitions and performance, intuitive and heuristic modes of evaluating and choosing, conscious reasoning modeled after Western logic, and the factors and biases that affect one's choice of choosing method and the performance of the method itself.

14) Psychophysics-

Psychophysics is the branch of Psychology dealing with the study of relationship between physical stimuli and individual perception. Perception is a general concept which refers to interpretation of a stimuli received by the senses. The are number of factors that affect the perception

Summary-

·      The subject matter of psychology (ourselves and non-human animals) is complex and reactive, psychologists have to choose from amongst a wide range of methods.

·      Psychologists make use of methods that aim to maximise objectivity; they also use methods that focus on and explore subjectivities and meanings.

·      Depending on the topic they are researching, psychologists can choose to adopt an outsider viewpoint or an insider viewpoint.

·      Ethical issues are a major factor in psychological investigations and practice.