Concept

Psychology

Overview

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of broad scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences.

A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.

As part of an interdisciplinary field, psychologists are involved in research on perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, subjective experiences, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. Psychologists' interests extend to interpersonal relationships, psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas within social psychology. They also consider the unconscious mind. Research psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Some, but not all, clinical and counseling psychologists rely on symbolic interpretation.

While psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in several spheres of human activity. By many accounts, psychology ultimately aims to benefit society. Many psychologists are involved in some therapeutic role, practicing psychotherapy in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Other psychologists conduct scientific research on a wide range of topics related to mental processes and behavior. Typically, the latter group of psychologists works in academic settings (e.g., universities, medical schools, or hospitals). Another group of psychologists is employed in industrial and organizational settings. Yet others are involved in work on human development, aging, sports, health, forensic science, education, and the media.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Psychology is discussed.

I say moreover that you make a great, a very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use. Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediary inventive mind must make the…
William James, Talks To Teachers On Psychology
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Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and of their conditions. The phenomena are such things as we call feelings, desires, cognitions, reasonings, decisions, and the like; and, superficially considered, their variety and complexity is such as to leave a chaotic impression on the…
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
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Why then should the standpoint of psychology be in absolute contradiction to the stand-points of its most nearly related sciences? Psychology must not only strive to become a useful basis for the other mental sciences, but it must also turn again and again to the historical sciences, in order to obtain an understanding for the more highly developed mental processes. Racial psychology is the clearest proof of this…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
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However much different schools may vary in their definitions of mind, they agree in this premiss of separateness and priority. Hence social psychology is confused by the effort to render its facts in the terms characteristic of old psychology, when the distinctive thing about it is that it implies an abandonment of that psychology.
John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct
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Thus far we have made psychology on our own responsibility; it is now time to examine the theoretical opinions governing present-day psychology and to test their relation to our theories. The question of the unconscious in psychology is, according to the authoritative words of Lipps,[GA] less a psychological question than the question of psychology. As long as psychology settled this question with the verbal…
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
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Psychology

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Psychology

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Place in the tradition