What is psychology?

Psychology is memory, stress, therapy, love, persuasion, hypnosis, perception, death, conformity, creativity, learning, personality, aging, intelligence, sexuality, emotion and many, many other topics (Coon, 1999).


Psychology

Psyche = Mind;

Logos = Knowledge or study.

A Working Definition

Psychology is the science of human and animal behaviour (Coon, 1999; Morgan et al, 1986). It includes the application of science to human problems (Morgan et al, 1986).

The above definition indicates that Psychology is a science. A science is a body of systematic knowledge that is gathered by carefully observing and measuring events. It studies about human and animal behaviour. Behaviour is anything we do – eating, sleeping, talking, thinking, dreaming, gambling, taking drugs, watching TV, learning Spanish, basket weaving, reading, sneezing etc. Behaviour can be classified into covert and overt. Psychologists are interested in both visible behaviour and hidden mental events.

Much of the overt behaviour can be studied by direct observation.

E.g.: Running will help a person move faster than walking.

But to study about the internal events, other precise measuring tools have to be used.

E.g.: Depth of a person’s happiness or sadness cannot be measured by mere observation.

Measurement in Psychology is often more difficult than it is in sciences such as physics and chemistry because many of the things psychologists study cannot be measured directly by physical scales. However, not everything in Psychology is so difficult to measure. For example, it is easy to count the number of times a person behave in one way in one situation, and another way in another situation.

The definition also indicates that Psychology has an applied side. It can be used to solve “real-life” problems. Basically, even though the area of application varies, the importance goes to find working solutions to the problems and to apply it.

Empiricism

Psychologists try to be objective in their observation. Therefore, they have a special respect for empirical evidence, information gained from direct observation and measurement. Whenever possible, psychologists settle disputes by collecting data (observed facts) that can be verified by two or more independent observers. The observations are systematic. It is also a young science. However, some of the observations are very difficult in Psychology. Due to ethical and practical concerns, many of the questions are still unanswered.

Goals of Psychology

The goals of Psychology are to describe, understand, predict and control behaviour. Describing behaviour means to make a detailed record of behaviour. Understanding denotes to state the causes of behaviour. Prediction is the accurate of forecast of behaviour. Prediction is especially important in psychometrics, a specialty that focuses on mental measurement, such as personality and intelligence testing. Control means altering the conditions that influence behaviour in predictable ways.

The ultimate goal of Psychology is to accumulate information to help humanity (Kimble, 1989).

References:

Coon, D (1999), Introduction to Psychology: Exploration and Application, 6th ed., West Publishing Company.

Morgan, C. T.; King, R. A.; Weisz, J.R. & Schopler, J (1993), Introduction to Psychology, Tata McGraw-Hill Edition.