What is psychology?

 

Do you know that the word psychology is derived from two Greek words “psyche” and “logos”? psyche means soul (life) and logos means knowledge (explanation) or the study of the soul. The founders of psychology were both philosophers and psychologists and both tried to find answers to the philosophical questions in a scientific manner, like distinction between nature and nurture, existence of free will, etc. The word 'psychology' (Psychologia in Latin) dates back to 16th century, but was popularized in German by the early 18th century philospher Christian Worff. One of the most influential early users of the term in English was Herbert Spencer, who published the first volume of his Principles of Psychology in 1870.

 Psychologists preferred using the word mind rather than soul. Psychology was one. of the last special sciences that separated from philosophy in the nineteenth century Today, psychology is very popular among students and has become a part of everyday lives. So, in this unit, we will talk about interesting facts and information about the origin of psychology. This unit will explain what psychology is all about and what are the different approaches applied by psychologists to understand human behavior The unit will further elucidate various subfields of psychology and the methods used to conduct research in psychology. It will also discuss the diverse areas where psychologists work. Finally, development of psychology in India will be discussed.

DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY

 

It is difficult to define psychology as it has a very vast scope. As the discipline wa emerging, there were long debates as what should be studied in psychology and how it should be studied. The most popular definition is that it is the science o human and animal behavior and it includes the application of this science to different problems of the human beings. The most accepted definition today is psycholog is the science of behavior and mental processes. Thus, there are three parts to the definition. Firstly, psychology is a science because it systematically tries to gathe data by carefully observing and recording events or behaviors of humans and animal under controlled experimental conditions. Thus, measurement of behavior is as objective as possible in psychology. The knowledge that is gained collecting data with the help of experiments and other methods of observation, is then applied to solve real-life problems.

 

Secondly, the term behavior in the definition implies the overt actions and reactions. Whatever the animals or humans do, that is of interest, can be recorded, such as actions, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, etc. Lastly, the term mental processes refer to all the covert or internal processes, such as thinking, feeling and remembering. Succinctly said, psychology is a science that seeks to understand and predict human and animal behavior (Morgan, King, & Robinson, 1984).