What Is Psychology?
The Meaning Of Psychology
In this article we will look at some ancient and modern day meanings of psychology. Understanding these definitions can be helpful when it comes to learning what psychology is really all about.
The word psychology is officially defined as :
“the science that studies the behaviour of organisms“.
If we break down this definition, we can gain a better understanding of exactly what it means.
A Science
Psychology is a science because its conclusions are based on information which has been obtained by planned, controlled and repeatable experiments.
It is important that these experiments are repeatable, so that any information obtained from those experiments can be considered reliable and not a one off or random occurrence.
Controlled experiments are needed so that certain variables can be tested, without becoming contaminated by other factors which could produce inaccurate or misleading results.
Behaviour
Behaviour is comprised of three aspects.
Cognitive Processes : This includes what and how a person thinks.
Emotional States : This includes what a person feels, and what causes them to feel that way.
Actions : This includes what a person does, and what causes them to do something in a particular way.
If we put these all together, we can see that psychology studies how people think, feel and act.
Organism
An organism is defined as a form of life, in other words, any living creature.
Psychology is therefore the study of living things, which includes both people and animals.
The Meaning Of Psychology
From the definition that “psychology is the science that studies the behaviour of organisms“, we can see that psychology is the study of everything around us and how those things interact with each other.
This is why I consider psychology to be such an important subject, because it is directly relevant to every aspect of our lives.
Through studying psychology, we are essentially studying ourselves and the world we live in. In turn, this can enable us to gain a better understanding of ourselves and other people.
The Ancient Meaning Of Psychology
Unsurprisingly people have been interested in psychology since ancient times, where philosophers who were interested in what makes us human devised the term “psyche-ology” to mean a “study of the soul” (“Psyche” means the soul).
This meaning was given by the ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle who lived between 400-300 B.C.
However unlike today’s definition of psychology, these philosophers thought of psychology only as the study of people, because they did not believe animals had souls.
The reason they wanted to study the soul, was because they thought that the soul gave us consciousness and through this consciousness we experience what we call life.
Note : “B.C” stands for “Before Christ” and the B.C calendar counts backwards to the year of Jesus Christ’s birth.
So 400 B.C is older than 300 B.C. Today’s dates are written forward (e.g. 2005-2009) because we are counting forwards into the future.
The Science Of Mental Life
A more modern definition of psychology was given by the American psychologist William James, who defined it as “the science of mental life”.
James thought of psychology as the study of how we think, remember and interpret the world and attempted to investigate this from a scientific perspective.
Although we may no longer use the ancient definitions of psychology, they are still relevant to this day because they all describe the study of human behaviour and thinking (cognition).
Goals Of Psychology
Modern day psychology has four main goals: describe, explain, predict and control behaviour.
1 - Describe
The first goal is to describe how someone is behaving.
E.g. John seems unable to concentrate fully on his work.
By describing behaviour, we can then focus our attention on it and move onto the second goal.
2 - Explain
Now that we have described a behaviour, we can attempt to explain possible reasons why it occurred.
E.g. John seems unable to concentrate on his work because he watches too much TV.
By thinking of possible reasons why someone may be behaving in a particular way, we can try to change that behaviour by modifying the factors which we think is causing it.
3 - Predict
If our explanation as to why John is unable to concentrate on his work is because he watches too much TV, we can then move onto our third goal by predicting how John’s behaviour will change if he reduces the amount of TV he watches.
e.g. I predict that if John stops watching TV he will be able to concentrate better, because I suspect that there is a link between the amount of hours someone watches TV, and their ability to concentrate.
4 - Control Behaviour
Now that we have described a behaviour and predicted how that behaviour could be changed, we can then try to control that behaviour by modifying the variables we previously identified.
E.g. Take away John’s TV, so he spends more time on his work rather than watching TV all day.
If we find that taking away John’s TV results in no change in his behaviour, we can then conclude that our prediction of TV negativity affecting John’s ability to concentrate was incorrect.
At this stage, we can then go back to steps 2 and 3 and come up with a new explanation for John’s behaviour, and then make a new prediction as to how that behaviour could be controlled.
E.g. John eats too much junk food, which is affecting his ability to think.
Although I have used one variable in this example, it is possible that John’s behaviour is affected by multiple factors, such as TV and junk food, which are both negatively affecting his ability to think.
In real life, you will often find that there are many possible explanations for someone’s behaviour, and so this should be taken into consideration as very rarely do things occur in isolation (unless they are performed under controlled laboratory conditions).
The problem that occurs when dealing with multiple variables is that there is more room for error, and accurate predictions are more difficult to make.
This is because sometimes two things can have a cumulative effect, whereby their resulting effect is greater together than by themselves alone.
e.g. 1 and 1 are two separate numbers, but put them together and you have something greater, 2.
Summary
Psychology studies the behaviour of organisms, which includes how they think, feel and act.
Psychology has its roots in philosophy, where the ancient philosophers described it as the study of the soul.
The four main goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict and control behaviour.
