Psychology

Psychology is the systematic study and evaluation of mind and behavior. There is a primary division between clinical or applied psychology which focuses on helping people directly through various applications of theory and experimental or research oriented psychology which focuses on applying the scientific method to ascertain the foundations of thought and action.

The word psychology comes from the ancient Greek ψυχή psyche ("soul," "mind") and -λογία -ology ("study").

Paradigms of Psychology

Unlike fields such as physics or biology that attempt to work towards a uniting frame or theory for all hypothesis generated, psychology has traditionally focused on defining different schools of thought with substantially different unifying principles and little effort is made to unite this different schools. Most meta-analysis of the field divides psychologist into 5 different paradigms:

• Cognitive Psychology- This school of thought has a strong focus on understanding the mechanisms of mind in order to explain behavior. It often uses analogies to computers to accomplish this task, one of its great themes is the idea of the computational theory of mind.

• Behavioral Psychology- This school of thought views the mind of the organism as a black box which is impossible to describe empirically, therefore the focus is on understanding behavior as a byproduct of environment. Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner epitomize this philosophy with their focus on classical conditioning and instrumental learning.

• Psychoanalytic Psychology- This school of thought attempts to understand mind and behavior as a product of the unconscious. It is most closely linked with the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud believed that much of behavior is related to repressed sexuality, while Jung and other extended his ideas to include other forms of repression. Psychoanalytic psychology is primarily used in clinical settings though it is not unheard of for researchers to appeal to Freudian concepts.

• Existential Psychology and Humanistic Psychology- While these schools of thought differ in some fundamental ways they are often linked together because of their focus on differences and the importance of the individual over generalized rules. Existential Psychology emerges from French Existential Philosophy most notably linked to Jean-Paul Sartre. It places great importance on Existential Angst as an inevitability of existence, and that the role of psychology is to help individuals recognize their angst and come to terms with it. Humanistic approaches to psychology are closely linked to the ideas of Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs. To Maslow psychological illness is a consequence of the difference between the idealized self and the actual self, the role of the psychologist is to help the person either adjust his idealized self image or improve his actual self. Carl Roger's ideas of Client Centered Therapy are also closely linked to humanistic approaches.

• Evolutionary Psychology and Biologic based psychology- These approaches attempt to understand mind and behavior as products of biologic interactions and evolutionary history. This school of thought is heavily researched based. Evolutionary Psychology is a relatively recent development, and many of its proponents believe that a strongly biologic approach to psychology may ultimately serve as a unifying principle for the field of psychology.

Fields of Psychology

• Behavioral psychology studies the organism as purely an environment and behavioral outcome interaction.

• Biological psychology is the study of the biological underpinnings of behavior, mental states (e.g., emotion), and mental health.

• Clinical psychology

• Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that explores how cognitive processes influence behavior. Research in this field focuses on topics such as learning, perception, memory, attention, and information processing.

• Community psychology

• Developmental psychology is the study of how mental processes and behavior change with aging.

• Evolutionary psychology attempts to define psychology and behavior as products of an evolutionary history. They strive to be the functional morphologist of psychology.

• Health psychology/behavioral medicine focuses on the impact of psychological factors on behaviors that are relevant to physical health. Researchers in this field study topics such as substance abuse, obesity, and exercise.

• Industrial/organizational psychology

• Neuropsychology

• School psychology focuses on helping students succeed academically.

• Social psychology is the study of social behavior or interpersonal interactions. Social psychologists study issues such as the way in which attitudes towards other people are formed, or the effect that our perceptions of another person's behavior have on our interactions with that person.