Psychology is the study of themind andbrain. It studiesthoughts,feelings, andbehaviors in humans and animals. Psychology aims to explain how the mind works. It also looks at how our actions relate to how we think.[1][2][3][4][5]
Psychology is a vast subject area. It covers many topics. It is divided into branches. Psychology has a lot in common with other fields of research. Ideas in psychology overlap with ideas in the sciences ofanatomy,biology,neuroscience andphysiology.
A person who works in the field of psychology is called apsychologist. A psychologist tries to understand how the mind works so that they can help people and animals. They must go throughhigher education for many years in order to become a professional. Thesepractitioners attempt to explain how the mind functions by itself (individual) and with others (social). They also see how the mind affects the body. They work withsocial,behavioral, andcognitive sciences.
Psychology has been split up into smaller parts called branches. These are subjects in psychology that try to answer a particular group of questions about how people think. The branches of psychology that are often studied are:
Psychology is a type ofscience, so research psychologists use many of the same types of methods that researchers from othernatural andsocial sciences use.
Psychologists maketheories to try to explain a behavior or pattern they see. Based on their theory, they makepredictions. Then, they carry outexperiments or collectdata to see if their prediction is right or wrong.
Some types of experiments cannot be done on people because it would take too long, cost too much money, risk people's health, or would beunethical. There are also other ways psychologists study the mind and behavior scientifically, and test their theories. Psychologists might wait for some events to happen on their own; they might look atpatterns among existing groups of people innatural environments; or they might do experiments on animals (which can be simpler and more ethical to study).
Just like in other fields of science, a good psychological theory can be proven wrong as new information about a subject is learned. Just like in any natural science, psychologists can never be completely sure that their theory is correct. If a theory can be proved wrong, but experiments do not prove it wrong, it is more likely that the theory is accurate. This is calledfalsifiability.
Psychologists use many tools as part of their daily work. Psychologists use surveys to ask people how they feel and what they think. They may use special devices to look at thebrain and to see what it is doing. Psychologists usecomputers to collectdata as they measure how people behave in response to pictures, words,symbols, or otherstimuli. Psychologists also usestatistics to help them analyze the data that they get from their experiments.[22][23]
Psychologists are people who work in the field of psychology. A psychologist may work in either basic research or applied research. Basic research is the study of people or animals to learn more about them. Applied research uses what is learned from basic research to solve real-world problems. A qualifiedclinical psychologist can become atherapist orcounsellor.
To become a psychologist, a person must first get a basic degree at a university and go tograduate school. A Master's degree, either MSc (Master of Science) or MA (Master of Arts), allows for work such as aschool psychologist. A doctorate degree takes a longer time to earn because it includes doing research and writing a detailed report. A doctoral graduate uses the initialsPhD or DPhil (Doctor of Philosophy). Some clinical psychologists earn a Doctor of Psychology degree and use the initials PsyD after their name. TheAmerican Psychological Association say that people need a PhD (or PsyD) and a current state license in the U.S. to call themselves a psychologist.
The wordspsychologist andpsychiatrist may be confused with each other. Apsychiatrist has graduated from medical school and uses the initialsMD or its equivalent (MB ChB inLondon University, for example). A psychiatrist or doctor may work with a psychologist by prescribing and checking the effects ofmedications.
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↑Hetherington E.M., Parke R. D. & Locke V.O. 1999. Child psychology: a contemporary viewpoint. McGraw-Hill.
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↑Buss, D. M. (Ed.). (2005). The handbook of evolutionary psychology. John Wiley & Sons.
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↑Buss, D. (2015). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind. Psychology Press.
↑Walsh, K. W. (1978). Neuropsychology: A clinical approach. Churchill Livingstone.
↑Reis, H. T., Reis, H. T., & Judd, C. M. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology. Cambridge University Press.
↑McDougall, W. (2015). An introduction to social psychology. Psychology Press.
↑Aron, A., & Aron, E. N. (1999). Statistics for psychology. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
↑Coolican, H. (2018). Research methods and statistics in psychology. Routledge.
↑Rulla, L. M. (1971). Depth psychology and vocation: A psycho-social perspective. Gregorian Biblical BookShop.
↑McNeely, D. A. (1987). Touching: Body therapy and depth psychology. Inner City Books.
↑Hopcke, R. H. (2013). A guided tour of the collected works of CG Jung. Shambhala Publications.
↑Schneider, K. J., Pierson, J. F., & Bugental, J. F. (Eds.). (2014). The handbook of humanistic psychology: Theory, research, and practice. Sage Publications.
↑Jacobsen, B. (2007). Invitation to existential psychology. Wiley.
