Study of Psychology

The Study of Psychology in theoretical background dates back to olden culture of Egypt, Greece, China, India and Persia. The Historians spot to writings of early Greek philosophers such as Thales, Plato and Aristotle as primary important body of work in West to be wealthy in psychological thinking.

The word psychology accurately means the study of soul. The word psychology is derived from the Latin word psychologia. The word psyche means breath, spirit, or soul and logia means study of. The Latin word psychologia was first used by Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulic in his book Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in early 15th century or 16th century. The first reference to the word psychology in English was by Steven Blankaart in 1693 in The Physical Dictionary which refers to Anatomy which treats of Body and Psychology which treats of Soul.

The Psychological knowledge is normally applied to evaluation and treatment of mental health problems. It is also useful for understanding and solving problems in many special area of human action. The majority of psychologists are occupied in a few kind of therapeutic role like medical, psychoanalysis and training positions. Many psychologists achieve scientific research on wide range of areas associated to psychological process and social behavior typically in university psychology departments. Few of them teach such knowledge in academic background. Few of them are employed in industrial and managerial settings and also in further areas such as human growth and aging, forensics, games, health, law and media.

Psychology and Psychologist

Psychology is the science of mind and behavior. Its instant objective is to understand humanity by mutually determining general principles and discovering exact cases and its crucial aim is to help the society.

In Psychology field a professional practitioner or researcher is called a Psychologist. It is categorized as social or behavioral scientist. The Psychologists try to realize the role of mental or psychological function in human being and common activities while also discovering the physiological and neurological procedures that inspire certain functions and behaviors.

The Psychologists explore the concepts as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior and interpersonal relationships. Some psychologists also consider insensible brain. The Psychologists use experimental techniques to gather fundamental and correlational associations among psychosocial variables. Psychology integrates research from the social sciences, natural sciences and humanities.

The psychological awareness is normally used for evaluation and handling of mental health problems. It is useful to recognize and resolve the problems in various different spheres of human action.

History of Psychology

The history of psychology consists of a prescientific and a scientific epoch. The field of psychology as a scientific endeavor is a relatively new discipline, and borders on various other fields, ranging from physiology and the neurosciences to sociology and anthropology.

Overview:

The end of the 19th century marks the start of psychology as a scientific enterprise. The year 1879 is commonly seen as the start of psychology as an independent field of study, because in that year Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research.

The 20th century saw a rejection of Freud's theories as being too unscientific, and a reaction against Edward Titchener's abstract approach to the mind. This led to the formulation of behaviorism by John B. Watson, which was popularized by B.F. Skinner. Behaviorism proposed epistemologically limiting psychological study to overt behavior, since that could be quantified and easily measured.

Prescientific psychology:

The Ebers papyrus (ca 1550 BC) contains a short description of clinical depression. Though full of incantations and foul applications meant to turn away disease-causing demons and other superstition, it also evidences a long tradition of empirical practice and observation.

Scientific psychology:

In 1879 Wilhelm Wundt founded a laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany, specifically to focus on general and basic questions concerning behaviour and mental states. Then in 1890, William James published the book Principles of Psychology which laid many of the foundations for the sorts of questions that psychologists would focus on for years to come. James was the first professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

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