“Psychology” You may have heard about this term. Have you ever thought, why psychology and what is psychology? May be yes, or not. This will be a good answer for your questions.
Psychology essentially means “study of the human mind and human behavior”. This is the simple definition which we can provide to understand what psychology is? It is really interesting subject to study, because we investigate human being, especially their brain, its functions and human behavior. Psychology is the field which has quick goals of understanding individuals and groups of people by using such a large number of theories.
The word “Psychology” is derived from Greek and term comes from two Greek words; psyche, which means the soul and logos which means to the study of a subject. These two words put together to define psyche and logos as study of the soul. Greeks believed that if someone wants to understand human being he or she must realize the soul. In English, the term “Psychology” is built up according to this concept. Certainly, Psychology studies about something and somebody. In here, “something” refers human brain or mind and “somebody” refers human being. The most important thing is it is hard to understand human. The reason is, when we compare human and other animals, human being has pretended to a complex life pattern. There is no other species that have tended to be social like human. Therefore it is somewhat hard to realize and provide knowledge about human being. Psychology was born on this purpose.
Psychology’s parents were the disciplines of Philosophy and Physiology. Many philosophers have pointed out about soul and mind such as Plato, Aristotle, and Rene Decarts etc, but this status have changed in the late 19th century because Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) the psychologist who changed every views. He applied scientific method to psychology. Since that time to today psychology is considered as a science subject.
We explore human brain and nervous system under physiology. In present psychology has grown up to subsections such as neurobiology, biopsychology etc. so we can say psychology is a combination of these philosophy and physiology.
In present psychology is defined as a scientific subject who is studied about human behavior and mental processes. How ever, it is difficult to provide a unique definition according to the book of “Psychology the science of mental life” written by G.A. MILLER. Actually, there are some issues about the way of defining psychology. The reason is inability to build a definition about complex human being, but psychologists have come up with one definition called, “a science study of human behavior and mental process”. The question is can we really study someone’s behavior and mental process? People do various things and activities in different times. For examples, behaviors such as sleeping, talking, eating walking etc. As well as people have an abilities such as thinking, remembering, solving problems and reasoning etc. they are fall in to mental process. This is the issue that comes with defining psychology. Even behaviors can be seen, mental processes are invisible.
After collecting knowledge about human beings, psychologists distribute those things via different fields. Some of them are working as experimenters and teachers. Among them, other psychologists provide solutions for the any problematic situation that relate with person’s any occasion and working environment. For examples: organizational psychologists, social psychologists, sports psychologists, counseling psychologists and educational psychologists. On the other hand, most of them treat and cure people by using their knowledge.
Psychologists are trying to fulfill several aims by using knowledge that collecting information of human being.
These are also purposes of psychology.
1. Description
2. Understanding
3. Prediction
4. Control
· Description essentially means categorizing various behaviors and mental activities.
· Understanding: in here we try to recognize reasons for each behavior.
· Prediction: predicts someone’s future behaviors by looking at his or her present and part behaviors.
· Control: tries to change their behaviors and thoughts.
Psychologists want to be succeeding by completing these purposes, because they think that their efforts would be for the betterment of human being.
How Psychology Developed?
As we know psychology was born in Greece and it had linked with philosophy. How ever when we explore about history of psychology, we divide it to several stages.
1. Primary stage- the pre-stage to build human civilization.
2. Pre-classical stage- the stage of developing civilization.
3. Classical stage- Greek and roman civilizations fall in to this period. Pythagoras, Anexi Gores, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates were the philosophers who had lived in this stage. They believed soul and mind.
4. Middle age- the time which people tended to Christianity and believed god.
5. Pre-modern stage- psychology developed fest theoretically and practically. Empiricism was born on this period. Francis Bacon and Rene Decharts were the pioneers of empiricism. In this stage psychology developed as a science because of Wilhelm Wundt’s experiments in Leipzig university in 1879.
6. Modern stage- new psychology is built by Wilhelm Wundt. Psychologists began to do researches and experiments. In this period,
· Psychology became to an independent subject separating from philosophy.
· Experiments are started like natural sciences.
· Treatments are begun with psychological theories.
· Started psychology schools. (Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, Gestalt psychology Psychoanalytic theory and humanism.)
- Structuralism and Functionalism
In psychology, the first two major schools of thoughts are structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism was based on the notion that the task of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how these elements are located. It wanted to identify the fundamental components of conscious experience, such as sensation, feelings and images.
Functionalism was based on the belief that psychology should explore the function or purpose of consciousness rather than its structure. The pioneer of functionalism was William James.
- Behaviorism
Found by John B. Watson. Behaviorism is a theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only behavior. Watson never trusted mind or unconsciousness. Behaviors refer to any observable response or activity by an organism. Behaviorists pointed out about learning theories and reinforcements. They showed that children learn behaviors on conditions. Therefore behaviorists built two theories which are called classical conditioning and operant conditioning. These are the two ways that children learn behaviors. Classical conditioning is one type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke the response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. Operant condition is another form of learning in which voluntary response come to be controlled by their consequences.
- Gestalt psychology
Wolfgang Kohler, Max Wertheimer and Kurt Kafka were the pioneers of school of Gestalt psychology. This approach is based upon the idea that individuals experience things as unified wholes. This approach to psychology began in Germany and Austria during the late 19th century in response to the molecular approach of structuralism. Rather than breaking down thoughts and behavior to their smallest element, the Gestalt position maintains that the whole of experience is important, and the whole is different than the sum of its parts.
- Psychoanalytic Theory
Found by Sigmund Freud. It was based on unconsciousness. Freud used introspection as a treatment to cure psychological disorders. His dream analysis theory takes place among his other concepts as well as personality theory. Karl Jung and Karen Horney were the other partners of Freud. Freud believed that everything of a person depended on unconsciousness. According to Freud, the unconscious includes thoughts, memories and desires. In his theory, he viewed that there are three components in human’s personality. They are id, ego and super ego. Id is the primary instinctive component of personality that operates according to the pleasure principles. It engages in primary process thinking which is illogical, irrational and fantasy oriented. Super ego is the moral component of personality that incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong. Certainly, there is a big conflict between id and super ego. Thus ego interferes to manage this problem. Ego is the decision maker of personality that operates according to the reality principles.
- Humanism
Humanism is a theoretical orientation that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans. It takes an optimistic view about human nature. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow were the pioneers of humanism.
This is the brief description of history of psychology. In present, psychology faces to many changes in every minute.
ERANDATHI RAJAPAKSHA
BA(HON)PSYCHOLOGY(UG),
2ND YEAR ,
UNIVERSITY OF PERADENIYA,
SRI LANKA.
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