Psychology

Psychology (Greek: Ψυχολογία, lit. "study of the mind", from ψυχή psykhē "breath, spirit, soul"; and -λογία, -logia "study of"[1]) is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally it also relies on symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, although these traditions are less pronounced than in other social sciences such as sociology. Psychologists study such phenomena as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also study the unconscious mind.

Psychological knowledge is applied to various spheres of human activity, including issues related to everyday life—such as family, education and employment—and to the treatment of mental health problems. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the underlying physiological and neurological processes. Psychology includes many sub-fields of study and applications concerned with such areas as human development, sports, health, industry, media and law. Psychology incorporates research from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.

History

Main article: History of psychology
Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.

Philosophical and scientific roots

The study of psychology in philosophical context dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China and India. Psychology began adopting a more clinical[2] and experimental[3] approach under medieval Muslim psychologists and physicians, who built psychiatric hospitals for such purposes.[4]

In 1802, French physiologist Pierre Cabanis helped to pioneer biological psychology with his essay Rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme (On the relations between the physical and moral aspects of man). Cabanis interpreted the mind in light of his previous studies of biology, arguing that sensibility and soul are properties of the nervous system.

Though the use of psychological experimentation dates back to Alhazen's Book of Optics in 1021,[3][5] psychology as an independent experimental field of study began in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research at Leipzig University in Germany, for which Wundt is known as the "father of psychology".[6] The year 1879 is thus sometimes regarded as the "birthdate" of psychology. The American philosopher William James published his seminal book, Principles of Psychology[7] in 1890, laying the foundations for many of the questions that psychologists would focus on for years to come. Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), a pioneer in the experimental study of memory at the University of Berlin; and the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) who investigated the learning process now referred to as classical conditioning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Criticism

Status as a science

Criticisms of psychology often come from perceptions that it is a "fuzzy" science. Philosopher Thomas Kuhn's 1962 critique implied psychology overall was in a pre-paradigm state, lacking the agreement on overarching theory found in mature sciences such as chemistry and physics. Psychologists and philosophers have addressed the issue in various ways.[47]

Because some areas of psychology rely on research methods such as surveys and questionnaires, critics have asserted that psychology is not scientific. Other phenomena that psychologists are interested in such as personality, thinking, and emotion cannot be directly measured and are often inferred from subjective self-reports, which may be problematic.

The validity of probability testing as a research tool has been called into question. There is concern that this statistical method may promote trivial findings as meaningful, especially when large samples are used.[48] Some psychologists have responded with an increased use of effect size statistics, rather than sole reliance on the traditional p<.05 decision rule in statistical hypothesis testing.

Sometimes the debate comes from within psychology, for example between laboratory-oriented researchers and practitioners such as clinicians. In recent years, and particularly in the U.S., there has been increasing debate about the nature of therapeutic effectiveness and about the relevance of empirically examining psychotherapeutic strategies.[49] One argument states that some therapies are based on discredited theories and are unsupported by empirical evidence. The other side points to recent research suggesting that all mainstream therapies are of about equal effectiveness, while also arguing that controlled studies often do not take into consideration real-world conditions.[50]

Fringe clinical practices

There is also concern about a perceived gap between scientific theory and its application, in particular with the application of unproven or unsound clinical practices. Researchers such as Beyerstein (2001) say there has been a large increase in the number of mental health training programs that do not emphasize science training.[51] According to Lilienfeld (2002) "a wide variety of unvalidated and sometimes harmful psychotherapeutic methods, including facilitated communication for infantile autism... suggestive techniques for memory recovery (e.g., hypnotic age-regression, guided imagery, body work), energy therapies (e.g., Thought Field Therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique)... and New Age therapies of seemingly endless stripes (e.g., rebirthing, reparenting, past-life regression, Primal...therapy, neurolinguistic programming, alien abduction therapy, angel therapy) have either emerged or maintained their popularity in recent decades."[52] Allen Neuringer made a similar point in the field of the experimental analysis of behavior in 1984.[53]

See also

References

  1. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=psychology
  2. Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, 2002 (2), p. 2-9.
  3. a b Omar Khaleefa (Summer 1999). "Who Is the Founder of Psychophysics and Experimental Psychology?", American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 16 (2).
  4. Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, 2002 (2), p. 2-9 [7-8]. Early practices of ancient psychology included procedures such as lobotomy which involved removal of specific tissues of the brain believed to cause certain mental problems. Lobotomies were used (though uncommonly) in the medical practices of Egypt, China and Persia along with many other ancient civilizations.
  5. Bradley Steffens (2006). Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, Chapter 5. Morgan Reynolds Publishing. ISBN 1599350246.
  6. Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt
  7. The Principles of Psychology (1890), with introduction by George A. Miller, Harvard University Press, 1983 paperback, ISBN 0-674-70625-0 (combined edition, 1328 pages)
  8. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, London: Routledge and Keagan Paul, 1963, pp. 33-39; from Theodore Schick, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 9-13. [1]
  9. June 2008 study by the American Psychoanalytic Association, as reported in the New York Times, "Freud Is Widely Taught at Universities, Except in the Psychology Department" by Patricia Cohen, November 25, 2007. "[Chair of the psychology department at Northwestern University Dr. Alice] Eagly said...that while most disciplines in psychology began putting greater emphasis on testing the validity of their approaches scientifically, 'psychoanalysts haven’t developed the same evidence-based grounding.' As a result, most psychology departments don’t pay as much attention to psychoanalysis."
  10. Such Neuro-psychoanalytic researchers include the following: Oliver Sacks - Sacks, O. (1984), A leg to stand on, New York: Summit Books/Simon and Schuster. Mark Solms - Kaplan-Solms, K., & Solms, M. (2000). Clinical studies in neuro-psychoanalysis: Introduction to a depth neuropsychology. London: Karnac Books.; Solms, M., & Turnbull, O. (2002), The brain and the inner world: An introduction to the neuroscience of subjective experience. New York: Other Press. Jaak Panksepp (1998), Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Douglas Watt. António Damásio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, 1994; The Somatic marker hypothesis and the possible functions of the prefrontal cortex, 1996; The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, 1999; Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, 2003. Eric Kandel. Joseph E. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, 1996, Simon & Schuster, 1998 Touchstone edition ISBN 0-684-83659-9.
  11. Skinner, B.F. (1974). About Behaviorism. New York: Random House
  12. a b Schlinger, H.D. (2008). The long good-bye: why B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior is alive and well on the 50th anniversary of its publication. 
  13. George A. Miller The cognitive revolution: a historical perspective, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol.7, No.3, March 2003
  14. Rowan, John. (2001). Ordinary Ecstasy: The Dialectics of Humanistic Psychology. London, UK: Brunner-Routledge. ISBN 0415236339
  15. Bugental, J. (1964). The Third Force in Psychology. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 4(1), 19-25.
  16. Hergenhahn BR (2005). An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, CA, USA: Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 523–532. 
  17. Hergenhahn BR (2005). An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, CA, USA: Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 529. 
  18. Frankl VE (1984). Man's search for meaning (rev. ed.). New York, NY, USA: Washington Square Press. pp. 86. 
  19. Hergenhahn BR (2005). An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, CA, USA: Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 528–536. 
  20. Hergenhahn BR (2005). An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, CA, USA: Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 546–547. 
  21. Chomsky, N. A. (1959), A Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior
  22. Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
  23. Aidman, Eugene, Galanis, George, Manton, Jeremy, Vozzo, Armando and Bonner, Michael(2002)'Evaluating human systems in military training',Australian Journal of Psychology,54:3,168-173
  24. Wozniak, R. H. (1999). Introduction to memory: Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885/1913). Classics in the history of psychology
  25. Richard Frankel, Timothy Quill, Susan McDaniel (2003). The Biopsychosocial Approach: Past, Present, Future. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 1580461026, 9781580461023. 
  26. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR Fourth Edition (Text Revision) by the American Psychiatric Association.
  27. Brain, Christine. (2002). Advanced psychology: applications, issues and perspectives. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. ISBN 0174900589>
  28. Leichsenring, Falk & Leibing, Eric. (2003). The effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavior therapy in the treatment of personality disorders: A meta-analysis. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(7), 1223-1233.
  29. Reisner, Andrew. (2005). The common factors, empirically validated treatments, and recovery models of therapeutic change. The Psychological Record, 55(3), 377-400.
  30. a b Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. pp. 3-19. 
  31. Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. p. 3. 
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  33. Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. p. 8. 
  34. Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. pp. 5-8. 
  35. a b Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. p. 16. 
  36. Aunger, R (2002). The electric meme: A new theory of how we think. New York, NY, USA: Simon & Schuster. pp. 3. ISBN 0743201507. 
  37. Myers (2004). Motivation and work. Psychology. New York, NY: Worth Publishers
  38. Carver, C., & Scheier, M. (2004). Perspectives on Personality (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
  39. "National Association of School Psychologists". http://nasponline.org/about_sp/whatis.aspx. Retrieved on June 1. 
  40. Urie Bronfenbrenner.‎ (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-22457-4
  41. Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. pp. 14-16. 
  42. Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. p. 10. 
  43. Fox DR, Prilleltensky I, Austin S (Eds.) (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications. p. 13. 
  44. "Paths to Happiness Survey - happiness study". http://www.happypsych.com. Retrieved on June 1.  Accessed 2007-11-02.
  45. Ron Sun, (2008). The Cambridge Handbook of Computational Psychology. Cambridge University Press, New York. 2008.
  46. "Ncabr.Org : About Biomedical Research : Faq". http://www.ncabr.org/biomed/FAQ_animal/faq_animal_8.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-01. 
  47. Gregg Henriques of James Madison University, for example, published his Tree of Knowledge System in 2003 as a proposal for the theoretical unification of psychology. Henriques, G.R. (2003). The Tree of Knowledge System and the Theoretical Unification of Psychology. Review of General Psychology, 2, 150-182.
  48. Cohen, J. (1994). The Earth is round, p < .05. American Psychologist, 49.
  49. Elliot, Robert. (1998). Editor's Introduction: A Guide to the Empirically Supported Treatments Controversy. Psychotherapy Research, 8(2), 115.
  50. (e.g. the high co-morbidity rate or the experience of clinicians)[citation needed]
  51. Beyerstein, B. L. (2001). Fringe psychotherapies: The public at risk. The Scientific Re-view of Alternative Medicine, 5, 70–79
  52. "SRMHP: Our Raison d’Être". http://www.srmhp.org/0101/raison-detre.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-01. 
  53. Neuringer, A.:"Melioration and Self-Experimentation" Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1348111