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What Is Psychology
Psychology is both an applied and academic field that studies the human mind and behavior. Research in psychology seeks to understand and explain how we think, act and feel.Applications for psychology include mental health treatment, performance enhancement, self-help, ergonomics and many other areas affecting health and daily life.
Throughout psychology's history, a numberof different schools of thought have thought have formed to explain human thought and behavior. These schools of thought often rise to dominance for a period of time. While these schools of thoughtare sometimes perceived as competing forces, each perspective has contributed to our understanding of psychology. The following are some of the major schools of thought in psychology.
• Structuralism• Functionalism
• Psychoanalysis
• Behaviorism
• Humanism
• Cognitivism
Today, psychologists prefer to use more objective scientific methods to understand, explain and predict human behavior.Psychological studies are highly structured, beginning with a hypothesis that is then empirically tested. The discipline has two major areas of focus: academic psychology and applied psychology. Academicpsychology focuses on the study of different sub-topics within psychology including personality, social behavior and human development. These psychologists conduct basic research that seeks to expandour theoretical knowledge, while other researchers conduct applied research that seeks to solve everyday problems.
Applied psychology focuses on the use of different psychological principles to solvereal world problems. Examples of applied areas of psychology include forensic psychology, ergonomics and industrial-organizational psychology. Many other psychologists work as therapists, helpingpeople overcome mental, behavioral and emotional disorders.
As psychology moved away from its philosophical roots, psychologists began to employ more and more scientific methods to study human...