Wednesday 24 April 2013

General Psychology

General Psychology

Psychology is a field of science, which studies different mental aspects related to human mind. It also studies the mental processes of other animals and non living things. This is the area of science which deals with the complex mental and cognitive processes, feelings and perceptions of the people. Psychology was not recognized as a separate field of study from its beginning. It was the work of some renowned scholars like William James, Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Wundt who separated it from the other disciplines like Biology, Medicine and Philosophy which were thought its mother disciplines in the eighteenth century.

General Psychology comes from the Greek word ‘psyche’ which means mind or soul. The name depicts its characteristics clearly that this field of study deals with the mental processes of mind in order to understand the regular and irregular behaviors of the people. Psychology is thought to be a new field of study but it is not. It has its origins from the time of Socrates, Aristotle and Plato. The psychology was present when one generation started thinking that why the next generation was acting differently or when cavemen started thinking that why their kids are different from others or why they themselves think differently from their folks. It means that psychology was present long before than people know.

There is going on a long debate that whether psychology is a pure science. Science is a research study which is always based on empirical facts and figures and when applied in all conditions it brings the same results as Biology, Physics, and Chemistry etc. But psychology is not like that exact science because in psychology different mental processes and human behaviors are studies and as every individual is different from another, that’s why psychology is not thought as a science in terms of Chemistry and Physics do as its results cannot be applied to all situations equally.