About Psychology

Psychology & What Makes It A Science

Our actions, thoughts and behaviors say a lot about who we are, but who knows why we act, say and think the way that we do? In an effort to help us better understand ourselves and others, psychologists have been attempting to provide and providing us the answer to these very questions for thousands of years. Their theories have been tried and tested and a great number of them proven.

Psychology is a very complex scientific field. There are a substantial number of people with the misconception that psychology only focuses on the mind. However, it is the study of behavior and development , and complex meaning it is comprised of a wide variety of subdisciplines that function upon each other enabling us to better understand individuals as a whole.

We take advantage and experience the benefits of these areas of study everyday whether it is through work, school or sports. In the work setting psychological principles are used to develop managers, motivate workers, evaluate job satisfaction and performance and promote productivity. We have psychologists in our school systems as well as colleges and universities as educators, instructors, teachers and counselors providing expertise and insight to students and sometimes their family members and in the sports arena an athlete's participation and performance can be enhanced when certain factors of psychology are utilized.

The History of Psychology

Psychology hadn’t been classified as a science initially. It was the fact that the behavior of humans had to actually be studied that gave Psychology the classification of being a science. A physiologist from Germany by the name of Wilhelm Wundt is known for launching the idea that Psychology is clas...

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...ch may be. A hypothesis is usually formed before research or a experiment is conducted. When a hypothesis is formed, it is usually done by using background knowledge that you may have about the experiment, subject of the experiment, research, or subject of the research. Hypotheses generally only pertain to the specific experiment or research that is being evaluated or conducted.

Theory

A theory is a proven hypothesis. It is essentially a developed, tested, analyzed, and established hypothesis. Although a theory is an proven and established hypothesis, a theory is usually made by repeating an experiment or research numerous times and the documenting observations and conclusions but resulting in the same outcome each time. Once a theory has been tested numerous times, proven, and accepted, it becomes a general statement, a statement that simply says what will happen.