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Psychology is a science that studies the psychological activities and behavioral manifestations of humans and animals. The word psychology comes from Greek and means the science of the soul.
Soul also means gas or breath in Greek, because ancient people believed that life depended on breathing, and when breathing stopped, life was over. With the development of science, the object of psychology has changed from the soul to the mind. It was not until the early 19th century that German philosopher and educator Herbart first proposed that psychology was a science.
When people interact with things around them in life practice, they must have subjective activities and behavioral manifestations of one kind or another. This is human psychological activity, or psychology for short. Specifically, external things or changes in the body act on the human body or senses. After information processing by the nervous system and brain, feelings and perceptions, memories and representations of things are produced, and then analysis and thinking are carried out. In addition, when people deal with objective things, they will always have a certain attitude towards them and form various emotions. People also need to process and change things around them through actions, which is manifested as volitional activity.
The feeling, perception, thinking, emotion, will, etc. mentioned above are all human psychological activities. Psychological activities are subjective activities caused by objective things and generated in people's minds in their life practice. Any psychological activity is a dynamic process that is constantly changing and can be called a psychological process.
In understanding and transforming the objective world, each person has characteristics that are different from others, and each person's psychological process shows large or small differences. This difference is related not only to each person's innate qualities, but also to their life experience and learning. This is the so-called personality or personality.
Psychological processes and personality are both important objects of psychological research. Psychology also studies people's individual and social, normal and abnormal behaviors. Animal psychology studies the behavior of animals, not only to understand the psychological activities of animals themselves, but also to help understand human psychological activities. In a highly developed human society, human psychology has been fully developed, allowing him to climb to the top of the ladder of animal evolution. Psychology is a basic science for humans to study themselves in order to understand themselves.
A brief history of the development of psychology
Psychology as a science has only a short history, but it has a long past. Psychology can be traced back to ancient philosophical thought. Philosophy and religion have long discussed the relationship between body and mind and how human cognition arises. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, as well as ancient Chinese thinkers such as Xunzi and Wang Chong, have many discussions about the mind.
In the West, from the Renaissance to the mid-19th century, human psychological characteristics have been the object of study by philosophers, and psychology is a part of philosophy. During this period, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke and others in the UK, as well as the French Encyclopedia thinkers at the end of the 18th century, all tried to correct the psychological thinking that had been distorted by theology in the Middle Ages and provide scientific explanations.
Bacon’s inductive scientific methodology played a great role in the development of the entire modern natural sciences. Hobbes proposed that human understanding comes from the external world, and Locke was the first to propose the concept of association, which all promoted psychology. The development of learning. In his book "Man is a Machine", Lametrie of the French Encyclopedia School simply described man as a machine. Although these ideas inevitably have the viewpoint of mechanical materialism, they all have progressive significance.
In the mid-19th century, due to the further development of productivity, natural science made great progress, and the prestige of science gradually took root in people's minds. At this time, physiology, as the twin science of psychology, was also approaching maturity, and psychology began to break away from general discussions of philosophy and turn to the study of specific issues. This historical background laid the foundation for psychology to become an independent science.
Modern psychology was established in 1879.
In this year, the German psychologist Wundt established the world's first psychology laboratory in Leipzig. Psychology has since announced that it has separated from philosophy and become an independent science. Wundt was a philosopher and physiologist. His psychology laboratory mainly studied the psychological processes of perception. He mainly used physiological experimental techniques, so he called his research "physiological psychology", also known as "Experimental Psychology".
Modern psychology has gone through a history of more than one hundred years. During this period, there were several major iterations in the discussion about the objects of psychological research. Initially, Wundt believed that psychology is the science of studying people's direct experience or consciousness. Complex psychological activities are composed of simple units. The task of psychology is to decompose psychological activities into some psychological elements. For example, the perception of a book is the sum of sensory components such as a rectangular shape, a certain size, and a green book cover.
This view was undoubtedly influenced by the development of chemistry at that time. Chemistry adopted an analytical approach, and chemical elements were constantly discovered. Because of this, later generations call Wundt's psychological system elemental psychology or structural psychology. In his later years, Wundt also carried out research on ethnopsychology, which was the forerunner of modern social psychology. Wundt recruited a large number of advanced students from all over Europe and the United States in Leipzig. After they returned home from their studies, they established departments of psychology and psychology laboratories, which rapidly promoted this emerging science.
The psychology founded by Wundt only flourished for three to forty years before encountering difficulties. The problem arises with the definition "psychology is the science of consciousness." Because to admit this definition, we first need to admit the existence of consciousness. However, not everyone in the field of psychology can agree with this. In 1913, American psychologist Watson first challenged Wundt's psychology.
Watson pointed out that if psychology wants to become a science and be on an equal footing with other disciplines of natural science, it must undergo a complete revolution and abandon consciousness as the research object of psychology. Watson said that consciousness is a subjective thing that no one can see or touch, let alone put it in a test tube for testing. Such an illusory thing can never be the object of scientific research.
He believed that scientific psychology should be based on things that can be objectively observed. The behavior of humans and animals can be objectively observed, so behavior is the object of psychological research. Psychology is the science that studies behavior. It explores what happens to an organism and what behavior it produces under what circumstances. As for the processes taking place inside the mind, since we can only speculate but cannot be certain, we do not need to pay any attention to them. Watson set off a far-reaching behaviorist movement in psychology.
New behaviorism emerged around the 1940s, emphasizing the study of human and animal behavior based on experimental operations. Skinner's most daring attempt was to apply behaviorist principles to transform society. He wrote a novel "Walden II", which describes a utopian ideal society in the form of a diary. Skinner called this kind of social design "behavioral engineering" and pinned the realization of such a society on China. In the 1960s, the United States was involved in the Vietnam War and social crises arose. People began to doubt the American social system and longed for an ideal society, so this book spread like wildfire.
Behaviorism had a great influence in the United States from the 1920s to the 1950s. Behaviorism has long dominated American psychology. Now it seems that the theory of behaviorism is too simplistic and absolute. Just because the activities of the mind cannot be seen, we cannot deny the existence of human thinking and consciousness. Similarly, in physics, atoms, molecules, and electrons cannot be seen with the naked eye, but they can still be studied with instruments or other tools. Human thinking and other psychological activities can also be objectively studied through technical means. Psychology, after all, studies the internal processes of the human psyche. Furthermore, human social activities are extremely complex and cannot be explained by simple behavioral engineering.
At the same time as behaviorism was rising, two major psychological schools emerged in Europe, one was the Gestalt school and the other was the psychoanalytic school.
Gestalt psychology was born in Germany. It opposed the elementalism of Wundt's structural psychology. Its representatives are Wertheimer, Kovka and Koehler. Gestalt is the transliteration of German Gestalt, which means whole and gestalt. This school of thought advocates that psychology studies the internal processes of the human brain. It believes that when people observe external things, what they see is not completely determined by the outside world, but that there is some kind of "field" power in the human mind that stimulates Organized into a certain gestalt, which determines what people see in the outside world. At that time, the "field" theory was popular in physics, and the Gestalt school believed that the human brain was part of the material world, so the laws of physics could also apply to the activities of the human brain.
Gestalt psychology studies the intelligence of apes. Koehler observed how the apes stacked several wooden boxes and climbed to the top to reach bananas hanging from the roof. The apes can also link sticks together to reach food blocked by railings. Gestalt psychologists believe that humans and animals solve problems by sudden "epiphanies."
The Gestalt school opposed the Wundt school's emphasis on analysis, and believed that psychological phenomena are a whole, and the whole determines its inner parts. This emphasis on holistic and comprehensive perspectives is beneficial to the future development of psychology. Scientific research should not only look at problems from an analytical point of view. The interrelationship in the whole is a more important aspect.
The school of psychoanalysis comes from psychiatry. It has had such a huge impact on psychology that it cannot be ignored when discussing psychological objects. Freud, an Austrian doctor, used hypnosis and free association to allow mentally ill patients to recall past events in order to find out the cause of their illness. He found that the patient's early childhood experience, especially the emotional relationship between the child and his parents, was very important. He also found that dreams often reflect a person's inner psychological contradictions, so analyzing patients' dreams is also a therapeutic method.
Freud believed that on the one hand, human inner biological desire is the most basic impulse; on the other hand, human social customs, etiquette and morality restrict the venting of this primitive impulse, which will It is suppressed into the unconscious. The content of consciousness is rational and conscious; the content of unconsciousness is mostly contrary to reason and morality. When the contradiction between reason and unconsciousness intensifies, neurosis results. In order to cure the disease, it is necessary to conduct psychological analysis of the patient's unconsciousness. This is psychoanalysis.
The school of psychoanalysis believes that psychology studies the function of the "unconscious". It is believed that people's fundamental psychological motivations are unconscious impulses. It is this powerful "unconscious" psychological activity that plays a decisive and fundamental role in human life. As for conscious mental processes, only isolated fragments appear on the surface. The new psychoanalysis in recent years has placed less emphasis on the role of biological impulses and more on social relationships between people. The incidence of mental illness is high in Western societies, so psychoanalytic theory is easily accepted.
In terms of the development of psychology, there are differences between Soviet psychology and Western psychology represented by the United States. Sechenov took brain reflection as the basic concept of psychology, and later Bekhterev wrote the book "Reflexology". Next, Pavlov specialized in conditioned reflexes. His theory of conditioned reflexes contributed to the rise of behaviorism in the United States. Pavlov's theory had a huge impact on Soviet psychology and became one of its theoretical foundations. It also directly affected the psychology of our country and some Eastern European countries after the founding of New China.
In China, modern psychology began in the late Qing Dynasty when the education system was reformed and new schools were established. Psychology courses were first offered in normal schools at that time, and most of the textbooks used were translated from Japan and the West. In 1907, Wang Guowei retranslated "Introduction to Psychology" by Danish Hoeffding from the English version. In 1918, "Outline of Psychology" written by Chen Daqi was published, which was the earliest book named after psychology in China. In 1917, Peking University established a psychology laboratory, and in 1920, Nanjing Normal University established China's first psychology department.
At this time, structural psychology, behaviorism psychology, Gestalt psychology, psychoanalysis, etc. were all introduced to China, and China also began to have its own psychological research. After the founding of New China, the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was established in 1951, and psychology majors and teaching and research sections were established in several universities and normal colleges.
The current situation of psychology
Over the past few decades, psychological science has developed rapidly. A noteworthy feature of this development is that the debates between various schools of psychology have It is no longer fierce, but tends to seek common ground while reserving differences. The reasonable ideas of each family are retained, narrowing the differences between them. This weakening of the debate on psychological objects and methods shows that psychology is gradually embarking on the path of maturity.
Another characteristic of contemporary psychology is its interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature. The overlap between psychology and some neighboring disciplines has made some parts of them difficult to distinguish. Psychology has developed into a science with many branches and blurred boundaries.
Psychology is a science with attributes of both natural science and social science.
On the one hand, it combines with biological science to explore the physiological basis of psychological activities. It extends to the field of technical science, is connected with computer science, and promotes the development of cognitive science. Psychology also studies the development of human individuals, providing a developmental perspective on human cognitive abilities and personality socialization.
On the other hand, psychology combines with social sciences to study social, political, economic, and cultural influences, as well as social psychological phenomena in interpersonal communication. Today, psychology has developed more broadly and complexly, which requires it to be theoretically summarized from a philosophical perspective. Theoretical psychology is to explore the ideological system of psychology from a macro perspective.
Since the research scope of psychology is quite broad, psychological activities of different complexity may require different theoretical models and research methods. Therefore, contemporary psychology divides the complex psychological activities of humans and animals into different levels. studied at different levels. Psychological problems are roughly divided into the following levels.
Physiological psychology is a discipline that studies various psychological phenomena from the physiological level. In the early days, Pavlov used conditioned reflex methods to study the learning activities of animals and proposed the advanced neural activity theory of human psychological activities.
Modern physiological psychology uses neurophysiology, biophysics and biochemistry to study processes such as perception, learning, memory, thinking, and emotion, with the purpose of elucidating the physiological mechanisms of various psychological activities. Due to the advancement of biomedical technology, research in this area has made great achievements. The receptive field research of Huber and Vierser and the split-brain research of Sperry are the most famous.
In terms of memory, people believe that since experience can be preserved in the mind for a long time, the physiological structure of the brain must have undergone some kind of material change, or left some traces. It was assumed that ribonucleic acid was the memory material sought. Studies have also found that drugs that promote protein synthesis can speed up the learning process, while drugs that inhibit protein synthesis prevent the development of long-term memory. These brain chemistry studies of memory improve understanding of psychological processes.
Physiological psychology mainly uses animals for experiments, and sometimes it is also combined with medical practice for clinical research. It adopts the general research methods of biological science, mainly experimental methods of performing surgery or using drugs under controlled conditions. Researchers working in this field are not only psychologists, but also neurophysiologists, biophysics and biochemists. Physiological psychology is sometimes listed as a branch of neuroscience.
Cognitive psychology This is a new direction in psychology that emerged in the 1960s. Cognitive psychology originated from its opposition to behaviorism and inherited the views of Gestalt psychology. Cognitive psychology has as its main goal the study of advanced mental activities, especially memory, thinking and problem solving. This is exactly what Gestalt psychology advocates.
Cognitive psychology is a typical example of the influence of sciences other than psychology on psychology.
The rapid development of communication technology during the Second World War, especially the emergence of information theory and cybernetics, enabled psychologists to see that human cognitive processes have certain similarities with communication systems, so they borrowed the concept of communication engineers to describe information channels. Describe the cognitive process of people. Human cognitive process is regarded as the input, encoding, decoding, storage, extraction, output and other information processing processes of information channels.
The main theory of cognitive psychology is information processing theory, so it is also called information processing psychology. In the 1950s and 1960s, Newell and Simon regarded the internal processes of the brain such as concepts, concepts, and representations possessed by humans as physical symbol processes. This is an extremely important physical symbol system hypothesis in contemporary cognitive psychology. This hypothesis builds a bridge between the thinking activities of the human brain and the information operations of the computer. Based on the research on information processing psychology, computer programs can be designed to simulate human psychological processes, especially thinking, problem solving, etc. Advanced psychological activities. The combination of cognitive psychology and computer science gave rise to the new discipline of artificial intelligence.
Developmental Psychology Developmental Psychology is a discipline that studies the psychological characteristics and patterns of people at different stages from birth to old age. Human body and psychology show both quantitative and qualitative changes in the course of time. The quantitative changes in human development are obvious. As children grow older, their height and weight will increase, their vocabulary will continue to expand, and their scope of knowledge will become broader, all of which can be measured.
Developmental psychology is a relatively active branch of contemporary psychology. Due to the adoption of new research methods and instruments, especially the use of audio and video recordings, many new discoveries have been made in this field.
Many psychologists today realize that development occurs throughout a person's life, and that each stage of life is influenced by the previous period and at the same time affects subsequent development.
A new research direction called lifelong developmental psychology is taking shape. It looks at the entire development of human life and studies all psychological and behavioral changes from prenatal to death. As the population in many countries is becoming older and the psychological problems of the elderly are becoming increasingly prominent, research in this area has attracted attention.
Social psychology is a discipline that studies the occurrence and change rules of social psychology and social behavior of individuals and groups in social interactions. Social psychology analyzes interpersonal relationships at two levels, that of the individual and that of the social group.
Social psychology studies the socialization process of human psychological development, including children's interactions, language development, the influence of partners, family, living environment and school on people, and the laws by which these influences work, etc. ; In the interactions between adult individuals, what social psychological laws come into play.
Attribution theory in social psychology explains how people find explanations for certain behaviors in interpersonal interactions. The issue of attribution is one of the central topics in current social psychology research.
For decades, psychology has been developing in a scientific direction. It uses physics, biological science and even technical science as examples to establish its own theoretical system. This inevitably brings about a certain degree of reductionism and mechanical determinism. During this period, the popular humanistic social thoughts in Western culture penetrated into psychology, and humanistic psychology emerged in social psychology.
Maslow and Rogers, representatives of humanistic psychology, oppose mechanical determinism in psychology and believe that traditional psychology that follows the path of natural science is insufficient to solve more complex human psychology. issues, especially those involving values ??and beliefs.
Social psychology and sociology have a very close relationship. They study different aspects of the same social phenomenon. Sociology studies social issues from a relatively macro and general level, while social psychology studies interpersonal communication activities from a more specific and micro level.
Due to the extreme complexity of human social life, although there are many difficulties in the research of social psychology, starting from the social constraints of human psychology, we can definitely summarize the laws of human social psychology.
Theoretical psychology is a discipline that explores the methodology of psychology from a philosophical perspective, including discussing the objects and methods of psychology, the origin and development of consciousness, the relationship between body and mind, and commenting on psychological ideas. system etc.
Applications of Psychology
Psychology is closely related to human life. It plays an increasing role in human life, and its application scope is also constantly expanding. Psychologists can participate in solving education, medical, industrial, commercial, military and various social problems. Listed below are the sub-disciplines formed by psychology in some applied fields:
Educational Psychology Educational Psychology studies the laws of psychological activities in the educational process, reveals the relationship between the educational process and psychological development, and Apply the research results of developmental psychology to educational practice. The main research contents of educational psychology include: the mastery of educated people's knowledge and skills, individual psychological differences, the formation of moral character, the psychological quality of educators, etc.
The subject educational psychology studies the content and teaching methods of Chinese, arithmetic and other courses, which also falls within the scope of educational psychology. Moral education psychology studies the formation process of children's moral motivation and moral judgment, and explores effective ways to cultivate excellent moral character, correct beliefs and ideals. Research on educational psychology is directly related to the major tasks of educational reform and talent cultivation.
Medical psychology is the psychological study of disease and health, exploring the role of psychological factors in maintaining health and causing disease, and studying the behavioral characteristics of medical staff and patients in medical treatment. Medical psychologists play a role in general hospitals, specialist hospitals, and especially psychiatric hospitals, where they use psychological tests to diagnose patients and identify the causes of psychological disorders.
Medical psychology also studies the effects of psychotropic drugs and needs to explore methods of psychotherapy. The patient's recovery process is also a research content of medical psychology. The purpose is to mobilize the patient's psychological factors and make him recover as soon as possible. Medical psychologists also engage in psychological counseling and mental health work, providing guidance and assistance in promoting people's physical and mental health.
Industrial psychology mainly includes engineering psychology and management psychology.
Engineering psychology studies the relationship between humans and machines in modern industry, also known as the human-machine system. This is to adapt equipment to the activity characteristics of the human body in engineering design, so as to maximize work efficiency. The temperature, lighting and working conditions of factories, the instrument displays of aircraft cockpits in the aviation industry, and the rationality of vehicle and ship driving systems are all subjects of engineering psychology research. It also studies the characteristics and laws of workers' psychological activities in industrial labor.
Management psychology studies personnel and organizational issues such as the selection, training, evaluation, and use of employees. It also studies psychological issues such as work motivation, encouragement methods, communication of opinions, organizational structure, and leadership behavior. The purpose of these studies is to mobilize people's enthusiasm, give full play to their potential abilities, form a harmonious working atmosphere and improve work efficiency.
Business Psychology studies human psychological activities and their laws in commercial activities, and uses psychological knowledge and methods to solve behavioral problems related to the commodity circulation process. It includes marketing psychology, consumer psychology and advertising psychology.
Market psychology studies the role of psychological factors in market supply and demand. Consumer psychology studies commodity production, commodity circulation, and the psychological laws of consumers in the service industry, including the analysis of purchasing motivations and the analysis of purchasing behavior. Features etc. Advertising psychology studies the design of trademarks, packaging, and advertisements, and the evaluation of their psychological effects. The study of business psychology is highly valued in countries with market economies and has become an important means of business competition. Work in this area in China has yet to be carried out.
Legal psychology studies people’s psychological activities and their laws in judicial activities. Legal psychology can be divided into criminal psychology, investigation psychology, trial psychology, etc. according to different aspects.
Criminal psychology studies the motivations of crimes and the education and reform of criminals; detective psychology studies the psychological laws that should be followed in the process of solving cases; an important part of trial psychology is the analysis of prisoners The reliability of confessions and witness testimonies; another important branch of legal psychology is forensic psychology, which uses the professional knowledge of clinical psychiatry to conduct psychological appraisals of defendants or other litigants suspected of having mental disorders in order to determine their Provide scientific basis for legal responsibility.
Military psychology studies the psychological issues of people under the conditions of military activities. These issues include the selection and classification of military personnel; the learning process for mastering military technology and weapons; the personality and psychological characteristics required for military activities; psychological tactics, propaganda and counter-propaganda, etc. Military psychology regards the military organization as a small social whole and studies the social processes within it, such as the relationship between commanders and soldiers, the mutual influence of emotions within the group under war conditions, the role of military morale, etc.
According to the characteristics of the arms, military psychology can be divided into aerospace and aviation psychology and navigation psychology. In addition to studying the psychological laws of general military activities, aviation and aerospace psychology also studies the will and moral training of astronauts, psychological changes and adaptability under conditions of weightlessness and overweight, etc.; navigation psychology studies the long-term absence from land. Psychological changes in situations, psychological problems peculiar to maritime combat and ship maneuvering. Military psychology research in various countries around the world is classified as confidential, and can only be published publicly when it loses its military value.
Now, the development of psychology has a history of more than one hundred years. It is not only a basic science with strong theoretical basis, but also has developed into an applied science with a wide range of applications. It has extensive horizontal connections with many practical departments and serves social practice extensively
Other branches of psychology
Comparative psychology, motivational psychology, dynamic psychology, structural psychology Psychology, functional psychology, theoretical psychology, general psychology, cognitive psychology, behaviorism psychology, conative psychology, psychological statistics, developmental psychology, life-span development psychology, child psychology, youth psychology, Adult psychology, geriatric psychology, Gestalt psychology (Gestalt psychology), industrial psychology, management psychology, labor psychology, engineering psychology, personnel psychology, consumer psychology, medical psychology, abnormal psychology , neuropsychology, physiological psychology, counseling psychology, health psychology, physiological and psychological medicine, educational psychology, social psychology, applied social psychology, mathematical psychology, topological psychology, sports psychology, music psychology, Psycholinguistics, religious psychology, legal psychology, environmental psychology, ethnopsychology, group psychology, aesthetic psychology, literary and artistic psychology, experimental psychology, spirituality