What is Psychology? 5 keys to discover this science

Psychology is a discipline that is talked about a lot. but it is not easy to understand in its entirety.

Some people believe that it is part of the field of health, others assume that its main contribution is the "talking cure" or that psychologists know how to read the thoughts of others by analyzing what they say and how they move, and there are many who follow confusing it with philosophy.

All this is indicative of a fact: although psychology is a young science, the large number of currents and professional opportunities that start from it causes confusion to have been generated about its raison d'être.

Understanding Psychology

What is psychology, exactly? The answer to this is simple and complicated at the same time, so, to understand it in a simple and organized way, we will see it from 5 keys. Let's start with the basics.

1. A Simple Definition of “Psychology”

We can start with a simple explanation of what psychology is. This definition would be as followsPsychology is the scientific discipline that studies and analyzes the behavior and mental processes of people.

This is a rather superficial explanation of what is meant by psychology, but at least it helps as a starting point and, in addition, allows us to put aside one of the most frequent myths about this discipline. This myth is the one that understands psychology as one of the sections of health sciences.

Certainly, the first psychologists were strongly linked to medicine and neurology, but from the beginning there was a desire to understand the human mind in its most universal aspects, not only in disease. Even Sigmund Freud, whose theories have become outdated, not only sought to understand psychopathology, but also the "psychic structures" and the mechanisms through which they functioned in any human being.

Thus, this science deals with studying mental processes in general, not only the psychological disorders, although clinical psychology and health These are its two best-known and most popular areas of intervention. This means that the idea that many people have of it focuses only on one of its facets and leaves out many of its components, such as social psychology, the psychology of organizations, etc

2. The study of behavior

As we have seen, the basic definition of psychology is surprisingly broad. However, this creates some problems. For example, there is no absolute consensus about what is the object of study of this discipline, that is, what is intended to be understood.

We have seen that, theoretically, psychologists study mental processes and behavior, but this simple distinction is already controversial.

For some, clarifying that mental processes and behavior are two separate things is necessary in order not to neglect the objective of understanding the feelings, beliefs and, in general, everything that happens, so to speak, "from behind doors", inside our head.

For others, especially the heirs of the behaviorist current, distinguishing between mental processes and behavior is unwarrantedeither. Does what happens inside our head happen in parallel to what the rest of our body does? If we don't want to fall into the dualism, we should start from the idea that our mental life is not born spontaneously somewhere in our “psyche”, as if it were some substance disconnected from the cells that compose us. According to this perspective, everything that we usually attribute to the mental is also a form of behavior: a type of response that appears before certain stimulus, produced in turn by a chain of causes and effects that is always connected to our environment and, therefore, to what non-mental.

3. Studying humans and nonhumans

The definition mentions the relationship between psychology and the study of aspects of the human being, but this is not entirely the case. In practice, psychologists investigate and intervene focusing on our species, but many of them also work with ethologists, neuroscientists, and biologists in general. studying all kinds of animals. After all, many of them also have a nervous system, a mental life, and the propensity to learn new behaviors.

In addition, it is also possible to study animals with an eye on our species to better understand who we are and where we come from. The comparative psychology it deals in good part with this; For example, seeing the way in which certain groups of primates react in front of a mirror helps us to know more about the nature of consciousness and selfconcept.

4. Does psychology focus on individuals?

Earlier we have seen that psychology studies “people”. If this way of expressing yourself seems ambiguous, it is simply because it is; there are countless aspects on which this discipline can intervene, and some of them have to do with the social, while others do not.

Currently it is widely accepted that our way of thinking, feeling and acting It has a lot to do with social interactions. in which we have participated. We do not exist as individuals living on the fringes of society; we are part of it, whether we like it or not, from the moment our mind is shaped by something created together: language.

However, when we focus on one of the facets of what makes us human, some psychologists choose to focus their attention on the person understood as an individual, while others study the person as an entity that participates in a network of social interaction. For example, it is possible to study the intelligence or memory of individuals with certain characteristics, and it is also perfectly legitimate to analyze how the fact of participating in group work makes us reason and build proposals collectively.

5. Do psychologists do science?

Another of the hot spots when it comes to understanding what psychology is is whether or not it belongs to the world of science. It is true that this discipline has a facet that is not part of science in the strict sense of the word, but more in in any case to applied sciences, since it uses scientifically generated knowledge to apply it and achieve certain effects. However, the controversy does not come from that side, but by the degree to which it is possible to predict the behavior, especially the human.

The power to predict what is going to happen and the way in which to react when the predictions fail is something that is paid a lot of attention to determine what is science and what is not. After all, seeing how forecasts about an element of nature are confirmed is a sign that it has well understood how it works and that, at least until a better theory comes along, it is reasonable to trust the one that there is already. It is on this aspect that the discussion about the scientificity of psychology focuses.

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predict behavior

Compared to chemistry or physics, psychology has much more trouble making concrete and accurate forecasts, but this is not It can be otherwise: the human nervous system, which is the main component of behavior and mental processes in our species, It is one of the most complex systems in nature.And it is constantly changing. This has two effects.

The first effect is that the number of variables that influence what we think, what we feel and what we do is overwhelming, practically infinite. The simple fact of having found an intimidating dog at the door of the psychology laboratory will influence what will happen next. That is why psychology can choose to know statistical patterns and some of the most relevant variables when it comes to understanding phenomena. psychological, but it does not aspire to know practically everything that comes into play, something that chemists who study molecules can aspire to.

The second effect is that behavior and mental They are the result of a historical process.. This means that we are always different, we never return to being identical to our “I” from the day before. What implications does this have for deciding whether psychology is a science? Very simple: what a prediction is made about is never the same as what has been studied before and whose information has allowed the prediction to be established. The person or group of people we are trying to predict things about has already changed since we last looked at it.

so all depends on the definition of science we use and its degree of breadth. If we believe that scientists must predict with a very high degree of accuracy, psychology is left out, which does not mean that it is not useful, as it happens with the profession of historians. But if we consider that science is what allows predictions to be established to a degree in which they are useful and prone to be called into question if it happens that they are not fulfilled (something that does not happen in pseudosciences), then stays inside

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