Branches of Psychology and Key Concepts

Posted on Nov 28, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

Forensic Psychology

Handles necessary expertise in trials, prepares prisoners for reintegration into society, advises and assists families of inmates, and diagnoses and controls the admission and discharge of internees.

Evolutionary Psychology

Provides research data for application in various fields, studying the features of each developmental stage, especially in children and adolescents.

Social Psychology

Studies interactions between individuals and groups according to different psychological and social variables.

Personality Psychology

Focuses on the history and current situation of every human being, studying individuals as unique biological, psychological, and social entities.

Comparative Psychology

Conducts studies and research with various animal species, making comparisons to understand human behavior.

Parapsychology

Studies and establishes the scientific validity of extrasensory perception phenomena such as telepathy, telekinesis, and clairvoyance.

Differential Psychology

Objectively establishes the differences that characterize people in connection with certain psychological elements such as intelligence, attitudes, etc.

Clinical Psychology

Helps patients understand themselves, confront their problems, and adopt more suitable behaviors. This method, based on behavioral observation, begins with consultations and includes interviews to collect data, understand the problem, and make a diagnosis.

Educational Psychology

Addresses issues such as the functioning of relationships between different school members, tutoring, and student adaptation problems, including vocational orientation.

Psychic Phenomena

Encompasses all that manifests, appears, or happens in the individual’s psychic life, e.g., memories, desires, perception, love, memory, language, and tutoring.

Evolution of Psychology’s Definition

Initially focused on studying consciousness, then human behavior, and later the unconscious. Subsequently, it shifted to mental phenomena. Currently, psychology is considered a science that deals with humans as a function of personality within a social and cultural context.

Scientific Psychology

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt created the first experimental psychology laboratory, marking the birth of scientific psychology. His aim was to study the structure of human consciousness using self-observation. According to his theory, consciousness is formed by elements linked by associative links. To study psychic life, he decomposed it into its simplest elements and then reassembled them.

Psychology’s Greek Definition

Aristotle emphasized the unity between body and soul. Psychology studies the human soul. At the end of the 19th century, psychology separated from philosophy and became an autonomous discipline. It’s considered that psychology was born as an independent discipline in 1879 with Wundt’s founding of the first experimental psychology laboratory.

Current Definition of Psychology

Psychology is the science that studies human actions. Its goal is to study behaviors, particularly tutoring, attention, language, motivation, reasoning, thinking, effective life, personality, interpersonal relationships, frustrations and disorders, groups, and the influence of society and culture on human development.

Psychology originated in ancient Greek and Latin philosophical concerns about the human soul’s nature. It became an autonomous discipline in the late 19th century. Psychology distinguishes different objects of study based on research programs and methods represented by different schools. Behaviorist psychology focuses on behavior. Psychoanalytic psychology focuses on the unconscious. Cognitive psychology focuses on mental processes.