• Question: What exactly id psychology? what does it include? Is it part of science???

    Asked by #nerdyweirdo to Rebecca on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Psychology is definitely part of science! It is the study of mind and behaviour – so how does the brain process information going in to come to a conclusion about the world around us, and then how does the brain tell us to respond to the real world again using that information. Psychologists deal with all aspects of how we think and act – such as how we interact with other people, how we behave and how we do tasks and calculations. There have been psychologists trying to figure out the human mind since ancient times, but we have a lot more equipment now which makes things more interesting. It allows us to ask more and more complex questions about the mind but it also gives us a hope of answering some of them!

Comments

  • Photo: #nerdyweirdo

    #nerdyweirdo commented on :

    Thank you, I’ve always wanted to study psychology but I wasn’t 100% sure what it involved.

  • Photo: Mrs Marshall

    Mrs Marshall commented on :

    Good question Elly 🙂

  • Photo: Susan

    Susan commented on :

    I think it’s worth adding that psychology spans a wide range of different techniques. Some psychologists do work that is very closely allied to neuroscience: they try to map behaviour or states of mind on to specific structures in the brain. Others work at a different level, more focused on how people behave in response to situations or other people than on how this relates to what’s happening in the brain. Some work only on humans, some only on animals, and some try to make comparisons between the two. Others are clinical psychologists who try to help people with mental health issues. A university course on psychology should explore all these areas: for example, the course here in Sheffield has second year modules on “Social, Health and Environmental Psychology”, “Developmental Psychology” (how children’s minds develop), “Neuroscience” (the brain), and “Cognitive Psychology” (experiments on how we think, e.g. memory, optical illusions, language processing).