These days when we talk about psychology, we talk about behavioral science, but if we look at the origin of the word psychology, it actually means science of the soul, in this article we will explore how the concept of psychology has evolved over the years. centuries to arrive at the current conception of the study of behavior.
The concept and purpose of psychology has changed a lot throughout history, this change has also led to other changes, such as the methodology used and even the relationship between the specialist and the client or patient. The diversity of approaches, directions, currents and interpretations of psychology as science has changed and evolved the definition and purpose of study over time.
- Although the academic discipline and clinic of psychology have become a field very oriented to disorders and pathologies.
- And therefore also very medicalized.
- For many centuries the study of our mental life has been the study of our soul.
- Our being or essence.
Psychology is much more than behavioral science
The term psychology comes from the Greek words psyche, meaning soul, in the classic sense of “life in the body”, and logos, which means science or processed. In other words, etymologically, psychology is the science of the soul.
Psychology as a science of the human soul has existed since humanity began to ask itself meta-questions, that is, questions about itself and its own mental life, in this sense, at first, the history of psychology is given only by looking inward. Psychology, however, began to seek more experimental and established techniques of science, different methodologies of pure introspection, there was a definitive separation between soul and behavior.
Thus, at the end of the nineteenth century, psychology ceased to be regarded as a science of the soul, or philosophy of the mind, to be considered a science of mental life, so psychology, previously concerned with spiritual problems, began to focus. about the study of empirical phenomena of the mind It was at this time when the first study laboratories appeared.
It was at this time that William James (1842-1910) defined psychology as the science of mental life, its phenomena and conditioning; this vision of psychology, interpreted as a science of mental life, focused primarily on the inner experiences of consciousness. that is, all human thoughts, feelings and sensations.
As we have already seen, since the end of the nineteenth century psychology has been considered the science of mental life, psychologists sought information from the conscious experiences of their patients and sought the relationships between them and the responses they gave to the various stimuli presented.
But in the first half of the twentieth century, the concept of psychology underwent a new transformation; since then, psychology has become the science of behavior, the change occurred under the influence of behavioral psychologists of the time, who said that the only observable One characteristic of human mental life was the way external stimuli affected the behaviors emitted. Meanwhile, sensations, thoughts and feelings are not observable and would therefore hardly be recognized as science.
However, in the 1960s, psychology again included unconscious and conscious processes in his studies; it was there that cognitive psychology began to study how the mind processes information; with this new fact, there was a new redefinition of psychology as a science of behavior and also of mental processes. The first models of information processing have emerged.
At this point, it should be noted that conduct can be divided into observable and non-observable components. In family language, the term may refer to any part of the behavior, but there is a difference. Observable behaviors are the actions we take, in the world It’s out of the body. But there is another dimension, intimate and private, our internal motivations and processes that lead to behavior. We often refer to this internal component as elements of consciousness.
To say that current psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes is a correct definition, but it can be even more complete, current psychology goes much further, as it seeks to explain how we feel, how we perceive, how we learn, how we communicate, how we solve problems, among many other processes. On the other hand, the social influence and groups of which we are part have also gained a greater place among the subjects of the study of psychology.
Today, psychology as science aims to explain, measure and understand the nature of personality, motivation, intelligence or various disorders, both emotional and mental, that can affect humans. Psychology is also studied for personal and social problems, as well as for differences between groups and between individuals themselves.
Therefore, today the definition of psychology as science is much broader, since the subject of study has also seen its limits revised, so we can say that current psychology is the science that studies the behavior of individuals and their mental processes, including internal processes. of men and the influences that occur in their physical and social context.