When did psychology become a science?

Psychology as a self-conscious field of experimental

study began in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt
founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively
to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany.
Wundt was also the first person to refer to
himself as a psychologist.
Who created the term psychology?
Wilhelm Wundt opens first experimental laboratory in
psychology at the University of Leipzig,
Germany. Credited with establishing psychology
as an academic discipline, Wundt's students
include Emil Kraepelin, James McKeen Cattell,
and G. Stanley Hall.
The importance of psychology
General psychology is an important discipline because it
focuses on understanding, explaining and predicting
human behavior, emotions and mental processes.
According to Psychology Today, the principles of
general psychology have an impact on relationships, in
the workplace and in many other environments.
Why is it important to study psychology?
According to Ronald Riggio, Ph.D., of Claremont
McKenna College, the study of psychology is important
to explain basic human behavior, apply critical decision
and thinking skills, improve interpersonal
communication and provide a background for the
business sector. Psychology graduates hold many
different careers.
Why should we learn psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, in particular
human behavior and mental processes. This should be
immediately relevant on a personal level to us all. Further, the
study of the mind will likely never "end" so such domain
knowledge will always hold value.
importance of psychology in life

The Importance of Psychology in Our Everyday Life. The

term psychology came from the Greek term psyche and logia,
meaning, 'mind' or 'soul' and 'study of' respectively.
Psychology is used in studying human behavior and mind.
Psychology research is utilized to know and understand
behaviors, emotions, and thoughts.
What role does psychology play in the society today?
Psychology is the study of the relationship between mental
processes and behavior or the science of behavior and mental
processes.
Psychology helps to describe behavior and mental processes
accurately. It helps to predict future behavior based on
research. Psychology is used to explain behavior using
theories and through psychology we can influence behavior in
beneficial ways.
The world is faced by disasters today, both natural and man-
made or a combination of the two. Such situations expose
people into a lot of physical and psychological suffering.
Challenges in normal life situations like relationships, mental
disorders, bereavement and choosing career can affect anyone
in the society. Psychologists are therefore needed to help
people bounce back to their normal life functioning.
Educational psychology is important because it trains
teachers to watch for different learning situations, and how to
adapt to those situations accordingly. By studying the ability,
interests, intelligence and needs of students, teachers are able
to adapt material to improve the learning experience and
process.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF PSYCHOLOGY TO
EDUCATION
Psychology contributes to understanding of the means of
education, first, because the intellects and characters of any
one's parents, teachers and friends are very important means
of educating him, and, second, because the influence of any
other means, such as books, maps or apparatus, cannot be
usefully studied apart from the human nature which they are
to act upon.

Psychology contributes to knowledge of methods of teaching

in three ways. First, methods may be deduced outright from
the laws of human nature. For instance, we may infer from
psychology that the difficulty pupils have in learning to divide
by a fraction is due in large measure to the habit established
by all the thousands of previous divisions which they have
done or seen, the habit, that is, of "division -- decrease" or
"number divided -- result smaller than the number." We may
then devise or select such a method as will reduce this
interference from the old habits to a minimum without
weakening the old habits in their proper functioning.

Second, methods may be chosen from actual working

experience, regardless of psychology, as a starting point. Thus
it is believed that in the elementary school a class of fifteen
pupils for one teacher gives better results than either a class of
three or a class of thirty. Thus, also, it is believed that family
life is better than institutional life in its effects upon character
and enterprise. Thus, also, it is believed that in learning a
foreign language the reading of simple discussions of simple
topics is better than the translation of difficult literary
masterpieces that treat subtle and complex topics. Even in
such cases psychology may help by explaining why one
method does succeed better and so leading the way to new
insights regarding other questions not yet settled by
experience.

Third, in all cases psychology, by its methods of measuring

knowledge and skill, may suggest means to test and verify or
refute the claims of any method. For instance, there has been a
failure on the part of teachers to decide from their classroom
experience whether it is better to teach the spelling of a pair of
homonyms together or apart in time. But all that is required to
decide the question for any given pair is for enough teachers
to use both methods with enough different classes, keeping
everything else except the method constant, and to measure
the errors in spelling the words thereafter in the two cases.
Psychology, which teaches us how to measure changes in
human nature, teaches us how to decide just what the results
of any method of teaching are.
Goals of psychology
Psychology has four main foals i.e. describe, understand or
explain, predict and control or modify the behaviors.
psychologists differ with respect to the goals they emphasize.
They are concerned with one or more of the four basic goals
of psychology. Beyond that, psychology's ultimate goal is to
gather knowledge to benefit humanity (Coon, 1997)

1. Describe behavior: The first goal of psychology is to

describe behavior. description involves naming and
classifying behavior. This description is based on careful,
systematic procedure in contrast to haphazard description of
common sense. Description is very important in that it makes
u clear about what the phenomena under study. only after we
described the behavior or phenomenon clearly we can move
to the other goals.
Psychology is a science. It aims to understand the behavior of
others and gather information about the way the brain works
in order to better serve humanity. By observing different
human behaviors, psychologists determine what is normal and
healthy and what is unhealthy. Psychology analyzes the
thoughts, feelings, actions and goals of people through the
help of various case studies, observations and surveys.

Have you ever heard of Pavlovs dogs? Pavlov noticed that

his dogs were salivating as the result of a stimuli the lab
assistant approaching before food was even presented to
them. This observation acted as a description of what was
happening. Once psychologists can describe a behavior or
phenomenon, they can use that as a basis for learning more
about that behavior. And yes, many psychologists have
studied animals in order to learn more about human behavior!
Youd be surprised how many similarities there are.

2. Understand or explain behavior: The second goal of

psychology becomes explaining the behavior or phenomenon
that was described. psychologists who are concern this goal
try to find out why such behavior occur. they take help of
existing theories and knowledge to explain or understand
behavior. in some cases if there are no theorizes or researches
that can explain such behavior psychologists make tentative
statements and try to test such hypothesis.
Why does this behavior occur? Under what circumstances
will it occur again? In order to explain a behavior,
psychologists must conduct experiments to ensure that the
behavior is not an anomaly. If theres only one person (or
animal) exhibiting this behavior, it certainly isnt a cultural
norm. In the case of Pavlov, he was able to conduct an
experiment using multiple dogs that all seemed to behave in
the same way. Through this experiment he was able to notice
a handful of important things about the behavior of others.
And thus, classical conditioning came to be.

When presented with an unconditioned stimulus (the food),

the dogs began to salivate which is the unconditioned
response. When presented with delicious food, humans tend to
salivate, right? After the dogs were fed for a period of time,
Pavlov began to notice that even the presence of his lab
assistant, who fed the dogs, caused them to salivate. Once he
noticed this was happening, he realized that he had come
across a wonderful psychological discovery. The lab assistant,
which was once a neutral stimulus, had become a conditioned
stimulus. To further his experiment, Pavlov introduced a bell
as a neutral stimulus.

3. Predict the behavior: Another important goal for

psychologists is to forecast future event. By carefully
analyzing the relationship between different variables,
psychologists can accurately predict what will be the relation
in future between them. prediction helps in modifying the
behavior. it is facilitated by understanding of the relationship.
Based on past observed behavior, a psychologist aims to
predict how that behavior will appear again in the future and
if other people will exhibit the same behavior. Pavlov
predicted that the new neutral stimulus the bell would
become a conditioned stimulus if he presented it with food
enough times. Sure enough, after presenting the dogs with
food at the same time the bell was sounded, he was able to
condition the dogs to salivate when the bell rang even when
they werent presented with food. This discovery held a lot of
importance in the world of psychology and allowed many
people to influence the behavior of others.

4.Control or modify behaviors: The fourth goal of psychology

is to control, modify or change the existing behavior. the
behaviors that need to be corrected are modified through the
help of psychological techniques. Only psychologists who
work in applied are of psychology are concerned with
controlling the behaviors. psychologists working in theoretical
or basic are are only concerned with first three goals of
psychology.
What did Pavlovs discovery mean for the future of
psychology? It meant that teachers could take control of their
classroom easier, parents could teach their children to exhibit
good behavior, and manipulative older siblings could control
the behaviors of their younger siblings. In other areas of
psychology, experiments are used to train new employees
faster, increase the success of students and reduce drug
addiction.