Just what is exactly is Psychology? Is it the study of human behavior, the attempt to understand mental processes, or is it research conducted by scientists to benefit mankind? It is all of these and more, however in order to fully understand what psychology is and how it is defined, an attempt to understand humanity as a whole is beneficial. A defining part of being a human is that we constantly struggle to better understand ourselves and the world around us. Thus, humanity is on a never ending journey to increase our knowledge, that we might have a better command over the world we live in. The essence of psychology is portrayed quite well in the scientific approach to answering one of life’s most defining questions, “What is human nature?” (Zimbardo and Gerrig 3).
In order to answer that question, psychologists cond
A good example to help see the similarities between psychology and a related science is; in medicine doctors seek to improve the health of their patients by encouraging healthy lifestyles, similarly psychologists attempt to understand why people choose unhealthy lifestyles while they attempt to improve health by controlling behavior and eliminating unhealthy habits. Further similarities include research in the field of education, researchers in the education field might be seeking new and more productive ways of teaching. Psychological researchers would seek out new ways of teaching through research on the way our brains learn; this is also another example of the close tie between psychology and the biological studies.
uct research which has several key goals they are to, “describe, explain, predict, and control behavior.” (Zimbardo, Gerrig 5)