What are the Objectives of Psychology?

What are the Objectives of Psychology?

What is psychology?

Psychology is a scientific study of human behavior patterns. It, therefore, dives deeper into the functions of the human mind and studies the stimuli of different kinds of human behavior. It is thus a discipline which dwells in the analysis and understanding of mental functions and the reasons and effects of a particular type of behavior. The people who practice psychology are called psychologists who are specialists in using appropriate and objective scientific methods to explain, dissect, understand and predict human behavior.

Major goals of psychology: The major goal of psychology is to treat psychological disorders in human beings and to ensure that an individual does not go through a trauma or cause any harm to himself or the surroundings because of his psychological imbalance.

The four important goals of psychology are:

To describe – The primary function of psychology is to bring into perspective the definition of normal behavior and abnormal behavior. Describing the basics of how we think and act is the elementary characteristic of psychology. Researchers of psychology implement and apply a range of research methods to help describe behavior including naturalistic observation, surveys, case studies, correlation studies, and self-report inventories.

To explain - Apart from the description of the behavior, the psychologists play a huge role in explaining it, which is more crucial as understanding the root cause of a particular behavior pattern is critical. The psychologists throw light on some of the key questions like what are the reasons for people doing certain things. What are the factors that contribute to the overall making of one’s personality, social demeanor, and mental health problems? What are the response mechanisms followed by human beings to a particular stimuli like shock, surprise, failure etc.? Psychologists apply various theories to explain the human behavior. Some of the known theories are the attachment theory and the classical conditioning theory. There are also some theories known as the mini theories which are directed to comprehend only a limited section of human behavior, whereas there are some grand theories as well, which provide a huge scope to understand the overall behavioral mould of an individual.

To predict- Another important objective of psychology is to predict how a human thinks, acts and reacts. This is a very interesting function of psychology because different human beings react differently to the same situation; therefore, predicting a human behavior is an intriguing process. In addition, with practice and analysis of historical behavior patterns, the psychologists make predictions of how, when, where and why a particular behavior or reaction could resurface again in future.

To change- Last but not the least, psychology endeavors to bring in a change, persuade, control or mend behavior in order to make constructive and enduring changes in people's lives. For instance, psychologists have done a lot of study to understand the sudden or rash behavior in some of the teenagers and the recommendations provided by them have helped teens leverage their energy and aggression in a constructive manner.

Therefore, from personal consulting to helping recuperate from mental illness to fostering an overall well-being of humans, containing, controlling and enhancing human behavior for betterment of the human race is a huge focus of psychology.

Reference:
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