Psychology is a scientific discipline that relies on empirical data collection. Psychology is relatively new to the sciences, having been brought into the laboratory by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879 (The modern science of psychology, 1919). Its prescientific past, rooted in introspection and examination of unconscious forces, contributes to common misperceptions of this diverse field today. While few judge chemistry by its roots in alchemy or physics by the work of the ancient Greeks, psychology is often primarily framed in terms of its more philosophical past.
Psychological science focuses on questions about behavior and mental processes
Psychological research examines behavior and mental processes and the factors that influence them, including the social, cultural, environmental and genetic contexts in which behavior occurs. Psychologists examine behavior with different frames of reference, including:
- Biological bases of behavior (e.g., brain and nervous system mechanisms, genetic and evolutionary processes, hormonal mechanisms, and sensory and perceptual mechanisms and processes)
- Individual behavior (e.g., learning, cognition, emotion, motivation and personality)
- Group behavior (e.g., social, cultural and group processes)
Psychological research contributes to basic knowledge, but we can also apply this new knowledge to solve problems in many areas, including (APA, 2010):
- Promoting public safety (e.g., high mounted automobile brake lights)
- Improving public health (e.g., smoking cessation)
- Developing new technologies (e.g., computer interfaces)
Psychology as a cross-cutting discipline
Along with mathematics, physics, chemistry, earth sciences, medicine and the social sciences, psychology emerges as a field whose scientific findings are often referenced by researchers in other fields. Psychological research findings shed light on behavioral and cognitive processes and lead to developments in other disciplines (Cacioppo, 2007).
Psychology integrates and influences various scientific disciplines leading to its classification as one of the seven hub sciences. (Boyack, Klavans, & Börner, 2005)
In addition, many cross-cutting fields, such as behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics and the science of learning, focus on behavioral and cognitive processes and thus are traditionally part of psychology’s content. This interdisciplinary status indicates that other sciences build on the methodologies used in psychology for examining behavior in controlled laboratory settings and in complex natural settings, at levels ranging from the neuronal to the societal, and extending across the lifespan and involving typical and atypical responses.
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Information contained in this report does not represent the official policy of the American Psychological Association.