Psychology for Busy People: Everything You Need to Know

Author: Joel Levy

Psychology is the study of the mind, but this simple formulation covers a bewilderingly vast field concerning human thought and behavior, from the biology of the brain and nervous system to the meaning of love and happiness. Psychology has been called the "science of humans" because it attempts to scientifically study the things that make us human. The key word here is "science"; there are many other branches of knowledge—such as philosophy, history, and cultural studies—that explore similar or overlapping areas, but psychology is different because it tries to address them scientifically. In this sense, "science" refers to a specific philosophy and methodology of knowledge and exploration. It involves using observations of phenomena (such as thoughts and behaviors) to formulate hypotheses, which are models or theories about how and why something happens. These hypotheses generate predictions that can be tested by experiments, and the degree to which experimental results match these predictions confirms or refutes the hypotheses. This is at least how science works, and thus how psychology works, but as you will learn, psychology is not always simple and straightforward.