Portal:Psychology

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P:PSY

Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.

A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.

Psychologists are involved in research on perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, subjective experiences, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. Psychologists' interests extend to interpersonal relationships, psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas within social psychology. They also consider the unconscious mind. Research psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Some, but not all, clinical and counseling psychologists rely on symbolic interpretation. (Full article...)

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Object permanence is the understanding that whether an object can be sensed has no effect on whether it continues to exist (in the mind). This is a fundamental concept studied in the field of developmental psychology, the subfield of psychology that addresses the development of young children's social and mental capacities. There is not yet scientific consensus on when the understanding of object permanence emerges in human development.

Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist who first studied object permanence in infants, argued that it is one of an infant's most important accomplishments, as, without this concept, objects would have no separate, permanent existence. In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, infants develop this understanding by the end of the "sensorimotor stage", which lasts from birth to about two years of age. Piaget thought that an infant's perception and understanding of the world depended on their motor development, which was required for the infant to link visual, tactile and motor representations of objects. According to this view, it is through touching and handling objects that infants develop object permanence. (Full article...)

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Lucas Cranach, Die Melancholie (1532). An allegory of melancholia

image credit: public domain

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"Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning." — Karen Horney

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Frankl in 1965

Viktor Emil Frankl (26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997) was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's meaning as the central human motivational force. Logotherapy is part of existential and humanistic psychology theories.

Logotherapy was promoted as the third school of Viennese Psychotherapy, after those established by Sigmund Freud, and Alfred Adler. (Full article...)

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... that architect Robert Marquis believed that architecture should meet "the users' spiritual and psychological needs" in addition to being functional?
... that Ahmad Nasuhi ordered a subordinate to attack the Indonesian Communist Party's offices with grenades as "psychological warfare against the central government"?
... that, although created to understand Chinese psychological torture of American POWs during the Korean War, Biderman's Chart of Coercion was used by American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay?
... that Fortnite's Tilted Towers was described by critics as the equivalent of "psychological torture" and being "dropped into a meat grinder"?
... that although Andrzej Żuławski's film Possession is referred to as a psychological drama and horror, its genre is still a matter of controversy?
... that bereavement support groups are one of the most common services offered for grief but have little evidence of improving psychological outcomes?

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...that Boston Legal actress Meredith Eaton-Gilden (pictured) has a master's degree in clinical psychology?

...that Nicci French is the pseudonym for a couple of London journalists, Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together?

...that the John Lennon song "Beautiful Boy" features the lines "Every day in every way/It's getting better and better", which were inspired by the mantra of French psychologist Émile Coué?