Portal:Psychology

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The Psychology Portal

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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The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 (Public Law 84-830) was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. It became the focus of a major political controversy after opponents nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and denounced it as being part of a communist plot to hospitalize and brainwash Americans. Campaigners asserted that it was part of an international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the United States.

The legislation in its original form was sponsored by the Democratic Party, but after it ran into opposition, it was rescued by the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Under Goldwater's sponsorship, a version of the legislation without the commitment provisions that were the target of intense opposition from a variety of far-right, anti-Communist and fringe religious groups was passed by the United States Senate. The controversy still plays a prominent role in the Church of Scientology's account of its campaign against psychiatry. (Full article...)

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

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"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man." — B. F. Skinner

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Ford in 2018

Christine Margaret Blasey Ford (/ˈblɑːzi/ BLAH-zee; born November 1966) is an American professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in designing statistical models for research projects. During her academic career, Ford has worked as a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine Collaborative Clinical Psychology Program.

In September 2018, Ford alleged that then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in Bethesda, Maryland, when they were teenagers in the summer of 1982. She testified about her allegations during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing regarding Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination later that month. (Full article...)

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... that Cara De Silva described a cookbook compiled by a woman in Terezin concentration camp as a record of "psychological resistance”?
... that award winner Lillian Comas-Díaz became interested in psychology after consoling classmates recovering from a destructive hurricane?
... that Fortnite's Tilted Towers was described by critics as the equivalent of "psychological torture" and being "dropped into a meat grinder"?
... that Susan Silk developed ring theory when a colleague said that Silk's breast cancer wasn't just about her?
... that the reactions to food depicted in the manga series Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma were decided on through free association games?
... 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?

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...that cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Spelke (pictured) showed that human beings are born with many innate skills?

...that former Congolese general Laurent Nkunda was a psychology student before helping Laurent-Désiré Kabila to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko?

...that Jacques Lacan's theory of a mirror stage, where an infant first recognizes its self in a mirror, was inspired by the work of psychologist Henri Wallon?

...that C. C. Too, a leading exponent of psychological warfare in Malaysia, crafted a campaign to turn public opinion against the communists during the Malayan Emergency?