Portal:Psychology
The Psychology Portal
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Psychology is the scientific study of the 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 broad scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences.
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. 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.
As part of an interdisciplinary field, 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...)
Selected article -
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control is a 2004 popular science book explaining brainwashing, mind control, thought reform, and coercive persuasion by neuroscientist and physiologist Kathleen Taylor. It explains the neurological basis for reasoning and cognition in the brain, and proposes that the self is changeable, and describes the physiology of neurological pathways. It reviews case studies including Patty Hearst, Charles Manson, and the mass murder/suicide of members of Peoples Temple at Jonestown, and compares the techniques of influence used by cults to those of totalitarian, communist societies, and Islamic states. It lays out a model FACET – Freedom, Agency, Complexity, Ends-not-means, and Thinking – which she believes can be used to negate the influence of brainwashing techniques. (Full article...)
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Quotes -
- "Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin." — Ivan Pavlov
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Selected biography -
Brenda Milner (née Langford; born 15 July 1918) is a British-Canadian neuropsychologist who has contributed extensively to the research literature on various topics in the field of clinical neuropsychology. Milner is a professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University and a professor of Psychology at the Montreal Neurological Institute. As of 2020[update], she holds more than 25 honorary degrees and she continued to work in her nineties. Her work covers many aspects of neuropsychology including her lifelong interest in the involvement of the temporal lobes in episodic memory. She is sometimes referred to as one of the founders of neuropsychology and has been essential in its development. She received the Balzan Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience in 2009, and the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, together with John O'Keefe, and Marcus E. Raichle, in 2014. She turned 100 in July 2018. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the 2024 psychological horror game Mouthwashing utilises non-diegetic scene transitions that mimic glitches and crashes?
- ... that some researchers have studied Tetris as a potential form of psychological treatment?
- ... that diverse fields study the mind, including psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy?
- ... that the psychological inner space genre was a rebellion against the traditional focus of science fiction on literal outer space?
- ... that Fortnite's Tilted Towers was described by critics as the equivalent of "psychological torture" and being "dropped into a meat grinder"?
- ... that Ahmad Nasuhi ordered a subordinate to attack the Indonesian Communist Party's offices with grenades as "psychological warfare against the central government"?
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More did you know -
- ...that Julian Rotter developed the locus of control theory, which has been widely used in the psychology of personality?
- ...that the effects of head trauma on memory can be seen by the post-operative results of HM, a patient who has been unable to form any new long-term memories since a surgical procedure performed in the 1950s?
Psychology topics
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