The study of psychology
1 Psychology is the science of behavior and cognition. Psychologists study easily observable behaviors, mental processes, and physiological reactions in humans and animals. The ultimate aim of psychology is to understand behavior and help people. Psychologists seek to understand behavior through four basic goals: description prediction control explanation. 2 Five major schools of thought help trace psychology’s formal history. 1. The first psychology laboratory was set up in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig to analyze the elements of mental life through introspection in the school called structuralism. 2. William James of Harvard University influenced functionalism, which included the study of overt behavior as well as conscious experience. 3. In 1913, John Watson excluded everything except overt behavior, in the school of behaviorism. 4. Psychoanalysis, under the leadership of Sigmund Freud, broadened the view point of psychology by including unconscious mind. 5. Gestalt psychologists studied whole or complete perceptions rather than individual elements. Today’s approaches to the study of psychology include the biological, humanistic, psychoanalytic, cognitive, and behavior perspectives.