Use this tag for questions about understanding, predicting, and changing the thoughts, emotions, and specifically psychological theories of behavior should use this tag. However, this excludes questions about specific claims, beliefs, or superstitions that would be better categorized under other, more specific tags, including behavior, brain, consciousness, superstition, esp, ghosts, religion, spirituality, energy, and meditation.
Psychology is the sociocultural and biochemical science of cognition, motivation, emotion, and behavior. Its goals include interpreting, explaining, predicting, or modifying these phenomena in abnormal individuals, groups of all sizes, and people in general (and in animals, primarily as analogues). Its methods include experimentation, observational research, case study, and to some extent, introspection. From Wikipedia:
Psychologists of diverse orientations also consider the unconscious mind. Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing empirical and deductive methods, some—especially clinical and counseling psychologists—at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques.
See also Wikipedia's criticism sections on psychology.
References
- Kalat, J. (2013). Introduction to psychology. Cengage Learning.
- Lilienfeld, S. O. (2012). Public skepticism of psychology: why many people perceive the study of human behavior as unscientific. American Psychologist, 67(2), 111–129. Retrieved from http://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/capstone/LilienfieldPublicSckepticism.pdf.
- Von Eckardt, B. (1984). Cognitive psychology and principled skepticism. The Journal of Philosophy, 81(2), 67–88.
