Psychology - A Brief History, Contemporary Psychology, Ten Main Fields Of Psychology

"Psychology" comes from the Greek words psyche, meaning "mind" or "soul," and logos, meaning word. It is the scientific study of human and animal behavior and mental processes. Behavior refers here to easily observable activities such as walking, talking, or smiling. Mental processes, such as thinking, feeling, or remembering, often cannot be directly observed and must be inferred from observable behaviors. For example, one might infer someone is feeling happy when he or she smiles, or has remembered what he or she studied when doing well on an exam. Psychology is a very broad social science with approximately 10 main fields The major unifying thread running throughout all of this diversity is use of the scientific method and the belief that psychological phenomena can be studied in a systematic, scientific way. Psychologists conduct research very much like scientists in other fields, developing hypotheses or possible explanations of certain facts and testing them using various research methods.