The connection between psychology and other sciences

Psychology and philosophy

Modern psychology is still based on philosophical principles, methods and theories. Too often the problems of the essence of human existence and the causes of internal disharmony are touched upon. The theories of such famous psychologists as Freud, Jung, Fromm are called philosophical.

But despite the separation of psychology, philosophy cannot exist in isolation. This is how these sciences intertwine, exploring the problem of social and biological factors in man, the peculiarities of cognition of the surrounding world, phenomena such as faith and death, the search for the meaning of life and the assimilation of values.

Why study psychology?

Many people in the modern world are actively interested in or are beginning to become acquainted with psychology. It helps you get to know yourself, discover new levels of development in yourself, and understand existing problems, complexes and pressures formed on an unconscious level. Even the basics of psychology help you become more attentive, observant, and insightful. With their help, it is easier to understand others, so people who know what psychology is can “read” their interlocutor like an open book.

Psychology and history

History is interconnected with psychology no less than philosophy. Values, stereotypes, behavior patterns, requirements, and norms of society change from century to century, from year to year. But the influence of history as human living conditions is one side. The other side is taking into account historical experience and historical heredity, which influences a person from birth (which has long been confirmed in psychology).

In addition, something else is interesting:

on the one hand, historical events and vicissitudes influence the human psyche;
but on the other hand, the person himself influences history (one cannot say that absolutely all people make it - deviants (both positive and negative) do this, but there are many of them).

What can I say, any psychological phenomenon cannot be comprehensively studied without delving into history. And our most important element (psyche) is proof of this. How did it become known that a person develops, that our psyche is so similar to the psyche of animals, but still different? From the history. How can you determine the beginning of a phenomenon? Analyzing history. And the conditions for the development of something, favorable and unfavorable factors, will be suggested by history.

A person cannot live without society, and history allows us to trace the development of social consciousness. There is even a special scientific direction - historical psychology, which studies the peculiarities of the development of the psyche and the assimilation of social experience in different eras. Psychology and history also exchanged some research methods. For example, the method of periodization, typology, comparison.

Subject and tasks

Psychology is an independent science that studies the psyche, its development, manifestation in human life, changes under the influence of external factors.

Objectives of the scientific direction:

study of physiological mechanisms of the psyche;
study, analysis of development, formation of mental phenomena;
development of psychological techniques in human life to achieve certain results.

Psychologists identify various deviations and mental disorders and develop methods for treating them.

The subject of psychology is the psyche. It stands out as the highest form of communication among living beings. People collect information and build tactics based on the data received.

Principles:

Unity of psyche, activity, consciousness. Human consciousness appeared as a result of labor. Thanks to the work of consciousness, the subject can create a plan of action. Consciousness helps a person act purposefully.
Determinism. Consciousness and psyche develop under the influence of external factors. Consciousness arises only under the influence of social factors that exist in society.
Development of consciousness, psyche in activity. A person is born with natural inclinations. If you don't work on them, they will remain in a rudimentary state. If you are active, the rudiments will develop into professional skills or talents.
Personal approach to the study of individuals. People differ in their natural inclinations, strength of the nervous system, temperament, and character. When studying individuals, the individual characteristics of these characteristics must be taken into account.

The last principle relates to history. Human development is studied within the framework of the history of the human race (phylogeny).

Psychology and Sociology

Another close connection. There is no need to elaborate here; it is enough to say the basic statement of psychology: man is a socio-biological being.

There is still no end to the debate about what is primary in a person: the influence of genes or the influence of society.
But all researchers have long agreed that both factors have a very strong influence. No matter what nature has instilled in us, without society we will not learn to live in this particular society.

And again, there is a special direction in psychology - social psychology, which studies the functioning of society as a single organism and the characteristics of human behavior within certain groups. And just as with history, psychology and sociology exchanged research methods. For example, surveys and questionnaires come from sociology. Social learning theory itself comes from sociology. But the theory of personality and group came to sociology from psychology.

Interaction with other disciplines

To understand which scientific trends have had a greater impact on the psychological discipline, you need to consider its relationship with history, philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, anatomy, biology, medicine, law, management, and conflictology.

A diagram of the interaction of psychology with other sciences can be found in reference books on this discipline.

With history

The direction has a close connection with psychology. Every century, decade, social requirements, behavior patterns, stereotypes, and values change. The discipline studies the influence of:

the course of history on the human condition;
accumulated historical experience on the development of personality from birth.

Not only history influences people's lives, but also people themselves influence its course. The connection between psychology and this discipline is clearly seen in the fact that not a single psychological phenomenon can be comprehensively studied without using a historical database.

It is impossible to imagine a person without contact with society. With the help of history, you can trace the stages of development of society. Together, psychology and history make it possible to analyze the stages of human development and predict events in the coming decades.

With philosophy

Psychology originates from philosophy. Most psychological teachings are based on this discipline. Despite the fact that these are two separate sciences, they cannot exist independently. Therefore, when studying one discipline, one must take into account the theories of another.

With sociology

Man is a socio-biological being. Based on this statement, we can say that sociology and psychology are closely related.

Scientists are still arguing about what has a primary influence on personality development—society or genes, but they recognize that both factors play a huge role. Without the influence of society, a subject cannot learn to live correctly in a particular society.

There is a separate branch of science - social psychology. This direction deals with the study of society, the influence of society on an individual subject.

From sociology, psychological science adopted surveys and questionnaires. These research methods help obtain information of interest from groups of people.

With pedagogy

Associated with this area are psychological techniques that are aimed at training and re-educating children of different ages. It is impossible to raise a child correctly if you do not take into account the peculiarities of mental development at a certain age. In order for the teaching method to be most effective, it is selected taking into account the character characteristics of the individual.

To understand which learning strategy is best to choose for a child, you need to conduct a series of psychological tests and ask the child to answer questions of interest. It is easier to obtain information from a child through games or drawings.

With biology and anatomy

Biology reveals the second side of humanity - innate abilities. At the intersection of these disciplines, a number of mixed directions have emerged:

Psychogenetics is a separate science that studies psychophysiological and mental properties and their changes under the influence of heredity.
Neuropsychology is an interdisciplinary field that studies the functioning of the brain and the connection between brain processes and mental ones.
Animal psychology is a scientific field that studies the psyche of animals. Experts study how animals see the world.

With the help of biology, scientists learn what physical disorders affect the body, and the discipline of psychology helps determine how they affect the psyche. The biological discipline explains why children are born with pathologies.

With medicine

Another discipline with which psychology is closely intertwined. At the junction of these two areas, clinical or medical psychology was formed.

With its help, scientists study diseases, mental disorders, and develop methods for treating pathologies.

With jurisprudence

Attention should also be paid to the connection between investigators and psychologists. If you do not know the psychological profile of the criminal, it is impossible to get the offender to talk and predict his actions.

Experienced investigators are proficient in psychological influence techniques and can obtain information of interest through special questions that, at first glance, do not relate to the individual. The person conducting the interrogation must have high resistance to manipulation. Otherwise, an experienced criminal will easily mislead him and confuse the facts.

With management

Management is a set of management techniques and personnel selection for a specific position. With their help, you can select valuable employees from a huge number of willing employees, effectively distribute labor, and speed up the production process. Psychology is related to management in many concepts and practices. Without psychological knowledge, it is impossible to consider the talents, inclinations, hidden motives of a worker, and to find a lever of pressure on the individual.

Almost all modern management practices are based on the teachings of psychology. The basics of this science have helped to create effective methods of managing people to achieve a specific goal.

With conflictology

A separate discipline that studies the features, patterns, prerequisites for the emergence and development of conflicts. A person is constantly under the influence of external factors, which can be both good and bad. If a subject does not know how to control his emotions and find a way out of difficult situations, he will unconsciously enter into conflicts.

Conflictology helps:

Resolve intrapersonal conflicts. Such situations can lead to mental health problems. If the internal conflict is serious, it can drive the subject to suicide. Conflictology teaches people to manage experiences and feelings in order to neutralize the negative effect of such phenomena.
Choose the right behavior in conflict situations. The adult personality trait is correct behavior. This concept can be deciphered as a constructive perception of reality, adequacy, good manners, productive interaction with society. If the subject is accustomed to resolving conflict situations by force, this indicates his emotional weakness.
Smooth out conflict situations by resolving them for the benefit of all parties to the dispute. When a subject shows kindness, restraint, does not end the argument on his own terms, rudeness, insults, he shows others that he cares not only for his own interests, but also for other people.
Maintain peace with yourself and others. This is how a person achieves a positive mental state. When it is achieved, labor productivity will increase, the amount of stress and grief will decrease.

The connection between conflictology and psychology is obvious. If a person has a strong psyche without deviations, knows how to control his emotions, analyze conflict situations and develop options for resolving them, he can easily avoid problems.

With finances

Specialists in this field study factors affecting the economy, working with money, and the relationship between seller and buyer. Using economic psychology, you can analyze the market and how sellers will behave when the exchange rate changes.

The subject of this discipline is an economic entity. This phrase can refer to an individual, a family, an organization, a concern, a state or a nation.

Psychological economics does not have its own study methods. All practices used are taken from other scientific fields.

Psychology initially arose from the works of the first philosophers. As humanity developed, the psychological field began to come into contact with other disciplines.

Against this background, new sciences and teachings appeared, and the theoretical base expanded. Today, the connection between psychology and most existing scientific disciplines is visible.

Psychology and pedagogy

Everything that concerns the development of children, training and education, re-education (not only children) is closely related to pedagogy. Raising children is unthinkable without knowledge of psychological characteristics and age characteristics. The training program itself must be selected taking into account the abilities and individual personal characteristics of a person, taking into account his capabilities (development zone).

And, of course, there is a special direction - educational psychology.

How to help your child adapt to learning?
How to create conditions that correspond to its characteristics?
How to correlate sensitive periods of development and the training program?
How to instill the values and norms of society?

Educational psychology will answer everything.

Interesting facts about psychology

This science is so interesting and multifaceted, that’s why there is a lot of interesting information that is difficult to miss:

If after communicating with a certain person you feel negative emotions, then you have a toxic person.
The psychology of life is such that when people laugh in a group, everyone will look at the person they feel sympathy for.
It only takes four minutes for a person to fall in love.
If you need to concentrate while performing a task, then you should mentally talk to yourself.
Death is in second place on the list of people's main fears, and failure is in first place.

Psychology and biology

Biology reveals our second side - innate characteristics. In addition, at the intersection of biology and psychology, zoopsychology and neuropsychology, psychogenetics arose. Biology allows you to find out organic disorders, and psychology will tell you how they affect the psyche and behavior of a person, his socialization.

Biology will also tell you what external natural factors influence the personality in each specific case, why children are sometimes born with pathologies and how this is related to the psyche. The very structure of the psyche and the structure of the brain, the functioning of the central nervous system will be deciphered by neuropsychology.

Stages of development of psychology

The first works that are related to psychology belong to Plato and Aristotle. The emergence of science itself dates back to the 18th century, when the direction was formed by the scientist Christian Wolf. As for the modern version of science, this is already 1879. The history of psychology includes four stages of development, which had their own individual object of study:

Soul
. During antiquity, it was believed that everything living on earth has a soul, which completely influences behavior. The peculiarities of temperament at that time were explained by a connection with the cosmos, rebirth and mysticism.
Consciousness
. This concept was introduced in the 17th century. scientist Rene Descartes, who also described the reflex nature. Consciousness was considered a certain indicator that determined people's reactions to external stimuli.
Behavior
. This stage occurs at the beginning of the twentieth century. At this time, they began to actively conduct experiments that helped study how a person reacts to different events.
Psyche
. This is already a modern stage when the mechanisms of the human psyche are being actively studied.

Psychology and medicine

At the junction of these sciences, medical psychology, or clinical psychology, was formed. It allows us to consider diseases and their causes, including psychological ones, in unity. On the other hand, it reveals a person’s perception of his condition at the time of illness.

If psychology is the science of the soul, which, if necessary, corrects and rehabilitates, then clinical psychology is the science of the relationship between diseases and mental changes, and deals with treatment.

Psychological concepts

There are many different concepts, so modern types include:

Cognitive
. Such psychology is a science that studies cognitive processes that are compared to a certain computer. The concept is aimed at studying the process of their formation and development. The main conclusion drawn is that a person often makes a decision under the influence of thinking characteristics.
Neo-Freudianism
. According to one of the representatives of this concept, a person is controlled by some kind of inferiority complex, which arises even at the moment of birth, when instead of a personality there is a helpless creature.
Genetic
. The study of this concept has revealed that the main factors for development are maturation, experience and social learning.

Psychology and jurisprudence, law

Is it worth talking about close cooperation between investigators and psychologists? In my opinion, it is obvious that it is impossible to “split” a person or predict the actions of a criminal if you do not know his psychological profile, do not master methods of influence and are not able to resist manipulation.

Psychologists are invited to supplement the polygraph test or study human physiognomy. Many problems, for example, deviations, antisocial lifestyle, maladjustment, force law enforcement officers and psychologists to work together. Preventing, rehabilitating, correcting, informing is the task of legal psychology.

Films about psychology

If you want to watch a movie that will allow you to look into the secrets of the soul and think about important things, then pay attention to these films:

"Dangerous Method"
. The book reveals human psychology, the main difficulties that many in real life try to hide.
"Flying over Cuckoo's Nest"
. The main essence of this picture is that the problems that exist in life can be resolved if you start doing something, and not sit idly by.
"Life Interrupted"
. This movie shows how fragile and unprotected the human psyche is.

Afterword

Thus, we can say that psychology occupies a central place in the system of all scientific knowledge. It connects all spheres of human life. Psychology is increasingly being included in various educational programs as a special or applied discipline.

In addition to the sciences described in the article, psychology is also connected with political science, economics, and construction. In general, everything that concerns human life. Plato also called psychology the queen of all sciences. Although it began to be recognized as a separate science later (mid-19th century - early 20th century). A. Kedrov’s classification remains relevant to this day, in which he placed psychology at the center, and made philosophical, technical and social sciences adjacent to it.

Modern psychology has many branches and their names speak for themselves (regarding the connection between psychology and other sciences):

general psychology;
social Psychology;
age-related psychology;
clinical psychology;
pedagogical psychology;
engineering psychology;
differential psychology;
gender psychology;
comparative psychology;
zoopsychology;
aviation psychology;
space psychology;
psychophysiology;
psychology of advertising;
military psychology;
parapsychology;
psychology of management;
environmental psychology;
legal psychology.

The field of psychology is expanding as quickly as new professions are emerging, for example, ergonomist psychologist. His responsibilities include informing technology designers about how best to design machines, robots, and automatic machines for the human psyche (level of light, sound, location of levers, display); how and under what conditions and circumstances certain standards must be observed.

Main industries

In psychology, there are a number of branches, each of which relates to different areas of human life:

Genetic. Studies the innate characteristics of the psyche and behavior. Scientists are trying to highlight the connection between character traits and genotype.
Differential. Explores the individual characteristics of the psyche of different people, their formation, prerequisites for development.
Age. Studies the development of the psyche throughout life. Each age period is characterized by certain psychological characteristics, which scientists try to identify in order to predict the behavior of people at different periods.
Children's room. It is based on the study of the development of consciousness, activity, mental processes, and personality of a growing person.
Pedagogical. Studies the development of personality depending on the methods of education and training.
Social. Responsible for analyzing the behavior and development of people in society.
Psychology of work. Considers the activities of individuals alone and in a group, develops techniques to increase productivity.
Engineering. Studies the processes of interaction and human understanding of modern technology. Considers new mechanisms, analyzes the further development of technological progress.
Space, aviation. These industries are similar to each other. Experts study changes in the mental state of pilots and cosmonauts during flights.
Medical. Studies the mental activity of doctors and the behavior of patients. Responsible for the development of methods for treating psychological disorders.
Clinical. Engaged in the study of mental disorders, identifying the causes of their occurrence, studying changes in the state of the psyche, behavior, and any psychological disorders.
Legal. Reveals the peculiarities of behavior of participants in any criminal process. Based on the information received, scientists can form a portrait of the criminal.
Military. Explores human behavior during combat.
Parapsychology. Engaged in the study of unusual human abilities. It is considered the most controversial and debatable area.