The place and role of modern psychology in human life / NAVYAZI

You can think of psychology as a big tree with countless branches trying to understand human behavior. In this chaos of leaves and branches, there is one thing that stands out. We are talking about applied psychology. Applied psychology tries to find concrete solutions to problems that we face in everyday life.

Maybe you're asking, isn't this what psychology has always done? Isn't this science focused on helping and finding answers to the most common and complex human needs from the very beginning? Well, not at all.

Intelligence consists not only of knowledge, but also of the ability to apply this knowledge in practice.
Aristotle

In the beginning, psychology was more focused on collecting information and understanding psychological processes. We are talking about basic processes such as attention, memory, learning or language. We call this vast and ever-expanding field “basic psychology.”

It wasn't until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that psychology took another step forward. This was thanks to a German-American psychologist named Hugo Munsterberg. Münsterberg helped guide this broadly defined science toward practical solutions.

Important! With all the knowledge that basic psychology generates, the field has expanded to transform lives and improve people's health, learning and well-being.

Basic psychology and applied psychology are two fundamental branches of the same tree. And this tree will never stop growing and will find new ways to improve our lives.

Hugo Munsterberg: founder of applied psychology

Hugo Munsterberg used to read Kant. He also had a good relationship with William James, who invited him to work with him in the psychological laboratory at Harvard University. But everything was not so good.

They say William James was interested in researching paranormal activity . Münsterberg, a student of Wilhelm Wundt and a strong advocate of objectivity and practicality, could not understand this side of James.

Münsterberg cataloged everything that was not logical and tangible as “the psychology of gobbledygook.” At that time, his main goal was to improve business productivity. Maybe that's why he always felt a certain tension with his colleagues.

They understood psychology strictly in laboratory conditions. Their point of view was limited to observation and experimentation with the ultimate goal of publishing a paper and possibly challenging a colleague's theory.

The reason why Hugo Munsterberg laid the foundations of applied psychology was very specific. He wanted to improve the abilities of workers at a time when industry and scientific management were demanding new skills. The system wanted more trained and capable workers for a more challenging work environment.

Thus, although Munsterberg died when he was barely 50 years old, his contributions to the field of psychology were significant. Most notably, he established industrial psychology and several tests assessing vocational ability. He even laid the foundations for forensic psychology by creating a scale to test the credibility of eyewitness testimony.

Every person wants to be happy, find his calling and decide on the goal towards which he wants to move day after day, therefore the place and role of modern psychology in life cannot be ignored. The question arises, what is happiness and how to make the right choice? Everyone, sooner or later, asks this question personally. What can help a person find answers? It is here, that is, in the answer to this question, that the important role of psychology in human life emerges. Social science researchers unanimously say that the place and role of modern psychology for human life in today's stressful conditions should be central. In any country today there should be one psychologist per 100 people to effectively solve emotional problems. Psychology is a science that has permeated a person’s entire life since such ancient times that not everyone can notice its influence and significance. She is present in absolutely every area of human life, accompanies him in the family, on the street, at work and anywhere he goes. The place and role of modern psychology in human life have been determined quite a long time ago, although the science itself is still very young.

Psychology has become so deeply integrated into people’s lives that it has become practically invisible, although it is the strongest weapon of influence on any person. Psychology can be used with both good and evil intentions. As an example of good intentions, one can cite a psychologist who helps a person understand himself in his work, listens to his various problems and gives advice on how to solve them, or an inspiring parting word from a boss at a difficult moment of the working day, as well as support from a friend at school or college. It turns out that the role and place of psychology in human life can be described as omnipresent. With evil intentions, psychology can be used, for example, by a fraudster, switching a person’s attention in the direction he needs, and this can happen not only on the street, but also on the Internet, as an example, a well-written text by a fraudster can force a person to make a deal with negative consequences for him. But at this moment a logical question immediately arises: why do some people fall for the scammers’ tricks, and others don’t? Let's imagine two friends who went to the same kindergarten, graduated from the same school and college, but one of the friends fell for the scammer's trick, and the other did not. Why did this happen, since they received the same knowledge? There may be several reasons for this, the first lies in our childhood, and the second in the perception of the world around us. Everyone knows that we receive our first knowledge from our family, including about psychology. This knowledge is primarily influenced by upbringing, which could make one of the friends defenseless against the psychological influence of a fraudster. In this example, the role and place of modern psychology in human life is shown from the point of view of security, which, you see, is quite appropriate in our time. With perception, everything is not much more complicated, this is an individual characteristic of each person, the same information can be perceived by people in completely different ways, but even here a fraudster can find a loophole, for example, using some phrase that inspires trust in this person. It was for one of these reasons that one of the friends fell for the scammer's bait. Based on what was written above, we can say that a person should receive as much knowledge as possible, especially about science, which permeates his whole life. And now, returning to the question of happiness, can psychologists give an answer to how a person can become happy? No. Each person has his own concept of what it means to be happy, and sometimes this concept is too deep in the mind to get to it on your own. It should be noted that psychology can only guide a person, help him understand himself, understand what he really wants and achieve inner harmony, which in essence can already be happiness. Sometimes happiness for a guy is simply loving the girl who is next to him and even if at times she is cold, harmful or in a terrible mood that it is impossible to talk to her, but when they are together he feels truly happy. But to find such a girl or to endure communication with her, psychology will help. For some, happiness is being loved, having a place where you are always welcome and waiting, where they always look at you with loving eyes, but even here you cannot do without psychology. Now answer yourself, looking into the depths of your consciousness, what happiness is. And after a short pause, return to the title and answer the main question of this article, what role does psychology play in different areas of life.

Various aspects of applied psychology

We said at the beginning that most of the tools and knowledge that applied psychology uses come directly from basic psychology. In practice, however, the application and development of a problem always generates new knowledge, data and concepts. The same applies to applied psychology.

Consequently, applied psychology also has an infinite number of areas of action. These areas deal with our everyday circumstances. Through applied psychology, we can find solutions, improve our abilities, improve processes, innovate, etc.

The theory is really good, but how can we put it into practice? If this is absolutely impossible, no theory will be of any value except as intellectual gymnastics.

How to change the situation for the better?

Today's society, which strives to change the situation for the better, to improve the inner world of a person, finds a huge variety of activities that lead out of the so-called hopeless situation.

If we notice, a large number of stars are involved in charity work, volunteering, helping large families, solving health problems in third world countries, also trying to fight hunger in African countries, and much more. The main goal is to gain satisfaction by helping others, they help themselves, the feeling of a person’s need gives us the acquisition of those feelings that we have not experienced before.

This is victory - awareness of the problems of others, gives an undeniable result in understanding one’s problems, helps in solving the problems of other people, provides an opportunity and a way out to solve one’s life difficulties and troubles.

Today we need to care most not about tomorrow, but about our inner state, about a successful and happy family, prosperity will only come when your inner world is organic with the outer world, only such idealization can make you a fully happy and infinitely resilient person in our modern society .

Branches of applied psychology

Psychology of health. Although related to clinical psychology, they are two different disciplines. Health psychology analyzes the relationship between behavior and physical disorders. In addition, she tries to prevent and treat various diseases.
Clinical psychology. The focus is on prevention and treatment of behavior. The goal is to improve quality of life and mental well-being.
Sports psychology. Seeks to enhance athletes' performance, for example by reducing anxiety and improving teamwork.
Organizational psychology. This and clinical psychology are two of the most famous branches of applied psychology. In this case, the goal is to improve the work environment, problem solving, training, maximizing skills and managing the human capital of organizations.
Educational psychology. Here, applied psychology uses basic psychology to improve teaching and methodology. It aims to understand how students learn and provide them with resources for their daily lives.
Ecological psychology. Seeks to understand how people relate to their environment and how the environment itself can influence our behavior.
Criminal psychology. In this case, the professional’s work is not limited to crime investigation. They also analyze the credibility of witnesses, provide assistance to victims, etc.
Marketing psychology. We all know that marketing is an integral part of the consumer economy. Understanding what motivates a consumer to choose certain products and what subconscious processes determine wants and needs is an important part of this interesting field of psychology.

Each field is similar to a branch of applied psychology. There are many more areas that we could mention such as emergency psychology, road safety psychology, psychology of aging, etc. These are just examples to show you how many situations psychology is valuable in.

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Degradation of society

We see how society is degrading, people strive for temporary benefits, relationships today play the role of mutual benefit. The family is no longer the main goal of a person, this can be seen from the divorce statistics. People no longer try and do not strive to restore families; children’s still unsettled psychology suffers from this. There is simply a huge gap in the relationship between children and parents, parents have forgotten about raising their children, and children live according to the rules of the street. And the street today provides alcohol, tobacco, drugs, a carefree life in terms of “I don’t want, I won’t.”

The reason for the decline and degradation of society was the universal desire for wealth at any cost, the desire to be first at the expense of relationships, the desire for enrichment, recognition, and power.

Self-control at an early age may indicate success in adulthood

Another famous experiment is the “marmalade test”. The child is left in the room, and marmalade or cookies are placed on the table in front of him. And they warn: he can eat marmalade (or cookies) now, and then the experiment is considered over. But, if he waits for the experimenter to return, he will receive two gummies as a reward.

Children who can't wait and eat jelly right away or try to eat it on the sly are more likely to have problems in the future at work, get low grades when applying to university, have problems paying attention in school and have difficulty maintaining friendships. It's a fact: a child who can wait 15 minutes will score half as much on admission as a child who only waits 30 seconds.

Observation from the outside helps sometimes, but not while eating.

If you are observed while performing a simple task, your results will increase, but if you are observed during a complex task or a task related to learning a new skill, your results will decrease. By the way, this feature is inherent not only to people, but also to cockroaches (!). Being in a room with others has another effect: if a repairman is working in the room (even in the very corner), people begin to work more slowly. In addition, people, like animals, eat more if they eat in the presence of someone else.

Practical psychology: main directions

In modern practical psychology there is no unified system of knowledge. Instead, there are various directions, schools and methods of work that allow one to achieve good results in each specific case, depending on the characteristics of a person’s individual development. Today we can highlight the most famous schools and directions:

A smile is contagious and says a lot about you.

konradbak/Depositphotos.com
In a movie theater, a person will laugh more if the people around him are laughing. Another situation: bowling, a man hit a strike, but only started smiling when he turned to his friends. This is a smile for social approval, and not from the joy of having done something successfully.

One study found that students who showed Duchenne smiles (the most genuine smiles that use the muscles around the eyes and mouth) in album photos were more likely to be married and more likely to describe themselves as happy 30 years later. And students with less pronounced smiles were much more likely to get divorced.

Development of psychology as a science

Currently, psychology has expanded the scope of theoretical and practical tasks, and if initially its main task was to study the laws of mental activity and its development, then at this stage of the development of science new directions and disciplines have emerged. Nothing stands still; the evolution of human brain activity poses new experimental, non-standard tasks for modern psychology, which is developing interesting solutions to them.

This science studies a huge area of phenomena, covering the human condition, processes, properties of varying degrees of complexity, which can manifest themselves in identifying signs that affect the senses of an object, and even in the struggle of individual motives. Some things have already been sufficiently studied, while others are just waiting for psychologists interested in this area.

Theory in the modern concept of psychology is inherently closely intertwined with practice. This relationship helps to identify gaps in the theory, and also, on the contrary, once again confirm it.

Principles of Psychological Science

It is customary to highlight the following principles of modern psychology:

determinism;
unity of consciousness and activity;
mental development;
survey (open/closed);
conversation method;
interview method;
expert assessments.

The principles of the science under consideration are provisions that can determine the understanding of the human psyche, how it was formed, what its system of functioning and forms of manifestation are.

Many sciences, such as philosophy and physiology, sociology and political science, economics and aesthetics, contributed to the development of principles. Everything works in collaboration. At one time, the Soviet psychologist A. N. Leontyev made a comparison using this example: food entering the stomach is determined by social circumstances, and the digestion process is part of the law of physiology.

Understand yourself, understand yourself - what does this mean?

Each of us is an absolutely unique, unique being. At the same time, we may look similar in appearance to our parents. And even habits and character.

But, at the same time, we remain individuals. And therefore, we are not at all the same as our parents.

Understanding yourself, understanding yourself means mentally moving away from parental stereotypes.

Also, move away from any other stereotypes. Which were imposed on you by the team, friends, media, relatives.

Moreover, take it as an axiom that “I am unique and I have my own path. And I have the right to it."

It is from this point of “I am unique and I have the right to this” that true understanding of oneself begins.

In psychology it is believed: There are no norms.

This means that for each individual, something that contradicts the views of parents, friends, and society can be normal. But at the same time, this is normal for this person. Provided that “this” does not violate the Criminal and Administrative Codes, of course.

This means that in understanding ourselves and trying to understand ourselves, we will move precisely in the direction of understanding our characteristics. And, its dissimilarity from others.