BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY

BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY

It is a little hard for psychologists to comprehend the human behavior and mind. Psychology is a really vast subject when it comes to understanding. Since psychology is a really diverse subject, it has a lot of branches and school of thoughts. These branches deal with many subtopics such as brain, mind, and complexities of human behavior.

You cannot look at every branch with the same perspective. For every branch you need a different perspective. Psychology has really established itself as a broad scientific discipline.

Psychologists have helped people in every different setting. From understanding abnormal behaviors to assisting students harness their best performance. Psychology as a subject is constantly evolving.

MAJOR DISCIPLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

Abnormal is just a label given to a behavior that is completely away from normal. Behavior that is deviant from social expectations. Anything that breaks social norms is called abnormal. This behavior is dysfunctional and is very improper. This includes mental illnesses like bulimia and schizophrenia.

Psychologists put a deep emphasis on understanding the actual cause behind such unusual behaviors in human. They try to find whether it has a biological human. They try to find whether it has a biological origin or it has originated through experiences.

BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologists who understand human behavior are known as behavioral psychologists. This is also called as Behaviorism. This theory is also based on the idea that behaviors are mostly acquired through proper conditioning.

This is also that field of psychology which dominated during the first century.

BIOPSYCHOLOGY

We can also refer to it as physiological psychology or also as Behavioral Neuroscience . This field of psychology is all about how the brain, nervous system and neurons have an impact on thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

This field has also some other different disciplines :-

1. Basic psychology
2. Cognitive psychology
3. Experimental psychology
4. Biology
5. Physiology
6. Neuroscience

CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY

this branch is only concerned with assessing and treating any kind of mental illness, abnormal behavior and psychiatric disorder.

There’s always a collaborative team that may include physicians, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

It is concerned with the mental state of any person. This area keeps growing since it emerged in the era of 1960’s . This area is more focused on the concept of thinking, learning and remembering.

Psychologists who have a mystery in this field often assess things such as perception, emotional language, learning, attention, memory, decision making, motivation and problem solving.

It is also used as an information-processing model to describe the working of mind. It also informs us that brain stores all the information and then processes of later like any other computer.

COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY

It is concerned with the examination of animal behavior and this vast assessment leads to an in depth understanding of human psychology.

This theory can also be understood through the work of some evolution researchers such as Charles Darwin and George Romanes .

This field has really grown into a vast subject. Most anthropologists, ecologists, geneticists and biologists contribute in this field.

CROSS-CULTURE PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologists keep assessing about the fact that behavior really differs when it comes to various cultures and that too throughout the world

Cross-Culture psychology is that branch where we look at how so many cultural factors are responsible for influencing human behavior. In 1972, IACP was established. IACP stands for The International Association of Cross-Cultural psychology (IACP).

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

People don’t remain same all their Lives. Every human Life undergoes through the process of changing and evolving throughout Life. This study focuses more on how and why people change.

Developmental psychologists examine things such as emotional changes, Social growth, intellectual development, physical growth and all the changes that occur during the lifespan.

These psychologists have specialization mostly in stages like infant, Child and adolescent.  This area covers some really vast topics.

EDUCATIONAL PYSCHOLOGY

This branch is related with those schools who teach psychology and also some educational related issues.

They try to examine how students grasp and process with students, teaching faculty and some administrators to improve results.

They also assess how different factors influence student results. They also go through topics such as learning different processes and also individual differences.

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

This involves scientific methods to examine or to understand the brain and behavior. All the assessment is based on scientific methods. Research based assessment related to social issues and it also involves childhood development.

These psychologists work in almost every different social setting. From universities to schools  and also private businesses.

This subfield involves a lot of experimental techniques.

FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

This field deals with  all those issues that are related to psychology and law. All the psychiatrists involved in this field apply psychology to legal issues. Psychologists emphasize on studying the criminal behavior.

These psychologists perform a lot of duties since they have a lot of responsibility. They also assess special children who are most probably suspect of Child Abuse cases.

They also evaluate the competence of many criminal suspects.

HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY

Biological, psychological, behavioral and also many other social factors are responsible for influencing our health and illness.

This field is more importantly focused on promoting better health and also some major details when it comes to prevention and also treatment of some diseases.

Psychology and it’s branches won’t remain the same always. It’ll keep growing and emerging as a major subject. It is because of psychology that people are able to understand each other better. They’re able to solve complex issues because they get better at communication. Since it is all about examining mind and behavior.

It is because of psychology that we can take care of our mental health. Psychologists examine highly complex behaviors through counselling sessions .

It’s a field with so many subfields

It’s emphasis is more of a philosophical one.

The most two dominant perspectives of theory regarding the working of brain is structuralism and functionalism.

Structuralism was pioneered by Wilhelm Wundt and functionalism was pioneered by William James. psychology is a really important for each one of us. With a better understanding and more efforts, we can resolve a lot more issues.