Main areas of Psychology
Main areas of Psychology
Human behaviour
is very broad with many components that are affected by many variables. So as
to manage to understand the content of psychology, it is divided broadly into
four main areas, namely
- physical
- cognitive
- emotions
- environment.
Physical
aspect is the body of the individual i.e. muscles, skeleton, glands and sensory
systems. This implies that biological processes have influence on our behaviour
e.g. hunger makes us to look for food and eat (behaviour); females can bear
children while males cannot, and writing involves coordination of eyes and
muscles in the arm.
The area of cognitive
in psychology focuses on mental activities that include memory, thinking,
problem solving and language. (You know that brain is part of the physical
body, thus there is a connection between body and cognitive processes).
Cognitive component is responsible for the understanding of us and the
environment, which results in capabilities and behaviours that we use to
manipulate environment for development.
Emotions
are the feelings that we have as our reaction to an object or event. These
feelings can either be pleasant or unpleasant. Pleasant feelings include being
happy, falling in love, laughing; and unpleasant feelings include being angry,
sad, fear and happiness. Emotions make us human (different from machines and
innate objects), and colour our lives (happy in a ceremony and sad when we lose
a loved one) and affect our behaviour (in form of reacting and acting on our
emotions). There is a direct connection between emotions and the brain, and
between emotions and the physical body.
The environment
(physical environment) has effect on our behaviour in that it provides us with
the necessities to survive (air, food and water), it limits or enhances our
behaviours and potentials (think of learning environment). People around us
(social environment) have direct influence on us for they take care of the
young ones (who cannot look for food or fend off negative elements in the
environment, babies cannot survive without the support of the caregivers); on
the language we acquire and in shaping our behaviours through socialization
processes.
These major
areas of studying psychology are interrelated and do not act in isolation of
the others. For example, the environment
affects us (emotionally, mentally, physiologically, socially and behaviour
wise) and we also have some influence on the environment be it physical or
social. When we see food we like we salivate, decide to approach the vendor,
buy the food, and then enjoy while eating it. Such an act is simple and yet
complex as it affects the life of the vendor, food processing, production of
food and impact on the environment. These areas also indicate that psychology
is also related to other disciplines such as biology, sociology, economics,
education, environmental science, anthropology, medicine and geography.
However, you must be aware of the boundaries between psychology and the other
fields.
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