• Question: what is psycology

    Asked by anon-204443 to Sally, Lucy, Louise, James, David, Dan on 2 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Sally Tilt

      Sally Tilt answered on 2 Mar 2019:

      Psychology is about the question ‘why do we do that?’. It is a science that studies the mind and human behaviour.

      So let’s give an example – let’s say for instance that one person really likes Capri Sun (excellent choice by the way) and drinks them every day but another person really doesn’t like them and never drinks them. What could have happened to these people to lead them to behave so differently?

      Maybe:
      – The person who likes them first drank it on a holiday, and the drink reminds them of that.
      – The person who doesn’t like them may have been poorly after drinking one and the drink reminds them of that.
      – The person who doesn’t like them is really worried about plastic use, and doesn’t want to drink something with lots of packaging.
      – The person who likes them may enjoy the sugary taste.
      – The person who doesn’t like them may be worried about sugary drinks on their teeth.

      You can think of lots more reasons I’m sure. Psychology is about understanding the way we think and behave.

      Then one of the really cool bits about psychology is to think how you might change these behaviours – e.g. if you were the boss of the Capri Sun company, what might you do to make people love the drink? (I’ll leave you to think about this while you’re filling out your application for the Capri Sun tasting job).

    • Photo: Dan Taylor

      Dan Taylor answered on 2 Mar 2019:

      The psych bit of psychology comes from the ancient Greek for “soul”. Which I always think of as encapsulating psychology near perfectly. Psychology is essentially the study of what makes someone that person. How their biology might affect their behaviour, how their thoughts and emotions are processed, what personality someone has an how it effects their behaviour also. Psychology can cover so many topics and it’s well worth looking into all the amazing possibilities out there!

    • Photo: Lucy Maddox

      Lucy Maddox answered on 2 Mar 2019:

      Loving reading the other answers and especially getting into the Capri Sun example 🙂

      This is a really tricky question to answer! Psychology often gets called the study of the mind – but what is the mind? Psychology thinks about thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and also external influences on these things, like the effect of our previous experiences, and society. One thing I think it’s hot on is really picking apart the mechanisms of HOW things have an effect, as well as what has an effect. So how do my thoughts affect what I do and how I feel? And how can what I do affect what I think?

      For a more clinical example building on Sally’s reference to your love for Capri Sun – if I have a Capri Sun phobia, where I am scared of Capri Sun, what thought is causing me to feel afraid?
      Is it that I think Capri Sun is going to poison me?
      Then, what could I do to test out this fear? Try a little bit of Capri Sun and see if I’m ok? Watch other people drinking Capri Sun and check they are ok? How would these experiences change my thoughts about Capri Sun and my feelings?

    • Photo: Louise Rodgers

      Louise Rodgers answered on 3 Mar 2019:

      My favourite definition is ‘the science of mental life’ which I think is the Psychologist George Miller’s definition. I would be sooo interested to know what definitions some of the students logging on have.

    • Photo: James Munro

      James Munro answered on 10 Mar 2019:

      Psychology is the study of how biology uses chemistry which uses physics to allow us to think.

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