PSİKOLOJİ

The human behavior has always drawn the interest of scholars from other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, biology, physiology, medicine, and computer science.

Philosophy Study of nature of existence, reality, knowledge, language, morality

Sociology Study of human social relationships, structures, institutions, politics

Anthropology Study of humans’ culture and physical body in the past and present

Biology Study of nature of living organisms and life

Physiology Study of physical and chemical processes in living organism

Medicine Study of diagnosing and treating the diseases and maintaining the health

Computer Science Study of computers systems, designs, computations, data processing

the human behavior has always drawn the interest of scholars from other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, biology, physiology, medicine, and computer science. From these disciplines ,anthropology; study of humans’ culture and physical body in the past and present.

Psychoanalysis approach, founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), suggested that psychology should study human mind by discovering the unconscious processes.

With the use of introspection, researchers attempted to analyze the basic elements of consciousness (sensations) in laboratory experiments. In these experiments, trained participants shared their internal experiences of sensations, perceptions, and reactions to the stimuli in the environment. In this way, researchers of structuralism aimed to understand what are in the mind (rather than how or why the mind works).

Materialism is a philosophical approach, which rejects the idea of mind and body as separate entities. According to materialism, the mind is not something spiritual or nonphysical. The mind is just a part of the body. That is, the roots of the mind can be found in the body. This implies that working of the mind can be explained through the working of the body. This also implies that internal psychological processes are understood by exploring the physical principles of the body.

Beginning of modern psychology dates back to the late nineteenth century, when Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) founded first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany

Clinical psychology studies the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems in humans. It aims to understand the determinants of psychological disorders such as stress, depression, anxiety, and phobia. Clinical psychologists develop measures to recognize people with behavioral adjustment problems.

Cognitive perspective suggested that psychology should study how mental processes influence the human behavior. According to cognitive perspective, how humans process the information or the stimuli in the environment influence how they behave. It suggests that humans’ thoughts and interpretations of information and stimuli shape their behaviors.

Gestalt is used in psychology in the meaning of pattern or configuration8. Gestalt psychology was a reaction against structuralism, which attempted to divide human experience or consciousness into its elements. According to Gestalt psychology, individual elements of any experience cannot explain the experience itself. This approach argued that the human mind organizes the experience in the way that is not reducible to the sum of its parts. It suggested that elements of any experience interact with each other and humans perceive a pattern or a whole of these interactions, which takes place across time and/or space

Consumer psychology studies human behavior in the context of marketing. It aims to understand determinants of purchasing behavior. Consumer psychology examines how motivation, perception, learning, attitudes, personality etc. influence people’s buying behavior and their use of products.

In order to understand behavior, psychology holds five aims: to describe, to explain, to predict, to control, and to improve the behavior3. Describing refers to identifying how behavior occurs (e.g., authoritarian people like hierarchy in society). Explaining refers to uncovering the causes of behavior (e.g., authoritarianism develops in people with controlling parents). Predicting refers to foreseeing the behavior in different conditions (e.g., authoritarian people perceive their mothers controlling). Controlling refers to changing the behavior by changing its causes (e.g., to expose a group of individuals to controlling behaviors and then to measure authoritarianism in them). Improving refers to using psychological explanations to promote humans’ well-being (e.g., to develop a program to help mothers in rearing non- authoritarian children).

Anthropology studies human beings' culture and physical body in the past and present.