PSYCHOLOGY AS RELATED TO OTHER SCIENCES
A good definition of our science would distinguish it from other sciences, especially from those neighboring sciences with which it is in closest contact.
Psychology and sociology. There is no difficulty in framing a good logical distinction here. Sociology studies the activities of a group of people taken as a whole, while psychology studies the activities of the individuals. Both might be interested in the same social activities, such as an election, but sociology would consider this event as a unit, whereas psychology would break it up into the acts of the several voters. The distinction is clear enough theoretically, but breaks down often in practice, as sociology would like to know the motives that swayed individual voters, while psychology on its side is interested to know what decision was reached by the majority. AH the social sciences, including economics and politics, have a psychological side since they evidently are concerned to know the causes that govern human conduct. Social psychology studies the individual in his social relations.
Psychology and biology. Biology, being the science of living creatures, includes psychology, which studies these creatures on the mental side. The science of life includes the science of mental life. We may call psychology a part of biology, or we may call it one of the biological sciences. It has very close contact with several other branches of biology. Animal psychology overlaps that part of zoology which studies the behavior of animals. Genetic psychology, as it is sometimes called, i.e., the study of mental heredity and development, dovetails with the general biological science of genetics, so that we find biologists gathering data on the heredity of feeble-mindedness or of musical ability, while psychologists discuss the general theory of heredity.
Psychology and physiology. That one of all the sciences that has the closest contacts with psychology is human and animal physiology. Broadly defined, physiology is that part of biology that studies functions or activities; and, so defined, it includes psychology as part of itself. In practice, psychology devotes itself to desire, thought, memory, and such " mental functions ", while physiology concentrates its effort upon " bodily functions " like digestion and circulation. But this is only a rough distinction, which breaks down at many points.
Where shall we class sensation? Is it "mental" or "bodily"? Both sciences study. Physiology is perhaps more apt to go into the detailed study of the action of the sense organs, and psychology to concern itself with the classification of sensations and the use made of them for recognizing objects or for esthetic purposes. But the line between the two sciences is far from sharp at this point.
Speech, also, lies in both provinces. Physiology has studied the action of the vocal organs and the location of the brain centers concerned in speech, while psychology has studied the child's process of learning to speak and the relation of speech to thought, and is more apt to be interested in stuttering, slips of the tongue, and other speech disturbances which are said to be " mental rather than physical ".
It would be hard to mention any activity that is mental without being physical at the same time. Even thinking, which seems as purely mental as any, requires brain action; and the brain is just as truly a bodily organ as the heart or stomach. Its activity is bodily activity and lies properly within the field of physiology.
We do not find any clean separation between our science and physiology; but we find, on the whole, that psychology examines what are called " mental " activities, and that it studies them as the performances of the whole individual rather than as executed by the several organs.
source: PSYCHOLOGY A STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE BY ROBERT S. WOODWORTH, Ph.D.
Professor of psychology in Columbia University NEW YORK
0 Response to " PSYCHOLOGY AS RELATED TO OTHER SCIENCES"
Post a Comment