PSYCHOLOGY
Prof. Dr. Ambareen Hasib
SZABUL
What is psychology?
DEFINITION
• The word psychology is derived from two Greek words: Psyche + logos
• Soul + to Study = To study the soul
• Basically, Psychology is derived from Philosophy.
• Many Greek Philosophers were assumed about SOUL and MIND.
• Psychology is simply defined as the study of human mind and
behavior.
• New definition: study of past experiences.
• Psychology is all of the above.
The relationship between Psychology and the
Law
• Law and Psychology are two separate disciplines, but they have much
in common.
• While the goal of Psychology is to understand the behavior and the
purpose of the law to control it, both fields establish norms about
people’s causes.
• The field of psychology and law uses resources and research methods
and findings of social psychology and clinical psychology to examine
legal assumptions to evaluate whether they truly work or not and
think in ways to expand them.
• Legal psychology involves the practical and psychological investigation
of the law, legal institutions and people who come into contact with
the law.
• Legal psychology involves the practical and psychological investigation
of the law, legal institutions and people who come into contact with
the law.
• Legal psychologists usually take basic social and cognitive principles
and apply them to problems in the legal system, such as eyewitness
memory, jury decision making, investigations and interviews.
• The term legal psychology is used lately, mainly as a way to
differentiate the experimental approach of legal psychology from
clinically focused on forensic field psychology are more generally
known as “psychology and law.”
• After the previous efforts of psychologists to report legal issues,
psychology and law became a field of study in the 1960s as part of an
effort to improve justice, though that original apprehension has
diminished over time. (Sales & krauss, 2015)
• There is a connection among psychology and law and the study and
practice of forensic psychology, whereas forensic psychology is related
to the application of clinical specialties to legal institutions and people
who come into contact with the law.
• Legal psychology is mainly related to experimental or research-
oriented areas of psychology applied to legal issues.
Psychologists look to examine how to improve the legal system.
Psychologists can measure the impact of abuse and abuse on social and
cognitive development, Industrial/ organizational psychologists can
investigate how workplace conditions contribute to the incidence of
sexual harassment, and clinical forensic psychologists can offer
treatment services to courts and lawyers, law enforcement agencies or
criminals in correctional situations or under judicial supervision.
The major goals of Psychology
Psychology___the scientific study of the mind and behavior__has four goals:
To describe behavior
To explain behavior
To predict behavior
To change behavior
• Describing Behavior
Simply describing the behavior of humans and other animals helps
psychologists understand the motivations behind it.
Such descriptions also serve as behavioral benchmarks that help
psychologists gauge what is considered normal and abnormal.
• Researchers might start by observing human behavior and then
describing a problem. By understanding what is happening,
psychologists can then work on learning more about why the
behavior happens and even how to change it.
• Explaining Behavior
Explaining behavior is probably what comes to mind for most people
when they think about the goals of psychology. Why do people do the
things they do? What factors contribute to development, personality,
social behavior, and mental health problems?
• Predicting Behavior
Not surprisingly, another primary goal of psychology is to predict how
we think and act. Once psychologists understand what happens and
why, they can formulate predictions about when, why, and how it might
happen again.
• Changing Behavior
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, psychology strives to change,
influence, and/ or control behavior to make constructive, lasting
changes in people’s lives.
