Blackwell Reference Online

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Psychology understands itself as the scientific study of individual behavior and mental processes. Broadly, psychologists divide their work into pure and applied fields. Pure researchers have adopted the investigative methods of the natural sciences (i.e., positivist empiricism and variants) to study the fundamental processes that are said to undergird human behavior. Applied practitioners have pursued “in the world” applications of psychological research: clinical and counseling psychology, community psychology, health psychology, educational psychology, industrial psychology, and sports psychology, among others. Among the social sciences, psychology is clearly the most renowned and influential. The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest association of psychologists worldwide. In 2007 it boasted over 140,000 members. Compare this to the American Sociological Association at 14,000 members, the American Political Science Association at 15,000 members, and the American Anthropology Association at 10,000 members. Moreover, the field of psychology addresses phenomena in nearly all areas of human (and animal) life. Though psychology is not unique in its breadth of study (compare, for example, the equally numerous, and frequently overlapping, realms claimed by sociology), its ubiquity speaks to the power that psychological explanations hold in contemporary western, and ... log in or subscribe to read full text