Why is Psychology important?
Everyone has a rough idea of what psychologists do (at least those in the clinical branch). However, in general it tends to minimize the role of psychology in our society , limiting it to the treatment of mental disorders, when the truth is that the contributions of psychology are multiple and varied.
Since psychology studies the behavior of people as a whole, the utilities that derive from the knowledge acquired by this science can be applied to many fields. If you want to know why psychology is so important , this article can be very useful.
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Psychology and its applications
Normally, psychology is defined as the study of behavior and human mental processes . This definition may vary depending on the theoretical orientation or the field of application; For example, the object of study can easily be extended to non-human animals, as in comparative psychology and ethology.
Psychological research is included in many cases within what we know as "basic psychology" , dedicated to obtaining knowledge about processes such as perception, memory or reasoning, which influence any type of human behavior.
The best known application of psychology is its clinical aspect, which aims to help solve mental and behavioral problems to improve the quality of life of people. Community psychology has objectives similar to those of the clinic but its approach is more macro, since it works with large population groups instead of with individuals.
Other well-known branches of this science they are the educational psychology, which analyzes learning with the aim of enhancing it, and the psychology of organizations, which applies the theories developed by social psychology to the professional field. Forensic psychology, on the other hand, focuses on psychological evaluation as support for judicial processes, and sports psychology aims to improve athletic performance.
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Why is psychology important?
Due to the breadth of the field of psychology, its importance depends to a large extent on the concrete application to which we refer . However, in this section we will reflect on the relevance of psychology at a general level, emphasizing some of its key contributions.
1. To understand living beings
Psychological theories are fundamental to explain the behavior of animals, especially people: any activity produced in a human society is susceptible to be analyzed from psychology since it will always involve the participation of basic mental processes. In relation to the study of human groups, social psychology is particularly important.
The analysis of behavior is not only interesting in itself for a large number of people, but also allows applying the knowledge acquired to many different fields, especially within the social and natural sciences as medicine, sociology, economics, history, political science , demography, linguistics, veterinary medicine or zoology.
2. To increase the quality of life
Many people consider that the ultimate goal of psychology is to increase the well-being and quality of life of others . Although other professionals have different conceptions, the truth is that service to other people has been a central aspect in the development of psychology and continues to be so today.
Evidently, psychology is useful for enhancing mental health and personal growth, but the benefits of this science are not limited to the psyche. The psychology of health, for example, seeks physical well-being and disease prevention through the acquisition of healthy behavioral habits, a key aspect that medicine tends to ignore.
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3. To improve relationships
The knowledge derived from psychological science is very important for the improvement of human relationships. So, it's the psychologists who are better able to improve social skills of shy people, to mediate in cases of divorce or to intervene in mobbing and bullying, among other functions.
4. To enhance professional performance
In today's societies, performance and productivity are extremely valuable professionally, and more and more people realize that having psychologists on their work team promotes results clearly. Human resources, organizational psychology and sports They are good examples of this role.
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5. To develop cognition
Since psychology, many have been proposed techniques to improve cognitive abilities such as logical reasoning, memory or problem solving. We speak of "meta-knowledge" to refer to knowledge about one's own learning processes; Understanding how our mental processes work is very important to perfect them.
6. To increase creativity
Psychology promotes creativity for different reasons. Not only allows to analyze the artistic process at a deep level, but the understanding of the behavior and mental functioning of people is a very important help for the creation of significant works and realistic characters.
7. To solve specific problems
Both clinical psychology and other branches of this science have frequently focused on solving everyday problems. In this regard, we consider that special mention should be made of the problem solving techniques such as those proposed by D'Zurilla and Nezu , which determine a series of useful steps to face any complex situation.
8. To change the world
After all, many people would like society to be more benevolent with those who make it up. Although institutions tend to ignore psychology for lack of knowledge or for the contraposition of interests, if the contributions of our science regarding individual well-being and collective functioning were more taken into account, the world would undoubtedly be a better place.
