Four Goals of Psychology and Their Effect on Humanity

Four Goals of Psychology

Four Goals of Psychology and Their Effect on Humanity

Mystery

unknown

February 12, 2011

Four Goals of Psychology and Their Effect on Humanity

The four goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and control behavior and thought processes. The goals are designed to further our knowledge of the brain and how it works, resulting in advancing treatment to illnesses, and understanding why we act as we do. So psychology is a benefit to humanity as many people who were formally interned in mental hospitals, are now able to live independently with a high quality of life, plus we are able to view into ourselves and those close to us and understand why we do what we, whether good or bad.

Goals

As stated above, the four goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and control behavior and thought processes, these goals guide psychology in its research and testing to understand the human mind, how it operates and provides a reason for our actions, and modes to change negative behavior.

Describe

Describing is pretty straightforward, when a problem exists, we tell in detail the problem and why it is problem and tells what has occurred. Downs and Abwender conducted a research project to determine if repeated blows by a soccer ball caused damage to the brain. Although theirs was a theory they were testing, they would describe the potential problem as a soccer ball repeatedly striking soccer players in the head.

Explain

Explaining is also simple, tell why the potential problem described in the description and tell why it is a problem. To continue with Downs and Abwender, the problem is the soccer ball repeatedly striking the head, so the explanation would be that repeated impact of the soccer ball upon the head causes trauma on the brain.

Predict

Predict is exactly what the name implies, to make a prediction based upon the description and explanation. Downs and Abwender would predict the trauma upon the brain caused by the soccer ball would result in decreased mental abilities.

Control

Control would be controlling behavior, meaning taking the results from the prediction, and taking measures to alter the outcome to more a satisfactory outcome. It would be just a guess, but is safe to assume Downs and Abwender would have advocated eliminating using the head, at the minimum, in youth soccer. It would also be safe to assume they would have been in favor of some form of head protection for older soccer players if head use was inevitable.

Effects