Psychology (Yeah, this isn't going to be as fun as Comic books and video games)

Ah, yes, Psychology, that thing that almost all of us had to sit through as undergraduate students, and some of us decided might have some neat possibilities for a potential future/career.  First, i have a B.S. degree in Psychology, as well a M.S. in School Psychology.  So you can say i've spent more than my fair share of time in a classroom listening to a droning lecture about Freud, some other stuff i didn't care about, and Pavlov's wicked cool dogs.

That being said, when people find out that i have a pair of degrees in psychology, the reactions are either mixed, or critical.

"Oh, you're one of those people."

"Hey, i keep thinking things about other things, what do you think that means?"

"Should i hurt myself?"

Yeah, this seems like a Tuesday.

In a response to the above questions, in order.

"Yep, one of those people"

"I think you should sit down and think about why you're thinking about that thing now when it hasn't been so much of a thing until recently."

"No, you should not hurt yourself, you need to find some much more competent help than me at your earliest convenience."

What is Psychology?  Nope, not going into some deep, introspective thoughts about the ideal of psychology, or what psychology should be.  I tend to think that's a more personal question that you, as a potential, future or past student of psychology to decide for yourself.  I try to stay away from the opinions side of things, and let the facts (the ones that there are) speak for themselves.

Psychology is the study of the mind. The philosophy of things at the school i attended tracked psychology along three axes.  Affect, which is your apparent emotional state and the psychological cues you'll share with the world around you.  Behavior, which is the observable actions you take and the consequences that follow them.  Finally, Cognition, which is the way you think about things, and the things you think about.  Together, these collective concepts were referred to as the ABC's of Psychology.

Affect is an interesting area of study because it encompasses your emotions and the way they are presented in response to Stimuli, (Oh, a word for the Jargon board).  A healthy Affect means that a person is happy when they encounter something that makes them happy, or sad when they encounter something that is supposed to make them sad.  People experiencing things that make them sad or angry should have appropriate emotional responses.  That's healthy, and it often means that the Affect part of things is working the way its supposed to.  People who react either in the extreme, or who don't react at all, (called a flat Affect) could be experiencing some sort of psychological stress or trauma.  People who react inappropriately (Crying at parties, or laughing at funerals) also likely have some sort of psychological issue.

Behavior is another neat psychological concept that drives the study of psychology (you could make the case that it IS the driving force of psychology).  Behavior is often described as how an organism reacts to the environment around it.  This concept is easier to study in other forms of life than Affect, because i can see how a mouse is going to physically navigate a maze, where i can't tell what his emotional state is while he's doing it.  Any task that can be observed and measured is a form of Behavior, whether it's rats navigating mazes, pigeons pecking at buttons for food, or how often freshmen college students attend class.

Cognition is the least understood portion of this trio, because it is the one with the lowest profile.  You can usually perceive when a person is happy or upset (assuming you have a normal level of emotional awareness), and you can observe a person navigating through their environment, (again, assuming a normal level of perceptive ability). Cognition is often an entirely mental process that has no observable "moving parts" to understand how they work.  Thinking and Learning are two of the core cognitive processes, but recognizing familiar and unfamiliar objects, identifying the direction sounds are coming from and figuring out the word that comes after the next one are all cognitive tasks.

Coming back around to the core question, what is Psychology?

I look at Psychology as the study of the brain, and how it affects our interactions with our environment.  The brain, in most cases, serves as the core of our decision making, information processing, and information storage.  Understanding how our brain works (and doesn't work) enables us to be better prepared for dealing with the day to day tasks of our lives.

As usual, any questions or comments are totally fun,