Theoretical
psychology relates to the philosophical and theoretical aspects of all of the
subdivisions of psychology.
Theoretical
psychology focuses on combining and integrating existing theories and
developing non-experimental psychology.
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The Fields of
Theoretical Psychology - Do You Know How Many Theoretical Branches are in
Psychology?
What is Psychology?
Psychology
is one of the branches of social sciences concerned with conducting scientific
and academic studies on the behavior of individuals, mind, way of thinking and
personality.
Psychology
is concerned with the perception and the methods used in thinking. It deals
with the study of man in all its dimensions.
The term
psychology refers to the study of the psyche of the individual and the extent
of the impact of activities and the surrounding areas in his daily life.
Psychology
may deepen to address the problems that individuals face in their daily lives,
as well as the treatment of mental illness.
In addition
to psychology, behavioral science is an investigation of all situations and
events that affect behavior, including external events that we can observe
directly, and internal situations that we cannot detect with direct observation
and puzzling variables that may be, so far, unable to accurately identify them.
The central
focus of psychology in both the fields of research and psychological
application is the behavior and activities of the people.
Psychologists
also try to investigate animal behavior for what such research can offer from
new perspectives of human behavior.
What
is Theoretical Psychology?
Theoretical
psychology relates to the philosophical and theoretical aspects of all of
the subdivisions of psychology; social, political, historical,
developmental, economic, personality, cognitive, neurological,
perceptual, evolutionary, biological, and critical psychology amongst others.
Theoretical
psychology focuses on combining and integrating existing theories and
developing non-experimental psychology. It was in existence before experimental
or empirical psychology.
Theoretical
psychology was originated from the philosophy of science, logic, and
rationality that were the basis of every new idea.
Now, theoretical
psychology has become an interdisciplinary field with a broad scope of the
study, in which psychologists are specializing in different types of
psychological branches.
Read more: Branches
of applied psychology
What are the Specialty Fields in Psychology?
The
following is a simplified explanation of the fields of psychology:
It
is no accident that year 1879, the year of the establishment of the
experimental laboratory was the stage of the dissemination of ideas, and dozens
of laboratories emerged in many countries of the developed world.
There
were many scientific and industrial developments in the world at that time.
The
scientists and those interested in the industry and education field have faced
the need to care for the human being and to reveal his abilities and
preparations and to identify the laws of his psychological development in order
to improve the aspects that ensure the necessary adaptation to his activity and
thus increase the profitability of this activity in favor of capital.
The
experimental method and the necessary devices and techniques, and the method of
scientific observation and statistical means and mathematics were the way
scientists and researchers benefited from them in the fields of
medicine, physiology, natural sciences, social and others to obtain data and
information on the subject of study, analysis, and interpretation.
Early
pioneers of psychology have benefited from all this.
Major Branches of Theoretical Psychology
There are
many fields of theoretical psychology, for example:
General Psychology:
General
psychology deals with the study of the general principles of human behavior as
a whole, influencing all the surrounding natural and cultural stimuli, as well
as trying to reach the general psychological foundations of human behavior that
generally, apply to all individuals.
The subject
of general psychology is human: conscious, thinking, remembering, imaginative
and passive.
The general
psychology is the main source of specialization in the field of psychology.
Therefore,
every human being who wishes to study psychology must start with the study of
general psychology before studying the other branches which are considered more
advanced and specialized than general psychology.
From the
above it is clear that general psychology studies the general laws of
psychology, before studying the sense, perception, attention, remembering,
imagining and thinking, in pure scientific theory without belonging to any
particular individual or group, without looking into the applications of these
laws in the lives of people.
General
psychology examines, for example, the general principles of learning that apply
to all cases of anthropology, regardless of the particular subject that a
person learns.
The
application of these principles in special fields, such as education in the
school - the factory - the army, is out of the jurisdiction of general
psychology.
Psychophysiology:
Psychophysiology
(Physiological psychology) studies subjects related to organ functions,
especially those that affect human behavior, such as the nervous system, its
structure, and the functions it performs. It is the organ that connects humans
to the outside world.
Therefore,
Psychophysiology deals with the nervous system, sensory organs, and
endocrine systems and its relation to our life ideas.
For example,
it attempts to determine how sensation occurs, how the nerve current moves in
the neurons, and how the brain controls feeling and behavior.
Psychophysiology
studies the various functions of endocrine glands, and how they affect behavior.
Psychophysiology
also examines the physiological basis of motivation, how we feel hunger,
thirst, sexual desire, and other physiological motives.
The
physiological psychology also includes the identification of the different
centers of the brain and the competencies of each center, including auditory
and visual perception, and those that are specialized in speech, as well as
emotions, stimuli, and physiological and biological manifestations.
Animal Psychology:
Psychologists
study the behavior of the animal because it is easy to conduct practical
experiments on the animal, while in some cases it is difficult or impossible to
conduct such experiments on humans.
For example,
it is easy to remove a part of the animal's brain to see how it affects animal
behavior, while it is impossible to conduct such an experiment on humans.
Through
these experiments, psychologists have been able to identify brain functions,
assign special centers for sensory and motor functions, and animal experiments
have also helped to study genetics and to learn about the relationship of
hormones to behavior.
Social Psychology:
Social
psychology is a science that conducts the scientific study of the behavior of
the living organism in a society with its peers interacting with them and
affecting them and influencing them - that is affected by their behavior and
affects their behavior.
Social
psychology is concerned with the study of man in the context of society. The
behavior of individuals is always influenced by the social environment that
surrounds them, and man by virtue of the nature of his composition is
originally a social individual, since he is born dependent on his living and
managing his affairs on others.
The people act
as triggers for thier responses, and they are also the object and focus of the
responses.
The manner
in which social psychology deals with them determines the quality of behavior
and actions and determines the nature and quality of feelings.
Social
psychology also examines the leadership behavior of man, compares it with the
behavior of the president, as well as studying social deviations and diseases,
as well as studying the psychology of the masses, public opinion, and
propaganda.
Developmental Psychology:
Developmental
psychology is concerned with the study of different stages of growth during
pregnancy, birth, the period of breastfeeding, weaning, early childhood,
middle, late, puberty, adolescence, youth, masculinity and old age, and the
characteristics of each age and developmental aspects of the physical, motor,
sensory, mental, psychological, emotional and social aspects.
Some are
called developmental psychology, formative psychology, which is the science
that studies the development of psychological processes or their growth in
successive stages of life, using the formative way.
The growth
psychology is concerned not only with the growth of muscles, in terms of muscle
growth, elongation, body length, weight gain, but also the attendant growth,
physiological growth, growth in mental processes, growth in sensation,
perception, emotion, etc.
Differential Psychology:
Differential
psychology is also known as the psychology of individual differences; this
science aims to study the individual and collective differences of human
characteristics, the reasons and the differences between people in
intelligence, personality, preparations, and special talents and others.
It is noted
that general psychology reveals to us the facts that show how individuals are
similar, while psychology reveals to us the difference as to how individuals
differ and to what extent they differ.
Differential
psychology is closely related to empirical psychology on the one hand, and
anthropological studies on the other, in addition to biology, anatomy and
physiology for humans and animals.
Abnormal Psychology:
Abnormal
Psychology is the science that studies unusual or non-normal cases, including
the disabled, gifted, retarded, visually blind, deaf and dumb.
In fact, the
specialists find it difficult, and in ancient times it was a great get rid of
them. Those who have a handicapped child go out to the open and throw it there
because it would cause a great burden.
But after
science has diversified in our modern age, it has begun to focus on them and
give them all the rights in society, just like ordinary human beings.
Para-Psychology:
Parapsychology
is the study of psychic and paranormal phenomena, including
precognition, telepathy, psychokinesis, clairvoyance, near-death
experiences, reincarnation, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, and
other paranormal claims.
Parapsychology is
considered to be pseudoscience by a vast majority of mainstream scientists.
The
paranormal science of the following facts can open to the man other doors of
knowledge, it has been proved that:
- The mind can connect to another mind without physical means - telepathy.
- The mind can connect to other assets or creatures that it senses without moderation.
- The mind can transcend the vast distances.
- Man can influence the movement of animals.
Man and the
universe around him are mysteries that require humility and scientific
enthusiasm to reveal the unknown and believe in the greatness of the Creator.
Some
scholars point out that paranormal psychology will be the closest science to
religious thought; it will be compatible with religion and go hand in hand with
one another.