Developmental psychology

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Developmental psychology emerged as a separate discipline only in the 1930s. Before that, people thought of the process of growth as one of learning and behaviorism or Freudian psychoanalysis. Jean Piaget’s idea that our personality changes as we grow up challenges conventional wisdom. It inspired a new field of study – developmental psychology – that examines how these changes affect the way we learn. The term “development” refers to the change from childhood to adulthood and the whole life span. Developmental psychologists investigate how children develop into adults and how they function in society. They examine how the mind works, why we think what we do, and how we behave. They also examine the impact of culture on individual development.

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Mind and brain

In many cultures around this world, there is the view that humans have a soul that exists independently of the physical body. For Greek philosophers, the soul was also viewed as the seat of our reasoning abilities - what we would call our minds today. While Aristotle...

Precursors of psychology

The natural sciences (physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and geology) developed out of philosophical speculations about the nature of reality. However, it wasn’t till the late nineteenth century that a systematic study of human thought emerged. One reason for...

Neuroscience

Around the middle of the nineteenth century, medical science turned its attention to disorders of the central nervous system. Early neuroscientists, including Jean-Martin Charcot, examined and documented conditions, such as multiple scleroses, prompting research into...

Medical conditions

Throughout history, mental health issues have been treated with suspicion, sometimes leading to fear. Some conditions, including depression and schizophrenia, have been blamed on supernatural forces; others, such as anxiety, have been associated with certain bodily...

Hypnosis

In the late eighteenth century, Austrian doctor Franz Anton Mesmer developed an approach to treating illness based on the idea that disease could be caused by a disturbance in the body's natural energy flow and cured by restoring the correct flow. He believed he could...



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