The scientific study of our mind, behavior, and different mental process and how it impacts our thinking, views, and actions is known as psychology. The origin of psychological studies dates back to the ancient Greek and Egyptian civilizations, but it became a proper and independent scientific field in the 1870s.
In the present, the studies and findings of psychological education are more respected today than they were in the past. The main focus of modern psychology and its application focuses on helping people deal with emotional distress. The focus is on giving people the mental and emotional bandwidth to deal with the trauma that they face in their life.
Psychology has made great strides through the years, and its sub-disciplines are now using modern scientific research to make the world a better place. Let’s discuss in detail how these sub-disciplines help the world.
1. Couple and family psychology
Couple and family psychology mainly focuses on families and couples’ emotions, behavior, and thoughts concerning other members and the environment they function in. This sub-discipline generally addresses different problems such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, behavioral issues, parenting issues, child and parent conflicts, etc. Helping couples and families through counseling and therapy helps maintain a better family structure and relationship among individuals.
2. Forensics psychology
A diverse discipline of psychology that is usually affiliated with government organizations like law enforcement and investigation agencies. To be a forensic psychologist, you’d need a forensic psychology degree to start in any reputable organization.
This degree combines the education of law and psychology to understand human behavior in this regard. The job of a forensic psychologist generally involves getting to the main root of a person’s criminal behavior. They work alongside the legal and justice system to make the community safe.
A forensic psychologist aims to understand the criminal mind. They search for answers to questions such as their thought patterns, motives, and behavioral justifications. A forensic psychologist also addresses sociopathy, psychopathy, compulsion in thoughts and actions, multiple personality disorders, etc.
Understanding these things can help make society safer. A forensic psychologist’s findings also shape the laws, punishments, and convictions of criminals.
3. Business psychology
You never realize the impact of psychology in business unless you realize that humans run businesses for humans. And wherever humans are, psychology will play a significant role. Business psychology is the sub-discipline that focuses upon the behavior of people who work in an organization.
The study focuses on making strategies that can make the organization–employee relationship better, engage them properly and increase productivity.
The main job of a business psychologist is to diagnose the behavioral issues that are causing problems in the organization’s design. Once they finish evaluating the situation, they come up with solutions to resolve the problem. To get more data on an employee’s behavior, they use polls, questionnaires, interviews, surveys, etc.
Business psychology plays a vital role in improving the organization’s productivity levels and making the employees work as a team. It also helps in resolving workplace conflict so that every business operation runs smoothly.
4. Media psychology
Media psychology applies psychological studies to understand people’s behavior and interaction with media and its different channels of communication. It is a vast field with no specific definition, but it adds tons of value to the ways humans convey their message.
The reason why media psychology is so important is that in the modern age, media is everywhere. People of all ages use technology and use it to communicate with each other. It studies the technology’s impact on people, how people perceive content, and their response.
In simple words, a media psychologist studies people’s reactions when given a different type of information. They look at the effectiveness of mediums used to convey the message. And finally, the impact or response to that information.
Therefore, media psychology helps make interactive content for people of all ages to increase their learning and skills. It focuses on the mental growth of an individual.
5. Educational psychology
The branch of psychology that focuses on schools, the educational system, student concerns, and issues in this field from a psychological perspective is known as educational psychology.
Educational psychologists tend to work with students and the educational system. They focus on how a child learns and works and what kind of environment can nurture these skills. Their involvement in the educational system improves the academic curriculum, teaching methods, and the whole educational system.
The focus of their work is to understand the learning process and optimize it in children and adults. Their contribution brings many benefits to the world. For starters, it helps in increasing the skills of a student and helps them learn quickly. This pays off as a significant benefit in the future.
6. Health psychology
The area of psychology that focuses on how a human being’s behavior, thinking, and biology affect their health is known as health psychology. It is also known as behavioral medicine or medical psychology. The main focus of this study is to promote health and help people in preventing illnesses and diseases. This is why they work with different health-related issues, such as weight management, drug management, chain-smoking, stress management, and body nutrition.
A health psychologist also plays a crucial role in reaching people on how to cope with their illnesses. For example, if a patient has to deal with amputation, a health psychologist helps them deal with the emotional loss of losing a limb. Then, they help them find strategies to cope with the loss and manage everyday life as much as they can.
A health psychologist also conducts public awareness programs to teach people how to deal with health-related issues more psychologically. Some of them work under the government institutions and hospitals to make new laws and policies for patient care.
Conclusion
Psychology plays a significant role in our world. As said before, wherever humans are, psychology will play a role. It is about time we embrace the importance of this field and use it to improve human lives and work.
All of the fields in the list are making the world better by using scientific research to understand human behavior, which in turn helps developmental capacity improve productivity and performance.