In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation . Their most paradigmatic forms are judging , reasoning , concept formation, problem solving , and deliberation . But other mental processes, like considering an idea , memory , or imagination , are also often included. These processes can happen internally independent of the sensory organs , unlike perception. But when understood in the widest sense, any mental event may be understood as a form of thinking, including perception and unconscious mental processes. In a slightly different sense, the term thought refers not to the mental processes themselves but to mental states or systems of ideas brought about by these processes.
207-442: Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts , feelings , and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions . In
414-450: A broader category of applied psychology called criminal psychology. Custody cases are an example of non-criminal evaluations by forensic psychologists. The validity and upholding of eyewitness testimony is an area of forensic psychology that does veer closer to criminal investigations, though does not directly involve the psychologist in the investigation process. Psychologists are often called to testify as expert witnesses on issues such as
621-683: A change in attitudes or behavior. Research on attitudes has examined the distinction between traditional, self-reported attitudes and implicit, unconscious attitudes . Experiments using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) , for instance, have found that people often demonstrate implicit bias against other races, even when their explicit responses profess impartiality. Likewise, one study found that in interracial interactions, explicit attitudes correlate with verbal behavior, while implicit attitudes correlate with nonverbal behavior. Attitudes are also involved in several other areas of
828-604: A changeless intelligible world. Instead, they only exist to the extent that they are instantiated. The mind learns to discriminate universals through abstraction from experience. This explanation avoids various of the objections raised against Platonism. Conceptualism is closely related to Aristotelianism. It states that thinking consists in mentally evoking concepts. Some of these concepts may be innate, but most have to be learned through abstraction from sense experience before they can be used in thought. It has been argued against these views that they have problems in accounting for
1035-483: A changeless realm different from the sensible world. Examples include the forms of goodness, beauty, unity, and sameness. On this view, the difficulty of thinking consists in being unable to grasp the Platonic forms and to distinguish them as the original from the mere imitations found in the sensory world. This means, for example, distinguishing beauty itself from derivative images of beauty. One problem for this view
1242-411: A clear definition of the features a representational system has to embody in order to have a linguistic structure. On the level of syntax, the representational system has to possess two types of representations: atomic and compound representations. Atomic representations are basic whereas compound representations are constituted either by other compound representations or by atomic representations. On
1449-418: A common identity. They have a number of emergent qualities that distinguish them from coincidental, temporary gatherings, which are termed social aggregates: The shared social identity of individuals within a group influences intergroup behavior , which denotes the way in which groups behave towards and perceive each other. These perceptions and behaviors in turn define the social identity of individuals within
1656-458: A cultural context. It was also in this period where situationism , the theory that human behavior changes based on situational factors, emerged and challenged the relevance of self and personality in psychology. By the 1980s and 1990s, social psychology had developed a number of solutions to these issues with regard to theory and methodology . At present, ethical standards regulate research, and pluralistic and multicultural perspectives to
1863-466: A distinct phenomenology but contends that thinking still depends on sensory experience because it cannot occur on its own. On this view, sensory contents constitute the foundation from which thinking may arise. An often-cited thought experiment in favor of the existence of a distinctive cognitive phenomenology involves two persons listening to a radio broadcast in French, one who understands French and
2070-419: A farm full of animals. The concepts and trends learned through environmental psychology can be used when setting up or rearranging spaces so that the space will best perform its intended function. The top common, more well known areas of psychology that drive this applied field include: cognitive, perception, learning, and social psychology. Forensic psychology and legal psychology are the areas concerned with
2277-445: A few other aspects of environments studied by this sub-discipline of psychology. When examining a particular environment, environmental psychology looks at the goals and purposes of the people in the using the environment, and tries to determine how well the environment is suiting the needs of the people using it. For example, a quiet environment is necessary for a classroom of students taking a test, but would not be needed or expected on
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#17327726043482484-555: A human and a process interact. Often engineering psychology may be centered on computers. However at the base level, a process is simply a series of inputs and outputs between a human and a machine. The human must have a clear method to input data and be able to easily access the information in output. The inability of rapid and accurate corrections can sometimes lead to drastic consequences, as summed up by many stories in Set Phasers on Stun. The engineering psychologists wants to make
2691-436: A low number of atomic representations. This applies to thought since human beings are capable of entertaining an infinite number of distinct thoughts even though their mental capacities are quite limited. Other characteristic features of thinking include systematicity and inferential coherence . Fodor argues that the language of thought hypothesis is true as it explains how thought can have these features and because there
2898-421: A more explicit explanation of what computation is. A further problem consists in explaining the sense in which thinking is a form of computing. The traditionally dominant view defines computation in terms of Turing machines , though contemporary accounts often focus on neural networks for their analogies. A Turing machine is capable of executing any algorithm based on a few very basic principles, such as reading
3105-463: A new problem. On this view, the important difference is that this process happens inwardly as a form of simulation. This process is often much more efficient since once the solution is found in thought, only the behavior corresponding to the found solution has to be outwardly carried out and not all the others. When thinking is understood in a wide sense, it includes both episodic memory and imagination . In episodic memory, events one experienced in
3312-591: A number of different areas or domains. According to Gelso and Fretz (2001), there are some central unifying themes among counseling psychologists. These include a focus on an individual's strengths, relationships, their educational and career development, as well as a focus on normal personalities. Counseling psychologists help people improve their well-being, reduce and manage stress, and improve overall functioning in their lives. The interventions used by Counseling Psychologists may be either brief or long-term in duration. Often they are problem focused and goal-directed. There
3519-486: A number of specialized areas in the general area of psychology have applied branches (e.g., applied social psychology , applied cognitive psychology ). However, the lines between sub-branch specializations and major applied psychology categories are often mixed or in some cases blurred. For example, a human factors psychologist might use a cognitive psychology theory. This could be described as human factor psychology or as applied cognitive psychology. When applied psychology
3726-410: A person may generally value the environment but may not recycle a plastic bottle because of specific factors on a given day. One of the most influential 20th century attitude theories was Cognitive dissonance theory . According to this theory, attitudes must be logically consistent with each other. Noticing incongruence among one’s attitudes leads to an uncomfortable state of tension, which may motivate
3933-492: A population. This type of research is usually descriptive or correlational because there is no experimental control over variables. Some psychologists have raised concerns for social psychological research relying too heavily on studies conducted on university undergraduates in academic settings, or participants from crowdsourcing labor markets such as Amazon Mechanical Turk . In a 1986 study by David O. Sears , over 70% of experiments used North American undergraduates as subjects,
4140-413: A reaction to particular external stimuli . Computationalism is the most recent of these theories. It sees thinking in analogy to how computers work in terms of the storage, transmission, and processing of information. Various types of thinking are discussed in academic literature. A judgment is a mental operation in which a proposition is evoked and then either affirmed or denied. Reasoning , on
4347-484: A reaction to particular external stimuli. On this view, having a particular thought is the same as having a disposition to behave in a certain way. This view is often motivated by empirical considerations: it is very difficult to study thinking as a private mental process but it is much easier to study how organisms react to a certain situation with a given behavior. In this sense, the capacity to solve problems not through existing habits but through creative new approaches
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#17327726043484554-519: A regular language, like English or French, but has its own type of language with the corresponding symbols and syntax. This theory is known as the language of thought hypothesis . Inner speech theory has a strong initial plausibility since introspection suggests that indeed many thoughts are accompanied by inner speech. But its opponents usually contend that this is not true for all types of thinking. It has been argued, for example, that forms of daydreaming constitute non-linguistic thought. This issue
4761-470: A regular wall can be understood as computing an algorithm since they are "isomorphic to the formal structure of the program" in question under the right interpretation. This would lead to the implausible conclusion that the wall is thinking. Another objection focuses on the idea that computationalism captures only some aspects of thought but is unable to account for other crucial aspects of human cognition. A great variety of types of thinking are discussed in
4968-438: A restaurant, doing laundry) are known as scripts . Self-concept is the whole sum of beliefs that people have about themselves. The self-concept is made up of cognitive aspects called self-schemas —beliefs that people have about themselves and that guide the processing of self-referential information. For example, an athlete at a university would have multiple selves that would process different information pertinent to each self:
5175-506: A set of procedures intended to form a therapeutic alliance, explore the nature of psychological problems, and encourage new ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving. The four major perspectives are psychodynamic , cognitive behavioral , existential-humanistic , and systems or family therapy . There has been a growing movement to integrate these various therapeutic approaches, especially with an increased understanding of issues regarding ethnicity, gender, spirituality, and sexual-orientation. With
5382-445: A simulated exercise involving students playing at being prison guards and inmates, attempted to show how far people would go in role playing. In just a few days, the guards became brutal and cruel, and the prisoners became miserable and compliant. This was initially argued to be an important demonstration of the power of the immediate social situation and its capacity to overwhelm normal personality traits. Subsequent research has contested
5589-414: A solution, or of heuristics : rules that are understood but that do not always guarantee solutions. Cognitive science differs from cognitive psychology in that algorithms that are intended to simulate human behavior are implemented or implementable on a computer. In other instances, solutions may be found through insight, a sudden awareness of relationships. Applied psychology Applied psychology
5796-399: A specific direction to obtain what he or she wants. The question, then, is how it can be possible for conscious experiences to arise out of a lump of gray matter endowed with nothing but electrochemical properties. A related problem is to explain how someone's propositional attitudes (e.g. beliefs and desires) can cause that individual's neurons to fire and his muscles to contract in exactly
6003-496: A state of consummate love. According to social exchange theory , relationships are based on rational choice and cost-benefit analysis. A person may leave a relationship if their partner's "costs" begin to outweigh their benefits, especially if there are good alternatives available. This theory is similar to the minimax principle proposed by mathematicians and economists. With time, long-term relationships tend to become communal rather than simply based on exchange. Social psychology
6210-466: A subfield in other genres of psychology. Applied Psychology has been used in teaching psychology because it focuses on the scientific findings and how it can be used to transfer that behavior. Many people who use applied psychology work in the fields of teaching, industrial, clinical, and consulting work areas. The Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology delves deeper into the many subsections that are used in correlation with this field and further explains
6417-437: A subset of the population that is unrepresentative of the population as a whole. Regardless of which method has been chosen, social psychologists statistically review the significance of their results before accepting them in evaluating an underlying hypothesis. Statistics and probability testing define what constitutes a significant finding, which can be as low as 5% or less, and is unlikely due to chance. Replication testing
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6624-440: A symbol from a cell, writing a symbol to a cell, and executing instructions based on the symbols read. This way it is possible to perform deductive reasoning following the inference rules of formal logic as well as simulating many other functions of the mind, such as language processing, decision making, and motor control. But computationalism does not only claim that thinking is in some sense similar to computation. Instead, it
6831-592: A time, either starting at the beginning and moving forward or starting at the end and moving backward. So when planning a trip, one could plan the different stages of the trip from origin to destiny in the chronological order of how the trip will be realized, or in the reverse order. Obstacles to problem solving can arise from the thinker's failure to take certain possibilities into account by fixating on one specific course of action. There are important differences between how novices and experts solve problems. For example, experts tend to allocate more time for conceptualizing
7038-519: A worker can exercise and the supportiveness of supervisors. OHP is also concerned with the development and implementation of interventions that can prevent or ameliorate work-related health problems. In addition, OHP research has important implications for the economic success of organizations. Other research areas of concern to OHP include workplace incivility and violence , work-home carryover, unemployment and downsizing, and workplace safety and accident prevention. Two important OHP journals are
7245-452: A world scale with the aim of population control . For example, one strategy towards television programming combines social models in a soap opera with informational messages during advertising time. This strategy successfully increased women's enrollment at family planning clinics in Mexico. The programming—which has been deployed around the world by Population Communications International and
7452-513: Is obedience ; this is a change in behavior that is the result of a direct order or command from another person. Obedience as a form of compliance was dramatically highlighted by the Milgram study , wherein people were ready to administer shocks to a person in distress on a researcher's command. An unusual kind of social influence is the self-fulfilling prophecy . This is a prediction that, by being made, causes itself to become true. For example, in
7659-606: Is a false memory of having predicted events, or an exaggeration of actual predictions, after becoming aware of the outcome. The confirmation bias is a type of bias leading to the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. Schemas are generalized mental representations that organize knowledge and guide information processing. They organize social information and experiences. Schemas often operate automatically and unconsciously. This leads to biases in perception and memory. Schemas may induce expectations that lead us to see something that
7866-449: Is a compliance method in which the persuader requests a small favor and then follows up with a larger favor (e.g., asking for the time and then asking for ten dollars). A related trick is the bait and switch , which is a disingenuous sales strategy that involves enticing potential customers with advertisements of low-priced items which turn out to be unavailable in order to sell a more expensive item. The third major form of social influence
8073-659: Is a form of thinking that is reasonable, reflective, and focused on determining what to believe or how to act. Positive thinking involves focusing one's attention on the positive aspects of one's situation and is intimately related to optimism . The terms "thought" and "thinking" refer to a wide variety of psychological activities. In their most common sense, they are understood as conscious processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. This includes various different mental processes, like considering an idea or proposition or judging it to be true. In this sense, memory and imagination are forms of thought but perception
8280-422: Is a growing number of psychologists who do have prescribing privileges, in the field of medical psychology . In general, however, when medication is warranted many psychologists will work in cooperation with psychiatrists so that clients get therapeutic needs met. Clinical psychologists may also work as part of a team with other professionals, such as social workers and nutritionists . Environmental psychology
8487-402: Is a guiding philosophy which places a value on individual differences and an emphasis on "prevention, development, and adjustment across the life-span." The use of applied psychology in counseling is one of the most useful when it comes to the treatment of individuals. The use of knowledge from scientific findings are beneficial because there are many different options that can be tested to find
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8694-589: Is a relatively new discipline that emerged from the confluence of health psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, and occupational health . OHP has its own journals and professional organizations. The field is concerned with identifying psychosocial characteristics of workplaces that give rise to health-related problems in people who work. These problems can involve physical health (e.g., cardiovascular disease ) or mental health (e.g., depression ). Examples of psychosocial characteristics of workplaces that OHP has investigated include amount of decision latitude
8901-485: Is a tendency to work harder and faster in the presence of others. Another important concept in this area is deindividuation , a reduced state of self-awareness that can be caused by feelings of anonymity. Deindividuation is associated with uninhibited and sometimes dangerous behavior. It is common in crowds and mobs, but it can also be caused by a disguise, a uniform, alcohol, dark environments, or online anonymity. A major area of study of people's relations to each other
9108-512: Is also important in ensuring that the results are valid and not due to chance. False positive conclusions, often resulting from the pressure to publish or the author's own confirmation bias , are a hazard in the field. The Asch conformity experiments used a line-length estimation task to demonstrate the power of people's impulses to conform with other members in a small group. The task was designed to be easy to assess but wrong answers were deliberately given by at least some, oftentimes most, of
9315-544: Is an empirical science that attempts to answer questions about human behavior by testing hypotheses. Careful attention to research design, sampling, and statistical analysis is important in social psychology. Whenever possible, social psychologists rely on controlled experimentation , which requires the manipulation of one or more independent variables in order to examine the effect on a dependent variable . Experiments are useful in social psychology because they are high in internal validity , meaning that they are free from
9522-405: Is an applied discipline within psychology that looks at the relationship between psychological processes and cognitions and the actual behavior of road users. In general, traffic psychologists attempt to apply these principles and research findings, in order to provide solutions to problems such as traffic mobility and congestion, road accidents, speeding. Research psychologists also are involved with
9729-603: Is an extension of the theory, positing that tendency exists to make dispositional attributions for other people's behavior and situational attributions for one's own. The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute dispositional causes for successes, and situational causes for failure, particularly when self-esteem is threatened. This leads to assuming one's successes are from innate traits, and one's failures are due to situations. Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts which are used to make decisions in lieu of conscious reasoning. The availability heuristic occurs when people estimate
9936-516: Is an overarching term that denotes the persuasive effects people have on each other. It is seen as a fundamental concept in social psychology. The study of it overlaps considerably with research on attitudes and persuasion. The three main areas of social influence include conformity , compliance , and obedience . Social influence is also closely related to the study of group dynamics, as most effects of influence are strongest when they take place in social groups. The first major area of social influence
10143-708: Is applied primarily through office work and the transportation industry. Psychologists here take into account the physical limitations of the human body and attempt to reduce fatigue and stress by designing products and systems that work within the natural limitations of the human body. From simple things like the size of buttons and design of office chairs to layout of airplane cockpits, human factor psychologists, specializing in ergonomics, attempt to de-stress our everyday lives and sometimes even save them. Human factor psychologists specializing in engineering psychology tend to take on slightly different projects than their ergonomic centered counterparts. These psychologists look at how
10350-414: Is associated with a sober, dispassionate, and rational approach to its topic while feeling involves a direct emotional engagement. The terms "thought" and "thinking" can also be used to refer not to the mental processes themselves but to mental states or systems of ideas brought about by these processes. In this sense, they are often synonymous with the term "belief" and its cognates and may refer to
10557-420: Is claimed that thinking just is a form of computation or that the mind is a Turing machine. Computationalist theories of thought are sometimes divided into functionalist and representationalist approaches. Functionalist approaches define mental states through their causal roles but allow both external and internal events in their causal network. Thought may be seen as a form of program that can be executed in
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#173277260434810764-523: Is clearly defined. It guarantees success if applied correctly. The long multiplication usually taught in school is an example of an algorithm for solving the problem of multiplying big numbers. Heuristics, on the other hand, are informal procedures. They are rough rules-of-thumb that tend to bring the thinker closer to the solution but success is not guaranteed in every case even if followed correctly. Examples of heuristics are working forward and working backward. These approaches involve planning one step at
10971-434: Is closely related to Aristotelianism: it identifies thinking with mentally evoking concepts instead of instantiating essences. Inner speech theories claim that thinking is a form of inner speech in which words are silently expressed in the thinker's mind. According to some accounts, this happens in a regular language, like English or French. The language of thought hypothesis , on the other hand, holds that this happens in
11178-531: Is conducted by an ethics committee or institutional review board , which examines the proposed research to make sure that no harm is likely to come to the participants, and that the study's benefits outweigh any possible risks or discomforts to people participating. Thought Various theories of thinking have been proposed, some of which aim to capture the characteristic features of thought. Platonists hold that thinking consists in discerning and inspecting Platonic forms and their interrelations. It involves
11385-543: Is conformity. Conformity is defined as the tendency to act or think like other members of a group. The identity of members within a group (i.e., status), similarity, expertise, as well as cohesion, prior commitment, and accountability to the group help to determine the level of conformity of an individual. Conformity is often driven by two types of social influences: informational social influence, which involves conforming to gain accurate information, and normative social influence, which involves conforming to be accepted or liked by
11592-415: Is due to a request or suggestion from another person. Two common compliance strategies are 'foot-in-the-door,' which involves getting a person to agree to a small request to increase the likelihood of agreeing to a larger one, and 'door-in-the-face,' which involves making a large request that is likely to be refused to make a subsequent smaller request more likely to be accepted. The foot-in-the-door technique
11799-419: Is entertained, evidence for and against it is considered, and, based on this reasoning, the proposition is either affirmed or rejected. It is sometimes argued that the experience of truth is central to thinking, i.e. that thinking aims at representing how the world is. It shares this feature with perception but differs from it in the way how it represents the world: without the use of sensory contents. One of
12006-441: Is imagism. It states that thinking involves entertaining a sequence of images where earlier images conjure up later images based on the laws of association. One problem with this view is that we can think about things that we cannot imagine. This is especially relevant when the thought involves very complex objects or infinities, which is common, for example, in mathematical thought. One criticism directed at associationism in general
12213-447: Is implemented by the brain or which other similarities to natural language it has. The language of thought hypothesis was first introduced by Jerry Fodor . He argues in favor of this claim by holding that it constitutes the best explanation of the characteristic features of thinking. One of these features is productivity : a system of representations is productive if it can generate an infinite number of unique representations based on
12420-431: Is in an important sense similar to hearing sounds, it involves the use of language and it constitutes a motor plan that could be used for actual speech. This connection to language is supported by the fact that thinking is often accompanied by muscle activity in the speech organs. This activity may facilitate thinking in certain cases but is not necessary for it in general. According to some accounts, thinking happens not in
12627-452: Is interpersonal attraction, which refers to all factors that lead people to like each other, establish relationships, and in some cases fall in love. Several general principles of attraction have been discovered by social psychologists. One of the most important factors in interpersonal attraction is how similar two particular people are. The more similar two people are in general attitudes, backgrounds, environments, worldviews, and other traits,
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#173277260434812834-537: Is known as cognitivism , which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer , Wolfgang Köhler , and Kurt Koffka , and in the work of Jean Piaget , who provided a theory of stages/phases that describes children's cognitive development. Cognitive psychologists use psychophysical and experimental approaches to understand, diagnose, and solve problems, concerning themselves with
13041-456: Is light cannot be dark. Therefore, feathers cannot be dark". An important aspect of fallacies is that they seem to be rationally compelling on the first look and thereby seduce people into accepting and committing them. Whether an act of reasoning constitutes a fallacy does not depend on whether the premises are true or false but on their relation to the conclusion and, in some cases, on the context. Concepts are general notions that constitute
13248-426: Is more basic or fundamental since predicative experience is in some sense built on top of it and therefore depends on it. Another way how phenomenologists have tried to distinguish the experience of thinking from other types of experiences is in relation to empty intentions in contrast to intuitive intentions . In this context, "intention" means that some kind of object is experienced. In intuitive intentions ,
13455-427: Is mortal". Other theories of judgment focus more on the relation between the judged proposition and reality. According to Franz Brentano , a judgment is either a belief or a disbelief in the existence of some entity. In this sense, there are only two fundamental forms of judgment: "A exists" and "A does not exist". When applied to the sentence "all men are mortal", the entity in question is "immortal men", of whom it
13662-414: Is no good alternative explanation. Some arguments against the language of thought hypothesis are based on neural networks, which are able to produce intelligent behavior without depending on representational systems. Other objections focus on the idea that some mental representations happen non-linguistically, for example, in the form of maps or images. Computationalists have been especially interested in
13869-422: Is not clear what steps need to be taken, i.e. there is no clear formula that would lead to success if followed correctly. In this case, the solution may sometimes come in a flash of insight in which the problem is suddenly seen in a new light. Another way to categorize different forms of problem solving is by distinguishing between algorithms and heuristics . An algorithm is a formal procedure in which each step
14076-406: Is not there. One experiment found that people are more likely to misperceive a weapon in the hands of a black man than a white man. This type of schema is a stereotype , a generalized set of beliefs about a particular group of people (when incorrect, an ultimate attribution error ). Stereotypes are often related to negative or preferential attitudes and behavior. Schemas for behaviors (e.g., going to
14283-454: Is not. In a more restricted sense, only the most paradigmatic cases are considered thought. These involve conscious processes that are conceptual or linguistic and sufficiently abstract, like judging, inferring, problem solving, and deliberating. Sometimes the terms "thought" and "thinking" are understood in a very wide sense as referring to any form of mental process, conscious or unconscious. In this sense, they may be used synonymously with
14490-407: Is often combined with the language of thought hypothesis by interpreting these sequences as symbols whose order is governed by syntactic rules. Various arguments have been raised against computationalism. In one sense, it seems trivial since almost any physical system can be described as executing computations and therefore as thinking. For example, it has been argued that the molecular movements in
14697-451: Is one form of non-deductive reasoning, for example, when one concludes that "the sun will rise tomorrow" based on one's experiences of all the previous days. Other forms of non-deductive reasoning include the inference to the best explanation and analogical reasoning . Fallacies are faulty forms of thinking that go against the norms of correct reasoning. Formal fallacies concern faulty inferences found in deductive reasoning. Denying
14904-422: Is outperformed by unconscious thought when complex problems with many variables are involved. This is sometimes explained through the claim that the number of items one can consciously think about at the same time is rather limited whereas unconscious thought lacks such limitations. But other researchers have rejected the claim that unconscious thought is often superior to conscious thought. Other suggestions for
15111-431: Is particularly relevant. The term "behaviorism" is also sometimes used in a slightly different sense when applied to thinking to refer to a specific form of inner speech theory. This view focuses on the idea that the relevant inner speech is a derivative form of regular outward speech. This sense overlaps with how behaviorism is understood more commonly in philosophy of mind since these inner speech acts are not observed by
15318-421: Is relevant to the question of whether animals have the capacity to think. If thinking is necessarily tied to language then this would suggest that there is an important gap between humans and animals since only humans have a sufficiently complex language. But the existence of non-linguistic thoughts suggests that this gap may not be that big and that some animals do indeed think. There are various theories about
15525-409: Is responding to the unique challenges of increasingly multicultural classrooms. For example, psychologists can contribute insight about the differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. School psychologists are influential within the school system and are frequently consulted to solve problems. Practitioners should be able to provide consultation and collaborate with other members of
15732-401: Is said that they do not exist. Important for Brentano is the distinction between the mere representation of the content of the judgment and the affirmation or the denial of the content. The mere representation of a proposition is often referred to as "entertaining a proposition". This is the case, for example, when one considers a proposition but has not yet made up one's mind about whether it
15939-404: Is said. Other arguments for the experience of thinking focus on the direct introspective access to thinking or on the thinker's knowledge of their own thoughts. Phenomenologists are also concerned with the characteristic features of the experience of thinking. Making a judgment is one of the prototypical forms of cognitive phenomenology. It involves epistemic agency, in which a proposition
16146-411: Is that its claim is too far-reaching. There is wide agreement that associative processes as studied by associationists play some role in how thought unfolds. But the claim that this mechanism is sufficient to understand all thought or all mental processes is usually not accepted. According to behaviorism , thinking consists in behavioral dispositions to engage in certain publicly observable behavior as
16353-490: Is the psychological study of humans and their interactions with their environments. The types of environments studied are limitless, ranging from homes, offices, classrooms, factories, nature, and so on. However, across these different environments, there are several common themes of study that emerge within each one. Noise level and ambient temperature are clearly present in all environments and often subjects of discussion for environmental psychologists. Crowding and stressors are
16560-425: Is the psychology of teaching. In some colleges, educational psychology courses are called "the psychology of learning and teaching". Educational psychology derives a great deal from basic-science disciplines within psychology including cognitive science and behaviorially-oriented research on learning. Counseling psychology is an applied specialization within psychology, that involves both research and practice in
16767-416: Is the study of how cognitive and psychological processes affect our interaction with tools, machines, and objects in the environment. Many branches of psychology attempt to create models of and understand human behavior. These models are usually based on data collected from experiments. Human Factor psychologists however, take the same data and use it to design or adapt processes and objects that will complement
16974-399: Is the use of psychological methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behavior and experience. Educational and organizational psychology , business management , law , health , product design , ergonomics , behavioural psychology, psychology of motivation, psychoanalysis , neuropsychology, psychiatry and mental health are just a few of
17181-451: Is thought that happens in the background without being experienced. It is therefore not observed directly. Instead, its existence is usually inferred by other means. For example, when someone is faced with an important decision or a difficult problem, they may not be able to solve it straight away. But then, at a later time, the solution may suddenly flash before them even though no conscious steps of thinking were taken towards this solution in
17388-440: Is to explain how humans can learn and think about Platonic forms belonging to a different realm. Plato himself tries to solve this problem through his theory of recollection, according to which the soul already was in contact with the Platonic forms before and is therefore able to remember what they are like. But this explanation depends on various assumptions usually not accepted in contemporary thought. Aristotelians hold that
17595-429: Is true or false. The term "thinking" can refer both to judging and to mere entertaining. This difference is often explicit in the way the thought is expressed: "thinking that" usually involves a judgment whereas "thinking about" refers to the neutral representation of a proposition without an accompanying belief. In this case, the proposition is merely entertained but not yet judged . Some forms of thinking may involve
17802-418: Is used in the treatment of behavioral disorders there are many experimental approaches to try and treat an individual. This type of psychology can be found in many of the subbranches in other fields of psychology. The founder of applied psychology was Hugo Münsterberg . He came to America (Harvard) from Germany (Berlin, Laboratory of Stern), invited by William James, and, like many aspiring psychologists during
18009-667: The Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and Work & Stress . Three important organizations closely associated with OHP are the International Commission on Occupational Health 's Scientific Committee on Work Organisation and Psychosocial Factors (ICOH-WOPS), the Society for Occupational Health Psychology , and the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology . Human factors and ergonomics
18216-546: The elaboration likelihood model ) maintain that persuasion is mediated by two separate routes: central and peripheral. The central route of persuasion is influenced by facts and results in longer-lasting change, but requires motivation to process. The peripheral route is influenced by superficial factors (e.g. smiling, clothing) and results in shorter-lasting change, but does not require as much motivation to process. Social cognition studies how people perceive, recognize, and remember information about others. Much research rests on
18423-453: The probability of an outcome based on how easy that outcome is to imagine. As such, vivid or highly memorable possibilities will be perceived as more likely than those that are harder to picture or difficult to understand. The representativeness heuristic is a shortcut people use to categorize something based on how similar it is to a prototype they know of. Several other biases have been found by social cognition researchers. The hindsight bias
18630-538: The 1960s, there was growing interest in topics such as cognitive dissonance , bystander intervention , and aggression . These developments were part of a trend of increasingly sophisticated laboratory experiments using college students as participants and analysis of variance designs. In the 1970s, a number of conceptual challenges to social psychology emerged over issues such as ethical concerns about laboratory experimentation, whether attitudes could accurately predict behavior, and to what extent science could be done in
18837-405: The 19th century, social psychology began to emerge from the larger field of psychology . At the time, many psychologists were concerned with developing concrete explanations for the different aspects of human nature . They attempted to discover concrete cause-and-effect relationships that explained social interactions. In order to do so, they applied the scientific method to human behavior. One of
19044-687: The American Psychological Association is known to file amicus curae briefs, as applications of psychological knowledge to high-profile court cases. A related field, police psychology , involves consultation with police departments and participation in police training. Health psychology concerns itself with understanding how biology, behavior, and social context influence health and illness. Health psychologists generally work alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings, although many also teach and conduct research. Although its early beginnings can be traced to
19251-484: The Population Media Center—combines family planning messages with representations of female education and literacy. Sport psychology is a specialization within psychology that seeks to understand psychological/mental factors that affect performance in sports , physical activity and exercise and apply these to enhance individual and team performance. The sport psychology approach differs from
19458-780: The Witness Stand . The following year the Division of Applied Psychology was adjoined to the Harvard Psychological Laboratory. Within 9 years he had contributed eight books in English, applying psychology to education, industrial efficiency, business and teaching. Eventually Hugo Münsterberg and his contributions would define him as the creator of applied psychology. In 1920, the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP)
19665-433: The ability to discriminate between the pure Platonic forms themselves and the mere imitations found in the sensory world. According to Aristotelianism , to think about something is to instantiate in one's mind the universal essence of the object of thought. These universals are abstracted from sense experience and are not understood as existing in a changeless intelligible world, in contrast to Platonism. Conceptualism
19872-514: The ability to draw inferences from this concept to related concepts. Concept formation corresponds to acquiring these abilities. It has been suggested that animals are also able to learn concepts to some extent, due to their ability to discriminate between different types of situations and to adjust their behavior accordingly. In the case of problem solving , thinking aims at reaching a predefined goal by overcoming certain obstacles. This process often involves two different forms of thinking. On
20079-491: The academic literature. A common approach divides them into those forms that aim at the creation of theoretical knowledge and those that aim at producing actions or correct decisions, but there is no universally accepted taxonomy summarizing all these types. Thinking is often identified with the act of judging . A judgment is a mental operation in which a proposition is evoked and then either affirmed or denied. It involves deciding what to believe and aims at determining whether
20286-440: The academy. Since 1970, the number of college graduates with degrees in psychology has more than doubled, from 33,679 to 76,671 in 2002. The annual numbers of masters' and PhD degrees have also increased dramatically over the same period. All the while, degrees in the related fields of economics, sociology, and political science have remained constant. Professional organizations have organized special events and meetings to promote
20493-509: The accuracy of memory, the reliability of police interrogation, and the appropriate course of action in child custody cases. Legal psychology refers to any application of psychological principles, methods or understanding to legal questions or issues. In addition to the applied practices, legal psychology also includes academic or empirical research on topics involving the relationship of law to human mental processes and behavior. However, inherent differences that arise when placing psychology in
20700-421: The advent of more robust research findings regarding psychotherapy, there is growing evidence that most of the major therapies are about of equal effectiveness, with the key common element being a strong therapeutic alliance. Because of this, more training programs and psychologists are now adopting an eclectic therapeutic orientation . Clinical psychologists do not usually prescribe medication, although there
20907-443: The antecedent is one type of formal fallacy, for example, "If Othello is a bachelor, then he is male. Othello is not a bachelor. Therefore, Othello is not male". Informal fallacies , on the other hand, apply to all types of reasoning. The source of their flaw is to be found in the content or the context of the argument. This is often caused by ambiguous or vague expressions in natural language , as in "Feathers are light. What
21114-405: The application of psychological methods and principles to legal questions and issues. Most typically, forensic psychology involves a clinical analysis of a particular individual and an assessment of some specific psycho-legal question. The psycho-legal question does not have to be criminal in nature. Forensic psychologists rarely get involved in the actual criminal investigations, which falls under
21321-544: The areas that have been influenced by the application of psychological principles and scientific findings. Some of the areas of applied psychology include counseling psychology , industrial and organizational psychology , engineering psychology , occupational health psychology , legal psychology , school psychology , sports psychology , community psychology , neuropsychology , medical psychology and clinical psychology , evolutionary psychology , human factors , forensic psychology and traffic psychology . In addition,
21528-429: The assertion that people think about other people differently than they do non-social, or non-human, targets. This assertion is supported by the social-cognitive deficits exhibited by people with Williams syndrome and autism . A major research topic in social cognition is attribution . Attributions are explanations of behavior, either one's own behavior or the behavior of others. One element of attribution ascribes
21735-443: The behavior will be repeated or changed under similar circumstances). Individuals also attribute causes of behavior to controllable and uncontrollable factors (i.e., how much control one has over the situation at hand). Numerous biases in the attribution process have been discovered. For instance, the fundamental attribution error is the bias towards making dispositional attributions for other people's behavior.The actor-observer bias
21942-402: The body. Human perceptual experiences depend on stimuli which arrive at one's various sensory organs from the external world and these stimuli cause changes in one's mental state, ultimately causing one to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. Someone's desire for a slice of pizza, for example, will tend to cause that person to move his or her body in a specific manner and in
22149-434: The cause of behavior to internal and external factors. An internal, or dispositional, attribution reasons that a behavior is caused by inner traits such as personality, disposition, character, and ability. An external, or situational, attribution reasons that a behavior is caused by situational elements such as the weather.A second element of attribution ascribes the cause of behavior to stable and unstable factors (i.e., whether
22356-447: The characteristic features of thinking. The theories listed here are not exclusive: it may be possible to combine some without leading to a contradiction. According to Platonism , thinking is a spiritual activity in which Platonic forms and their interrelations are discerned and inspected. This activity is understood as a form of silent inner speech in which the soul talks to itself. Platonic forms are seen as universals that exist in
22563-429: The characteristic features often ascribed to thinking and judging is that they are predicative experiences, in contrast to the pre-predicative experience found in immediate perception. On such a view, various aspects of perceptual experience resemble judgments without being judgments in the strict sense. For example, the perceptual experience of the front of a house brings with it various expectations about aspects of
22770-529: The classification, training, and performance of soldiers. School psychology is a field that applies principles of clinical psychology and educational psychology to the diagnosis and treatment of students' behavioral and learning problems. School psychologists are educated in child and adolescent development , learning theories, psychological and psycho-educational assessment , personality theories , therapeutic interventions, special education, psychology, consultation, child and adolescent psychopathology, and
22977-423: The clinical management of patients with brain injury —this area is known as clinical neuropsychology . In many countries clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession . The work performed by clinical psychologists tends to be done inside various therapy models, all of which involve a formal relationship between professional and client—usually an individual, couple, family, or small group—that employs
23184-471: The coaches and players perspective. Coaches tend to narrow their focus and energy towards the end-goal. They are concerned with the actions that lead to the win, as opposed to the sport psychologist who tries to focus the players thoughts on just achieving the win. Sport psychology trains players mentally to prepare them, whereas coaches tend to focus mostly on physical training. Sport psychology deals with increasing performance by managing emotions and minimizing
23391-415: The correct manner. These comprise some of the puzzles that have confronted epistemologists and philosophers of mind from at least the time of René Descartes . The above reflects a classical, functional description of how we work as cognitive, thinking systems. However the apparently irresolvable mind–body problem is said to be overcome, and bypassed, by the embodied cognition approach, with its roots in
23598-413: The difference between the two forms of thinking include that conscious thought tends to follow formal logical laws while unconscious thought relies more on associative processing and that only conscious thinking is conceptually articulated and happens through the medium of language. Phenomenology is the science of the structure and contents of experience . The term "cognitive phenomenology" refers to
23805-506: The differences, Industrial psychology focuses more on the Human Resources aspects of the field, and Organizational psychology focuses more on the personal interactions of the employees. When applying these principles however, they are not easily broken apart. For example, when developing requirements for a new job position, the recruiters are looking for an applicant with strong communication skills in multiple areas. The developing of
24012-631: The disapproval or discrimination against individuals based on perceived differences, became increasingly prevalent as societies sought to redefine norms and group boundaries after the war. During the years immediately following World War II , there were frequent collaborations between psychologists and sociologists . The two disciplines, however, have become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in recent years, with sociologists generally focusing on high-level, large-scale examinations of society, and psychologists generally focusing on more small-scale studies of individual human behaviors. During
24219-519: The discipline, such as conformity , interpersonal attraction , social perception, and prejudice . Persuasion is an active method of influencing that attempts to guide people toward the adoption of an attitude, idea, or behavior by rational or emotive means. Persuasion relies on appeals rather than strong pressure or coercion . The process of persuasion has been found to be influenced by numerous variables that generally fall into one of five major categories: Dual-process theories of persuasion (such as
24426-455: The educational community and confidently make decisions based on empirical research. Psychologists have been employed to promote "green" behavior, i.e. sustainable development . In this case, their goal is behavior modification , through strategies such as social marketing . Tactics include education, disseminating information, organizing social movements, passing laws, and altering taxes to influence decisions. Psychology has been applied on
24633-404: The empiricist tradition has been associationism , the view that thinking consists in the succession of ideas or images. This succession is seen as being governed by laws of association, which determine how the train of thought unfolds. These laws are different from logical relations between the contents of thoughts, which are found in the case of drawing inferences by moving from the thought of
24840-632: The ethical, legal and administrative codes of their profession. According to Division 16 (Division of School Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA), school psychologists operate according to a scientific framework. They work to promote effectiveness and efficiency in the field. School psychologists conduct psychological assessments, provide brief interventions, and develop or help develop prevention programs. Additionally, they evaluate services with special focus on developmental processes of children within
25047-508: The experiential character of thinking or what it feels like to think. Some theorists claim that there is no distinctive cognitive phenomenology. On such a view, the experience of thinking is just one form of sensory experience. According to one version, thinking just involves hearing a voice internally. According to another, there is no experience of thinking apart from the indirect effects thinking has on sensory experience. A weaker version of such an approach allows that thinking may have
25254-505: The field as the experimental study of social behavior. An early, influential research program in social psychology was established by Kurt Lewin and his students. During World War II , social psychologists were mostly concerned with studies of persuasion and propaganda for the U.S. military (see also psychological warfare ). Following the war, researchers became interested in a variety of social problems, including issues of gender and racial prejudice . Social stigma , which refers to
25461-436: The financial field, if it is widely believed that a crash is imminent, investors may lose confidence, sell most of their stock, and thus cause a crash. Similarly, people may expect hostility in others and induce this hostility by their own behavior. Psychologists have spent decades studying the power of social influence, and the way in which it manipulates people's opinions and behavior. Specifically, social influence refers to
25668-399: The first published studies in the field was Norman Triplett 's 1898 experiment on the phenomenon of social facilitation . These psychological experiments later went on to form the foundation of much of 20th century social psychological findings. According to Wolfgang Stroebe , modern social psychology began in 1924 with the publication of a classic textbook by Floyd Allport , which defined
25875-399: The fundamental building blocks of thought. They are rules that govern how objects are sorted into different classes. A person can only think about a proposition if they possess the concepts involved in this proposition. For example, the proposition " wombats are animals" involves the concepts "wombat" and "animal". Someone who does not possess the concept "wombat" may still be able to read
26082-476: The group. Individual variations among group members play a key role in the dynamic of how willing people will be to conform. Conformity is usually viewed as a negative tendency in American culture, but a certain amount of conformity is adaptive in some situations, as is nonconformity in other situations. The second major area of social influence research is compliance , which refers to any change in behavior that
26289-407: The house not directly seen, like the size and shape of its other sides. This process is sometimes referred to as apperception . These expectations resemble judgments and can be wrong. This would be the case when it turns out upon walking around the "house" that it is no house at all but only a front facade of a house with nothing behind it. In this case, the perceptual expectations are frustrated and
26496-443: The human component of the equation. Rather than humans learning how to use and manipulate a piece of technology, human factors strives to design technology to be inline with the human behavior models designed by general psychology. This could be accounting for physical limitations of humans, as in ergonomics, or designing systems, especially computer systems, that work intuitively with humans, as does engineering psychology. Ergonomics
26703-642: The idea of applied psychology. In 1990, the American Psychological Society held a Behavioral Science Summit and formed the "Human Capital Initiative", spanning schools, workplace productivity, drugs, violence, and community health. The American Psychological Association declared 2000–2010 the Decade of Behavior , with a similarly broad scope. Psychological methods are considered applicable to all aspects of human life and society. There are many uses of applied psychology and can be found as
26910-412: The individual began conforming or withdrew from the experiment. Also, participant conformity increased substantially as the number of "incorrect" individuals increased from one to three, and remained high as the incorrect majority grew. Participants with three other, incorrect participants made mistakes 31.8% of the time, while those with one or two incorrect participants made mistakes only 3.6% and 13.6% of
27117-414: The influence of confounding or extraneous variables, and so are more likely to accurately indicate a causal relationship. However, the small samples used in controlled experiments are typically low in external validity , or the degree to which the results can be generalized to the larger population. There is usually a trade-off between experimental control (internal validity) and being able to generalize to
27324-499: The initial conclusions of the study. For example, it has been pointed out that participant self-selection may have affected the participants' behavior, and that the participants' personalities influenced their reactions in a variety of ways, including how long they chose to remain in the study. The 2002 BBC prison study , designed to replicate the conditions in the Stanford study, produced conclusions that were drastically different from
27531-414: The initial findings. Albert Bandura 's Bobo doll experiment attempted to demonstrate how aggression is learned by imitation . In the experiment, 72 children, grouped based on similar levels of pre-tested aggressivity, either witnessed an aggressive or a non-aggressive actor interact with a "bobo doll." The children were then placed alone in the room with the doll and observed to see if they would imitate
27738-498: The interacting groups. The tendency to define oneself by membership in a group may lead to intergroup discrimination, which involves favorable perceptions and behaviors directed towards the in-group, but negative perceptions and behaviors directed towards the out-group. Groups often moderate and improve decision making , and are frequently relied upon for these benefits, such as in committees and juries. Groups also affect performance and productivity . Social facilitation, for example,
27945-559: The items of their surroundings. Industrial and organizational psychology, or I-O psychology, focuses on the psychology of work. Relevant topics within I-O psychology include the psychology of recruitment, selecting employees from an applicant pool , training , performance appraisal , job satisfaction , work motivation . work behavior , occupational stress , accident prevention, occupational safety and health , management , retirement planning and unemployment among many other issues related to
28152-464: The judged proposition is true or false. Various theories of judgment have been proposed. The traditionally dominant approach is the combination theory. It states that judgments consist in the combination of concepts. On this view, to judge that "all men are mortal" is to combine the concepts "man" and "mortal". The same concepts can be combined in different ways, corresponding to different forms of judgment, for example, as "some men are mortal" or "no man
28359-419: The kindred field of clinical psychology , four different approaches to health psychology have been defined: clinical, public health, community and critical health psychology. Health psychologists aim to change health behaviors for the dual purpose of helping people stay healthy and helping patients adhere to disease treatment regimens. The focus of health psychologists tend to center on the health crisis facing
28566-467: The kitchen. This way, a perception can confirm or refute a thought depending on whether the empty intuitions are later fulfilled or not. The mind–body problem concerns the explanation of the relationship that exists between minds , or mental processes, and bodily states or processes. The main aim of philosophers working in this area is to determine the nature of the mind and mental states/processes, and how—or even if—minds are affected by and can affect
28773-544: The language of thought hypothesis since it provides ways to close the gap between thought in the human brain and computational processes implemented by computers. The reason for this is that processes over representations that respect syntax and semantics, like inferences according to the modus ponens , can be implemented by physical systems using causal relations. The same linguistic systems may be implemented through different material systems, like brains or computers. In this way, computers can think . An important view in
28980-820: The late 19th century, originally studied philosophy. Münsterberg had many interests in the field of psychology such as purposive psychology, social psychology and forensic psychology. Hugo Münsterberg is credited with being one of the first people who has researched the field of applied psychology. He went to the University of Leipzig in Germany and attained his doctorate in Medicine. He opened the second psychology clinic in Germany in 1891 where he has continued his research. In 1907 he wrote several magazine articles concerning legal aspects of testimony, confessions and courtroom procedures, which eventually developed into his book, On
29187-444: The legal context. Psychology rarely makes absolute statements. Instead, psychologists traffic in the terms like level of confidence, percentages, and significance. Legal matters, on the other hand, look for absolutes: guilty or not guilty. This makes for a sticky union between psychology and the legal system. Some universities operate dual JD/PhD programs focusing on the intersection of these two areas. The Committee on Legal Issues of
29394-575: The level of semantics, the semantic content or the meaning of the compound representations should depend on the semantic contents of its constituents. A representational system is linguistically structured if it fulfills these two requirements. The language of thought hypothesis states that the same is true for thinking in general. This would mean that thought is composed of certain atomic representational constituents that can be combined as described above. Apart from this abstract characterization, no further concrete claims are made about how human thought
29601-436: The logical form of thought. For example, to think that it will either rain or snow, it is not sufficient to instantiate the essences of rain and snow or to evoke the corresponding concepts. The reason for this is that the disjunctive relation between the rain and the snow is not captured this way. Another problem shared by these positions is the difficulty of giving a satisfying account of how essences or concepts are learned by
29808-819: The management of mental illness, health rehabilitation and emotional, cognitive, behavioural and substance use disorders. According to Muse and Moore (2012), the medical psychologist's contributions in the areas of psychopharmacology which sets it apart from other of psychotherapy and psychotherapists. Clinical psychology includes the study and application of psychology for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment and psychotherapy , although clinical psychologists may also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. Some clinical psychologists may focus on
30015-555: The meantime. In such cases, the cognitive labor needed to arrive at a solution is often explained in terms of unconscious thoughts. The central idea is that a cognitive transition happened and we need to posit unconscious thoughts to be able to explain how it happened. It has been argued that conscious and unconscious thoughts differ not just concerning their relation to experience but also concerning their capacities. According to unconscious thought theorists , for example, conscious thought excels at simple problems with few variables but
30222-535: The medium of a unique mental language called Mentalese . Central to this idea is that linguistic representational systems are built up from atomic and compound representations and that this structure is also found in thought. Associationists understand thinking as the succession of ideas or images. They are particularly interested in the laws of association that govern how the train of thought unfolds. Behaviorists , by contrast, identify thinking with behavioral dispositions to engage in public intelligent behavior as
30429-415: The mental processes which mediate between stimulus and response. They study various aspects of thinking, including the psychology of reasoning , and how people make decisions and choices, solve problems, as well as engage in creative discovery and imaginative thought. Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems either take the form of algorithms : rules that are not necessarily understood but promise
30636-426: The mental states which either belong to an individual or are common among a certain group of people. Discussions of thought in the academic literature often leave it implicit which sense of the term they have in mind. The word thought comes from Old English þoht , or geþoht , from the stem of þencan "to conceive of in the mind, consider". Various theories of thinking have been proposed. They aim to capture
30843-466: The mind alone will always leave us with the mind–body problem which cannot be solved. Psychologists have concentrated on thinking as an intellectual exertion aimed at finding an answer to a question or the solution of a practical problem. Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language; all of which are used in thinking. The school of thought arising from this approach
31050-415: The mind is able to think about something by instantiating the essence of the object of thought. So while thinking about trees, the mind instantiates tree-ness. This instantiation does not happen in matter, as is the case for actual trees, but in mind, though the universal essence instantiated in both cases is the same. In contrast to Platonism, these universals are not understood as Platonic forms existing in
31257-445: The mind through abstraction. Inner speech theories claim that thinking is a form of inner speech . This view is sometimes termed psychological nominalism . It states that thinking involves silently evoking words and connecting them to form mental sentences. The knowledge a person has of their thoughts can be explained as a form of overhearing one's own silent monologue. Three central aspects are often ascribed to inner speech: it
31464-557: The more likely they will be attracted to each other. Physical attractiveness is an important element of romantic relationships, particularly in the early stages characterized by high levels of passion . Later on, similarity and other compatibility factors become more important, and the type of love people experience shifts from passionate to companionate. In 1986, Robert Sternberg suggested that there are actually three components of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment. When two (or more) people experience all three, they are said to be in
31671-432: The most favorable one. Decision theory is a formal model of how ideal rational agents would make decisions. It is based on the idea that they should always choose the alternative with the highest expected value. Each alternative can lead to various possible outcomes, each of which has a different value. The expected value of an alternative consists in the sum of the values of each outcome associated with it multiplied by
31878-527: The object is presented through sensory contents. Empty intentions , on the other hand, present their object in a more abstract manner without the help of sensory contents. So when perceiving a sunset, it is presented through sensory contents. The same sunset can also be presented non-intuitively when merely thinking about it without the help of sensory contents. In these cases, the same properties are ascribed to objects. The difference between these modes of presentation concerns not what properties are ascribed to
32085-407: The one hand, divergent thinking aims at coming up with as many alternative solutions as possible. On the other hand, convergent thinking tries to narrow down the range of alternatives to the most promising candidates. Some researchers identify various steps in the process of problem solving. These steps include recognizing the problem, trying to understand its nature, identifying general criteria
32292-458: The other hand, is the process of drawing conclusions from premises or evidence. Both judging and reasoning depend on the possession of the relevant concepts, which are acquired in the process of concept formation . In the case of problem solving , thinking aims at reaching a predefined goal by overcoming certain obstacles. Deliberation is an important form of practical thought that consists in formulating possible courses of action and assessing
32499-400: The other participants. In well over a third of the trials, participants conformed to the majority, even though the majority judgment was clearly wrong. Seventy-five percent of the participants conformed at least once during the experiment. Additional manipulations of the experiment showed that participant conformity decreased when at least one other individual failed to conform but increased when
32706-404: The other who does not. The idea behind this example is that both listeners hear the same sounds and therefore have the same non-cognitive experience. In order to explain the difference, a distinctive cognitive phenomenology has to be posited: only the experience of the first person has this additional cognitive character since it is accompanied by a thought that corresponds to the meaning of what
32913-434: The other. In this sense, the history of an organism's experience determines which thoughts the organism has and how these thoughts unfold. But such an association does not guarantee that the connection is meaningful or rational. For example, because of the association between the terms "cold" and "Idaho", the thought "this coffee shop is cold" might lead to the thought "Russia should annex Idaho". One form of associationism
33120-399: The past are relived. It is a form of mental time travel in which the past experience is re-experienced. But this does not constitute an exact copy of the original experience since the episodic memory involves additional aspects and information not present in the original experience. This includes both a feeling of familiarity and chronological information about the past event in relation to
33327-503: The perceiver is surprised. There is disagreement as to whether these pre-predicative aspects of regular perception should be understood as a form of cognitive phenomenology involving thinking. This issue is also important for understanding the relation between thought and language. The reason for this is that the pre-predicative expectations do not depend on language, which is sometimes taken as an example for non-linguistic thought. Various theorists have argued that pre-predicative experience
33534-421: The perception of our own behavior. Leon Festinger 's 1954 social comparison theory posits that people evaluate their own abilities and opinions by comparing themselves to others when they are uncertain of their own ability or opinions. Daryl Bem 's 1972 self-perception theory claims that when internal cues are difficult to interpret, people gain self-insight by observing their own behavior. Social influence
33741-414: The pie is tasty does not automatically lead to eating the pie, since various other mental states may still inhibit this behavior, for example, the belief that it would be impolite to do so or that the pie is poisoned. Computationalist theories of thinking, often found in the cognitive sciences, understand thinking as a form of information processing. These views developed with the rise of computers in
33948-406: The population (external validity). Because it is usually impossible to test everyone, research tends to be conducted on a sample of persons from the wider population . Social psychologists frequently use survey research when they are interested in results that are high in external validity. Surveys use various forms of random sampling to obtain a sample of respondents that is representative of
34155-699: The position requirements falls under the industrial psychology, human resource type work, and the requirement of communication skills is related to how the employee with interacts with co-workers. As seen here, it is hard to separate task of developing a qualifications list from the types of qualifications on the list. This is parallel to how the I and O are nearly inseparable in practice. Therefore, I-O psychologists are generally rounded in both industrial and organizational psychology though they will have some specialization. Other topics of interest for I-O psychologists include leadership, performance evaluation, training, and much more. Military psychology includes research into
34362-399: The premises to the thought of the conclusion. Various laws of association have been suggested. According to the laws of similarity and contrast, ideas tend to evoke other ideas that are either very similar to them or their opposite. The law of contiguity, on the other hand, states that if two ideas were frequently experienced together, then the experience of one tends to cause the experience of
34569-532: The present. Memory aims at representing how things actually were in the past, in contrast to imagination, which presents objects without aiming to show how things actually are or were. Because of this missing link to actuality, more freedom is involved in most forms of imagination: its contents can be freely varied, changed, and recombined to create new arrangements never experienced before. Episodic memory and imagination have in common with other forms of thought that they can arise internally without any stimulation of
34776-424: The presented object but how the object is presented. Because of this commonality, it is possible for representations belonging to different modes to overlap or to diverge. For example, when searching one's glasses one may think to oneself that one left them on the kitchen table. This empty intention of the glasses lying on the kitchen table are then intuitively fulfilled when one sees them lying there upon arriving in
34983-465: The probability that this outcome occurs. According to decision theory, a decision is rational if the agent chooses the alternative associated with the highest expected value, as assessed from the agent's own perspective. Various theorists emphasize the practical nature of thought, i.e. that thinking is usually guided by some kind of task it aims to solve. In this sense, thinking has been compared to trial-and-error seen in animal behavior when faced with
35190-601: The problem and work with more complex representations whereas novices tend to devote more time to executing putative solutions. Deliberation is an important form of practical thinking. It aims at formulating possible courses of action and assessing their value by considering the reasons for and against them. This involves foresight to anticipate what might happen. Based on this foresight, different courses of action can be formulated in order to influence what will happen. Decisions are an important part of deliberation. They are about comparing alternative courses of action and choosing
35397-463: The procedures that should be used in each of the respective industries. Business advertisers have long consulted psychologists in assessing what types of messages will most effectively induce a person to buy a particular product. The three main types of psychologists that participate in creating advertisements are cognitive, media, and social psychologists. These psychologists often work together to create advertisements that create an emotional impact on
35604-544: The process of inputs and outputs as intuitive as possible for the user. The goal of research in human factors is to understand the limitations and biases of human mental processes and behavior, and design items and systems that will interact accordingly with the limitations. Some may see human factors as intuitive or a list of dos and don'ts, but in reality, human factor research strives to make sense of large piles of data to bring precise applications to product designs and systems to help people work more naturally, intuitively with
35811-591: The psychological effects of injury and poor performance. Some of the most important skills taught are goal setting, relaxation, visualization, self-talk awareness and control, concentration, using rituals, attribution training, and periodization. The principles and theories may be applied to any human movement or performance tasks (e.g., playing a musical instrument, acting in a play, public speaking, motor skills). Usually, experts recommend that students be trained in both kinesiology (i.e., sport and exercise sciences, physical education ) and counseling . Traffic psychology
36018-612: The question of how thinking can fit into the material world as described by the natural sciences . Cognitive psychology aims to understand thought as a form of information processing. Developmental psychology , on the other hand, investigates the development of thought from birth to maturity and asks which factors this development depends on. Psychoanalysis emphasizes the role of the unconscious in mental life. Other fields concerned with thought include linguistics , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , biology , and sociology . Various concepts and theories are closely related to
36225-491: The reasons for and against them. This may lead to a decision by choosing the most favorable option. Both episodic memory and imagination present objects and situations internally, in an attempt to accurately reproduce what was previously experienced or as a free rearrangement, respectively. Unconscious thought is thought that happens without being directly experienced. It is sometimes posited to explain how difficult problems are solved in cases where no conscious thought
36432-519: The relation between language and thought. One prominent version in contemporary philosophy is called the language of thought hypothesis . It states that thinking happens in the medium of a mental language. This language, often referred to as Mentalese , is similar to regular languages in various respects: it is composed of words that are connected to each other in syntactic ways to form sentences. This claim does not merely rest on an intuitive analogy between language and thought. Instead, it provides
36639-401: The representation of objects without any propositions, as when someone is thinking about their grandmother. Reasoning is one of the most paradigmatic forms of thinking. It is the process of drawing conclusions from premises or evidence. Types of reasoning can be divided into deductive and non-deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is governed by certain rules of inference , which guarantee
36846-479: The researcher but merely inferred from the subject's intelligent behavior. This remains true to the general behaviorist principle that behavioral evidence is required for any psychological hypothesis. One problem for behaviorism is that the same entity often behaves differently despite being in the same situation as before. This problem consists in the fact that individual thoughts or mental states usually do not correspond to one particular behavior. So thinking that
37053-422: The right treatment. Medical psychology involves the application of a range of psychological principles, theories and findings applied to the effective management of physical and mental disorders to improve the psychological and physical health of the patient. The American Psychological Association defines medical psychology as the branch of psychology that integrates somatic and psychotherapeutic modalities, into
37260-417: The same behavior of the actor they had observed. As hypothesized, the children who had witnessed the aggressive actor, imitated the behavior and proceeded to act aggressively towards the doll. Both male and female children who witnessed the non-aggressive actor behaved less aggressively towards the doll. However, boys were more likely to exhibit aggression, especially after observing the behavior from an actor of
37467-435: The same gender. In addition, boys were found to imitate more physical aggression, while girls displayed more verbal aggression. The goal of social psychology is to understand cognition and behavior as they naturally occur in a social context, but the very act of observing people can influence and alter their behavior. For this reason, many social psychology experiments utilize deception to conceal or distort certain aspects of
37674-429: The same lie. The first group ($ 1) later reported liking the task better than the second group ($ 20). Festinger's explanation was that for people in the first group, being paid only $ 1 was not sufficient incentive. This led them to experience dissonance, or discomfort and internal conflict. They could only overcome that dissonance by justifying their lies. They did this by changing their previously unfavorable attitudes about
37881-456: The same results as deception studies, and this has cast doubt on their validity. In addition to deception, experimenters have at times put people in potentially uncomfortable or embarrassing situations (e.g., the Milgram experiment and Stanford prison experiment ), and this has also been criticized for ethical reasons. Virtually all social psychology research in the modern day must pass an ethical review. At most colleges and universities, this
38088-424: The same way by many different systems, including humans, animals, and even robots. According to one such view, whether something is a thought only depends on its role "in producing further internal states and verbal outputs". Representationalism, on the other hand, focuses on the representational features of mental states and defines thoughts as sequences of intentional mental states. In this sense, computationalism
38295-1040: The school system, and other systems, such as families. School psychologists consult with teachers , parents, and school personnel about learning, behavioral, social, and emotional problems. They may teach lessons on parenting skills (like school counselors), learning strategies, and other skills related to school mental health . In addition, they explain test results to parents and students. They provide individual, group, and in some cases family counseling (State Board of Education 2003; National Clearinghouse for Professions in Special Education, n.d.). School psychologists are actively involved in district and school crisis intervention teams. They also supervise graduate students in school psychology. School psychologists in many districts provide professional development to teachers and other school personnel on topics such as positive behavior intervention plans and achievement tests. One salient application for school psychology in today's world
38502-475: The scientific methods that are used to portray violence, humor and sex. Educational psychology is devoted to the study of how humans learn in educational settings, especially schools. Psychologists assess the effects of specific educational interventions: e.g., phonics versus whole language instruction in early reading attainment. They also study the question of why learning occurs differently in different situations. Another domain of educational psychology
38709-408: The second part of the 20th century, when various theorists saw thinking in analogy to computer operations. On such views, the information may be encoded differently in the brain, but in principle, the same operations take place there as well, corresponding to the storage, transmission, and processing of information. But while this analogy has some intuitive attraction, theorists have struggled to give
38916-413: The sensory organs. But they are still closer to sensation than more abstract forms of thought since they present sensory contents that could, at least in principle, also be perceived. Conscious thought is the paradigmatic form of thinking and is often the focus of the corresponding research. But it has been argued that some forms of thought also happen on the unconscious level . Unconscious thought
39123-417: The sentence but cannot entertain the corresponding proposition. Concept formation is a form of thinking in which new concepts are acquired. It involves becoming familiar with the characteristic features shared by all instances of the corresponding type of entity and developing the ability to identify positive and negative cases. This process usually corresponds to learning the meaning of the word associated with
39330-624: The social sciences have emerged. Most modern researchers in the 21st century are interested in phenomena such as attribution , social cognition , and self-concept .During the COVID-19 pandemic, social psychologists examined the effects of social isolation, fear, and misinformation on collective behavior. Research also focused on how pandemic-related stress affected mental health and social cohesion. Social psychologists are, in addition, concerned with applied psychology , contributing towards applications of social psychology in health, education, law, and
39537-404: The solution should meet, deciding how these criteria should be prioritized, monitoring the progress, and evaluating the results. An important distinction concerns the type of problem that is faced. For well-structured problems , it is easy to determine which steps need to be taken to solve them, but executing these steps may still be difficult. For ill-structured problems, on the other hand, it
39744-424: The student would be oneself, who would process information pertinent to a student (taking notes in class, completing a homework assignment, etc.); the athlete would be the self who processes information about things related to being an athlete. These selves are part of one's identity and the self-referential information is that which relies on the appropriate self to process and react to it. There are many theories on
39951-498: The study. Deception may include false cover stories, false participants (known as confederates or stooges), false feedback given to the participants, and other techniques that help remove potential obstacles to participation. The practice of deception has been challenged by psychologists who maintain that deception under any circumstances is unethical and that other research strategies (e.g., role-playing ) should be used instead. Research has shown that role-playing studies do not produce
40158-423: The task. Being paid $ 20 provided a reason for doing the boring task, which resulted in no dissonance. The Milgram experiment was designed to study how far people would go in obeying an authority figure. The experiment showed that normal American citizens would follow orders even when they believed they were causing an innocent person to suffer or even apparently die. Philip Zimbardo 's Stanford prison study ,
40365-473: The term "mind". This usage is encountered, for example, in the Cartesian tradition , where minds are understood as thinking things, and in the cognitive sciences . But this sense may include the restriction that such processes have to lead to intelligent behavior to be considered thought. A contrast sometimes found in the academic literature is that between thinking and feeling . In this context, thinking
40572-443: The time, respectively. In Leon Festinger 's cognitive dissonance experiment, participants were divided into two groups and were asked to perform a boring task. Both groups were later asked to dishonestly give their opinion of the task, but were rewarded according to two different pay scales. At the end of the study, some participants were paid $ 1 to say that they enjoyed the task, while the group of participants were paid $ 20 to tell
40779-509: The topic of thought. The term " law of thought " refers to three fundamental laws of logic: the law of contradiction, the law of excluded middle, and the principle of identity. Counterfactual thinking involves mental representations of non-actual situations and events in which the thinker tries to assess what would be the case if things had been different. Thought experiments often employ counterfactual thinking in order to illustrate theories or to test their plausibility. Critical thinking
40986-401: The truth of the conclusion if the premises are true. For example, given the premises "all men are mortal" and "Socrates is a man", it follows deductively that "Socrates is mortal". Non-deductive reasoning, also referred to as defeasible reasoning or non-monotonic reasoning , is still rationally compelling but the truth of the conclusion is not ensured by the truth of the premises. Induction
41193-413: The type in question. There are various theories concerning how concepts and concept possession are to be understood. The use of metaphor may aid in the processes of concept formation. According to one popular view, concepts are to be understood in terms of abilities . On this view, two central aspects characterize concept possession: the ability to discriminate between positive and negative cases and
41400-461: The viewer in order to make the advertisement more memorable. Using the psychological research methods and the findings in human's cognition, motivation, attitudes and decision making, those can help to design more persuasive advertisement. Their research includes the study of unconscious influences and brand loyalty. However, the effect of unconscious influences was controversial. The use of these psychologists often create successful advertisements with
41607-453: The way in which individuals change their ideas and actions to meet the demands of a social group, received authority, social role, or a minority within a group wielding influence over the majority. Social psychologists study group-related phenomena such as the behavior of crowds . A group can be defined as two or more individuals who are connected to each other by social relationships . Groups tend to interact, influence each other, and share
41814-543: The western world particularly in the US. Cognitive behavioral therapy and behavior modification are techniques often employed by health psychologists. Psychologists also study patients' compliance with their doctors' orders. Health psychologists view a person's mental condition as heavily related to their physical condition. An important concept in this field is stress , a mental phenomenon with well-known consequences for physical health. Occupational health psychology (OHP)
42021-416: The work of Heidegger , Piaget , Vygotsky , Merleau-Ponty and the pragmatist John Dewey . This approach states that the classical approach of separating the mind and analysing its processes is misguided: instead, we should see that the mind, actions of an embodied agent, and the environment it perceives and envisions, are all parts of a whole which determine each other. Therefore, functional analysis of
42228-485: The workplace . In social psychology, an attitude is a learned, global evaluation that influences thought and action. Attitudes are basic expressions of approval and disapproval or likes and dislikes. For example, enjoying chocolate ice cream or endorsing the values of a particular political party are examples of attitudes. Because people are influenced by multiple factors in any given situation, general attitudes are not always good predictors of specific behavior. For example,
42435-427: The workplace and people's work lives. In short, I-O psychology is the application of psychology to the workplace. One aspect of this field is job analysis , the detailed study of which behaviors a given job entails. Though the name of the title "Industrial Organizational Psychology" implies 2 split disciplines being chained together, it is near impossible to have one half without the other. If asked to generally define
42642-409: Was employed. Thought is discussed in various academic disciplines. Phenomenology is interested in the experience of thinking. An important question in this field concerns the experiential character of thinking and to what extent this character can be explained in terms of sensory experience. Metaphysics is, among other things, interested in the relation between mind and matter . This concerns
42849-479: Was founded, as the first international scholarly society within the field of psychology. Most professional psychologists in the U.S. worked in an academic setting until World War II. But during the war, the armed forces and the Office of Strategic Services hired psychologists in droves to work on issues such as troop morale and propaganda design. After the war, psychologists found an expanding range of jobs outside of
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