Psychology? It’s amazing and exceedingly exciting as human beings become a mark of reasoning, creating a tool for themselves that they’d rather refer to as Psychology which helps them to think quite a lot. The word Psychology is interestingly derived form the Greek word known psyche which refers to ‘soul or mind. Psychologists generally define the term Psychology as both an applied and academic field which is used to study the behavior and mind of human beings.

Human Psychology – complexity of human behaviour

Human lifestyle and behavior systematically exhibit some complexities that in essence occasion some critical thinking and thus raising eyebrows, immediately tailoring a Psychology researcher to want to study these behaviors. Research in Psychology is geared to the need of understanding and explaining the thinking of human, his or her emotional stunts and episodes of behavior. These Psychology studies are applied on human with mental health problems and require treatment, those that are suffering on some sort of performance inability, ergonomics and other various health and lifestyle conditions.

Psychology

The Environment around us and our perceptions, reactions to any stimulants around us, how humans grow, learn and how they relate to one another and their functionability in groups is a major concern of Psychology. Have you ever imagined that your thinking, your feelings and the way you behave is a concern of Psychology? Yes it is probably because you are unique or distinct from the others.

Psychologists have taken a line of profession that involves the Psychology of application of knowledge acquired to face and unravel the problems and challenges encountered by individuals and groups of interest. It is instructive to note that Psychology evolved out of both the terms philosophy and biology dating as far back as the early Greek thinkers such as Aristotle and Socrates.

Theories and hypothesis that are commonly applied in Psychology

An idea or suggestion that is put forward as a starting point for reasoning or explanation in Psychology is referred to as a hypothesis. Theories are expanded or broad explanations and predictions of phenomena of interest. Hypotheses are predictions sated in a way that allows them to be tested.

Questions of interest are framed to psychologists and the need for them to be appropriately answered must consider the reliance of an ideal scientific method. Practitioners of Psychology use the Scientific method which consists of three main steps; a) Identifying the questions that are of interest; b) tabulating or formulating an explanation; and c) Carrying out a research that will seek to unlock or refute the explanation.

Psychologists will then develop theories that will help in explaining the phenomenon that has been observed. They will seek to devise ways of testing whether their reasoning is correct by deriving a hypothesis. Theories and hypotheses in Psychology allow psychologists to ensure that they make sense of unorganized, separate observations and bits of information by allowing them to be placed within a structured and coherent framework.

Research methods in Psychology

In Psychology theories and hypotheses come in handy to help psychologists pose appropriate questions that are essential to their work. More than often the answers will be derived from research. Research in Psychology is a systematic inquiry aimed at the discovery of knew knowledge. There are several Research methods in Psychology.

a)      Archival Research method in Psychology

In this method of research, some existing records, such as birth certificates or newspaper clippings are examined to confirm a hypothesis. This is a method that uses already collected and acquired information and does not allow the researcher to test a hypothesis fully. For example one would wish to collect statistics of a population of a particular tribe from existing census data.

b)      Survey Research method in Psychology

This is a method commonly used by research organizations like infotrak as a tool that in Kenya has been highly rejected by politicians since they think it could be a compromised method. In this method a sample of people are chosen randomly in a given population and are asked a series of questions about their behaviors, thoughts or attitudes. In method even using a very small sample is sufficient to infer with great accuracy how a larger group are likely to respond.

c)      The Case study Research method in Psychology

The method employs an in-depth, intensive investigative investigation of an individual or a small group of people. Some studies have been done using this method yet the outcomes have not been fully embraced due to religious bias, for example the gay studies have not been fully accepted as factual in some instances.

d)     Naturalistic observation Research method in Psychology

This is a method that one naturally observes occurrence of events and behaviors and does not in any case intervene in such circumstances. A sample in a naturalistic habitat is obtained.

e)      Correlational Research method of Psychology

When two sets of factors are put in consideration to determine whether they are associated in any ways or correlated so that we can establish the extent or none existence of a relationship. Normally the use of a mathematical score is used to determine the relationship. Positive scores show as an increase of value in the relation and that is easily predictable while a negative score shows diminishing factors in one of the species.

Sometimes it is possible that no correlation exists in a given relationship between two factors being examined in this Psychology method of research.