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Unit-1: Nature, Branches and Schools of Psychology

Thus, we can say that in the modern era Psychology means a science in which both behavior and mental Notes
processes are studied.

1.2 The Scope and Methods of Psychology

The Nature of Psychology

To understand the importance of the subject Psychology it is necessary to understand its nature. To
understand the nature we have to find out that what is Psychology all about, what kind of science it is,

its branches, what are its purposes and problems? What is human according to psychology and what is
the contribution of psychology to the mankind? By studying these aspects the nature of psychology can
be understood properly.
In the beginning for centuries Psychology was considered as a part of Philosophy. In the past fi fty years
psychologists introduced psychology as independent subject and gave it a nature of science. For this
reason, Independent department of psychology have been segmented in various universities and is
taught as an independent subject.
The nature of psychology that we have now was different in the beginning. It was considered as a science
of soul initially. The purpose of this subject that time was investigation and thinking of soul. Thus, the
psychology was related to spiritualism and was part of philosophy. Till sixteenth century psychology

was considered as science of the soul. People could neither see the soul nor define it. Therefore, they
became hesitant to accept it as science of soul. In order to bring out the change people started calling it
‘Science of mind’. But the nature of mind is also not certain like soul and so could not be defi ned. That
is why Psychology was not accepted as the science of mind and till now psychology could not get the
place as Pure science.
After studying minutely psychologists observed the influence of consciousness on human
behavior. Therefore, psychology was also accepted as science of consciousness, but few
psychologists observed the behavior of human is not overpowered by consciousness always but
sometimes unconsciousness takes place in his behavior. Thus psychology was accepted as the
science of unconsciousness, but further this definition was not accepted by the people and nature
of psychology kept on changing.
Now psychology is considered as the science of human and animal behavior. In psychology the
goal is to study human behavior, but the basis of this study includes animal behavior too. Initially
with the help of psychology the experimental study of animal behavior takes place and then the
comparison between human and animal behavior brings success in the study of human. There are
two kinds of human behavior, natural and acquired or learned. The study of both behaviors consists
in modern Psychology. Thus the nature of psychology centralized on animal behavior instead of
Spiritualism.

Initially study of psychology was considered as a branch of philosophy. In 1879
William Wundt founded the very first laboratory of psychology in Lipzing
University of Germany and with this step psychology gradually became separate
from Philosophy.

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