Everyone has a rough idea of what psychologists do (at least those in the clinical branch). However, in general the role of psychology in our society tends to be minimized limiting it to the treatment of mental disorders, when the truth is that the contributions of psychology are multiple and varied.
Since psychology studies the behavior of people as a whole, the benefits derived from the knowledge acquired by this science can be applied to many fields. If you are interested in knowing why psychology is so important this article can be very useful to you.
Psychology is usually defined as the study of human behavior and mental processes This definition may vary depending on the theoretical orientation or the field of application; For example, the object of study can easily be extended to non-human animals, as happens in comparative psychology and ethology.
Psychological research is encompassed in many cases within what we know as “basic psychology” dedicated to obtaining knowledge about processes such as perception, memory or reasoning, which influence any type of human behavior.
The best-known application of psychology is its clinical aspect, which aims to help solve mental and behavioral problems to improve people’s quality of life. Community psychology has similar objectives to those of clinical psychology but its focus is more macro, as it works with large population groups rather than individuals.
Other well-known branches of this science They are educational psychology, which analyzes learning with the aim of enhancing it, and organizational psychology, which applies the theories developed by social psychology to the professional field. Forensic psychology, for its part, focuses on psychological evaluation as support for judicial processes, and sports psychology has as its goal the improvement of sports performance.
Why is psychology important?
Due to the breadth of the field of psychology, Its importance depends largely on the specific application we are referring to However, in this section we will reflect on the relevance of psychology at a general level, emphasizing some of its key contributions.
1. To understand living beings
Psychological theories are fundamental to explain the behavior of animals, especially people: Any activity produced in a human society is capable of being analyzed from psychology since it will always involve the participation of basic mental processes. In relation to the study of human groups, social psychology is particularly important.
Behavior analysis is not only interesting in itself for a large number of people, but it also allows the knowledge acquired to be applied to many different fields, especially within the social and natural sciences such as medicine, sociology, economics, history, political science demography, linguistics, veterinary medicine or zoology.
2. To increase the quality of life
Many people consider that The ultimate goal of psychology is to increase the well-being and quality of life of others Although other professionals have different concepts, the truth is that service to other people has been a central aspect in the development of psychology and continues to be so today.
Obviously psychology is useful to enhance mental health and personal growth, but the benefits of this science are not limited to the psyche. Health psychology, for example, seeks physical well-being and disease prevention through the acquisition of healthy behavioral habits, a key aspect that medicine tends to leave aside.
3. To improve relationships
The knowledge derived from psychological science is very important for the improvement of human relationships. Thus, psychologists are those who are most qualified to improve social skills of shy people, mediating in divorce cases or intervening in mobbing and bullying, among other functions.
4. To enhance professional performance
In today’s societies, performance and productivity are extremely valuable on a professional level, and more and more people realize that having psychologists in their work team clearly enhances results. Human resources, organizational psychology and sports psychology are good examples of this role.
5. To develop cognition
From psychology, many have been proposed techniques to improve cognitive abilities such as logical reasoning, memory or problem solving. We talk about “metaknowledge” to refer to knowledge about one’s own learning processes; Understanding how our mental processes work is very important to perfect them.
6. To increase creativity
Psychology enhances creativity for different reasons. Not only does it allow us to analyze the artistic process at a deep level, but understanding the behavior and mental functioning of people is a very important help for the creation of meaningful works with realistic characters.
7. To solve specific problems
Both clinical psychology and other branches of this science have frequently focused on solving everyday problems. In this sense, we consider that the problem-solving techniques such as those proposed by D’Zurilla and Nezu which determine a series of useful steps to face any complex situation.
After all, many of us would like society to be more benevolent towards those who make it up. Although institutions tend to ignore psychology due to lack of knowledge or conflicting interests, if the contributions of our science regarding individual well-being and collective functioning were taken more into account, the world would undoubtedly be a better place.
