Four Goals of Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Four Goals of Psychology - Essay Example 17). With that distinction, psychology becomes an integral discipline that has goals to unravel information about the mind. In connection to the direction and progress of the study of the mind, four goals will be presented in the paper regarding psychology. Each will be elaborated and their advantages and disadvantages will be explored. The author then will take a position as to whether the goals are helpful or harmful to human beings supported by facts. The four goals of psychology are description, explanation, prediction, and behavioral change (Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian, 2010, p. 4). Description pertains to the objective of psychology to provide the details of the mind, behavior and motivation of people (Cutler and Penrod, 1995, p. 57). It also explores deep into the attitudes and emotions by conducting studies through surveys, observations, interviews and experimentation with the aid of equipment. On the other hand, explanation is the next step after description. It allows the psychologists to provide the information and analysis to other people and putting rational judgments on their findings (Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian, 2010, p. 4). Usually generalization is done to create principles and theories that will hold true for the majority of the findings. After explanation comes prediction which is an intelligent guess and differs from wild guess as the former makes use of science and past findings to predict the future. In the case of psychology, prediction is done based on the data or principles regarding past behaviors and attitudes (Cutler and Penrod, 1995, p. 58). With prediction, it allows people to make more accurate decisions. The last goal is behavioral change and it pertains to the act of intervening with the habits and actions of people using the techniques based on the findings about the workings of the mind (Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian, 2010, p. 4). The advantages of psychology then are easily seen as the