Essay Wow!

Psychologists traditionally study both normal and abnormal functioning, and also treat patients with mental and emotional problems. Psychologists also concentrate on behaviors that affect the mental and emotional health, and mental functioning of healthy human beings.

Psychologists make their contributions through both research and practice. Its dualistic characteristic of using both research and practice gives psychology a unique characteristic. Psychologists provide solutions to problems through research by the careful collection of data, analysis of data, and development of intervention strategies. Through practice it applies the knowledge obtained to solve problems and promote healthy human development. Some psychologist limit themselves to either research (researchers) or practice (practitioners) but a number of psychologist choose to merge both aspects, better known as scientist-practitioners. (APA, 2005)

In today’s world, especially in the Western countries, no matter what field of work you are in, it is hard not to bump into a psychologist at your workplace (of course some exceptions do exist). This is due to the many areas in which psychologist have incorporated themselves over the years.

This integration with other disciplines together with advances in research in learning and memory, and the integration of physical and mental health care, has made psychology a field of study that is captivating and exciting for the people involved in it. Its persistent growth means that more changes are forthcoming hence more progress in this field.

In this paper we shall elaborate on how psychologists contribute to various other disciplines such as education, medicine, law, and business.

Finally, this paper will include a brief look into the future to see where the field of psychology is heading in terms of its interactions with other disciplines in Kenya and other such third world countries that have not quite reached the stage that the Western world has.

THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES

The standard definition of psychology is that it studies the human mind and human behavior. That basically makes all that people do and think subjects of psychology. In addition, psychology has a way of outgrowing its formal definitions. It has been and will continue to be working its way into many cross-fields at the scientific frontier.

1.         Psychology and Law

Given the common concerns of psychologists and lawyers with trying to understand and predict human behaviors, it seems clear that much can be gained by applying the theories and methodology of psychology to key issues arising in law and the legal process. (Kapardis, 1997)

Psychology and law is used by Blackburn (1996) to denote for example, psycholegal research into offenders, lawyers, magistrates, judges and jurors. Psycholegal research involves applying psychology’s methodologies and knowledge to studying jurisprudence, substantive law, legal processes and law breaking (Farrington et al, 1979)

Psychologists also conduct counseling sessions that are offered for people who are accused of crimes and have psychological disorders. This helps to find out if the criminal was aware of committing the crime and thus enabling the ruling of a deserving sentence by law. In these cases, psychologists are required to be professional witnesses or give affidavits stating their diagnoses.

According to Kapardis (1997) psychological research is appreciated more by police management and an evaluation component is included within police forces, psychologists play more significant parts in contributing to knowledge about and influencing developments in a broad range of policing issues.

For example psychologists contribute to the methods of investigations undertaken by the officers, in this area psychologists have also contributed greatly by researches done on lie detector tests.

2.         Psychology and Business

This area of psychology deals with the business world and the office environment. Psychologists study what makes people effective, satisfied, and motivated in their jobs; what distinguishes good workers or managers from poor ones; and what conditions of work promote high or low productivity, morale, and safety.

Some psychologists design programs for recruiting, selecting, placing, and training employees. Work psychologists evaluate, monitor, and improve performance, and also help make changes in the way the organization is set up.

Others help design the actual tasks, tools, and environments with which people must deal when doing their jobs. These specialists can also help design the products that organizations turn out and conduct research related to product design. For example, they play a big role in making computer hardware and software more user-friendly, which in turn contributes both to operator performance in the workplace and product acceptability in the marketplace.

Psychologists with training in mental health and health care also deal with the health and adjustment of individuals in the work setting. Work psychologists work with employee assistance plans that provide help with drug or alcohol addiction problems, depression, and other disorders; they also foster healthy behavior.

3.         Clinical Psychology

Clinical Psychology is the practice and research that applies psychological principles to the assessment, prevention, amelioration, and rehabilitation of psychological distress, disability, dysfunctional behavior, and health-risk behavior, and to the enhancement of psychological and physical well-being. The practice and research vary from short termed crises such as difficulties resulting from adolescent rebellion to more chronic conditions such as schizophrenia.

Other clinical psychologists treat particular problems such as phobias and depression and are focused on specific age groups for example; youngsters, ethnic minority groups, gays, lesbians and the elderly. In addition they consult physicians concerning the problems underlying psychological causes.

4.         Cognitive and Perceptual Psychology

Cognitive psychology studies knowledge. Specifically, it studies how humans acquire thoughts and ideas, how humans use knowledge, how they organize knowledge into a system, and the conditions under which they retain knowledge over time.

Perceptual psychology studies the human perception, thinking and memory (like in functionalism), where cognitive psychology asks questions like;

How does the mind represent reality?

How do people learn?

How do people understand and produce language?

Cognitive psychology also deals with reasoning, judgment and decision making. Both the cognitive and perceptual psychologists collaborate with Behavioral Neuroscientists to understand the biological bases of perception and cognition and also with researchers to further understand cognitive bases. For example, in the thinking processes of people with depression.

5.         Counseling Psychology

Counseling Psychologists’ earliest role was to provide vocational and career guidance and advice. Compared with clinical psychologists, who usually treat more severe mental disorders, counseling psychologists often help clients work through difficulties in career planning, academic performance, and marriage and family problems. They help people manage their problems by making them realize their strengths and resources. Today, counseling psychology has become increasingly similar to clinical psychology. But one difference remains in that, the training of counseling psychologists typically includes academic and vocational counseling, unlike the training of clinical psychologists.

Counseling psychologists have a great respect for the influence of differences among people like the race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability status on their psychological well-being.

Counseling psychologists believe that behavior is affected by several factors including the qualities of the individual (like psychological, physical or spiritual factors) and the persons environment (. e.g. family, society and cultural groups).

6.         Child Psychology

Child Psychology focuses on children’s growth and changes in all areas (including physical, cognitive, emotional, and social).

7.         Developmental Psychology

Developmental Psychology, or also known as Lifespan Developmental Psychology, studies changes that occur during the human life cycle. Although child development catches more attention due to the rapid and profound changes taking place during earlier stages of human life, developmental psychology also covers adult development (e.g., mid-life changes and aging).

8.         Personality Psychology

Personality is what makes a person unique. Personality Psychology studies what characteristics make individuals different from one another, how and why. To that extend, it also studies common human nature and similarities shared by groups of individuals. In other words, personality psychology seeks to understand how individuals are like all other people, some other people, and no other person.

9.         Psychology and Education

Educational psychologists mainly concentrate on how effective teaching and leaning take place. Factors such as human abilities, student motivation and the effect of the classroom of diversity of race, ethnicity and culture are considered. Educational psychologists also form school psychologists, who work directly with public and private schools assessing and counseling students, consulting with parents and school staff and conduct behavioral interventions if necessary.

10.         Industrial / Organizational Psychology

Organizational Psychology, also known as Organizational Behavior, is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes in organizational, especially work-related, settings.

Industrial Psychology is also known as “ergonomics”, “human factors”, or “engineering psychology”. It has to do with scientific design of the physical work environment.

11.         Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychologists study the effect of evolutionary principles such as mutation, adaptations and selectivity on human thought, feeling, and behavior. Evolutionary psychologists also study mating (in animals), aggression, helping behavior and communication because of their focus on genetically shaped behaviors that influence an organism’s chances of survival. Evolutionary psychologists are particularly interested in paradoxes and problems of evolution for example if some behaviors adapted in our evolutionary past may no longer work in the modern world.

12.         Experimental Psychology

Experimental psychologists study both human and animals with respect to their abilities to detect what is happening in a particular environment and to acquire and maintain responses to what is happening.

Experimental psychologists are interested in wide ranges of psychological phenomena such as cognitive processes, comparative psychology (cross species comparison), learning and conditions and psychophysics (the relationship between the physical brightness of a light and how bright the light is perceived to be).

Experimental psychologists also work on the empirical method (collecting data) and control variables within the laboratory as a way of understanding the meticulous phenomena’s and thus advancing scientific knowledge. Moreover, experimental psychologists work in places as diverse as manufacturing setting, zoos and engineering firms.

13.         Forensic Psychology

Outside courts, psychologists have been exploring the relations between psychopathology and criminal behavior. Inside American criminal court, psychologists conduct evaluations of juveniles accused of criminal acts, juvenile waiver evaluations, juvenile and adult pre-sentencing evaluations, juvenile probation evaluations, counseling services for offenders and victims, evaluating the credibility of eyewitnesses, child abuse evaluations, competency evaluations, assessment of diminished capacity, psychological assessment of sex offenders, assessment of mitigating factors. In addition, the issue of “not guilty by reason of insanity” is closely related to clinical psychology.

14.         Health Psychology

Health psychologists specialize in the effects of biological, psychological and social factors on health and illness. Health psychologists mainly study; how patients deal with illnesses, why people don’t follow medical advice, the most effective way to control pain or to change poor health habits by developing health care strategies that foster emotional and physical well-beings.

Health psychologists team up with medical personnel in a private practice or hospital to help patients regain their health. Health psychologists educate medical staff about psychological problems that arise from pain and stress of illness and about symptoms that may seem to be physical in origin but are actually psychological issues.

Health psychologists investigate issues that affect a large segment of society and develop and implement programs to deal with these problems such as substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, risky sexual behavior, poor diet, smoking and lack of exercise.

15.         Psychology and Medicine

Psychology helps in diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention. Apart from the utilization of psychodiagnostic data, the physician can profit from psychological knowledge in conducting medical interviews and in evaluating introspective reports by patients.

16.         Neuropsychology (Behavioral Neuropsychologists)

Neuropsychologists investigate the relationship between brain systems and behavior. For example, the Behavioral Neuropsychologists study the way the brain creates and stores memories or how the various diseases and injuries of the brain affect emotion, perception and behavior. Neuropsychologists design tasks to study normal brain functions and compare with abnormal brain functions.

Clinical Neuropsychologists also assess and treat people and work together with health teams to help brain injured people resume productive lives.

17.         Quantitative and Measurement Psychology

Quantitative and Measurement Psychologists mainly focus on methods and techniques for designing experiments and analyzing psychological data. Some psychologists develop new methods for performing analysis and others create research strategies to evaluate the effect of social and educational programs and psychological treatment. Quantitative and Measurement Psychologists develop and estimate mathematical models for psychological tests and also propose methods for evaluating the quality and fairness of the tests. Quantitative and Measurement Psychologists usually work in all research areas of psychology.

18.         Rehabilitation Psychology

Rehabilitation psychologists deal with individuals with developmental disabilities caused by conditions such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy and autism. Rehabilitation psychologists help clients adapt to their situation, frequently working with other health care professionals, deal with issues of personal adjustment, interpersonal relations, the work world, and pain management. Rehabilitation psychologists are also involved in public health programs to prevent disabilities, including those caused by violence and substance abuse (usually alcohol and drugs), and they testify in court as expert witnesses about the causes and effects of a disability and a person’s rehabilitation needs.

19.         Social Psychology

Social Psychology is the scientific study of the ways in which a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of other people. The “presence of other people” can be real or imagined.

Social psychologists are found in a variety of settings, from academic institutions (where they teach and conduct research), to advertising agencies (where they study consumer attitudes and preferences), to businesses and government agencies (where they help with a variety of problems in organization and management).

20.         Community Psychology

Community Psychology is about understanding people within their social worlds and using this understanding to improve people’s well being. Researchers systematically examine the ways individuals interact with other individuals, social groups, clubs, churches, schools, families and so on.

21.         Sports and Exercise Psychology

Sport Psychology studies:

the psychological and mental factors that influence and are influenced by participation and performance in sport, exercise, and physical activity, and

How participation in sport, exercise, and physical activity may enhance personal development and well being throughout the life span.

This field is growing as sports of all kinds become more and more competitive and attract younger children than ever.

FUTURE PROSPECTS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN KENYA AND OTHER THIRD WORLD COUNTRY IN RELATION TO ITS COLLABORATION WITH OTHER DISCIPLINES

The current diversity in psychology that already exists in the more developed countries makes the future prospects of this field in those areas quite hard to imagine, but we will try and deduce some of these prospects in Kenya and other third World countries based on the changes in psychology already in progress in the more developed parts of the world as well as the changes in other aspects of our world.

The astounding advances in technology that have occurred in the past few years, have, and continue to enable growth in so many areas of life, and psychology has not been left out. In the west, technology has conquered the ways of life; it has almost become one with their very existence, we too have not been left too far behind technologically in our end of the world. The role of psychologists, as we have seen, is to make the technology more user-friendly. Therefore, as technology increases its growth in our end of the world, it is plausible to say that the role of psychology too will increase in relation to this discipline.

These technological advances come with increase in development; therefore the quality of life is bound to rise in various aspects. In the business world, there could be an increase in quality of benefits in the work place, which is linked with more employee assistance programs, which offer employees help with personal problems, which is the job of psychologists. Besides this, psychologists are also likely to be employed by companies to use their expertise in survey design, analysis, and research to provide marketing evaluation and statistical analysis.

In schools, especially at the high school level where most students are adolescents who are known to face numerous personal problems, psychologists could be employed to help these students in coping with their problems and lead normal lives.

This has already begun in some countries, but it is mainly the privately owned school’s that have psychologists already working with them, therefore in the future, with the increase in development, it is possible for all schools if not a majority of them to have psychologists as a part of their team.

The sports scene too will change, as sport is something that is universally appreciated and a number of third world countries produce first-class sportsmen. With development, the need for psychologists to improve the performances of sportsmen will increase, thus psychologists will be able to contribute more to this field in the future.

The future also possibly holds an increase in psychology’s association with the medical world. The main contribution of psychologist to medicine is said to be through research, and with the raise in economy that may come with development will be the increase in funds to undertake these researches in the third world countries.

CONCLUSION

After seeing the width of psychology’s collaboration with other disciplines in the society, it is hard for one not to acknowledge the importance of this scientific study of mind and behavior.

Psychologists, in their work, draw on an ever-expanding body of scientific knowledge about how we think, act, and feel, and apply the information to their special areas of expertise, the areas of expertise which are continually growing.

‘It is comforting for psychologists to know that with the general growth and maturity of their discipline, major industrialized society has come to realize the wide-ranging benefits of psychology,’ McConkey (1992).

Psychologists have worked, and continue to work with members of other disciplines to improve situations not only for the workers in those disciplines, but for the rest of the society who are affected by the performances of these disciplines as well.

In the lesser-developed countries, psychologists may not be as appreciated as they are in the developed ones, but as we’ve seen, even in these parts of the world the future of psychology is promising.

REFERENCES

American Psychological Association. (2005) “Psychology: Scientific Problem Solvers - Careers for the 21st Century”. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

Anastasi, A. (1964) “Fields of Applied Psychology”. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc

Bayne, R. and Horton, I., (Eds.) (2003) “Applied Psychology: Current Issues and New Directions” Wiltshire: Cromwell Press.

Kapardis, A. (1997) “Psychology and law: a critical introduction.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.