Psychology can be defined as the social science of the human’s mind and how it interacts with its surrounding. From the 19th century there have been developments that are modern in psychology. It has grown to a science that is analytical and predictive having subfields that are many. Though like any social science it has limitations but it has reasonably advanced by concentrating on its major objectives. This paper looks at the four goals of psychology and analyses whether these goals help or hurt the humanity by providing specific examples to prove it. According to Comstone, (2010) the four core goals of psychology are; description, explanation, prediction and changing behavior.
The first core objective of psychology is description. Psychology helps in describing the behaviors. The psychologists try to acquit themselves what should be normal, is accepted and what is not healthy. The observation of behavior takes account of thinking, the feelings objectives, attitudes, deeds, motivation and reactions. The human behavior is explained by psychologists through procedures like study cases, surveys, studies of correlation, testing and surveys.
Explanation is the second major objective of psychology. There are efforts made by the psychologists to explain that behavior is a mirror of the fundamental objective of the science as a whole. Having the knowledge of the universe that we ours and the place we have in it. Many theorists starting with Freud and Jung up to Rogers and Skinner have given many theories to give an explanation of personality, motivation and development. The explanations are of course limited since they are most of the time restricted to culture; meaning that, a single explanation may not give the same explanation of behavior in a different culture or community. The determinant of explanation in most cases is through the observation of quantitative and qualitative, taking into account the experimentation.
The third main goal of psychology is prediction. There is also an attempt by the psychologists to make predictions of the behavior. The main reason of predicting is for the determination of the time a person will make a choice that will be healthy or not healthy or how the performance of a person will be within the surrounding and stimuli. Consider the advantage of a prediction that determines if the candidate in a certain school will be successful, basing on the behaviors in the past under the same environment. Although to predict is not a total prove, it can allow institutions and persons to make decisions that are much informed about their future choices.
The fourth major objective of psychology is the changing behavior. Changing the behavior can result to a healthy or not healthy modification, however within the constraints of ethics; the psychologists try to provide voluntary encouragement to people and groups to change behavior for long time healthy benefits. The theories of development and personality give different views on how to best give confidence on changes of behavior. Certain behaviorists have a perception in a reinforcement that is repetitive, on the other hand the positivists in a cognitive disclosure that is honest. Psychology can be applied in education, correction of the society and structures of an organization to draw out behaviors and attitudes that are preferred (Comstone, 2010).
The four main objectives of psychology which are behavior description, behavior understanding, control of behavior and behavior prediction can really assist humanity in a deal that is great. People have to start understand that the way they behave in their day to day life has some effects on other people. First of all they must learn the causes and effects of their own behaviors before they start studying the behavior of other individuals a round them. Humanity is not able to give a description of behaviors until they get to understand the behavior as a whole concept first. It is good for one to have the capability of predicting ones behavior so that they can be able to react on their behaviors and deliver the message they desire to deliver. It is believed that the skills of communication can also be included in the psychology since the behavior of the individuals also deliver messages , and one can not be able to give a description, predict, understand, or change the behavior of another person without the knowledge and description of the non-verbal communication messages that are emitted by behavior. so, by the use of the four major goals of psychology, that helps to describe day to day life, and if humanity concept as a whole come to know about it or not, people in most cases are trying to predict and attempt to control their behaviors, on the other hand, people are not able to give a description or get to understand the behavior (Harold, 2010)
The psychologists are using the four major goals of psychology to get to know the many personas and personalities and try to figuring out the better methods of dealing with the many patients.
In conclusion, being a science like any other and basically in social science, psychology has limitations as it concentrates no its own objective. To describe an individual, for instance, is not able to give a prediction of the behavior of a certain group. By the use of experimentations and the analysis of statistics and draw upon sources that are multiple, despite the fact that psychology continues to grow, however, into a field of study that is respected that aims to bring benefits to all of the people.
