Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A to Z: Psychology

I had a few ideas for today, such as persuasion, pessimism, and perception. Then I had a "well duh" moment when I realized I could have a post about my theme for today. Well, a brief introduction at any rate seeing as how psychology is a broad area. It would be like saying I'm going to blog about biology, or writing, or something else in that vain.

Basically put, psychology is the science of human behavior which includes thoughts and feelings. Early on in my studies we learned about the "ABCs of Psychology"; which are A for affect (emotion/feeling), B for behavior, and C for cognition (thinking/thoughts/attitudes).

Psychology also has many areas of study; social, personality, cognitive, behavioral, biological and more. These areas cover more specific parts of psychology. Social psychology studies how humans interact with each other. When I posted about altruism for my A post, this is a topic I learned about in my social psychology class. We also covered group dynamics.

Personally, I love how nicely psychology ties into writing. Characters are mostly human, or at the very least intended for humans to be reading about. For me it is fun to apply various psychological concepts to character development. I like to think how my characters turned out the way they did, how they interact with others, how they see the world. These are things you can think about your own characters, or favorite characters in books you have read.

And yes, psychology is a science.

6 comments:

Corinne O said...

Love psychology and it is SO useful for writers. I have this fascinating book that all writers might find useful called:

The Writer's Guide to Psychology - How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior by Carolyn Kaufman, Psy.D.

D. U. Okonkwo said...

I've put quite a bit of pyschology into my literary novel. I find it adds depth to character and aids development, too. Great post!

Julie Flanders said...

I've always been very interested in psychology, it's fascinating. And you are so right, it can add so much to your writing.

Thank you for sharing the book title, Corinne, I definitely want to check that out.

Sarah Allan said...

Hi, and thank you for the follow! You have a new follower as well. :-)

I was a Psych major in college too, and I love how the knowledge I've retained from my classes translates into my characters. It helps me make them into well-rounded people.

Great post!

Mary Aalgaard said...

It's good to apply psychology to our characters. Thanks for the tips.

Anonymous said...

Oh, yeah, I think my training in psychiatry has helped me with character development. Nice post!