Psychology System and Theory

Preface

Theories, Systems, and Paradigms Psychology is the study of the way people think and behave. The field of psychology has a number of subdisciplines devoted to the study of the different levels and contexts of human thought and behavior that includes theories, systems, and paradigms. Theories, systems, and paradigms have had an important effect on psychology. A theory is a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena. A theory can also be explained as an abstract thought or speculation. There are many different theories of abnormality and treatment. These approaches include the psychoanalytic, neo-Freudian, gestalt, cognitive behavior therapy, humanistic psychology, and transactional analysis. Theories have provided psychology with the way to analyze a set of facts and how they relate to one another. Traditional studies of theory have generally focused on individual theorists, core concepts, intellectual histories, or schools of social thought.

A system of psychology may be defined as an interpretation of data and theories with special assumptions postulates, definitions, and methodological biase. The key word in this definition is the last one, biases, because in essence a system represents a predisposition toward the selection of problems, methods, observations, and interpretations. The systems that have been most influential in American psychology are generally agreed to be structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, and psychoanalysis. Sets of interacting units with relationships among them form these systems. A paradigm provides a basis for taking an inventory of existing findings in the field; for indicating contradictory, contrary and consistent results. A paradigm in Kuhn’s inclusive sense involved nearly everything necessary for doing science, all the way from a particular set of metaphysical assumptions at the top through commitments to apparatus and experimental procedures at the bottom. Although the importance of Kuhn’s contribution to the study of the social sciences is and will probably continue to be a point of discussion and controversy, the paradigm concept along with the specification of paradigm components have served as major organizing devices for the study of theory.

— V.K. Verma