心理学专业英语讲稿1-什么是心理学what is psychology

English for Psychology（心理学专业英语）

Perspectives in Psychology（心理学纵览）

What is psychology ?

什么是心理学？

1.DEFINITIONS:

定义：

The word "Psychology" is derived from two Greek roots: "Psyche", meaning "mind" or "soul" and "Logos", meaning "study of".

心理学这个单词是由psyche和logos这两个希腊词派生出来的，psyche的意思是心灵或精神，logos的意思是对……研究。

Psychology, therefore,literally means "study of the mind".

因此，从字面意思上来讲（顾名思义），心理学就是对于心灵/精神的研究。However,a more recent definition by Atkinson et al(1991) suggests that psychology is:"The scientific study of behaviour and mental processes" 然而，阿特金森（1991）等人提出了一个较新的定义，“心理学是对于行为与心理过程的科学研究”。（心理学是研究行为和心理过程的科学。）

Just giving this simple definition, however, is a bit misleading, since psychologists now and throughout their history have not only disagreed about the definition of psychology but have also strongly disagreed about what should be studied in the subject and how it should be studied. 然而，仅仅给出这样一个简单的定义，会有一点误导，因为无论是在历史上还是

现在，心理学家不仅对于心理学的定义没有达成一致，而且对于在这个学科中应该研究什么以及应该如何研究也存在巨大的分歧。

2. THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

心理学的历史

Where did psychology come from?

心理学的源头？

Psychology developed from three main areas of study:PHILOSOPHY、BIOLOGY、PHYSICS

心理学是从三个主要的研究领域发展而来的：哲学、生物学、物理学。

1.PHILOSOPHY

哲学

Many of the problems which psychology has investigated were first most clearly outlined by Greek philosophers such as Socrates,Plato, and Aristotle in the 5th century BC.

心理学研究的很多问题，是由希腊哲学家最先清晰提出（概要）的。比如说公元前5世纪的苏格拉底、柏拉图和亚里斯多德等。

Two more recent philosophical influences on the development of psychology as a science were:

当今对于心理学作为科学的发展，对于它的两个哲学性影响是：

1 Empiricism - which argued that humans should only measure data that is objectively observable, such as behaviour.

1）经验主义——认为人们只能去测量可以客观观测的数据，比如说行为。

2 Positivism - which argued that the methods and principles of science should be applied to human behaviour.

2）实证主义——认为科学的方法和原理应该被应用于人类行为的研究中。

2.BIOLOGY

生物学

Biology has two important influences:

生物学有两个重要的影响：

1）Evolution - Darwin's suggestion that humans have evolved from other animals. The discoveries in genetics that followed from his evolutionary theroy have had many important implications for the study and understanding of behaviour.

1.进化论——达尔文认为人类是从别的动物进化而来的。遗传学是由其进化理论发展而来的，遗传学的发现，对于研究和理解行为有重大的影响。

2Physiology - the discoveries, mostly by the medical profession, of the structure and function of the brain, nervous, and endocrine system have significantly contributed to the understanding of behaviour.

2）生理学——尤其是医疗行业，对脑，神经，内分泌系统的结构和功能的发现，对于理解行为有重大的贡献。

3.PHYSICS

物理学

A subject that because of its great success has been adopted as the ideal model by scientist in psychology, who have borrowed its scientific methods