# psychology

Pronunciation: US say "sy-KO-luh-jee" /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/; say "sy-KOL-uh-jee" UK /saɪˈkɒl.ə.d͡ʒɪ/, AUS /sɑɪˈkɔl.ə.d͡ʒɪ/

## Noun

1. The systematic study of the human mind.
   - Simple: The science that studies how the human mind works.
   - _He switched his major from biology to psychology in his second year._
   - _Modern psychology draws on controlled experiments, brain imaging, and clinical observation._
2. The mental, emotional, and behavioral traits that characterize a particular person, group, or activity.
   - Simple: The way a person or group thinks, feels, and acts.
   - _Understanding the psychology of crowds helps planners design safer venues._
   - _The novel explores the dark psychology of its central character._
3. The scientific study of human and animal behavior.
   - Simple: The study of how people and animals act and behave.
   - _Comparative psychology examines behavior across different species._
   - _She used psychology to understand why shoppers choose certain products._
4. The study of the soul, in the word's older and now historical sense.
   - Simple: An older field that studied the human soul.
   - _Medieval philosophers approached psychology as the study of the rational soul._
   - _For Aquinas, psychology dealt with the soul rather than with measurable behavior._

## Origin

From French psychologie, from Renaissance Latin psychologia, from Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ, "soul") plus -λογία (-logía, "study of"). Some believe the Latin term was coined by Croatian humanist Marko Marulić (1450–1524), though this is disputed; it is first attested in the 1570s and may be a Hellenization of the established Latin expression dē animā ("on the soul").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/psychology (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).