Definitional Problems

There are a number of serious problems associated with defining psychology
as the scientific study of behavior and mental and affective states. Not
only is the definition imprecise, but it also has apparently made it very difficult
to generate an integrated body of psychological knowledge. While impressive
research on the behavior of animals and humans has been conducted,
and some progress has been made in understanding mental and
affective processes and states, the knowledge generated is fragmented and
therefore of limited value.
One could argue, in fact, that psychology is not the study of behavior at all
but is rather the study of the information each person or animal has available
that makes behavior—that is, directed and controlled actions—possible.
While this information has traditionally been referred to as mind and
consciousness, there might be some virtue in calling it “the psychological
domain” in order to avoid long-standing arguments. Behavior is a methodological
concept because it refers to something researchers must study in order
to make inferences about the psychological domain. On the other hand,
researchers can also investigate the products of human actions, such as the
languages people develop, the buildings they construct, and the art and music
they share, to the same end. Some psychologists performresearch on the
physiological processes associated with seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking.
Definitions of psychology should include the terms “culture” and “physiological
and biochemical correlates” as well as the concept of behavior.
A better approach might be to define psychology as the systematic study
of the psychological domain, this domain being the personal information
that makes it possible for individual human beings and other life-forms to
move with direction and control. To go beyond this definition is to describe
how psychologists do research rather than what the field is about.
Another problem associated with standard definitions of psychology is
the assumption that there is general agreement concerning the meaning of
the concept of behavior. As has been pointed out by many analysts, that is
not the case. The termhas been used to refer to sensory responses, cognitive
and affective processes, muscle movements, glandular secretions, activity
taking place in various parts of the nervous system, and the outcomes or
consequences of particular complex actions. Behavior, in other words, is an ambiguous concept. In a strict sense, the only actions or changes relevant to
the psychological level of analysis are those that are self-initiated and unique
to the total-life-form level of organization in nature, because it is these
changes that depend on the psychological domain. Changes in the individual
cells or subsystems of life-forms, on the other hand, do not constitute behavior
in the psychological sense. 665