Nani

Psychology Defined
Gregg R. Henriques
James Madison University

A new form of knowledge technology is used to diagnose psychology’s epistemological woes and provide a solution to the difficulties. The argument presented is that psychology has traditionally spanned two separate but intimately related problems: (a) the problem of animal behavior and (b) the problem of human behavior. Accordingly, the solution offered divides the field into two broad, logically consistent domains. The first domain is psychological formalism, which is defined as the science of mind, corresponds to animal behavior, and consists of the basic psychological sciences. The second domain is human psychology, which is defined as the science of human behavior at the individual level and is proposed as a hybrid that exists between psychological formalism and the social sciences. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 60: 1207–1221, 2004. Keywords: Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System; psychological formalism; unified theory; mental behaviorism; Justification Hypothesis

We persevere in looking at small questions instead of large ones and our view of the forest is forever obscured by the trees. (Bevan, 1991, p. 475)

What is psychology? Is it a single, coherent scientific discipline awaiting transformation from the current preparadigmatic state into a more mature unified one? Or, is it a heterogeneous federation of subdisciplines that will ultimately fragment into a multitude of smaller, more specialized fields? This is, in essence, the “to be or not to be” question of the field. Currently, psychology exists as an uneasy compromise between unification and fragmentation. On the one hand, the existence of numerous societal institutions suggests that psychology is a singular entity at some level. Academic courses, degrees, and departments, as well as organizations like the American Psychological Association (APA) suggest that the concept of psychology is a specifiable, coherent entity

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