Why is psychology so popular?

Legitimacy gained through parallel discoveries in related sciences (neuroscience, cognitive science) as well as a greater experimental focus on the micro level – and it also takes time to gather results from longitudinal studies.

There’s also the fact that once it branched out beyond just Freud, it made a lot more sense. Studying Psychology for years in college taught me to cringe whenever anyone brings Freud up.

@incendiary_dan is right – Freud is pretty much “literature” and not “psychology” at this point.

Well, his defense mechanism stuff was pretty good. The rest we can toss.

@incendiary_dan Freud is no longer fresh as a daisy, and was spouted ad absurdum, but what a master stroke, to make mythology, meaningful again, in a modernist age of disenchantment, it was a renaissance of sorts, but psychology has now fallen victim to a new wave of disenchantment and instrumental thinking. It is bland and statistical i loath it, because it strives for accuracy but discloses absolutely squat.

I studied a few psych subjects early in my tertiary studies, I noticed a lot of the people taking the classes seemed to be looking for answers about their own problems. I sometimes wonder how many of them went on to work in the psychology field? I didn’t. I originally thought I wanted to be a social worker and realised there was no way I could detach myself enough to do that work. Kudos to those who do.

Perhaps also it is the increase in films/television programs with a focus on psychology. It is a fascinating area of study though, so perhaps that’s it.

I would suspect when you toss in the technolgy and science to have a better look at what goes on in the brain and where it make the mystery more interesting. I think technology has removed a lot of the guess work or narrowed it down to plausable chunks.

Cause it’s so damn fascinating! I majored in Psych not because I plan to pursue a career in that field but rather because I thoroughly enjoyed reading, writing, and hearing lectures in my Psychology classes. I truly miss those classes.

I think that people are, by nature, self-centred. They want to know about themselves, about what makes them think the way they do, what makes them them, and what makes others think they way they do. Just look at a lot of the questions on Fluther – many of them are about behaviours and their roots. Psychology helps to offer a window on why the mind does what it does.

Because it’s easy.

Just sayin’

@papayalily, don’t forget the distinction between psychology and psychiatry. They are not synonymous, although they are closely related. “Psychology” is both an academic discipline and a field of research. Psychiatry is psychology put into practice, with the added benefit of a complete medical education and the ability to prescribe medication. I presume your question references how many people have therapists or analysts or whatever these days, in which case psychiatry or even the broader “therapy” might be more appropriate terms (since psychologists—people with academic degrees but not clinical ones—can still practice therapy).

Either way, while I’m tempted to poo-poo therapy, I think there is something to be said for the many diverse stresses of modern life. It’s possible, as much as it pains me to admit it, that more people do actually “need” therapy now. As a result of the wealth of new tasks we’ve been brought up to excel at, people are fundamentally different at the cognitive level than they were a century ago.

There’s also something to be said for emotional hypochondria or Munchausen’s. The last few generations of kids have been brought up to shy away from responsibility, and association with a vaguely defined mental disorder is a great way to absolve yourself from having to apply intellectual or emotional effort. In addition, the diagnostic criteria for broad-spectrum disorders like ADHD or Bipolar disorder have thickened the DSM-IV to such a point where it would be impressive if any doctor were able to adequately and precisely classify a set of behaviors as being normal or aberrant.

… to figure out why they are so screwed up.

It’s just interesting to figure out why we do what we do, feel what we feel, and see the general characteristics of the human race.

One of the reasons I like psychology is because I enjoy learning about why people act the way they do. Perhaps other people are attracted to this subject for the same reason?

pychology is about human behaviour not about inanimate machine. That’s why it is in the rise.