is the primary aim of psychology is to understand, predict and control behavior?

Answer 1

I think it depends on which side your coming from. I think interpretation can be misunderstood especially with psychology. Some people think they can read your mind. I think being aware of yourself is 'control' as you learn to accept who you are.
I believe psychology should be for helping people by understanding people you can reasonably predict how you can help them.

Answer 2

Psychology Research - Quick and Dirty



What is the aim of psychology?

In a nutshell, the point is to understand:

What do people do?

Not as obvious as it sounds

What makes psychology a science is that it is intended to describe behavior in a rigorous way

Doing so, we often find out that people act very differently from what we believe

We need to be able to accurately and consistently say what it is people do

So, we describe behavior

'Behavior' is meant to refer to a broad range of things we can study, and isn't always the best term

We often infer things that are not behavior, from behavior (e.g. we infer thoughts based on what people say or do)

Sometimes, we study other kinds of things, for example physiological variables (heart rate, EEG),

Why do they do it?

We want to understand what causes behavior

Not just the brain:

General physiology, nutrition, drugs

Society, morals

The environment

This is a big one: people are organisms that live in an environment - studying one without the other misses the point

How can (or, sometimes, should) we change what people do?

Answer 3

I prefer to term "manage behavior" as opposed to "control behavior." I think that as a science psychology attempts to understand, predict, and manage behavior. Unfortunately, it can onlt predict behavior statistically, in other words, indicate how likely a certain behavior will occur under certain circumstances, kind of like the weather. If it can predict behavior because it can determine what variables elicit the behavior, itmay be possible to set up those variables in such a way that the behavior is elicited, i.e., manage the behavior.

Answer 4

Understand and predict, yes. Control, not necessarily.

I have always been interested in why humans behave the way they do. I even took a few psychology classes in college. But, nothing short of getting out in the midst of the people you wanna study: observing, asking questions, and generally trying to see things from others' point of view... will help you to understand why it is people do the things they do.

It's a loss for me, because I am not a naturally social person. So, all I can do is glean second-hand insight. But for anyone who is even slightly social, you can stand to learn a lot about behavior.

Anyway, I don't know about psychology in general (as most people desire to use it). Maybe they want to use it to control others. But not me. I think most people studying to be a phychologist or phsychiatrist wants to help other people, not control them.

Answer 5

i think its more to understand then decide wether or not u want to control.