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Psychology at the beginning of the twenty-first century has
become a highly diverse field of scientific study and applied
technology. Psychologists commonly regard their discipline
as the science of behavior, and the American Psychological
Association has formally designated 2000 to 2010 as the
“Decade of Behavior.” The pursuits of behavioral scientists
range from the natural sciences to the social sciences and embrace
a wide variety of objects of investigation. Some psychologists
have more in common with biologists than with
most other psychologists, and some have more in common
with sociologists than with most of their psychological colleagues.
Some psychologists are interested primarily in the behavior
of animals, some in the behavior of people, and others
in the behavior of organizations. These and other dimensions
of difference among psychological scientists are matched by
equal if not greater heterogeneity among psychological practitioners,
who currently apply a vast array of methods in many
different settings to achieve highly varied purposes.
Psychology has been rich in comprehensive encyclopedias
and in handbooks devoted to specific topics in the field.
However, there has not previously been any single handbook
designed to cover the broad scope of psychological science
and practice. The present 12-volume Handbook of Psychology
was conceived to occupy this place in the literature.
Leading national and international scholars and practitioners
have collaborated to produce 297 authoritative and detailed
chapters covering all fundamental facets of the discipline,
and the Handbook has been organized to capture the breadth
and diversity of psychology and to encompass interests and
concerns shared by psychologists in all branches of the field.
Two unifying threads run through the science of behavior.
The first is a common history rooted in conceptual and empirical
approaches to understanding the nature of behavior.
The specific histories of all specialty areas in psychology
trace their origins to the formulations of the classical philosophers
and the methodology of the early experimentalists, and
appreciation for the historical evolution of psychology in all
of its variations transcends individual identities as being one
kind of psychologist or another. Accordingly, Volume 1 in
the Handbook is devoted to the history of psychology as
it emerged in many areas of scientific study and applied
technology. |
