Theoretical psychology

There have been a few prominent pioneers of theoretical psychology such as Wilhelm Wundt, William James, Sigmund Freud, and John B. Watson.

There has also been a number of notable contributors which include Jerome Kagan, Alan E. Kazdin, Robert Sternberg, Kenneth J. Gergen, and Ulric Neisser.

Philosophy of science does not use the scientific method to empirically derive ideas about the physical world through conducting experiments and interpreting results.

This may be due to ideas taking longer to develop and gain momentum than related fields in empirical based psychology.

In psychology, as with any field of study, there are three philosophical perspectives and methodologies of ways to derive knowledge about the reality of the world.

Rationalism (use of intellect and reason of the mind), Empiricism (use of our individually experienced sensorium), and Skepticism (knowledge beyond mere appearance that is not able to be studied) characterize the three perspectives in understanding theoretical concepts relating to laws which help to understand larger theoretical theories.

Theoretical Psychology also deals with manipulating non-scientific, common words (hypothetical constructs) into scientifically objective terms (intervening variables).

Psychology is built on the principle of being able to reference observable behavior, physical environment, and/or physiological states.

Professionals have the opportunity to use this method of seeking out theoretical knowledge to begin research in a variety of subjects.

This allows for a great deal of knowledge to be explored by means of inference rather than seeking out tangible data to draw ideas.

His focus was on the subjective study of an individual's consciousness, he believed that this was a key factor to the field of psychology.

Its main focus is connecting cognitive processes and relations to things such as clients' feelings, behavior, and consequences of these.

[12] Alan E. Kazdin (1980) had theories that focuses on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a style in children and adolescence.

[13] Robert Sternberg's (1990) main focus revolves around some theoretical idea that include; creativity, wisdom, thinking styles, love, and hate.

[14] Kenneth J. Gergen's (1991) work on social psychology as history was used towards generative theories, realities and relationships, the saturated self, positive aging, and relational being.

He included many theoretical ideas such as culture and science, assumptions, views on mental illness, and relations.

For theoretical psychology, its strength lies in the realm of rationality, focused on big picture ideas.

Theoretical psychology can more heavily rely on an idea about human nature that is universal, even when it is not known why or how this particular trend happens in the world, either individualistically or collectively.

Empirical psychology is what allows for humans to make insights on these big picture ideas at a more palatable, applicable and individualistic and way that gives practical information about reality.

This bridge has an emphasis and focus on forming concepts from moments of explicit behavior that are observable, excluding introspective mental events within individual consciousness.

These laws are categorized into causal (statistical) or deterministic/mechanistic (nonstatistical) categories which relate simultaneous parallel traits or predict future from present or past respectively.

However, the concepts that are immediately observable are still abstract and difficult to define even in a basic law in an important solid theory as they relate to no physical object we can make sense of or interact with using our sensorium and empirical approaches.

This can be beneficial in the sense that individuals know theorists have made a deliberated effort when analyzing the research surrounding a theory.

This resiliency may in part be due to theories stated in ways that are worded too abstractly, ineffectively, and contradictory at times.

Researchers have an extremely difficult time studying it, despite there being an entire field of psychology completely dedicated to consciousness.