Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As a social science, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups. Ψ is a Greek letter which is commonly associated with the science of psychology.
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies normal and abnormal mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior by experimenting with, and observing, interpreting, and recording how individuals relate to one another and to their environments.
Qualitative research relies on data obtained by the researcher from first-hand observation, interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, participant-observation, recordings made in natural settings, documents, and artifacts. The data are generally nonnumerical. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, social work, and educational research. Qualitative researchers study individuals' understanding of their social reality.
Jonathan Potter is Dean of the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University and one of the originators of discursive psychology.
Psychology Today is a media organization with a focus on psychology and human behavior. The Psychology Today website features therapy and health professionals directories and hundreds of blogs written by a wide variety of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, medical doctors, anthropologists, sociologists, and science journalists. Psychology Today also publishes a bimonthly magazine, which first appeared in 1967.
Nicholas D. Kim is an analytical environmental chemist and cartoonist who currently works as a senior lecturer in applied environmental chemistry, School of Public health, College of Health for Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. As a cartoonist he is known under his pseudonym Nick. He specializes in environmental chemistry and contamination issues and is certified to practice as an independent hearings commissioner under New Zealand's Resource Management Act. Previously he has acted as a science advisor for the Waikato Regional Council and as a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Waikato.
Health psychology is the study of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and healthcare. It is concerned with understanding how psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors contribute to physical health and illness. Psychological factors can affect health directly. For example, chronically occurring environmental stressors affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, cumulatively, can harm health. Behavioral factors can also affect a person's health. For example, certain behaviors can, over time, harm or enhance health. Health psychologists take a biopsychosocial approach. In other words, health psychologists understand health to be the product not only of biological processes but also of psychological, behavioral, and social processes.
Horace Romano "Rom" Harré, was a New Zealand-British philosopher and psychologist.
The International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP) is a society devoted to debate about critical ideas within health psychology and developing new ways of health psychology practice. ISCHP's members commonly make use of qualitative methods and participatory research methods to address social, political and cultural issues within health psychology.
Ian Parker is a British psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is Emeritus Professor of Management in the School of Business at the University of Leicester.
Professor Cheryl Merle de la Rey is the current Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. She was formerly the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Pretoria in South Africa and had a distinguished career as a South African academic and leader in South African higher education. Since 2019, she has been the vice-chancellor of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Michael Charles Corballis was a New Zealand and Canadian psychologist and author. He was Emeritus Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Auckland. His fields of research were cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, encompassing visual perception, visual imagery, attention, memory, and the evolution of language.
Darrin James Hodgetts is a New Zealand psychology academic. He is a professor of societal psychology at Massey University and is a principal investigator with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. Of Māori descent, Hodgetts affiliates to the Ngāi Tahu iwi.
Virginia "Ginny" Braun is a New Zealand psychology academic specialising in thematic analysis and gender studies. She is particularly known for her scholarship on the social construction of the vagina and designer vagina cosmetic surgery, body hair and heterosexuality. She is perhaps best known for her collaboration with British psychologist Victoria Clarke around thematic analysis and qualitative research methods. Together they have published numerous papers, chapters, commentaries and editorials on thematic analysis and qualitative research, and an award-winning and best selling qualitative textbook entitled Successful qualitative research. They have a thematic analysis website at The University of Auckland. More recently - with the Story Completion Research Group - they have published around the story completion method.
Linda Waimarie Nikora is a New Zealand psychology academic. She is Māori, of Te Aitanga a Hauiti and Ngāi Tūhoe descent. She is currently Professor of Indigenous Studies and co-director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga at the University of Auckland, having moved in 2017 from the University of Waikato where she had been a Professor of Psychology and the founding Director of the Maori & Psychology Research Unit in the School of Psychology.
Antonia Catherine Lyons is a New Zealand health psychology academic.
Christine Vivienne Stephens is a New Zealand psychology academic. She is currently professor of psychology at Massey University based in the Palmerston North. She is one of he founding members of the International Society of Critical Health Psychology, which she has also chaired. She is currently the society's treasurer.
Professor Colleen Ward is an American-New Zealand cross-cultural psychologist. She is a Professor of Psychology and Founder of the Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research at Victoria University of Wellington. She is a native of New Orleans.
Kerry Lynn Gibson is a South African-New Zealand clinical psychologist and academic, specialising in youth mental health. She is currently the Deputy Head of School (Academic) for the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland. Gibson was the president of the New Zealand Psychological Society, from 2014 until 2016.
Suzanne Georgina Pitama is a New Zealand academic, is Māori, of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Whare descent and as of 2020 is a full professor at the University of Otago in Christchurch, New Zealand.
