Like any other science, psychology has its owncomponents that determine what it interacts with, what it studies and what it bases its research on. This is the subject, tasks and methods of psychology - the three "whales" on which, in fact, psychological science is based.
The subject of psychology is the functioning of the psyche, its laws.
The tasks of psychology:knowledge of the foundations and mechanisms of the emergence of mental activity and activity; revealing and systematization of the discovered phenomena and regularities; identification of mechanisms for implementing the established law; practical use and the competent introduction of results and knowledge into real life.
Psychology in its arsenal also hasvarious methods. Their diversity is associated with many factors: objects and objects of research, the relevance of one method or another in a particular situation, and so on. In addition, the methods and methods are treated differently, there are different psychological schools, and time adjusts the need for certain methods, due to which some disappear, others appear, and the existing ones are modified. However, there are classifications of methods of psychology, which are multifaceted and universal. One such classification was proposed by B.G. Ananiev, a classic of Russian psychology.
So what are the methods of psychology Ananiev suggests?
1. Organizational methods.This is the most global in the meaningful sense of the group of methods of psychology, on which the research is based. This group includes: a comparative method, longitudinal, complex.
2. Empirical methods.This is the most extensive and branched group of methods on the basis of which the practice of research itself is based. Let's select the main methods that belong to this group. This: observation, self-observation (it is also called introspection), an experiment. The experiment, in turn, has a lot of units: allocate laboratory, field, training, psycho-pedagogical, modeling and other types of experiment. The natural (field experiment), which was proposed by the domestic psychologist Lazursky, is one of the most reliable and accurate methods, since throughout the entire period of such an experiment the subject does not know about his participation in the study, therefore, the facts are not distorted and the results are most accurate .
Such methods of psychology as a test, questionnaire,questionnaire are, perhaps, the most effective and effective methods of psychological research. Despite the fact that they are used for a hundred years in psychological practice, these methods do not give up their positions, and their popularity only grows.
What other methods of psychology are included in this group? The method of conversation, the analysis of products of activity and the method of modeling.
3. Processing of the results. This group is a unity of quantitative and qualitative analysis.
4. Interpretation methods. They serve to interpret, interpret and explain the results obtained as a result of the study.
It is worth emphasizing that different methods of psychology are good for different types of psychology. For example, the methods of labor psychology will be based on this structure (according to Kotelova):
1. Method of observation.
2. The survey method.
3. Analysis of production documentation as an auxiliary for the first and second methods.
4. Interpretation, verification and decoding as the final stage
This structure is given here in a simplifiedoption, as in the full version it looks very voluminous. But in this case the methods of psychology and their principles are very clear in this structure. As for non-research, and practical points, this includes methods such as developmental trainings, role games and others that contribute to the improvement of work skills.
