Psychology has been around for quite some time. It has produced some of the most influential thinkers of all-time: Freud, Skinner, Pavlov, Piaget, Jung, Maslow, Erikson, Bandura, and many other influential men from this interesting field. These fine men have contributed significantly to our society through their studies and experiments aimed at a deeper and wider understanding of the human mind and behavior. Without the results of their monumental studies, the world as we know it now would be hugely different.
While to many, psychology can be quite boring, it does have its fun side that is just waiting for people to discover. It also offers some real-life benefits that could dramatically improve our lives once we embraced the potential of this discipline.
Finally, psychology has practical applications in a lot of fields, many of which we might not be aware of. Here are some of the best real-world applications of psychology that are worth knowing about:
1. Advertising.
You may not notice it, but psychology and marketing work perfectly well. In fact, the fusion is so seamless that one can hardly notice it without taking a long, hard look. Advertising or marketing is one of the fields where psychology is pretty much integrated and used to its full potential. Psychological techniques are critical in letting advertisers know how to determine the factors that affect consumers’ decision to buy or avail of services, as well as the exact content and timing of message to consumers. To be strict, consumer psychology (the application of psychology to consumerism and advertising) has been around since the 1950s but is still pretty much in the backside of things.
2. Health.
If you’ve ever exercised in a machine that shows how many calories you’ve already burned and having seen such detail pushed you to work out harder to try upping the ante, then you’ve just experienced psychology in action. As it turns out, creating a ‘game-like’ experience in physical fitness can prompt individuals to exert more effort in the hopes of beating themselves or others. Such a seamless use of psychology in the field of health is just one reason why we have so much to thank psychology for.
3. Industrial/organizational.
Psychology has long been applied to and integrated into industries and organizations, particularly in the aspects of behavioral testing and talent acquisition and management. In fact, almost all companies have Human Resource Managers who are graduates in Psychology. Industrial and organizational psychology is a real thing and is among the top applications of the discipline with immense real-world benefits and contributions.
4. Personal development.
Psychology is a critical discipline that individuals like you can use in developing and improving your personality, as well as your interpersonal relationships and professional path. Psychology can help you improve your communication skills, self-confidence, relationship-building, and career path, among other things. By studying it, you’ll get a deeper insight into the human psyche and behavior, which will help you understand how and why people behave the way they do and how you should respond to peoples’ behavior in a way that won’t cause rifts or misunderstandings.
5. Politics.
Politicians and political parties have used psychological tactics to their great advantage. In fact, the political arena is among the fields that most benefit from psychology. How a candidate the right psychological approach can spell the difference between winning and losing. Accordingly, many candidates do hire analysts to work for them and try to find out how to best work out voters’ psyche and which political strategies will best appeal to them. With the clever application of psychology, politicians gain a huge advantage over opponents who rely on traditional, non-scientific approach to doing campaigns.
6. Warfare.
There are countless instances when psychological warfare has won wars for the sides who used it with excellent precision. The greatest war generals and tacticians know all too well how gaining the psychological upper hand can sometimes be the single, greatest determining factor in a war’s eventual outcome. So it’s no surprise how the most successful war directors and generals used psychological warfare like a true master: Hitler, Genghis Khan, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara all thought highly of and used the tactic to their benefit.
With these real-applications of psychology into our daily lives, we should give the discipline the credit, or at least the proverbial second-look, that it truly deserves. When applied properly, psychology has the capacity to transform lives and other disciplines for the better, which is something that we will all benefit from for sure.