What is Psychology?

Psychology, pronounced as "si-ko-lodge-ee", is the science of the human mind. It is all about what goes on in our brains. Psychologists (people trained to work in the field of psychology) are interested in how and why people think and behave. They consider topics such as people’s personalities, attitudes, emotions, memories, how they perceive things and how they learn. Just looking at a brain alone couldn’t tell us all these things; instead, psychologists investigate human behaviour to help them work out what is going on, up there, in our brains.

We at ReadOxford are research psychologists, working at the University of Oxford. Our job is to find out new things about psychology by doing science. Our experiments are a little bit different to the science experiments you do at school, or see on TV. No chemical mixing and no burning things! Psychology it is different. Our experiments are looking at us, human beings, at our behaviour.

Watch our animation below to find out how we are using psychology in our project.