- published: 04 Feb 2014
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Psychology is the study of the mind, occurring partly via the study of behavior. Grounded in scientific method, psychology has the immediate goal of understanding individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases, and for many it ultimately aims to benefit society. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist, and can be classified as a social scientist, behavioral scientist, or cognitive scientist. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie certain cognitive functions and behaviors.
Psychologists explore such concepts as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Psychologists of diverse stripes also consider the unconscious mind. Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing empirical and deductive methods, some—especially clinical and counseling psychologists—at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques. Psychology incorporates research from the social and natural sciences, and from the humanities, such as philosophy.
Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, business, and general speculation.
His Dilbert series came to national prominence through the downsizing period in 1990s America, and then was distributed worldwide. A former worker in various roles at big businesses, he became a full-time cartoonist in 1995. Adams writes in a satirical, often sarcastic way about the social and mental landscape of white-collar workers in modern corporations and other large enterprises.
Scott Adams was born in Windham, New York in 1957. He grew up a big fan of the Peanuts comics, and started drawing his own comics at the age of six. He also became a fan of Mad magazine, and began spending long hours practicing his drawing talent, winning a competition at the age of eleven. In 1968 he was rejected for an arts school and instead focused on a career in law. Adams graduated valedictorian at Windham-Ashland-Jewett Central School in 1975, with a class size of 39. He remained in the area and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Hartwick College in 1979. In his senior year, a vehicle breakdown forced him to almost spend a night in the snow, causing him to vow never to see a snowflake again. He took a one way trip to California a few months after his graduation.