Difference Between Anthropology and Psychology
Anthropology and psychology are two subjects in the realm of social sciences that aim to know all about man. Anthropology is holistic in nature and studies everything connected to man (in a cultural setting of course), whereas, psychology confine itself to behavior of human beings and includes theories that are used to enlighten human behavior. Study of the human psyche is psychology (it includes animal behavior at times) while; the study of human cultures in their whole and not just behavior is anthropology. There are many more differences in anthropology and psychology that will be explained in this article.
Psychology in more ways than one, complements anthropology as the imminent gained into human behavior helps in explaining cultures. Though human behavior is significantly influenced by society, there are human traits that are not uniformly found such as belligerence and such idiosyncrasies. These traits have no connection with societal behavior and are reliant upon genetics and circumstances. The way people behave in their interactions with other individuals varies in different cultures and a relative and cross cultural study of human behavior in anthropology takes us closer to psychology that is improved explained through evolutionary biology.
If you are involved in human culture and its variety, anthropology is the social science that is more suited to your interests than psychology, which is more anxious with human behavior that takes into account both pressures of the societyand comply with the virtues and behaviors that are found in varying degrees in dissimilar individuals living in the same society.
One major difference amid psychology and anthropology lays in the truth that psychology confines itself to mental processes of both humans and animals while; anthropology is the study of human behavior alone in unusual cultures. Psychology deals with mental faculties like cognition, insight, emotions, character, interpersonal relationships, and how the mental processes influence human behavior in a good or badway. Though psychology tends to simplify, it is individualistic while, anthropology keeps idiosyncrasies within wraps and talks about human cultures in a generalized manner.
Anthropology is a much larger field of study than psychology, which is restricted to human behavior only. Anthropology, studies not just human behavior in societies but also, physical features of different linguistics,cultures, archaeology, and cultural developments in different human cultures. One area of study in cultural psychology comes very close to psychological anthropology and the distinctions between the two subjects blur to the extent of being approximately similar. An additional field of study recognized as social psychology explains human behavior in societies, groups or in public.It is very close to social anthropology, where we understand human behavior on the source of social interactions.
There are supplementary powerful factors at work to persuade human behavior than just societies and cultures, and are reflected by more priests and religious persons serving prison sentences than atheists and agnostics. Aggression,lie, sex, deceits, violence and behavioral idiosyncrasies take a combined and cross punitive study approach and need a parallel study of both anthropology and psychology to be better able to appreciate such event.