ABSTRACT
Psychologists combine elements of the various approaches to explain mind and behavior. Psychologists may find some isolated effects and correlations, but they can never understand humans as a whole. Scientific psychology looks at the human mind from a third-person perspective – an objective outside perspective – in the same way that medicine looks at the body or a mechanic looks at a car engine. The theory of planned behavior has been widely tested and is useful to predict, for example, health and environmental behavior. Human thought, feeling, and behavior are too complicated for scientific research. There are some overarching theories that try to explain behavior as affected by multiple causes. An example is the theory of planned behavior. Despite the trend to more complex models that presumably have higher ecological validity, psychology as a science has been criticized, both from inside and outside its mainstream.
