ABSTRACT
Psychological theories seek to understand the complexities of the mind, including thoughts, intelligence, and emotions, as well as behaviors and what motivates them. The quantity of theories (and ever-evolving sub-theories) in this field are significant and likely would require volumes of books to contain them. Therefore, this chapter is a small drop in the ocean of psychological theories. The psychological theories presented here are intended to cover broad areas and theoretical eras. This chapter discusses five prominent psychological theories. First, cognitive dissonance theory, focuses on mental inconsistency and understanding how currently held beliefs may be contradicted by new information and how people manage and resolve those inconsistencies. Second, attachment theory focuses on childhood development and attachment to primary caregivers, which can influence later decisions, outcomes, and relationships. Third, this chapter presents self-determination theory, which is concerned with the complexity and influences of human motivation. Fourth, this chapter describes code-switching theory, which originally focused on the linguistics phenomenon of switching language in speech and writing, and later examined how people switch social and cultural language codes depending on the social context. This chapter concludes with groupthink theory, which centers on group decision-making and the tendency toward consensus.
