proto-psychology

Proto-psychology refers to early ideas and attempts to understand the mind and human behavior before psychology became a formal scientific discipline. It includes ancient philosophies and theories that explored thoughts, emotions, and mental functions, often through philosophical reasoning or observation rather than systematic experiments. Thinkers like Aristotle and other pre-scientific scholars sought to explain how the mind works and influences behavior, laying foundational ideas that later evolved into modern psychology. Essentially, proto-psychology is the historical groundwork of understanding mental processes before the development of psychology as a rigorous science.