psychohistory

American  

[sahy-koh-his-tuh-ree, -his-tree] / ˌsaɪ koʊˈhɪs tə ri, -ˈhɪs tri /

noun

1. history or the writing of history employing the techniques of psychoanalysis to explore motivations, explain actions, etc.

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psychohistory British  

/ ˌsaɪkəʊˈhɪstərɪ, -ˈhɪstrɪ /

noun

1. biography based on psychological theories of personality development

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Other Word Forms

• psychohistorian
  noun
• psychohistoric
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of psychohistory

First recorded in 1930–35; psycho- + history

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

psychohistory

Harris plays Hari Seldon, creator of psychohistory, a mathematical crystal ball that has predicted a coming dark age, and as such he is anathema to the cloned triumvirate who have ruled the galaxy for centuries.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2023

Seldon has developed a theory of psychohistory, a mixture of history, sociology, and mathematical statistics, which he uses to make general predictions about the fate of future populations.

From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2021

At the center of Foundation’s story is something called psychohistory, which is a way of using mathematics to analyze the behaviors of large populations.

From The Verge ● Sep. 23, 2021

More generally, Campbell had always been obsessed by the possibility of a truly scientific psychology, which he believed would have predictive power along the lines of the fictional science of psychohistory in Asimov’s Foundation series.

From Nature ● Oct. 9, 2018

Dr. Ghaemi does not intend this as an addition to the much-debunked field of psychohistory; rather, he sees it as something more sophisticated.

From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2011

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