psychologize
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
-
to make interpretations of behaviour and mental processes
-
to carry out investigation in the field of psychology
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of psychologize
First recorded in 1820–30; psycholog(y) + -ize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Whether fake-wrestling or barhopping with women or trying to psychologize each other, neither guy really knows what’s fun or illuminating anymore.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2025
He oozes capability, of the mental and physical sorts, and though he has a tragic backstory he doesn’t seem particularly marked by it, as much as other characters might want to psychologize him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2024
“It’s very easy to criticize people and psychologize them. But I think most people are doing the best that they can. And they are being woefully let down by both government and industry,” says Fischhoff.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 5, 2020
That’s one way to think about it, the cynical, uncharitable, myopic way, the way you’d think about it if you wanted to psychologize Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2018
The legitimate way out is to transform the material; to psychologize it—that is, once more, to take it and to develop it within the range and scope of the child's life.
From The Child and the Curriculum by Dewey, John
The characters are treated with odd touches of realism and their sophistic arguments are stingingly psychologized.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2017
Indeed, many psychologists—Handelsman included—have psychologized the scandal, citing Stanley Milgram’s work on obedience or Leon Festinger’s on dissonance as explanations for what happened.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2017
The murder of Lincoln, as writer Adam Gopnik has suggested, should not be psychologized.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 27, 2015
The reasons for this state of things have not been psychologized yet.
From Essays on Paul Bourget by Twain, Mark
Mrs. Stanton in the presence of brilliant intellect and elegant culture at times would seem to be entirely psychologized, even though the arguments used were in direct conflict with her own instincts and judgment.
From The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Harper, Ida Husted
That’s good, in a way — explicit psychologizing of behavior is a dramatic dead end.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
Legendary real-life double agent Kim Philby, the inspiration for “Tinker,” is another towering figure in Cornwell’s decades-long mastery at psychologizing spies and their “self-imposed schizophrenia.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2023
And so we’re reduced to psychologizing the man and trying to figure out what he does care about—and what private incentives, if any, he responds to.
From Slate ● Jan. 3, 2023
This is the only conclusion one can draw from his psychologizing account of her work, which turns even her lightest on-screen gestures into plodding signifiers of anger and grief.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 14, 2021
I think a little psychologizing ought to have come in there.
From Essays on Paul Bourget by Twain, Mark
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
