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
He developed psychological behaviorism, which included elements such as emotion and personality, to “behaviorize psychology and to psychologize behaviorism,” as his view is often explained.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 4, 2021
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
Thus to see it is to psychologize it.
From The Child and the Curriculum by John Dewey
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
It needs to be psychologized; turned over, translated into the immediate and individual experiencing within which it has its origin and significance.
From The Child and the Curriculum by John Dewey
Certainly, in no other work of the period have relations between a given mother and daughter been psychologized with greater deftness and skill.
From O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 by Edison Marshall
That’s good, in a way — explicit psychologizing of behavior is a dramatic dead end.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
He must be praised for not hitting us over the head with the heavy-handed psychologizing that burdens so many shows, even if “Deep Blue Sound” does spin its wheels a bit.
From New York Times ● Jun. 9, 2023
Also expect extensive amateur psychologizing as political analysts get interested in us again.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 17, 2022
On the other hand, some of that is people psychologizing themselves after the fact.
From Slate ● Nov. 8, 2019
And if we really bring together such psychologizing observations, we should hardly dare to acknowledge that they deserve that right of generality by merit of which they might be welcomed to our psychological system.
From Psychology and Social Sanity by Hugo Münsterberg
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
