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
As often as not, his portraits suppress our impulse to psychologize by showing their subjects dead-eyed or asleep.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2022
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 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
"The Banker's Daughter," "Old Love Letters" and "Hurricanes" would scarcely revive, so changed our comedy treatment, so differently psychologized our emotion.
From Shenandoah Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 by Montrose Jonas Moses
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
Also expect extensive amateur psychologizing as political analysts get interested in us again.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 17, 2022
They follow in fact upon a more primary type of living, acting form, a type to which the "pathetic fallacy" or any other manner of psychologizing may not apply.
From Creative Intelligence Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude by Boyd H. Bode
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