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
She had little power to psychologize concerning social conditions, but the stalwart constructive persistence of Cowperwood along commercial lines coupled with the current American contempt of leisure reflected somewhat unfavorably upon Lynde, she thought.
From The Titan by Dreiser, Theodore
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
This method of choice is the logical, which through use and adaptation has become psychologized.
From A Study of Fairy Tales by Kready, Laura F.
The psychologized is of interest—that is, it is placed in the whole of conscious life so that it shares the worth of that life.
From The Child and the Curriculum by Dewey, John
It’s not merely trendy psychologizing to salute the qualities of a sturdy tree: a humbling reminder of time’s immensity, but also a living embodiment of shelter, change and growth.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026
That’s good, in a way — explicit psychologizing of behavior is a dramatic dead end.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
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 feel persuaded that in the matter of psychologizing, a professional is too apt to yield to the fascinations of the loftier regions of that great art, to the neglect of its lowlier walks.
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.
