Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A psychological or psychoanalytic interpretation or study of historical events or persons.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The scientific study of psychology and motivation in history.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From psycho- +‎ history.

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Examples

  • Lithwick's thesis about Thomas's psychohistory is intriguing, and may well be right.

    IsThatLegal? 2004

  • Therefore psychohistory is simply a view of actual history that allows one to observe and make predictions based upon the ebb and flow of logical knowledge.

    Foundation: The Movie 2003

  • Okay, it’s sci-fi, and psychohistory is about as realistic as the faster-than-light hyperdrives, but anyway, maybe even the view that social models can’t be too deterministic without determinism is wrong, and it actually has no implications at all.

    What Would a Determinist Choose to Do? 2008

  • Once again I remembered having very much enjoyed the idea of psychohistory, and this time I felt the same emotions – although not quite as strongly.

    BestScienceFictionStories.com » Post Topic » The Foundation Project: The Psychohistorians 2010

  • The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept devised by Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell.

    Roland Emmerich To Direct ‘Foundation’ Adaptation 2009

  • -/ It could well be the case that we are subject to allegorical determinism aka psychohistory and in being doomed to repeat history must go through a depression prior to abolition.

    The Pirate Bay vs Them – rematch 2009

  • -/ It could well be the case that we are subject to allegorical determinism aka psychohistory and in being doomed to repeat history must go through a depression prior to abolition.

    P2P: Saving the world 2009

  • Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation trilogy centers around a scientist, Hari Seldon, who invents a science called psychohistory, which allows the fairly accurate prediction of broad trends in society going for centuries into the future.

    Safehaven 2009

  • Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation trilogy centers around a scientist, Hari Seldon, who invents a science called psychohistory, which allows the fairly accurate prediction of broad trends in society going for centuries into the future.

    GuruFocus Updates 2009

  • First, he said he did not like the term "psychohistory," because he did not think it accurate.

    Erikson's Enigma Come, Arnold B. 1999

  • In Foundation, the science of prediction has become a reality with the development of a field called psychohistory.

    Foundation review: Isaac Asimov TV adaptation is imaginative reworking #author.fullName} 2023

Comments

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  • n. Utilization of psychoanalysis to explicate developed motivation of historical events. Termed coined by Freud.

    No citation.

    April 19, 2009