Definitions For Psychohistory

Noun

PSYCHOHISTORY. (countable and uncountable, plural PSYCHOHISTORYs) (psychology, historiography) The scientific study of psychology and motivation in history. (science fiction) A fictional mathematical statistical science of large population dynamics, where mathematical models can predict general futures, based on activities of quadrillions of individuals. The fictional science first occurs in Asimov's 1950s Foundation series, and has since been picked up by other authors for other works.

Related terms

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Translations

Finnish: psykohistoria French: psychohistoire, f Italian: psicostoria, f Russian: психоисто́рия, f Turkish: psikotarih

Etymology

from psycho + history. The science-fictional usage was created by {{w, lang=en, Isaac Asimov}} in the mid-20th century.