psychohistoryn.
/ˌsʌɪkəʊˈhɪst(ə)ri/, U.S. /ˌsaɪkoʊˈhɪst(ə)ri/ 1.
a. The analysis or interpretation of historical events from the point of view of psychological or psychoanalytic theory. Also: = psychobiography n. 2.
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the mind > mental capacity > psychology > interdisciplinary psychology > [noun] > psychohistory
psychohistory1934
the mind > mental capacity > psychology > interdisciplinary psychology > [noun] > psychohistory > applied to biography
psychobiography1932
psychohistory1934
1934 Reunion 1 34 Judged by this profound philosophical test, so many of the glibly clear solutions of psycho-history are unsatisfactory.
1957 W. Abell Collective Dream in Art 7 The energies involved in such conflicts are neither exclusively material nor exclusively psychological... The further we penetrate into the insights of psycho-history, the more likely we are to discover the means of mastering its disruptive forces.
1972 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 25 Mar. 98/2 The roots of psycho~history may go back to Sigmund Freud's Leonardo da Vinci: A Study in Psychosexuality, published in Vienna in 1916.
1991 E. Rayner Independent Mind in Brit. Psychoanal. xi. 253 Though psycho-history has often been criticized, its advent has changed the face of ordinary biography.
b. A treatise on or study in this subject; esp. a psychobiography.
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the mind > mental capacity > psychology > interdisciplinary psychology > [noun] > psychohistory > instance of
psychohistory1968
1968 Chicago Tribune 20 Oct. ix. 4/1 (heading) A psycho-history of Mao Tse-tung.
1972 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 25 Mar. 98/3 Another psycho~history to be published..next fall is a study of Hitler by Dr. Walter Langer.
2004 Mod. Lang. Rev. (Nexis) 4 To..render the novel's Oedipal drama in the terms of a psychohistory of the GDR.
2. Science Fiction. A hypothetical science using a combination of history, psychology, and mathematics to make long-term predictions about large groups or populations.A term coined by and mainly associated with Isaac Asimov (1920–92).
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1942 I. Asimov in Astounding Sci.-Fiction May 42/1 After the Fall will come inevitable barbarism, a period which, our psychohistory tells us, should..last from thirty to fifty thousand years.
1978 D. Ehrenfeld Arrogance of Humanism (1981) ii. 30 Before the notion of psychohistory can lose its present purely fictional standing and assume its ultimate function of predicting future attitudes and behaviors, it has to be recast and developed in the light of practical experience.
1996 New Scientist 20 Jan. 44/2 Donald Kingsbury's ‘Historical Crisis’ challenges the Asimovian concept of psychohistory, a mathematical scheme for predicting the future of societies.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1934