Psychologists should indeed study consciousness owing to the fact that it is a major aspect of human wellbeing. The study of consciousness captures a number of key psychological areas such as clinical, experimental, cognitive, social and neuroscience (Velmans 128). In regards to the psychology of consciousness, clinical applications, methodology, research and theory are comparatively studied and therefore, cannot be ignored by psychologists.
It is crucial t o mention that the rubric of consciousness covers several traditional topics in psychology that are still interesting and worthy to study. In particular, there are a number of conventional experiences that were sometimes thought to be beyond the confines of consciousness. However, the latter might not be the case because modern studies in psychology have neatly incorporated several topics under consciousness. Hence, consciousness and attention have been fairly modified in order to be in tandem with other related fields in psychology (Velmans 231).
From the above outset, it is vivid that consciousness is a valid subject for scientific research since there are a lot of phenomena that still need to be discovered and shared by the psychological community. For instance, scientific research in consciousness can be carried out in automaticity, awareness and attention.
Other areas that may be of interest for research study under this domain include measurement of various states of consciousness, phenomenology, socio-cultural impacts on consciousness, relationship between psychopathology and consciousness states, differences among individuals, delusions and hallucinations, mind-wandering, daydreaming and fantasy, placebo effects, modification of consciousness, mindfulness, mediation, suggestibility, suggestion, hypnosis, neuroscience, sensation, perception, memory and processing of information (Velmans 73).
The coverage of the above scientific topics falls under the psychology of consciousness. Therefore, it cannot be refuted that consciousness is a valid subject for scientific research because psychologists have not fully exploited the aforementioned study areas.
Works Cited
Velmans, Max. Understanding consciousness. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.