| Description: | The science of historical prediction and macrosocial manipulation. The main thesis of psychohistory is that the actions of trillions of individuals take on a fluidity and predictability which can be compared to that of molecules in a gas. The very size of the population being dealt with factors out individual peculiarities and allows the prediction of its behavior. With the ability to predict the reaction of a population to a particular stimulus comes the ability to manipulate that population, psychohistorians reason.
Psychohistory began as a combination of public relations/advertising techniques and behaviorial science, and although its techniques have been put on a more rigorous footing, the basic principles are still not well understood. A number of minor experiments have confirmed the general validity of the science, but it was also shown to be too expensive to be of any practical utility. Research continues at a small number of Imperial universities. |