The word 心理学家 is formed by sequentially combining three characters: 心理, meaning "mind" and "principle" together conveying "psychology"; 学, meaning "study" or "-ology"; and 家, meaning "specialist" or "expert". The characters 心理 and 学 first combine to create 心理学 (psychology), and then 家 is added to indicate a practitioner in that field, resulting in the term for "psychologist".