psychohistory

Psychohistory is a fictional term first described in Isaak Asimov's classic novel Foundation.
Psychohistory is a branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli.
In a nutshell it's the science that can predict the future.
The greatest psychohistorian of all time was Hari Seldon.

"I quite understand that psychohistory is a statistical science and cannot predict the future of a single man with any accuracy."

by Kitsaronas August 5, 2008

Psychohistory

A fictional social science, coined by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation series, which combines history, sociology, and mass psychology to predict the broad, statistical future of galactic civilizations across millennia. The core premise is that while individual behavior is chaotic, the reactions of human masses are predictable, like molecules in a gas. A true psychohistory would allow its practitioners to guide the future with minimal, calculated interventions, steering the course of empires as one might nudge an asteroid.

*Example: “My startup’s ‘psychohistory’ was just aggressive data analytics. We didn’t predict the fall of an empire, but we modeled that if we offered a 15% discount to users in City A, it would trigger a social-media cascade leading to a 5% market share gain in City B within three months. We weren’t Hari Seldon; we were just playing with fire and demographic spreadsheets.”*

by Abzunammu February 2, 2026

Psychohistory Theory

The grand, fictional social science framework from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, proposing that the future of galactic civilizations can be predicted with mathematical certainty through the analysis of mass human behavior. The core axiom is that while individual actions are random, the behavior of very large populations is statistically predictable, much like the physics of gases. This theory posits that a sufficiently advanced mathematical model could forecast societal collapse, dark ages, and recoveries millennia in advance, allowing a small, knowledgeable elite to guide history with minimal, precisely calculated interventions. It's history as a deterministic physics problem, where humanity is the equation.

Example: "Our corporate strategy team thinks they're using Psychohistory Theory. They feed social media sentiment, commodity prices, and birth rates into a model that spits out a 78% probability of a 'cultural fatigue event' in our key demographic by Q4. They're not predicting the fall of the Galactic Empire, but they did buy all the ad space for mindfulness apps six months before the burnout wave hit. They guide markets the way Hari Seldon guided millennia."

by Abzunammu February 2, 2026