Download HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY I. Intellectual Origins Themes:

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
I. Intellectual Origins
1. Philosophy:
-what is the self, consciousness, how do we determine what is moral
2. Biology:
-physical mechanisms of the brain and body
-Evolution and Natural Selection of Traits
Themes:
1. Psychology is an empirical science
-uses Scientific Method
2. Nature and Nurture are inextricably linked
-Schizophrenia and other mental Disorders
-Personality
-epigenetics
3. The mind and brain are inseparable
-Dualism and The “Mind-Body Problem”
-DaVinci and “sensus communis”
-The Mind is what the brain does
4. A new biological revolution is energizing research
-anatomy/chemistry
-genome
-brain imaging
5. The mind is adaptive
- idea that adaptive psychological traits , like physical ones, are selected and passed on
-Adaptation:
-“Risk-Taking”
-Modern Minds in Stone Age Skulls
6. Psychological Science crosses levels of analysis
-biological
-individual
-social
-cultural
7. We are often unaware of the multiple influences on how we think, feel, and act.
-Illusion of Conscious Will
II. Scientific Foundations
-Ancient Philosophers
John Stuart Mill: System of Logic.
-call for psychology to leave speculation and philosophy behind and use scientific
approach.
-Although desire to understand ourselves and thought processes is thousands of years
old, psychology can be dated to 1867: "It seems to me that perhaps the time has come for
psychology to begin to be a science.. .Hemholtz and Wundt are working at it"
- William James
Schools of Thought
A. Structuralism: outlined scientific approach to psychology
1. Wundt
-1879: first lab dedicated to psychology experiments; birth of Psychology
-Focus on analyzing consciousness, person's subjective experience of the world and mind
-Introspection: observation of one's subjective mental experience
Ex: observers presented with stimulus, then asked to report raw sensory
experience, without interpretation; Wundt then tried to describe feelings associated with
sensory perceptions
2. Titchener: student of Wundt
-started psychology laboratory at Cornell in 1893
-Structuralism: conscious experience can be broken down into its underlying parts
-students trained to provide descriptions of conscious images and sensations
-listed 44,000 elemental qualities of conscious experience: 32,820 Visual, 11,600
auditory
B. Functionalism
William James
-1875 offered a course at Harvard called "The relations between physiology and
psychology"
-first psychology lecture in US
-1890: The Principles of Psychology
- thought that conscious experience can't be broken down into separate elements, that
trying to analyze and isolate one element distorts essential nature
- Stream of Consciousness: idea that consciousness was like a flowing stream of
thoughts, memories, sensations, etc.
-large impact in literature and "stream of consciousness" writers like Joyce and Wolff.
-Functionalism: idea that consciousness must serve an important biological function,
task was for psychologists to understand function in natural environment
-linked to evolutionary adaptations
C. Gestalt
-Wolfgang Kohler
-movement opposed to structuralism
-idea that the whole is different than sum of its parts
-phenomenological approach: totality of subjective conscious experience
D. Freud and Psychoanalytic Theory:
- worked with hysteric patients
-Hysteria: temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions after an emotionally upsetting
experience
-ignored by Wundt and other laboratory scientists
-Hysteria and dissociative states suggests that brain can create many conscious states
-Psychoanalytic Theory: approach that emphasizes importance of unconscious mental
processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Belief that it is important to
uncover a person's unconscious anxieties, conflicts, and desires. Need to bring
unconscious material into conscious awareness. During psychoanalysis, patients recall
past experiences, especially a thorough exploration of the person's early sexual
experiences and unconscious sexual desires.
-Huge influence in literature, art, history, and film.
E. Behaviorism:
-held that psychologists should restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectively
observable behavior.
1. John Watson: thought that private experience was too difficult and vague to be
object of scientific study. Emphasized replicable, observable measurements of
observable behavior
-emphasized stimulus- response relationship
-Goal of Psychology was to predict and control behavior in a way that benefits society.
2. B.F. Skinner
-idea of reinforcement and punishment as determinants of behavior, not conscious
processes
F. Cognitive Psychology:
Looks at how behavior is influenced by the way in which people think about things
-decision-making, language, etc.
-Information-processing Model
-George Miller; Herb Simon
G. Social Psychology: looks at interplay between people and how the presence of others
affects our behavior.