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History and Its Approaches
Approaches
Introspection (Wilhelm Wundt)
 Subjects accurately recording their cognitive reactions to simple stimuli
Structuralism (William James)
 The idea that the mind operates by combining subjective emotions and objection sensations and
can be broken down into discrete structures
Gestalt Psychology (Max Wertheimer)
 The idea that human though and behavior could not be divided into discrete structures
Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud)
 The unconscious mind determines, in part, how we think and behave
Behaviorism (John Watson, Ivan Pavlov, BF Skinner)
 Psychologists can only look at behavior and causes of behavior
Eclecticism
 Drawing psychological conclusions from a variety of perspectives
History: Biological Bases of Behavior
Franz Gall
 thought brain anatomy could influence intellect, behavior and personality
 known for phrenology
– when areas of the brain develop, the brain would expand and push out on the skull
– bulges on the head could be felt
– quickly shown to be false
Wilhelm Wundt
 advocated the theory of structuralism
 set up some of the first psychology labs
Pierre Flourens
 first studied the functions of various parts of the brain
 operated mostly on pigeons
 would remove parts of the brain and observe its effects
 determined that various parts of the brain controlled specific functions
William James
 helped form functionalism
– the mind learns to adapt to the environment
– determined a link between physiology and emotional experience
John Dewey
 another proponent of functionalism
 thought that the individual should be studied as a whole in how it functioned to adapt to the
environment
Paul Broca
 determined that brain lesions cause specific functional impairments
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a patient with damage to his left hemisphere was impaired in language production
known for Broca’s area
Johannes Müller
 discovered nerve energies
 each sensory nerve is excited by a specific type of energy (i.e. air vibrations or light)
 the brain processes any nerve stimulation as that type of energy
 consequently, perception of sensation depends more on the area of the brain being stimulated
that the type of environmental energy
Hermann von Helmholtz
 measured the speed of nerve impulses
 moved psychology into the field of natural science
Sir Charles Sherrington
 theorized the existence of synapses
 most of his theories have held up over time except he thought that synaptic transmission was an
electrical rather than chemical process
History: Sensation and Perception
Ernst Weber
 introduced the idea of just noticeable difference (jnd) in his book De Tactu
– adding or subtracting jnd is the minimal change an individual needs to recognize to
notice a difference in stimuli
 Gustav Fechner (19th Century) formulated Weber’s Law, a mathematical expression of the jnd
Sir Francis Galton
 measured the sensory abilities of approximately 10,000 subjects
 contributed greatly to our understanding of differing sensory abilities in individuals
 greatly influenced further research
Max Wertheimer
 a Gestalt psychologist who believed that analyzing an individual’s experiences in parts is not a
valid way to study conscious processing
 determined the phi phenomenon
o when lights appear to move in a direction based on how they are flashed (e.g. some
Christmas lights or theater marquees)
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel
 discovered feature detector neurons
 groups of neurons in the visual cortex respond to different types of stimuli
History: Learning
Edward Thorndike
 a functional theorist—studied the function of the mind in adapting to the surrounding world
 also considered an early behaviorist—looking objectively at the behavior of organisms without
inferring any cognitive connections
 known for the Law of Effect
John Watson
 an early founder of behaviorism
 known for his classical conditioning experiments on Little Albert
Ivan Pavlov
 another early behaviorist
 known for his experimentation on salivation in dogs and determining the components of classical
conditioning
Clark Hull
 known for the drive-reduction theory
o organisms are motivated to reduce a state of tension within them
o successful drive reduction serves as reinforcement and influences further action
B.F. Skinner
 known for operant conditioning
Konrad Lorenz
 began ethology—studying animal behavior in the field, not in the lab
 by observing animals in the wild, their behaviors in context can be described in more detail and
the function of that behavior could be more accurately determined
Robert Rescorla
 developed contingency theory
 stimuli in classical conditioning are contingent on one another
History: Cognition
Hermann Ebbinghaus
 began modern memory research
 used meaningless strings of letters to study memory capacity
Edward Titchener
 known for structuralism
– the goal of structuralism is to break down consciousness into specific mental structures
 used the method of introspection
– subjects report on their own conscious experiences
 functionalism, behaviorism and Gestalt psychology are all reactions to Tichener’s structuralism
Noam Chomsky
 critiqued Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior
– disagreed that language developed through reinforcement contingencies
– children say things they haven’t heard and adults use techniques like figurative speech
 believed the study of language is the best way to study the mind
Elizabeth Loftus
 expert on the fallibility of eyewitness testimony
 believed repressed memories cannot be recalled in tact and may be created inadvertently by the
therapist
Benjamin Whorf
 known for the linguistic relativity hypothesis
History: Intelligence
Alfred Binet
 developed the first intelligence test—the Binet-Simon scale
History: Personality
Carl Rogers
 known for client-centered therapy
 advocated unconditional positive regard
History: Developmental Psychology
John Locke
 formed the British empiricist school of thought along with Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, James
Mill, George Berkeley and John Stuart Mill
 believed that a child’s mind is a tabula rasa, a blank slate
 predetermined tendencies are inborn but development is reliant on parents and society
Jean-Jacque Rousseau
 published Emile: Concerning Education
 opposed the empiricist school of thought
 advocated that society was not only unnecessary to a child’s development, it could be
detrimental
– this was very controversial at the time
– the book was banned an Rousseau fled France to avoid arrest
Charles Darwin
 a functionalist concerned with how the mind helped the individual adapt to the environment
 kept a baby biography
– these were observations, ruminations and detailed information on physical and
psychological development
 stimulated study into individual differences in seeing, hearing and problem solving
G. Stanley Hall
 known as the father of developmental psychology
 one of the founders of the American Psychological Association
 influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution
 one of the first to conduct empirical research on children
– conducted hundreds of surveys on children’s views and opinions
– he compiled them by age
John Watson
 agreed with Locke’s tabula rasa
 believed too much emphasis was being placed on cognition
– scientists should only focus on predicting behavioral responses to stimuli and vice versa
– concepts of will, imagery, mental states and consciousness should not be studied
 placed most of the responsibility for a child’s upbringing on the parents
– parents needed to provide the right learning experiences
– parents should avoid “sentimental” affection because emotions were learned through
reinforcement
Arnold Gesell
 first believed development was a biological unfolding rather than a result of practice or training
 believed in a normal progression of maturation
 considered a nativist
– this perspective believes development is basically biological and a developmental
blueprint exists from birth
Sigmund Freud
 used clinical collection of data through case studies rather than observation or research settings
 focused on the importance of unconscious conflicts in the development of the individual and his
or her personality
 known for psychosexual development that revolves around the libido
Jean Piaget
 determined four stages of cognitive development
 influenced the field of cognitive structuralism
– individuals are active participants in their world and construct their knowledge of it
through this interaction
Abraham Maslow
 determined a hierarchy of needs (Maslow’s pyramid)
 the top level is self-actualization
Harry Harlow
 using baby monkeys determined the importance of the contact motive and attachment
Mary Ainsworth
 known for various types of attachment—secure, avoidant, anxious/ambivalent
Erik Erikson
 determined seven stages of psychosocial development
 individuals resolve each stages either positively or negatively
Lawrence Kohlberg
 known for his theory of moral development
 moral development is divided into three levels—preconventional, conventional and
Postconventional
 each level has two stages
Carol Gilligan
 critic of Lawrence Kohlberg
 believed men determine morality based on abstract concepts of justice
 believed women determine morality based on interpersonal harmony
History: Motivation and Emotion
Stanley Schacter
 known for the two-factory theory of emotion
History: Social Psychology
Norman Triplett
 studied the effect of competition on performance
– individuals do better on familiar tasks in the presence of others
Verplank
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determined social approval influences an individual’s behavior
together with Pavlov, Thorndike, Hull and Skinner helped establish reinforcement theory in
studying social interactions
Albert Bandura
 known for social learning theory
– proposed that learning occurs through imitation and modeling
Bindle
 known for role theory
– people are aware of their social roles and their observable behavior can be attributed to
adopting those roles
Solomon Asch
 conformity experiment in which confederates incorrectly reported the length of line
Stanley Milgram
 obedience experiment in which subjects shocked another subject in a separate room
 motivated by an understanding of obedience by Nazi officers during the Holocaust
AP Check
AP students in psychology should be able to do the following:
 Recognize how philosophical perspectives shaped the development of psychological thought.
 Describe and compare different theoretical approaches in explaining behavior
– structualism, functionalism and behaviorism in the early years
– Gestalt, psychoanalytic/psychodynamic and humanism emerging later
– evolutionary, biological and cognitive as more contemporary approaches
 Recognize the strengths and limitations of applying theories to explain behavior.
 Distinguish the different domains in psychology
– biological, clinical, cognitive, counseling, developmental, educational, experimental,
human factors, industrial-organizational, personality, psychometric and social
 Identify the major historical figures in psychology (e.g. Mary Whiton Calkins, Charles Darwin,
Dorothea Dix, Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, William James, Ivan Pavlov, Jean Piaget, Carl
Rogers, BF Skinner, Margaret Floy Washburn, John B. Watson, Wilhelm Wundt).
Sources:
Palmer, M. (2003). GRE psychology. New York: Simon & Schuster
Weseley, A.J. and McEntarffer, R. (2007). AP psychology 2008 (3/e). Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s
Educational Series, Inc.