Foundations of Psychology

1. Foundations of Psychology The student will examine the foundations of Psychology and its origins as a separate social science discipline

2. Objective/Starter • Objective: Psychology’s Roots • Starter: • Please list an eminent psychologist from the past • Please list a living eminent psychologist and the work for which he or she is known

3. What is “Normal”? What triggers our bad moods-or our good ones? Who are we? What produces our thoughts? What produces our feelings? What produces our actions? How are we to understand and manage those around us?

4. A Smile Through out the course, you will see examples of our cultural and gender diversity as well as similarities that define our shared human nature People in different cultures vary in when and how often they smile, but a naturally happy smile, means the same thing anywhere in the world 

5. True or False*Don’t have write the questions, just answer to the best of you ability* Psychology is best defined today as the study of mental life. Questions about human nature date back to the speculations of the ancient philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Psychology is a way of asking and answering questions. Sigmund Freud is generally considered to be the father of psychology. The science of psychology evolved from the older, more established fields of biology and philosophy

6. True or False The biggest and more persistent issue in psychology concerns the nature-nurture controversy-that is, the relative contributions of biology and experience of mental processing and behavior. Evolution has become an important principle for psychology. Psychology’s different perspectives contradict each other In contrast to sociology and anthropology, contemporary psychology has little interest in how behavior varies across cultures. Psychiatry is a branch of psychology that involves the assessment and treatment of psychological disorders.

7. Answers False True True False True True True False False False

8. Adjective Activity Please write five adjectives that describe a scientist Please write five adjectives that describe a psychologist

9. Prescientific Psychology • Early thinkers wondered: • How do our minds work? • How do our bodies related to our minds? • How much of what we know comes built in? • How much is acquired through experience?

10. Ancient Greece • Philosopher-teacher Socrates (469-399 B.C.E) and his student Plato (428-348 B.C.E) concluded: • Mind is separable from body • Continues after the body dies • Knowledge is innate-born within us • Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E) had a love of data. • Derived principles from careful observations • Knowledge is not preexisting; grows from experiences stored in our memories

12. Dualists vs Monists Dualists: Those who believe that the mind can exist separately from the body Monists: Those who believe the mind and body are different aspects of the same thing

13. Psychology’s Roots • 1600’s: • Modern Science began to flourish • Frenchman Rene Descartes (1595-1650): • Agreed with Socrates and Plato: Innate ideas and mind’s being “entirely distinct from body” and able to survive its death • Wondered how immaterial mind and physical body communicate • Dissected animals and concluded fluid in the brain’s cavities contained “animal spirits”

14. Treatise of Man

16. Cultural Connection • How do your cultural beliefs (or others that you have heard of) compare to Eastern Cultural and philosophical traditions • What does your cultural belief state about how the mind and body work? • What about the after life? • What about cultural beliefs about spirits (human and animal) • Do you think Descartes’ idea has merit in light of what we know today in cognitive neuroscience? • Do you think he was right?

17. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) • Became on of the founders of modern science • Fascinated by the human mind and its failings • Wrote that “human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds” (Novum Organuum). • Mind wants to perceive patterns even in random events

18. John Locke (1632-1704) • A British political philosopher • Wrote a one page essay on “our own abilities” for upcoming discussion with friends • After 20 years and hundreds of pages, completed on of history’s greatest late papers (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding) • Argued at birth, the mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) • Bacon’s ideas helped form the modern empiricism: • The view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore rely on observation and experimentation

19. Blank Slate How to you think the idea of a “Blank Slate” might inform one’s views about behavior?

20. Psychological Science is Born!

21. When and how did modern psychological science begin? • A December day in 1879 in a small, third room at Germany’s University of Leipzig • Wilhelm Wundt created an experimental apparatus • Used to measure the time lag between people’s hearing a ball hit the platform and their pressing a telegraph key

22. Wilhelm Wundt • People responded in about one-tenth of a second when asked to press the key as soon as the sound occurred • People responded about two-tenths of a second when asked to press the key as soon as they were consciously aware of perceiving the sound • To be aware of one’s awareness takes a little longer • Wundt was seeking to measure “atoms of the mind”- the fastest and simplest mental processes • Thus began what many consider psychology’s first experiment, launching the first psychological laboratory (Wundt and his graduate students)

23. Critical Thinking Exercise***Do NOT have to write down***Consider the contributions of the following people: Dorthea Dix (1802-1887)-Helped reform inhuman treatments for psychological disorders Francis Cecil Sumner-The first African American male to receive a Ph.D. in psychology (Clark University 1920) Inez Beverly Prosser-The first African American female to receive a Ph.D. in psychology (University of Cincinnati 1933) Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark-Kenneth was the first African American president of the APA (1970) and he and Mamie conducted research cited in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision Elle Langer-The first woman granted tenure in psychology at Harvard University in 1981 Judith Rodin-The first female president of an Ivy League school (University of Pennsylvania 1993)

24. William James Smelling is what the nose does, thinking is what the brain does…but why do they do these things? Wanted to know the functions of our thoughts and feelings Assumed thinking was adaptive-contributed to our ancestors’ survival

25. William James-1890 • Teacher and writer • Despite Harvard’s President-he admitted Mary Calkins into his graduate seminar • Other students dropped out (all men) • Calkins went on to become a distinguished memory researcher and the APA’s first female president in 1905

26. 1920-1960’sPsychological Science Develops • John B. Watson • Redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior” • The Little Albert Experiment • Fear, Rage, Love • Behaviorists • Science is rooted in observation • You cannot observe a sensation, a feeling or a thought, but you can observe and record people’s behavior as they respond to different situations

27. Karen Horney 1915 Childhood is important Childhood social tensions are crucial for personality formation Childhood anxiety (caused by a sense of helplessness) triggers our desire for love and security

28. Karen Horney “The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine tendency to lower women’s self-respect” (Feminine Psychology, 1932) Class Activity: Divide in groups and come up with 5 examples of male and female stereotypes in literature, movies or the media Consider the following roles: Hero, The Quest, the Scapegoat, The Great or Good Mother, The Terrible Mother or Witch, The Soul-Mate or Princess