Influential Psychologists

1. Influential Psychologists Psychologists who have had a major impact on who we approach Psychology

2. Wilhelm Wundt • Father of experimental psychology • Founder of the first lab dedicated to psychology • Born 1832, Died 1920 • ‘Founded’ Structuralism – “to fully understand the nature of conscious experience such experience must be broken down into it’s simplest parts” (Liebert, 2006)

3. B.F. Skinner • Stated it was more useful to study observable behaviour than the mind directly • Proposed the theory of Operant Conditioning • Used rats and pigeons to study this • Introduced the term ‘reinforcement’ • Token Economy • Behaviour is reinforced with a token which is later exchanged for a reward • From his theories, behaviour modification was developed

4. "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.“ –John B. Watson, Behaviorism, 1930 John B Watson • Worked under the discipline of Behaviourism • Famous for his Little Albert study • With the help of graduate assistant Rosalie Rayner • Conditioning and behaviour modification techniques which are still used today are founded in Behaviourism • Opposed introspection • Psychology must be purely objective, its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behaviour

5. Sigmund Freud • The founder of psychoanalysis • Proposed ideas of the id (primal), ego (the ‘I’) and superego (moral compass) • Freudian slip – reveals unconscious desires/thoughts • Consciousness – conscious mind, preconscious (ordinary memory) and unconscious (reservoir of thoughts and feelings) • Psychosexual development (oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latent period, genital stage)

6. William James • Opposed structuralism, proposed Functionalism • James focused on the wholeness of an event, taking into the impact of the environment on behaviour • Proposed the stream of consciousness • The conscious experience of an individual regarded as a continuous, flowing series of images and ideas running through the mind.

7. Jean Piaget • Believed wrong answers gave just as much insight as correct answers in IQ tests • Proposed a theory for development through stages • Demonstrated that children thought in drastically different manners to adults • Underpinned by: • Schemas • Equilibrium, assimilation and accommodation • 4 Stages of Development

8. Ivan Pavlov Video link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL4eVFlz3gc • Famous for Pavlov’s dog study • IntroducedClassicalConditioning • Principles of CC isused to treatmanyphobias and for animal training

9. Pierre Paul Broca • Broca did research into the part of the brain known as Broca’s area (named after him) which is located in the frontal lobe • The Broca’s area is responsible for creating speech in a sequential and meaningful way • Damage to the Broca’s area can result in Broca’s aphasia - • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2IiMEbMnPM • Video showing Broca’s aphasia

10. Wilder Penfield • Mapped many parts of the brain using electrical stimulation • Linked parts of the brain with controlling certain parts of the body as well as certain emotions, feelings etc. • Linked the temporal lobe with memory

11. Roger Sperry • Roger Sperry investigated the functions of separated hemispheres of the human brain. • Split brain study: He cut the corpus callosum to (a treatment for severe epilepsy) • He found in his study that when he displayed an image to only one eye, and then the other, the subject would not recognise having seen it before. Hemispheres seem to be unaware of each other.

12. Hermann Ebbinghaus • Was the first to experimentally study memory • Discovered the forgetting curve, learning curve, and the serial position effect • Forgetting curve: without revisiting information, it will eventually be forgotten. The stronger the memory, the longer it is recalled. • Learning curve: slow begging, then steep learning curve, which plateaus out near mastery • Serial position effect: you will remember things at the start and end of a list but not as readily in the middle of the list

13. Howard Gardner • Proposed the theory of Multiple Intelligences • Linguistic • Logical-mathematical • Musical • Bodily-kinaesthetic • Spatial • Interpersonal • Intrapersonal • Naturalistic • Posited that we have an/some ideal intelligences, but can develop all intelligences • Not well accepted by psychologists, but very well accepted by educators

14. Solomon Asch • Performed studies in social psychology looking at the impact of group pressure ( specifically conformity) based on various influences, such as: • Group size • Presence of a partner • Written/spoken responses • Famous Conformity study • Subjects were presented with three lines, and they went around a table saying which was the longer line. The confederates would say the shortest line was the longest, and it was examined if people would change their answer to a clearly wrong one.

15. Philip Zimbardo • Performed extremely influential, and unethical, studies in social psychology • Most famous was the Stanford Prison experiment which aimed to test the hypothesis that the inherent personality traits of prisoners and guards are the chief cause of abusive behaviour in prison • This got out of hand, and it was found that when you were assigned a role, you acted according to what you expected you, in that role, should do