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Prologue: The Story of Psychology A Short History, But a Long Past

Prologue: The Story of Psychology A Short History, But a Long Past. Definition of Psychology. The scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Ancient Greeks. Aristotle derived ideas from observations Said that knowledge is not preexisting

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Prologue: The Story of Psychology A Short History, But a Long Past

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  1. Prologue: The Story of Psychology A Short History, But a Long Past

  2. Definition of Psychology The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

  3. Ancient Greeks • Aristotle derived ideas from observations • Said that knowledge is not preexisting • Developed ideas about personality, memory, motivation, and emotion

  4. Prescientific Psychology • Scientific Revolution • The influence of Newton • The influence of Locke • Empiricism • Knowledge comes from experience via the senses • Science flourishes through observation and experiment

  5. Foundations of Modern Psychology • Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory at the University of Liepzig (c. 1879)

  6. Contemporary Psychology • Psychology’s Perspectives • Biological • Neuroscience • Evolutionary • Behavior Genetics • Behavioral • Psychodynamic • Cognitive • Socio-cultural

  7. Psychology’s Perspectives A lot depends on your viewpoint Contemporary Psychology

  8. Structuralism Functionalism Gestalt Behaviorism Psychoanalysis Cognitive Behavioral Psychodynamic Biological Social-cultural Humanistic From “schools” to “perspectives”

  9. Cognitive Perspective • Structuralism • Studied immediate experience • Used introspection (looking in) to explore the elemental structure of the human mind • Founded Wundt’s student E.B Titchener

  10. Cognitive Perspective • Functionalism • Focused on the function of mental processes • Founded by William James in 1898 • Heavily influenced by Charles Darwin

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  12. Cognitive Perspective • Gestalt • Founded by Max Wertheimer and others in 1910 • Argued that the analysis of the mind could not be broken into its component parts • The whole is greater than the sum of its parts • The mind seeks to synthesize information • The mind is an active agent, not a passive receptacle

  13. Gestalt Psychology

  14. Cognitive Perspective • Cognitive Perspective • Origins can be traced to Gestalt Psychology • Study the intervening mental processes between stimulus inputs and response outputs • Significant contributions made in the areas of language, development, and memory • Jean Piaget: child development expert

  15. Behavioral Perspective • Early Behaviorism • Founded by American John Watson in 1913 • Shifted attention from mental activity to observable behavior • Behavior can be shaped by manipulating and changing the environment

  16. Watson on Behaviorism “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select; doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant. And yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, tendencies, abilities, and race of his ancestors” - 1925

  17. Behavioral Perspective • Behavioral Psychology • Explain behavior by assessing the effects of external stimuli • Deal with directly observable behavior • B.F. Skinner: most influential behaviorist

  18. Psychodynamic Perspective • Psychoanalysis • Developed outside the university setting • Founded by Sigmund Freud in 1895 • Freud concluded that unconscious mental forces direct our behavior • Utilized free-association and hypnosis

  19. Psychodynamic Perspective • Psychodynamic perspective • Human behavior is primarily determined by unconscious processes • Theory not based on experimental evidence and many aspects are untestable • Influential to modern psychotherapy • Carl Jung, Karen Horney, Alfred Adler prominent “Neo-Freudians”

  20. Biological Perspectives • Biological Perspective • Neuroscience • Evolutionary • Behavior genetics • Explain behavior by describing underlying biochemical and neurological causes • Reductionists: observable behavior reduced to physiological explanations • Roger Sperry: won Nobel Prize for split-brain research

  21. Social-Cultural Perspective • Social-Cultural • How behavior and thinking vary across situations and culture • Recognizes the power of the situation in determining human behavior • Studies the interaction between the environment and actions • Albert Bandura, Philip Zimbardo

  22. Other Perspectives • Humanistic approach ??????? • Emerged in the 1950’s • Viewed behavior as a product of free will and opposed determinism of behaviorism and psychoanalysis • Focused on mental health and positive outcomes • Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow • Currently reemerging as Positive Psychology

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