Where does Psychology Come From?

Where does Psychology Come From? A Brief History

Psychology is as old as history and as modern as today • Aristotle: Greek philosopher • Peri Psyches (About the Psyche)-nature of mind behavior • People are basically motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain (modern view)

Psychology is as old as history and as modern as today • Democritus: behavior as body and a mind • Behavior influenced by external stimulation • First to raise issue of free will or choice

Psychology is as old as history and as modern as today • If we are influenced by external forces, can we be said to control our own behavior? • Question: where do the influences of others end and our “real selves” begin?

Structuralism • Willhelm Wundt: debut of modern psych • 1897: established first psychological laboratory in Leipzig,Germany • Claimed that the mind was a natural event and could be studied scientifically (light, heat, flow of blood)

Structuralism • Define makeup of conscious experience, breaking it down into objective sensations (light and taste) and subjective feelings (emotional responses, will, mental images) • Believe that mind functions by creatively combining the elements of experience

Functionalism • Emphasizes the uses or functions of the MIND rather than the elements of experience • Deals with overt behavior as well as consciousness

Functionalism • William James (1842-1910): Wrote first modern psychology textbook, The Principles of Psychology

Functionalism • Influenced by Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theory • The “fittest” behavior patterns survive • Adaptive actions tend to be repeated and become habits

Behaviorism • John Watson (1878-1958): Founder of behaviorism • Psychology must limit itself to observable, measurable events-to behavior

Behaviorism Examples: • Pressing a lever, turning left or right, eating and mating, heart rate, dilation of the pupils

Behaviorism • Psychology address the learning of measurable responses to environmental stimuli • Pavlov’s salivating dogs (conditioning not mental processes)

Behaviorism • B.F Skinner (1904-1990): • Reinforcement: organisms learn to behave in certain ways because they have been reinforced for doing so

Gestalt Focused on perception and on how perception influences thinking and problem solving

Gestalt • Perceptions more than the sum of its parts • Wholes that give meaning to parts

Gestalt • Learning to solve problems, is accomplished by insight, not by mechanical repetition • “Aha moment” flash of insight

Psychoanalysis Emphasizes the importance of unconscious motives and conflicts as determinants of human behavior

Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): • Believed that unconscious thought , especially sexual and aggressive impulses, were more influential than conscious thought in determining human behavior.

Psychoanalysis • Thought mind was unconscious, consisting of conflicting impulses, urges, and wishes. • People motivated to gratify these impulses and urges

Psychoanalysis • Freud: gained his understanding of people through clinical interviews with patients • Gain insight into deep-seated conflicts and find socially acceptable ways of expressing wishes and gratifying needs

How Today’s Psychologists View Behavior

Perspectives • Biological • Cognitive • Humanistic-Existential • Psychodynamic • Learning • Socialcultural

Where does Psychology Come From?