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

Developed ideas about personality, memory, motivation, and emotion

Prescientific Psychology

Scientific RevolutionThe influence of NewtonThe influence of Locke

EmpiricismKnowledge comes from experience via the senses

Science flourishes through observation and experiment

Foundations of Modern Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory at the University of Liepzig (c. 1879)

Contemporary Psychology

Psychology’s Perspectives Biological

NeuroscienceEvolutionaryBehavior Genetics

Behavioral Psychodynamic Cognitive Socio-cultural

Contemporary Psychology Psychology’s Perspectives

A lot depends on your viewpoint

From “schools” to “perspectives”

StructuralismFunctionalismGestaltBehaviorismPsychoanalysis

Cognitive

BehavioralPsychodynamicBiologicalSocial-culturalHumanistic

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

Cognitive Perspective

Functionalism Focused on the

function of mental processes

Founded by William James in 1898

Heavily influenced by Charles Darwin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OSG-t2PMvxQ

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 partsThe mind seeks to synthesize informationThe mind is an active agent, not a passive

receptacle

Gestalt Psychology

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

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

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

Behavioral Perspective

Behavioral PsychologyExplain behavior by assessing the effects of external stimuli

Deal with directly observable behavior

B.F. Skinner: most influential behaviorist

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

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”

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

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

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