Prologue:The Story of Psychology

A Short History, But a Long Past

Ancient Greeks

Is the mind separate from the brain?

Are ideas inborn or is the mind a blank slate filled by experience?

What is the source of love?

How do we experience pain?

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

Psychology’s Roots

Psychological Science Develops Wundt--German philosopher and

physiologist James--American philosopher Pavlov--Russian physiologist Freud--Austrian physician Piaget--Swiss biologist

Foundations of Modern Psychology

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

Foundations of Modern Psychology

Structuralism Studied immediate

experience Used introspection

(looking in) to explore the elemental structure of the human mind

Founded Wundt’s student E.B Titchener

Foundations of Modern Psychology

Functionalism Focused on the

function of mental processes

Founded by William James in 1898

Heavily influenced by Charles Darwin

Foundations of Modern Psychology

Gestalt Founded by Wolfgang Kholer 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

Foundations of Modern Psychology

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

Foundations of Modern Psychology

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

Definition of Psychology

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

The parable of the six blind men and the elephant