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Psychology is a relatively young academic discipline with roots in the 19th century.
- Prior to 19th century, exploration of the mind were all taken into philosophical context.
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Wilhelm Wundt and William James are the generally credited as the founders of psychology.
Structuralism
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Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1920)
- a German scientist the first to be referred to as a psychologist
- he published the famous book Principles of Physiological Psychology in 1873.
- viewed psychology as a scientific study of conscious experience.
- also believed that its goal is to identify components of consciousness and how these result in conscious experience
- used introspection as a way to observe the human mind as any aspect of nature.
- it is a process of examining one’s own conscious experience as objectively as possible.
- he also believed in the notion of voluntarism
- people have free will and should know the objectives of a psychological experiment they were conducting.
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Edward Titchener
- one of Wundt’s students
- developed structural psychology
- focuses on the structure of processes rather than its functions
Functionalism
- Functional Psychology
- established by William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce
- based on Darwin’s theory of evolution via natural selection.
- studies the function of behavior in the world.
- focuses on how mental activities help the organism fit on its environment.
The Psychoanalytic Theory
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Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)
- an Austrian neurologist fascinated in patients suffering from “hysteria” and neurosis.
- he theorized that his patients’ problems arose from the unconscious mind.
- in his view, the unconscious mind is a repository of feelings and urges which we are not aware of.
- before, accessing the unconscious means an end to his patients’ problems
- according to him this can be done through:
- dream analysis,
- examining first words that came to people’s minds,
- through slips of the tongue.
- according to him this can be done through:
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Psychoanalytic Theory
- focuses on the role of a person’s unconscious and their early childhood experiences that help shape the unconscious and its impact in its person’s life.
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Psychoanalysis
- a method that involves patients talking about their experiences and selves.
- the therapist plays an important role in interpreting what their conscious behavior reveals about the unconscious mind.
- it was popularized by Freud and is still used today.
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While some of Freud’s ideas were influential, many of his ideas were controversial.
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However, through empirical studies, Freud’s clinical approach have been demonstrated to be effective.
Gestalt Psychology
- Gestalt Psychology
- “gestalt” → German word meaning “whole”
- emphasizes that while a sensory experience can be broken down into individual parts, the relationships between individual parts as a whole is often what the individual perceives
- for example, the individual notes in a musical piece may be perceived in combinations of one another as melody, rhythm, or harmony.
- first introduced by Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941), and Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) in the United States
- they are German psychologists
- they moved to the States in the early 20th century to escape the Nazi Germany.
- directly contradicted Wundt’s ideas of structuralism.
Behaviorism
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Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936)
- a Russian psychologist who conducted early work in the field of behavior.
- he studied a form of learning behavior called a conditioned reflex.
- this is where an animal/human would produce a reflex or unconscious response to a stimulus and, over time, was conditioned to produce the same response to a different stimulus.
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John Watson (1878 - 1958)
- an American psychologist at Johns Hopkins University
- believed that the study of consciousness was flawed as an objective analysis of the mind was impossible
- focused on directly observable behavior and bringing that behavior under control.
- a pioneer of establishing behaviorism
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Behaviorism
- this is an approach where behavior is observed and controlled.
- commonly used animal models under the assumption that it could be applied to human behavior in some degree.
- largely responsible for establishing psychology as a scientific discipline
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B. F. Skinner
- an American psychologist and a behaviorist.
- concentrated on how behavior was affected by through reinforcement and punishment.
- he developed the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box) through this research
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Skinner box
- a chamber developed by American psychologist B. F Skinner that allows them to observe effects of reinforcement and punishment in driving behavior.
- it isolates a subject from the external environment, and inside contains a behavior indicator (a lever/button).
- when the subject pushes the button, it is able to deliver a positive reinforcement of behavior (eg. food), or a punishment (eg. noise)
Humanism
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Humanism
- a perspective in psychology formed from limited perspectives offered by Freud’s deterministic psychoanalysis and the reductionist and simplifying nature of behaviorism
- it emphasizes that potential for good is innate to all humans
- two of the well known proponents were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
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Abraham Maslow
- an American psychologist well known in proposing the hierarchy of human needs in motivating behavior
- asserted that so long as basic needs for survival are met, then higher level needs would begin to motivate behavior
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Carl Rogers
- an American psychologist who emphasized that the potential for good exists within all people.
- used a therapeutic technique, known as client-centered therapy based on his belief.
- in this technique, patients take the lead role in the therapy session
- he believes that provided a therapist displays important factors that maximizes the technique’s effectiveness, people can be more capable of dealing with and working through their own issues.
The Cognitive Revolution
- The Cognitive Revolution
- a perspective that emerged from the mid-1900s as new technological and disciplinary developments formed across different fields of science.
- one influential motivators for the movement was Noam Chomsky
- an American linguist; he believed that psychology’s focus on behavior was short-sighted and that the field should incorporate mental functioning again so that it could offer meaningful contributions to understanding of behavior.
Feminist Psychology
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The development of psychology which pioneered by the dominant influence of Western, White and male academics proved that biases were inherent in individuals who were not White or male.
- This fact showed that women had little influence on the practice of psychology.
- This also proved that subjects in psychology were mostly men which resulted in a biased view of women’s psychology.
- In that note, it was also assumed that gender has no influence in psychology and that women aren’t sufficient as an interest of study.
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Naomi Weisstein
- presented a critique of psychology as a science
- criticized male psychologists for constructing the psychology of women based on cultural biases and without experimental tests.
- she formed the foundation of a feminist psychology free from male cultural biases
Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Research of Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan proves that societies that belong to the WEIRD group (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) have been overstudied and results were wrongly applied to non-WEIRD groups.
- they found many differences between people in te WEIRD group and in less industrialized, less urban, and non-Western societies.
- this also shows that people vary depending on their culture and environment
- In this light, psychologists also exist to study the mind and behavior between cultures and diverse groups
- Multicultural psychologists develop theories and conducts research of diverse populations, often within a single country
- Cross-cultural psychologists compare populations across countries.