History of Psychology

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering key historical and philosophical concepts in psychology.

Humility

Recognition that current psychological theories are provisional and that past ideas must be understood without modern bias.

History

Systematic and interpretive study of past ideas and practices within their cultural contexts.

Empirical history

Historical analysis based on primary source materials.

Explanatory history

Historical approach seeking causal explanations for developments.

Personalistic history

Emphasizes influential individuals in shaping ideas.

Naturalistic history

Explains developments through social and cultural forces.

Zeitgeist

Prevailing intellectual and cultural climate of a time.

Ortgeist

Influence of specific geographic or institutional settings.

Historicism

Understanding ideas within their historical conditions.

Presentism

Distorting history through modern perspectives.

Cyclical hypothesis

View that ideas recur periodically.

Linear-progressive hypothesis

Belief that knowledge advances cumulatively.

Chaos hypothesis

View that historical development is irregular and unpredictable.

Folk psychology

Pre-scientific common-sense explanations of behavior.

Teleology

Explaining behavior by purpose rather than cause.

Karl Popper

Proposed falsifiability as the criterion for science.

Thomas Kuhn

Argued science advances through paradigm shifts.

Paradigm

Shared framework of assumptions and methods.

Pythagoras

Proposed numerical explanations of mental phenomena and located the mind in the brain.

Socrates

Advocated introspection and innate knowledge.

Plato

Advanced rationalism and mind–body separation.

Aristotle

Introduced empiricism and sensory-based knowledge.

Galen

Linked personality to bodily humors.

Inductive method

Reasoning from observations to general principles.

Deductive method

Reasoning from principles to specific conclusions.

St. Augustine

Integrated Christian theology with introspection.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Reconciled Aristotle with Christian doctrine.

Rudolf Goeckel

First recorded use of the term psychology.

Galileo

Promoted experimental measurement in science.

Sir Isaac Newton

Demonstrated universal laws governing nature.

Rene Descartes

Proposed mind–body dualism and reflexes.

Dualism

Doctrine that mind and body are distinct substances.

Thomas Hobbes

Argued mental activity is physical motion.

John Locke

Proposed the mind as a tabula rasa.

David Hume

Emphasized association and habit.

David Hartley

Combined associationism with physiology.

Bishop George Berkeley

Asserted existence depends on perception.

James Mill

Advocated mechanical associationism.

John Stuart Mill

Proposed mental chemistry.

Bell-Magendie Law

Established separation of sensory and motor nerve functions.

Johannes Muller

Proposed doctrine of specific nerve energies.

Galvanic

Use of electricity to stimulate nerves.

Hermann Helmholtz

Measured nerve conduction velocity.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Established neuron doctrine.

Franz Gall

Proposed phrenology.

Marie-Jean Pierre Flourens

Argued for distributed brain functions.

Paul Broca

Identified localization of speech production.

Fritsch and Hitzig

Demonstrated motor cortex localization.

Friedrich Gauss

Developed the normal distribution.

Francis Galton

Studied individual differences and heredity.

Wilhelm Wundt

Founded experimental psychology in 1879.

Tridimensional theory of emotion

Emotions vary along pleasure, arousal, and tension dimensions.

E.B. Titchener

Founded structuralism using introspection.

Carl Lange

Proposed emotions result from physiological arousal.

Hugo Munsterberg

Applied psychology to practical problems.

Oswald Kulpe

Proposed imageless thought.

G. Stanley Hall

Institutionalized psychology in the U.S.

Emil Kraepelin

Developed classification of mental disorders.

Year psychology began

1879.