Psychology History and Perspectives - Video Notes

A set of vocabulary-style flashcards covering key terms, figures, and concepts from the video lecture notes on the history, debates, and major perspectives in psychology.

Trepanation

Drilling a hole in the skull to treat irregular behavior; practiced over 10,000 years ago.

Hippocrates

‘Father of Modern Medicine’; explained mental illness with the medical model (humoral theory); brain viewed as the major controlling center.

Galen

Roman surgeon; experiments on gladiators and animals led to the belief that the brain controls movement; proposed Ventricular Theory.

Ventricular Theory

Idea that the ventricles in the brain housed thinking; based on animal experiments.

Heart in Ancient Egypt vs Brain

During mummification, the brain was liquified or discarded while the heart remained and was weighed against a feather to judge morality in the afterlife.

Aristotle

Cardiac hypothesis of reasoning: the heart is the thinking center because it is in constant motion and blood flows around it.

Plato’s Tripartite Theory of Reasoning

Brain = rational thinking; heart/gut = emotions; gut = jealousy, greed, lust, desire.

Localization vs Holism

Debate about whether brain functions are localized to specific areas or distributed across the brain.

Franz Joseph Gall

Founder of phrenology; believed skull bumps indicated brain regions with specific functions; later discredited.

Phrenology

Pseudoscience claiming personality traits and abilities are determined by skull bumps; lacked falsifiability.

Fritsch & Hitzig

Mapped the motor cortex in dogs by stimulating brain regions; different parts caused different movements.

Paul Broca

Showed language impairment in patients with left hemisphere damage (Tan); led to identification of Broca’s area.

Tan

Broca’s patient with speech impairment; used to infer left-hemisphere language centers.

Flourens

Proponent of holism; performed pigeon experiments showing widespread brain damage did not abolish function, argued against strict localization.

Descartes (Cartesian Dualism)

Mind and body are separate; believed interaction occurs at the pineal gland.

Pineal Gland

Proposed as the mind–body connector where mental and physical interact.

Wilhelm Wundt

Established the first psychology laboratory in 1879; often called the Father of Psychology; used introspection to study mental processes.

Introspection

Self-examination of conscious thoughts and feelings; controlled with timing/metronome; foundations of structuralism.

Edward Titchener

Student of Wundt; brought structuralism to psychology; emphasized introspection to map mental elements.

Structuralism

School aiming to break experiences into basic elements; criticized for relying on subjective introspection.

Functionalism

Early school led by William James; emphasized how mental processes function to help organisms adapt to their environment.

William James

American psychologist; promoter of functionalism; emphasized adaptation to the environment.

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychodynamic theory; emphasized unconscious influences and talk therapy; explored unconscious conflicts.

Anna O.

Case illustrating uncovering unconscious trauma through talk therapy in Freud’s work.

Id, Ego, Superego

Freud’s three parts of personality: Id (pleasure principle), Ego (reality), Superego (moral standards).

Defense mechanisms

Unconscious strategies to cope with anxiety: Denial, Reaction Formation, Projection, Displacement.

Denial

Refusing to accept reality.

Reaction Formation

Acting opposite of uncomfortable feelings.

Projection

Attributing one's own feelings to others.

Displacement

Redirecting emotions to a safer or more acceptable target.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Projective test that uses ambiguous inkblots to reveal underlying thoughts and feelings; linked to psychodynamic theory.

Behaviorism

School led by B.F. Skinner; focuses on observable behavior; behavior shaped by rewards and punishments; mind is often deemphasized.

B.F. Skinner

Behaviorist who argued that only observable behavior should be measured; emphasized learning through rewards and punishments.

Five modern psychology perspectives

Biological, Humanistic, Social-Cultural, Cognitive, Developmental; each explains behavior from different angles.

Biological perspective

Behavior explained by biological processes (neurotransmitters, hormones, brain structures).

Humanistic perspective

Emphasizes free will, self-actualization, and inherent goodness of people.

Social-Cultural perspective

Behavior shaped by group dynamics and cultural context.

Cognitive perspective

Study of mental processes such as memory, problem solving, planning, and inhibition.

Developmental perspective

Examines changes across the lifespan in physical, cognitive, and social domains.

Relation of modern perspectives to earlier theories

Biology links to localization; Humanistic offers a counterpoint to Freud; Social-Cultural adds context; Cognitive builds on earlier methods; Developmental extends Freud’s ideas over time.