Origins of Psychology

Briefly describe how certain disciplines paved the way for psychology to emerge

• Philosophy → mind-brain, nativism vs empiricism

• Physiology → sensations (JND), mental chronometry (reaction time studies) → experimental psychology

• “Pseudoscience”

  • Phrenology → different faculties located in diff parts of the brain → structure of skull determines personality

    • Dismissed in terms of falsifiability

    • Related to localisation

  • Mesmerism → precursor to hypnotism -> suggestibility -> social influence (somewhat the birth of social psych) 

• Evolutionary theory (mid 19th century)

  • Gave scientific/natural framework within which we can think about the evolution of the mind (related to materialism) → material science (less spiritual) 

  • Francis Galton → individual differences + variation → differential psych 

Briefly describe psychology before 1880

• 1700: “psychology” (as a term emerged) from psychological study of the (Christian) soul

  • NW Europe + partly UK

• 1800: Psychology as a science (of the mind) based on introspection (non-experimental)

  • Science had a broader meaning

  • Kant said it isn't really proper science

• 1860: experimental methods, based on measurement

  • E.g. psychophysics,

• 1870: courses, textbooks of psychophysiology (but still no discipline), some experimental work

How did Wundt contribute to the emergence of psycholgoy as a science?

• Leipzip (1879) → lab (methods not new)

  • Experimental psych shouldn't have a large scope → should be limited to sensations

  • Taught students → students (became psychologists) founded own labs + taught students → growth of psych as a discipline with textbooks, labs + research

• 1881 → journal

• Experimental work

What was occurring in the 1880s in Britain?

Francis Galton opens lab

• Trying to find support for natural ability (individual differences)

• Takes a differential approach using correlational methods

• Correlational work

What was occurring in the 1880s in Paris?

Charcot

• Thought there were links between hypnosis + hysteria

• Method → observed behaviour under hypnosis + when they're hysterical (pathological condition)

• Clinical work 

What was the timeline of psychology labs opening in America?

Taught by Wundt or G. Stanley Hall (who was also taught by Wundt + opened first research lab in US)

• 1883 - John Hopkins

• 1887 - Indiana

• 1888 - Wisconsin

• 1889 - Clark, Kansas, Nebraska, Penn

• 1890 - Iowa, Michigan

• 1891 - Wellesley, Columbia, Cornell, Catholic, Toronto

• 1892 - Brown, Illinois, Harvard, Yale

• 1893 - Chicago, Stanford, Princeton…

By 1900, how many psychology labs were there in North America? What else had been produced/founded?

• 42 labs

• American Journal of Psychology (1887)

• Psych Review (1894)

• Principles of Psychology (1890) → William James

• APA (1992) → founded by Hall

Which forms of studying psychology emerged in the US around 1900?

• Structuralism (Titchener)

  • A science of (conscious) mental content + structure

  • Via introspection (learned from Wundt)

• Functionalism

  • Study of (conscious) mental operations + utility

  • Via various methods → e.g. correlation work, mental tests etc

• Psychoanalysis + psychical research

  • William James → psych should include psychical research (minority view)

• Science vs applied psychology → different ideas of what should be studied, how it should be studied, purpose (should it affect education etc)

Which forms of studying psychology emerged in the US in the early 20th century?

• Behaviourism (Watson, 1913)

  • Rejects study of mind → not conscious or unconscious

  • Study of behaviour → S-R

  • Dominant approach in US (intense paradigm shift)

• 1930s - neo-behavioursm

  • Focus on reinforcement → Skinner + Clark Hull

  • Tolman → rats in mazes

    • Found that rats who had been in the maze before could navigate + find the food quicker

    • Suggests memory BUT behaviourism avoids talking about the mind

    • Called it “latent learning” → intervening variables → emergence of variables + operationalism (1930s)

Which forms of studying psychology emerged in Germany in the early 20th century?

• Wertheimer (1910) → phi phenomenon (elements perceived as movement) isn’t an illusion (associationism) → Gestalts

• Gestalt psych

  • Mind structures the world in certain ways → perceive things in terms of form NOT elements (against Locke) 

  • E.g. can change the key but recognise the tune of the song 

  • Are nativists

  • Study of experience

  • Anti-reductionist (opposes behaviourism)

  • Dominant in Germany by 1930 → many gestalt psychs are Jewish → go to states → absorbed into psychology

How was psychology studied in the early 20th century?

• Experimental → behaviourism (learning), Gestalt (perception)

• Correlational → differential studies (IQ, personality)

• Social psych → social attitudes (prejudice), social influence

• Piaget on mental development

• Bartlett on remmebering

• Psychoanalysis → influential in US psychiatry (criticised by psych)

How was psychology studied in the mid-20th century?

• Cognitive revolution → new metaphor + way of talking about the mind → AI

  • New language for the mind

  • Cognition as info-processing (info = mental content)

  • Mind as function of brain (software vs hardware) → cognitive neuroscience

  • Emergence of cognitive textbooks →Ulric Neisser’s Cognitive Psychology (1967)

How is psychology studied now?

• BPS core areas → bio, cog, dev, diff, soc

• Variety of aims, objects + methods of study

  • Truth vs utility

• Boundaries + application → scientificity vs relevance

• Universality vs specificity → biased methods (problem of induction)

  • WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic