Psychology Chapter 1

Yesterday and Today

What is Psychology?

• The scientific study of mental processes and behavior

Levels of Analysis

• Study influences of the brain (neural activity), the person (emotions, ideas, thoughts), and the group (friends, family, culture)

Psychology’s Roots

• Myths and ceremonies developed as a way to describe, explain, predict, and control our reality

Philosophy

• The study of knowledge and reality

• Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle posed questions and discussed solutions, beginning modern processes of scientific enquiry

ancient Greek

• Hippocrates argued the brain is the organ of mental life

Rene Descartes (1593-1650)

• Thought the brain controlled the body by movement of fluids within tubes that ran throughout the body

Johannes Muller (1801-1858)

• Advocated for scientists to study the relationship between physical stimuli and their psychological effects

Herman von Helmholtz (1821-1858)

• Measured the speed of neural impulses and discovered neural impulses were not instantaneous

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

• All life on earth comes from one common ancestor, a radical idea

• Natural selection

Willhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

• Father of psychology (voluntarism)

• Established first psychology lab in 1879 Leipzig, Germany

• Focused on study of consciousness

Edward Titchener (1867-1927)

• Developed Structuralism to try to identify all the elements of consciousness

• Introspection, careful reflection and systematic observation of details of mental processes and how simple thoughts combine into complex ideas

• Goal of Structuralism was to describe observable mental processes rather than explain, predict, or control

William James (1842-1910)

• Set up first psychology lab at Harvard

• Wrote Principals of Psychology

• Believed mental processes were fluid, “stream of consciousness” instead of fixed elements

• Studied animals, children, and individuals with mental disorders

Gestalt Psychologists

• Said consciousness cant be broken down into elements, we perceive things as whole perceptual units

• Whole>sum of its parts

• Learning is tied to what we perceive

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• Belief that peoples behaviors are based on unconscious desires and conflicts

• Developed a form of therapy, psychoanalysis, that aimed to resolve unconscious conflicts

Behaviorism

• Psychological research should only focus on behavior you can observe

Edward Thorndike (1874-1949)

• Study of animals could help explain human behavior

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Classical conditioning, dogs could learn to associate a bell with an automatic behavior, salivating for food

John B. Watson (1878-1958)

• Conducted “little albert” experiment showing children/people could be classically conditioned

B.F Skinner 91904-1990)

• Developed operant conditioning to shape behavior

• Used reinforcement to change the frequency of the expression of a behavior

• Positive reinforcement=increases negative reinforcement=decrease likelihood of behavior occurring

Albert Bandura (1925-)

• Described learning by social observation in children

• Can be observed in several species of primates

Humanistic Psychologists

• Believed a person has a capacity for personal growth and the freedom to choose their destiny and positive qualities

• Subjective perceptions of the world are unique and more important than behavior

Carl Rogers (1902-1987)

• Developed “client centered therapy’’ people are innately good

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

• Developed theory of motivation, hierarchy of needs

Ulric Neisser (1928-2012)

• Cognitive psychology, study of information processing

• How people process information, develop language, solve problems, and think

• Compared human mind to computer

Cultural Psychology

• Study of how cognitive processes vary across different populations

Cross-Cultural Psychology

• Study of the cognitive processes that are universal regardless of culture

Karl Lashley (1890-1958)

• Tried to determine which areas of the brain are responsible for memory, leaning, and other functions

Donald Hebb (1904-1985)

• Canadian scientist

• developed concept of cell assembly

Cell Assembly

• Neurons develop connection networks based off our experiences as we develop and interact with our environments

Behavioral Genetics

• Study of how gene expression influences development of the brain and control of human behavior

Evolutionary genetics

• study of how evolution has shaped our brain and behavior

3 main branches of psychology

• Clinical and couseling (therapists)

• Academic (professors, teaching and research)

• Applied (schools, etc)