history of psychology - week 2

students changes to wundt’s psychology

* apperception was eliminated since his students found that it was the same as attention > merge
* they did not use the 3d theory of feelings anymore
* there was no longer attention given to cultural psychology, the focus was on physiological psychology

structuralism

→ seeks to analyze the adult mind (the total sum of experience from birth to the present) in terms of the simplest definable components and then to find how these components fit together to form more complex experiences as well as how they correlate to physical events.

* elements: affections, sensations and images
* completely drops cultural psychology (physiological part only)
* experiments with thoughts and added images as a concept within the mind

titchener

→ one of wundt’s students, who created his own society

* wrote many books, manuals etc.
* divided psychology into human, animal, social, child and abnormal

psychophysical parallelist

argued explanation via processes in the nervous system brings unity and coherence to the study of psychological processes

stimulus error

introspective descriptions must be limited to the contents of the experience being analysed, it should not be contaminated by knowledge of the nature of the stimulus responsible for the mental contents

edwards

supported the idea that everything is predestined, it is impossible to escape the destiny

james

* went into psychology because he himself had mental problems and wanted to understand them

→ wrote principles of psychology in 1890 started functionalism

= it describes the mind as a functional tool that allows us to adapt to our environments

stream of consciousness

=> forever going although changing

* 5 characteristics:


1. personal
2. constantly changing
3. sensibly continuous
4. deals with objects independent of itself
5. is selective

self divided in 2 parts

* pure ego/self: what knows things
* empirical self: what i know about myself

phenomena

observable

conditions

bodily conditions

instinct

an act done in a certain way to pursue a certain aim

habit

learned activity acquired by repetition

response-produces stimuli

change in the environment is the stimulus; the reaction of the organism to it is the response

theory of emotion (james-lange theory)

=  suggests that physical changes in the body happen first, which then leads to the experience of emotion

* perception of the situation -> bodily state -> awareness of the bodily state = emotion

pragmaticism

looking at current situation, making things simpler, looking for easy and direct solutions

epistemology

he philosophy and knowledge behind the belief that you will investigate by making use of a research method

ontology

“the science of being”, the ontology is a statement of fact without explanation.

functionalism

= search for how mental processes contribute to accommodatory efficiency (how it helps the human organism to adapt to certain situations and environments)

* influenced by evolutionism, biology and the psychological outgrowth of evolutionary theory

→ is oriented and open-minded and is opposed to structuralism, give importance to habits and bodily processes

* bridge between structuralism and behaviorism

dewey

* educational philosophy of learning by doing
* viewed thinking as an adaptation to a novel problematic situation

→ wrote an article on the reflex arc concept which was an important psychological contribution, this argued one cannot split up a piece of behavior in arcs and the arcs into stimuli and responses

angell

distinguished between structuralism vs. functionalism

→ studies conscious content versus studies operations of consciousness and attempts analysis into elements versus having concerns with nature, functions of mental processes and putting an emphasis on how they work

identification of functional psychology

effort to portray the typical operations of consciousness under actual life conditions

thorndike

* thorndike’s puzzle box: showed the apparent intelligence actually appears by trial-and-error

→ continuous increase in the efficiency of behavior in problem solving, the behavior is initially random but learning occurs with elimination of wrong responses

the law of exercise

behaviour is more strongly established through frequent connections of stimulus and response

law of effect

any behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped

animal psychology

animal studies are congenial to behaviorism because animals can’t answer questions → you can only study them by observing their behavior

romanes

common ancestors = many common traits - wanted to research animal intelligence

morgan

animals learn by trial-and-error → something happens by chance, this gives reward, they’ll repeat it again (operant conditioning)

law of parsimony

the simplest explanation of an event or observation is the preferred explanation

law of parsimony of Morgan (comparative psychology)

animal activity should not be interpreted in terms of higher psychological processes if it can be interpreted in terms of lower processes

pavlov

classical conditioning (dog, saliva and reflexology)

washburn

first woman with a phd in psychology

watson

→ had 4 children, raised them in a behaviorist way and all attempted suicide

* chain of responses hypothesis: after several trials each movement becomes a stimulus in itself it will trigger the next movement
* thought conditioning was key to understanding behavior

behaviorisms views on psychology

→ proposed behavioral substitutes for before purely subjective concepts

the behaviorist manifesto

stated that psychology should become a natural (real) science and introspection (subjective) methods shouldn’t be used

3 inherited psychological reactions (responses)

fear: sudden noise/loss of physical support

rage: constrained body movement

love: touch

→ we learn classical conditioning

4 types of behavior

* acquired (conditioned) - inherited (inborn)
* explicit (overt) - implicit (covert)

reflexes

=> an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus

types of reflexes:

* emotions
* instincts
* habits

watson’s environmentalist promise

believed each person can be raised into any possible thing based on how they are raised up regardless of his talents, tendencies etc. all that is needed is control over the environment

watson on thinking

thinking is considered as internal speech or subvocal talking

→ enters the general stream of implicit activity

molecular

cutting behavior into smaller pieces; concerned with muscular reactions

reductionism

the idea that complicated behaviors and phenomena can be better explained by “reducing” them into small, simple pieces

prime unit

a reflex

behaviorism

= emphasis on behavior rather than the mind

→ behavior: reaction to a stimulus

* experimental branch of natural science
* goal: prediction and control of behavior
* no place for free-will and control in a reflexive, mechanic manner reaction to external stimuli

environmentalism

behavior = habit (acquired through classical conditioning)

determinism

everything happens for a reason and has a cause

reductionism

does not talk about mind and thinking; reduces the scope of psychology

the problem of other minds

weak knowledge I have about another's experience, our

perception is unverifiable; cannot know exactly what the other person is thinking/experiencing

neo-behaviorism

research focused on studying behavior and learning processes

skinner

* found operant conditioning (negative vs positive reinforcement)


* radical behaviourist (reductionist) -> did not take into consideration any internal variable or implicit behaviour


* argued that since environmental consequences control behaviour, societies should try to set up environment in a way to maximize fulfilling, constructive and productive behaviour and the actualization of all positive potentials

hull

* drive-reduction theory of learning \n - hypothetico-deductive method - formulated explicit postulates about learning -> theorems from the postulates -> tested their validity by experimental studies
* reinforcement (reduction of the drive) is essential for learning

\

tolman

* critiqued the molecularist approach because he claimed that behavior can not be deducted from a simple chain of muscular contractions or fractions of movements and you have to look at the bigger picture
* disagreed with hull on the necessity for drive-reducing reinforcement in learning and believed what is learnt are: characteristics of the environment, consequences of an action and the like

\

purposive behaviorism

behavior is functional and implies a relationship between the organism and its environment, reveals cognition and purpose

behaviorism vs neo behaviorism

b: classical conditioning vs n: operant, classical and other conditionings

b: can’t talk about mind through behavior vs n: refers to what happens within the organism