History of Psychology Exam 1

Psychology

study of the soul (mind and heart)

• the mind or soul as a person/who you are

What are the 4 pressing questions

1. can the mind be studied

2. what is the relationship between the mind and body

3. nature vs nurture

Who said the mind couldn’t be studied

August Comte

• the mind can study everything but itself

• founder of logical positivism (the only way to know for certain is to scientifically prove/testable)

John Watson

• behaviorist

Who said the mind could be studied

J.S Mill-politician

• he viewed the mind as part of nature and not some supernatural entity, believes our mind is governed by laws as anything else is. He treated psychology as a real science

relationship between mind and body is tied to what

location: where is the mind located

• In Psalm 23 David felt in his bowels/intestines (tied to your intestines being most important to protect in battle)

• is our mind part of our actual body or is it more in our soul/abstract

Who was on the side of Nature (genes/born)

Plato, Descartes, Kant, Galton, and Hall

Who was on the side of Nurture (environment/blank slate)

Aristotle- tabula rasa, our mind is flexible ready to be marked by our experience/we are born without innate ideas

John Locke popularized it

Watson, Skinner, and J.S Mill are also involved

why study the history of psychology

• certain current issues can be understood better

• to acquire general cultural knowledge

• pure interest

• practically (learn psychology/take it for practical reasons)

authors approach to the history of psychology (biographical)

railroads/Freud thinking that the mind works like a train engine (emotions building up and needing to let them out/steam)

• now its compared to a computer (Zeit guest/spirit of the times or cultural times)

Margaret Washburn

first women to get PhD in Psych at Cornell

Mary Caulkins

work for her PhD at Howard University but wasn’t given degree and first women Pres of APA

Francis Sumner

• from Arkansas

• goes to Lincoln University (get psych degree)

• trys applying for grad school but 0 accept him

• goes to Clark University but has to repeat 4 years of his bachelors again

• trys to get into grad school again but 0 accept him

• Hall helps him and he goes to get his masters at Clark University

• gets drafted in WW1 and was given the lowest rank even though with his degree it should be higher

• Hall argued with his rank and then they give him Sargent

• gets his PhD in Psych

• becomes professor at Howard University

• has 2 students in his class (the Clarks)

Copernicus

priest and astronomer, discovered heliocentric view of the universe (the son is the center)

Gallileo

proved the heliocentric theory with the invention of the telescope

Issac Newton

• math genius- goes to Cambridge and becomes a professor

• studied light and refraction of it (formation of a rainbow)

• writes Principa or Principia which descibes the universe as predictable or like a clockwork universe *Halleys commet happens every 73 years

Harvey

• studying the motion of blood and that the heard pumps blood

• 1628 he publishes the “movement of the heart”

• he proves his theory by letting animals bleed out/how they’re heart keeps pumping

Rene DeCartes

• math genius- and philosopher

• creates analytic geometry which is the math basis of GPS

• publishes his discourse or discussion of things (interested in direct evidence)

• Cognito Ergo Sum- I think therefore I am, but the process of doubts through our thinking

• mind body dualism (separating the body from the mind)

• proofs (scientific ideas showing existence of things)

Lametrie

• early french materialist (have to prove and see to believe)

• people don’t have souls

• men are hedonists (lives for pleasure)

• saw humans and animals as same (did an experiment where he tried to teach an ape to speak)

John Locke

all learning is by experience (Nurture), blank slate

• primary and secondary qualities (primary is the think itself whereas secondary is your perception of that thing)

vain terror

phobia or self-focused fear

how the mind works

elements of consciousness

• combine simple ideas to make complex ideas (2 idea combine to form relationship)

• separate the simple ideas (abstraction)

George Berkley

• math genius

• philosopher

• missionary that what he thought was Bermuda but ended up in Connecticut

• believes more in secondary qualities or perception of things

• believe in God and that he was the grand perciever

• uses of pine tar

Liebnitz

• philosopher

• math genius (calculus)

• said learning is 75% experience and 25% innate

• uses the example of marble and veins to talk about needing a good start/everyone might not be created equally

when homeschooling goes bad

shoe maker father→James Mill→J.S Mill

*focus on James Mill

• he studies and goes to seminary

• self taught so he has no social skills

• lives in Scotland and London

• gets job with British East India Company (British controls lots of the world and runs India like its a company for trade)

• writes about the history of the company

James Mill and J.S Mill Psychology

James- thought the mind was simple associations

J.S- mind is more like chemistry (the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts/A+B→C, the mind mind can be studied)

Jeremy Bentham

people were hedonists (life is about pleasure/avoid pain)

• pleasure principle or id based, which paved the way for Freud

• alongside J.S Mill they found the University College of London

• wants to be preserved

Alexander Bain

• Scotsman

• doesn’t get a job as a professor till age 42 (University of Aberdean)

• writes text books and publishes journal (bunch of articles) called Mind in 1876 which has psychology articles in it

• known as transition figure

when was psychology founded

1879

Immanuel Kant

• German

• published critique of pure reason

• people are born with categories in the mind

• a priori knowledge (these are the categories he is talking about, in which we experience the world)

• people should study anthropology (study of culture groups)

Magendie (dog) and Bell (bunny)

• experiments on the central nervous system/spinal cord

• they severe the spinal cord which causes the dog not to be able to use half of its body

• discovers that theres 2 areas of the C.N.S the ventral (movement) and dorsal (feeling) side

Muller

Doctrine of specific nerve energies (specific parts of the brain operate different ways ex: occipital lobe for eyes)

• does experiments on dogs

who are the the anti viva sectionists- people who don’t like research on animals

Herman von Hemholtz

• important in physiology

• Young and Hemholtz working together and discover that people only see 3 colors (red, blue, and green) and counter colors in the back of the brain help show other colors

• place theory of hearing

• speed of neural impulses (83 meters per second) mylagraph but now we know its 125

Gall and Spurzheim (founders)

doctor in Vienna, 1758-1828

• founding of phrenology (certain bumps in the brain/shape of head related to personality and character)

• charismatic/good lecturer

• Spurzheim is a follower of his and they publish books together

Scottsman named Combe-1800 (popularizer)

takes over for Spurzheim when he dies

• writes book called the constitution of man

• it matters what the shape of your head is rather than skin color

Fowler brothers and Wells

commercialize phrenology (franchised establishments)

• had company’s throughout the world and had merchandise

• moto is “know yourself”

• in some places you couldn’t get a job without getting a phrenology analysis

why was phrenology not correct

circular reasoning and incorrect brain science (not falsifiable or can’t disprove it/not open to new data) *its spurious or false

• Megendie questioned this and invited Spurzheim to look at a brain and tell him about the person. He says the person is very smart but the person actually was low functioning

what were reasons for phrenology to be correct

• brain at the central organ, localization- certain parts of the brain do specific things *Phineas Gage

• individual differences- charecteristics/traits

Florens

discovered technique of ablation or making incisions in parts of the brain and then would see what deficit was missing, discovered the vital knot- most important part, top of the brain stem

Broca

localization of speech, broca’s area (area to form words)

• had famous patient called ton (all he could get out was ton even though you could tell he was trying to speak)