Unit 1 - Psychology's History and Approaches

Wilhem Wundt

• Father of psychology

• established the first psychology lab

• Created an experiement to measure “atoms of the mind”

  • measured how long it took for people to press a telegraph key after hearing a ball drop

G. Stanley Hall

• One of Wundt’s (and Psychology’s) first American students

• Established the first formal U.S. Psych Laboratory at John Hopkins University

Edward Titchner

• Wundt’s student at Cornell

• Introduced Structuralism

• Aimed to classify and understand elements of the mind’s structure

• Focused on inner sensations, images, and feelings

Structuralism

• Engaging people in self-reflective introspective (looking inward)

• training them to report elements of their experience as their senses were exercised

• Introspection was unreliable - varied each time depending on the person

William James

• Philosopher-psychologist

• assumed that thinking developed because it was adaptive as a functionalist

• An outgoing Harvard teacher-writer who wrote a textbook

  • called Principles of Psychology

    • took him 12 years

Functionalism

• Consideration of the evolved functions of our thoughts and feelings

• Consciousness serves as a function

• It enables us to consider our past, adjust to our present, and plan our future

Mary Whiton Calkins

• Student of William James

• All men dropped out when she joined but she outscored them on the exams

• Harvard denied her degree but she was offered one from the sister school which she refused

• Became a memory researcher and first female president of the American Psychological Association

Margaret Floy Washburn

• First official female psychology Ph.D.

• Wrote an influential book, The Animal Mind

• Became the second APA female president

• Wundt’s first foreign study published in his psych journal was her thesis

• Wasn’t allowed to join all-male experimental psychologists although it was founded by Titchner, her advisor

John B. Watson

• redefined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior

• Performed a controversial study on a baby called Little Albert (with Rosalie Rayner)

• Believed that a child’s environment is the factor that shapes behavior

• psycho-analytic

B.F. Skinner

• redefined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior

• Proposed a method of learning called operant conditioning psychology, which occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior

• behavioral

Behaviorists

• Observe and record people’s behavior as they are conditioned (respond to and learn in different situations)

• They believe our actions are shaped by environmental stimuli

Sigmund Freud

• Psychologist who focused on psychoanalytic psychology

  • emphasized the way our unconscious mind and childhood experiences affect behavior along with thoughts and urges

Freudian Psychologists

• emphasized the way our unconsious mind and childhood experience affect behavior

• repressed feelings are psychologically surpressed and manifested into dreams

Psychodynamic Approach

focuses on the psychological drive and forces within individuals that explain human behavior and personality

Humanistic Psychologists

• psychologists who focus on our potential for personal growth

• emphasize the study of the whole person

• look at human behavior through the eyes of the person doing the behaving

Carl Rogers

• humanistic psychologist

• believed that humans were capable of becoming whole persons through self-discovery

• Developed the person-centered approach to psychotherapy and the concept of unconditional positive regard

Abraham Maslow

• humanistic psychologist

• developed a hierarchy of needs to explain human motivation

  • food and clothing

  • job security

  • friendship

  • esteem

  • self-actualization

• believed that these needed to be met before they pursue more social self-actualizing needs

Cognitive Psychology

how we percieve, process and remember information and how thinking and emotion interact with anxiety, depression, and other decisions

Empiricism

• the mind at birth is a tabula rasa (a “blank slate”)

• the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience

Introspection

looking inward, used by structuralists

Experimental Psychologists

use scientific methods to collect data and perform research

Cognitive Neuroscience

intersection of psychology and neuroscience

Psychology

• Behavior

• anything an organism does

• any action we can observe and record

Psychology

• Mental Process

internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior — feelings, dreams, sensations

Ivan Pavlov

• Russian Psysologist

• pioneered the study of learning

• tested the concept of conditioned reflex

  • trained a hungry dog to salivate at a sound when it was presented food

Jean Piaget

• Swiss biologist

• last century’s most influential observer of children

• worked on child development

• developed theory of cognitive development

• genetic epistemology

Charles Darwin

• proposed the evolutionary process of natural selection after encountering species variation on his world journey

• Argued that natural selection explained behaviors and bodies/structures

Nature vs. Nurture Debate

• example

• Are our human traits inherited, or do they develop through experience?

• Some assume we inherit character and intelligence while others believed that there is nothing in our mind that does not come first through our senses

• For example, when a person achieves a high level of academic success

  • Did they do so because they are genetically predisposed to elevated levels of intelligence, or is their success a result of an enriched environment?

• That is the focus of behavior genetics

General conclusion of nature vs. nurture

Nurture works on what nature provides

Different levels of analysis of psychology

biological, psychological and social-cultural

Biopsychosocial approach

Together, the biological, psychological and social cultural viewpoints form an integrated biopsychosocial approach

Behavioral Approach Focus

we learn observable responses based on punishment or reward for a behavior

Behavioral Approach Sample Question

What is the most effective way to alter our behavior for example, to lost weight?

Biological Approach Focus

how our genes and environment influence individual differences

Biological Approach Sample Question

How do pain messages travel from the hand to the brain?

Cognitive Approach Focus

How we encode, process, store and retrieve information

Cognitive Approach Sample Question

How do we use our information in reasoning?

Evolutionary Approach Focus

How the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes

Evolutionary Approach Sample Question

How does evolution influence behavior tendencies?

Humanistic Approach Focus

How we achieve personal growth and self fufillment

Humanistic Approach Sample Question

How can we overcome barriers to our personal growth?

Psychodynamic Approach Focus

How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflict

Psychodynamic Approach Sample Questions

How can someone’s personality traits and disorders be explained by unfulfilled wishes and childhood trauma?

Social-Cultural Approach Focus

How behavior and thinking vary across situations and culture

Social-Cultural Approach Sample Question

How are we affected by the people around us, and our surrounding culture?

Psychometrics

the scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, altitudes and traits

Basic research

pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base

Applied research

Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

Difference between psychiatrists and psychologists

psychiatrists are medical doctors licensed to prescribe drugs while psychologists help people overcome their struggles

Dorothea Dix’s contribution to psychology

she was a pioneer that led the way to humane treatment of those with psychological disorders (mentally ill patients and mental institutes)

Martin Seligman

founding father of positive psychology

Positive Psychology

the scientific study of human strengths and virtues and belief that happiness is a by-product of a pleasant, engaged, and meaningful life

Cognitive psychologists

• Study human thinking

• Focus on things like memory, judgment, problem solving, and perception

Developmental psychologists

• conduct research on age-related behavioral changes

• apply scientific knowledge to education and child-care

• specialize in a specific stage of life

Educational psychologists

• study the relationship between learning and the physical and social environments

• develop strategies to help learning

Psychometric psychologists

a diverse group of scientists who investigate a variety of basic behavioral processes in humans and other animals

Social psychologists

• interested in our interactions with others

• study how our beliefs, feelings, and behaviors are affected by and influence other people

Forensic Psychologists

apply psychlogical principals to legal issues

Health Psychologists

researchers and practitioners concerned with psychology’s contribution to promoting health and preventing disease

Industrial-organizational psychologists

study the relationship between people and their working environment

Neuropsychologists

psychologists who investigate the relationship between neurological processes and behavior

Rehabilitation psychologists

researchers and practitioners who work with people who have lost optimal function after an accident, illness, or other event

School psychologists

involved in the assessment of and intervention for children in educational settings

Sports Psychologists

study the psychological factors that influence and are influenced by participation in sports and other physical activity

Clinical psychologists

• promote psychological health in individuals, groups, and organizations

• often provide therapy

Community psychologists

move beyond focusing on specific individuals or families and deal with broad problems of mental health in community settings

counseling psychologists

help people adjust to life transitions or make life-style changes