History & Systems of Psychology Exam 1 Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards standardizing key terms, major figures, theories, and methodologies from Ancient Greece through early physiological psychology.

1879

Birth of Psychology

William Wundt

Founder of Psychology

When was the birth of Psychology

1879

Who is the founder of Psychology

William Wundt

Psychology has never been a

single, unified field

Across history, psychology has been defined as the study of the:

Soul, Consciousness, Behavior, Mental processes

Different systems of psychology disagree about:

• What psychology should study

• How it should be studied

• What counts as scientific evidence

Why what Different systems of psychology disagree about matters

Changes in how psychology is defined reflect changes in what psychologists believe is most important—and what they believe can be studied scientifically.

History

• Examines how ideas develop over time.

• Focuses on context, influence, change, and continuity.

• Helps us understand why certain psychological ideas emerged when they did.

Systems

• Organized theories or approaches to psychology.

• Each ______ provides its own answer to what psychology should study and how it should study it.

• Examples include Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, Psychoanalysis, Cognitive Psychology, and Humanistic Psychology.

Psychological ideas are shaped by three major forces:

Philosophy, Science and technology, Society and culture

Philosophy

provides questions about the mind, knowledge, and behavior

Science and technology

provide new tools and methods for answering those questions

Society and culture

create problems and needs that psychology attempts to address

Key idea of Psychology as a Product of Its Time

Psychological systems often emerge when existing explanations seem inadequate, new methods become available, or changing social conditions require new answers. This helps explain why systems of psychology rise, compete, and sometimes decline.

Ancient Greek philosophers asked questions that later became central to psychology:

• What is the psyche?

• Where does knowledge come from?

• What is the relationship between mind and body?

• Why do people behave as they do?

Psyche

Could refer to the soul, self, life, character, or the principle that makes a living being alive. Ancient philosophers were not psychologists in the modern sense, but many of their questions eventually became psychological questions

Socrates Main idea

QUESTION

Socrates

• Emphasized examination of beliefs, reasoning, character, and the self.

• Used systematic questioning rather than simply providing answers.

Socratic Method

A technique of systematic questioning that begins with a claim, clarifies its meaning, tests it with examples and counterexamples, identifies contradictions or assumptions, and revises the belief when necessary.

Why Socrates matters

helped establish the importance of systematically examining how people think and what they believe

Plato Main idea

REASON

Plato

• Sensory experience can be misleading.

• True knowledge cannot come from the senses alone.

• Reason allows us to grasp more stable truths.

• Associated with nativist ideas: the mind contributes something prior to experience.

Dualism (Plato)

The philosophical view that the soul and body are importantly distinct, where the soul is associated with reason and can be considered apart from the physical body.

Why Plato matters

helped establish the idea that the mind is not simply a passive receiver of sensory information. His ideas became important precursors to later rationalist and nativist traditions.

Aristotle Main idea

OBSERVE

Aristotle

Knowledge begins with experience and observation.

• Reason is still important, but it organizes information gained through experience.

• _________ rejected Plato's separate realm of Forms.

Aristotle Psyche

The ______ is connected to the organization and functioning of a living organism rather than simply being a separate entity inside the body.

Memories can become connected through (Aristotle):

Similarity, Contrast, Contiguity

Repeated actions

contribute to habits

Why Aristotle matters

helped establish the empirical idea that understanding the mind requires observation of the natural world. His ideas became important precursors to empirical & naturalistic approaches

A major debate begins to emerge (Greek)

Does knowledge come primarily from reason or from experience?

How can we know anything about the human mind? More specifically:

Should we rely on authority, reason, or experience?

Historical progression Renaissance →

Humanism

Historical progression Scientific Revolution →

Rationalism

Historical progression Enlightenment →

Empiricism

Humanism Main idea:

THE PERSON MATTERS

Developed during the Renaissance

Humanism

Humanism Emphasized

A Renaissance approach emphasizing human potential and growth, self-understanding, subjective experience, and meaning, values, and purpose.

Humanism Shifted attention toward

human beings as worthy of study in their own right

Why humanism matters

introduced questions about meaning, personal experience, growth, and

self-understanding that would later return in Humanistic Psychology

Humanism Limitation

relied heavily on interpretation and introspection and lacked systematic

methods for determining whether an interpretation was correct

Rationalism Main idea:

TRUST REASON

Rationalism

The philosophical tradition maintaining that reliable knowledge comes through reason, some knowledge may be innate, and sensory experience can be misleading.

René Descartes

Used radical doubt, “I think, therefore I am,” Mind-body dualism, and viewed the body as a physical mechanism that could be studied according to natural laws

radical doubt

What can we actually know with certainty?

“I think, therefore I am.”

Thinking provides evidence that a thinking mind exists

Mind-body dualism

Mind and body are distinct

Mind-Body Dualism (Descartes)

René Descartes' view that the mind and body are distinct entities, treating the body as a physical mechanism governed by natural laws while keeping the mind a subject of inquiry.

Why René Descartes matters

helped make the body something that could be investigated

mechanically while keeping the mind a legitimate subject of inquiry.

Rationalism Limitation

Reason alone can generate ideas, but it does not necessarily tell us whether those ideas are true. Evidence is still needed

Empiricism Main idea

TRUST EXPERIENCE

Empiricism

• Knowledge begins with sensory experience.

• Observation and evidence are essential.

• The environment helps shape ideas and the mind.

• Empiricism developed partly in response to the problem of relying on reason alone

Why Empiricism matters

pushed the study of the mind toward observation and evidence,

helping prepare the way for scientific psychology

• Associated with tabula rasa, or the blank slate.

• Rejected innate ideas.

• Knowledge develops through experience

• If experience shapes the mind, then environment and education matter.

Tabula Rasa

John Locke's concept of the mind as a blank slate at birth, rejecting innate ideas and asserting that knowledge develops through experience.

Knowledge develops through experience

Sensation and reflection

Sensation and Reflection

John Locke's two mechanisms for knowledge development: sensation provides input from the external world, while reflection occurs when the mind examines its own operations.

Sensation

input from the external world

Reflection

the mind examines its own operations

Why John Locke matters

ideas later influenced approaches emphasizing learning, development, and the effects of the environment

David Hume

• Repeated experiences create associations.

• Associations lead us to develop expectations.

• What seems like cause and effect may partly reflect expectations learned through repeated experience.

Repeated experiences create

associations

David Hume's Sequence of Association

The process where repeated experience creates associations, which in turn produce expectations about cause and effect.

Key sequence (Hume):

Repeated experience → Association → Expectation

Why David Hume matters

emphasized how experience can build connections between ideas, an issue that later became important in the study of learning

By the late 18th century, philosophers had developed important questions and theories about the mind, but psychology was still missing something essential:

METHOD

Physiology helped move questions about the mind from

philosophical speculation toward scientific investigation

Philosophers had asked questions such as:

• How does sensation become perception?

• Why do people perceive things differently?

• How does the body produce thought, movement, and feeling?

Physiology provided tools philosophy lacked:

Measurement, Experimentation, Biological mechanisms, and Direct study of the nervous system

Key shift (Physiological Roots)

Questions about the mind increasingly required answers about the body

Friedrich Bessel

Studied differences between observers making astronomical measurements. Found consistent differences in how trained observers recorded the same events. These differences were not simply random mistakes.

Why Friedrich Bessel mattered

showed that the observer is part of the observation. Human perception and individual differences could themselves become objects of scientific study.

Theory of Specific Nerve Energies

Johannes Müller's theory stating that each sensory nerve produces a characteristic type of sensation based on which nerve is stimulated, not how it is stimulated.

Optic nerve →

experience of light

Auditory nerve →

experience of sound

Why Johannes Müller mattered

showed that our experience of the world depends partly on the nervous system itself. This helped connect mental experience to physical processes and encouraged researchvon localization.

Phrenology

Franz Joseph Gall's scientifically incorrect theory proposing that different mental traits correspond to specific brain areas and can be revealed by skull shape.

Phrenology was scientifically wrong, but one of its broader ideas became important

that different areas of the brain may have different functions

Why Phrenology mattered

encouraged interest in localization of function, while its failure also demonstrated the importance of rigorous scientific methodology

Vitalism

The belief that living organisms possess some special vital force and that life cannot be explained completely through ordinary physical processes.

Mechanism

The principle that living organisms operate according to physical laws and bodily processes can therefore be studied scientifically through cause and effect.

Luigi Galvani

Physiologist who used electrical stimulation of nerves to produce muscle movement in frog legs, showing movement could occur without conscious control.

Why Luigi Galvani mattered

supported the idea that nervous activity could be explained and investigated through physical processes rather than a mysterious vital force

Giovanni Aldini

Researcher who used electrical stimulation to produce movement in animal and human corpses, helping demonstrate that bodily processes operate according to physical mechanisms.

Localization of Brain Function

Researchers increasingly investigated whether different parts of the brain perform different functions.

Three important approaches provided evidence:

ablation, clinical observation, & electrical stimulation

Ablation Method (Pierre Flourens)

Remove or damage a brain area → observe what function is affected

Cerebrum

higher mental processes

Cerebellum

coordination

Medulla

vital functions such as heartbeat and respiration

Why Pierre Flourens mattered

provided experimental evidence that different brain regions have different functions

Clinical Observation Method (Paul Broca)

Observe a lost ability → examine the existing brain damage

Paul Broca

Studied patients with speech impairment. His patient “Tan” had damage in the left frontal lobe. Linked this region, later called Broca's area, to speech production.

Broca's Area

A region in the left frontal lobe linked to speech production by Paul Broca through clinical observation of his speech-impaired patient named Tan.

Why Paul Broca mattered

provided evidence for the localization of function in the human brain

Fritsch & Hitzig

Researchers who used electrical stimulation of different cortical areas to provide direct experimental evidence for the localization of motor function.

Electrical Stimulation Method (Fritsch & Hitzig)

Stimulate an area of the brain → observe what happens

Why Fritsch & Hitzig mattered

Their research provided direct experimental evidence for the localization of motor function.

Flourens Conclusion

Take an area away → see what stops working