Exam 1

Why study history?

• psychology is a new science and change is rapid

• many of the original problems are still present

• avoiding errors of the past

• unity within a very diverse field

• critical thinking from a broader perspective

• better view of the future of psychology

Historiography

study of how historians write history

Historians

explain events and make inferences about their lasting significance

• more than catalogue past events

Two Sources of Scientific Progress

• personalistic influences

• naturalistic influences

Personalistic Influences

• “great person” concept

• progress is driven by individuals

• psychobiography of theorists

• problem: “sleeper” discoveries

  • problem: simultaneous discoveries

Naturalistic Influences

• “Zeitgeist” concept

• events are afforded by the time period

• progress is driven by cultural context

• effects of world events and leaders

• professors and editors influence what is learned by next generation

• interactions of person, place, and time

Thomas Kuhn

Ph.D in physics

• interest in history + philosophy of science

Paradigm

widely accepted model for thinking about and solving the problems of a field/study

• overused + not the same as theory or method

• define boundaries of field

• determines questions to be asked

• accepted and expected methodology

• determines interpretation of findings

• directed at specialized audiences

Kuhn’s Crises and Revolutions

• paradigms and revolutions in science

• behaviorism and psychoanalysis

• pre-paradigm periods

• schools of thought

Extinct Schools of Thoughts Psychology

• structuralism (1879-1927)

• functionalism (1890-1913)

• psychoanalysis (1895-1939)

• gestalt psychology (1910-1947)

• humanistic (1951-1983)

Modern Schools of Thoughts Psychology

• behaviorism (1913-)

• psychodynamic (1940-)

• cognitive (1956-)

• evolutionary (1990-)

• positive psychology (2000-)

Experimental Psychology

• seeks general laws

• manipulated conditions

• control by random assignment

• proximal - dynamic effects

• questions about generalizability

Correlational Psychology

• attends to individual differences

• natural conditions

• control by partial correlation

• distal - static influences

• question of real causation

Experimental and Correlational Psychology

• do NOT confuse with statistics used

• interest in central tendency vs. interest in variance

• regard “error” differently - a nuisance vs a variable of interest

• some studies combine both approaches

Areas of Modern Psychology

• cognitive/perception

• comparative

• biopsychology/neuroscience

• developmental

• social

• personality

• clinical

• industrial-organizational

• counseling/school

Aristotle

• wrote about logic, rhetoric, aesthetics, astronomy, biology, ethics, politics and psychology

• observation and inductive reasoning

• knowledge is the accumulation of raw sense perceptions

• memory as associations between ideas

• motivation is driven by pleasure and pain

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• Jesuit educated, devout Catholic

• Mathematician (Cartesian system)

• founder of western philosophy

• Artistole’s realist theory of perception replaced by primary-secondary senses

• consciousness as an object of study

• tutoring Queen Christina

Monist Position

two types: all body (materialism), all mind (mentalism)

Dualist Position

why was/is this position preferred

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• mind-body dualism

• body is entirely subject to mechanism

• mind is subject to divine influence (soul)

• mechanism represented in automata

• reflex action theory

• pineal gland as mind-body nexus

• doctrine of derived and innate ideas

Innate Ideas

god, math, infinity and self

John Locke (1632-1704)

• concerned with improving society by promoting equality and education

• tabula rasa

• all ideas are derived: knowledge domes from experience

• associationism

• empiricism and the British school

Tabula Rasa

people are born as a “blank slate”

What is learned a - and what is innate?

• empiricism and nativism

Do we really have free will?

determinism vs voluntarism

Mechanism

behavior and thought are explained by natural laws

Associationism

all knowledge is comprised of links between perception and reason, between experience and ideas

Reductionism

there is usually a simpler level of explanation

Positivism

science should focus only on what is directly observable

Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.)

• father of medicine sought naturalistic causes for illness and madness

• humoral theory adapted from the “four element” theory of matter

Four Element Theory of Matter

• fire = blood

• water = phlegm

• earth = black bile

• air = yellow bile

Galen (129-216 A.D.)

pioneering anatomist of the body and the nervous system

Humoral Theory of Human Temperaments

blood = sanguine

phlegm = phlegmatic

blackbile = melancholic

yellow = choleric

Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828)

• identified brain as the organ of the mind

• identified gray matter vs white matter

• anatomy of contralateral coconnections identified corpus callossum and propesed distinct roles of two hemispheres

Phrenology

differences in mental functions were innate and measurable

Localization of Function

• Franz Gall and Phrenology

• Muller’s doctrine of specific nerve energies

• animal experimentation: Pierre Flourens and ablation

• Electrical stimulation: Fritsch and Hitzig

• Clinical Method (case studies): Phineas Gage, Paul Broca

John Hughlings-Jackson

hierarchical organization of function

• primary and association cortex

  • executive functions; inhibition of primary areas

Karl Lashey

search for the engram

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)

• speed of neural impulse

• trichromatic theory of color vision

• audition of tones

Ernst Weber (1795-1878)

• absolute thresholds

• two-point thresholds

  • just noticeable differences

Gustav Fechner (1801-1887)

• University of Leipzig

• Suffered from severe neurosis

• Inspiration to “bridge the material and mental worlds”

• Elements of Psychophysics (1860)

• Absolute and differential thresholds

• Method of average error

• Predecessor of Wundt’s new psychology

Sociocultural Developments

• personal autonomy and self-expression

• increased literacy and prosperity

• greater interiority, individuality, and focus on self-improvement

• changes in work life, marriage, family structure and relationships with chilidren

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

• Doctorate in physiology from the University of Heidelberg in 1855

• First teaching job at Heidelberg

• Assistant to von Helmholtz

• Theory of Sensory Perception (1862)

• 1863: began independent research

• “Recent Advances in the Field of Physiological Psychology” (1867)

Whny is Wundt the “Founder”

• Vision of a separate discipline

• Founded independent department/lab

• Promoter and organizer of new field

• Raised money

• Developed novel method of experimentation (introspection)

• Mentor to many students

Principles of Physiological Psychology

first psychology textbook in 1873

University of Psychology

first psychology laboratory and first department of psychology in 1879

Philosophische Studien

first psychology journal in 1881

Wundt’s Psychology

Main topic: Consciousness

method of inquiry: INTROSPECTION

• reaction times to determine mental chronometry

• mediate vs. immediate experience: remembering/conceptualizing vs. real experiencing

Tridimenional Theory of Emotion

• pleasure v displeasure

• tension v relaxation

• excitement v depression

  • Modern derivative: The Circumplex of Model of Affect (Russell, 1980)

Voluntarism

mind is agentic organizer of senses

Doctrine of Apperception

creative synthesis of mental elements

• later this was an important concept in assessment of individual differences

• Volkersychologie (Cultural Psychology)

Wundt’s Two Psychologies

experimental psychology and cultural (volkerpsychologie) psychology

Experimental Psychology

• sensation and perception

• studied in the laboratory

Cultural (Volkerpsychologie) Psychology

• developmental and social

• studied in the natural field

Fate of Wundt’s Psychology

• German funding for other departments of psychology were slower to develop

• Objections from philosophy

• Criticisms of introspection from natural sciences

• Politics and wars

• Movement of psychology to US and UK

Titchener’s Structuralism

• Psychology as “science of the mind”

• Analysis of the structure of the collective elements of sensation

• All consciousness derives from experience → empiricism

• Elements identified by Systematic Experimental Introspection

• SEI method to avoid stimulus error

Titchener’s Structuralism

• Consciousness is immediate experience

• Stimulus error as mediate experience

• Mind is accumulated experiences

• Mind automatically organizes sensations into experience – the “reagent”

• Opposed to Wundt’s doctrine of apperception, Cultural Psychology, and all practical applications

Titchener vs. Wundt

• Qualitative over quantitative data

• Analysis over synthesis of elements

• Passive over active processes

Demise of Structuralism

All of the early schools of thought in psychology were reactions against structuralism

• Gestalt Psychology

• Psychoanalytic Theory

• Behaviorism

• Functionalism

William James (1842-1910)

• Born in New York City, wealthy family

• Attended Harvard, studied physiology

• Trip to Germany to learn psychophysics with von Helmholtz, 1867-1868

• M.D. from Harvard in 1869, at age 27

• Beset with many symptoms and

  illnesses – including neurasthenia

• Pragmatism and school of functionalism

William James’ Principles of Psychology

• 1890 two volume Principles of Psychology

• 28 chapters – wide scope of topics

• Stream of consciousness

• 3 selves: material, social, and spiritual

  • “I” (pure ego) versus “me”]

• The emotions: James-Lange theory

• Habit and will

William James (1842-1910)

• 1890 – Principles of Psychology

• 1892 – Abridged version of Principles:

  Psychology: Briefer Course

• 1892 resigned Harvard Laboratory

• Interest in mysticism and the paranormal

• 1902 – Varieties of Religious Experience

• President of APA in 1894 and 1904

• Died of heart attack at age 68