History/Systems of Psychology Exam 2 (Savell)

Associationism

The belief that the laws of association provide the fundamental principles by which all mental phenomena can be explained.

Bain, Alexander (1818-1903)

The first to attempt to relate known physiological facts to psychological phenomena. He also wrote the first psychology texts, and he founded psychology's first journal (1876). He explained voluntary behavior in much the same way that modern learning theorists later explained trial-and-error behavior. Finally, he added the law of compound association and the law of constructive association to the older, traditional laws of association.

Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)

Said that the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain governed most human behavior. Bentham also said that the best society was one that did the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Said that the only thing we experience directly is our own perceptions, or secondary qualities. offered an empirical explanation of the perception of distance, saying that we learn to associate the sensations caused by the convergence and divergence of the eyes with different distances. He denied materialism, saying instead that reality exists because God perceives it. We can trust our senses to reflect God's perceptions because God would not create a sensory system that would deceive us.

Complex Ideas

Configurations of simple ideas.

Comte, Auguste (1798-1857)

The founder of positivism and coiner of the term sociology. He felt that cultures passed through three stages in the way they explained phenomena: the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific.

Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de (1714-1780)

Maintained that all human mental attributes could be explained using only the concept of sensation and that it was therefore unnecessary to postulate an autonomous mind.

Empiricism

The belief that all knowledge is derived from experience, especially sensory experience.

Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)

Saw humans as nothing but complex, physical machines, and he saw no need to assume a nonphysical mind. ______ had much in common with Hobbes.

Hartley, David (1705-1757)

Combined empiricism and associationism with rudimentary physiological notions.

Helvetius, Claude-Adrien (1715-1771)

Elaborated the implications of empiricism and sensationalism for education. That is, a person's intellectual development can be determined by controlling his or her experiences.

Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Believed that the primary motive in human behavior is the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. For _____ the function of government is to satisfy as many human needs as possible and to prevent humans from fighting with each other. _____ believed that all human activity, including mental activity, could be reduced to atoms in motion; therefore, he was a materialist.

Hume, David (1711-1776)

Agreed with Berkeley that we could experience only our own subjective reality but disagreed with Berkeley's contention that we could assume that our perceptions accurately reflect the physical world because God would not deceive us. For _____, we can be sure of nothing. Even the notion of cause and effect, which is so important to Newtonian physics, is nothing more than a habit of thought. _____ distinguished between impressions, which are vivid, and ideas, which are faint copies of impressions.

Idea

A mental event that lingers after impressions or sensations have ceased.

Imagination

According to Hume, the power of the mind to arrange and rearrange ideas into countless configurations.

Impressions

According to Hume, the relatively strong mental experiences caused by sensory stimulation. For Hume, impression is essentially the same thing as what others called sensation.

La Mettrie, Julien de (1709-1751)

Believed humans were machines that differed from other animals only in complexity. _______ believed that so-called mental experiences are nothing but movements of particles in the brain. He also believed that accepting materialism would result in a better, more humane world.

Law of Cause and Effect

According to Hume, if in our experience one event always precedes the occurrence of another event, we tend to believe that the former event is the cause of the latter.

Law of Compound Association

According to Bain, contiguous or similar events form compound ideas and are remembered together. If one or a few elements of the compound idea are experienced, they may elicit the memory of the entire compound.

Law of Constructive Association

According to Bain, the mind can rearrange the memories of various experiences so that the creative associations formed are different from the experiences that gave rise to the associations.

Law of Contiguity

The tendency for events that are experienced together to be remembered together.

Law of Resemblance

According to Hume, the tendency for our thoughts to run from one event to similar events, the same as what others call the law, or principle, of similarity.

Locke, John (1632-1704)

An empiricist who denied the existence of innate ideas but who assumed many nativistically determined powers of the mind. _____ distinguished between primary qualities, which cause sensations that correspond to actual attributes of physical bodies, and secondary qualities, which cause sensations that have no counterparts in the physical world. The types of ideas postulated by _____ included those caused by sensory stimulation, those caused by reflection, simple ideas, and complex ideas, which were composites of simple ideas.

Mach, Ernst (1838-1916)

Proposed a brand of positivism based on the phenomenological experiences of scientists. Because scientists, or anyone else, never experience the physical world directly, the scientist's job is to precisely describe the relationships among mental phenomena, and to do so without the aid of metaphysical speculation.

Mental Chemistry

The process by which individual sensations can combine to form a new sensation that is different from any of the individual sensations that constitute it.

Mill, James (1773-1836)

Maintained that all mental events consisted of sensations and ideas (copies of sensations) held together by association. No matter how complex an idea was, ____ felt that it could be reduced to simple ideas.

Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873)

Disagreed with his father James that all complex ideas could be reduced to simple ideas. ______ proposed a process of mental chemistry according to which complex ideas could be distinctly different from the simple ideas (elements) that constituted them. _____believed strongly that a science of human nature could be and should be developed.

Paradox of the Basins

Locke's observation that warm water will feel either hot or cold depending on whether a hand is first placed in hot water or cold water. Because water cannot be hot and cold at the same time, temperature must be a secondary, not a primary, quality.

Positivism

The contention that science should study only that which can be directly experienced. For Comte, that was publicly observed events or overt behavior. For Mach, it was the sensations of the scientist.

Primary Laws

According to J.S. Mill, the general laws that determine the overall behavior of events within a system.

Quality

According to Locke, that aspect of a physical object that has the power to produce an idea.

Reflection

According to Locke, the ability to use the powers of the mind to creatively rearrange ideas derived from sensory experience.

Scientism

The almost religious belief that science can answer all questions and solve all problems.

Secondary Laws

According to J.S. Mill, the laws that interact with primary laws and determine the nature of individual events under specific circumstances.

Sensation

The rudimentary mental experience that results from the stimulation of one or more sense receptors.

Simples Ideas

The mental remnants of sensations.

Spontaneous Activity

According to Bain, behavior that is simply emitted by an organism rather than being elicited by external stimulation.

Utilitarianism

The belief that the best society or government is one that provides the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number of individuals. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were all utilitarians.

Vibratiuncles

According to Hartley, the vibrations that linger in the brain after the initial vibrations caused by external stimulation cease.

Voluntary Behavior

According to Bain, under some circumstances, an organism's spontaneous activity leads to pleasurable consequences. After several such occurrences, the organism will come to voluntarily engage in the behavior that was originally spontaneous.

The Absolute

According to Hegel, the totality of the universe. A knowledge of the Absolute constitutes the only true knowledge, and separate aspects of the universe can be understood only in terms of their relationship to the Absolute. Through the dialectic process, human history and the human intellect progress toward the Absolute.

Active Mind

A mind equipped with categories or operations that are used to analyze, organize, or modify sensory information and to discover abstract concepts or principles not contained within sensory experience. The rationalists postulated such a mind.

Anthropology

Kant's proposed study of human behavior. Such a study could yield practical information that could be used to predict and control behavior.

Apperception

Conscious experience.

Apperceptive Mass

According to Herbart, the cluster of interrelated ideas of which we are conscious at any given moment.

Categorical Imperative

According to Kant, the moral directive that we should always act in such a way that the maxims governing our moral decisions could be used as a guide for everyone else's moral behavior.

Categories of Thought

Those innate attributes of the mind that Kant postulated to explain subjective experiences we have that cannot be explained in terms of sensory experience alone - for example, the experiences of time, causality, and space.

Commonsense Philosophy

The position, first proposed by Reid, that we can assume the existence of the physical world and of human reasoning powers because it makes common sense to do so.

Dialectic Process

According to Hegel, the process involving an original idea, the negation of the original idea, and a synthesis of the original idea and its negation. The synthesis then becomes the starting point (the idea) of the next cycle of the developmental process.

Direct Realism

The belief that sensory experience represents physical reality exactly as it is. Also called naive realism.

Double Aspectism

Spinoza's contention that material substance and consciousness are two inseparable aspects of everything in the universe, including humans. Also called psychophysical double aspectism and double aspect monism.

Faculty Psychology

The belief that the mind consists of several powers or faculties.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770-1831)

Like Spinoza, believed the universe to be an interrelated unity. _____ called this unity the Absolute, and he thought that human history and the human intellect progress via the dialectic process toward the Absolute.

Herbart, Johann Friedrich (1776-1841)

Likened ideas to Leibniz's monads by saying that they had energy and a consciousness of their own. Also, according to _____, ideas strive for consciousness. Those ideas compatible with a person's apperceptive mass are given conscious expression, whereas those that are not remain below the limen in the unconscious mind.______ is considered to be one of the first mathematical and educational psychologists.

Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)

Believed that experiences such as those of unity, causation, time, and space could not be derived from sensory experience and therefore must be attributable to innate categories of thought. He also believed that morality is, or should be, governed by the categorical imperative. He did not believe psychology could become a science because subjective experience could not be quantified mathematically.

Law of Contiguity

Leibniz's contention that there are no major gaps or leaps in nature. Rather, all differences in nature are characterized by small gradations.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von (1646-1716)

Believed that the universe consists of indivisible units called monads. God had created the arrangement of the monads, and therefore this was the best of all possible worlds. If only a few minute monads were experienced, petites perceptions resulted, which were unconscious. If enough minute monads were experienced at the same time, apperception occurred, which was a conscious experience.

Limen

For Leibniz and Herbart, the border between the conscious and the unconscious mind. Also called threshold.

Monads

According to Leibniz, the indivisible units that compose everything in the universe. All monads are characterized by consciousness but some more so than others. Inert matter possesses only dim consciousness, and then with increased ability to think clearly come plants, animals, humans, and, finally, God. The goal of each monad is to think as clearly as it is capable of doing. Because humans share monads with matter, plants, and animals, sometimes our thoughts are less than clear.

Pantheism

The belief that God is present everywhere and in everything.

Passive Mind

A mind whose contents are determined by sensory experience. It contains a few mechanistic principles that organize, store, and generalize sensory experiences. The British empiricists and the French sensationalists tended to postulate such a mind.

Petites Perceptions

According to Leibniz, a perception that occurs below the level of awareness because only a few monads are involved.

Preestablished Harmony

Leibniz's contention that God had created the monads composing the universe in such a way that a continuous harmony existed among them. This explained why mental and bodily events were coordinated.

Psychic Mechanics

The term used by Herbart to describe how ideas struggle with each other to gain conscious expression.

Psychophysical Parallelism

The contention that bodily and mental events are correlated but that there is no interaction between them.

Rationalism

The philosophical position postulating an active mind that transforms sensory information and is capable of understanding abstract principles or concepts not attainable from sensory information alone.

Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Believed that we could trust our sensory impressions to accurately reflect physical reality because it makes common sense to do so. ______ attributed several rational faculties to the mind and was therefore a faculty psychologist.

Spinoza, Baruch (1632-1677)

Equated God with nature and said that everything in nature, including humans, consisted of both matter and consciousness. _____ proposed solution to the mind-body problem is called double aspectism. The most pleasurable life, according to ______, is one lived in accordance with the laws of nature. Emotional experience is desirable because it is controlled by reason; passionate experience is undesirable because it is not. ______ deterministic view of human cognition, activity, and emotion did much to facilitate the development of scientific psychology.

Aesthetic Stage

According to Kierkegaard, the first stage in the growth toward full personal freedom. At this stage, the person delights in many experiences but does not exercise his or her freedom.

Apollonian Aspect of Human Nature

According to Nietzsche, that part of us that seeks order, tranquility, and predictability.

Convictions

According to Nietzsche, beliefs that are thought to correspond to some absolute truth and, as such, are immutable and dangerous.

Dionysian Aspect of Nature

According to Nietzsche, the part of us that seeks chaos, adventure, and passionate experiences.

Enlightenment

A period during which Western philosophy embraced the belief that unbiased reason or the objective methods of science could reveal the principles governing the universe. Once discovered, these principles could be used for the betterment of humankind.

Ethical Stage

According to Kierkegaard, the second stage in the growth toward full personal freedom. At this stage, the person makes ethical decisions but uses principles developed by others as a guide in making them.

Existentialism

The philosophy that examines the meaning in life and stresses the freedom that humans have to choose their own destiny. Like romanticism, existentialism stresses subjective experience and the uniqueness of each individual.

General Will

According to Rousseau, the innate tendency to live harmoniously with one's fellow humans.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832)

Believed that life is characterized by choices between opposing forces and that much about humans is forever beyond scientific understanding.

Kierkegaard, Soren (1813-1855)

Believed that religion had become too rational and mechanical. He believed that a relationship with God should be an intensely personal and a highly emotional experience, like a love affair. Taking the existence of God on faith makes God a living truth for a person; thus, _______ contended that truth is subjectivity.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (1844-1900)

Claimed that humans could no longer rely on religious superstition or metaphysical speculation as guides for living; instead, they must determine life's meaning for themselves. By exercising their will to power, people can continue to grow and overcome conventional morality. The term superman described those who experimented with life and feelings and engaged in continuous self-overcoming.

Noble Savage

Rousseau's term for a human not contaminated by society. Such a person, he believed, would live in accordance with his or her true feelings, would not be selfish, and would live harmoniously with other humans.

Opinions

According to Nietzsche, beliefs that are tentative and modifiable in light of new information and, therefore, reasonable.

Perspectivism

Nietzsche's contention that there are no universal truths, only individual perspectives.

Phenomenology

Refers to Goethe's assertion that meaningful whole experiences are the proper unit of analysis when studying human nature.

Religious Stage

According to Kierkegaard, the third stage in the growth toward full personal freedom. At this stage, the person recognizes his or her freedom and chooses to enter into a personal relationship with God.

Romanticism

The philosophy that stresses the uniqueness of each person and that values irrationality much more than rationality. According to the romantic, people can and should trust their own natural impulses as guides for living.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)

Considered the father of modern romanticism, ______believed that human nature is basically good and that the best society is one in which people subjugate their individual will to the general will. The best education occurs when education is individualized and when a student's natural abilities and curiosity are recognized.

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860)

Believed that the will to survive is the most powerful human motive. Life is characterized by a cycle of needs and need satisfaction, and need satisfaction simply postpones death. The most people can do is to minimize the irrational forces operating within them by sublimating or repressing those forces.

Supermen

The name Nietzsche gave to those individuals who have the courage to rise above conventional morality and herd conformity and to follow their own inclinations instead. The German word Ubermensch can be translated to "overman," "higherman," or "superman."

Will to Power

According to Nietzsche, the basic human need to become stronger, more complete, and more superior. While satisfying the will to power, a person continually becomes something other than he or she was.

Will to Survive

According to Schopenhauer, the powerful need to perpetuate one's life by satisfying one's biological needs.

Absolute Threshold

The smallest amount of stimulation that can be detected by an organism.

Adequate Stimulation

Stimulation to which a sense modality is maximally sensitive.

Bell, Charles (1774-1842)

Discovered, in modern times, the distinction between sensory and motor nerves.

Bell-Magendie Law

There are two types of nerves: sensory nerves carrying impulses from the sense receptors to the brain and motor nerves carrying impulses from the brain to the muscles and glands of the body.

Broca, Paul (1824-1880)

Found evidence that part of the left frontal lobe of the cortex is specialized for speech production or articulation.

Broca's Area

The speech area on the left frontal lobe side of the cortex (the inferior frontal gyros).

Clinical Method

The technique that Broca used. It involves first determining a behavior disorder in a living patient and then, after the patient had died, locating the part of the brain responsible for the behavior disorder.

Differential Threshold

The amount that stimulation needs to change before a difference in that stimulation can be detected.

Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies

Each sensory nerve, no matter how it is stimulated, releases an energy specific to that nerve.

Du Bois-Reymond, Emil (1818-1896)

Is considered the father of electrophysiology. Like Helmholtz he measured the speed of the nerve impulse. He also discovered the electrical nature of the action potential.