History of Psychology: Key Figures and Paradigms

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, figures, and concepts from the lecture notes on the history and movements in psychology.

Wilhelm Wundt

German scientist credited as the first to be called a psychologist; established the first psychology laboratory (Leipzig, 1879); promoted psychology as a science studying conscious experience; used introspection and reaction-time measures; wrote Principles of Physiological Psychology (1873) and Volkerpsychologie (1904).

Structuralism

Early school led by Edward Titchener focused on the contents of mental processes rather than their function; built on Wundt’s ideas and used introspection.

Introspection (internal perception)

A method in which individuals examine their own conscious experiences as objectively as possible; central to early structuralism and Wundt’s approach.

Voluntarism

Idea that people have free will and should know the intentions behind a psychological experiment when participating.

Reaction time

Measurement of the speed of responses to stimuli; used in Wundt’s lab to study the timing of conscious processing.

William James

American psychologist who helped establish functionalism; emphasized studying the function of behavior and adaptation to the environment; used both introspection and objective measures.

Functionalism

School of thought that emphasizes the function of mental activities and how they help an organism adapt to its environment; contrasted with structuralism.

Darwinian natural selection

Theory that traits improving survival and reproduction become more common; used to explain adaptation in functionalism.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalytic theory; focused on the unconscious mind, dream analysis, and early childhood experiences.

Psychoanalytic theory

Perspective emphasizing the role of the unconscious and early childhood experiences in shaping behavior and personality.

Gestalt psychology

Approach stressing that perception is more than the sum of parts; emphasis on wholes and relationships among parts; founders: Wertheimer, Koffka, Köhler.

Wertheimer

One of the founders of Gestalt psychology who helped introduce Gestalt principles in the early 20th century.

Koffka

Gestalt psychologist who helped bring Gestalt ideas to the United States.

Köhler

Gestalt psychologist who contributed to the development of Gestalt theory and its applications.

Pavlov

Russian physiologist known for classical conditioning; demonstrated how a neutral stimulus can become associated with a reflex through pairing with an unconditioned stimulus.

Classical conditioning

Form of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response (Pavlov’s dogs).

John B. Watson

American psychologist and founder of behaviorism; argued for studying observable behavior and rejecting introspection as unscientific.

Behaviorism

Perspective focusing on observable behavior and its modification through learning, environment, and reinforcement; dominated early 20th-century psychology.

B. F. Skinner

Behaviorist who emphasized reinforcement and punishment as key to shaping behavior; developed the operant conditioning chamber (Skinner box).

Operant conditioning

Learning based on consequences; reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior, while punishment decreases it.

Maslow

American psychologist who proposed a hierarchy of needs culminating in self-actualization; emphasized positive aspects and human potential.

Carl Rogers

Humanistic psychologist who developed client-centered therapy; key therapist features include unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy.

Humanism

Psychology perspective that highlights innate human goodness, personal growth, and the whole person; reaction against Freud’s determinism and behaviorism’s reductionism.

Cognitive revolution

Movement in the 1950s–60s that revived interest in mental processes; interdisciplinary influences from linguistics, neuroscience, and computer science; Neisser’s Cognitive Psychology (1967) helped establish it.

Noam Chomsky

Linguist who criticized behaviorism and argued for incorporating mental functioning into psychology; a key figure in spurring the cognitive revolution.

WEIRD

Acronym for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic; critique that most psychological research is conducted on WEIRD populations and may not generalize to other groups.

Margaret Floy Washburn

First woman to earn a PhD in psychology (1894); author of The Animal Mind, a foundational text in comparative psychology.

Mary Whiton Calkins

Prominent female psychologist who completed requirements for a PhD at Harvard but was denied the degree; memory researcher and contributor to self-psychology.

Mary Cover Jones

Early psychologist who unconditioned fear in Little Peter, a precursor to later work on fear reduction.

Francis Sumner

First African American to receive a PhD in psychology (1920); founded a psychology program at Howard University.

Clark doll study

Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Clark’s research on African American children’s doll preferences; influential in Brown v. Board of Education desegregation.