Chapter 1: History and Approaches

**Wilhelm Wundt**

set up the first psychological laboratory in an apartment near the university at Leipzig, Germany.

**structuralism**

the idea that the mind operates by combining subjective emotions and objective sensations

**William James**

examined how these structures Wundt identified function in our lives (James’s theory is called **functionalism**)

**Mary Whiton Calkins**

who studied with William James and went on to become president of the American Psychological Association.

**Margaret Floy Washburn**

was the first woman to earn a PhD in psychology.

**G. Stanley Hall**

pioneered the study of child development and was the first president of the American Psychological Association.

**Gestalt Psychology**

tried to examine a person’s total experience because the way we experience the world is more than just an accumulation of various perceptual experiences.

**Sigmund Freud**

believed that this hidden part of ourselves builds up over the years through **repression**

**unconscious mind**

a part of our mind over which we do not have conscious control that determines, in part, how we think and behave.

**repression**

the pushing down into the unconscious events and feelings that cause so much anxiety and tension that our conscious mind cannot deal with them.

**John B. Watson**

along with others wanted to establish **behaviorism** as the dominant paradigm of psychology.

**B. F. Skinner**

expanded the basic ideas of behaviorism to include the idea of **reinforcement**

**reinforcement**

environmental stimuli that either encourage or discourage certain responses

**Multiple Perspective**

Many psychologists describe themselves as eclectic—drawing from multiple perspectives.

**Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers**

believe that we choose most of our behaviors and these choices are guided by physiological, emotional, or spiritual needs.

**unconscious** mind

a part of our mind that we do not have conscious control over or access to—controls much of our thought and action.

**Biopsychologists**

explain human thought and behavior strictly in terms of biological processes.

**Evolutionary psychologists**

(also sometimes called **sociobiologists**) examine human thoughts and actions in terms of **natural selection**.

**Behaviorists**

explain human thought and behavior in terms of **conditioning**.

**Cognitive psychologists**

examine human thought and behavior in terms of how we interpret, process, and remember environmental events.

**Social-cultural psychologists**

look at how our thoughts and behaviors vary between cultures.