AP Psychology - Chapter 1.1

Psychology

scientific study of the behaviour and mental processes of humans and animals

Cognition

how the mind processes and retains information; “think’

Behaviour

refers to almost any activity that can be observed or measured

Introspection

an objective approach to describing one’s mental content; looking inward to observe one's own psychological process

What did John Locke do in 1689?

 wrote an essay entitled An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

What did John Locke argue in his essay?

the mind at birth is a tabula rasa (blank slate) on which experiences are written.

What year do most historians note as the birth of psychology as a science?

1879

Who established the first psychological laboratory?

Wilhelm Wundt

What did Wundt and his two assistants measure?

the time lag between when people heard a ball hit a platform and when they pressed the key of a telegraph machine

What was Wundt named?

‘the father of psychology”

What happened shortly after Wundt’s experiments?

this new science of Psychology became organized into different branches, or schools of thought

Who founded structuralism?

Wilhelm Wundt (and his student Edward Titchener)

What did structuralism attempt to do?

define the makeup of conscious experience by dividing it into 3 basic elements

What are the 3 basic elements of structuralism?

• Sensations - sight, taste, smell, etc. (objective = real)

• Feelings - emotional responses (subjective = personal; of the mind)

• Mental images - memories and dreams

What are the problems with structuralism?

results are personal -- they vary from person to person and experience to experience

Who founded Functionalism?

William James

What did Functionalism propose? What was James famous for? Fell out of favor but came back as what?

• Proposed that more adaptive behavior patterns are learned and maintained while less adaptive patterns tend to discontinue

• James is also famous for authoring the first Psychology textbook Principles of Psychology (1890)

• This school of thought soon fell into disfavor, but re-surfaced in the later 20th century as evolutionary psychology

Who founded Behaviorism?

John B. Watson

What did Behaviorism define psychology as? Years?

• Defines 'Psychology' as the objective study of observable behavior and the study of relationships between stimuli and responses, without reference to mental processes

  • In the 1920s, behaviorism began to overpower introspection, and remained the model of psychology until the 1960s

Stimuli

a feature in the environment that is detected and leads to a change in behavior; triggers a response

Response

a movement or observable reaction to a stimulus

Reinforcement

a stimulus that follows a response and increases the frequency of the response

Who founded Gestalt Psychology?

Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler

What did Gestalt Psychology emphasize?

• Emphasizes the tendency to organize perceptions into wholes (greater than the sum of its parts).

Insight

the sudden reorganization of perceptions allowing the sudden solution of a problem

Who founded Psychoanalytic Psychology?

Sigmund Freud

What does Psychoanalytic (Freudian) Psychology emphasize? What the contemporary approach to Freud’s theory called?

• Emphasized the importance of unconscious motives and conflicts as determinants of human behavior

• The contemporary approach using Freud’s theory is referred to as psychodynamic thinking - the notion that underlying forces of personality determine our thoughts, feelings, and behavior

Who founded Humanistic Psychology?

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

What does Humanistic Psychology state?

Says people are motivated by the conscious desire for personal growth

Name the six schools of psychology.

Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, Gestalt Psychology, Psychoanalytic Psychology, & Humanistic Psychology.