Historical backgrounds and Fields

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Psychology

is the study of behavior and mental processes; it is both a combination of the biological and the psychological.

Mental Processes

The internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior: sensations, perception, dreams, thoughts, feelings, etc.

Behavior

What organisms do and how or why they do

what they do.

Sensations

These are your senses—it is the process of your body receiving outside signals and stimuli from your eyes, nose, ears, tongue, etc.

Perception

This is how your brain interprets that information being provided. You may perceive some things as happy, or sad, or hostile, or good, or bad, etc.

1879

When was psychology an official science or field of study?

philosophers 

Who linked the idea of the physical body and the mind? 

Ancient Hebrew writers

drew connections between feelings and parts of the body, such as love being felt near the heart and fear in the stomach.

Buddha

(500 CE) influence of sensation and perception on ideas

(i.e. senses can change moods, such as anger, which changes how you perceive and act)

Socrates and Plato

(400s BCE) theorized that the mind and body were separable, and that our minds were born with certain, innate knowledge that required unlocking.

Aristotle

(300s BCE) argued the opposite: that we obtain knowledge and habits through observation and experience (not simply through unlocking what we already have)

nature

knowledge and mind are innately bestowed,

nurture

knowledge and mind are shaped by our environment

Descartes

(Nature) Descartes believed the brain’s fluids contained ‘animal spirits’ that commanded muscles, and that these ‘spirits’ determined behavior.

Bacon

(Nurture) held that we humans learn as we go, and are forever trying to organize and make patterns of everything—even randomness.

Locke

(Nurture) held that we are all born as ‘blank slates,’ which are molded by our surroundings and education.

Wilhelm Wundt

Psychology developed into its own field of science under when he studied the longer reaction time of hearing vs. perceiving a sound.

G. Stanley Hall and John Hopkins

Who did Wundt Wundt explore the idea of sensation and perception with? 

Structuralism

(Wundt) The scientific search for the structural elements of the mind. People reflect internally on their thoughts or feelings after a stimulus

(smell, taste, touch, etc.). E.g. – what people think of or feel when they smell a rose, or rotten meat

This branch quickly dismissed as unreliable as results varied from person to person, and no consistent structural perceptions were found.

Functionalism

(William James) evolution and biological inheritance on the human mind and behavior. Believed that sensations like hearing, taste, touch, simple emotions, and consciousness were evolutionary mutations that helped our ancestors survive.

consciousness

(William James) think about the past, allowing them to remember benefits, dangers, and plan for the future. Those individuals survived and then passed on their traits to the next generations.

Mary Whiton Calkins

Denied a PhD simply for being a woman despite excellent work.

Margaret Washburn

The first female PhD in psychology wouldn’t be granted until 1894.

Sigmund Freud

Emerged in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Originally a physician, Freud witnessed a colleague treat a patient’s mental illness by listening to the thoughts and problems of the patient. Freud then made a connection between our minds, bodies, and our experiences.

unconsciously

Freud asserted that our behaviors, thoughts, and perceptions are shaped__ by our past and our primitive instincts. Our unconscious mind’s motives and desires are unknown to us, and are constantly being repelled and blocked by our conscious mind.

Nurture

Freud re-opened the ____ argument,

as well as the idea that our minds and bodies have aspects that are beyond our awareness.