0.04 Perspectives in Psychology

Terms

German Scientist
Known as Father of Modern Psychology bc he was first to establish a laboratory specifically for studying psychology
Wrote Principles of Physiological Psychology (1873)
- used Introspection (also called internal perception), a process by which someone examines their own conscious experience as objectively as possible, making the human mind like any other aspect of nature that a scientist observed
- also wrote Volkerpsychologie (1904), which suggested psychology should include the study of culture
believed in voluntarism - that people have free will and should know the intentions behind a psychological experiment if they were participating (Danziger, 1980)

student of Wilhelm Wundt
developed Structuralism - focus on the contents of mental process rather than function

established functional psychology, also called Functionalism - focused on how mental activities helped an organism fit into its environment, and a greater emphasis was placed on how the whole mind worked, rather than one part of it (structuralism)
- believed psychology was to study the function of behavior in the world

austrailian neurologist
Introduced Psychoanalytic Theory/Psychoanalytic Perspective - focuses on the role of a person’s unconscious, as well as early childhood experiences (was discussed in his book A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis)

Gestalt Psychology: german for “whole”, ideas involve how humans tend to perceive experience in terms of the whoole, even if it could be broken down into individual parts

Behavioral perspective: shifted focus away from mental processes and more towards observable responses in 20th century

included: Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner
- believed that behavior could not only be observed, but also shaped and controlled