wave one: introspection

• the study of psychology is as old as our species

• scientifically, studying psychology seriously dates back to 1879

• that year, Wilhelm Wundt set up the first psychological laboratory

• Wundt would ask his test subjects to record their reactions to events that cause certain behaviors, otherwise known as stimuli

• Wundt created the idea of structuralism, which was the idea that the mind operates by combining subjective emotions and objective sensations

• 1890 - William James published the first psychology textbook

• James created the theory of functionalism and examined how structures, which Wundt identified, had function in our lives

• Mary Whiton Calkins - studied with William James and became president of the APA

• Margaret Floy Washburn - the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in psychology

• G. Stanley Hall - focused on the study of child development and was the first president of the APA

• introspective theories helped establish the science of psychology

wave two: gestalt psychology

• gestalt psychologists would argue against human thought and behavior being different structures

• gestalt psychology examines someone’s whole experience

• they would argue saying that the whole experience is more than the sum of the parts in the experience

  • analogy: painting is seen as just points of color, but the experience is more than that

• therapists would use this by examining both the client’s difficulty and the context in which this difficulty occurs

wave three: psychoanalysis

• Sigmund Freud created the psychoanalytic theory

• he discovered the unconscious mind, which we don’t have control over, but it can control how we think and behave

• he thought this formed through repression, which is where events and feelings cause so much anxiety/tension that the conscious mind can’t deal with then

• Freud would use dream analysis, word association, and other techniques to examine this, but was often criticized for being unscientific

wave four: behaviorism

• John Watson declared that for psychology to be a science, we should only use observable phenomena which eliminates the concept of the unconscious mind, as it is unobservable

• behaviorists believe that psychologists should only look at behavior and causes of behavior, or stimuli (environmental events) and responses (physical reactions)

• B.F. Skinner - another behaviorist who added the idea of reinforcement which is environmental stimuli that either encourage or discourage responses

wave five: multiple perspectives

• there is no one way to think of human thought and behavior in today’s age

• psychologists call themselves eclectic, which is using multiple perspectives

humanist perspective

• humanists would stress the idea of individual choice and free will. some humanists could include Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

• deterministic behaviorists think that behaviors were caused by past events, whereas humanists believe that we choose our behaviors

• this can’t be easily tested with the scientific method but it does assist therapists in aiding clients

psychoanalytic perspective

• psychologists using this perspective believe that the unconscious mind controls much of our thought and actions

• psychoanalysts would try to find impulses or memories that were pushed into the unconscious mind because of repression

• this perspective thinks that to fully understand human thought and behavior, we should examine the unconscious mind through various psychoanalytic techniques

biopsychology (or neuroscience) perspective

• biopsychologists believe that human thought and behavior are caused by biological processes

• the reaction could be caused by genes, hormones, and/or neurotransmitters in the brain

evolutionary (or Darwinian) perspective

• evolutionary psychologists use natural selection to examine human thoughts and actions

• some psychological traits could be beneficial for survival and therefore passed down to the next generation

• this is based on Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection

behavioral perspective

• behaviorists look at observable behaviors and what reactions could occur from these behaviors

• a behaviorist would look at environmental factors at how a behavior occurred

cognitive perspective

• cognitive psychologists examine human thought and behavior through how we interpret, process, and remember environmental events

• a cognitive psychologist would explain how a person behaves the way they do through how they interpret social situations

social-cultural (or sociocultural) perspective

• social-cultural psychologists look at thought and behavior through how people are affected by their culture

• a person being influenced by their cultural norms would help a social-cultural psychologist explain behaviors

biopsychosocial perspective

• this perspective implements biological, psychological, and social factors.

• a biopsychosocial psychological could agree with a cognitive psychologist, but would bring up the biological and psychological aspects