CHAPTER 1: THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOLOGY

ORIGINS Word comes from Greek psyche (soul, spirit, mind) and logos (study of) Stems from philosophy and physiology Not made an independent science until 1879

WILHELM WUNDT Founder of Psychology Est. 1st formal laboratory for research in psych at University of Leipzig in 1879 Est. 1st journal dedicated to publishing research on psych in 1881

WUNDT Believed psych should be modeled after physics and chemistry Believed we should focus on consciousness (awareness of immediate experience) So, psych became the study of conscious experience Focused on the mind and mental processes

WUNDT Wrote over 54,000 pages of books and articles Students of Wundt spread around the world USA saw 24 schools of psychology open in 10 years

G. STANLEY HALL Student of Wundt Est. America’s 1st psych research lab at Johns Hopkins (1883) 1887: launched 1st journal in America 1892: helped start the APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

STRUCTURALISM VS. FUNCTIONALISM The first schools of thought in psych

STRUCTURALISM Edward Titchener was leader of this movement Idea based on notion that purpose of psych is to analyze consciousness into its basic parts and investigate how those parts are related Identify and examine fundamental components of conscious experience (sensations, feelings, and images)

STRUCTURALISM Concerned mostly with sensation and perception in vision, hearing, and touch Used INTROSPECTION: careful, systematic self-observation of one’s own conscious exp. Subject given stimulus and asked to analyze their exp

FUNCTIONALISM Began by William James Believed psych should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than structure James wrote Principles of Psychology (1890), one of the most influential books in psych

FUNCTIONALISM James applied theory of natural selection to consciousness Believed consciousness was a continuous flow of thoughts He called this “stream of consciousness”

FUNCTIONALISM Interested in how people adapt behavior to the world around them This led to new subjects in psych Mental testing, patterns of development in children, education practices This attracted women to psych

STRUCTURALISM VS. FUNCTIONALISM Structuralism strengthened commitment to lab research Functionalism left a more lasting mark on psych It paved the way for new schools of thought that dominate modern psych: applied psychology and behaviorism

BEHAVIORISM Founded by John B. Watson Def: theoretical orientation based on the idea that scientific psych should study only observable behavior This was a redefinition of what psych should be about

BEHAVIORISM Watson believed the scientific method rested on verifiability Can only be verified with observation We can’t observe the human mind so psych must be a science of behavior

BEHAVIORISM BEHAVIOR: any observable response or activity by an organism Watson addressed the issue of nature vs. nurture Nature: hereditary Nurture: environment and experience Watson favored nurture, which gave behaviorism a strong environmental slant

BEHAVIORISM Goal is to relate behaviors (responses) to observable events in the environment (stimuli) STIMULUS: any detectable input from the environment Thus, behaviorism is referred to as stimulus-response psychology

BEHAVIORISM Ivan Pavlov’s experiments made behaviorism more accepted Led to animal research (easier to control) Psych now has gone from study of the mind to observing simple responses made by lab animals

FREUD AND THE UNCONSCIOUS Freud, an Austrian physician, treated people w/psych problems w/ a procedure called psychoanalysis This led to Freud’s belief in something called the unconscious

FREUD UNCONSCIOUS contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behavior Believed slips of the tongue represent true feelings (Freudian slip) Believed dreams represented important thoughts and feelings

FREUD PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY: attempts to explain personality, motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behavior

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” FREUD “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” Suggests that people are not masters of their minds Proposed behavior is greatly influenced by coping with sexual urges Freud was controversial

B.F. SKINNER A behaviorist Only study observable data Emphasized environmental factors in molding behavior Believed we could understand and predict behavior w/o physiological explanations

SKINNER Principle: organisms tend to repeat responses that lead to positive outcomes and not repeat those that have negative outcomes This has influenced every area of society

SKINNER Wrote Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) Said all behavior is governed by external stimuli People are controlled by their environment “Free will is an illusion”

HUMANISM HUMANISM: emphasizes unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and potential for personal growth Very optimistic view of human behavior

HUMANISM Believe research on lab animals holds no bearing on human behavior Most prominent members: Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

HUMANISM Carl Rogers argued we are governed by our sense of self---”self-concept” Maslow and Rogers argue that humans have a desire to evolve Psychological disturbances come from that need being thwarted

PSYCHOLOGY AS A PROFESSION APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: branch concerned with everyday, practical problems World War I made this a prominent field

PSYCHOLOGY AS A PROFESSION CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY: branch concerned w/diagnosis and treatment of psychological problems and disorders Need to treat trauma was higher World War II made this prominent

REFOCUS ON COGNITION COGNITION: the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge (consciousness) There has been a resurgence of the study of cognition thanks to Piaget, Chomsky, and Simon

COGNITION Cognitive Perspective states that manipulation of mental images influences behavior This stimulated an increase in the study of physiological bases for behavior

PHYSIOLOGY Biological Perspective states that much of behavior can be explained in bodily structures and biochemical processes

INCREASED INTEREST IN CULTURAL DIVERSITY Early psych was based on middle and upper-class white people Reasons: It was more cost effective Original interest was in the individual, not the group Concern of creating stereotypes ETHNOCENTRISM: belief that one’s own group is superior to others and to view that group as the standard for judging the worth of foreign ways

CULTURAL DIVERSITY Political and social upheaval of the 1960s and 70s changed psych Movements for women’s rights, gay rights, and civil rights paved the way

CULTURAL DIVERSITY 2 recent trends that led to more human diversity studies: 1) increased global interdependence through advances in communication 2) ethnic makeup of Western world is more diverse

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCH Def: examines behavioral processes in terms of their adaptive value for members of a species over the course of many generations Natural selection favors traits that increase reproduction

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCH Led by David Buss in the mid 1990s First real theoretical perspective since cognitive revolution of 60s and 70s Critics say it is untestable

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY: VIGOROUS AND DIVERSIFIED

PSYCHOLOGY Def: the science that studies behavior and the psychological and cognitive processes that underlie it, and it is the profession that applies the accumulated knowledge of this science to practical problems

PSYCHOLOGY Growth of psych has been remarkable Increase in membership of the APA is proof Second-most popular undergraduate major 10% of all doctoral degrees in sciences and humanities Over 1100 technical journals worldwide

SPECIALTIES IN PSYCHOLOGY 4 areas: 1) Clinical psych 2) Counseling psych 3) Educational and school psych 4) Industrial and organizational psych

CLINICAL VS. PSYCHIATRY CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST PSYCHIATRIST Undergraduate school Earn a Ph.D., Ed.D., or Psy.D. Go to medical school for postgraduate Earn a M.D. as well as a Ph.D., Ed.D., or Psy.D. Residency at a hospital Branch of medicine concerned with diagnosis and treatment of psych problems

SEVEN KEY THEMES

SEVEN KEY THEMES 1: Psychology is empirical EMPIRICISM: knowledge should be acquired through observation Base ideas on data obtained through research

SEVEN KEY THEMES 2: Psychology is theoretically diverse THEORY: system of interrelated ideas used to explain a set of observations No single theory can explain everything Different ways of seeing things

SEVEN KEY THEMES 3: Psychology evolves in a sociohistorical context Trends, issues, and values affect psych and vice versa Psych evolves both historically and socially

SEVEN KEY THEMES 4: Behavior is determined by multiple causes Multifactorial causation of behavior Behavior is complex and is governed by interacting factors

SEVEN KEY THEMES 5: Behavior is shaped by cultural heritage CULTURE: widely shared customs, beliefs, values, norms, institutions, and other products of a community that are transmitted socially across generations

SEVEN KEY THEMES 6: Heredity and Environment jointly influence behavior Nature vs. Nurture argument

SEVEN KEY THEMES 7: People’s experience of the world is highly subjective We all have our own biases, expectations, and motivations