1. CHAPTER 1: THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOLOGY

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.)

7. STRUCTURALISM VS. FUNCTIONALISM
The first schools of thought in psych

8. 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)

9. 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

10. 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

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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

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

22. “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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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”

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

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

28. 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

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

30. 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

31. 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

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

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

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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

37. 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

38. 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

39. PSYCHOLOGY TODAY: VIGOROUS AND DIVERSIFIED

40. 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

41. 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

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

43. 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

44. SEVEN KEY THEMES

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

46. 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

47. 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

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

49. 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

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

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