1. 1 History of Psychology This course is partly a psychology course and partly a history course Psychology – learning about psychological theories and how they develop, conflict, and either modified or rejected History – learning about the evolution of theories and how factors such as politics, culture, personalities and economics influenced the evolution of psychological thought.

2. 2 Historical Issues 1.Presentism versus historicism –Presentism – interpreting the past in the context of what we know today. Examples: –Historicism – interpreting the past in its own context 2.Anticipation versus foundation –Anticipation – early events or ideas (theories) that are similar to later events, but were not a basis for the next logical step –Foundation – the beginning of later ideas, there was a continuous evolution of thought, an earlier theory led to the development of a new theory. Examples:

3. 3 Historical Factors Affecting Psychological History 1.Lost or suppressed data – Jung and Watson 2.Data lost or altered in translation – Titchner 3.Self-serving data

4. 4 Importance of Context Zeitgeist – the economic, social, cultural, and intellectual environment Economics – many times money determines what is studied and what a psychologist does War – isolation of German psychologists as a result of WWI greatly affected psychology. WWII resulted in many German psychologists coming to the U.S. Discrimination – minorities and women excluded from graduate programs Subjects not studied because they were not “politically correct”

5. 5 Historical Psychology from 2 Perspectives Personality theory – understanding the evolution of psychology by studying the people who caused change to occur Naturalistic theory – understanding the environment that determined whether a new idea or discovery was accepted and pursued or ignored or rejected because it wasn’t consistent with the prevailing Zeitgeist

6. 6 Importance of Theories A theory can be considered a important theory even if it is later found to be inaccurate if it: 1.Provides direction for research –testing to see if a theory is accurate 2.Provides a mechanism for developing new research methods 3.Provides a record of what has been tried or presented earlier- can help prevent repeating past mistakes

7. 7 To Do Well in this Course You will not have to memorize important dates You will not have to memorize people and their different theories in detail You will need to understand why different ideas and theories developed when they did and why the person who developed them did so