- Behavior
- Anything an organism DOES
- Includes reasons we engage in behavior, the manner in which we do so, and the effects we expect to gain from doing so
- Mental Processes
- Internal, subjective experiences
- Infer from behavior
- Science
- A way of asking and answering questions
- Phenomena examined using the scientific method
- Philosophers who considered basic issues/questions of human existence
- Issues examined through logic and deductive reasoning
- Scientific method
- Physics, physiology, and chemistry
- When applied to issues concerning human behavior and experience
- Psychology results
- Aristotle
- One of the first philosophers recorded as studying psychological issues
- Components making up human thought and memory
- Proposed that the mind is a blank slate written upon by our experiences of the world (Descarte first to use the term "blank slate")
- Experiences make up the components of thought
- Philosophical Issues addressed by Psychologists- Freewill versus Determinism
- Determinism: The idea that everything that happens has a cause or determinant in the observable world.
- Free will: The idea that human behavior is caused by a person’s independent decisions not by external determinants and that this behavior is independent of physics and the chemistry of the body
- Psychology as a science necessitates the belief that behavior is determined
- Nature versus Nurture
- Nature
- Genetics/heredity
- The extent behavior is determined by our genetic endowment
- Nurture
- Environment
- The extent behavior is determined by the environment in which it occurs
- Issue in many branches of psychology
- Mind-Brain Problem
- Concerned with the relationship between the mind and the brain
- Neuropsychology
- Attempts to answer this question by examining the parts of the brain involved in certain experiences or mental activities
- Led to the development of
- First psychology laboratory
- Official birth of psychology as a scientific discipline
- The Birth of Psychology
- Wilhelm Wundt
- Favored the scientific approach for addressing psychological issues
- Set up the very first psychology laboratory
- Leipzig Germany
- 1879
- Research Focus
- "Atoms of the mind"
- Fastest and simplest mental processes
- Objective methods
- Reaction time
- Subjective methods
- Introspection
- Structuralism- First major school of thought in psychology
- Resulted from Wundt's research focus
- Structuralism: The attempt to understand the structure (configurations of elements) in the mind by analyzing it into its constituent components or contents
- Wundt's Students
- Students from all over the world traveled to Wundt’s lab
- Learn about and receive doctoral degrees in psychology
- Edward Tichener
- Structuralist
- Interested in examining the basic elements making up the mind
- Achievements
- Bringing psychology to the U.S.
- Research focus
- Determining basic elements of experience & how they combine to form conscious sensations
- Relied entirely on introspection
- Introspection: Involves looking inward at pieces of information passing into consciousness
- Self observation
- Spread of Psychology- Psychology quickly adopted and offered in a variety of colleges
- 1883-1893
- 24 new psychological research laboratories in the U.S. and Canada
- Reasons for adoption of psychology as a discipline in American universities
- Relatively young universities
- More open to new disciplines
- Functionalism- Arose as a reaction to structuralism
- Functionalism: The belief that psychology should concern the function or purpose of consciousness rather than its structure
- Chief architect of functionalism
- William James
- Training was in medicine
- Wrote “Principles of Psychology”
- Became standard reading for a generation of psychologists
- Perhaps the most influential text in the history of psychology
- Warred against structuralism
- Competing for definition and future direction of the new science of psychology
- Development of two important psychological disciplines
- Applied psychology
- Behaviorism
- Schools of Thought- Behaviorism
- Grew out of functionalism and as a reaction to structuralism
- Founded by John Watson
- Behaviorism: Theoretical orientation based on the premise that psychology should study only observable behavior.
- Dominated psychology and psychological research for many years.
- Psychoanalytic Approach
- Arose around the same time as structuralism and functionalism
- Grew out of Freud's efforts to treat mental disorders
- Attempts to explain personality, motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behavior.
- Spawned investigation into personality, motivation and abnormal behavior
- Humanism
- Emphasizes conscious rather than unconscious experience in personal development
- Arose in reaction to behaviorism and psychoanalytic approach
- Abraham Maslow
- Proposed that all people possess an innate drive for self-actualization
- Influences psychological theorizing with its emphasis on personal values and goals
- Diverse
- Broad
- Research disciplines
- Developmental
- Experimental
- Social
- Cognitive
- Personality
- Psychometrics
- Physiological
- Clinical psychology
- Counseling psychology
- Educational and School psychology
- IO psychology