The History of Psychology
Ancient Greece
• Advice: “Know thyself”, which has remained
a motto of psychology ever since.
• Introspection: careful examination of one’s
own thoughts and emotions-to achieve self
knowledge.
– “looking within”
Middle Ages
• Belief in demons (not understanding mental
illness)
• Certain “tests” used to determine whether
one was possessed by a demon.
• Ex. Throwing someone in deep water. If they
floated to the top, clearly they were impure
and possessed. They were executed for
associating with the Devil.
Late 1800’s
• Psychology develops as a laboratory science.
• Most historians use the year 1879, as the
debut of modern psychology as a laboratory
science because that is when Wilhelm Wundt
established the first psychological laboratory
in Germany.
Wilhelm Wundt
• “Father of Psychology”
• Used introspection to try to discover the basic
elements of experience.
• Founded, along with his students,
Structuralism.
Structuralism
• A school of psychology.
• Focus of study was the basic elements of the
mind.
• Belief that every experience could be broken
down into its basic elements.
• Used introspection to carefully examine their
experiences.
• A dominant force in the early days of psychology,
but eventually died out in the early 1900s.
• Structuralists would be interested in all of the
memories and sensations this woman is
experiencing as she smells the flower.
Structuralism-Conscious mental experience
• Ex. Even though these children experience the same
sensations (sweetness and coldness) as they enjoy
eating their ice cream, their reported introspections
(looking inward to examine one’s own conscious
experience) of the experience would probably differ.
William James
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Late 1800’s
1st American Psychologist
Wrote 1st Psychology Textbook in 1890.
Focused on relation between conscious
experience and behavior.
• The stream of consciousness is fluid and
continuous.
• Founded Functionalism
Functionalism
• A School of Psychology
• Focuses on behavior in addition to the mind
or consciousness.
• Look at how our experiences helps us function
more adaptively in our environments. (How
people work, play, and adapt to their
surroundings)
• Direct observation in a laboratory
supplements introspection.
Functionalism continued..
• Wanted to understand behavior in terms of its
function in our lives.
• He was influenced by Darwin’s theories, but
instead of looking at physical features like why
we stand upright, James focused on
behavioral features like why people
experience jealousy.
• Structuralism and Functionalism Explained
(5:22)
John B. Watson
• Founder of American Behaviorism
early 1900’s
• Believed psychology must limit itself to
observable, measurable events.
• Based his work on Pavlov.
• Believed that all behavior is learned
• “Little Albert” story *see Youtube clip
Behaviorism
• School of Psychology that focuses on the
learning and effects of observable behavior
and studies relationships between stimuli and
responses.
• From the 1920s to the 1960s, Behaviorism
was the dominant force in American
Psychology.
B.F. Skinner-Behaviorist
• Major Modern contributor to Behaviorism
• Believed in Reinforcement: When a behavior
is increased by a stimulus.
• Example: train rats to push toys across the
floor by giving them rewards of
food.
• See youtube clip: pigeons
Gestalt Psychology 1920s-30s
(gih-SHTALT)
• School of Psychology that emphasizes the
tendency to organize perceptions into wholes
and to integrate separate stimuli into
meaningful patterns.
• We tend to perceive separate pieces of
information as integrated wholes, depending
on the contexts in which they occur.
• People naturally seek out patterns
Gestalt continued..
• Much learning, especially in problem solving,
is accomplished by insight, not be mechanical
repetition.
• The next 5 slides have pictures. What do YOU
see first?
Sigmund Freud
• Psychoanalysis, a school of psychology that
emphasizes the importance of unconscious
motives and conflicts as determinants of
human behavior.
• Based on the idea that much of our lives are
governed by or limited by unconscious ideas
and impulses that have their origins in
childhood conflicts.
Psychoanalysis continued.
• Freud came to believe that unconscious
processes, especially sexual and aggressive
impulses, are more influential than conscious
thought in determining human behavior.
• Believed that repressed urges, in trying to
surface, create nervous disorders.
• He relied on personal observation and
reflection instead of controlled laboratory
experimentation. (NOT scientific)
• Human mental life is
like an iceberg. The
smallest, visible part of
the iceberg represents
the conscious mental
experience of the
individual. But
underwater, hidden
from view, floats a vast
store of unconscious
impulses, wished, and
desires.