Day 1-2: History of Psychology
Association and Memory
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Begin with the Greeks:
◦ Classical Greek philosophers were also excellent observers,
and some of their ideas about human behaviour lasted for
millennia
◦ Types of personalities: They thought that the different
patterns could be explained by which of the four ‘humours’
(body fluids) were dominant.
◦ We will also look at Aristotle’s ideas about the ways the mind
links ideas and sensations together i.e. ASSOCIATION
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I am usually self-composed, not given to worry
[SD – D – A – SA]
You tend to follow rather than lead
I am usually cordial/polite
I can be described as talkative
I adjust easily to change
I tend to prefer informality
I can be impulsive
I’m pretty aware of my surroundings
When things get more difficult, I have trouble finishing
I have trouble taking initiative
* For each statement, strongly
disagree (SD), disagree (D),
agree (A) or strongly agree (SA).
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I am self-composed, not given to worry
I can be persuasive
[SD – D – A – SA]
I am pretty independent
I rarely show embarrassment
I tend to lead rather than follow
I am persistent
I can be insistent
I am usually decisive
I can be touchy
I am prone to anger
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I can be sensitive
I am pretty intuitive
I am self-conscious
I am easily embarrassed
I can be easily hurt or offended
I am pretty introspective
[SD – D – A – SA]
I like to be alone
I am empathetic
I am prone to depression
I am often fussy and perfectionist
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I can be described as peaceful
I am pretty easy-going [SD – D – A – SA]
I am reliable
I am steady
I am not prone to worry
I am fairly reserved
I am deliberative
I am faithful
I am relatively unaffected by my environment
I might be described as distant
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Which temperaments BEST represent your personality?
For each category, derive a score
Is there a dominant type/combination for the class?
Sang.
# Agree
x3
# SA x 4
Total:
(max – 40)
Chol.
Melan.
Phleg.
Aristotle counted four laws of association when he examined
the processes of remembrance and recall:
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1. The law of CONTIGUITY. Things or events that occur close to each other in space or
time tend to get linked together in the mind. If you think of a cup, you may think of
a saucer; if you think of making coffee, you may then think of drinking that coffee.
2. The law of FREQUENCY. The more often two things or events are linked, the more
powerful will be that association. If you have an éclair with your coffee every day,
and have done so for the last twenty years, the association will be strong indeed.
3. The law of SIMILARITY. If two things are similar, the thought of one will tend to
trigger the thought of the other. If you think of one twin, it is hard not to think of
the other. If you recollect one birthday, you may find yourself thinking about others
as well.
4. The law of CONTRAST. On the other hand, seeing or recalling something may also
trigger the recollection of something completely opposite. If you think of the tallest
person you know, you may suddenly recall the shortest one as well.
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Build a thought web/mind map around the term
RECESS
Then, work with a partner to add to the web
What ideas, emotions, experiences have been linked
with your experience of RECESS?
Share your results with the class…
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_drama
*_fresh air
*_food/Tim’s
*_freedom/
restricted
*_games
RECESS
*_excitement
s/happiness
*_relief/relaxed
/anxious
*_friends
*_play ground
*_swearing
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Remember the idea of ‘boo!’ and ‘hurray!’ words – a dense
web of association make homework or recess ‘boo’ or
‘hurray words’
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Long after Aristotle, philosophers continued building on
the Laws of Association:
◦ John Locke (1632-1704)– a system dependent on association of
sensations into simple ideas; association could also yield complex
ideas and emotions
◦ David Hume (1711-1776)– Added Law of Cause & Effect –
responsible for the apparent coherence of the world
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James Mill (1773-1836)– Added the Law of ‘Vividness’,
"stamping in" the association
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John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) - adds that associations can be
more than the simple sum of their parts
 Give an example to illustrate how powerful are the associations
built up around the school-day lunch period. Why are they so
powerful?
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Thomas Brown (1778-1820) - added a set of secondary laws - duration, liveliness, frequency, and recency -- that
strengthened suggestions; association as an active process of
an active, holistic mind (vs. Association as a passive process)
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Alexander Bain (1818-1903)– added:
◦ The Law of Compound Association, which says that most
associations are among whole clusters of other associations
◦ The Law of Constructive Association, which says that we can
also actively, creatively, add to our associations ourselves
◦ Connected association to physiology (neurology)
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Whole branches of psychology have developed their
specific kinds of association...
Behavioural Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Stimulus-stimulus and stimulusresponse associations
Theories of semantic association
– e.g. Speech Act Theory –
language as action: Assertives,
Directives, Commissives,
Expressives
e.g. Pavlov’s dog:
bell + food + salivating
bell - salivating
Gestalt Psychology
Physiological Psychology
Laws of Prägnanz (cognition)–
Neurological bases for
reality is organized or reduced to association
the simplest form possible
e.g. association of chronic pain
and social dysfunction
e.g. A series of one shape vs.
Several complex shapes
History of Psychology
Branches/Schools of Psychology
Structuralism
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Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) - defined psychology as
the study of the structure of conscious experience
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Since an outside observer cannot gather information on
subjective experience, used introspection to gather data.
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Researchers were trained with specific criteria for becoming
skilled introspectors
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1873 - first book on psychology: Principles of Physiological
Psychology
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psychology = a unique branch of science.
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He was the first one in history to be called a 'psychologist‘ –
Called the
“father of psychology”
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A high school student is having difficulty cooperating
with a teacher
◦ As a result, the student has had a few opportunities to chat
with the V.P.
◦ Assume the V.P. is a Structuralist
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Think – of the kinds of questions the V.P. might ask the
student
Pair – your ideas with a partner
Share – your ideas with the class
Functionalism
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William James (1842-1910)- emphasis on cause and effect,
prediction and control, and observation of environment and
behaviour, (vs. the careful introspection of the Structuralists).
◦ a mental state is determined by its causal relations to sensory
stimulations, other mental states, and behaviour
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Emotion is nothing without the body
◦ Emotion has evolutionary purpose
◦ E.g. sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and your melancholy lingers;
whistle in the face of adversity, and your disposition improves
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Can we research our psyche ‘from the inside’ (like the
Structuralists)?
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Is our only data what can be observed ‘on the outside’
(behaviourists)?
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Is there any evidence for the existence of an ‘inside’?
How can it be explored?
Psychoanalysis
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Founder- Sigmund Freud
Freud & Breuer’s theory re. Hysteria
◦ The Case of Anna O. - 21 - nursing her ailing father, developed a bad cough that had no physical
basis - speech difficulties, became mute, then began speaking only in English, rather than her
usual German
◦ Breuer & Freud, wrote a book on hysteria – theory = hysteria is the result of a traumatic
experience that cannot be integrated into the person's understanding of the world; resulting
emotions are not expressed directly, but express themselves in behaviours that in a weak, vague
way offer a response to the trauma
Structure of the Mind
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The Unconscious -source of our motivations (food, sex, art compulsions, etc.), of
which we are often not aware
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Id - translates the organism's needs into motivational forces (drives, wishes); primary
process = translation from need to wish
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Ego - the consciousness, hooked up to the world through the senses secondary process;
searches for objects to satisfy the wishes that id creates (called the secondary process)
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Id – pleasure principle; Ego – reality principle
Ego keeps a record of things to avoid
and strategies to take (from parents), which
becomes the superego
Superego
◦ Conscience - an internalization of punishments and warnings
◦ Ego ideal – develops from rewards and positive models
presented to the child
◦ *As you watch the video, make a chart of what ID, EGO and
Superego consist of*
Psychoanalysis – cont’d
Psychosexual Stages of Development:
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Oral - birth - 18 months; focus of pleasure is the mouth: sucking and
biting are favourite activities
Anal - 18 months – 3/4 years: focus of pleasure is the anus: holding it
in and letting it go
Phallic – 3/4 - 5/7 years; focus of pleasure is the genitalia:
masturbation is common
Latent – 5/7 – puberty (around 12): here Freud believed that the sexual
impulse was suppressed in the service of learning
Genital - begins at puberty; represents the resurgence of the sex
drive in adolescence
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A high school student is having difficulty cooperating
with a teacher
As a result, the student has had a few opportunities to
chat with the V.P.
Assume the V.P. takes a Freudian approach
Think – of the kinds of information the V.P. might what to
know about the student
Pair – your ideas with a partner
Share – your ideas with the class
Behaviourism
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John Watson (1878-1958)
◦ Psychology = is basically the science of stimuli and responses
◦ We begin with natural reflexes
◦ By conditioning, we acquire learned responses
◦ Brain processes = unimportant; Emotions =bodily responses to
stimuli; Thought = sub-vocal speech
◦ Consciousness = nothing at all
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B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)
◦ Operant Conditioning - behaviour is followed by a consequence, and
the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to
repeat the behaviour in the future – Experiment: “Skinner Box”
◦ Builds on Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
 – Experiment – “Pavlov’s Dog”
Behaviourism – cont’d
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Behaviour Modification - therapy technique based on Skinner’s
work
◦ Extinguish an undesirable behaviour (by removing the reinforcer) and
replace it with a desirable behaviour by reinforcement… CAN YOU THINK OF
A REAL LIFE USE FOR THIS?
 (Dog Training! Or Child Rearing!)
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There is no true freedom or dignity -The bad do bad because the
bad is rewarded; the good do good because the good is rewarded
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Freedom and dignity are examples of what Skinner calls Mentalistic
Constructs - unobservable and so useless for a scientific psychology
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Popular during the 1960's and even into the 70's
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Novel that uses/reflects on Skinnerian conditioning: A Clockwork
Orange, Anthony Burgess
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A high school student is having difficulty
cooperating with a teacher
As a result, the student has had a few
opportunities to chat with the V.P.
Assume the V.P. is a behaviourist
Think – of the kinds measures the V.P. might put in
place to deal with the student
Pair – your ideas with a partner
Share – your ideas with the class
Humanistic Psychology
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Alfred Adler (1870-1937) – (yay… another Austrian…)
◦ The “Father of Individual Psychology”
Stages of Psychological Importance:
◦ Striving for perfection - single "drive" or motivating force behind all our
behaviour and experience
◦ Social interest – second most important drive = caring for family, community,
society, humanity
◦ Self-interest = problem – hinders self-fulfillment
◦ Inferiority complex – Explains our self-interest: we become shy and timid,
insecure, indecisive etc.
◦ Superiority complex - covering up inferiority by pretending to be superior;
bullies, show-offs
◦ Compensation - by becoming good at what we feel inferior about; or by
becoming good at something else
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A high school student is having difficulty
cooperating with a teacher
As a result, the student has had a few
opportunities to chat with the V.P.
Assume the V.P. is a humanist
Think – of what the V.P. might say and do to
address the problem
Pair – your ideas with a partner
Share – your ideas with the class
Humanistic Psychology
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Carl Rogers (1902-1987)… WOO! Not an Austrian…Murika!
◦ Self-actualization - Rogers uses the term to refer to the drive every
creature has to become "all that it can be"
◦ Organismic valuing - organisms naturally know what is good for them
◦ Positive regard - instinctively valued: umbrella term for things like
love, affection, attention, nurturance
◦ Positive self-regard - self-esteem, self-worth, a positive self-image
◦ Conditional positive regard – social conditions for receiving positive
regard – Leads to:
 Conditional positive self-regard - we begin to like ourselves only if we
meet up with the standards others have applied to us
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THERAPY!= is to help the client approach a stronger and
more healthy sense of self
Cognitive Psychology
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Jean Piaget (1896-1980)– major contributor to creation of cognitive
psychology; studied the development of thinking, esp. in children
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Adaptation (learning) takes place through assimilation and
accommodation
◦ An infant can grab his rattle and thrust it into his mouth (=schema) – same for
daddy’s watch, he applies his “grab and thrust” schema (assimilation)
◦ Another object - a beach ball – the new scheme: “squeeze and drool”
(accommodation)
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Stages of Development!:
◦ Sensorimotor stage - birth - 2 yrs - infant uses senses and motor abilities to
understand the world
Cognitive Psychology
◦ Preoperational Stage – 2-7 yrs - now child has mental representations
and is able to pretend
◦ Concrete Operations Stage – 7-11 yrs. - the child
not only uses logic and symbols (e.g. lump of clay)
◦ Formal operations stage – from 12 yrs. – increasingly adult-style
thinking; uses abstract logical operations
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George A. Miller (b.1920)
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Behaviourist tradition unable to explain language
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Famous paper (1956) - short-term memory could only hold
about seven pieces -- called chunks -- of information… (TRY IT!!!)
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Computer = model of human learning: information processing, encoding, and retrieval psychology = study of the mind, vs. behaviourist redefinition of psychology as the study of
behaviour!