History of Psychology
Three Beginnings
• Psychiatric
• Freud and psychoanalysis
• Testing
• Galton, Binet and intelligence testing
• Academic
• Wundt, James, Watson, Gestalt - laboratory
psychology
Psychiatric Tradition
Major Theorists
•
•
•
•
Freud
Jung
Adler
Ego Psychologists
• Erickson
• Horney
• Sullivan
Psychiatric Tradition
Major Assumptions
• Can’t rely on what people say or do to
indicate problems.
• Much or most of mental life is unconscious
• Must understand people comprehensively as
a dynamic whole.
• Can’t understand just a part of the
individual
• Best approach is a clinical approach
• More is learned by studying people who
are sick
Testing Tradition
Major Theorists
•
•
•
•
•
Galton
Spearman
Cattel
Eysenck
Binet
Testing Tradition
Major Assumptions
• Psychology is primarily a product of biology.
• emphasis on nature over nurture and
evolution
• There are only a few ways that people differ.
• a small number of traits can explain the
difference between people
• People’s traits can be understood through
simple tests.
• paper and pencil tests are the way people
are studied
Academic Tradition
Major Theorists
• Wundt -Atomism
• James Pragmatism
• Watson, Skinner Behaviorism
• Lewin - Gestalt
Academic Tradition
Major Assumptions
• Psychology is best when the
causes are understood.
• The why is more important
than the how or when
• People’s thought and actions
can be understood
• By observing people we
can understand them
• Systematic study produces
the fullest understanding.
• Set up labs and
experiments
Three New Beginnings of Psychology
• Psychiatric Tradition
• Humanistic Approach
• Trait Tradition
• Development of the Big 5
model of Personality
(OCEAN)
• Academic Tradition
• Cognitive Revolution
Research Methodology Basic Philosophy of Science
• Our ideas can often be wrong
• We set out to demonstrate
they are wrong
• When we can not prove them
wrong we accept them for now
• We may well prove them
wrong later
• What is accepted is influenced
by what is popular
• What is accepted is shaped by
political forces and has
political impact
Ways of Doing Research
• Tension between Discovery and Explanation
• Case Study
• Anna O.
• Naturalistic Observation
• Jane Goodall’s research with Chimps
• Survey
• Establishes generality and Correlations
• Experiment
• Establishes Causation
Research Methods Surveys and Establishing
Representativeness
• Representative Group of People
• Random Sampling
• Ask Unbiased Questions
• Establishes Correlation Among Variables
Correlation is not Causation How Do you Establish Causation
• Correlation • When one variable changes the other
variable changes
• Time Order • Which comes first the chicken or the egg
• Elimination of all other possible causes
• random assignment
Does Violent Media Cause Violent
Actions?
Exposure to
Violent Media
Violent Actions
Exposure to
Violent Media
Violent Actions
Exposure to
Violent Media
Violent Actions
Something
Else
How Experiment try to Establish
Causality
• Independent Variables • Experimental group(s)
• Control group(s)
• Dependent Variables • Valid
• Reliable
• Time Order is built in
• Independent variable lead to dependent
variables
• Eliminating other causes
• random assignment