Presented
By
P. Musetha
BP (Before Psychology)
 Psychology’s intellectual
parents are Philosophy
and Physiology
The Birth of Psychology
 Wilhelm Wundt proposed that we should study the
mind independent of philosophy and physiology
 Wundt also proposed that this new field of study
(psychology) should be rooted in science
 This new science would concern itself with the study
of conscious and immediate experience
The First Psychology Laboratory
 Wundt established the first psychology laboratory in
1879 at the University of Leipzig, Germany
 Thus, 1879 is usually considered the “birth”
of modern psychology
 Psychology = Psyche (soul) + Logos (study)
So what did this Wundt guy
actually study?
 Attention
 Memory
 Sensory processes
 Reaction-time experiments to see how fast these
processes happen
Psychology becomes popular
 Many of Wundt’s students went on to establish
additional psychology laboratories in the United
States
 G. Stanley Hall established the first psychology
laboratory in the United States in 1883 at Johns
Hopkins University
G. Stanley Hall
 G. Stanley Hall launched the first
journal in America dedicated to
psychology
 G. Stanley Hall also helped to
establish the American
Psychological Association (APA)
and served as its first president
 The APA is the largest organization
devoted
to
the
study
and
advancement of psychology today
Review
 What does the word “psychology” mean?
 When was psychology born?
 Which two disciplines gave birth psychology?
 Who established the first psychology laboratory?
 Where was the first psychology laboratory established?
 Who establish the first psychology laboratory in America,
helped establish the APA and the first psychology journal
in America?
 What does APA stand for?
 What should this new field of psychology study?
People start arguing…
 How exactly should we go about studying conscious
experience?
 Two main viewpoints emerged: Structuralism and
Functionalism
Structuralism
Psychology should analyse consciousness by breaking it
down into it’s component parts and investigate
these parts individually, and also how these parts are
related
Structuralism
Edward Titchener believed, like his teacher Wilhelm
Wundt, that the best way to analyse conscious
experience was to break it down into its basic elements
So how does this work?
Early Psychologists played Mental
Legos?
Structuralism (cont.)
 The best way to break consciousness up into it’s basic
building blocks, is via a process known as introspection
 Introspection is a process of systematic and objective
self-observation
 These people had to be specifically trained
(introspection is pretty dam hard)
Functionalism
 William James proposed that the structure of
consciousness is not as important as what it does
 Functionalist were inspired by the work of Charles
Darwin
Functionalism (cont.)
 Psychology should investigate the function or purpose
of consciousness
 What does consciousness do?
 Taking snapshots of consciousness misses the
important bits. You need to analyse the “stream of
consciousness” in order to obtain meaningful
descriptions of the mind
Functionalism (cont.)
It’s not so much what something is made of, but how
and why it “functions” the way it functions that is
important
For Example
Functionalism (cont.)
According to functionalists many of our mental faculties
were shaped by natural selection
Functionalism (cont.)
 In order to understand why you were afraid we first
need to understand that our fear response is a product
of natural selection
 People that were afraid of scary/dangerous things (like
spiders) survived longer and thus procreated more
Functionalism (cont.)
 This is called natural selection. In a nutshell, people who
are better adapted to their environment are more likely to
survive and procreate
 Functionalist were thus more concerned with the practical
application of psychology than structuralists
 Because of this practical slant, functionalism influenced
the development of applied psychology and behaviourism
Psychoanalysis
 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
 Freud noticed that many of his patient (himself
included) suffered from irrational fears and anxieties
Psychoanalytic Theory
 Freud was convinced that people’s conscious
experience was only the tip of the iceberg
 Freud proposed that, in addition to our conscious
experience, there is also an unconscious element to
our minds
Psychoanalytic Theory
This unconscious part of our mind contains thoughts,
memories, and desires that are well below the
surface of conscious awareness but influences our
behaviour nonetheless
Psychoanalytic Theory
 According to psychoanalytic theory, who you are is largely
determined by what goes on in your unconscious mind
 Unfortunately, you don’t have much control (or even
awareness) of what goes on down there
 Freud’s method that sought to deal directly with this
unconscious part of our mind, was called psychoanalysis
 According to Freud, psychological disturbances are
largely caused by unresolved personal conflicts in the
unconscious
 Freud’s ideas weren’t entirely new, but they were very
controversial and was the first attempt to deal with
the “other” side of the human mind in a systematic
way
 Before Freud, people kind of assumed that we were not
only aware of, but also in control of our own minds and
behaviour
 Remember introspection?
 Not everyone was fond of Freud’s ideas, but various of
his ideas can be found in popular culture references
Behaviourism
 During late 1920’s a new school of thought became
dominant in psychology
 Founded by J.B Watson
 Behaviourism is the idea that psychology should only
study observable behaviour
 No more studying consciousness
Behaviourism (cont.)
 Watson declared that true science is based on
verifiability
 Verifiability means something can be proved (or
disproved) by anyone willing to make the observations
 Consciousness is essentially a private event
and can thus not be verified
Behaviourism (cont.)
 Behaviour , on the other hand, is something everyone can
observe and agree on
 According to behaviourist then, psychology should be the
“science of behaviour”
 Behaviour refers to any overt (publicly observable)
response or activity by an organism
 Some behaviourists went as far as claiming that there is no
such thing as consciousness
Behaviourism
 Behaviourism = Stimulus-Response Psychology
 Stimulus (input) produces a Response (output)
 Behaviour is caused by environmental factors (input)
 Lead to an increase in animal research (more
control over stimuli/input and response/output)
Nature vs Nurture
 Classic debate in psychology
 Are we a product of our genes or how we were raised?
Nature vs Nurture
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my
own special world to bring them up in and I’ll
guarantee to take any one at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might select...”
(Watson, 1924)
1.
Who was the father of behaviourism?
2.
Who was the father of psychonalysis?
3.
True or False: Psychoanalysis is often referred to as
Stimulus-Response psychology?
4. True or False: Behaviourists defined psychology as the
scientific study of behaviour?
5.
True or False: psychoanalysist’s used a lot of animals for
research?
6. True or False: Behaviourists thought that consciousness
could be studied in an objective way?
1.
True or False: According to Freud who you are is largely
determined by your personality?
2.
Behaviourist abandoned the study of consciousness
because consciousness is not _______________?
3.
True or False: Watson argued that behaviour is caused by
heredity and the environment?
4. True or False: Behaviourists primarily used animals for
their research because they could exert greater control
over their experiments with animals?
5.
According to Freud psychological disturbances are caused
by _____________________?