Time to meet the major
players in Psychology
Intro to psych
• Rene Descartes ( 1596-1650 )
• First Philisopher to think human nature
could be studied
“Hello I am
Rene”
Charles Darwin
Father of Evolutionary Psychology (18091882)
Evo Psych is the study of evolutionary
origins of human behavior patterns
• Evolutionary Psychology looks at the bigger
picture and try to understand why human
beings, as a species act the way they do.
• Evolutionary Psychology looks at how human
behavior functioned to promote the survival and
propagation of the species
• Just as humans physically evolved so has
human behavior…
• Survival of the fittest leads to certain behaviors..
Many Psychologists believe that evolution
left an imprint on men and women that has
influenced everything from sexual
attraction and infidelity to jealousy and
divorce.
How and why men and women do what they
do in relationships …..
The Father of Psychology
• 1879 Wilhelm Wundt started a psych lab in
Germany
• Wundt tried to map out basic structure of
thought processes and studied conscious
experience
• His work attracted many students to the
field
Wilhelm Wundt
Sigmund Freud
The Founder of psychoanalysis
• The Psychoanalytic perspective views
behavior as driven by powerful mental
conflicts locked deep within the
subconscious.
• Freud believed that most people were
riddled with conflicts between their own
needs and society’s demands.
“Freud always had it on his mind”
John .B Watson
First American Behaviorist
“Psychology should concern itself only with
observable facts of behavior”
“All Behavior is the result of conditioning”
We are all taught or conditioned to behave in
a specific way…
Carl Rogers
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Major Humanist
Argued for building Self Esteem
Take time to ask a client what’s wrong and he might just tell you
Client centered not Dr. Centered
Jean Piaget ( The Child Mind
Pioneer )
Does a Childs Mind work differently than
ours??
One of the things we learn early on is that life is constantly throwing us curve balls and
we have to find ways to hit them. Sometimes, we can fit that curve ball into our
current environment with just a minor tweak (assimilation) and sometimes we have
to change our way of thinking ( accomodation)
Example- A baby who is a champion at nipple sucking might be able to incorporate cups
and bottles into his sucking scheme. Eating from a spoon however, is a whole new
challenge.
Piaget
• Piaget was interested in more than how
children think. He was interested in what
and why they think
Wanna take an IQ test
• Sir Francis Galton invented procedures for
testing abilities and characteristics that are
still used in personality and intelligence
tests.
Drooling like a Dog?
• Ivan Pavlov and his theories of Classical
Conditioning…
Do you Drool?
• In Classical Conditioning two stimuli become so closely associated
that one of them can elicit the same reactive behavior as the other.
BF Skinner
Understanding another person was simply a matter
of understanding the consequences he or she
experienced during a lifetime.
Skinner spoke of Reinforcements
Consequences that increase the occurrence of a
particular behavior over time
They can be positive ( a hug, a raise in pay) or
negative (a punishment, for example)