Introduction to Psychology
Unit One: History and Research
Learning Target 1.1: I can define the field of psychology
What is psychology?
● Broader field than most assume.
● Goes beyond the study of the brain and mental disorders.
● Includes the study of: personality, human development, sensation and
perception, emotions, and many other topics.
● To put simply, psychology is the scientific study of mental and behavioral
processes.
Where and when did psychology
originate?
Early Greek philosophers such
as Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle explored topics still
studied in psychology
In the 17th century, French
mathematician and philosopher
René Descartes theorized that
the body and mind are separate
entities (dualism).
Became a separate, scientific
study in 1879 when Wilhelm
Wundt opened the first
psychology laboratory, referred
to himself as a psychologist,
and wrote the first psychology
textbook Principles of
Physiological Psychology.
Learning Target 1.2: I can identify key figures and their
perspectives in the origins of psychology.
Wilhelm Wundt and
Psychology
●
Study of conscious thoughts was key to
understanding the mind.
●
Groundbreaking in that it was based on
systematic and rigorous observation.
●
Used a style of introspection, he called it
volunteerism, that involved training people to
carefully and objectively analyze the content
of their own thoughts when presented with a
stimulus.
● Studied under Wundt and loosely
expanded upon his ideas of
volunteerism.
● His theory would become known as
Structuralism, the first school of
psychology.
E.B. Titchener
and
Structuralism
○
(1) the individual elements of consciousness
(thoughts, feelings, senses, etc.)
○
(2) how these elements are interrelated.
○
(3) how these mental events correlate with
physical events.
● Had many critics and is largely irrelevant
today.
William James and
Functionalism
●
Father of American Psychology, wrote The
Principles of Psychology, and was first to
teach psychology course in America.
●
Opposed Structuralism and instead pushed
for Functionalism:
○
●
Published James-Lange Theory of Emotion
○
●
Focuses on the wholeness of an event,
taking into the impact of the
environment on behavior.
Proposes that an event triggers a
physiological reaction, which we then
interpret.
Influenced many future psychologists.
Sigmund Freud and
Psychoanalysis
●
One of the most famous psychologist
●
Influenced the school of psychoanalysis
○
Emphasizes the importance of unconscious motives and
internal conflicts in determining and understanding human
behavior.
●
Encouraged patients to talk through their problems.
●
Human behavior stems from the conflict between satisfying
unconscious desires and seeing themselves as good and
decent humans.
●
Influenced topics such as personality, dream interpretation,
human development, and many more.
Behaviorism
●
Focuses on the study of observable
behavior.
●
Several famous psychologists
played a role in shaping
behaviorism
○
Ivan Pavlov
○
John B. Watson
○
Edward Thorndike
○
B.F. Skinner
○
Albert Bandura
Ivan Pavlov
●
Conducted experiments on
the digestive systems of dogs.
●
Study determined that
organisms could be
conditioned (taught) to
respond to a previously
neutral stimulus.
●
The idea became known as
classical conditioning.
John B. Watson
● Considered the founder of behaviorism
● Performed the Little Albert Experiment
○
Built off of Pavlov’s experiment and
showed that humans could also be
classically conditioned.
Edward Thorndike
Published the Law of Effect
● Behaviors immediately followed by
favorable consequences are more likely
to occur again.
● Behaviors followed by unfavorable
consequences are less likely to occur
again
Learning Target 1.3: I can analyze the contemporary
perspectives in psychology.
Contemporary
Perspectives
There are eight contemporary perspectives.
●
Biological
●
Evolutionary
●
Cognitive
●
Humanistic
●
Psychoanalytic
●
Behaviorism/Learning
●
Sociocultural
●
Biopsychosocial
Biological
Main Interests: Nervous system, glands and
hormones, & genetic factors
Key Assumption: Biological processes influence
behavior and mental processes
Evolutionary
Main Interests: Physical traits, social behavior
Key Assumption: Adaptive organisms survive and transmit their
genes to future generations. “Survival of the fittest”
Cognitive
Major Interests: Interpretation of mental images,
thinking, language
Key Assumptions: Perceptions and thoughts
influence behavior
Humanistic
Main Interests: Self-concept
Key Assumptions: People make free and conscious choices
based on their unique experiences.
Psychoanalytic
Main Interests: Unconscious processes, early childhood
experiences
Key Assumptions: Unconscious motives influence behavior
Behaviorism/Learning
Main Interests: Environmental influences, learning, observational learning
Key Assumptions: Personal experiences and reinforcement guide individual
development.
B.F. Skinner
● Built upon Thorndike’s Law of Effect to
establish operant conditioning.
● Performed the Skinner Box experiment.
○ Showed that consequences
(reinforcements or punishments)
can after the frequency of a
behavior
Albert Bandura
● Performed the Bobo Doll Experiment
that set forth the ideas of his social
learning theory.
●
Major component is observational
learning which is how people learn from
watching and replicating others.