I. Prescientific Psychology
A. Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
1. Viewed mind and the body as interactive machines
a. mind could influence the body and vice versa
b. allowed for both voluntary and involuntary behavior
2. Ruled out organs other than the brain (e.g., the heart) as locations of mental functioning
3. Human minds consisted of two kinds of ideas
a. Innate ideas (i.e., belief in "God")
b. Derived ideas (i.e., all ideas acquired through experience or reflection)
B. John Locke (1632-1704)
1. Empiricist approach-knowledge should be acquired by careful observation
2. Opposed notion of innate ideas-all ideas come from experience or reflection
3. Mind is a "blank slate" (Aristotle's tabula rasa) written on by experience
II. Founders of Scientific Psychology
A. Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
1. Founded the first research laboratory in psychology (Leipzig, Germany, 1879)
2. Research methods included introspection, psychophysical measurements and reaction time
3. His system of psychology is often misrepresented and oversimplified
a. Included several diverse approaches to psychology
b. Approaches included introspective analysis of the elements of consciousness and the study
of higher-order mental processes (such as language and thought) through the study of culture
B. Max Wertheimer (1880-1943)
1. Founded Gestalt Psychology along with Wolfgang Kohler, Kurt Koffka and Kurt Lewin
2. Argued that analysis of the mind's elements could not completely explain consciousness, that the
whole is different from the sum of its parts
3. Did important research in perception, learning and thinking.
4. Research on thinking viewed as an antecedent to modern cognitive psychology.
III. Early Milestones in Scientific Psychology
A. G. Stanley Hall
1. Established first psychology laboratory in the U.S. (1883) at Johns Hopkins University
2. Started first American psychology journal (1887), American Journal of Psychology
B. Herman Ebbinghaus: Published classic studies on memory (1885)
C. Edward B. Titchener: Wundt student who spent his career at Comell university, founded the psychological
school of structuralism, a perspective partially based on Wundtian concepts that sought to explain
consciousness by analyzing its structural elements.
D. William James
1. Published the influential Principles of Psychology, 1890
2. Associated with the founding of functionalism, a perspective emphasizing the functions rather than
the structures of consciousness
A. Sigmund Freud: Published the Interpretation of Dreams (1900), an important work in psychoanalytic
theory
B. American Psychological Association founded in 1892; G. Stanley Hall elected first president
C. Margaret Floy Washbum: First woman to receive a PhD in psychology, 1894
D. Mary Whiton Calkins: First woman elected president of APA, 1905
E. Ivan Pavlo Published first of many studies on conditioned reflexes, 1906 I. John B. Watson
1. Leader of behaviorism; published "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" (1913)
2. Believed psychology should study behavior, not consciousness
3. Viewed environment as the prime determinant of behavior; dismissed the importance of inherited
traits and instincts in human behavior
K. Francis Cecil Sumner: First African-American PhD in psychology