History of Psychology

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History of Psychology

• Semester B- 2004
• Prof. Arie Nadler
• Aylet Girin

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Introductory Questions

• Why History of Psychology?
• Why now? (at the second semester of first year)
• WHY HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY ?
• Psychology A disjointed and wide field. Is it
  the same science???
• An imaginary tour of a department of psychology
  Different contents and different research methods
• The clinical psychologist
• The physiological psychologist
• The cognitive psychologist
• The social psychologist
• Is this all a single science??

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• Psychology is a fractured or rich science?
  Pessimist? Optimist?
• The history of psychology is at least part of
  the answer of Psychology is a rich and varied
  science.
• Take a human example we meet a person, once
  we know their history we know them.
• WHY NOW???
• At the end of studies? At their beginning?

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• History of Psychology An area of study within
  psychology
• 1929 Boring, Old history of psychology
• A second edition 1950
• 1965- Division 26 in the APA (American
  Psychological Association)
• 1999 An APA Journal History of Psychology
• A FIELD OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY WITH INSTITUTIONS,
  PUBLICATION OUTLET AND HISTORY AND TRADITIONS
  OF ITS OWN.

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• Each field of science has its own history which
  explains the development of the scientific
  knowledge in that field.
• It speaks about the ups and downs of scientific
  ideas.
• Why at a specific time period the psychoanalytic
  school thought dominates, in another the
  behaviorist, in yet another the cognitive, and
  later a physiological emphasis
• Three elements define and determine the way a
  scientific field develops The idea, the person
  and the socio-cultural environment

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The Three Elements Behind Scientific Development

• The Idea and Its Logical Development- Important
• BUT
• Our Idyllic view of the development of sciene
• The road to the discovery of truth is a linear
  progression
• The methods is an objective scientific enterprise
  that is based solely on rational consideration
• Old theories will be replaced by new ones when
  the later are more rational/better
  objectively/closer to the truth
• In reality Scientific enterprise is a
  human-social enterprise (Kuhn, 1970).
• The new Turks are motivate by wish for
  power/status and the old guard is trying to
  maintain its position of power.
• Processes of majority and minority influences.
• Unlike ideal Scientific progress is neither
  linear not solely rational.

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• The person behind the idea
• Scientific leaders (e.g., Freud, Skinner).
• The specific qualities of the person (e.g., Freud
  and his family background, etc.,).
• The socio-cultural environment
• Freud operated in Vienna- The center of the
  Western world. Very conservative, yet very
  exciting and open to new ideas. Many minorities.
  Freud- part of the Jewish minority
• Freud of the 20s and 30s is a different man
  that was deeply affected by the events of the 1st
  WW.

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• The Technological Environment
• Methodological Advances in related disciplines
  Advances in biological sciences in the second
  half of the 19th century affected development of
  physiological psychology
• (an example Galvani and electric stimulation of
  frogs muscle intensified the body-soul
  debate).
• General technological innovations
• The clock the meaning of exact measurement of
  time the meaning of being able to see the
  behavior of the dials as explained by tiny
  wheels, etc.,. This supported the idea of
  mechanistic determinism.
• The Automata phenomenon.
• Descartes and the statutes in the queens gardens
• Performing Clocks in town squares the dancing
  monk.
• In later periods The computer and cognitive
  psych

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On the Meaning of Theory and inevitability of its
simplifying and necessarily subjective nature

• Nothing is less real than realism
• Details are confusing
• It is only by selection, by elimination, by
• emphasis that we get the real meaning of
• things (Georgia Okeefe, 1922).

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• Historical Research Methods
• Social sciences Replication
• Historical data Unique and cant be replicated.
  Much emphasis on using primary sources.
• Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Flies Correspondence
  as an example.
• Problems in translation
• From German to English/Latin
• Ego, superego, id From Latin and designed to
  give an aura of respectability to Psychoanalysis.
  
• In German ICH, Uber ICH, Est.
• A more proper translation is Self, me (for
  ICH), and it for Est.
• Three Sources of Error in Historical data
• Some data are lost only to resurface later.
• In the mid 1980s 10 crates of Ebbinghaus
  writings were discovered. The same for Fechner.
  What does it mean for all that was said before
  about Ebbinghuas/Fechner?
• Repressing unpleasant episodes by followers
• Cocaine episode in Freuds life
• Jones wrote I am afraid that Freud took more
  cocaine than he should have, but I am not
  mentioning that

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• Problem of distorted personal accounts
  Distorting the truth in the service of the self
• Skinner wants to convey a specific image of
  studious and well planned doctoral student in
  Harvard. He writes about himself
• I would rise at 6 am, study until breakfast, go
  to classes laboratories and libraries with no
  more than 15 minute breaks during the day. Study
  until exactly 9 pm and go to bed
• In a biography by Bjork (who spoke to people who
  were co-students with Skinner) a completely
  different image
• Would finish work in lab before others and run to
  play ping-pong for hours.

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• What does it all mean? Historical data are
  worthless?
• Of course not. BUT We should be aware of the
  sources of possible errors. Awareness is whats
  most important.

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How old is Psychology??

• The consideration of psychological questions is
  as old as the human being
• Examples
• Democritus (around 400 b.c.) described the
  process of perception
• Small images move in the air
• From eye to brain where it interacts with atoms
  and thus the experience of perception is created.
• Aristoles answer to why we are sleepy after
  heavy meal
• Thinking in the heart, and after heavy meal all
  blood leaves the heart to go to digestive system
• But Man in conflict between moral codes and
  drives. The conflict is negotiated by what within
  us is in touch with reality. (very similar to id,
  ego and superego conception).

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• The age of scientific psychology Since 1879
  (Wundts opening of the first laboratory in
  Leipzig).
• Our course
• Beginning in ancient Greece
• 16th-17th century Descartes
• British Empiricists Locke, Hume etc.,
• The 19th early 20th centuries the 3 gates to
  modern psychology-
• The physiological gate (Franz Gal- Phrenology,
  etc.,).
• The gate of conscious processes Structuralism
  and Functionalism (Wundt and James)
• The analytic gate The question of levels of
  consciousness (Mesmer, etc., ).
• Other major influences (e.g., Darwin).

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• An important gate to the science of psychology in
  the 19th century The Body-Mind controversy.
• This question rose because of developments in the
  biological sciences
• Galvani (18th century) electrical stimulation
  of a frogs muscle.
• A second important gate The controversy about
  levels of consciousness.
• This question gathered steam because of the
  cultural fascination with hypnosis (18th century
  Franz Anton Mesmer)
• A third important gate How should we build our
  science? Like Chemistry? A new perspective? The
  Wundt-James (structuralism-functionalism
  question).

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A pre-paradigmatic/paradigmatic stage in
scientific enterprise

• In the pre-paradigmatic stage there are many
  schools there is disagreement on what is the
  basic questions we need to ask and what are the
  methodologies we need to use to answer these
  questions.
• In the paradigmatic stage there is a consensus
  within the scientific community on what we are
  exploring, and how we explore.

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• Psychology still in the pre-paradigmatic stage.
• A psychoanalyst
• What is important to investigate?
• Unconscious processes
• What specific phenomena you want to look at?
• Personality dynamics
• How will you look at these?
• Clinical research methods
• A behaviorist
• What is important to investigate?
• Overt behavior
• What specific phenomena you want to look at?
• S-R chains
• How will you look at these?
• Experimentation

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• A physicist
• The important phenomenon The structure of the
  universe
• What do we look at? Behavior of smallest
  particles
• How do we do that? Experimental methods and
  quantifiable theories.
• Psychology in a pre-paradigmatic stage.
• What does this mean? Maybe there is no chance for
  a shared paradigm in psychology? Maybe its a
  question of level of analysis?

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Schools in Psychology

• A school (?????? ) A group of scientists who
  agree on the three questions
• What is the problem we deal with?
• What phenomena do we look at?
• How do we look at these phenomena?
• Six schools
• Structuralism Functionalism Psychodynamic
  Behaviorist Humanist Gestalt