Where does Psychology Come From?

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Where does Psychology Come From?

• A Brief History

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Psychology is as old as history and as modern as
today

• Aristotle Greek philosopher
• Peri Psyches (About the Psyche)-nature of mind
  behavior
• People are basically motivated to seek pleasure
  and avoid pain (modern view)

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Psychology is as old as history and as modern as
today

• Democritus behavior as body and a mind
• Behavior influenced by external stimulation
• First to raise issue of free will or choice

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Psychology is as old as history and as modern as
today

• If we are influenced by external forces, can we
  be said to control our own behavior?
• Question where do the influences of others end
  and our real selves begin?

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Structuralism

• Willhelm Wundt debut of modern psych
• 1897 established first psychological laboratory
  in Leipzig,Germany
• Claimed that the mind was a natural event and
  could be studied scientifically (light, heat,
  flow of blood)

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Structuralism

• Define makeup of conscious experience, breaking
  it down into objective sensations (light and
  taste) and subjective feelings (emotional
  responses, will, mental images)
• Believe that mind functions by creatively
  combining the elements of experience

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Functionalism

• Emphasizes the uses or functions of the MIND
  rather than the elements of experience
• Deals with overt behavior as well as
  consciousness

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Functionalism

• William James (1842-1910) Wrote first modern
  psychology textbook, The Principles of
  Psychology
  

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Functionalism

• Influenced by Darwins survival of the fittest
  theory
• The fittest behavior patterns survive
• Adaptive actions tend to be repeated and become
  habits

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Behaviorism

• John Watson (1878-1958) Founder of behaviorism
• Psychology must limit itself to observable,
  measurable events-to behavior

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Behaviorism

• Examples
• Pressing a lever, turning left or right, eating
  and mating, heart rate, dilation of the pupils

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Behaviorism

• Psychology address the learning of measurable
  responses to environmental stimuli
• Pavlovs salivating dogs (conditioning not
  mental processes)

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Behaviorism

• B.F Skinner (1904-1990)
• Reinforcement organisms learn to behave in
  certain ways because they have been reinforced
  for doing so

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Gestalt

• Focused on perception and on how perception
  influences thinking and problem solving

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Gestalt

• Perceptions more than the sum of its parts
• Wholes that give meaning to parts

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Gestalt

• Learning to solve problems, is accomplished by
  insight, not by mechanical repetition
• Aha moment flash of insight

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Psychoanalysis

• Emphasizes the importance of unconscious motives
  and conflicts as determinants of human behavior

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Psychoanalysis

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• Believed that unconscious thought , especially
  sexual and aggressive impulses, were more
  influential than conscious thought in determining
  human behavior.

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Psychoanalysis

• Thought mind was unconscious, consisting of
  conflicting impulses, urges, and wishes.
• People motivated to gratify these impulses and
  urges

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Psychoanalysis

• Freud gained his understanding of people
  through clinical interviews with patients
• Gain insight into deep-seated conflicts and find
  socially acceptable ways of expressing wishes and
  gratifying needs

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• How Todays Psychologists View Behavior

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Perspectives

• Biological
• Cognitive
• Humanistic-Existential
• Psychodynamic
• Learning
• Socialcultural