1. Origins of Psychology Flashcards
Psychology as a science: Psychology has 4 goals
DESCRIPTION: tells us ‘what’ occurred
EXPLANATION: tells us ‘why; a behaviour or mental process occurred
PREDICTION: identifies conditions under which a future behaviour or mental process is likely to occur
CHANGE: applies psychological knowledge to prevent unwanted behaviour & to bring abt desired change
Is psychology a science
OBJECTIVITY: scientific observations should be recorded w/o bias & not influenced by other factors or other ppl
CONTROL: should take place under controlled conditions
PREDICTABILITY: able to use results to predict future behaviours
HYPOTHESIS TESTING: theories generate hypotheses which should be tested to either support or disprove a theory
REPLICATION: each exp should be able to be replicated, to show reliability
Why are there different approaches in psychology
- Each approach looks at human behaviour from a different perspective. They all contribute to our understanding in different ways
- For eg, the BIOLOGICAL APPROACH shows us how genetic factors might contribute to some mental disorders, whereas the LEARNING APPROACH helps us to understand how we learn behaviours through experience
- No approach is right & the others wrong, but some are more useful than others depending on what we try to explain
When was psychology introduced
- In contrast to the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology), Psychology is a relatively new scientific discipline.
- Has its roots in 17th & early 19th century philosophy
- Was once known as experimental philosophy
Early influences in Psychology: Rene Descartes
Early influences included Rene Descartes (1596-1650), & his concept of Cartesian dualism, which simply means that the mind & body are separate entities, the brain is not the same as the mind. This is a clear starting point for psychology
Early influences in Psychology: John Locke
The work of John Locke (1642-1704) & his concept of empiricism, the belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience, also had an influence on the emergence of psychology as a science
Early influences in Psychology: Charles Darwin
The evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) set the stage for the emergence of psychology as we know it today (biological approach)
Who is considered ‘the father of psychology’
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
What did Wilhelm Wundt do in 1873
After studying medicine, he worked as a physiologist at Heidelberg Uni. While there he delivered the first uni course on scientific psychology & published the first book on psychology, ‘Principles of Physiological Psychology’ in 1873, to establish the subjects as an independent branch of science
What did Wilhelm Wundt do in 1879
In 1879, opened the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany - the Institute of Experimental Psychology.
- The lab was designated to the scientific study of psychological enquiry under controlled conditions
- The focus was on trying to understand psychological processes of perception & sensations, rather than biological processes
- In doing sp, he separated psychology from philosophy & biology, & became the first person to be called a ‘psychologist’
What is Structuralism
- Wundt’s approach became known as ‘structuralism’ bc he used experimental methods to find the basic building blocks (structures) of thought & investigate how they interacted
- A theory of consciousness that seeks to analyse the elements of mental experiences, such as sensations, mental images, feelings, & how these elements combine to form more complex experiences
- Using controlled methods, sa introspection, to break down consciousness to its basic elements w/o sacrificing any of the properties of the whole
Introspection continued…
- Wundt later recognised higher mental processes were difficult to study using introspection & encouraged others to look for more appropriate methods, paving the way for other approaches sa scanning
- Led to the development of the field of cultural psychology, based on general trends in behaviour of groups of ppl
What is involved in introspection
- Highly trained assistants would be given a stimulus such as a ticking metronome & would reflect on the experience
- They would report how the stimulus made them think & feel. The same stimulus, physical surroundings & instructions were given to each person
Evaluation (downsides) of introspection
- Introspection relies primarily on non-observable responses & although participants can report conscious experiences, they are unable to comment on unconscious factors relating to their behaviour
- Introspection produced data that was subjective (varied greatly from person to person), so it became very difficult to establish general principles. This means introspective experimental results are not reliably reproduced by other researchers
Subjectivity of Wundt’s methods
- It is difficult for modern psychologists to objectively study unobservable matter
- This is a contrast to the scientific methods
- These methods are therefore difficult to replicate
- Questions the methods validity - many aspects of our minds are outside of our conscious awareness (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977)
However, these methods are still used in modern scientific psychological research (Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter, 2003)
Contrasting research to Wundt: Nisbett & Wilson (1977)
- Staged 2 diff interviews w the sake individual - a lecturer who spoke English w a European accent - one condition was warm & friendly, the other cold & distant
- 118 undergraduates were asked to evaluate him - those who heard the warm interview rated his appearance, mannerisms & accent as appealing. They rated the other with dislike
- Results indicate that global evaluations of a person can induce altered evaluations of the person’s attributes, even when there is sufficient info to allow for independent assessments of them
- Furthermore, participants were unaware of this influence of global evaluations on ratings of attributes. Participants who saw the cold instructor acc believed that the direction of influence was opposite to the true direction. They reported that their dislike of the instructor had no effect on thier rating of his attributes but that their dislike of his attributes had lowered their global evaluations of him
What did Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter (2003) do
- American youths were asked to rate environmental factors & personal happiness; reported happiness varied significantly both by day of the week & time of day.
- School was rated below average & social, active & passive leisure activities were associated w varying degrees of happiness
- Alone vs being around friends - lowest to highest
- Higher SES & age correlated w lower levels of happiness but not gender or sex - younger ppl who spent more time at school & social activities were the happiest
Timeline of ‘Psychology’
- Although the term ‘Psychology’ meaning ‘study of the soul’ had been in use since 16th century, its modern use arose in 19th century when philosophers, physiologists & physicians applied the scientific method to studying the mind
- The key step in this was the acceptance that conscious mental life was linked to biological processes in the body. This implied that the same methods used in the natural sciences could be used to study mental phenomena.
- By end of 19th century, ‘psychology’ acquired a new definition: ‘the science of mental life, both of its phenomena & their conditions’ (James, 1890)
Wundt’s 4 main contributions to Psychology
- Wrote 1st textbook of psychology (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873)
- Set up 1st laboratory of experimental psychology, 1879
- Used the scientific method to study the structure of sensation & perceptions (structuralism)
- Showed that introspection could be used to study mental states in replicable laboratory experiments
What is Psychology
‘the scientific study of the mind and behaviour’
Psychologists look at what ppl & animals do, why they do it, & how they feel
What are the different schools of thought called in Psychology
Approaches - each has its own explanation for why we do what we do
(Behavioural, cognitive, biological, psychodynamic, humanistic)
Problems with introspection
- Doesnt explain HOW the mind works. It relies on ppl describing their thoughts & feelings, which usually isn’t objective
- Doesnt provide data that can be used reliably. Bc ppl are reporting on their experiences, their accounts cant be confirmed
What is introspection
- A psychological method which involves analysing your own thoughts & feelings internally
- In 1800s, there were no brain scans/computers to enable ppl to explore the inside workings of the brain. So Wundt used introspection to study sensation & perception
What is reductionism
Wundt believed in REDUCTIONISM - the idea that things can be reduced to simple cause-and-effect processes
Arguments FOR psychology as a science
- Allport (1947) said psychology has the same aims as science (to predict, understand, control)
- Behaviourist, cognitive, & biological approaches all use scientific procedures to investigate theories. Theyre usually controlled & unbiased
Arguments AGAINST psychology as a science
- There are other approaches in psychology which dont use objective methods to study behaviour. They use unreliable methods (eg. interview techniques which can be biased & interpreted differently by diff researchers)
- Very hard to get a representative sample of the population for a study - so findings cant be generalised
- Experiments are open to extraneous variables (sa demand characteristics, when parts try to guess aim of the study), which can be hard to control
