A brief history of modern psychology. Flashcards
To learn the basics about the history and development about how psychology became what it is today.
Where do early psychological ideas trace back to, before it developed into a real discipline?
The questions that Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle asked.
Differentiate between Descartes ideas and Locke and Hobbes ideas from the 17th century.
Descartes believed that we could study the body through science, however our souls were ‘A gift from God’.
Locke and Hobbes believed that the mind was a result of our biology and the creation of ideas taken in from external stimuli.
Why did Locke and Hobbes’ ideas of the mind prevent the scientific study of the mind?
The mind was seen as a consequence of the brain, and so the it was not studied as a thing of its own.
Who, other than philosophers, also questioned human nature?
Theologians, doctors and teachers.
Define what Richards (2002) calls reflexive discourse.
Talking about human nature.
Why is Wundt seen as the father of psychology, despite many forms of psychology existing before him, and developed over the 19th century?
He was the first to do experiments in psychology in his lab.
(Jones and Elcock, 2001)
Explain the phrenologist view of how mental faculties perform their functions.
They were performed by organs in the brain. They mapped the locations of these organs on phrenology busts.
What did faculty psychology aim to do?
It tried to identify mental faculties that could be improved, by using moral guidance.
What does Richards (2002) say about the importance of faculty psychology and phrenology had on modern psychology.
They prepared people for the idea of scientific psychology, despite not using scientific methods themselves.
Describe the impact of physiologists during the 19th century.
Why was science inhibited from investigating mental life?
They had a scientific approach to human nature, such as investigating organs, nerves and mental processes in perception.
The Churches idea that our nature is a gift from God and that science played no part, dominated society’s beliefs.
Which theory opened the possibility as part of a natural science, and why?
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, because humans were now seen as part of the animal kingdom and therefore psychology could be part of our evolutionary traits.
Briefly explain Herbert Spencer’s advocacy of the evolutionary approach to psychology.
He developed adaptational psychology, that looked into how people acquire and pass on psychological traits. An example is social Darwinism - the idea that the government should not help the weak and poor because evolution is simply running its course. His work laid out the foundations for comparative psychology and Galton’s work on individual differences.
Name the early schools of psychology.
Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviourism, Gestalt, Psychoanalysis.
