APPROACHES: Origins of Psychology

Question 1

Psychology as a science: Psychology has 4 goals

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Is psychology a science

Answer 2

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: results should be able to predict future behaviours
HYPOTHESIS TESTING: theories should be tested to support or disprove a theory
REPLICATION: if smth is replicated & they find the same results, the study is reliable

Question 3

Why are there different approaches in psychology

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

When was psychology introduced

Answer 4

In contrast to the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology), Psychology is a relatively new scientific discipline.
It has its roots in 17th & early 19th century philosophy & was indeed once known as experimental philosophy

Question 5

Early influences in Psychology: Rene Descartes

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Early influences in Psychology: John Locke

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Early influences in Psychology: Charles Darwin

Answer 7

The evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) set the stage for the emergence of psychology as we know it today (biological approach)

Question 8

Who is considered ‘the father of psychology’

Answer 8

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

Question 9

What did Wilhelm Wundt do in 1873

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What did Wilhelm Wundt do in 1879

Answer 10

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’

Question 11

What is Structuralism

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

Introspection continued…

Answer 12

• 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

Question 13

What is introspection

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

Evaluation (downsides) of introspection

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

Subjectivity of Wundt’s methods

Answer 15

• 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)

Question 16

Contrasting research to Wundt: Nisbett & Wilson (1977)

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

What did Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter (2003) do

Answer 17

• 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

Question 18

Timeline of ‘Psychology’

Answer 18

• 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)

Question 19

Wundt’s 4 main contributions to Psychology

Answer 19

• 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