Beginnings of morden psychology- Wundt & James

Question 1

What is empiricism?

Answer 1

Empiricists believed that all knowledge (contents of the mind) comes from experience and observations.
Simple experiences become associated to form complex and abstract ideas.

Question 2

What does contiguity mean?

Answer 2

What is experienced together is remembered together.

Question 3

What does resemblance mean?

Answer 3

Experiences trigger memories of similar experiences.

Question 4

What does compound associations mean?

Answer 4

Multiple links between experiences facilitate memory.

Question 5

How do simple experiences combine to give rise to complex knowledge?

Answer 5

More active processes under the control of the will.

Question 6

What is rationalism?

Answer 6

It is knowledge that is derived from reason and logic.
Our mind is not simply the sum-total of associated experiences but the result of an active mind that ascribes meaning to sensations (through reasoning).

Question 7

What did Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) think?

Answer 7

Abstract ideas are possible due to innate knowledge, not perception: totality, time, space, reality, possibility- impossibility, existence- nonexistence.

Question 8

What did Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz (1646-1716) think?

Answer 8

Petites perceptions occur below the level of awareness but combinations of them can reach thresholds (limen) of awareness (apperception).

Question 9

What is empiricism and rationalism in psychology?

Answer 9

Empiricism is the emphasis on perceptions. Emphasis on thought processes; innate knowledge.

Question 10

How did we get there?

Answer 10

Developments in philosophy and physiology
Late renaissance to the 19th century

Question 11

What were some of the ideas from Phrenology by Gall (1758-1828) and Spurzheim (1776-1832)?

Answer 11

Morphology (form&structure) of the skull is related to an individual’s mental capacities.
Bumps and dimples of the skull can relate them to our observations of an individual’s personality.
(However, most are false)

Question 12

What did Broca’s and Wernicke’s language areas ideas state?

Answer 12

They confirmed that certain mental capacities are localised in the brain.
Systematically associating abnormalities in behaviour with damage to the brain.

Question 13

What was specific nerve energies?

Answer 13

The idea that sensory nerves respond in a characteristic way, no matter how they are stimulated.

Question 14

What is the Bell-Magendie Law?

Answer 14

Different information (sensory&motor) carried by different nerve tracts in the spinal cord.

Question 15

Who created the Bell-Magendie Law?

Answer 15

Bell (1774-1842)
Magendie (1783-1855)

Question 16

What did Weber come up with?

Answer 16

The study of just-noticeable-differences (JND)

Question 17

What is the Weber’s Law?

Answer 17

JND is a constant proportion of the original stimulus value.

Question 18

What did the study of JND consist of?

Answer 18

Touch (stimulate the skin simultaneously at two points, vary the distance, note when subject experiences 2 rather than 1 touch).

Kinesthesis (ask people to lift different weights, one reference weight that is always the same and other weights that vary, note the minimum difference that the subject can detect).

Question 19

Who founded the first laboratory for experimental psychology in 1879?

Answer 19

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

Question 20

What did Wundt say consciousness was?

Answer 20

inner phenomena

Question 21

What did Wundt say psychology was?

Answer 21

study of the individual

Question 22

What was experimental introspection?

Answer 22

Use of lab instruments to vary stimulus conditions.
note the effects on subjective experience.
aims to be as precise as physiological experiments (e.g. Helmholtz)

Question 23

What are feelings described as in terms of three dimensions?

Answer 23

Pleasantness- unpleasantness (valence)
Excitement- calm (arousal)
Strain- relaxation

Question 24

What was Wundt known for?

Answer 24

The founder of scientific psychology
supervised 186 doctoral students

Question 25

What was William James interested in?

Answer 25

The function (functionalism)

Question 26

What is consciousness to James?

Answer 26

Personal
Changing
Selective
Functional

Question 27

What did James think about habits and instincts?

Answer 27

He thought that some behaviours are simply instinctual, whilst others are repeated so often that they become a habit.
Behaviour is modifiable by experience.

Question 28

What did James think about self and self esteem?

Answer 28

The empirical self
Material self: body, family, property
Social self: self as known by others
Spiritual self: person’s subjective reality

Self esteem = Success over pretensions