chapter 1 : evolution of psychology (1)

Question 1

What are truisms?

Answer 1

A statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting.

Question 2

What is the origin of the word “psychology”? / How was the word psychology derived?

Answer 2

The term psychology comes from two Greek words,
psyche, meaning the soul, and logos, referring to
the study of a subject.

Question 3

Explain psychology in the 16th century?

Answer 3

Psychology was first put together to define a topic of study in the 16th century, when psyche was used to refer to the
soul, spirit, or mind, as distinguished from the body.

Question 4

Explain psychology in the 18th century?

Answer 4

The early 18th century is when the term psychology gained more than rare usage among scholars. By that time it had acquired its literal meaning, “the study of the mind.”

Question 5

What did greek philosophers ( Socrates, plato and Aristotle) debate on?

Answer 5

1. The separation of mind and body
2. Whether knowledge is inborn(nativism) or if it is gained through experience (empiricism).

Question 6

What did physiologists Franz Gall and Paul Broca show?

Answer 6

They showed that important insights could be gained
into the workings of the body and brain through the
application of systematic, empirical methods.

Question 7

Psychology’s intellectual parents were
the disciplines of philosophy and physiology. True or false?

Answer 7

True

Question 8

Who wanted to make psychology an independant discipline?

Answer 8

William Wundt.

Question 9

Why is the year 1879 christened as the date of birth of psychology?

Answer 9

In 1879 Wundt succeeded in establishing the first
formal laboratory for research in psychology at the
University of Leipzig.

Question 10

Wundt is the founder of psychology. True or false.

Answer 10

True.

Question 11

What was the subject matter of the new science (psychology)?

Answer 11

According to Wundt, it was consciousness—the
awareness of immediate experience.

Question 12

What were the first two major schools of thought in psychology?

Answer 12

Strucutarlism and Functionalism

Question 13

What is strucutralism? Who lead the school?

Answer 13

Edward titchener lead the school. Structuralism
was based on the notion that the task of psychology
is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements
and investigate how these elements are related.

Question 14

What questions were structuralists more concerned about?

Answer 14

Although the structuralists explored many questions, most of their work concerned sensation and perception in vision, hearing, and touch.

Question 15

What method did structuralists adopt to analyze the components of consciousness?

Answer 15

Introspection.

Question 16

What is introspection?

Answer 16

Introspection is method structuralists adopted to analyze the components of consciousness. It involved self observation of one’s own conscious experience.

Question 17

Did introspection require training? If yes, why?

Answer 17

Yes, it required training in order to make the subject more objective and aware.

Question 18

Explain how introspection was done.

Answer 18

Once trained, participants were typically exposed to
auditory tones and visual stimuli, and then they were asked to analyze and describe the quality, intensity,
and clarity of what they experienced.

Question 19

Who were functionalists influenced by?

Answer 19

William James.

Question 20

What is functionalism?

Answer 20

Functionalism was based on the belief that psychology should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than its structure.

Question 21

What is the stream of consciousness?

Answer 21

James argued that the structuralists’ approach missed the real nature of conscious experience. Consciousness, he argued, consists of a continuous flow of thoughts. In analyzing consciousness into its “elements,” the structuralists were looking at static points in that flow. James wanted to understand the flow itself, which he called the stream of consciousness.

Question 22

Who was the first woman in the US to get a phd in psychology?

Answer 22

Margaret Floy Washburn. She was the author of the book The Animal Mind (1908), which served as a precursor to behaviourism.

Question 23

What topics attracted the first women to psychology?

Answer 23

The functionalists began to investigate mental testing, patterns of development in children, the effectiveness of educational practices, and behavioural differences between the sexes. These new topics may have played a role in attracting the first women into the field of psychology.

Question 24

Name two female psychologists and their contributions.

Answer 24

Leta Hollingworth, who is well known for her work on intelligence and the psychology of women. In addition, Mary Whiton Calkins, who studied with William James, went on to
become the first woman to serve as president of the
American Psychological Association..

Question 25

What two types of psychology was developed due to functionalism?

Answer 25

Behaviourism and applied psychology.

Question 26

Who founded behaviourism?

Answer 26

John.B.Watson

Question 27

What is behaviourism?

Answer 27

Behaviourism is a theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only observable behaviour.

Question 28

Why did Watson want to redefine scientific psychology?/ Why did he want to abadon the study of consciousness?

Answer 28

Because to him, the power of the scientific
method rested on the idea of verifiability. In principle, scientific claims can always be verified (or disproved) by anyone who is able and willing to make the required observations. However, this power depends on studying things that can be observed objectively.

Question 29

Define behaviours.

Answer 29

Behaviour is defined as any overt or observable respone by an organism.

Question 30

What extreme stand did Watson take for the question of “nature or nurture”.

Answer 30

Watson argued that each is made, not born. In other words,
he downplayed the importance of heredity, maintaining that behaviour is governed primarily by the
environment.

Question 31

Who is the first ‘pop psychologist’?

Answer 31

John.B.Watson

Question 32

What is the unconscious?

Answer 32

According to Freud, the unconscious contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behaviour.

Question 33

What is psychoanalytic theory ?

Answer 33

Psychoanalytic theory attempts to explain personality, motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behaviour.

Question 34

Why was Freud controversial?

Answer 34

1.Freud’s psychoanalytic theory explained that psychological distrubances are due to the internal conflicts in the unconscious. This was a major departure from the prevailing belief that people are fully aware of the forces affecting their behaviour.

2. He proposed that behaviour is greatly influenced by how people cope with their sexual urges. At a time when people were far less comfortable discussing sexual issues than they are today, even scientists were offended and scandalized by Freud’s emphasis on sex.

Question 35

B.F skinner denied the existence of internal events. True or false?

Answer 35

False. He did not deny the presence of internal events, although he said that they could not be studied and that there was no need to study them. (ex. if a stimulus of food is followed by a response of eating, we know what’s happening without making any guesses)

Question 36

What is B.F skinner’s fundamental principle on behaviour?

Answer 36

Organisms tend to repeat responses that lead to positive outcomes, and they tend not to repeat responses that lead to neutral or negative outcomes.

Question 37

What was B.F Skinner’s controversial idea?

Answer 37

Skinner arrived at the conclusion that free will is an illusion.There he asserted that all behaviour is fully governed by external stimuli. In other words, your behaviour is determined in predictable ways by lawful principles, just as the flight of an arrow is governed by the laws of physics.