Chapter 1: History and Approaches Flashcards
What was the first wave of psychology?
Introspection
Why is Wilhelm Wundt proclaimed as the founder of scientific psychology?
He was the first to study the subject scientifically, as opposed to just thinking about it
According to modern-day pscyhologists, when did psychology as a study begin?
In 1879, when Wundt set up the first psychological laboratory in an apartment near the university at Leipzig, Germany
What is introspection?
Subjects were asked to record accurately their cognitice reactions to simple stimuli
What was Wundt’s theory?
Structuralism
What is structuralism?
The idea that the mind operates by combining subjective emotions and objective sensations
Who published psychology’s first textbook?
William James
What was psychology’s first textbook, and when was it published?
The Principles of Psychology;
in 1890
What was James’s theory?
Functionalism
What is functionalism?
How the structures Wundy identified function in our lives
Who was the first woman to serve as the president of the American Psychological Association?
Mary Whiton Calkins
Under who did Calkins study?
William James
Who was the first woman to earn a PhD in psychology?
Margaret Floy Washburn
What did G. Stanley Hall?
He pioneered the study of child development and was the first president of the American Psychological Association;
A student under William James
What did Gestalt psychologists argue against?
Dividing human thought and behavior into discrete structures
Who founded Gestalt psychology?
Max Wertheimer
What is Gestalt psychology?
Tries to examine a person’s total experience because the way we experience the world is more than just an accumulation of various perceptual experiences
What did Gestalt psychologists believe in?
That the whole experience is often more than just the sum of the parts of the experiment
How did Gestalt psychology influence therapy?
Therapists later incorporated Gestalt thinking by examining not just a client’s difficulty but also the context in which that difficulty occurs
What was Freud’s theory?
The psychoanalytic theory
According to Freud, what is the unconscious mind?
A part of our mind over which we do not have conscious control that determines, in part, how we think and behave
How is the unconscious mind built/developed?
Through repression
What is repression?
The pushing down into the unconscious events and feelings that cause so much anxiety and tension that our conscious mind cannot deal with them
What are some psychoanalytic therapy techniques?
Dream analysis and word association
What were the criticisms of the psychoanalytic theory?
It was unscientific and created unverifiable theories
What did Watson believe psychology should concern itself with?
He believed that for psychology to be considered a science, it must limit itself to observable phenomena, not unobservable concepts like the unconscious mind
What was Watson’s theory?
Behaviorism
What is behaviorism?
The belief that psychology should only look at behavior and causes of behavior and not concern itself with explaining the consciousness
What is stimuli?
Environmental events
What is responses?
Physical reactions
What did B.F. Skinner do for psychology?
He expanded the basic ideas of behaviorism by including the idea of reinforcement
What was B.F. Skinner’s idea of reinforcement?
Environmental stimuli that either encourage or discourage certain responses
When was behaviorism popular?
From the 1920s through the 1960s
What is meant by eclectic?
Drawing from multiple perspectives
