Chapter 6 - Functionalism Antecedents Flashcards
1
Q
Who was Jenny?
A
- Was a 2-year-old orangutan displayed at the London Zoo in 1838
- Wore a girl’s dress, sat at a table, understood keeper’s directions etc.
- Acted like a human
2
Q
What did Charles Darwin think of Jenny?
A
- Wrote of her intelligence in comparison to man
- Believed man should be humble to consider himself created from animals
3
Q
How did Aristotle discuss evolution?
A
- Recognized that the human hand was analogous to wings or fins
- Not the right time to explore this idea
4
Q
What idea did Al-Jahiz have that predated evolution?
A
- Was a young Iraqi scholar
- Seven-volume book: “Book of Living Beings”
- Wrote that animals had to adapt to survive
5
Q
Who was Erasmus Darwin?
A
- Darwin’s grandfather, direct influence on his thinking
- Believed in God, and that he didn’t intervene to alter species or create new ones
- However, species needed to adapt to the environment they find themselves placed in
6
Q
What did Jean-Baptiste Lamarck develop?
A
- A French naturalist
- Developed a behavioural theory of evolution which suggests species modification to adapt to the environment
- Seen as the first important theory of evolution
- Had a ‘romantic view’ that species strive to perfect themselves (later shown to be inaccurate)
7
Q
What was Lamarck’s Law of the Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics?
A
- Species acquire characteristics that are passed on to immediate descendants
- The structure of the descendant can then change as a result
- Giraffe most famous example (developed long neck over generations to reach for vegetation)
- Suggested humans may have evolved from orangutans (not a popular theory at the time)
8
Q
What was the significance of Thomas Malthus?
A
- A British economist
- Wrote “Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society” in 1838
- Wrote how population has a tendency to increase beyond the means of substinence
- Idea that too many people will have to compete for too little food
- Darwin derived from his ideas, claiming that individuals need to compete for limited resources
9
Q
Who was Charles Lyell and his major contribution to evolution?
A
- A British geologist
- Suggested that the earth passed through various stages of development (i.e., evolution of the planet)
- ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation”
- Became a best-seller
- Created controversy, began to ‘normalize’ the idea of evolution
10
Q
T/F: The evolution revolution was definitely the Zeitgeist of the time.
A
- TRUE
- Scientists learning more about the species that inhabit the earth (biology)
- Centuries of accepting biblical explanations leaves questions: How could Noah fit so many species into the ark?
- Examples like Jenny showed animals can be similar to humans
- Fossils that didn’t match living species
11
Q
What other major changes where occurring during the 1800s?
A
- Industrial revolution
- Shifts in values
- Cultural norms
- Relationships
- Migration
- Mechanistic spirit
*The timing was definitely right for evolution to emerge
12
Q
How did Charles Darwin change psychology?
A
- No longer concerned with the structure of consciousness but its function
13
Q
What’s functionalism?
A
- A school of thought that investigates how the mind functions and how it is used by organisms to adapt to the environment (ties into evolutionary psychology)
- Focus on practical, real-world consequences
- What does the mind do? How does it do it?
14
Q
What’s the life story of Charles Darwin?
A
- Grandfathers were two of the most famous men in England
- Mischievous child, did poorly in school
- Showed an interest in natural history
- Mother died when he was 8
- Studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh but quit
- Completed a BA at Cambridge University (not a great student)
- Age 22, hired to be the botanist aboard the HMS Beagle courtesy of a professor
- Married his first cousin Emma, moved to small village outside of London (Down)
- Often ill, often caused by stress
- Found solitude in his work
- His theory of evolution made him very worried, worked on it for years
- Not a very prolific worker
15
Q
What did Darwin’s voyage of the HMS Beagle entail?
A
- Five years long
- Captain Fitzroy almost rejected him because of his nose (i.e., phrenology)
- His job: Record geological formations and collect samples of species, captain wanted him to lend evidence to creationist theory
- Brought with him Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” (influenced his thinking)
- Went to a lot of places
16
Q
What was the significance of the Galapagos Islands?
A
- Darwin was a creationist, but what he found there created doubt
- The specimens he found there indicated that it could be possible for new species to emerge
- In particular he found peculiar differences in finches (differences in beaks)
- The finches did not directly lead him to the theory of evolution
- They were one observation among many
17
Q
What did Peter and Rosemary Grant discover regarding Darwin’s finches?
A
- Princeton University biologists
- Studied finches in the Galapagos beginning in 1973
- Research program lasted over 30 years
- 13 unique species of finches
- Concluded Darwin actually underestimated how quickly evolution was occurring
- Beak sizes changed depending on the current climate
18
Q
What major ideas did Darwin bring together to develop his theory?
A
- After the Beagle, Darwin returned to London
- Thought deeply about what he had found
- Considered the findings of Mathus’s ideas that individuals need to compete for limited resources
- Settled on the ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest
19
Q
Why did Darwin wait so long to publish his work?
A
- Darwin understood the backlash that would occur
- Worked on his book for 22 years before presenting it to the public
- Wanted it to be irrefutable and unassailable
- Only Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker knew of it’s existence
- Felt like he was confessing to murder
20
Q
Who was Alfred Rusell Wallace?
A
- A naturalist who was younger than Darwin
- Outlined evolutionary theory while recovering from malaria
- Wrote a letter to Darwin and told him he came up with the theory in three days
- This forced Darwin’s hand
- Asked Darwin to help him get published
- Was a very agonizing time for Darwin as his son had died
- Was convinced by Lyell and Hooker that both contributions be presented at a meeting of Linnaen society in 1858
21
Q
What was the initial reaction to the “Origins of Species”?
A
- Darwin was very aware of the controversy that could erupt
- Darwin became physically ill (vomitting) when the book was published in 1859
- Spent two months hiding in a spa in the north of England
- First edition sold out
- The expected reaction was actually quite muted
- Southern united states had the greatest backlash
22
Q
What were the fundamentals of “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”?
A
- Natural selection of traits best suited for the environment
- Survival of the fittest: elimination of those not fit for the environment
- Variation is a law of heredity
- A slow intro into saying that humans evolved from other species
23
Q
Who was Thomas Henry Huxley?
A
- Perhaps Darwin’s most staunch defender
- Biologist and member of the scientific elite in the UK
- Enjoyed debating the enemies of science and evolution
- promoted science as a new religion
24
Q
What happened to Captain Fitzroy post-publication?
A
- He was very distraught that he permitted Darwin on the HMS Beagle
- He was a creationist and tried to debate Huxley with the bible
- Ended up committing suicide
- Darwin sent his widow some money
25
Q
What was covered in Darwin’s “Descent of Man”?
A
- More firmly established the link between human evolution and lower life forms
- Noted the similarities in human and animal cognition
- Both shocking and popular
26
Q
What was covered in Darwin’s “The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals”?
A
- Emotional expressions are remnants of movements which served some practical function
- Emotions evolved, useful ones survived
- Darwin was long fascinated with facial expressions, and would take pictures of his children’s expressions
- Also argued that facial expressions and body language were innate and uncontrollable manifestations of internal emotional states
27
Q
What was Darwin’s influence on psychology?
A
- Focus on animal psychology, caused a rise in behavioural neuroscience as animal models could be used
- Emphasis on the functions rather than the structure of consciousness
- Acceptance of methodology and data from many fields (biology, sociology, anthropology). Illustrated you needed a large body of evidence
- Focus on the description and measurement of individual differences (Wundt and Titchener would not have considered these apart of psychology)
- A lot of behaviour can be explained by evolution
28
Q
What’s the life story of Francis Galton?
A
- Born in 1822 in Birmingham, England, the youngest of nine children
- Wealthy family with political and economic sway
- Extremely intelligent
- Knew English and Greek alphabets as a preschooler
- Pressured by his father to train in medicine at 16 (performed various procedures)
- Self-experimented with medications to assess his reaction, stopped when he took a laxative
- Earned a degree in physics from Cambridge, and left medicine behind when his father died
- Phrenologist told him he had the head shape of an adventurer (travelled through Africa)
- Published works on his travels
- Turned his attention to metrology and developed what we know as the weather map
- First cousin of Darwin
29
Q
What were Galton’s ideas regarding individual differences in people?
A
- His main area of interest
- Example of the spirit of evolution on psychology
30
Q
Who was Juan Huarte?
A
- A scientist from the 1500s who conducted some work regarding the inheritance of traits
- Published book “The Examination of Talented Individuals”
- Not much came of it, example of the influence of Zeitgeist
31
Q
What was in Galton’s “Hereditary Genius” (1869)?
A
- His first psychology book
- Darwin was highly impressed
- Suggested genius did run in families, indicated how eminent men have eminent sons and thought this was too frequent to be due to the environment
- Most subjects were other scientists
- Thought that no amount amount of effort can overcome this genetic endowment (i.e., no impact of environment)
- Did not consider the fact that he was strictly looking at very privileged groups
32
Q
What did Galton mean by the term eugenics?
A
- Proposed eugenics to foster the improvement of inherited qualities
- Greek for “good in stock”
- Human race could be improved via artificial selection (like farm animals)
- Encourage fitness and discourage the ‘unfit’ from having children
- Scientifically paired and paid by the government
33
Q
What was the legacy of Galton’s eugenics?
A
- Had a very damaging legacy
- Became a ‘secular religion’ for Galton
- Was embraced by early psychologists as well as governments
- Policies were inherently racist, sexist, and discriminatory
- Inspired Nazi atrocities and genocides
- Impact lasted well into the 20th century (ex. Alberta eugenics board)
34
Q
What were Galtons contributions to statistical methods?
A
- He proposed that Adolph Quetelet’s normal curve could be applied in psychology
- Proposed that the mean and standard deviation were the most useful for describing data
35
Q
Who was the first to notice the importance of co-relations?
A
- Galton
- Used correlation as a tool and graphed the correlation coefficient in 1888
- First to notice the phenomemnon of regression toward the mean (“the sons of tall men are not as tall as their fathers but the sons of short men are often taller than their dads”)
36
Q
What’s the significance of Karl Pearson?
A
- Studied under Galton
- First Galton Chair of Eugenics at University College London
- Developed the correlation coefficient (Pearson’s r)
- Many Americans travelled to London to train under Pearson
- Called the Father of Mathematical Statistics
37
Q
Who developed the concepts of mental tests?
A
- Galton assumed intelligence can be measured with sensory/motor capacity
- Developed a bunch of devices (ex. whistles, muscle sensitivity, etc.)
- Derived from Locke’s empiricist view that all knowledge comes through the senses
- Thought the smartest people will have the keenest senses
38
Q
What was the Anthropometric Laboratory?
A
- Galton’s lab he established in 1884
- Measured human psychometric properties
- Active for 6 years and tested over 9000 people
- Participant’s would pay an admission fiee, then attendants recorded their data on a card
- There were 17 tests
- Later analyses of this data have proven Galton’s data to still be statistically useful
39
Q
What did Galton discover relating to the association of ideas?
A
- He researched the diversity of associations and reaction times
- Would prepare a list of 75 words on separate pieces of paper
- A week later, examined each word and timed how long to produce two associations
- 40% were events in his childhood
- Freud was influenced after reading this
40
Q
How did Galton investigate mental imagery?
A
- Used survey methods to determine that mental imagery also fits a normal curve
- Women and children provided more detail
- Found that similar images occurred between siblings (his focus on hereditary similarities, thought this was genetic)
- The first extensive use of the psychological questionnaire
41
Q
What were Galton’s contributions to psychology?
A
- Not truly a psychologist, but did have an impact on the discipline
- Methods, statistics, heredity, individual differences, mental tests, development, etc. (had many research interests)
- Likely had a greater impact in the United States than even Wundt
- Not just a legacy of eugenics
42
Q
How did animal psychology change after Darwin?
A
- Before Darwin, little interest in understanding the ‘animal mind’
- After Darwin, this began to change
- Now have small distinctions between man and animals
- Pleasure, pain, emotions, imagination, socializing
- Animal mental abilities would disprove Descartes view of human/animal dichotomy
- Ex. self-recognition seen in toddlers and elephants
43
Q
Who was George J. Romanes and what did he contribute?
A
- British psychologist who formalized the study of animal intelligence
- A “shocking dunce” according to his parents
- Friends with Darwin
- Darwin gave him notes on animal behaviour
- Was wealthy, so worked only as a part-time lecturer (built his own private lab)
44
Q
WHo wrote “Animal Intelligence” and what does it describe?
A
- George J. Romanes
- It was the first book on comparative psychology
- Developed the “mental ladder” on which he ordered animals in terms of mental functioning
45
Q
What two major processes did George J. Romanes use to determine the “mental ladder” of animals?
A
- Anecdotal observations - observational reports about animal behaviour (these were very casual reports)
- Introspection through analogy - assuming the same mental process that occurs in the observer also occurs in the animal (thought that they were capable of the same kind of rationalization/complex reasoning)
46
Q
Who was C. Lloyd Morgan?
A
- Successor of Romanes, student of Thomas Henry Huxley (ardent supporter of Darwin)
- Recognized the weaknesses in anecdotal and introspection-by-analogy (criticized Romanes)
47
Q
What was the major contribution of C. Lloyd Morgan?
A
- Law of Parsimony - Animal behaviour must not be attributed to a higher mental process when it can be explained in terms of a lower mental process
- Believed animal behaviour should not be overestimated to higher mental processes
- Following Romanes and Morgan, comparative psychology flourished in the United States
- Still an important law today
- Thought most animal behaviour occurred through learning or association based on sensory experience.
