H1 Background to the study of psychology Flashcards
Definition psychology
Science of behavior and the mind. Behavior: observable actions of a person or animal. Mind: individual’s sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, dreams, motives, emotions and other subjective experiences, and unconscious knowledge and operating rules. Science: all attempts to answer questions through systematic collection and logical analysis of objectively observable data.
3 fundamental ideas psychology incl. important founders
- Materialisme: Physical causation of behavior. Descartes, Hobbes
- Empericisme: Mind and behavior are shaped by experience. Locke
- Nativisme: Machinery of behavior and mind evolved through natural selection. Leibniz, Kant, Darwin
When and by whom was psychology founded?
By Wilhelm Wundth who opened the first university-based psychology laboratory in Leipzig in 1879
What was Descartes’ version of dualism? How did it help pave the way for a science of psychology?
- Materialisme: Physical causation of behavior
Descartes’dualism placed more emphasis on the role of the body than had previous versions of dualism. He believed that the soul was housed in the pineal gland and that it received info from the body through threadlike structures, processes the info and then moves the body by the same threadlike structures.
He acknowledged the roles of the sense organs in behavior without violating the consensus of his time that conscious thought occurs on a nonphysical plane.
Why was Descartes’theory unsuitable of a complete psychology?
- Materialisme: Physical causation of behavior
- Philosophy: how can a nonmaterial entitiy have a material effect? How can the body follow the natural law and yet be moved by the soul who does not?
- Science of psychology: strict limits for scientific study. Thought and behavior guided by thought are out of bounds for scientific study if they are products of a willful soul.
How did Hobbes’ materialism help lay the groundwork for a science of psychology?
- Materialisme: Physical causation of behavior
Behavior is completely a product of the body and and thus physically caused and subject to natural law. This philosophy took away the limits of what can be studies scientifically.
How did the nineteenth centry understanding of the nervous system inspire a theory of behavior called reflexology, namely by the discovery of 2 pathways?
- Materialisme: Physical causation of behavior
It was demonstrated that the nerves entering the spinal cord contain 2 separate pathways:
- carrying messages into the CNS from the skin’s sensory receptors
- carrying messages out to operate muscles.
The learning about simple reflexes inspired the theory of reflexology which states that all human behavior occurs through reflexes, thus all human actions are initiated by stimuli in the environment.
How did discoveries of localization of function in the brain help establish the idea that the mind can be studies scientifically?
And what is the field called that takes this idea to the extreme?
- Materialisme: Physical causation of behavior
It gave substance to the idea that there is a material basis for mental processes.
Taken to the extreme leads to the pseudoscience phrenology: all aspects of thought, emotion, personality can be located in the brain.
How would you explain the origin of complex ideas and thoughts according to the British empeiricism?
What role did the law of association by contiguity (nabijheid) play in this philosophy?
- Empericisme:Mind and behavior are shaped by experience
We are born with a blank slate (tabula rasa) as a mind. Through sensory experience gained from interaction with the environment, thoughts and complex ideas are formed.
The law of association by contiguity states that if one experiences different environmental stimuli around the same time, those stimuli will be bound togehter in one’s mind. It explains how sensory experiences can combine to form complex thoughts.
How would you describe the influence that empericist philosophy has had on psychology?
- Empericisme:Mind and behavior are shaped by experience
It refined the idea that a person is (partly) a product of its environment
Why is the ability to learn dependent on inborn knowledge? In Kant’s nativists philiosophy, what is the distinction between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge?
- Empericisme: Mind and behavior are shaped by experience
Nativism is the opposite of empiricism.
Without the ability to learn from experience on could not learn. This is a prerequisite and thus has to be inborn knowledge.
A priori: built into the human brain. A posteriori: gained from experience in the environment.
How did Darwin’s theory of natural selection offer a scientic foundation for explaining behavior by describing its functions? How did it provide a basis for understanding the origin of a priori knowledge?
- Nativisme: Machinery of behavior and mind evolved through natural selection
Darwin states that all living things have acquired tendencie to behave in ways that promote their survival and reproduction. His thinking led to a focus on the functions of behavior. He helped scholars to convince that human beings are part of the natural world and therefore can be understood through methods of science. Natural selection/evolution that took place before our birth provided us with a priori knowledge, and therefore natural selection offers a scientific foundation for nativist views of the mind.
What are the levels of analysis in psychology?
And how can you divide the levels?
Which level is a vreemde eend in de bijt?
A person’s behavior or mental experience can be examined at these levels:
- Neural: brain as cause (behavioral neuroscience)
- Physiological: internal chemistry as cause (biopsychology)
- Genetic: genes as cause (behavioral genetics)
- Evolutionary: natural selection as cause (evolutionary psychology)
- Learning: prior experiences with environment as cause (learning psychology)
- Cognitive: knowledge or beliefs as cause (cognitive psychology). Cognition = informaion in the mind. Focuses on mind while learning focuses on behvior.
- Social: influence of others as cause (social psychology)
- Cultural: culture as cause (cultural psychology). Social psychology emphasizes how immediate social influences act on individuals and groups, while cultural psychology characterize entire cultures in terms of typical ways that people think, feel and act.
- Developmental: age as cause (developmental psychology)
Divide into biological and environmental.
Merk op dat de ontwikkelingstheoretische verklaringen hierbij wel een beetje een vreemde eend in de empiristische bijt zijn. Want ontwikkeling wordt vaak niet alleen door de omgeving in gang gezet, maar ook door aangeboren factoren die zich pas later in het leven ontvouwen. Juist in de ontwikkelingspsychologie tiert de discussie tussen nativisten en empiristen dan ook welig, in de vorm van het zogeheten nature-nurturedebat, zoals we later in deze cursus zullen zien.
What are examples of specialities within psychology that are defined in terms of topic instead of level of analysis?
sensory psychology psychology of emotion psychology of motivation clinical psychology personality psychology perceptual psychology
What are the three main divisions of academic studies and how does psychology link them together?
Humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Psychology is a hub science that has meaninful connections to all three.
