historical perspectives psych

Question 1

Who’s William Wundt?

Answer 1

• Founder of psychology

- tried to identify elements of consciousness

Question 2

What’s Structuralism?

Answer 2

Edward Titchener

• psychology was to analyse the STRUCTURE of
  CONSCIOUSNESS into its basic elements and investigate how
  these elements were related.
• how feelings, sensations & images make up experiences

Question 3

What’s Functionalism?

Answer 3

William James

• Psychology should investigate the
  FUNCTION/purpose of CONSCIOUSNESS,
  rather than its structure
• the role of psychology is to understand the FUNCTION of consciousness

Question 4

What’s Behaviourism?

Answer 4

John B Watson

• psychology should only study OBSERVABLE BEHAVIOUR
• abandon study of consciousness
• focus on action (do/say) rather than thoughts/feelings
• internal thought = ‘private events’

Question 5

What’s Gestalt Psychology?

Answer 5

Max Wertheimer

Law of Simplicity

• Psychological phenomena are best viewed as
  organised, structured wholes, not analysed into
  component elements

Question 6

What’s Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic theory?

Answer 6

Sigmund Freud

Personality , motivation & mental disorders can be explained by focusing on UNCONSCIOUS determinants of behaviour

• ‘unconscious’ (memories/thought/desire) significantly influence behaviour

Question 7

What is Radical Behaviourism?

Answer 7

B.F. Skinner

‘Organisms tend to repeat responses that lead to positive outcomes and tend not to repeat those that lead to negative outcomes.’

internal mental events/processes are a byproduct of environmental events and CAN’T be studied scientifically

Question 8

What’s Humanism?

Answer 8

Abraham Maslow

• Optimistic view of HUMAN NATURE
• emphasis on unique qualities of humans,
  especially their freedom and their potential for
  personal growth

Question 9

Three premises of:

Psychodynamic Perspective

Answer 9

1. Actions are determined by the interplay of thoughts, feelings and wishes in the mind.
2. Many mental events happen outside of our conscious awareness
3. Mental processes may conflict with each other (anxiety)
   • Seeks to interpret meaning from verbal thought/behaviour

Question 10

Behaviourist Perspective

Answer 10

• Stimuli (event/objects of environment) come to control behaviour thought learning
• behaviour can be understood without reference to internal states (thoughts/feelings)
• aim to understand the relationship between stimuli and behaviour throughout experiment

Question 11

Humanistic perspective

Answer 11

• Focus on the uniqueness of the individual
• People are motivated to reach their full potential (self
actualisation)
• People are innately good and will strive to realise their goals and ambitions
(Abraham Maslow)
• Person-centred approach
(Carl Rogers)

Question 12

Cognitive perspective

Answer 12

• Cognition = mental processes (thinking,
understanding, learning and remembering)
• Focus is on the way people perceive,
process and retrieve information
• Application of scientific methods
to study internal mental events

Piaget’s three mountains task

Question 13

Evolutionary perspective

Answer 13

Understanding human mental processes/behaviours requires insight to their evolution
• Human behaviours evolved because they helped our ancestors survive and
reproduce.
• Not just physical traits – our psychology too
• Some behaviours are
biologically determined (e.g., the impulse to eat, sexual impulses)

Question 14

Define Psychology

Answer 14

The scientific investigation of mental processes (thinking, remembering, feeling and behaviour) and the interaction between them

Question 15

Psychology’s intellectual parents?

Answer 15

Philosophy and Physiology

Question 16

order/stages of early psychology

Answer 16

Structuralism 
Functionalism 
Behaviourism 
Gestalt 
Psychodynamic
Radical Behaviourism 
Humanistic