History Flashcards
Define Psychology
The study of the mind and behaviour
What is the mind?
Internal states or processes such as thoughts or feelings. Cannot be observed directly and it must be inferred from observable and measurable responses.
List the goals of psychology
- to describe how people/animals behave
- to explain and understand the causes of these behaviours
- to predict how people/animals will behave under certain conditions
- to control behaviour through knowledge of its causes to enhance human/animal welfare
Theory of Humorism
-Proposed by Hippocrates
-4 fluids determined a person’s state of health (black bile, blood, yellow bile, phlegm)
-Medical disorders were indicative of an imbalance of these fluids throughout the body
-Every action, encounter, and behaviour was believed to be influenced by humors/their composition
-The body is a comprehensive system of interactions
This theory was built on by Galen:
-Suggested that humors combine to form temperaments
-Temperaments: personality characteristics defined by different ratios/compositions of the 4 humors (melancholic, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic)
Black bile : Melancholic—> sad/independent/introverted/perfectionist
Blood : Sanguine—> cheerful/impulsive/charismatic/optimistic
Yellow bile : Choleric—> angry/ambitious/energetic/aggressive
Phlegm : Phlegmatic—> sluggish/relaxed/content/lethargic
The Mind-Body Problem
-Argued that substance dualism exists: minds and bodies are distinct substances that interact
—> minds are immaterial
—> bodies are material
-Physical reality: publicly observable and objective
-Mental reality: thoughts, feelings and emotions are only observable to the person experiencing them
-Wanted to know how they interact (how an immaterial thing can affect a material thing)
Wilhelm Wundt
-Distinguished psychology from physiology and philosophy; labelled it as the study of consciousness
-Believed that psychology should be modelled after physics/chemistry
introspection: personal examination of one’s own conscious mental/emotional processes
Structuralism
-Advocated by Wilhelm Wundt
-Believes that the goal of psychology is to analyze basic elements (how to remember: ELEMENTS are required to build a STRUCTURE=Structuralism) of consciousness and examine how they are related
-Relies heavily on introspection (personal examination of consciousness)
-Elements observed refer to the sensations involved in hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, etc.
Functionalism
-Advocated by William James
-Believes that the goal of psychology is to analyze the function of consciousness, not its structure
-Consciousness is not discrete, but rather a continuous flow
Psychoanalytics
-Advocated by Sigmund Freud
-Developed a treatment called psychoanalysis
—> tried to explain personality, mental disorders and motivation by focusing on unconscious determinants of behaviour
-Unconscious: thoughts, memories and desires that are below the surface of awareness and exert influence over behaviour (cannot be observed objectively or subjectively)
Occams Razor/Principle of Parsimony/Law of Economy
-When confronted with multiple competing theories, the most parsimonious theory is preferred
-Parsimonious: has the least amount of additional assumptions
-The more assumptions a theory makes, the greater the number of opportunities there is for it to be disproved
The Behavioural Perspective
-Advocated by John B. Watson
-Believed that good science was not based on the subjective reports/aspects of a person’s feelings, sensations and emotions because only the experiencer could verify it
-Goal was to predict and control behaviour
-Believed that introspection was unscientific
-Wanted to abandon the study of consciousness and instead measure behaviour
-Strongly believed in verifiability–> scientists cannot confirm the truth/accuracy of subjective reports, therefore it is not good science
Behaviourism
-Theory with the premise that psychology should study observable behaviour
-Methodological behaviourism (Watson), a.k.a Stimulus-Response Psychology which relied on Pavlovian conditioning (unconditioned response and neutral stimulus)
-Science of behaviour grew because of Pavlov’s work on conditioned reflexes
-Major contributor to behavioural research was the research of animals (had large amounts of control over the subject/aspects of the experiment)
-Operant learning: specific consequences or rewards associated with a voluntary behaviour
-Humans are a product of genetic/learning history that the environment controls the expression of
The Humanistic Perspective
-Advocated by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
-Theory emphasizes the unique qualities of humans (primarily their freedom, choice, motives and potential for personal growth/self-actualization)
The Cognitive Perspective
-Encourages the act of inferring unobservable constructs on the basis of observable phenomena
-Cognition: to think—> measures external behaviour and uses that information to infer observations about a person’s mind, memory, and personality
The Biological Perspective
-Focuses on brain processes/bodily functions and how they regulate behaviour
-Brain regions having specialized functions
-Role of genetics in determining behaviour
