History of Psychology

Question 1

Psychology must use an _______ method, define.

Answer 1

Empirical method: based on observation and experimentation, based on measurable data

Question 2

Socrates believed ___ formed us, Aristotle believed _____ formed us

Answer 2

Socrates: Nature, Aristotle: Nurture

Question 3

What did Renes Descartes(1596-1650) believe?

Answer 3

Questioned how mind is connected to and communicated with body, and saw them as two separate entities.

Question 4

What did Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) believe?

Answer 4

Saw mind and body as one entity, the mind is what the person is and the seed of consciousness is mind

Question 5

What was Herman van Helmholtz an example of?
What did Herman van Helmholtz (1821-1894) study?

Answer 5

A) Protopsychology: person who studied psychology before it was an established study
B) Studied how fast connection between mind and body was; saw there was delay in pinching hip and verbal response, and longer delay with stepping on foot and verbal response. Empirically measured it.

Question 6

Who was Helmhotz’s research assistant who adopted his idea of measuring reaction times and became first to be referred to as a psychologist?

Answer 6

Wilhelm Wundt, German scientist (1832-1920)

Question 7

A) What is structuralism?
B) What did Wilhelm Wundt (influenced creation of structuralism) believe?

Answer 7

A) Questions individual components of the mind, contents of mental processes rather than functions
B) Viewed psychology as scientific study of conscious experience, wanted to identify components of consciousness and how they worked together to create our conscious experience

Question 8

A) What method did Wilhelm Wundt’s study use and what was it’s flaw?
B) What did Wilhelm Wundt’s study consist of?

Answer 8

A) Used introspection (trained people to examine their conscious as objectively as possible), highly subjective/inconsistent
B) Subject would receive stimulus (beep) and have to push button. Measured time to one-thousandth of a second

Question 9

Who developed structuralism?

Answer 9

Edward Titchener, one of Wilhelm Wundt’s students

Question 10

What is functionalism?

Answer 10

Focuses on how mental activities help an organism fit into environment, more interested in operation of whole mind compared to individual parts

Question 11

Who established functionalism?

Answer 11

William James, John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce

Question 12

What did William James believe? What methods did he use?

Answer 12

Viewed Darwin’s theory of evolution as explanation of organisms’s characteristics and behaviours as they must adapt to their environment.
- Example: why did our frontal lobe evolve to be so large and what function does it serve?
Believed introspection could help study mental activities but also used objective measures (e.g. recording devices)

Question 13

A) What is gestalt psychology?
B) What does it contradict?

Answer 13

A) how parts work together as a whole is what individual responds to in perception (e.g. a song may have individual notes/instruments, but song is perceived as a melody(
B) contradicts structuralism

Question 14

Who introduced gestalt psychology to United States?

Answer 14

Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler.
- Forced to abandon a lot of their work when they fled to United States, as well as rise of behaviourism, prevented this from being as big in US as it was in Germany.

Question 15

What is psychoanalytic theory?

Answer 15

Focuses on role of a person’s unconscious and early childhood, often involved patient talking about selves, dominated clinical psychology for decades.

Question 16

Who popularized psychoanalytic theory? What did he believe and how did he try to achieve it?

Answer 16

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Interested in those suffering from hysteria, interest in causes to what happens when minds don’t work theorized that many of his patients problems arose from unconscious mind (“a place of feelings and urges of which we have no control/awareness”) and pushing down disturbance when we were younger.
Thought he could solve patients problems by unlocking unconscious mind through dream analysis, examinations of first words coming to peoples minds, and accidental slips of tongue

Question 17

What were three problems with Freud’s ideas?

Answer 17

Theories were unfalsifiable, kept changing theories so scientists lost interest, placed too much emphasis on sex

Question 18

What is behaviourism?

Answer 18

Approach of observing and controlling behaviour, behaviour determined by genetics and environment, thought studying consciousness was too subjective

Question 19

How did Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) influence behaviourism?

Answer 19

Studied classical conditioning using behaviour called conditioned reflex. Worked with salivation reflex in response to food. By associating the food stimulus with a second stimulus (e.g. noise), the salivation reflex would respond to the second stimulus alone.

Question 20

How did John B. Watson (1878-1958) influence behaviourism?

Answer 20

Believed objective analysis of mind/consciousness was impossible, so focused on observable behaviour and bringing it under control.

Question 21

How did B.F. Skinner influence behaviourism? What did his experiment consist of?

Answer 21

Founded operant conditioning, concentrated on how behaviour was affected by its consequences. Saw reinforcement and punishment as major factors in behaviour
Developed an operant conditioning chamber (called Skinner box) that isolated subject from external environment. When rat in Skinner Box pushed lever or button, it would deliver a positive reinforcement (e.g. food) or punishment (e.g. loud noise)

Question 22

What is humanism?

Answer 22

Emphasizes potential good innate to humans and their growth potential (disagreed with other theories focusing on the negative and being deterministic)

Question 23

How did Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) influence humanism?

Answer 23

Proposed hierarchy of human needs in behaviour motivation. Once basic needs (food, shelter, etc.) were met, higher-level needs (e.g. social needs) would motivate behaviour, with self-actualization at the top of the hierarchy.

Question 24

How did Carl Rogers (1902-1987) influence humanism?

Answer 24

Used client-centered therapy where patient takes lead in session (unlike psychoanalytic theory where therapist interprets what conscious says of unconscious, this is just focused on patient’s conscious), believed a therapist only needed to display unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy, and with those the patient will start to accept themselves and be more capable of solving their own issues. Believed people not receiving unconditional positive regard from parents as young children caused their neurological struggles.

Question 25

When and what three scientific inquiry topics formed cognitive revolution? What did it place emphasis on?

Answer 25

By the 1950s, new scientific inquiry in linguistics (how language shapes thought), neuroscience (how the brain works), and computer science came to be known as the cognitive revolution.
Placed emphasis on mental processes rather than behaviour

Question 26

Which two women were most influential in feminist psychology and how?

Answer 26

Naomi Weisstein published an article in 1968 which criticized male psychologists for constructing psychology of women entirely out of their own biases without experiments to verify
Freud believed in penis envy, Karen Horney clapped back and argued for womb envy

Question 27

Which three discussed WEIRD societies and what did they speak of? What does WEIRD stand for?

Answer 27

Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan discuss how WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) societies are overstudied and being generalized to non-WEIRD societies.

Question 28

What do multicultural psychologists focus on?

Answer 28

Multicultural psychologists develop theories and conduct research with diverse populations (typically in one country)

Question 29

What do cross-culture psychologists focus on?

Answer 29

Cross-Culture psychologists compare populations across countries (e.g. US vs China)