History of psychology Flashcards
what do psychologists do?
Asking interesting questions about people (and trying to answer them).
what is psychology about?
- Asking (and answering) interesting questions about people.
- The kinds of questions that psychology researchers ask, have changed over the years.
- Questions change when things in society or science change
- When the questions change, the research method changes, too
what does Kuhn’s paradigm dicate?
A paradigm dictates:
* what should be observed and measured (behaviour, mental processes)
* the questions we should ask about those observations (about learning, about happiness)
* how the questions should be formulated (how fast….?, what is it like?)
* how the results should be interpreted (evidence for cognitive model, understanding lifeworld of person)
* how research should be carried out (in a lab, in people’s homes)
* what equipment is appropriate (stopwatch, diary
what is paradigm?
A set of concepts and practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time
who is Wilhelm Wundt?
“Wilhelm Wundt established the first experimental psychology laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig”
- Assistant of Von Helmholtz
- Mental processes are a product of the nervous system, so they take time
- Aimed to measure the speed of simple mental processes (subtraction)
- ‘Atoms of the mind’
- Warned: only simple mental phenomena can be studied with introspection Considered founder of Psychology because:
- he wrote the first textbook that summarized psychological research up to that point
- Opened first university-based laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig
who is William James?
“William James established the first psychology laboratory in 1875 in Harvard”
who are famous psychologists/scientists in the 1600s - 1750s
- Rene Descartes
- John Locke
- Gottfried Leibniz
who was Gustav Fechner?
Gustav Fechner aimed to discover laws of human perception
* The research method was the same as in the physical sciences(positivist, empiricist)
* Data were gathered through ‘introspection’ (=self-report)
what famous scientists make their debut in the 1800s?
- Franz Joseph Gall Phrenology
- Hermann von Helmholz showed how neurological processes could be studied with experiments, and that the mind is not a metaphysical entity
- Paul Broca
- Wilder Penfield
when did Charles Darwin become well-known?
November 1859: Charles Darwin publishes ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection‘ (Wundt was 27 years old, James was 17)
what effects did the famous scientists of the 1800s have on the rest of the world?
- Humans can be subjected to scientific inquiry
- Philosophers, physiologists and medics became (more) interested in studying them.
- Especially: gaining a scientific understanding of the inner world of experience. What is the relationship between the outer and inner world?
what were the reactions to the introspection approach?
- william james (1890)
- behaviourism paradigm (watson 1913)
what influence did william james influence?
- James is often associated with the term ‘functionalism’ (as opposed toTitchener’s structuralism)
- However, he was also influential in starting a movement towards an entirely different way of doing research.
- This is often missed out of the History of Psychology textbook chapters
what was William James’ reaction to the introspection appraoch?
- Subjective world of the participant must be understood in its own right
- Avoid the ‘psychologist’s fallacy’
who was edmund husserl ?
- He admired William James’ ideas
- Humans aren’t chemical elements
- All that matters is people’s experience
- Introduced the term ‘phenomenology’
