History Of Psychology Flashcards
What is psychology?
Psych is the science of behavior and the mental process
No one perspective or theory can explain psych
What came before psych?
Philosophy:
The Greeks!
Metaphysics
Before psych: philosophy of Greeks
Going beyond physics
Epistemology
Philosophy of knowledge (Greeks, before psych)
Socrates
Ask questions to find answers
We already know the truth, find it within
Didn’t write work down; Aristotle did eventually
(Greek philosopher)
Plato
Socrates’ student
Believed in split reality (ideals, phenomena)
Believed human was split (body and soul)
(Greek philosopher)
Aristotle
Plato's student What Plato called ideal, he called essence Essence gives matter shape, meaning Without humans nothing matters Wrote book about "Para Psyche" Three types of souls Taught Alexander the Great (Greek philosopher)
What happened after philosophy but before psych?
Religion!
Gives answers to the human condition and gives a reason
Rene Descartes
(Enlightenment)
“I think, therefore I am”
Doubted everything
Deist hypothesis “good set a clock and walked away”
After religion but before psych?
Enlightenment
Thomas Hobbes
(Enlightenment) All motivation is about survival Free will is absurd, negative emotions Dark view on humanity Must be laws
John Locke
(Enlightenment)
Empiricist- we must observe and learn things around us
We are born a blank slate… People’s souls are good
What is human nature?
Psych wanted to use science to find “truth” about human natures and ideas
Charles Darwin- 1859, “The Origin of Species”, ideas started psych
Wilhelm Wundt- first to open a psych lab in Germany, Father of Psych
Earliest perspectives
Structuralism Functionalism Gestalt Psychodynamic Behaviorism
