History of (Western) and (SA) psychology

Question 1

introduction

Answer 1

•The first force
–Structuralism
–Behaviourism 
–Cognitive psychology
•The second force
–The unconscious
•The third force
–The experience of being human
•The fourth force
–Transpersonal psychology

Question 2

psychology & structuralism

Answer 2

Wilhelm Wundt

Question 3

the purpose of the first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany in 1879

Answer 3

To study conscious experience

Question 4

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 4

•Credited with making psychology an independent science, separate from philosophy
•Wundt’s original training was in medicine, but he became deeply interested in psychology
•He brought the scientific methods of physiology to bear on philosophical questions and established the first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany in 1879
•Wundt believed that the mind could be studied by breaking it down into its basic components and modeled the study of the mind after the natural sciences•He systematically observed and measured how various stimuli combine to make up personal experiences (Such as sensations, images, and feelings)
•Did so through introspection (i.e. examining and reporting ones thoughts, feelings, etc.)
•Wundt’s ideas taken to the US by Titchener and renamed Structuralism:
–School of thought concerned with analysing sensations and personal experience into basic elements
–Focuses on the structures or basic elements underlying conscious experience of environment
•Introspection
–Looking inward, careful, systematic observations of one’s own conscious experience
•Focus on sensation and perception

Question 5

Behaviourism

Answer 5

John Watson & B. F. Skinner

Question 6

John Watson

Answer 6

•Founder of radical behaviourism
•Defined psychology as the scientific study of behaviour
•A school of thought that emphasises environmental control of behaviour through learning
–Studied relationship between stimuli and responses
•Little Albert
•Behaviourism is rooted in the philosophical school of British empiricism which held that all ideas and knowledge is gained through the senses
–Early empiricist John Locke believed that at birth the human mind is a blank slate upon which experience is written
•Radical reorientation of psychology as a science of observable behaviour
–Study of consciousness abandoned

Question 7

B. F. Skinner

Answer 7

• Believed actions controlled by rewards and punishments

* Skinner box

Question 8

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 8

•While behaviourism disregarded study of the mind, cognitive psychologists attempting to understand the mind
•Believed that behaviour can be understood in terms of the mental processing of information
–The brain processes, stores, and retrieves information

Question 9

Cognitive Psychology theorists

Answer 9

• 1950’s and 60’s –Piaget, Chomsky, and Simon
• Application of scientific methods to studying internal mental events
• Aaron Beck-cognitive model for the treatment of depression

Question 10

The Unconscious

Answer 10

Sigmund Freud

Question 11

Sigmund Freud

Answer 11

•Founded the psychoanalytic school of thought
•Among the first to note that childhood affects adult personality
•Emphasis on unconscious processes within one’s personality (such as wishes, thoughts, and desires, especially sex and aggression) as influencing behaviour
–Unconscious = Outside awareness
•Conflict between biological instinct and societal demands
–Clinical case study rather than experimental evidence (the case of Anna O)
•The grounding for psychotherapy
•Freud opposed laboratory research on psychoanalytic theory believing that his clinical observations were more valid

Question 12

freud’s data collection and research method

Answer 12

•Freud consulted with patients who experienced physical symptoms such as blindness, pain, or paralysis without any apparent bodily cause
•Also treated many patients with intense, irrational fears (phobias)
•Reasoned that the cause of these symptoms was psychological of an unconscious origin
•At first he used hypnosis and later free association and discovered that many patient eventually described painful and “long forgotten” childhood experiences, often of a sexual nature
–He became convinced that people are profoundly influenced by unconscious force
•That is, thoughts, memories, and desires that are outside conscious awareness

Question 13

Experience of Being Human

Answer 13

Many people had a hard time believing that people are not masters of their own fate and found that both the first and second forces were de-humanising
•Humanism
–Led by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
•Emphasis on the unique qualities of humans
•Focus on: 
–Human problems and potentials
–Freedom
–Personal growth

Question 14

Karl Bühler

Answer 14

–The study of depth and dignity of human life

–Rejected the cold mechanistic sciences and the viewpoint that psychology focuses only on severe personal problems

Question 15

Kierkegaard

Answer 15

–Existentialism (The full extent of being human)

•Joy, despair, love, freedom, and choice

Question 16

Husserl

Answer 16

–A rigorous systematic study of human experience that is not reductionistic

Question 17

Humanism

Answer 17

–Led by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

Question 18

Transpersonal Psychology

Answer 18

•A fundamentally spiritual world
•Dramatic changes in consciousness can have a profound effect on one’s life
•An everyday level of consciousness provides a limited view
–e.g. Sangoma and Inyanga

Question 19

The Poor White Problem and Psychology: Carnegie Commission (1928)

Answer 19

•The complicity of South African psychology with racism had a number of early historical markers
–Carnegie Commission (1928) arguably the most significant of these
–In 1927, the President of the Carnegie Corporation indicated they were willing to invest funds in South Africa to investigate a key societal problem
–EG Malherbe, an educational psychologist, was approached to identify the problem
•Malherbe indicated that, without question, the poor White problem was SA’s most pressing concern
–Note: Black poverty, racism, the conditions of Black labour were not considered
•Louw (1990): The commission provided South African psychologists with the opportunity to prove their usefulness in the solution of societal problems

Question 20

Why did SA psychology not resist Apartheid?

Answer 20

•Psychologists do not function in a vacuum
–We are socialised by and into prevailing dominant ideologies
–Unlikely to escape the effect of constituent discourses
•“Very basic forms of knowing, of understanding, of making sense of the world, which carry a great deal of weight in a given society”
–Racism permeated all facets of the lives of everyone in South Africa during Apartheid

Question 21

Local and international racisms of psychology

Answer 21

•Psychologists came mainly from the White middle class and were therefore among the principal beneficiaries of Apartheid racism
–In the 1970’s, less than 2% of Psychologists were Black
–In the 1980’s, less than 10% of Psychologists were Black
•SA psychology formed part of an internal psychology community that, to this day, still struggles to come to terms with its past collusions with racism
•Social scientists from around the world form ‘a social group’, and in this group they do not only ‘compete with each other through persuasive argumentation, but they also communicate and identify with each other through the work that they produce
–Ideas that emerge in one part of the system circulate reasonably effortlessly throughout the system

Question 22

Inferiorisation of blackness: Herbert Spencer

Answer 22

–Herbert Spencer in Principles of Psychology
•Selective breeding was necessary to eliminate unfit races
•In his thinking, this included Black people whom he considered inferior to “the least worthy White person”

Question 23

Inferiorisation of blackness: Thorndike

Answer 23

–Thorndike
•Lauded as a pioneer of educational and child psychology
•Advocated compulsory sterilisation of the poor and underprivileged races as an alternative to psychological and educational interventions

Question 24

Inferiorisation of blackness: Arthur Jensen

Answer 24

–Arthur Jensen
•Educational psychologist
•Impoverished Black children performed more poorly on learning tasks than their more privileged white counterparts, not because of their depressed environments and racial discrimination but because they were genetically inferior to white individuals

Question 25

Psychology and genocide

Answer 25

–1930’s Psychology provide Nazi Germany with “authoritative ‘scientific’ justification”
–Discipline of psychology burgeoned under German National Socialism

Question 26

Psychology Post 1994: Stevens (2001)

Answer 26

–When race and racism were dealt with either overtly or peripherally, many authors continued to use ‘race’ as an unproblematic social construct without a critical assessment of racism
–Less than one third dealt with race or racism with even fewer having it as the central focus

Question 27

Psychology Post 1994: Magwaza (2001)

Answer 27

–Inertia and indifference on the part of psychology

•Missed opportunities to assist in collective healing