Lecture 1 Part 1 Flashcards
History of Psychology overview
What is the modern definition of Western psychology?
The scientific study of mind and behaviour
Define “mind” and “behaviour”
“Mind”: Private inner experience (perceptions, thoughts, memories,
feelings)
“Behaviour” – Observable actions of human beings and nonhuman
animals
What factors affect our perceptions and behaviours in Western Psychology?
- influenced and bounded
- by social, historical, political and cultural context
- and language
Why did WESTERN psychology become so popular? (4 points)
- post WWII alot of funding in USA/Canada
- Veterans needed clinical psych
- post war, people went to college because they could no longer do physical labour
- how to understand enemies
What were Plato’s views on nature vs nuture?
- knowledge is innate (nature)
- nativism
What were Aristotle’s views on nature vs. nurture?
- empiricism
- knowledge is acquired through experience (nurture)
What were Déscartes views on the mind and body? (2 points)
dualism: the mind and body are fundamentally different things, connected by the “magic tunnel”
- mind is immaterial, body is material
What was Franz Joseph Gall known for?
phrenology; he thought that developing parts of the brain caused bumps on the skull that could be read
What was Jean Pierre Flourens known for?
- animal studies; he removed/lesioned parts of animal’s brains and noticed what was impaired
What was Broca known for?
- human based study on a patient that had damage to a small part of the left frontal region
- he could understand speech, but could only say “tan”
What is Broca’s aphasia?
- difficulty forming complete sentences, leave out “is” or “the”
- mix up truck for car, or can for car
What was Wernicke known for?
- patient suffered damage to the left-middle part of the brain
- could not process the meaning of spoken words
- nonsensical sentences
What was Wilhelm Wundt known for?
- the first pyschology lab and textboook
- structuralism
What is structuralism?
breakdown of human consciousness by asking patients to look inwards
What was Titchener known for?
- structuralism
- encouraged self-reported introspection, recorded sensations and other elements of experience in reaction to stimuli
What was William James known for?
- taught the first psychology course
- functionalism
- the mind and body are connected
What were Sigmund Freud’s most significant contributions to psychology? (2)
- the unconscious
- psychoanalytic theory
Describe Ego, Superego, and Id
- EGO: executive mediating between id, superego, and ego, rational and mostly conscious
- SUPEREGO: ideals and morals, striving for perfection, mostly preconscious
- ID: basic impulses, immediate gratification, mostly unconscious
What is psychoanalytic theory?
an approach that emphasizes the important of the unconscious mental processes that shape feelings, thoughts and behaviours
Why are Freud’s ideas less influential today?
- he thought that people were hostages of their forgotten childhood experiences and sexual impulses
- you can’t test the unconscious
Who were the main people of behaviourism?
Watson (classical conditioning) & Skinner (operant conditioning)
What is behaviourism?
- scientific study of observable behaviour (no mental processes)
What is humanistic psychology? Who were the main humanistic psychologists?
- the environment either nurtures or limits growth; love and acceptance is very important
- Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
What was Mary Whiton Calkins known for?
- first APA female president
- memory researcher, developed system of self-psychology
- studied with James, but not allowed a PhD
