Module 1 Flashcards
3 parts of the scientific attitude
Curiosity, skepticism, humility
Curiosity
-Part of the scientific attitude
-passion to explore and understand the world using an emipirical (based on observable evidence) approach
Skepticism
-part of the scientific attitude
- using critical thinking
- analyzing theater than accepting claims
- examining assumptions, identifying biases and considering other options
Humility
- Part of the scientific attitude
- accept that you might be wrong
- Acknowledging vulnerability in error
- openness to new ideas
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
Early Greek philosophers who weren’t scientists but asked interesting questions
Ibn Al-Haytham
- 1011 AD
- book of optics
- “First true scientist”
- Explained box with pinhole and upside down tree
Wilhem Wundt
- Established first psycology lab
- interested in “atoms of the mind” (simplest mental processes), structuralist approach
- Conducted experiments involving response to stimuli
- Used introspective reports (limited by biases and inconsistency - don’t always know what’s going on in your own kind)
Edward Titchener
- Influenced by Wundt
- introspective report
- experimenter present stimuli to observer who reported their experiences
- sought to understand the mind by breaking it down into small components
Structuralist Approach
Considering thoughts, feelings, and sensations as structural components of the mind
William James
- heavily inspired by Darwin
- functionalist approach - why we evolved to think the way we do
- largely responsible for bringing psychology as a science to the United States
Functionalist approach
asks why (evolutionarily) we think/behave the ways we do
Mary Calkins
- Student of William James
- Studied dreams and visual perception
- Started first psychology lab for women
Margaret Washburn
- Student of Edward Tishner
- barred from his experimental psychology organization because she was a woman
- wrote “The Animal Mind”
Behaviorism
- Rejected introspection as too subjective and unreliable
- focused on objective measurements
- stimulus and response research often done with animal subjects
- can’t see into the mind (“black box”)
Watson and Skinner
- Behaviorist researchers who redefined psychology from science of internal “mental life” to a science of directly observable behavior
- Heavily inspired by Pavlov (conditioned response)