Unit 1: Psychology's History (pgs 1-8) Flashcards
How did psychology develop from its prescientific roots in early understandings of mind and body to the beginnings of modern science?
Ancient Greeks (Plato and Aristotle), pondered whether mind and body are connected or distinct and whether human ideas are innate or result from experience. Descartes and Locke reengaged those ancient debates, with Locke offering his famous description of the mind as a “blank slate”, leading to modern empiricism.
Socrates/Plato
mind is separate from body and continues after the body dies. Knowledge is innate (born within us)- developed principal by logic
Aristotle
developed principle by careful observations, knowledge NOT preexisting (comes from experiences)
Descartes
believes in existence of innate ideas and mind being “distinct from body” and being able to survive death. Spirits flow through the brain through nerves, memories opened places for spirits
Francis Bacon
“human understanding…easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds.” Braines hunger to perceive patterns (even in random events)
John Locke
at birth, the mind is a “blank slate” which can, as time passes, be written on with experience
Empiricism
the idea that knowledge comes from experiences, and the observations and experimentation enable scientific knowledge
What event defined the founding of modern science psychology? Who created it?
2 young men and Wilhelm Wundt. They ran an experiment of how long it took people to press a telegraph key after hearing a ball hit a platform and wanted to measure the “atoms of the mind”. This resulted in finding the fast and simple mental processes (led to first psychological lab)
Who is G. Stanley Hall?
established first formal psychology laboratory at John Hopkins University
Structuralism
early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind (introduced by Edward Bradford Titchener)
William James
believed should consider evolved functions of thought and feelings; thinking (like smelling) adaptive. Consciousness serves a function (consider our past, present, and future studied down to earth emotions, memories, willpower, habits, and moment to warrent streams of consciousness)
Functionalism
explored how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organization to adapt, survive, and flourish. This was promoted by James and influences by Darwin
Mark Whiton Calkins
in 1890 admitted into James’ graduate seminar, distinguished memory researcher, in 1905 became the first female president of the American Psychological Association
Margaret Floy Washburn
the first official female psychology PhD, wrote the Animal Mind, 2nd female APA president
Experimental Psychology
exploring behaviors and thinking with experiments
Behaviorism
the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior with out reference to mental processes reference to mental processes. (Most psychologists agree that psychology should be objective but not that it should be without reference to mental processes)
Humanistic Psychology
a historically significant perspective that emphasized human growth potential
Cognitive Neuroscience
the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language)
Psychology
The science of behavior and mental processes
What is the key word to psychology’s definition?
Science (less of a set of findings than a way of asking and answering questions)
Fill in the blank. The ___ science of psychology developed from the more established field of ___ and ____.
young; philosophy; biology
Nature-nurture issue
Describe the importance of natural selection to evolutionary psychology.
Natural selection selects traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce- connects to evolutionary psychology, the study of evolutionary behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection
Who is Charles Darwin?
proposed evolutionary process of natural selection
