Unit 1: Scientific Foundations of Psychology Flashcards
What were the two fields psychology was modeled after?
Philosophy and physiology
Who created the first psychology laboratory for research in the field?
Wilhelm Wundt
When was the first psychology laboratory established?
1879
According to Wundt, what should psychology be the study of?
The conscious experience;
The awareness of immediate experience
Where was the first laboratory for psychology established?
At the University of Leipzig
What was the first two major schools of thought in psychology that fought against each other?
Structuralism and functionalism
What was structuralism?
It was based on the notion that the task of psychology is to analyse consciousness into its basic elements and see how those elements are related
How did psychologists pursue structuralism?
Through introspection
What is introspection?
The careful, systematic self-observation of one’s own conscious experience
What was the flaw with introspection?
It required training to make the subject more objective, aware, and response to their tests
Who inspired structuralism?
Edward Titchener
Who inspired functionalism?
William James
What was functionalism based on?
The belief that psychology should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than its structure
What is the “stream of consciousness”?
A term coined by William James;
He argued that consciousness consists of a continuous flow of thoughts and that structuralism was studying static points in that flow
What influential book did William James write?
The Principles of Psychology (1890);
It discusses his theories of emotion
What were the functionalists interested in doing in order to carry out their beliefs?
They were interested in how people adapt their behavior to the demands of the real world
What did structuralists do to study their school of thought?
They asked their participants to analyse and describe the quality and intensity of auditory and visual stimuli
What was the “unconscious,” according to Sigmund Freud?
It contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behavior
What did Freud’s psychoanalytic theory do?
Attempt to explain personality, motivations, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behavior
What does Freud’s psychoanalytic theory suggest?
It made the disconcerting suggestion tat people are not masters of their own mind,
that our behavior is governed by unconscious forces that we were unaware of
When did the psychoanalytic theory and early behaviorism come about?
They came about in the early 1900s
What is behaviorism?
A theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only observable behavior
Why was behaviorism radical?
It suggested that psychology be the study of behaviors that could be observed directly, not the study of the consciousness
What is behavior?
It refers to any overt (observable) response or activity by an organism
