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400 BCE
The Greeks
-Began to study human behavior and decided people's lives were controlled by their minds not so much by the gods.
-Set the stage for the development of sciences. -
1500
Nicolaus Copernicus
-Published the idea that the sun,not earth is the center of the universe.
-Developed his own celestial model of a heliocentric planetary system. -
1500
Galileo Galilei
-He used a telescope to confirm predictions about star position and movement, all based on Copernicus's work.
-Renaissance were beginning to refine what would become the modern concept of experimentation through observation. -
Rene Descartes
-French philosopher
-He disagreed with the seventeenth century philosophers on the idea of dualism.
-He reasoned that the mind controlled the body's movements, sensation, and perceptions. -
Phrenology
-The practice of examining bumps on a person's skull to determine that person's intellect and character traits.
-Inspired scientists to consider the brain, instead of the heart, as responsible for human behavior. -
German psychologists
-Max Wertheimer,Wolfgang Kohler, Kurt Koffka
-Disagreed with the principles of structuralism and behaviorism
-They argued that the perception is more than the sum of its parts. -
Sir Francis Galton
-English mathematician and scientist
-Wanted to know how heredity, or biological traits passed from parents to children, influences abilities, character, and behavior.
-Traced the ancestors of various eminent people and concluded that genius is a hereditary trait.
-His theory was that heredity, along with environment, influences intelligence. -
William James (Father of psychology)
-Taught the first class in psychology at Harvard University in 1875.
-It took him 12 years to write the first textbook of psychology.
-Focused on the functions or actions of the conscious mind and the goals and purposes of behaviors.
-Functionalists studied how animals and people adapt to their environment. -
Functionalists
-Studied how animals and people adapt to their environments -
Behaviorists
-Psychologists who stressed investigating observable behavior -
Ivan Pavlov
-Russian physiologist
-Charted another new course for psychological investigation
-Had a famous experiment to where he trained his dog to a certain sound to where it thought of food every time he rang it -
Contemporary
-Many ideas taken from the historical approaches to psychology are reflected in contemporary approaches to the study of psychology.
-The most important approaches to the study of psychology today are the psychoanalytic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, biological, and sociocultural approaches. -
Sigmund Freud
-Practiced in Vienna
-Interested in the unconscious mind
-Believed unconscious motivations and conflicts are responsible for most human behavior
-His studies is the core of Psychodynamic psychology -
Psychoanalyst
-Freud used this new method for indirectly studying the unconscious processes
-Know as the "free association" where a patient says everything that comes to mind no matter how absurd or irrelevant it seemed without attempting to have logical or meaningful statements
-Through this Freud believed, revealed that dreams are expressions of the most primitive unconscious urges -
Mary Whiton Calkins
-Became a female pioneer in psychology
-First woman to become President of the Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Association -
John B. Watson
-Defined and solidified the behaviorist position
-Believed psychology should concern itself only with the observable facts of behavior.
-Maintained that all behavior, even instinct behavior, is the result of conditioning, or situational training, and occurs since the appropriate stimulus is present in the environment -
Lev Vygotsky
-Russian psychologist
-Emphasized the impact of cultural and social factors of cognitive development in children -
B.F. Skinner
-Popularized the concept of changing behaviors through repeated rewards or punishments
-He developed an operant conditioning apparatus which became known as the SKinner box
-With this device he could study an animal interacting with its environment -
Cognitivists
-How we process, store,retrieve, and use information and how this information influences thinking, language, problem solving, and creativity
-This behavior is more than a response to a stimulus
-Behavior is influenced by a variety of mental processes, including perceptions, memories, and expectations -
Humanists
-Developed as a reaction to behavioral psychology
-Does not view humans as being controlled by events in the environment or by unconscious forces
-This approach emphasizes that each person has a unique individual identity and the potential to develop fully -
Sociocultural Psychologists
-The influence of cultural and ethnic similarities and differences in behavior and social functioning.
-Also study the impact and integration of the millions of immigrants who come to the United States a year.
-This approach is also concerned with issues such as gender and socioeconomic status and is based on the idea that these factors impact human behavior and mental processes