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Aristotle
*335 B.C.
Denied the existance of innate ideas.
Suggests that the heart contians the mental processes (one thinks with thier heart).
Knowlegde grows from experiences in our memories -
Francis Bacon
Believed that we try to find patterns and easily supposed there are some, even in random events.
On superstitions: Superstitious people notice the fulfilling acts of superstition omore often than they notice the failures of them that occur every day. -
Renee Descartes
Held the belief that SOME ideas are innate.
Darwin's findings bolstered Descartes position on the nature-nurture subject. -
John Locke
With the help of Francis Bacon's ideas, he was able to establish the idea of empriricism, which states that knowledge originates in experience and that science should rely on observation and experimentation.
Believed that the mind was a blank slate--tabula rasa. -
Dorothea Dix
"the most effective advocate of humanitarian reform in American mental institutions during the nineteenth century" (Goldenson, 1970).
Said that mentally ill individuals should be treated instead of mixed with other criminal folk. Her ideas were radical to say the least at the time period.
She was able to SHOW that not all mental illnesses were untreatable. -
Charles Darwin
Argued that natural selection shapes behaviours as well as bodies.
His proposition of evolution is important in the twenty-first century psychology, asit not only explains phsycal appearences/changes, but also explains behaviours. -
G. Stanley Hall
Recieved the first U.S. Ph D degree based on psychological research.
focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory.
The theory that Hall is known for is his theory of recapitulation-each person goes through changes in both the psychic and somatic senses which follow the evolution scale of the mind and body. Hall believed that the pre-adolescent child develops to its best when it is not forced to follow constraints. -
Wilhelm Wundt
Established the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany.
His first experiment was the difference between the time that one would see a ball and their pressing of a key.
(Generally about 1/10 of a second after hearing the sound, 2/10th of a second after being aware of what they heard). -
Sigmund Freud
developed the psychoanalytic theory of personality that consists of three parts:
Superego- doing what society expects of you
Ego- tries to balance between id and superego.
Id- innermost desires and wants
Considered the founding father of psychoanalysis. -
William James
Thought it more beneficial to consider the evolved funtions of our thoughts and feelings. Assumed that thinking, like smelling, developed by adaptation.
He was a functionalist (focuses more on how our mental and behavioural processes function--how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish).
Admitted Mary Calkins into his class at Harvard. -
Mary Whiton Calkins
Female who was accepted into the Psychology program at Harvard.
She became the first female president of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1905. -
E. B. Titchner
Introduced the idea of structuralism (uses introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind). However, it proved somewhat unreliable as result varied from person to person and from experience to experience. -
Rosalie Rayner
worked with John B Watson and helped define psychology as the science of behaviour and demonstrated conditioned responses with a baby ("Little Albert").
Behaviourist -
Margaret Floy Washurn
Recived the first female psychology Ph. D.
Her ideas were published by Wundt (in his journal). Her gender kept her from joining the organization of experimental psychologists (the study of behaviour and thinking using the experimental method).
Second female persident of APA -
Plato
*387 BC
The mind is not part of the body: that it continues even after we've died. Held the belief that knowledge is innate (born within us). -
Socrates
*387 BC
Socrates, with his student Plato, concluded that the mind is seprate from the body and continues to exists even after the body has deceased.
Knowledge is innate (with us since we are born).
