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French Philospher - Rene Descartes
A question that was debated by the Greek philosphers was called the "mind-body problem." This involved the relationship between the brain and body. The problem that occured was whether the brain and body were seperate things, or if were the same thing and connected. This was studied by French Philosopher Rene Descartes in the seventeenth-century. In his theory called "dualism" who said that "the human mind and body are separate but interact through the brain." -
German Psychologist - Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt, a german psychologist was trained in medicine who was specifically interested in the study of human consciousness. His research findings and articles on the structure of consciousness which led to the establishment of the first school in psychology, which was called "strucuralism." Strucuralism focused on the structure of consciousness, that is, the basic parts that make up consciousness, how the parts are organised. -
Sigmend Freud
According to Dr Freud (founding father of psychoanalysis), "our consciousness is a part of the mind, below our level or normal conscious awareness." An important aspect of psychoanalysis as hypothesized by freud is that our past experiences, especially early childhood experiences are very important in the development of our personality and behaviour. -
German pyhsiologist - Hermann von Helmholtz
Helmholtz conducted scientific research to accurately estimate the speed of nerve impulses in the human body. Following the successful testing with frogs, he adapted his method to the study of humans. -
Psychologist - William James
William James and Wilhelm Wundt were presumably the fathers of psychology. Although they were different men, they are alike in some ways. They both claimed to have found the first psychology lab in 1875. James studied "functionalism" which focusses on the functions/purpose that mental processes serve in enabling people to adapt to their enviroment. -
John B - Watson
Psychologist Watson, suggested that psychology should focus on the scientific study of observable behaviour that can be measured and confirmed by other reasearchers. He also promoted the idea that the goals of psychology should be to describe, predict, understand and control behaviour. His area of study "Behaviourism" involved understanding and explaining how behaviour is learned and mouled by experiences. -
Psychologist Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers the founder of Humanism which focused on the study of humans behaviour and mental process. Roger makes a point that "free will" is freely chosen by individuals and behave in whatever way we desire and act towards those choices. This means that we also control our own destinies. He also believed that we are all born with the potential to become great in our own way. Rogers preferred to call "clients" rather than patients. -
Greek Philosopher - 2000 years ago (BC)
The Greek Philosopher Socrates and his followers Plato and Aristotle wrote about human thoughts, feelings and behaviour and the human nature. They hypothesized about memory, sleep, dreams, pleasure and pain, whether humans were born good or evil as well as many aspects of human mind. These great philosphers also discussed many of the question that psychologists continue to question today.
