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300 BCE
Aristotle and Plato
Plato suggested that the mind was imprinted with knowledge and that 'learning' was simply a process of unlocking and utilizing the already stored knowledge. Aristotle however believed in 'nurture' and that each human is born with a 'blank' mind that is moulded and injected with knowledge by the individual exposing it to a range of experiences. -
Rene Descartes
Descartes suggests that there are two 'realms to existence' he said 'the only way to be sure of anything is to doubt everything' suggesting that the interaction between the two was 'unidirectional' that the mind influenced the body, but not the other way around. He believed there was a split between mind and body. -
John Locke
Locke firmly believed that every person is born with 'building blocks' to be used to build themselves as a person throughout their lives. he insinuated that life experiences hep us to form the necessary tools to survive and define ourselves individually. -
Charles Darwin.
Darwin believed that human and animal behavior changes over generations. As a result of this stronger genes are more likely to survive the test of time. He studied the 'biological approach' believing that human behaviors self-adapt to continue throughout generations. -
Wilhelm Wundt.
Wundt separated psychology from philosophy by analyzing the workings of the mind in more detail than ever before. He studied the process of 'organizing the mind'. Wundt opened the 'institute for experimental psychology' due to this he is now regarded as the 'father of psychology' -
John Watson
Watson helped to develop the 'behaviorist theory' he believed that a person could only display their internal actions by showing physical responses. He aired on the side of 'nurture' conducting several experiments showing how people (mainly children) could be conditioned to feel fear, anger, excitement etc. His work left long lasting impact on psychology. -
Sigmund Freud
Freud was the founder of 'psycho analysis' a method of talking therapy still used today to treat mental illness. Freud's most famous theory is the 'psycho sexual stages' he believed that all children are born with a sexual urge and that from babies we seek pleasure from different objects. he said that to be psychologically healthy all areas of the psycho sexual stage must be completed, and that failure of this could result in adult 'mental abnormality' -
Abraham Maslow
Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. He suggested that when one need has been met, the individual automatically progresses onto the nest need. To explain this he created the 'Hierarchy of needs' which categorized each need into either basic, psychological or self fulfillment. Once a person has fulfilled every stage they have reached the stage of self actualization (fulfilling our human potential) -
Carl Rogers
Rogers studied in the 'humanistic approach' he believed that for a person to be satisfied with life they have to meet a number of factors. he believed that if a person had genuineness, acceptance and empathy around them they could successfully 'grow' he called this self actualization and this was the basis for his psychological theory. -
Albert Bandura
Bandura's theory suggests that people learn from observing others and imitating there behaviors. This theory, known as the social learning theory is described as a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive theories.
