–Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Once expanded to the dimensions of a larger idea, [the mind] never returns to its original size.”

UNIT 1 PSYCHOLOGY’S HISTORY AND APPROACHES

Module1. Psychology’s Roots and HistoryModule II. Psychology’s Historical Schools and Approaches

Module III. Subfields in Psychology

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED?• Have you ever wondered if people are born

smarter than others?

• Have you ever become depressed or anxious and wondered whether you’ll ever feel “normal”?

• Have you ever wondered how the Internet, video games, and social networks affect people?

• Have you ever awakened from a nightmare and wondered why you had such a crazy dream?

Psychology is a science that seeks to answer such questions about us all- how and why we think, feel, and act as we do.

PSYCHOLOGY: _______________________________________________________________.

- Behavior is anything an organism does- any action we can observe and record. Examples? - Mental processes are the internal, subjective experiences we infer from our behavior. Examples?

I. ROOTS AND HISTORY • Back to the beginning.

• Many of Psychology’s current questions go back to our earliest thinkers.

• Influences come from philosophy and biology:

• A. Greek Philosophers: quest for knowledge and understanding.

• 1. Socrates believed mind to be separate from body and knowledge is innate (nature), suggested that the brain is the seat of mental processes.

• 2. Aristotle denied the existence of innate ideas (nurture), suggested that the heart is the seat of mental processes.

Module 1

• B. 16th century philosophy:

• 1.René Descartes: believed behavior was a combination of mind and body(Dualism). However, he believed the brain controlled behavior. Like Plato, knowledge is innate. (Nature)

• 2. John Locke: believed knowledge is not innate and insisted the mind at birth is a “Tabula Rasa” blank slate. Experience is everything. (Nurture)

• 3. Francis Bacon- British who became one of the founders of modern science.

• 4. Locke and Bacon’s ideas, helped form modern empiricism. (the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should rely on observation and experimentation)

I. ROOTS AND HISTORY

Module 1

• C. Charles Darwin

• 1800s

• 1. On the Origin of Species explained species variation and diversity by proposing the evolutionary process of natural selection: From among chance variations, nature selects traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.

• 2. Finches in G.I. than those in England

• 3. Theory of Evolution: animals had adapted and changed overtime

• 4. Natural Selection and the Survival of the Fittest

• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060714-evolution.html

I. ROOTS AND HISTORY Module 1