HISTORY & APPROACHES

AP Psychology

KEY TERMS Empiricism Structuralism Functionalism Experimental Psychology Behaviorism Humanistic Psychology Cognitive Neuroscience Psychology

KEY TERMS Nature-Nurture Issue Natural Selection Levels of Analysis Biopsychosocial Approach Biological Psychology Evolutionary Psychology Psychodynamic Psychology Behavioral Psychology Cognitive Psychology

KEY TERMS Social-cultural Psychology Psychometrics Basic Research Developmental Psychology Educational Psychology Personality Psychology Social Psychology Applied Research

KEY TERMS Industrial/ Organizational (I/O)

Psychology Human Factors Psychology Counseling Psychology Clinical Psychology Psychiatry

PSYCHOLOGY Psychology is a science

Uses scientific methodology to study behavior and mental processes

A wide ranging discipline that can encompass any aspect of human and nonhuman behavior

Developed from the more established fields of philosophy and biology

EARLY PSYCHOLOGIST Socrates (469-399 BC) Plato (428-348 BC) Aristotle (384-322 BC) Rene Descartes (1595-1650)

Promoted Dualism- mind and body are seperate

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) John Locke (1632-1704)

Tabula Rasa (this aided in forming Empiricism)

EARLY PSYCHOLOGIST William Wundt

The birth of modern psychology occurred in December 1879 in Leipzig, Germany

Wundt, Max Friedrich, and G. Stanley Hall collected data for Friedrich’s dissertation on “the duration of apperception” (the time lag between the subject's recognition that he has heard the ball hit the platform and his pressing of the telegraph key)

Edward Bradford Titchener

EARLY PSYCHOLOGIST William James Mary Whiton Calkins

First female to earn a Ph.D. in Psychology at Harvard, but was denied her degree

Margaret Floy WashburnFirst female to receive a psychology Ph.D.

Dorothea Dix Charles Darwin

Natural selection shapes behaviors as well as bodies

EARLY PSYCHOLOGIST John B. Watson B. F. Skinner Sigmund Freud Carl Rogers Abraham Maslow Charles DarwinIvan Pavlov Jean Piaget

EARLY SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY Structuralism Functionalism Behaviorism

STRUCTURALISM Uses introspection to explore the

structural elements of the human mind Has its basis in Wundt’s European

perspective. Titchener established this school based on his work as Wudt’s student in Germany

Sought to identify what the mind and consciousness were

FUNCTIONALISM Focused on how our mental and

behavioral process function- how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish

Based on William James’ ideas about psychology having practical applications to lifeAssumed thinking was adaptive

Sought to identify how the mind and consciousness worked

BEHAVIORISM Founded by John B. Watson

He believed environment is the main component of psychology (like Locke)

The view that psychology Should be an objective science Studies behavior without reference to

mental processes B. F. Skinner rejected introspection and

studied how consequences shape behavior

PSYCHOANALYTIC/ PSYCHODYNAMIC Sigmund Freud

Id, Ego, Superego Focused on meaning of early childhood

memories

HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY The Third Force In the 1950s and 1960s, psychologist

followed either the behaviorist or the psychoanalytic perspective. Humanistic psychology offered a third way of thinking about behaviorBelieves people are essentially good, unlike

psychoanalytic psychologistBelieves human were unique and distinct

from animals, unlike behaviorist

HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY Emphasized the importance of current

environmental influences on our growth potential, and the importance of having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY Germany Studied how people organized

perceptual experiences in understandable ways.

Developed rules for how we organize what we sense and perceive

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

COGNITIVE REVOLUTION Supported ideas developed by earlier

psychologist, such as the importance of how our mid processes and retains information

NATURE- NURTURE ISSUE Do our human traits develop through

experience or are we born with them? Evolution does not imply genetic

determinism Behavior can be changed Organisms do not have a conscious or

unconscious goal of maximizing gene reproduction. Rather they most adaptive traits will survive

due to natural selection

BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACH Integrated viewpoint incorporates

various levels of analysis and offers a more complete picture of any given behavior or mental process

Everything is related to everything else

BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACH

Behavior or mental process

Biological Influence

Psychological Influence

Social- Cultural

Influence

PSYCHOLOGY’S APPROACHES Biological Evolutionary Psychodynamic Behavioral Cognitive Humanistic Social- Cultural

BIOLOGICAL How the body and brain enable

emotions, memories, and sensory experiences; how genes combine with environment to influence individual differences

Sample question:How are messages transmitted within the

body? How is blood chemistry linked with moods and motives?

EVOLUTIONARY How the natural selection of traits

promoted the survival of genes Sample questions

How does evolution influence behavior tendencies?

PSYCHODYNAMIC How behavior springs from unconscious

drives and conflicts Sample question

How can someone’s personality traits and disorders be explained in terms of sexual and aggressive drives or as the disguised effects of unfulfilled wishes and childhood traumas?

BEHAVIORAL How we learn observable responses Sample question

How do we learn to fear particular objects or situations? What is the best way to alter our behavior, say, to lose weight or stop smoking?

COGNITIVE How we encode, process, store, and

retrieve information Sample question

How do we use information in remembering? Reasoning? Solving problems?

HUMANISTIC How we meet our needs for love and

acceptance and achieve self-fulfillment Sample question

How can we work toward fulfilling our potential? How can we overcome barriers to our personal growth?

SOCIAL- CULTURAL How behavior and thinking vary across

situations and cultures Sample question

How are we humans alike as member of one human family? As products of different environmental contexts, how do we differ?

RESEARCH Basic research is more concerned with

discovering concepts or processes. It is less practical in natureMuch like Structuralism- want to discover

what the mind and consciousness were Applied research is more concerned with

providing solutions to problems. It is more practical in nature Like Functionalism- how the mind and

consciousness worked and how they helped people adapt to circumstances

SUBFIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY Biological Clinical Cognitive Counseling Developmental Educational Experimental Human factors Industrial-Organization (I/O) Personality Psychometric Social

CLINICAL Psychiatrist go to medical school and

receive training in the treatment of psychological disorders during a special residency and they can prescribe drugs

Clinical psychologists earns a Ph.D. and practice different psychologically based treatments, or psychotherapies.