PSYCHOLOGY’S HISTORY AND APPROACHES

Unit 1 Study Presentation

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

• Think• Feel• Act

GREAT GREEK PHILOSOPHERS

Socrates & Plato• The mind is separate from the body • Knowledge is with us at birth (innate).

Aristotle disagreed; arguing the point that knowledge comes from our experiences in life and stored in memory.

• GOOD JOB ARISTOTLE!!! :D

French

Animal Spirits• First

introduction to the thought of a nervous system

Tabula Rasa

With the help of Francis Bacon...

• Empiricism was born!!• Science should

rely on observation and experimentation.

MORE DANG PHILOSOPHERS

Descartes Locke

Founded the first psychological laboratory

Titchener (Student)• Introduced

Structuralism ( using introspection to self-reflect)

Functionalism• Emphasized how

behavior and mental processes enable us to adapt and survive

…AND THEY KEEP COMING…

Wundt William James

The first female president of the APA

• American Psychological Association

The first woman to receive a Ph.D. in psychology

WOMAN POWER

Washburn Calkins

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

The early roots of Psychology come from fields including those in philosophy and biology.

In its earliest years, Psychology was defined as the science of mental life, but was then redefined as the science of observable behaviors.

HISTORY CONTINUED

1960s – Cognitive Revolution began as we recaptured interest in the actual processes of the mind. Cognitive Neuroscience began!

• The study of brain activity linked directly with intelligence, perception, memory, and language.

Studied learning and how we acquire info.

Observational Learning…..• Pavlov,

Dog… Remember???

Child Psychology and Development

Ivan Pavlov Jean PiagetSigmund Freud Personality

Theorist• Psychoanal

ytic Theory of Personality

• Id, Ego, Superego

• Psycho-Sexual Stages

Sensorimotor • Birth-2 years• Senses

Preoperational• 2-7 years• Form concepts using

symbols to gain language development

Concrete Operational

• 7-11 years• Learn reasoning

skills to conclude answers

Formal Operational• 11-15 years• Can think

abstractedly as well as accurately draw conclusions

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

BEHAVIORISM• A response to Freudian

psychology.• Psychology should only

focus on observable behaviors, not mental processes

• We can’t observe feelings or emotions, but we can observe behavior.

Humanistic Psychology!!• Emphasized the

growth of healthy people• More concerned

with feelings

M ORE I MP ORTANT P EOP LE (THE L I ST NEVE R ENDS! ! ! )Rogers &

Maslow

PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG QUESTION

NATURE VS. NURTURE??• Charles Darwin – Natural Selection

• There is no second place!

• Are we more shaped by our genetics or by our environment?

BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACH

Biological:Natural SelectionGenetics

Psychological:Emotional Responses

Learned fears, etc.

Social-Cultural:Peer InfluencesCultural/Family

Expectations

PSYCHOLOGY APPROACHES

Approach Main Study Example

Evolutionary Natural selection and survival of genes

How fear helped our ancestors survive

Psychodynamic

How behavior comes from the unconscious

How an outburst may be expressed, unconscious anger

Biological How the body controls emotions and memories; influences for genetic variation

How heredity contributes to different emotions

Humanistic How we meet needs for love and acceptance

Why we let peer pressure change our values

Behavioral How we learn by observation

How little kids learn to fear what their parents do

Social-Cultural

How we behave/think across cultures

Different gestures inappropriate in different cultures

Cognitive How we encode, process, store, and retrieve info

How different emotions effect or thinking patterns