The History of Psychology

By Stephanie Pastena

Socrates and Plato

• (469-399 BC)

• Socrates offered a different idea about body and mind that contradicted the original Hebrew Scriptures and Confucius beliefs. Plato was Socrates student. These two inspiring men both viewed the mind separate from the body and continued even after death. Along with Socrates, Plato and Descartes believe the mind and body were separate.

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John Locke

• (1632-1704)

• John Locke, a British political philosopher, wrote a one page essay on human abilities. Just like Aristotle, Locke believed out minds were blank slates and we could learn and gain information from past events. Locke explained this idea by saying our mind is a "white paper" and we write all of our experience on it. By adding to Bacon's idea, Locke founded the idea of empiricism- the view that knowledge originated from experience.

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Aristotle

• Aristotle was the student of Plato. When denied Presidency of Plato's Academy after Plato's death, Aristotle formed his own school, Lyceum. Aristotle differed from Socrates and Plato because of his love of data. Aristotle believed the soul was not separate from the body. He also believed that knowledge was not preexisting but comes from our experiences. His thinking has led to the massive debates of nature vs nurture. He also believed that events experienced under emotional turmoil and better remembered than those that aren't

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Descartes

• (1595-1650)

• Rene Descartes was a brilliant Frenchman who agreed with Socrates and Plato about the mind being separate from the body and able to survive after death. Because he believed this, Descartes had to figure out how the immaterial mind communicated with the physical body. Descartes dissected animals and concluded that fluid in the brain contained "animal spirits." Descartes, unknowingly discovered the nervous system.

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Bacon

• (1561-1626)

• Francis Bacon became one of the founding fathers of modern science. He was very interested in the human mind's failings. He discovered that the mind likes to perceive patterns, even when they aren't any. He also foresaw the humans ability to selectively remember and forget certain events.

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Titchener

• Wilhelm Wundt created and experiment which measured the time a person heard a ball hitting a platform and them pressing a key. Wundt found that people pressed the key 1/10 of a second after the heard the sound, when the were asked to press the key after they heard the sound. But when told to press the key after they perceived the sound, they pressed the key after 2/10 of a second. In 1892, Wundt and his student, Edward Bradford Titchener introduced the idea of structuralism- an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elementary structure of the human mind. Titchener aimed to discover the elements inside the mind. His method was to have people self reflect of introspect. These two ideas proved to be unreliable because the varied from person to person and experience to experience.

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James

• William James tried to understand how our brain functioned. James, under the influence of Charles Darwin, believed that thinking and smelling developed because it was adaptive. James developed a philosophy called pragmatism, which tested the truth of practical consequences. James is now also considered a functionalist- a school of psychology that focuses on how mental and behavioral processes function, how they enable the organism to adapt and survive. James is best known for his Harvard teachings and writings. In 1890, James overruled Harvard's President and admitted Mary Calkins into his graduate seminar. Though out his career, James had many articles published about him and his works which increased his influence in the area of psychology

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Calkins and Washburn

• When Mary Clakins was admitted into William James class, many people dropped it. James instead tutored Mary. She finished all the requirements for a Ph. D from Harvard and outscored all the male student on the qualifying exams. But Harvard denied her a degree. She became the American Psychologist Associations'’ (APA) first female president.

• Mary Floy Washburn became the second APA president. Her studies were published in Wundt’s journal. She was the first foreign study to be published in his journal. But at this time women were not accepted into organizations of experiments for the advance in the field of psychology (which was founded by Tichener, her graduate advisor).

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