The History of PsychologyPsychologyPeriod 7Mr. Merrill

No- you don’t have to take notes…yet

Just listen…for now…

Psychology’s RootsPrescientific Psychology

In India, Buddha wondered how sensations and perceptions

combined to form ideas.

Prescientific PsychologyConfucius (551-479 B.C.)

In China, Confucius stressed the power of ideas and the importance of an educated

mind.

Prescientific PsychologyHebrew Scriptures

Hebrew scriptures linked mind and emotion to the body.

Prescientific PsychologySocrates (469-399 B.C.) and Plato (428-348 B.C.) Socrates Plato

Socrates and his student Plato believed the mind was separate from the body,

the mind continued to exist after death, and ideas were innate.

Prescientific PsychologyAristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Aristotle suggested that the soul is not separable from the body and that

knowledge (ideas) grow from experience.

Prescientific PsychologyRene Descartes (1596-1650)

Descartes, like Plato, believed in soul (mind)-body separation, but wondered how the immaterial mind and physical

body communicated.

Prescientific PsychologyFrancis Bacon (1561-1626)

Bacon is one of the founders of modern science, particularly the

experimental method.

Prescientific PsychologyJohn Locke (1632-1704)

Locke held that the mind was a tabula rasa, or blank sheet, at birth, and

experiences wrote on it.

Prescientific PsychologyWhat is the relation of mind and body?

Mind and body are connected

Mind and body are distinct

The Hebrews Socrates

Aristotle Plato

Augustine Descartes

Prescientific PsychologyHow are ideas formed?

Some ideas are inborn

The mind is a blank slate

Socrates Aristotle

Plato Locke

NOW TAKE

NOTES!!!!!

Psychological Science is BornStructuralism

William Wundt and Edward Titchener studied the elements (atoms) of the mind by

conducting experiments at Leipzig, Germany, in 1879.

Psychological Science is BornFunctionalism

Influenced by Darwin, William James established the school of functionalism,

which opposed structuralism.

Psychological Science is BornInheritable Traits

Also influenced by Darwin, Sir Francis Galton believed hereditary traits influenced

intelligence and social status.

Psychological Science is BornGestalt Psychology

Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler & Kurt Koffka believed perception is more than the

sum of its parts- it involves a “whole pattern.”

The human eye sees the whole image as opposed to two images in one.

Psychological Science is BornPsychoanalytic Psychology = The

Unconscious Mind

Sigmund Freud and his followers emphasized the importance of the

unconscious mind and its effects on human behavior.

Psychological Science is BornBehavioral Psychology

Ivan Pavlov and his well known experiments created the concept of “conditioned response” and behavior as a learned

process.

Psychological Science Develops

Behaviorism

John B. Watson (1913) and later B.F. Skinner emphasized the study of overt

behavior as the subject matter of scientific psychology.

Psychological Science Develops

Humanistic Psychology

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers emphasized current environmental

influences on our growth potential and our need for love and acceptance.

Psychological Science is BornCognitive Psychology

Jean Piaget and others focused on how humans process, store, and use information

and how that information influences behavior.