Prepare DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY: Program 1: Past, Present, and Promise

AP PSYCHOLOGY Scope, History, and Methodology --Schools of Thought --Sources of Bias and Error

Unit 1: Psychology’s History and Approaches Myers Psy for AP, 2010

Psychology What does it mean? Inner sensations- mental processes Observable behavior

Psychology: The science of behavior (what we do) and mental processes (sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings….) At all levels, psychologists examine how we process information--how we organize, interpret, store, and use it.

Psychology’s Big Issues Stability v. Change How does age affect personality? How does our personality change within the “stages?” Continuity v. Discontinuity Does growth occur gradually or in stages? Nature v. Nurture Ex) is a criminal born that way or did society make them that way?

Stability v. Change As the years pass, do we change or remain the same? Are we become adults or are we always just big kids? Personality traits, physical appearance, sense of humor, tastes, etc…

Biology versus Experience Am I the way I am because I was born that way or because of my surroundings? Nature v. Nurture Can I ever be like these people, or does nature give me limitations?

Biology vs. Experience (nature/nurture) Plato: character and intelligence inherited. John Locke: mind is a “tabula rasa” (blank slate); experience writes Rene Descartes: ideas are innate Charles Darwin: natural selection; survival of the fittest the relative contribution that genes and experience make to development of psychological traits and behaviors

Prologue: Contemporary Psychology Natural selection  principle that those inherited trait variations contributing to survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations

SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY

PRE-SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY 1)Rene Descartes ( ) 2) John Locke ( ) Prescientific Psychology  Is the mind connected to the body or distinct?  Are ideas inborn or is the mind a blank slate filled by experience?

Prologue: Psychology’s Roots

 Psychological Science Is Born  Empiricism  Knowledge comes from experience via the senses  Science flourishes through observation and experiment

Founding Psychologists: 2) Hermann von Helmholtz: physicist who conducted simple experiments on perception and the nervous system…..the first to measure the speed of a nerve impulse. 1) William Wundt: (1879 Leipzig, Germany) Founded the first formal laboratory devoted to experimental psychology.

5) G. Stanley Hall: first psychology laboratory in US (1883) at John Hopkins Univ…………..first American Psychology Journal (1887)…….first president of American Psychological Association (1892) 4) Herman Ebbinghaus: 1885 published classic studies on memory

7) Francis Cecil Sumner: first African-American PhD in psychology 6) Margaret Floy Washburn: First woman to receive PhD in Psychology (1894) 8) Mary Whiton Calkins: first woman elected president of APA, 1905

Prologue: Psychology’s Roots Figure 1- British Psychological Society membership

Historical Schools STRUCTURALISM STRUCTURALISM: using introspection, the systematic examination by individuals of their own thoughts and feelings about specific sensory experiences. Emphasized the structure of the mind and behavior. Structuralism was attacked because (1) it reduced all complex human experience to sensations, (2) it studied only verbal reports of human conscious awareness, ignoring the study of individuals who could not describe the introspections (animals, children, mentally ill), and (3) it sought to combine parts into a whole rather than study complex behaviors directly.

Predominant Psychologists Structuralism Edward Titchener : (Cornell University) emphasized the “what” of mental illness rather than “why” or “how” of thinking.

FUNCTIONALISM FUNCTIONALISM: gives primary importance to learned habits that enable organisms to adapt to their environment and to function effectively. “What is the function or purpose of any behavioral act?” The major opponent to Stucturalism was……

Predominant Psychologists Functionalism John Dewey: provided impetus for progressive education. ALSO: *Mary Calkins *Margaret Floy Washburn

William James: Felt that the study of consciousness was not limited to elements, contents, and structures. He believed the mind had an ongoing relationship with the environment. He published “Principles of Psychology” 1890

GESTALTISM GESTALTISM: The whole is greater than the sum of its’ parts. Research Psychologists: Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, and Kurt Lewin

3) Max Wertheimer ( ) University of Prague *psychiatric hospitals in Prague, Frankfurt, and Vienna *Professor of Psychology at the University of Frankfurt Predominant Psychologists Gestaltism

The End