Why Should The History Of Psychology Be Studied?

Why Study Psychology History? – Contemporary psychology is interested in an enormous range of topics, looking at human behavior and mental process from the neural level to the cultural level. Psychologists study human issues that begin before birth and continue until death.

By understanding the history of psychology, you can gain a better understanding of how these topics are studied and what we have learned thus far.
From its earliest beginnings, psychology has been faced with a number of questions.
The initial question of how to define psychology helped establish it as a science separate from physiology and philosophy.

Additional questions that psychologists have faced throughout history include:

Is psychology really a science? Should psychologists use research to influence public policy, education, and other aspects of human behavior? Should psychology focus on observable behaviors, or on internal mental processes? What research methods should be used to study psychology? Which topics and issues should psychology be concerned with?

Contents

1 Why is the study of the history of psychology important as per the textbook?
2 What does the history of psychology study?
3 How can historical views of psychology be useful to understanding today’s problems?
- 3.1 What is the most important idea in the history of psychology?
4 Why is understanding the history of psychology important quizlet?
- - 4.0.1 What are the learning objectives of history of psychology?
5 What is the history of psychology today?
- - 5.0.1 How does psychology connect to history?
6 How did the focus of study in psychology change over the history of the field since the 19th century?
7 What are history effects in psychology?
8 Why is the history of psychology important in contemporary psychology?
9 What is the importance of reading psychology books?

Why is the study of the history of psychology important as per the textbook?

Determining the history of psychology is important since it gives you the development of this branch of science from the supernatural, unfounded principles and transitioned to more factual and observable conditions.

What does the history of psychology study?

Psychology is defined as “the scientific study of behavior and mental processes”. Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India, Psychology as a field of experimental study began in 1854 in Leipzig, Germany when Gustav Fechner created the first theory of how judgments about sensory experiences are made and how to experiment on them.

Fechner’s theory, recognized today as Signal Detection Theory foreshadowed the development of statistical theories of comparative judgment and thousands of experiments based on his ideas (Link, S.W.
Psychological Science, 1995).
Later, 1879, Wilhelm Wundt founded in Leipzig, Germany, the first Psychological laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research.

Wundt was also the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. A notable precursor of Wundt was Ferdinand Ueberwasser (1752-1812) who designated himself Professor of Empirical Psychology and Logic in 1783 and gave lectures on empirical psychology at the Old University of Münster, Germany.

Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in the study of memory ), William James (the American father of pragmatism ), and Ivan Pavlov (who developed the procedures associated with classical conditioning ).
Soon after the development of experimental psychology, various kinds of applied psychology appeared.G.

Stanley Hall brought scientific pedagogy to the United States from Germany in the early 1880s. John Dewey ‘s educational theory of the 1890s was another example. Also in the 1890s, Hugo Münsterberg began writing about the application of psychology to industry, law, and other fields.

Lightner Witmer established the first psychological clinic in the 1890s.
James McKeen Cattell adapted Francis Galton ‘s anthropometric methods to generate the first program of mental testing in the 1890s.
In Vienna, meanwhile, Sigmund Freud developed an independent approach to the study of the mind called psychoanalysis, which has been widely influential.

The 20th century saw a reaction to Edward Titchener ‘s critique of Wundt’s empiricism. This contributed to the formulation of behaviorism by John B. Watson, which was popularized by B.F. Skinner, Behaviorism proposed emphasizing the study of overt behavior, because that could be quantified and easily measured.

Early behaviorists considered the study of the ” mind ” too vague for productive scientific study. However, Skinner and his colleagues did study thinking as a form of covert behavior to which they could apply the same principles as overt (publicly observable) behavior. The final decades of the 20th century saw the rise of cognitive science, an interdisciplinary approach to studying the human mind.

Cognitive science again considers the “mind” as a subject for investigation, using the tools of cognitive psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, behaviorism, and neurobiology, This form of investigation has proposed that a wide understanding of the human mind is possible, and that such an understanding may be applied to other research domains, such as artificial intelligence,

There are conceptual divisions of psychology in so-called “forces” or “waves,” based on its schools and historical trends.
This terminology is popularized among the psychologists to differentiate a growing humanism in therapeutic practice from the 1930s onwards, called the “third force,” in response to the deterministic tendencies of Watson’s behaviourism and Freud’s psychoanalysis.

Humanistic psychology has as important proponents Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport, Erich Fromm, and Rollo May, Their humanistic concepts are also related to existential psychology, Viktor Frankl ‘s logotherapy, positive psychology (which has Martin Seligman as one of the leading exponents), C.R.

Cloninger ‘s approach to well-being and character development, as well as to transpersonal psychology, incorporating such concepts as spirituality, self-transcendence, self-realization, self-actualization, and mindfulness, In cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, similar terms have also been incorporated, by which “first wave” is considered the initial behavioral therapy ; a “second wave”, Albert Ellis ‘s cognitive one ; and a “third wave”, with the acceptance and commitment therapy, which emphasizes one’s pursuit of values, methods of self-awareness, acceptance and psychological flexibility, instead of challenging negative thought schemes,

A “fourth wave” would be the one that incorporates transpersonal concepts and positive flourishing, in a way criticized by some researchers for its heterogeneity and theoretical direction dependent on the therapist’s view. A “fifth wave” has now been proposed by a group of researchers seeking to integrate earlier concepts into a unifying theory.

How can historical views of psychology be useful to understanding today’s problems?

Earlier views of psychology can be useful for understanding modern problems because they still apply to some extent, more so in traditional or simpler people. For example, one can see the Coronavirus craze in terms of earlier views like behaviorism.

What is the most important idea in the history of psychology?

Learning Objectives – By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Understand the importance of Wundt and James in the development of psychology
Appreciate Freud’s influence on psychology
Understand the basic tenets of Gestalt psychology
Appreciate the important role that behaviorism played in psychology’s history
Understand basic tenets of humanism
Understand how the cognitive revolution shifted psychology’s focus back to the mind

Psychology is a relatively young science with its experimental roots in the 19th century, compared, for example, to human physiology, which dates much earlier. As mentioned, anyone interested in exploring issues related to the mind generally did so in a philosophical context prior to the 19th century.

Two men, working in the 19th century, are generally credited as being the founders of psychology as a science and academic discipline that was distinct from philosophy. Their names were Wilhelm Wundt and William James. This section will provide an overview of the shifts in paradigms that have influenced psychology from Wundt and James through today.

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) was a German scientist who was the first person to be referred to as a psychologist. His famous book entitled Principles of Physiological Psychology was published in 1873. Wundt viewed psychology as a scientific study of conscious experience, and he believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of consciousness and how those components combined to result in our conscious experience.

Wundt used introspection (he called it “internal perception”), a process by which someone examines their own conscious experience as objectively as possible, making the human mind like any other aspect of nature that a scientist observed.
Wundt’s version of introspection used only very specific experimental conditions in which an external stimulus was designed to produce a scientifically observable (repeatable) experience of the mind (Danziger, 1980).

The first stringent requirement was the use of “trained” or practiced observers, who could immediately observe and report a reaction. The second requirement was the use of repeatable stimuli that always produced the same experience in the subject and allowed the subject to expect and thus be fully attentive to the inner reaction.

These experimental requirements were put in place to eliminate “interpretation” in the reporting of internal experiences and to counter the argument that there is no way to know that an individual is observing their mind or consciousness accurately, since it cannot be seen by any other person.
This attempt to understand the structure or characteristics of the mind was known as structuralism,

Wundt established his psychology laboratory at the University at Leipzig in 1879 ( ). In this laboratory, Wundt and his students conducted experiments on, for example, reaction times. A subject, sometimes in a room isolated from the scientist, would receive a stimulus such as a light, image, or sound.

The subject’s reaction to the stimulus would be to push a button, and an apparatus would record the time to reaction.
Wundt could measure reaction time to one-thousandth of a second (Nicolas & Ferrand, 1999).
A) Wilhelm Wundt is credited as one of the founders of psychology.
He created the first laboratory for psychological research.

(b) This photo shows him seated and surrounded by fellow researchers and equipment in his laboratory in Germany. However, despite his efforts to train individuals in the process of introspection, this process remained highly subjective, and there was very little agreement between individuals. As a result, structuralism fell out of favor with the passing of Wundt’s student, Edward Titchener, in 1927 (Gordon, 1995).

William James (1842–1910) was the first American psychologist who espoused a different perspective on how psychology should operate ( ). James was introduced to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and accepted it as an explanation of an organism’s characteristics. Key to that theory is the idea that natural selection leads to organisms that are adapted to their environment, including their behavior.

Adaptation means that a trait of an organism has a function for the survival and reproduction of the individual, because it has been naturally selected. As James saw it, psychology’s purpose was to study the function of behavior in the world, and as such, his perspective was known as functionalism,

Functionalism focused on how mental activities helped an organism fit into its environment. Functionalism has a second, more subtle meaning in that functionalists were more interested in the operation of the whole mind rather than of its individual parts, which were the focus of structuralism. Like Wundt, James believed that introspection could serve as one means by which someone might study mental activities, but James also relied on more objective measures, including the use of various recording devices, and examinations of concrete products of mental activities and of anatomy and physiology (Gordon, 1995).

William James, shown here in a self-portrait, was the first American psychologist. Perhaps one of the most influential and well-known figures in psychology’s history was Sigmund Freud ( ). Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist who was fascinated by patients suffering from “hysteria” and neurosis. Hysteria was an ancient diagnosis for disorders, primarily of women with a wide variety of symptoms, including physical symptoms and emotional disturbances, none of which had an apparent physical cause.

Freud theorized that many of his patients’ problems arose from the unconscious mind. In Freud’s view, the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of which we have no awareness. Gaining access to the unconscious, then, was crucial to the successful resolution of the patient’s problems. According to Freud, the unconscious mind could be accessed through dream analysis, by examinations of the first words that came to people’s minds, and through seemingly innocent slips of the tongue.

Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the role of a person’s unconscious, as well as early childhood experiences, and this particular perspective dominated clinical psychology for several decades (Thorne & Henley, 2005). (a) Sigmund Freud was a highly influential figure in the history of psychology. Freud’s ideas were influential, and you will learn more about them when you study lifespan development, personality, and therapy. For instance, many therapists believe strongly in the unconscious and the impact of early childhood experiences on the rest of a person’s life.

The method of psychoanalysis, which involves the patient talking about their experiences and selves, while not invented by Freud, was certainly popularized by him and is still used today. Many of Freud’s other ideas, however, are controversial. Drew Westen (1998) argues that many of the criticisms of Freud’s ideas are misplaced, in that they attack his older ideas without taking into account later writings.

Westen also argues that critics fail to consider the success of the broad ideas that Freud introduced or developed, such as the importance of childhood experiences in adult motivations, the role of unconscious versus conscious motivations in driving our behavior, the fact that motivations can cause conflicts that affect behavior, the effects of mental representations of ourselves and others in guiding our interactions, and the development of personality over time.

Westen identifies subsequent research support for all of these ideas. More modern iterations of Freud’s clinical approach have been empirically demonstrated to be effective (Knekt et al., 2008; Shedler, 2010). Some current practices in psychotherapy involve examining unconscious aspects of the self and relationships, often through the relationship between the therapist and the client.

Freud’s historical significance and contributions to clinical practice merit his inclusion in a discussion of the historical movements within psychology. Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), Kurt Koffka (1886–1941), and Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) were three German psychologists who immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century to escape Nazi Germany.

These men are credited with introducing psychologists in the United States to various Gestalt principles. The word Gestalt roughly translates to “whole;” a major emphasis of Gestalt psychology deals with the fact that although a sensory experience can be broken down into individual parts, how those parts relate to each other as a whole is often what the individual responds to in perception.

For example, a song may be made up of individual notes played by different instruments, but the real nature of the song is perceived in the combinations of these notes as they form the melody, rhythm, and harmony. In many ways, this particular perspective would have directly contradicted Wundt’s ideas of structuralism (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Unfortunately, in moving to the United States, these men were forced to abandon much of their work and were unable to continue to conduct research on a large scale.
These factors along with the rise of behaviorism (described next) in the United States prevented principles of Gestalt psychology from being as influential in the United States as they had been in their native Germany (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Despite these issues, several Gestalt principles are still very influential today. Considering the human individual as a whole rather than as a sum of individually measured parts became an important foundation in humanistic theory late in the century.

The ideas of Gestalt have continued to influence research on sensation and perception.
Structuralism, Freud, and the Gestalt psychologists were all concerned in one way or another with describing and understanding inner experience.
But other researchers had concerns that inner experience could be a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry and chose instead to exclusively study behavior, the objectively observable outcome of mental processes.

Early work in the field of behavior was conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Pavlov studied a form of learning behavior called a conditioned reflex, in which an animal or human produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and, over time, was conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus that the experimenter associated with the original stimulus.

The reflex Pavlov worked with was salivation in response to the presence of food. The salivation reflex could be elicited using a second stimulus, such as a specific sound, that was presented in association with the initial food stimulus several times. Once the response to the second stimulus was “learned,” the food stimulus could be omitted.

Pavlov’s “classical conditioning” is only one form of learning behavior studied by behaviorists. John B. Watson (1878–1958) was an influential American psychologist whose most famous work occurred during the early 20th century at Johns Hopkins University ( ).

While Wundt and James were concerned with understanding conscious experience, Watson thought that the study of consciousness was flawed.
Because he believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible, Watson preferred to focus directly on observable behavior and try to bring that behavior under control.

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Watson was a major proponent of shifting the focus of psychology from the mind to behavior, and this approach of observing and controlling behavior came to be known as behaviorism, A major object of study by behaviorists was learned behavior and its interaction with inborn qualities of the organism.

Behaviorism commonly used animals in experiments under the assumption that what was learned using animal models could, to some degree, be applied to human behavior.
Indeed, Tolman (1938) stated, “I believe that everything important in psychology (except such matters as involve society and words) can be investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis of the determiners of rat behavior at a choice-point in a maze.” John B.

Watson is known as the father of behaviorism within psychology. Behaviorism dominated experimental psychology for several decades, and its influence can still be felt today (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Behaviorism is largely responsible for establishing psychology as a scientific discipline through its objective methods and especially experimentation.

In addition, it is used in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Behavior modification is commonly used in classroom settings.
Behaviorism has also led to research on environmental influences on human behavior.B.F.
Skinner (1904–1990) was an American psychologist ( ).
Like Watson, Skinner was a behaviorist, and he concentrated on how behavior was affected by its consequences.

Therefore, Skinner spoke of reinforcement and punishment as major factors in driving behavior. As a part of his research, Skinner developed a chamber that allowed the careful study of the principles of modifying behavior through reinforcement and punishment.

This device, known as an operant conditioning chamber (or more familiarly, a Skinner box), has remained a crucial resource for researchers studying behavior (Thorne & Henley, 2005). (a) B.F.
Skinner is famous for his research on operant conditioning.
B) Modified versions of the operant conditioning chamber, or Skinner box, are still widely used in research settings today.

(credit a: modification of work by “Silly rabbit”/Wikimedia Commons) The Skinner box is a chamber that isolates the subject from the external environment and has a behavior indicator such as a lever or a button. When the animal pushes the button or lever, the box is able to deliver a positive reinforcement of the behavior (such as food) or a punishment (such as a noise) or a token conditioner (such as a light) that is correlated with either the positive reinforcement or punishment.

Skinner’s focus on positive and negative reinforcement of learned behaviors had a lasting influence in psychology that has waned somewhat since the growth of research in cognitive psychology.
Despite this, conditioned learning is still used in human behavioral modification.
Skinner’s two widely read and controversial popular science books about the value of operant conditioning for creating happier lives remain as thought-provoking arguments for his approach (Greengrass, 2004).

During the early 20th century, American psychology was dominated by behaviorism and psychoanalysis. However, some psychologists were uncomfortable with what they viewed as limited perspectives being so influential to the field. They objected to the pessimism and determinism (all actions driven by the unconscious) of Freud.

They also disliked the reductionism, or simplifying nature, of behaviorism. Behaviorism is also deterministic at its core, because it sees human behavior as entirely determined by a combination of genetics and environment. Some psychologists began to form their own ideas that emphasized personal control, intentionality, and a true predisposition for “good” as important for our self-concept and our behavior.

Thus, humanism emerged. Humanism is a perspective within psychology that emphasizes the potential for good that is innate to all humans. Two of the most well-known proponents of humanistic psychology are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers (O’Hara, n.d.). Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was an American psychologist who is best known for proposing a hierarchy of human needs in motivating behavior ( ).

Although this concept will be discussed in more detail in a later chapter, a brief overview will be provided here. Maslow asserted that so long as basic needs necessary for survival were met (e.g., food, water, shelter), higher-level needs (e.g., social needs) would begin to motivate behavior. According to Maslow, the highest-level needs relate to self-actualization, a process by which we achieve our full potential.

Obviously, the focus on the positive aspects of human nature that are characteristic of the humanistic perspective is evident (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Humanistic psychologists rejected, on principle, the research approach based on reductionist experimentation in the tradition of the physical and biological sciences, because it missed the “whole” human being.

Beginning with Maslow and Rogers, there was an insistence on a humanistic research program. This program has been largely qualitative (not measurement-based), but there exist a number of quantitative research strains within humanistic psychology, including research on happiness, self-concept, meditation, and the outcomes of humanistic psychotherapy (Friedman, 2008).

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is shown. Carl Rogers (1902–1987) was also an American psychologist who, like Maslow, emphasized the potential for good that exists within all people ( ). Rogers used a therapeutic technique known as client-centered therapy in helping his clients deal with problematic issues that resulted in their seeking psychotherapy.

Unlike a psychoanalytic approach in which the therapist plays an important role in interpreting what conscious behavior reveals about the unconscious mind, client-centered therapy involves the patient taking a lead role in the therapy session. Rogers believed that a therapist needed to display three features to maximize the effectiveness of this particular approach: unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy.

Unconditional positive regard refers to the fact that the therapist accepts their client for who they are, no matter what he or she might say. Provided these factors, Rogers believed that people were more than capable of dealing with and working through their own issues (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Humanism has been influential to psychology as a whole. Both Maslow and Rogers are well-known names among students of psychology (you will read more about both men later in this text), and their ideas have influenced many scholars. Furthermore, Rogers’ client-centered approach to therapy is still commonly used in psychotherapeutic settings today (O’hara, n.d.) View a brief video of Carl Rogers describing his therapeutic approach. Behaviorism’s emphasis on objectivity and focus on external behavior had pulled psychologists’ attention away from the mind for a prolonged period of time. The early work of the humanistic psychologists redirected attention to the individual human as a whole, and as a conscious and self-aware being.

By the 1950s, new disciplinary perspectives in linguistics, neuroscience, and computer science were emerging, and these areas revived interest in the mind as a focus of scientific inquiry.
This particular perspective has come to be known as the cognitive revolution (Miller, 2003).
By 1967, Ulric Neisser published the first textbook entitled Cognitive Psychology, which served as a core text in cognitive psychology courses around the country (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Although no one person is entirely responsible for starting the cognitive revolution, Noam Chomsky was very influential in the early days of this movement ( ). Chomsky (1928–), an American linguist, was dissatisfied with the influence that behaviorism had had on psychology.

He believed that psychology’s focus on behavior was short-sighted and that the field had to re-incorporate mental functioning into its purview if it were to offer any meaningful contributions to understanding behavior (Miller, 2003). Noam Chomsky was very influential in beginning the cognitive revolution.

In 2010, this mural honoring him was put up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (credit: Robert Moran) European psychology had never really been as influenced by behaviorism as had American psychology; and thus, the cognitive revolution helped reestablish lines of communication between European psychologists and their American counterparts. Furthermore, psychologists began to cooperate with scientists in other fields, like anthropology, linguistics, computer science, and neuroscience, among others.

This interdisciplinary approach often was referred to as the cognitive sciences, and the influence and prominence of this particular perspective resonates in modern-day psychology (Miller, 2003).
Feminist Psychology The science of psychology has had an impact on human wellbeing, both positive and negative.

The dominant influence of Western, white, and male academics in the early history of psychology meant that psychology developed with the biases inherent in those individuals, which often had negative consequences for members of society that were not white or male.

Women, members of ethnic minorities in both the United States and other countries, and individuals with sexual orientations other than heterosexual had difficulties entering the field of psychology and therefore influencing its development.
They also suffered from the attitudes of white, male psychologists, who were not immune to the nonscientific attitudes prevalent in the society in which they developed and worked.

Until the 1960s, the science of psychology was largely a “womanless” psychology (Crawford & Marecek, 1989), meaning that few women were able to practice psychology, so they had little influence on what was studied. In addition, the experimental subjects of psychology were mostly men, which resulted from underlying assumptions that gender had no influence on psychology and that women were not of sufficient interest to study.

An article by Naomi Weisstein, first published in 1968 (Weisstein, 1993), stimulated a feminist revolution in psychology by presenting a critique of psychology as a science. She also specifically criticized male psychologists for constructing the psychology of women entirely out of their own cultural biases and without careful experimental tests to verify any of their characterizations of women.

Weisstein used, as examples, statements by prominent psychologists in the 1960s, such as this quote by Bruno Bettleheim: “. we must start with the realization that, as much as women want to be good scientists or engineers, they want first and foremost to be womanly companions of men and to be mothers.” Weisstein’s critique formed the foundation for the subsequent development of a feminist psychology that attempted to be free of the influence of male cultural biases on our knowledge of the psychology of women and, indeed, of both genders.

Crawford & Marecek (1989) identify several feminist approaches to psychology that can be described as feminist psychology. These include re-evaluating and discovering the contributions of women to the history of psychology, studying psychological gender differences, and questioning the male bias present across the practice of the scientific approach to knowledge.

Culture has important impacts on individuals and social psychology, yet the effects of culture on psychology are under-studied. There is a risk that psychological theories and data derived from white, American settings could be assumed to apply to individuals and social groups from other cultures and this is unlikely to be true (Betancourt & López, 1993).

One weakness in the field of cross-cultural psychology is that in looking for differences in psychological attributes across cultures, there remains a need to go beyond simple descriptive statistics (Betancourt & López, 1993).
In this sense, it has remained a descriptive science, rather than one seeking to determine cause and effect.

For example, a study of characteristics of individuals seeking treatment for a binge eating disorder in Hispanic American, African American, and Caucasian American individuals found significant differences between groups (Franko et al., 2012). The study concluded that results from studying any one of the groups could not be extended to the other groups, and yet potential causes of the differences were not measured.

This history of multicultural psychology in the United States is a long one. The role of African American psychologists in researching the cultural differences between African American individual and social psychology is but one example. In 1920, Cecil Sumner was the first African American to receive a PhD in psychology in the United States.

Sumner established a psychology degree program at Howard University, leading to the education of a new generation of African American psychologists (Black, Spence, and Omari, 2004). Much of the work of early African American psychologists (and a general focus of much work in first half of the 20th century in psychology in the United States) was dedicated to testing and intelligence testing in particular (Black et al., 2004).

That emphasis has continued, particularly because of the importance of testing in determining opportunities for children, but other areas of exploration in African-American psychology research include learning style, sense of community and belonging, and spiritualism (Black et al., 2004). The American Psychological Association has several ethnically based organizations for professional psychologists that facilitate interactions among members.

Since psychologists belonging to specific ethnic groups or cultures have the most interest in studying the psychology of their communities, these organizations provide an opportunity for the growth of research on the impact of culture on individual and social psychology. Read a news story about the influence of an African American’s psychology research on the historic Brown v. Board of Education civil rights case. Before the time of Wundt and James, questions about the mind were considered by philosophers. However, both Wundt and James helped create psychology as a distinct scientific discipline.

Wundt was a structuralist, which meant he believed that our cognitive experience was best understood by breaking that experience into its component parts. He thought this was best accomplished by introspection. William James was the first American psychologist, and he was a proponent of functionalism.

This particular perspective focused on how mental activities served as adaptive responses to an organism’s environment. Like Wundt, James also relied on introspection; however, his research approach also incorporated more objective measures as well. Sigmund Freud believed that understanding the unconscious mind was absolutely critical to understand conscious behavior.

This was especially true for individuals that he saw who suffered from various hysterias and neuroses.
Freud relied on dream analysis, slips of the tongue, and free association as means to access the unconscious.
Psychoanalytic theory remained a dominant force in clinical psychology for several decades.

Gestalt psychology was very influential in Europe. Gestalt psychology takes a holistic view of an individual and his experiences. As the Nazis came to power in Germany, Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler immigrated to the United States. Although they left their laboratories and their research behind, they did introduce America to Gestalt ideas.

Some of the principles of Gestalt psychology are still very influential in the study of sensation and perception.
One of the most influential schools of thought within psychology’s history was behaviorism.
Behaviorism focused on making psychology an objective science by studying overt behavior and deemphasizing the importance of unobservable mental processes.

John Watson is often considered the father of behaviorism, and B.F. Skinner’s contributions to our understanding of principles of operant conditioning cannot be underestimated. As behaviorism and psychoanalytic theory took hold of so many aspects of psychology, some began to become dissatisfied with psychology’s picture of human nature.

Thus, a humanistic movement within psychology began to take hold.
Humanism focuses on the potential of all people for good.
Both Maslow and Rogers were influential in shaping humanistic psychology.
During the 1950s, the landscape of psychology began to change.
A science of behavior began to shift back to its roots of focus on mental processes.

The emergence of neuroscience and computer science aided this transition. Ultimately, the cognitive revolution took hold, and people came to realize that cognition was crucial to a true appreciation and understanding of behavior. Based on your reading, which theorist would have been most likely to agree with this statement: Perceptual phenomena are best understood as a combination of their components.

William James
Max Wertheimer
Carl Rogers
Noam Chomsky

B _ is most well-known for proposing his hierarchy of needs.

Noam Chomsky
Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
Sigmund Freud

C Rogers believed that providing genuineness, empathy, and _ in the therapeutic environment for his clients was critical to their being able to deal with their problems.

structuralism
functionalism
Gestalt
unconditional positive regard

D The operant conditioning chamber (aka _ box) is a device used to study the principles of operant conditioning.

Skinner
Watson
James
Koffka

A How did the object of study in psychology change over the history of the field since the 19th century? In its early days, psychology could be defined as the scientific study of mind or mental processes. Over time, psychology began to shift more towards the scientific study of behavior.

However, as the cognitive revolution took hold, psychology once again began to focus on mental processes as necessary to the understanding of behavior.
In part, what aspect of psychology was the behaviorist approach to psychology a reaction to? Behaviorists studied objectively observable behavior partly in reaction to the psychologists of the mind who were studying things that were not directly observable.

Freud is probably one of the most well-known historical figures in psychology. Where have you encountered references to Freud or his ideas about the role that the unconscious mind plays in determining conscious behavior?

Why is understanding the history of psychology important quizlet?

-Because the history of psychology course informs the student about people behaving within their historical context, the course provides further understanding of human behavior.

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What are the learning objectives of history of psychology?

Learning Objectives Describe the precursors to the establishment of the science of psychology. Identify key individuals and events in the history of American psychology. Describe the rise of professional psychology in America. Develop a basic understanding of the processes of scientific development and change.

What is the history of psychology today?

Psychology Today, American general-interest psychology magazine, It was founded in 1967 in Del Mar, Calif., by psychologist Nicholas Charney. Charney began Psychology Today because he was frustrated with psychologists whose use of professional jargon made their work inaccessible to the general public.

Charney sought to answer the question “What is psychology?” in terms that a layperson could understand. Still dedicated to that goal, the magazine reports on current psychological research and practice and presents information and advice related to self-improvement, romantic relationships, sexuality, family relationships and parenting, alternative medicine, food and nutrition, physical health and fitness, and professional and career issues.

A variety of psychological perspectives and approaches are represented in the magazine’s analyses. Psychology Today ‘s online version includes directories of professionals in mental health and allied fields and blogs written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and lawyers, among others.

How does psychology connect to history?

Understanding present-day psychology requires understanding the past processes, environments, and constraints that led to that psychology. Thus, for psychology to develop a full theoretical understanding of human behavior (Muthukrishna & Henrich 2019), psychology needs to also be a historical science.

How did the focus of study in psychology change over the history of the field since the 19th century?

Learning Objectives – By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Understand the importance of Wundt and James in the development of psychology
Appreciate Freud’s influence on psychology
Understand the basic tenets of Gestalt psychology
Appreciate the important role that behaviorism played in psychology’s history
Understand basic tenets of humanism
Understand how the cognitive revolution shifted psychology’s focus back to the mind

Two men, working in the 19th century, are generally credited as being the founders of psychology as a science and academic discipline that was distinct from philosophy.
Their names were Wilhelm Wundt and William James.
This section will provide an overview of the shifts in paradigms that have influenced psychology from Wundt and James through today.

Wundt used introspection (he called it “internal perception”), a process by which someone examines their own conscious experience as objectively as possible, making the human mind like any other aspect of nature that a scientist observed.
Wundt’s version of introspection used only very specific experimental conditions in which an external stimulus was designed to produce a scientifically observable (repeatable) experience of the mind (Danziger, 1980).

These experimental requirements were put in place to eliminate “interpretation” in the reporting of internal experiences and to counter the argument that there is no way to know that an individual is observing their mind or consciousness accurately, since it cannot be seen by any other person. This attempt to understand the structure or characteristics of the mind was known as structuralism,

The subject’s reaction to the stimulus would be to push a button, and an apparatus would record the time to reaction.
Wundt could measure reaction time to one-thousandth of a second (Nicolas & Ferrand, 1999).
A) Wilhelm Wundt is credited as one of the founders of psychology.
He created the first laboratory for psychological research.

William James (1842–1910) was the first American psychologist who espoused a different perspective on how psychology should operate ( ).
James was introduced to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and accepted it as an explanation of an organism’s characteristics.
Ey to that theory is the idea that natural selection leads to organisms that are adapted to their environment, including their behavior.

Functionalism focused on how mental activities helped an organism fit into its environment. Functionalism has a second, more subtle meaning in that functionalists were more interested in the operation of the whole mind rather than of its individual parts, which were the focus of structuralism. Like Wundt, James believed that introspection could serve as one means by which someone might study mental activities, but James also relied on more objective measures, including the use of various recording devices, and examinations of concrete products of mental activities and of anatomy and physiology (Gordon, 1995).

Freud theorized that many of his patients’ problems arose from the unconscious mind. In Freud’s view, the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of which we have no awareness. Gaining access to the unconscious, then, was crucial to the successful resolution of the patient’s problems. According to Freud, the unconscious mind could be accessed through dream analysis, by examinations of the first words that came to people’s minds, and through seemingly innocent slips of the tongue.

The method of psychoanalysis, which involves the patient talking about their experiences and selves, while not invented by Freud, was certainly popularized by him and is still used today. Many of Freud’s other ideas, however, are controversial. Drew Westen (1998) argues that many of the criticisms of Freud’s ideas are misplaced, in that they attack his older ideas without taking into account later writings.

Westen identifies subsequent research support for all of these ideas.
More modern iterations of Freud’s clinical approach have been empirically demonstrated to be effective (Knekt et al., 2008; Shedler, 2010).
Some current practices in psychotherapy involve examining unconscious aspects of the self and relationships, often through the relationship between the therapist and the client.

These men are credited with introducing psychologists in the United States to various Gestalt principles. The word Gestalt roughly translates to “whole;” a major emphasis of Gestalt psychology deals with the fact that although a sensory experience can be broken down into individual parts, how those parts relate to each other as a whole is often what the individual responds to in perception.

Unfortunately, in moving to the United States, these men were forced to abandon much of their work and were unable to continue to conduct research on a large scale.
These factors along with the rise of behaviorism (described next) in the United States prevented principles of Gestalt psychology from being as influential in the United States as they had been in their native Germany (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

The ideas of Gestalt have continued to influence research on sensation and perception. Structuralism, Freud, and the Gestalt psychologists were all concerned in one way or another with describing and understanding inner experience. But other researchers had concerns that inner experience could be a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry and chose instead to exclusively study behavior, the objectively observable outcome of mental processes.

While Wundt and James were concerned with understanding conscious experience, Watson thought that the study of consciousness was flawed.
Because he believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible, Watson preferred to focus directly on observable behavior and try to bring that behavior under control.

Behaviorism commonly used animals in experiments under the assumption that what was learned using animal models could, to some degree, be applied to human behavior. Indeed, Tolman (1938) stated, “I believe that everything important in psychology (except such matters as involve society and words) can be investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis of the determiners of rat behavior at a choice-point in a maze.” John B.

In addition, it is used in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Behavior modification is commonly used in classroom settings. Behaviorism has also led to research on environmental influences on human behavior.B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) was an American psychologist ( ). Like Watson, Skinner was a behaviorist, and he concentrated on how behavior was affected by its consequences.

This device, known as an operant conditioning chamber (or more familiarly, a Skinner box), has remained a crucial resource for researchers studying behavior (Thorne & Henley, 2005). (a) B.F. Skinner is famous for his research on operant conditioning. (b) Modified versions of the operant conditioning chamber, or Skinner box, are still widely used in research settings today.

Skinner’s focus on positive and negative reinforcement of learned behaviors had a lasting influence in psychology that has waned somewhat since the growth of research in cognitive psychology. Despite this, conditioned learning is still used in human behavioral modification. Skinner’s two widely read and controversial popular science books about the value of operant conditioning for creating happier lives remain as thought-provoking arguments for his approach (Greengrass, 2004).

They also disliked the reductionism, or simplifying nature, of behaviorism. Behaviorism is also deterministic at its core, because it sees human behavior as entirely determined by a combination of genetics and environment. Some psychologists began to form their own ideas that emphasized personal control, intentionality, and a true predisposition for “good” as important for our self-concept and our behavior.

Although this concept will be discussed in more detail in a later chapter, a brief overview will be provided here. Maslow asserted that so long as basic needs necessary for survival were met (e.g., food, water, shelter), higher-level needs (e.g., social needs) would begin to motivate behavior. According to Maslow, the highest-level needs relate to self-actualization, a process by which we achieve our full potential.

Beginning with Maslow and Rogers, there was an insistence on a humanistic research program. This program has been largely qualitative (not measurement-based), but there exist a number of quantitative research strains within humanistic psychology, including research on happiness, self-concept, meditation, and the outcomes of humanistic psychotherapy (Friedman, 2008).

Unlike a psychoanalytic approach in which the therapist plays an important role in interpreting what conscious behavior reveals about the unconscious mind, client-centered therapy involves the patient taking a lead role in the therapy session. Rogers believed that a therapist needed to display three features to maximize the effectiveness of this particular approach: unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy.

By the 1950s, new disciplinary perspectives in linguistics, neuroscience, and computer science were emerging, and these areas revived interest in the mind as a focus of scientific inquiry. This particular perspective has come to be known as the cognitive revolution (Miller, 2003). By 1967, Ulric Neisser published the first textbook entitled Cognitive Psychology, which served as a core text in cognitive psychology courses around the country (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

He believed that psychology’s focus on behavior was short-sighted and that the field had to re-incorporate mental functioning into its purview if it were to offer any meaningful contributions to understanding behavior (Miller, 2003). Noam Chomsky was very influential in beginning the cognitive revolution.

This interdisciplinary approach often was referred to as the cognitive sciences, and the influence and prominence of this particular perspective resonates in modern-day psychology (Miller, 2003). Feminist Psychology The science of psychology has had an impact on human wellbeing, both positive and negative.

Women, members of ethnic minorities in both the United States and other countries, and individuals with sexual orientations other than heterosexual had difficulties entering the field of psychology and therefore influencing its development. They also suffered from the attitudes of white, male psychologists, who were not immune to the nonscientific attitudes prevalent in the society in which they developed and worked.

An article by Naomi Weisstein, first published in 1968 (Weisstein, 1993), stimulated a feminist revolution in psychology by presenting a critique of psychology as a science. She also specifically criticized male psychologists for constructing the psychology of women entirely out of their own cultural biases and without careful experimental tests to verify any of their characterizations of women.

Crawford & Marecek (1989) identify several feminist approaches to psychology that can be described as feminist psychology. These include re-evaluating and discovering the contributions of women to the history of psychology, studying psychological gender differences, and questioning the male bias present across the practice of the scientific approach to knowledge.

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One weakness in the field of cross-cultural psychology is that in looking for differences in psychological attributes across cultures, there remains a need to go beyond simple descriptive statistics (Betancourt & López, 1993). In this sense, it has remained a descriptive science, rather than one seeking to determine cause and effect.

That emphasis has continued, particularly because of the importance of testing in determining opportunities for children, but other areas of exploration in African-American psychology research include learning style, sense of community and belonging, and spiritualism (Black et al., 2004).
The American Psychological Association has several ethnically based organizations for professional psychologists that facilitate interactions among members.

Wundt was a structuralist, which meant he believed that our cognitive experience was best understood by breaking that experience into its component parts.
He thought this was best accomplished by introspection.
William James was the first American psychologist, and he was a proponent of functionalism.

This was especially true for individuals that he saw who suffered from various hysterias and neuroses.
Freud relied on dream analysis, slips of the tongue, and free association as means to access the unconscious.
Psychoanalytic theory remained a dominant force in clinical psychology for several decades.

Some of the principles of Gestalt psychology are still very influential in the study of sensation and perception. One of the most influential schools of thought within psychology’s history was behaviorism. Behaviorism focused on making psychology an objective science by studying overt behavior and deemphasizing the importance of unobservable mental processes.

Thus, a humanistic movement within psychology began to take hold.
Humanism focuses on the potential of all people for good.
Both Maslow and Rogers were influential in shaping humanistic psychology.
During the 1950s, the landscape of psychology began to change.
A science of behavior began to shift back to its roots of focus on mental processes.

William James
Max Wertheimer
Carl Rogers
Noam Chomsky

B _ is most well-known for proposing his hierarchy of needs.

Noam Chomsky
Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
Sigmund Freud

C Rogers believed that providing genuineness, empathy, and _ in the therapeutic environment for his clients was critical to their being able to deal with their problems.

structuralism
functionalism
Gestalt
unconditional positive regard

D The operant conditioning chamber (aka _ box) is a device used to study the principles of operant conditioning.

Skinner
Watson
James
Koffka

However, as the cognitive revolution took hold, psychology once again began to focus on mental processes as necessary to the understanding of behavior. In part, what aspect of psychology was the behaviorist approach to psychology a reaction to? Behaviorists studied objectively observable behavior partly in reaction to the psychologists of the mind who were studying things that were not directly observable.

What are history effects in psychology?

The influence of events or circumstances outside an experiment on an outcome variable of interest. Quasi-experimental research often attempts to take history effects into account in order to rule out potential confounds to a posited or apparent link between two variables.

Why is the history of psychology important in contemporary psychology?

A brief look at the people and events that shaped modern psychology Bettmann Archive / Getty Images The history of modern psychology spans centuries, with the earliest known mention of clinical depression appearing in 1500 BCE on an ancient Egyptian manuscript known as the Ebers Papyrus.

However, it wasn’t until the 11th century that Persian physician Avicenna made a connection between emotions and physical responses in a practice dubbed “physiological psychology.” Understanding the history of modern psychology provides insight into how this field has developed and evolved over time.

It also gives a better understanding of the thought processes of some of the most influential figures in the field, ultimately emerging into psychology as we know it today.

What is an interesting fact about the history of psychology?

The World’s First Psychological Laboratory Opens – In 1879, over 350 years after the first known usage of the term “psychology,” Wilhelm Wundt founded the world’s first laboratory specifically for the study of psychology. The laboratory was located in Leipzig, Germany, at the University of Leipzig.

Wundt sought to apply an experimental method to the study of psychology, specifically as it pertained to the exploration of human behavior, emotions, and cognition.
In particular, Wundt and his proteges wanted to remove introspection from the process of studying human behavior and focused instead on using experimental stimuli that could be controlled, the results of which could be recorded and later shown to be replicable.

Why this event is important: Wundt’s work in the University of Leipzig psychology laboratory established psychology as a science separate from philosophy and biology. Furthermore, several of Wundt’s students went on to become highly influential psychologists in their own right, including G.

What are the benefits of studying understanding psychology?

Better understand yourself and others – Learning about human behaviour will help you in daily life, for example helping you better navigate your interactions with others. It can also improve your skills in things like communication and conflict management.

What are the five basic goals of the study of psychology?

The Major Goals of Psychology – The science of psychology is complete only with the study of behavior, mental processes, and organism’s behavior toward their environment. People’s behavior is studied through scientific methods. Psychology, as science has basically the following main aims or goals: understand, predict, describe, influence, and control behavior, and improve the quality of life.

What are the major learnings in psychology?

A Word From Verywell – The psychology of learning encompasses a vast body of research that generally focuses on classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. As the field evolves, it continues to have important implications for explaining and motivating human behavior. By Kendra Cherry Kendra Cherry, MS, is the author of the “Everything Psychology Book (2nd Edition)” and has written thousands of articles on diverse psychology topics. Kendra holds a Master of Science degree in education from Boise State University with a primary research interest in educational psychology and a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Idaho State University with additional coursework in substance use and case management.

What is the aim and purpose of history?

The Past Teaches Us About the Present – Because history gives us the tools to analyze and explain problems in the past, it positions us to see patterns that might otherwise be invisible in the present – thus providing a crucial perspective for understanding (and solving!) current and future problems.

For example, a course on the history of public health might emphasize how environmental pollution disproportionately affects less affluent communities – a major factor in the Flint water crisis.
Understanding immigration patterns may provide crucial background for addressing ongoing racial or cultural tensions.

In many ways, history interprets the events and causes that contributed to our current world.

Why is it important to know the history of cognitive psychology?

Recap – Findings from cognitive psychology help us understand how people think, including how they acquire and store memories. By knowing more about how these processes work, psychologists can develop new ways of helping people with cognitive problems.

How does the textbook define psychology?

Body Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. Psychologists are actively involved in studying and understanding mental processes, brain functions, and behavior. The field of psychology is considered a “Hub Science” with strong connections to the medical sciences, social sciences, and education (Boyack, Klavans, & Borner, 2005).

What is the definition of psychology presented in your textbook?

The definition of psychology presented in your textbook is: the systematic, scientific study of behaviors and mental processes.

What is the importance of reading psychology books?

Change how I think about myself – I have no idea why I like a computer instead of painting. I don’t know why I can play video games for all day and can’t focus to practice playing guitar for just 1 hour. I don’t know why I often buy the things I never use. A lot of questions about my actions that I can’t explain until I read psychology books. They explain how we think and make a specific action. So, the more you read, the more you understand yourself. I numerate a few benefits when we read psychology books:

They make us shape your right decision making.Control our habits.Make us more focus, more inspire and, more productive.

Sabrina Sarro