Psychology: Evolution of a Science

1 What is psychology?
What is Psychology?

• The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

and how they are affected by an organism’s physical/mental state and the external en-
vironment

– Behavior ...
observable behaviors and actions; external

– Mental processes ...

internal subjective experiences; how we perceive, process, and remember info

• Four goals of psychology

1. Explain,
2. understand,
3. predict,
4. and affect change in behavior

2 History of Psychology
Why care?
• Perspective: know where psychology came from, give us humility on the present status of
things
• Skepticism: certain ideas come into fashion, but disappear when fad ends
• Curiosity
General note: going with “Great Man” approach, rather than zeitgeist – focusing on names
associated with schools, not really touching on cultures/politics/world events/etc

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2.1 Pre-Scientific Psychology
Pre-Scientific Psychology
• Much early discussion on how are the body and mind related?
– Mind-Body Problem
have a mind → conscious experience. • have a body → brain. How do they fit?
Is the mind separate from the body?

– Two birds = dualism, One bird = monism

Monism: singular basis. One exists (Mind or Body), other doesn’t
Dualism: Mind and Body separate. Physical world subject to separate laws than
mental. How do they interact?

Interactionism: Descartes – mind/body interact, affect each other

Epiphenomenalism: consciousness is a by-product/illusion of brain activity. Brain creates
Mind
Materialism: human behavior has physical cause. Mind = Brain
Idealism: only mind exists, physical world doesn’t exist outside the mind. Solipsism in a
nutshell.
Double aspectism: Aristotle – Mind and Brain two sides of same coin. Inseparable, but
different “languages” for Mind and Brain
Parallelism: Mind and Brain parallel, don’t interact
Occasionalism:
Preestablished harmony: Mind and Brain separate. Mind and Brain orchestrated by an
independent agent (e.g., God). Think body as puppets

Pre-Scientific Psychology: Pre-Ancient Greece 1

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from available evidence

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 • Animism – all of nature is alive (including rocks)

• Anthropomorphism – attach human qualities to non-human things

Results in ghosts, spirits, demons, etc

• Magic – attempt to control nature in their favor

– Way to intervene with demons/ghost/spirits
– How some alternate medical treatments “work”
– Probably based on illusory cause/effect relationships

Pre-Scientific Psychology: Ancient Greece

Probably predates this even, but no good records

Socrates (469 - 399 BCE)

• Dualist
– mind and body separate, mind lives on after death

• Knowledge is innate, built-in

– Born

• Was a bum: from working class family, concerned with ideas more than real
world/appearance
• Anti-establishment: walked Athens practically picking thought fights – trouble came in
when he corned people in their beliefs, then attacked their belief system
• Humanistic orientation: wanted people to live better lives, more effectively
• “Know Thyself”: sum of Socratic school – self-knowledge vital to virtue
• Socratic method: truth is known through systematic thought. Question everything.
• Plato wrote most of what we know about Socrates.
• His death: brought up on charges of corrupting youth and atheism.
– Fought back in court
– Sentenced to death in 30 days, but officials hoped he’d leave
– Drank hemlock. Walked around describing how it felt.
– Martyred himself for intellectual beliefs.

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Ancient Greece

Plato on left, Aristotle on right

Plato (427 - 347 BCE)
Theory of Forms: forms were perfect templates of physical objects that exist in another di-
mension.
– Thinking involves learning these forms
– World only has imperfect copies of these forms.

• Dualist

• Soul has to ‘remember’ knowledge

– before soul is in flesh, has access to all knowledge. Once in flesh, have to ‘remem-
ber’
SAID ANOTHER WAY
Recollection of forms: born with knowledge of forms, job in life is to recollect these
– The physical world is noise in the way of truth

Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE)

Plato’s student until Plato’s death
• Was a tutor to Alexander the Great. Near the end of Alex’s life, Alex worried about plots
against him. Threatened Aristotle in letters. Alex died, Aristotle enemy of state. Took exile
instead of death.

• Monist
–mind part of body. Cannot be separated.

• Knowledge must be acquired, is not innate

– Knowledge gained from experience

Rabid empiricist, contrary to Plato and Socrates

– Foundations of empiricism

BIG CONTRIBUTION: formal logic as way to support arguments. Deductive infer-

ence

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 Also known for:
• Extramission theory of perception: made distinction between sensation and percep-
tion.
— Fire in the eye leaves eye, communicates with fire in the world
— See THROUGH the eye, not WITH the eye – therefore it involves the brain
• The Academy ≈ the first university
— Place for people to argue with each other
• Had approach/view to memory and learning: Law of Association
— Frequency: more exposure, more memory
— Similarity: think of object, tend to think of similar objects
— Contrast: think of object, think of contrasting objects
— Contiguity: how close in time things occur influences memory

End of the “Golden Age”

William Occam (1280-1347)
Occam’s razor: all else being true, the simplest explanation (with fewest assumptions) prob-
ably correct

Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

Considered a founder of modern science... Bacon science

• Inductive approach to science

– Through many individual observations, general statements about nature can be made
Empiricism
knowledge comes from experience, and science should be based on observation and
experimentation
• Novum Organum
– Humans find greater order and equality than are really there
– we’ll come back to this idea = Confirmation Bias
Quote “deluded believers observe events that are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their
failure, though it be much more common”

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Rene Descartes (1591 - 1650)
studied physics, optics, geometry, and physiology – Renaissance Man

“Cogito, ergo sum” – I think, therefore I am

• Largely agreed with Socrates

– Mind separate from the body

– Much knowledge is innate, some derived through experience
Introspection as a means to gaining knowledge

∗ Innate: understood without logical analysis

∗ Derived: logical analysis required

• How do mind and body communicate?

dissected animals to study brain

– Brain’s cavities contain “animal spirits”

– These spirits are what animate the body

- memories formed when XP opens pores in brain to let in spirits

- pinpointed physical reflexes

John Locke (1632 - 1704)

Political philosopher, Oxford lecturer; Also influences modern empiricism

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Also influenced modern empiricism – sensory experience as data, all thought relies on data.
Paradox of the basins: basin with hot water on your left, basin with cold water in front, and
basin with warm water to your right. Left hand in left, right hand in front. Then put both
hands in right basin – is the water hot or cold?

• Interested in learning about human knowledge and its acquisition

• Rejected concept of innate knowledge

– instead thought only innate capabilities, things like thinking, reasoning, etc

Tabula Rasa
Human mind is a blank slate where we “write” experiences
NO innate ideas

2.2 Scientific Psychology

Confluence of events (1850-1860s)
• Medicine: doctors noting clinical patients (performance deficit tied to brain damage, like
Broca or Wernicke)
• Physiology: functioning could now be localized
• Psychophysics: scientific approach to understanding sensation and perception
• Associationism: branch of philosophy – all thoughts/feelings are just composed of simple
sensory ideas

Birth of Psychology as a Science

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 Wilhelm Wundt

• Founder of experimental psychology

• 1879: Leipzig, Germany

– 1st psychological laboratory

was a storage closed at the University of Leipzig
– Incoming students put in closed until enough interest, then given proper space.
Trained most early influential psychologists

– Testing apparatus: time between hearing sound and pressing a key to measure mental
processing
– how long does it take to process hearing and making a response – Reaction
time!

Believed scientific psychology should focus on consciousness ∴ structuralism at its

core

Also proposed that mind is active, not passive.

– Can decide what gets attention
Other major researchers of this time discussed in other chapters

Wilhelm Wundt

• Reaction Time Studies: time between hearing sound and pressing a key to measure mental
processing

• Introspection: self-examination of one’s emotional states and mental processes

Trained people how to respond. “Stimulus error”: proper/regular nouns, value judgments
(good, bad)

Structuralism
school of thought that focuses on uncovering the basic elements of conscious experience

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Break consciousness down into elemental sensations and feelings.
Mental elements characteristics:
– Quality
– Intensity
– Duration and time course
– Clarity

• Term coined by Edward Titchner (Wundt’s student)

Wanted to set up periodic table of conscious experience – mental chemistry

Structuralism vs. Functionalism

• William James – critic of Wundt’s introspection methods

Cannot introspect without affecting the thing being measured.

Functionalism
school of thought that focuses on studying mental processes based on their adaptive purpose and
function
Ignored unconscious processes
Pragmatic – ideas are only meaningful/useful as how they are practiced in real life
• sometimes called “Father of American Psychology”
• start of attention quote: “Everyone knows what attention is.”

2.3 20th Century

Researchers of the 20th Century
By school

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 Psychoanalytic Theory
Will be discussed in consciousness, personality, and treatment of psych disorders

• A personality theory involving influences of childhood experiences and unconscious thoughts

• Sigmund Freud (1900)

Specialized in hysteria – originally wandering uterus :/

Includes id, ego, superego

Also important, Jung → introvert/extrovert; archetypes, collective unconscious

Researchers of the 20th Century

Closest Watson comes to smiling in pictures, for the record

Goal of psychology: predict and control behavior – funny since he later went into advertis-
ing
Consciousness not important as a scientific topic
“No dividing line between man and brute”
No mind/body problem
Wrote a lot about how to raise kids – his own were alcoholics

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Raised kids in kiddie Skinner box, they turned out okay
Behaviorism
Behaviorism in general
• “Physics envy”
– Whatever science you’re in, you want to me in a harder one – the “whiter” lab coat
• Freudian psych recently came to US, so a lot of psychologists wanted purer measures and
more science
• Only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge
– Strictest methods/observations = observable behavior

• View that psychology should focus on observations of behavior, not mental processes
Examples of observable behavior and implied feelings: eating vs being hungry; sleep-
ing vs being tired

• John Watson and B. F. Skinner

Cognitive Black Box: Stimulus →  → Response

Researchers of the 20th Century

Rogers

Maslow

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 Humanistic Psychology
Behaviorism very “cold”, removed from life
Humans have free will! something behaviorism denied
People are inherently good; People are more than sum of their parts

• Emphasis on personal growth and basic needs for love and acceptance

• Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

Rogers advocated testable theories behind therapy

Maslow: “people aren’t a bag of symptoms”

Researchers of the 20th Century

Miller - magical number 7

Chomsky - linguistics as part of psychology.

Cognitive Psychology

• Study the mental processes underlying behavior

• George Miller and Noam Chomsky

Cognitive revolution
• WWII - pilots flying planes into the ground. That’s bad.
– Brought in psychologists to find out why. Unusable instrumentation and controls. Re-
designed! And Chomsky + Miller as other causative factors
Chomsky critique of Skinner: where does grammar come from?
Paved way for cognitive revolution

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Women in the Early History of Psychology

Calkins

Washburn

• Mary Calkins: admitted to Harvard for graduate studies, denied PhD because of gender
Student of William James, reportedly had better grades/performance than male col-
leagues, but denied. Came up with the paired-associate learning method

• Margaret Washburn: 1st woman to receive PhD in psychology

Given PhD by women’s college (Vassar), worked with Titchner as his first PhD student

Diversity in the History of Psychology

Sumner

Prosser
One thing that you may notice as we discuss the founders of psychology as a field is that
they are all white males!

• Francis Sumner: 1st African American to receive PhD in psychology

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 – 1920
dissertation in Freud and Adler’s psychoanalysis

• Inez Prosser: 1st African American woman to receive EdD in psychology

– 1933, dissertation title “Non-academic development of Negro children in mixed and
segregated schools”

Diversity in the History of Psychology

Sanchez

Garcia

• Jorge Sanchez: 1st Latino psychologist

– Research on cultural biases of intelligence test (1930s)

– research reasons IQ tests of the time were inappropriate for latino kids

• John Garcia: Latino psychologist known for research on the psychology of taste aversion
(1960s)
Alfredo Casteneda – prof at Stanford in the 1970s, studied child psychology, develop-
ment of latinos

Donald Hebb

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 • Hebb digit task (1961)

• Cell-assemblies

– Basically – fire together, wire together

– Hebbian learning still influential

Also
Theorized 2 types of intelligence
– Innate potential (makes mind work) and level of comprehension (what’s been learned
through life)
– These have been developed more over time – crystallized and fluid intelligence
Environmental effect on development of learning – deprived environment leads to poorer
wiring. e.g., Holson’s rat expt
Arousal theory – basically motivated to seek an optimal level of stimulation/arousal
– Taken into social psych with introverts and extraverts

3 Scope of Psychology
Psychological Subfields
Slightly different clustering from textbook

• Four main clusters

1. Basic research
2. Applied research
3. Clinical & counseling
4. Psychiatry

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3.1 Basic Research
Basic Research

• “Pure” science aimed at increasing the scientific knowledge base

• Includes:

– Biological psychology
– link between mind (conscious experience) and brain

– Cognitive psychology
–how we perceive, think, and solve problems

– Developmental psychology
– study abilities from womb to tomb

– Personality psychology
– study persistent traits

– Social psychology
– how we view and affect each other... Social psych more person to person, soci-
ology more about larger groups of people

There is considerable overlap between branches

There’s also evolutionary psychology – discussed more in neuro chapter

3.2 Applied Research

Applied Research

• Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

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 • Includes:

– Human Factors a.k.a. Ergonomics

design and develop tech

– Industrial/Organizational psychology
selection and training of employees, boosting morale and productivity, design products, etc

– Health psychology
how biology, behavior, social contexts influence health

– Environmental psychology
how environment affects performance and behavior

– School psychology
– Most of the basic fields

3.3 Clinical & Counseling

Clinical & Counseling

• Studies, assesses, and treats people with everyday problems/struggles or psychological dis-
orders

– Administer and interpret psychological tests

– Provide therapy and counseling
– May also conduct research
Clinical more likely to do pure scientific research

Counseling tends to focus more on normal range issues.

Clinical more likely to help disordered problems.

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3.4 Psychiatry
Psychiatry

• A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders

• Practiced by physicians (MD)

– Provide medical treatments and psychological therapy

Activity: 20 Questions

• What is my branch of psychology?

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