Prologue pg.

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- Psychology is a science that seeks the answers to how we think, feel, & act

Psychologys Roots
- Psychology: scientific study of behavior and mental processes
- Behavior: any action that an organism does that we can observe and record
- Yelling, smiling, talking etc.
- Mental Processes: internal, subjective experiences inferred from behavior
- Sensations,perceptions, dreams, thoughts,beliefs, and feelings
- Developed from international roots in philosophy and biology
- Evaluates competing ideas with rigorous analysis to figure out human nature
Prescientific Psychology
- Socrates and Plato: logic
- Mind is separable from body and continues after the body dies, and that knowledge is
innate- within us
- Aristotle: careful observations
- Soul is not separable from the body, & the same holds good of particular parts of the
soul (de anima)- Knowledge is NOT preexisting- grows from experiences
- 1600s-Ren Descartes: agreed w/ Socrates+Plato
- Fluid in animals brains cavities contained animal spirits
- Spirits flowed from brain through nerves (thought was hollow) to muscles,
provoking movement
- Nerve paths enabled reflexes
- Francis Bacon:
- A founder of modern science
- Fascinated by human mind and failings
- The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater
degree of order & equality in things than it really finds
- Noticing & remembering events confirming our beliefs
- All superstition is same deceived believers observe fufilled events but ignore
failures
- John Locke: our own abilities
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding- argued that birth is a blank slate on which
experience writes
- Empiricism: view that knowledge originates in experience & that science should,
therefore, rely on observation & experimentation
Psychological Science Is Born
- Birth of psychology: December 1879 at University of Leipzig in Germany
- Wilhelm Wundt started an experiment where a machine measured the time lag between
peoples hearing a ball hit a platform & their pressing a telegraph key, which became
more complex
- Seeking to measure atoms of mind- fastest & simplist mental process
- Psychology began to be organized into different branches or schools of thought, promoted by
pioneering thinkers.
- Early schools would include structuralism & functionalism and Gesalt psychology,
behaviorism & psychoanalysis

Thinking About the Minds Structure

- Edward Bradford Titchener: used structuralism for minds structural elements
 - Structuralism: an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the
elemental structure of the human mind
Engaged people in self-reflective introspection (looking forward), and then report
element of their experiences as they used their senses
- C. S. Lewis
- Titchener told Lewis there is one thing, and the only one in the whole universe which we
know more about than we could learn external observation-one thing is ourselves- we
have,so to speak, inside information
Thinking About the Minds Functions
- William James: functionalist
- Functionalism: a school of psychology that focused on how mental & behavioral
processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, & flourish
- to consider evolved functions of our thoughts & feelings
- Thought that thinking developed since it was adaptive- contributed to ancestors survival
- The first lecture on psychology I ever heard was the first I ever gave
- Principles of Psychology
- WOMEN POWER !
- Mary Whiton Calkins
- Became a distinguished memory researcher and American Psychological
Associations (APAs) first female president in 1905 ( WOOOO YES GIRL!)
- Margaret Floy Washburn
- Became 2nd APAs female president in 1921
- First woman to receive psychology Ph.D
- Synthesized animal behavior research in The Animal Mind
Psychological Science Develops
- Magellans of the mind Morton Hunt called them- illustrates psychologys origins
- Wundt
- James: engaged in introspective examination of the consciousness & emotion
- Ivan Pavolv: introduced study of learning
- Sigmund Freud: developed influential theory of personality
- Emphasized ways emotional responses to childhood experiences & our
unconscious through processes affect our behavior
- Jean Piaget:
- most influential observer of children
- Wundt & Titchener
- focused on inner sensations, images, & feelings
- Psychology:
- Science of mental life (1920s)
- Scientific study of observable behavior (1960s)- John B. Watson & B. F.
Skinner(consequences shape behavior)
- Scientific study of behavior and mental processes (now)
- Humanistic psychology: historically significant perspective that emphasized the growth
potential of healthy people; used personalized methods to study personality in hopes of fostering
personal growth
- Softer response to Freudian psychology & behaviorism

- Carl Rogers & Abraham Maslow:

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 - emphasized importance of current environmental influences on our growth potential &
importance of meeting our needs for love and acceptance
- Cognitive revolution: supported ideas developed by earlier psychologists but expanded upon
those ideas to explore scientifically ways we perceive , process, and remember information
- Cognitive neuroscience- study of interaction through thought processes and brain function

Contemporary Psychology:
- Psychology is now growing and globalizing
Psychologys Biggest Debate
- Relative contributions of biology & experience: biggest and most persistent issue
- Nature-nurture issue
- Longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make
to the development of psychological traits & behavior
- Nurture works on what nature endows
- Charles Darwin
- Origin of Species (1859) - diversity of life and evolutionary process
- Natural Selection- principle that among, the range of inherited trait variations, those
contributing to reproduction & survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding
generations
- Explained animal structures & behaviors
Psychologys Three Main Levels of Analysis
- Level of Analysis: differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-
cultural for analyzing given phenomenon
- Different levels of analysis form an integrated biopsychological approach:
- Integrated perspective that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural
analysis
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- Leo Toltsy:
- Why should I live ? Why should I do anything ? Is there in life any purpose which the
inevitable death that awaits me does not undo & destroy ?
Psychologys Subfields
- Psychology is a meeting ground for different disciplines and is thus a perfect home for those with
wide-ranging interests
- Basic research: pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base
- Applied research: scientific study that aims to solve practical problems
- Counseling psychology: branch of psychology that assists people with problems living and in
achieving greater wellbeing by recongnizing strength & resources
- Clinical psychology: branch of psychology that studies, assesses , and treats people with
psychological disorders
- Psychiatry: branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians
who sometimes provide medical treatments and psychological therapy
- Morton Hunt
- Knowledge has modified attitudes,and through them, behavior