This presentation will help you understand the history of psychology, the roots of psychology before it became a separate discipline.

2. Psychology– A scientific study of human behavior and
mental processes.
Etymologically, it came from the Greek words, Psyche
which means “soul” or “mind”, and Logos which means
“the study of.”
Psychology has its roots in Philosophy and
Physiology.

3. Predict what will happen
Systematically observe events
Do events support predictions
René Descartes
(1596-1650)
Philosophy asks questions about the mind:
 Does perception accurately reflect reality?
 How is sensation turned into perception?
Problem - No “scientific” way
of studying problems
Physiology asks similar questions about the mind
SCIENTIFIC
METHOD

4. human beings enter the
world with an inborn
store of knowledge and
understanding of reality
Rene Descartes
Are human capability inborn or acquired through experience?
Nativist view- holds that Empiricist View – holds
that knowledge is
acquired through
experience and
interactions with the
world.
John Locke -tabula rasa
“blank slate”

5. Traditionally, psychology is said to have
began with man’s earliest speculation
regarding human nature.
Since the dawn of recorded thought, man has
had a curiosity about his own behavior and its
relationship to causal events. The earliest
attempts were essentially animistic – wherein
the Gods or the spirits were attributed the
power to direct or cause events and activities
of men.

6. DEMOCRITUS –
believed that the human mind is
composed of atoms which could
circulate freely, and which enabled it to
penetrate the whole body.
• According to him atoms from our
environment enter through our sense
organs enabling us to perceive the
world around us.

7. PLATO –
the mind or soul is distinct in its own right and is
God given . It enters the body with its reflected
perfection of God and rules the body which it
inhabits as knower, thinker and determiner of
actions.
The soul is composed of three parts:
1. Head – exerts reason. It is called rational soul.
2. Heart – responsible for our noble impulses.It is called
emotional soul.
3. Diaphragm or abdomen – seat of our own passions. It is
called irrational soul.

8. ARISTOTLE –
a student of Plato, distinguished three functions
of the soul. The brain merely performs minor
mechanical processes as a gland.
1. vegetative soul – concerned with basic
maintenance of life.
2. appetitive soul – concerned with motives and
desires.
3. rational soul– the governing function located
in the heart.

9. GALEN –
contributed his theory of the dependence of human
temperament on physiological factors. Differences in
behavior is attributed to the “humors” or vital juices of the
body namely blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile.
He correspondingly named temperaments:
1. sanguine – cheerful (blood)
2. phlegmatic – sluggish, slow, unresponsive
(phlegm)
3. melancholic – sad (black bile)
4. choleric – irascible, easily angered, hot-
tempered (yellow bile)

10. ST. AGUSTINE –
combined Platonic Psychology with Christian thinking.
He introduced and use the method of introspection
and manifested his interest in distinguishing several
faculties of the soul as Will, Memory, Imagination and
others, producing the first definite development of what
later was called Faculty Psychology.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS –
combined Aristotelian notions to the theologically
imperative idea of immortality.

11. RENE DESCARTES –
formulated a theory of mind-body
interaction.
JOHN LOCKE –
in his “An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding” introduced the idea as the
unit into which all experiences may be
analyzed.

12. GEORGE BERKELEY –
in his theory of knowledge (solipsistic
philosophy) said that ideas become the only
reality.
Solipsism - the theory that the only possible
true knowledge is of self-existence.
DAVID HUME –
like Berkeley, wrestled with the problem
between impression and ideas, between
images and direct sensations.

13. 1879 – Wilhelm Wundt founded the first
psychological laboratory in Leipzig,
Germany
Wundt – Father of Scientific Psychology

14. 1888 – Francis Galton develops correlations
1890 – William James published his
Principles of Psychology

15. 1892 - G. Stanley Hall established the American
Psychological Association
1900 – Sigmund Freud “The Interpretation
of Dreams”`
1900- Ivan Pavlov begun
studying conditioning
1913 – John Watson “Psychology as the

16. • 1928 – Hans Berger discovers the method of
recording EEG.
EEG (electroencephalogram) – recording of electrical
brain waves made by placing disc-shaped electrodes
on the surface of the skull.

17. 1938 – B. F. Skinner “The Behavior of
Organisms”
1951 – Carl Rogers “Client-centered
Therapy”

18. 1954 – Abraham Maslow “Motivation and Personality”
1967 – Neisser “Cognitive Psychology”
1981 – Roger Sperry wins Nobel Prize on his work on the
SPLIT BRAIN.
1983 – Centennial celebration of the founding of
G. Stanley Hall’s laboratory

19. 1990 - Socio-cultural psychology
• Examines how cultural and political (religious)
experience effect our everyday life.
• Gender influences of behavior.