History of Psychology

1. HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
Descriptive, experimental and correlational methods

2. THIS WEEK’S LEARNING TARGETS
1. Analyze some early views and beliefs
about human behavior
2. Identify the early pioneers of psychology
and their line of thinking – Wilhelm Wundt,
William James and Sigmund Freud
3. Analyze some modern views and beliefs
about human behavior

3. Where did Psychology come from?
Aspects of the Mind have been pondered
for thousands of years by Philosophers!
….like…
Socrates!
Plato!
It’s Nature – we’re
just born this
way!

4. …and Aristotle! (335 B.C.)
It’s Nurture!
Our
environment
shapes who we
are!

5. Nature vs Nurture
• This is still the
fundamental debate in
Psychology today!
• the mind and behavior
remained merely
philosophic discussion
until….

6. •1879 establishes the first
psychology laboratory at
the University of Leipzig,
Germany.
•This is generally
considered the starting
point of Psychology as a
science.
•Wilhelm Wundt

7. WILHEM WUNDT AND STRUCTURALISM
 Wundt founded a field of Psychology known as
STRUCTURALISM.
 Structuralism focused on the basic elements of
consciousness.
 Wundt broke down consciousness into objective
sensations and subjective feelings.
Objective introspection: process of objectively
examining and measuring one’s own thoughts and
mental activities.
 Structuralists believed that the human mind
functioned by combining objective sensations and
subjective feelings.

8. • Functionalism is the second perspective to emerge,
founded by William James. They studied how and why
the mind functions.
• Functionalism is the study of how mental processes
help organism adapt to their environment. How does
the mind allow people to function in the real world
(work, play, adapt etc. )?
• This perspective broadened the scope of psychology
and applied psychology to practical settings.
• This perspective still focused on consciousness but
began to examine overt behavior, not just mental
processes.
The Next Evolution - WILLIAM JAMES AND
FUNCTIONALISM

9. Psychoanalysts
• Sigmund Freud - around 1900
The
unconscious
mind
controls
much of our
thoughts
and actions!

10. Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis
• Freud was the most famous of the early
psychologist.
• His perspective is PSYCHOANALYSIS, which
emphasizes unconscious motives and internal
conflicts in human behavior.
• He developed the basis for modern-day
psychodynamic thinking, which assumes that
most of what exists in an individual’s mind is
unconscious and consists of conflicting impulses,
urges and wishes.
• He theorized that the key to human behavior is
satisfying desires in socially acceptable ways.

11. Croatia - starting point of
Psychology as a science
• In 1929 when Ramiro Bujas established
Psychology as an independent university
program.
• The founders of so called Zagreb
psychological school insisted from the
very beginning on scientific ground of the
discipline, empirical approach and
especially on the experiment as the basic
method.

12. Modern development in
psychology- John B. Watson
• Founded the school of BEHAVIORISM,
which defined psychology as scientific
study of observable behavior.
• Holds that people can be totally
conditioned by external events and that
belief in individual choice is just an
illusion.

13. Behaviorists
• 1930s and
1940s
People
repeat
behaviors
that are
rewarded
and stop
behaviors
that are
punished!
Pavlov
Watson

14. Modern development in
psychology- B.F. Skinner
• Added to behaviorist tradition by adding
reinforcement.
• Showed that animals that are reinforced,
or rewarded, for a certain action are more
likely to perform that action again.
• Believed people learn in the same way
animals do.

15. Gestalt (shape) psychology
• Gestalt psychology is an alternative to behaviorism and
structuralism.
• It was developed by German psychologist Max
Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler.
• It is based on the idea that our perceptions of objects
are more than the sum of their parts. They are wholes
that give shapes, or meaning, to the parts.
• Gestalt psychology rejects the structuralist idea that the
experience can be broken down into individual parts or
elements.
• It also rejects the behaviorist idea that only observable
behavior is important

16. Humanists
• 1960s and 1970s
People have
free will!
They are
guided by
physical,
emotional
and spiritual
needs!
Carl Rogers and
others – 1960s and
1970s

17. In conclusion
• Psychology has a long past, but a short history.” H.
Ebbinghaus, 1907. (young science with a long
history)
• Psychology took so long to emerge as a
scientific discipline because it needed time to
consolidate.
• Understanding behavior, thoughts and feelings
is not easy, which may explain why it was largely
ignored between ancient Greek times and the
16th century.