AP Psychology

Quiz History of Psychology

The “First” Psychological Experiment

Psamtik I of Ancient EgyptConquered the Assyrians, revived art and architecture and made time for the world’s first notated psychological experiment

Consider the stages of economic development -

If humans have been in existence for around 800,000 years, why is it only recently that we have started to really delve into the human mind and body?

Hypothesis and Experiment – Egyptian Style

Step 1: Commandeer two infant children from a lower class servant

Step 2: Have someone raise them, in isolation, and keep them from hearing any sounds made from humans (or language of any kind)

Step 3: Wait two years, rinse/repeat, and wait for them to speak

Step 4: make up a story to make you seem awesome even though it’s completely implausible and modern science will prove it incorrect.

Messages From Above: Who is in control?

“Achilles called the men to gather together, this having been put into his mind by the goddess of the white arms, Hera, who had pity on the Greeks when she saw them dying… and he said to them, “I believe that backwards we must make our way home if we are to escape death through fighting and plaguing.”

the Iliad

Ancient Hebrews as well…

“After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy sheild, and thy exceeding great reward.”

Genesis, 15:1

Saul’s psychotic fits… in religious text

“But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him… And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

I Samuel, 16:14-23

The East also gets involved…

6th century BC India – Buddha attributes human

thoughts to our sensations and perceptions

China – Confucius stresses the power of thought and decision that lay within each person “A man can command his principles;

principles do not master the man”

The strongest shift occurs in Greece…

Solon: poet and lawgiver – sidebar… why aren’t more

lawgivers writing poetry these days? When are the great works of John Boehner going to be released?

Scribed one of the most famous pieces of advice in Western Civilization at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

KNOW THYSELF

Enter the Greeks:

Socrates – the “original”

Plato – the idealist

Aristotle – the realist

Socrates (469-399)

Not much is known – what is known comes via his student, Plato

Socratic Method

Knowledge is in recollection – we learn

not from experience, but from reasoning,

which leads us to discover knowledge

that is within us.

Plato (427-348)

The Idealist Assumption that character

and intelligence are largely inherited and that certain ideas are inborn (bias?)

Rejects sense impressions We use our hands to touch and

feel the difference between hard and soft, but it is our minds (innate) that make the judgment, not our senses

Metaphysical in approach

Aristotle (384-322)

Plato’s most distinguished pupil

Contradicted Plato almost entirely Had intense interest in

concrete facts Had a love for empirical

data and observation – inductive reasoning

Saw sense perception as the a raw essential for knowledge

“The facts have not yet been sufficiently established. If ever they are, then credit must be

given to observation rather than to theories, and to theories only insofar as they are confirmed by

the observed facts.”

Skipping Ahead…

Why/when does this resurgence of Ancient Greek thought/philosophy occur in Europe?

John Locke – rejects notion of inborn ideas (tabula rasa – blank slate)

Rene Descartes – rejects Locke believing that some ideas are innate

Charles Darwin

The Origin of Species Diversity of life thru proposed

evolutionary processes Natural Selection

Principle that among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations

When Did Psychological Science Begin?

1879 – University of Leipzig, Germany Wilhelm Wundt – created the first

university lab for study in psychology Students will flock from all over the world

to study under him

Edward Titchener

Student of Wundt Introduced structuralism

Early school of thought that used introspection to explore structural elements of human minds

Issues with STRUCTURALISM

Requires smart verbal people (bias?) Unreliable because results, like

experiences, vary from person to person No way to standardize it

People’s recollections of actual events frequently err Boston Massacre

William James

Consider the functions of our feelings and thoughts

Functionalism: how our mental and behavioral processes function, how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish Explore emotions, memories, willpower, etc

Heavily influenced by Charles Darwin (adaptive nature of functionalism)

Responsible for introducing psychology to the educated public (bias?)

Fun fact -

William James is responsible for nearly inventing the final exam

Grumble grumble grumble

Mary Whiton Calkins

Interesting sociological story Early female psychology pioneer

Refused PhD First APA female president - 1905

Margaret Floy Washburn

First PhD in psychology held by a woman

Second female to become APA president

Beverly Inez Prosser

First African American woman PhD

How Psychological Science has Developed

Early Days – Wundt, Titchener, James Introspection, inner sensations, feelings

and emotions based Transition to Freud

Emotional responses to childhood experiences and how our unconscious thought processes affect behavior

1920’s psych = mental life

1920-1960’s

Shift from mental to behavior focused Record rates of how people’s behavior

changes as they respond to different situations

Watson, Skinner

Humanistic Psychology

Around the same time – humanistic psych will rebel against Freudian psychology and behaviorism

Humanistic psychology: emphasizes the growth potential of healthy people and the individual’s potential for personal growth Rogers, Maslow

1960’s – The Cognitive Revolution

Cognitive Neuroscience – study of brain activity linked with mental activity Perception, thinking, memory, language

Hugely important to treatment and understanding new ways to treat things like depression, OCD, etc

What is Psychology?

There are fads, shifts, and transitions with no clear defined sense of science as it is ever changing

Loosely – psychology can be defined as: the science of behavior AND mental processes