History of Psychology Flashcards
(46 cards)
What is ‘Psychology’?
Scientific study of mind and behaviour
What is ‘Mind’?
Private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings
What is ‘Behaviour’?
Observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals
Who was René Descartes?
- Argued for dualism of mind and body
- Dualism: The mind and body are fundamentally different things
Who was Thomas Hobbes?
- Argued that the mind is what the brain does
- Philosophical Materialism: All mental phenomena are reducible to physical phenomena
Who was John Locke?
- Argued that there is a real-world
- Philosophical Realism: Perceptions of the physical world are produced entirely by information from the sensory organs.
Who was Immanuel Kant?
- Suggested that Locke’s theory was too simplistic
- Philosophical Idealism: Perceptions of physical world are brain’s interpretation for sensory organ information
What is ‘Philosophical Empiricism’?
The view that all knowledge is acquired through
experience
What is ‘Philosophical Nativism’?
The view that some knowledge is innate
rather than acquired
Who was Hermann von Helmholtz?
Studied human reaction time; estimated
the length of nerve impulse
What is ‘Stimulus’?
Sensory input from the environment
What is ‘Reaction Time’?
Amount of time taken to respond to a specific stimulus
Who was Wilhelm Wundt?
- Opened the first psychological laboratory
What is ‘Consciousness?
Person’s subjective experience of the world
and the mind
What is ‘Structuralism’?
Analysis of the basic elements that
constitute the mind
Who was Edward Titchener?
- Pioneered introspection
- The analysis of subjective experience by trained
observers
What is the problem with Introspection?
- Each person’s inner experience was an
inherently private event - No way to tell if a person’s description of her experience was accurate, or if their experience
was the same/different from someone
else’s
Who was Timothy Wilson?
- Believed psychology is a science
- Posits that much of psychology is based on carefully controlled experimentation using randomization procedures
Who was Charles Darwin?
Natural selection: Theory that features of an
organism that help it survive and reproduce
are more likely than other features to be
passed on to subsequent generations
Who was Charles Darwin?
Natural selection: Theory that features of an
organism that help it survive and reproduce
are more likely than other features to be
passed on to subsequent generations
Who were Jean-Martin Charcot and Pierre Janet?
Studied hysteric patients through hypnosis
What is ‘Hysteria’?
- Temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions
- Usually as a result of emotionally upsetting experiences
Who was Sigmund Freud?
- Psychoanalysis
- Believed hysteria caused by painful unconscious
experiences
Who was John Watson?
- Developed behaviourism
- Approach to psychology that restricts scientific
inquiry to observable behaviour - Goal was to predict and control behaviour
through the study of observable behaviour
