History of Psychology Flashcards
(27 cards)
Gestalt Psychology
A school of thought that says we perceive things as whole patterns, not just a collection of parts. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Max Wertheimer (1910)
One of the founders of Gestalt Psychology. In 1910, he studied how we perceive motion (like in movies), leading to ideas about how we see whole patterns.
Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory
A theory that behavior is influenced by a person and their environment together. Known for “B = f(P, E)” (Behavior is a function of the Person and their Environment).
Army Beta
A non-verbal intelligence test used during World War I to assess illiterate or non-English-speaking soldiers.
Lightner Witmer
The founder of clinical psychology. He opened the first psychological clinic in 1896 to help children with learning and behavior problems.
Robert Yerkes
A psychologist who led the development of Army Alpha and Beta intelligence tests in WWI. Also studied primates and intelligence.
Social Conformity
Changing your behavior or thinking to match a group, even if you don’t agree—shown in studies like those by Solomon Asch.
The Boulder Model
A training model for clinical psychologists that balances science and practice—also called the scientist-practitioner model.
Helen Thompson
One of the first psychologists to study gender differences; found few real mental differences between men and women.
Leta Hollingworth
A psychologist who challenged stereotypes about women, especially the idea that women were mentally weaker or less capable than men.
Donald Broadbent
A British psychologist who developed the filter model of attention, which says we focus on one thing at a time and “filter out” the rest.
Ivar Lovaas (1987, UCLA, Discrete Trials, Reinforcement)
A psychologist who developed Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) for children with autism using discrete trial training(breaking tasks into small steps and reinforcing correct behavior).
Wolfgang Köhler
Another Gestalt psychologist known for studying insight learning in chimpanzees—showed they could solve problems suddenly (not just by trial-and-error).
Teneriffe (Tenerife)
The island where Köhler studied chimpanzees and developed his ideas on insight learning
Völkerpsychologie
A term from Wilhelm Wundt meaning “folk psychology”—the study of culture, language, and shared human experience beyond lab experiments.
Robert Franz
Known for pioneering work in infant perception—used the “preferential looking” method to show babies prefer looking at faces and patterns.
Lawrence Kohlberg – Moral Development
Developed a theory of moral development with 3 levels (preconventional, conventional, postconventional), showing how moral thinking changes with age.
Lauretta Bender – Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test
A test to assess visual-motor skills and brain function by having people copy simple shapes. Often used with children.
Sir Francis Galton
A pioneer in studying individual differences, intelligence, and eugenics. He believed intelligence was inherited and developed early IQ-like tests.
Alfred Binet – Abstract Reasoning, Binet-Simon Scale (1908)
Created the first IQ test to measure abstract reasoning and help identify children needing special help in school.
David Wechsler – Wechsler Intelligence Scales
Developed the Wechsler Intelligence Scales, like the WAIS and WISC, still widely used IQ tests today.
Hermann Rorschach (1921)
Created the Rorschach Inkblot Test, a projective test where people describe what they see in inkblots to uncover hidden thoughts or emotions.
Florence Goodenough
Created a test to estimate children’s intelligence by asking them to draw a person; used as a nonverbal IQ measure.
