Lecture 3: Predecessors Of Psychology

Question 1

Individualization

Answer 1

Trend in a society towards loser social relations and a greater focus by individuals on themselves than on the groups they belong to

Question 2

What are 4 factors that contributed to individualization

Answer 2

1. Increased complexity of society
2. Increased control by the state
3. Individuality promoted by Christianity
4. Mirrors, books and letters (new inventions)

Question 3

Epistemology

Answer 3

Branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge

Question 4

Idealism

Answer 4

View within philosophy that human knowledge is a construction of the mind and does not necessarily correspond to an outside world; the truth of knowledge depends on the coherence with the rest of the knowledge in the social group

Question 5

Realism

Answer 5

View within philosophy that human knowledge tries to reveal real properties of the outside world; the truth of knowledge is determined by the correspondence of the knowledge with the real world

Question 6

Introspection

Answer 6

Research method in psychology consisting of a person looking inward and reporting what he/she is experiencing; usually done under controlled circumstances

Question 7

Physiognomy

Answer 7

Belief that the personality of an individual can be deduced from their appearance, in particular from the shape of the head and the face

Question 8

Psychophysics

Answer 8

Part of psychological research dealing with the relationship between physical stimuli and the corresponding sensation

Question 9

Mental chronometry

Answer 9

Using reaction times to measure the time needed for various mental tasks; on the basis of a comparison of different tasks, models of the mental processes involved in the tasks are postulated

Question 10

Natural selection

Answer 10

Process in Darwin’s evolutionary theory by which the environment results in the continuation and multiplication of organisms with certain genetic features and hinder the reproduction of organisms with other genetic features; the first type of features are called favorable and the second type unfavorable

Question 11

survival of the fittest

Answer 11

Term introduced by Herbert Spencer to describe the outcome of natural selection; only organisms that fit within the environment and can produce viable offspring survive

Question 12

The Origin of Species

Answer 12

Book by Charles Darwin (1859) in which he presented the evolutionary theory

Question 13

What were the two most important things related do Descartes

Answer 13

He doubted everything and the mind exists separate from the body = dualism

Question 14

From whom is the quote; “I think, therefore I am”

Answer 14

Descartes

Question 15

Descartes was a … (rationalist/empiricist)

Answer 15

Rationalist

Question 16

What is dualism

Answer 16

The mind is a separate substance (immaterial) from the body (material), it controls the body and the body is just a machine

Question 17

What is reductionism

Answer 17

Reducing mental states to simple brain cells

Question 18

Who came up with the concept of tabula rasa

Answer 18

John Locke

Question 19

John Locke was an … (rationalist/empiricist)

Answer 19

Empiricist

Question 20

Who can be seen as the father of empiricism

Answer 20

John Locke

Question 21

George Berkeley was an … (rationalist/empiricist)

Answer 21

Empiricist

Question 22

What was an additional concept that Berkeley came up with

Answer 22

Idealism

Question 23

What is the most important thing connected to David Hume

Answer 23

Causality and the induction problem

Question 24

What is the induction problem

Answer 24

Induction is the generalization of observed cases to all cases, however, induction is a logically invalid form of reasoning; the conclusion does not follow from the premises

Question 25

What are the 3 criteria of Hume’s analysis of causality

Answer 25

1. Proximity of cause and effect; near in time and space 2. Cause precedes effect 3. Necessary connection between cause and effect —> Hume argued that you cannot be sure about this because you cannot observe every possible scenario

Question 26

What was Thomas Reid’s general idea

Answer 26

To bring back common sense from idealism

Question 27

Who defined empirical psychology and what was it built on

Answer 27

Wolff; it’s built on introspection and should aim for mathematical demonstrations (similar to newton) for full understanding (= psychometria)

Question 28

Kant was a … (rationalist/empiricist)

Answer 28

He was actually a mix of both

Question 29

What was Kant’s mission and how did he argue for that

Answer 29

He wanted to save Newton from Hume’s induction problem; solution - humans themselves bring concepts such as space, time and causality with them as a priori categories with which they structure perception; we need these categories to make sense of the world, its not a bad thing that we have them

Question 30

What is the problem of interaction

Answer 30

How does an immaterial substance (mind) interact with a material one (brain) —> related to mind-body problem (Descartes)

Question 31

What did George Berkeley believe when it comes to perceptions

Answer 31

Perceptions do not necessarily correspond to reality and therefore they must come from somewhere —> they come from god, he put them in our mind

Question 32

Who said “to be is to be perceived”

Answer 32

Berkeley

Question 33

4 important books were discussed in this chapter, who wrote them and what were they about

Answer 33

- Kant; anthropology as collection of observed facts about humans - Herbart; attempt to make psych scientific by introducing mathematical laws - Upham; claim that intellectual mental philosophy is a science worthy of study - Bain; introduction of the nervous system and other physiological info in a psych textbook

Question 34

What did - Hooke - Mayer - Weber - Fechner discover

Answer 34

- level of detail humans can discern (perception) - influence of illumination in this above capacity - detection of just noticeable differences between stimuli - formulation of a psychophysical theory based on the above

Question 35

Which two people were important for research on time needed to perform tasks and the speed of signal transmission in the nervous system

Answer 35

Von Helmholtz and Donders

Question 36

Why is the idea of dualism rejected by modern physics

Answer 36

Because it violates the Law of Conservation of Energy; a mind that controls the brain must set something in motion but the mind itself is immaterial and does not fall under the laws of physics, this would therefore mean that the mind adds energy out of nothing

Question 37

What are impressions according to Hume

Answer 37

They are “stamps” of experiences that are saved in the mind, if these impressions occur together then we see them as linked and assume there is a causal connection