GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY

Atty. Harve B. Abella, Esq.Psy 1 4:00PM – 5:00PM MWF

History of Psychology• PHILOSOPHY + PHYSIOLOGY = Psychology

o Philosophers had asked questions about human emotions, thoughts, and behavior

o Tried to deduce answer by applying logic and common-sense reasoning

• ARISTOTLEo Aristotle believed that thinking occurred in the

heart, while the brain only served to help cool the blood

History of Psychology• HIPPOCRATES

o Hippocrates believed that emotions resulted from different combinations or levels of four bodily humors-- black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm.

o A proponent of Humorismo Hippocratic Medicine

Humorism/Hippocratic Medicine

• an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person directly influences their temperament and health.

• Sanguine/Blood = courageous, hopeful, amorous

• Choleric/Yellow bile = easily angered, bad tempered

• Melancholic/Black bile = despondent, sleepless, irritable

• Phlegmatic/Phlegm = calm, unemotional

Physiology• Physiologists were especially influential in

providing a new understanding of the brain and the nervous system and the way in which they affect behaviour

• Also explored the senses and the rest of the body.

Union of Philosophy & Physiology

• Questions asked by Philosophers and• Careful scientific analysis of the physiologists led

to the field of study which we call PSYCHOLOGY.

Origin of the word PSYCHOLOGY

ψυχήλογίαPsukhelogia

The work Psukhelogia was Latinized into Psychologia by Marco Marulic in the 15th/16th century

Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae

What is Psychology

• The early psychologists defined the field as the “study of mental activity”

• With the development of behaviourism early in the last century and its concern for studying only those phenomena that could be objectively measured, psychology was refined as the “study of behaviour”

• Information from experiments with animals could be generalized to the human organism

• Animal behaviour was of interest in its own right.• True from the 1930s up to the 1960s. With the

development of cognitive and phenomenological psychology, the most common definition of psychology include references to both behaviour and mental processes.

PSYCHOLOGY• For our purposes, we shall define psychology as

the SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF BEHAVIOR AND MENTAL PROCESSES.

• Reflects psych’s concern with an objective study of observable behaviour.

• Recognizes the importance of understanding mental processes that cannot be directly observed but must be inferred from behavioural and neurobiological data.

What are the Goals of Psychology

• To DESCRIBEo Look for characteristics and patterns

• TO EXPLAINo To look for causes, answer the Q why

• TO PREDICTo To predict based on unknown values

• TO CONTROLo To maintain good behaviors, to stop

maladaptive ones

HISTORICAL APPROACHES

WILHELM WUNDT’s Structuralism

WUNDT TITCHENER

Structuralism• Analysing conscious experience• Set up a laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in order

to carry out a systematic analysis of the structure of the conscious mind

o Break down consciousness into elementso Discover how the elements interacted with each other

• The best way to analyze the structure of the mind was to rely on self-observation

o INSTROSPECTION• Break down conscious experiences into basic parts

Structuralism• Edward B. Titchener who studied in Wundt’s

laboratory brought Structuralism to the US and began a psych lab at Cornel University in 1892

• STRUCTURALISM had several flawso INSTROSPECTIVE METHOD

o The very act of introspection altered the conscious experience they wanted to examine

o Different researchers independently using instrospective methods were getting different results

o NO RESOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

Structuralism• Each researcher were describing their own

personal experiences, who could say which observer was correct?

• 1930’s Structuralism was abandoned• Psychologists working with animals were finding

exciting results without introspection• Psychology owes Structuralism:

o Provided psychology with a strong scientific and research impetuso Gave instrospective method a thorough testo Served as a foundation against which new schools of psychological

thought could rebel.

WILLIAM JAMES’ Functionalism

William James G. Stanley Hall

Functionalism• The first completely American psychology• Founded by William James (1842-1910)• Was not an experimentalist• Functionalism began as a rebellion against the

structural approacho NARROWo ARTIFICIAL o POINTLESS

• Rejected the idea that the conscious mind had a permanent structure or blue-print

• STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESSo Conscious experience was like a river that was always changing and

flowing

Functionalism• James was influenced by Charles Darwin• James concluded that human consciousness must

also have a function, or why would it have evolved?

• The conscious mind enabled people to make rational choices which in turn helped them to survive generation after generation

“An organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.”

Functionalism• G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924)

o Interested in the development of human beings during childhood and adolescence

o DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCH

• John Dewey (1859-1952)o Interested in the problem-solving ability of the conscious mind as a

factor in our survival as a specieso EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

• Functionalism is no longer a distinct psychological system

JOHN B. WATSON’s Behaviorism

Behaviorism• Originally called as Behavioralism• Watson had been trained as a functional

psychologist• Interested in the purpose and function of animal

behavior• There was no way to objectively observe the

conscious mind• Felt that functionalism hadn’t gone far enough in

its rebellion against structuralism

Behaviorism• If a purely objective experimental science of

psychology was to be developed, psychology must reject all subjective methods and rely solely on what could be objectively observed.

• 1929: “psychology made a false start under Wundt… because it would not bury its past. It tried to hand on to tradition with one hand push forward a science with the other. Before progress could be made in astronomy, it hat to bury astrology; and chemistry had to bury alchemy. But the social science, psychology, sociology, political science, and economics would not bury their “medicine men.”

Behaviorism• Rejected the study of conscious thought and

mental activityo Unobservable

• Emphasized on observable environmental stimuli and the observable behaviors or responses that occurred in the presence of such stimuli

• S-R Psychology (Stimulus-Response Psychology)

Behaviorism• Considered the mind to be a black box• Behaviorists have shown that the associations we

experience, the pleasant or unpleasant consequences following our actions, and our observations or actions or those around us often determine our responses.

• CRITICISM AGAINST BEHAVIORISMo Behaviorists ignore important but unobservable aspects of human

behavior, such as emotion, thoughts, and unconscious process, and that they discredit feelings or ideas that didn’t readily lend themselves to controlled experimentation

Gestalt Psychology

Max Wertheimer Wolfgang Kohler Kurt Koffka (1880-1943) (1887-1967) (1886-1941)

Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt Psychology• A reaction to structuralism which developed in

Germany

• APPARENT PERCEPTION OF MOTION

• PHI PHENOMENON• Wertheimer, Kohler and Koffka

argued that the Phi Phenomenon needed no explanation

• To reduce it to simpler terms would be to destroy it.

Gestalt Psychology• Such an argument rejected a fundamental tenet

of Structuralism

o ALL experience can be broken down into elementary parts to understand it better – STRUCTURALISM

• The WHOLE EXPERIENCE (GESTALT) was not just the sum of its parts; it was more, it was itself.

• Gestalt psychology argues that conscious sensation can be examined but that the whole experience must be taken for what it is.

SIGMUND FREUD’s Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalysis• Did not develop as a reaction against

structuralism

• Has roots in neurology and medicine

• Its goal was to treat and understand Abnormal Behavior

• Freud presented, as one of the major tenets of psychoanalysis, the concept of the unconscious mind.

Psychoanalysis• Sigmund Freud was a Viennese physician and the

founder of Psychoanalysis.

• behaviour is determined by the unconscious mind, a repository of repressed impulses and desires, of which the waking mind is completely unaware, but determine the way we think, feel, and act.

Psychoanalysis• PLEASURE PRINCIPLE / LIBIDO • all behavior is motivated by the desire to feel pleasure.

That motivation is organized and directed by two instincts:

o THANATOS / o

AGGRESSION

EROS / SEXUALITY

Psychoanalysis