II. HISTORICAL SCHOOLS AND APPROACHES

• Psychology as a science became organized into different branches or schools of thought.

• First schools: structuralism, functionalism, and behaviorism. Followed by Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis.

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• A. First Schools of Psychology:

• 1. Wilhelm Wundt and Structuralism (What happened?)

• He and Edward Titchener created 1st Psychology lab in 1879 in Germany.

• Referred to as the “Father of Psychology”.

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• Structuralism- early school of thought focusing on revealing the most basic structures or elements of the mind using introspection.

• Aimed to discover the structural elements of mind.

• Method: to engage people in self-reflective introspection (looking inward), training them to report elements of their experience as they performed tasks. (looking at a rose, smelled a scent, tasted a substance, heard a song, etc.)

• Structuralism attempted to break conscious experience into objective sensations such as taste, and record subjective feelings such as emotional responses.

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• 2. William James and Functionalism (Why did it happen?)

• Created Functionalism- early school of thought that believed mental processes could be best understood in terms of purpose and function.

• Explored how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish.

• James envisioned consciousness as a “stream of ideas” meaning that a mental process had no static structure but was continually flowing, changing, and interacting with the environment.

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Structuralism Functionalism

- Uses self reflective introspection

- Inner sensations, images, and feelings

- Examined the structure of mind and thinking

- Analyzed what the mind is

- Wundt and Titchener

- Investigates the function, or purpose of consciousness rather than structure

- Stream of consciousness and emotion

- Analyzed what the mind is for

- James

VS

• 3. Gestalt Psychology and Max Wertheimer (Perception)

• Focused on “Perceptual wholes”.

• In perception the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts. I.E. If we combine sodium (a corrosive metal) with chlorine (a poisonous gas), something very different emerges- table salt.

• Gestalt Psychology focuses on understanding how the brain works by studying perception and perceptual learning.

• Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler are also founders.

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NECKER CUBE: WHAT DO YOU SEE?

• 4. Behaviorism: (Learning)

• 1. John Watson and Rosalie Rayner:

• Developed a perspective that focuses on observable events- stimuli from the environment and the organism’s responses.

• Dismissed introspection. Redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior. “

• . Science is rooted in observation. Behavior is influenced by learned associations, through a process called conditioning.

• Little Albert Experiment:

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–John B. Watson (Famous Behaviorist Quote)

"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take

any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief,

and, yes, even the beggar-man and thief…”

• 4. Behaviorism: (Learning)

• 2. B.F. Skinner:

• Everything stemmed from rewards and punishment.

• E.G. Skinner Box

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• 5. Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud

• Emphasized unconscious processes, repressed memories, sex, and early childhood experiences. Causes unconscious guilt.

• Our unconscious thought processes and our emotional responses to childhood experiences affect our behavior.

• “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.” - Sigmund Freud

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• 6. Carl Rogers and Humanistic Psychologists

• Rejected the definition of psychology that was current in the 1960s.

• Rogers and Abraham Maslow found Freudian psychology and behaviorism too limiting.

• The humanistic psychologists drew attention to ways that our environments could nurture or limit our growth potential and to the importance of having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied.

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• 7. Cognitive Psychology

• Second grp to rebel against Behaviorism and Freudian psychology.

• Scientifically explores ways we perceive, process, and remember info.

• Cognitive neuroscience: study of the brain activity linked with cognition.

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• B. Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis

• Levels of Analysis: differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon.

• Biopsychosocial approach: integrated approach that incorporates levels of analysis.

How did psychology continue to develop from the 1920s through today?

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PSYCHOLOGY’S THREE MAIN LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

PSYCHOLOGY’S THREE MAIN LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

PSYCHOLOGY’S THREE MAIN LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

PSYCHOLOGY’S THREE MAIN LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

• C. Psychological Approaches/Perspectives

• Biological psychology

• Evolutionary psychology

• Psychodynamic psychology

• Behavioral psychology

• Cognitive psychology

• Humanistic psychology

• Social-cultural psychology

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Approach FocusBiological How the body and brain enable emotions,

memories, and sensory experiences; searches for the causes of behavior in the functioning of genes, the brain, and nervous system.

Evolutionary How the natural selection of traits promoted the survival of genes.

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Approach FocusPsychodynamic How behavior springs from unconscious drives

and conflicts. How these conflicts influence behavior.

Behavioral How we learn observable responses. Looks to the behavior to explain the mind.

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Approach Focus

Cognitive How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information. Emphasizes mental processes such as learning, memory, perception, and thinking.Sees the brain like a computer- designed as a processor of information.

Humanistic A clinical viewpoint emphasizing the positive side of human ability, growth, potential, and free will. Main goal is to reach self-actualization. Sees everyone as the perfect seed capable of achieving success.

http://www.mindovermood.com

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Approach FocusSocial-cultural How behavior and thinking vary across

situations and cultures. How situations and cultural experiences affect our behavior and thinking. EX: eating disorders

*Remember: Each of psychology’s perspectives is helpful. But sometimes each by itself fails to reveal the whole picture.

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